“Tie flies. Lately, I’ve left some of my best lures in trees and tangled in water plants. Time to make some more.”
Neekoh got up and moved closer. “Show me.”
“Don’t need to show you.”
“Why not?”
“’Cause you’re sitting right there. Don’t need to show you because you can’t help but see.”
“I see.” Neekoh looked pleased.
“Well, of course you see. That’s what I’m saying. You don’t have your eyes closed.”
Trout’s faced puckered in a sorry scowl for a moment, then the wrinkles smoothed out, revealing his usual calm, friendly demeanor. He slapped Neekoh on his arm and went back to his flies.
As in many cases, Trout was accomplished in what he was doing. His old, gnarled fingers twisted, wrapped, and arranged a slither of feather and a tiny fluff of fur together onto a hook. In a half hour, fourteen flies sat in a row. He told Neekoh the name of each one as he finished.
“This one is a yellow-bellied twisty worm.” Trout held up the decorated hook.
“It doesn’t have a yellow belly, sir.”
Trout scowled and looked closely at his fly. He turned it every which way.
“No yellow anywhere, sir.” Neekoh repeated in a respectful tone.
“Not important.” Trout’s gruff voice disturbed several birds that had come quite close to peck at seeds. They fled with a flurry of wings. The old man’s tone lightened. “Quite right. But fish don’t see in color, only black and white.”
Neekoh tilted his head. “How do you know?”
“Nothing mysterious about that, son. I just go inside the fish’s brain and see what it sees.”
“Does that help you when you fish?”
Trout stiffened and picked his lures up one by one to store them in a special heavy cloth folder. “That would not be sporting, now would it?”
A shadow fell across Bixby’s lap. She saw Cantor’s dirty boots first and followed his muscular frame up past trousers, tunic, and a day’s growth of beard to look into his solemn eyes.
Trout lifted his head and tilted an ear toward the trail they had blazed. “Bridger and Jesha are coming with Keast Manbro’s body.”
Crackling of bushes on the path brought them to their feet. They turned to see Jesha marching into the glade. Behind her, Bridger bore the guard’s body, cradled in his arms. Dukmee, who had changed into more formal attire, brought up the rear. Bixby looked down at her layers and skittered into the woods to put something frillier on top.
Returning, she saw Cantor join Bridger beside the grave and leap into the hole. He reached up, and between them, they placed the body with dignity in the earth.
Old Trout paced over to stand at the head as Bridger gave Cantor a hand climbing out. Jesha solemnly took a place beside the old man’s feet. Trout nodded to Cantor and Bridger on one side of the grave. He briefly glanced at Bixby, Dukmee, and Neekoh on the other. Bixby’s eyes opened wide when she saw the twinkle in the old man’s eye.
“A few words,” said Trout, “as befits the occasion.”
The others nodded. Bixby had been to state funerals and village funerals, one type prim and proper and the other not. She couldn’t imagine what Old Trout would say.
He cleared his throat. “We stand beside a hole in the ground. At the bottom is a broken jar. We will bury the remains of one we barely knew.
“Keast Manbro has escaped. He’s cast off the encumbering frame that served him while he needed it. Now he does not need that frame. Now he is free, not only of a merely passable imitation of what he really is, but also free from the wounds inflicted upon that vessel. Wounds that hurt in the flesh, wounds that ravage the emotions, wounds that scar the mind, and wounds that would convince us to wither and hide and be no more.
“Keast Manbro, in this new freedom, knows what it feels like to be a seed responding to the warmth of the sun, the nourishment of the soil, and the nurturing of gently flowing water. He knows the joy of soaring like an eagle. He knows the delight of a minnow in a meadow brook. He knows the satisfaction of a rabbit burrowing to make an underground home.
“We cannot mourn for Keast Manbro. It would be more fitting for Keast Manbro to mourn for us.
“But with patience, we walk. With hope, we continue. With confidence, we face trials. With joy, we anticipate the end that is no end but the beginning.”
Old Trout dropped to his knees and scooped up two handfuls of the newly turned dirt. He dropped it into the grave. Cantor used the shovel. After a moment of uncertainty, Bixby also knelt and joined in burying the guard’s body. Bridger turned his back to the grave, but he used his tail to carefully push the hill of dirt next to him into the hole. Dukmee took Neekoh by the arm and returned to the hillock they’d used earlier for a seat.
Jesha sat in her stoic pose, watching the burial with an excess of decorum. Bixby looked up from time to time and smiled at her. The cat didn’t respond.
The last of the dirt was shifted. Cantor, Old Trout, and Bridger laid the pieces of cut sod over the little mound. Bixby took a seat between Neekoh and Dukmee.
“Look.” Neekoh pointed to Jesha.
Beside her, two rabbits sat with their ears alert and their noses constantly twitching.
Bixby blinked twice. “I never —”
“Neither have I,” said Dukmee. “I can coax a wild thing to accept me as you can, Bixby. But I’ve never seen one come out and join a foreign group on its own.”
When the three working on the grave had made final adjustments, Old Trout picked up his shovel and headed back on the trail without another word. The rabbits departed, and Jesha came to rub against Bridger’s side. Bixby stood as Cantor came to join her.
She looked over the meadow with its subtle crests and valleys almost obscured by the thick, flowering grasses. Serenity hovered in the warm, sunny air. With a sharp intake of breath, she looked at the grave and again at the glade.
She put her hand on Cantor’s arm. “This is a graveyard.”
He looked puzzled. She pointed to the small swells in the land and then pointed to the new grave. “They’re the same size.”
Neekoh came to his feet and offered a hand to Dukmee. Bixby wondered what her healer friend thought of being treated as an ancient. She shook the thought away as Dukmee’s face took on his own particular expression of discovery. She’d been with him for two years, and she knew him well enough to recognize his glee at the sudden solving of an intellectual puzzle.
He turned on his heel and started down the path. Bixby sighed. She also recognized Dukmee’s behavior. He wouldn’t share his finding until he’d worked out all the details and given himself enough time to regain his majestic composure.
CHOMOUNTAIN
Bridger had widened the path as he came. Now, on the way back, he trundled along ahead of the others to further beat down the trail overtaken by abundant plants. Neekoh carried Jesha as he followed the dragon. Their new friend had a tendency to get too close and then had to leap over Bridger’s tail as it swished from side to side, something that seemed to annoy the cat exceedingly.
Bixby tugged on Cantor’s sleeve, a gesture which he had come to like. “Who do you think is buried back there? Trout’s family?”
“I think it’s entirely possible. When we get back to Trout’s cabin, why don’t you ask him?”
“He might not want to say anything about it.”
“Even if he gives you no answer, you won’t be worse off than you are now.”
She scowled at him. “What do you mean?”
“You’re all tied up in knots, trying to make sense of Old Trout, the valley, the ruins, the meadow, everything. You need to start finding answers so you can relax or just let it all go.”
“What about you? Don’t you want to know as well?”
“I’m more interested in finding concrete answers to what we can do to thwart the Lymen invasion. We have to leave this place and get on with our mission.” He knew the frustration he felt had sharpened his words.
He tried to think of some way to tell Bixby he hadn’t meant to be curt.
Bixby walked silently for a few steps, then tugged on his arm again. “Dukmee saw something or figured out one of the riddles of this place at the end of the funeral. Do you suppose he thinks Chomountain is buried in Old Trout’s ‘place’?”
Cantor’s face screwed up in reaction, and he quickly returned it to a mask of neutrality. If those were graves, then Old Trout hadn’t owned up to having visitors previously. He had said that he didn’t get many visitors. So some had wandered into this valley. But he hadn’t been forthcoming. Did he not remember, or did he lie? He didn’t seem to take anything seriously enough to bother with prevarication.
Cantor felt Bixby’s thoughts poking at his own. He looked at her with mock chastisement. “Bixby.” He had made it a habit lately to keep his mind shielded. Too many people in his present company could read his mind.
Bixby squeezed his arm. “Sorry. What are you thinking?”
“I was considering what you said. I don’t think Chomountain is buried in the meadow. The previous mountains didn’t die, did they?”
“No. One was scooped up by the hand of Primen. One was standing in a field, and a chariot pulled by flaming horses stopped and took him aboard. And when another one climbed a ladder past the clouds, the ladder fell when another man tried to go up. The second man and the ladder turned to dust, and the wind carried them away.”
“It would seem that those who hold the office of the mountain, the right hand of Primen, skip physical death and are taken to be with Him in a more comfortable way.”
“I’m not sure climbing a ladder that tall would be exactly comfortable. And I would think hard before getting in a chariot pulled by horses on fire.”
He laughed. “Well, we aren’t as close to Primen. I imagine the mountains have a good idea of what’s going on.”
Bixby tilted her head, popped a hand up to straighten her slipping tiara, and hummed. She stopped abruptly and asked, “If Chomountain is not buried in the graveyard, was he ever in this valley?”
Her blue eyes opened even wider, making her look about twelve years old. Cantor shook his head, not so much in answer to her question but to dislodge the protective feeling that rose in his chest.
“I’m beginning to doubt even the existence of Chomountain. And if he doesn’t exist, were all those others before him myths made by man?”
Her fair eyebrows wrinkled together as she thought. She repeated the hum.
“Why are you doing that?”
Startled, she looked straight into his eyes. “What am I doing?”
“Humming. I don’t remember your humming in the Library of Lyme, but since we’ve been in this valley, you hum.”
She looked perplexed. “I guess I picked it up from Trout. He hums.”
Cantor put his hand on her back and propelled her forward. “I haven’t noticed him humming. Why does he hum? And why do you have to hum just because he does?”
“I don’t hum just because he does. He believes that humming organizes his thoughts. So I thought I’d try it. Humming quickly becomes a habit.”
“And is your thinking more organized?”
“I don’t know. I think I don’t think much at all when I hum. Or at least I don’t think about thinking.”
“So instead of organizing your thoughts, humming eliminates your thoughts.”
She shook her head. “It can’t do that, can it? I mean, totally abolish my thinking?”
“I wouldn’t think so, but I have noticed you’ve been preoccupied some.”
“Well then, that proves it doesn’t. Because if my thoughts were done away with, then I couldn’t be preoccupied.”
“That does make sense.” Cantor became aware that he was staring at her. Her puzzling expression was endearing. He had to stop being so interested in the way she looked. He was beginning to categorize her expressions, filing them away to remember later. He was the one not thinking. If he didn’t watch out, she would cause problems. He scowled at her.
She smiled. “I don’t think you should worry.”
For a half-second he feared she had followed his train of thought. But he was guarded. She must have been referring to the humming problem.
Cantor wasn’t convinced that the humming was benign. The thought that this habit might somehow hurt her compelled him to object. “I don’t think you should hum. Why not do an experiment and don’t hum. Take note as to how efficiently your mind is working as you do without humming for a while.”
“I don’t see why you’re making such a fuss.” Bixby preceded him into the meadow where Trout lived. She stopped just beyond the end of the path and whirled to look up at him with her fingers twisting a clutch of ribbons hanging from her belt. “But I’ll do what you ask, even though your concern seems silly.”
“Maybe it is and maybe it’s not. It won’t hurt to follow my instinct on this.”
“Speaking of instincts, I’m sure there is something to learn from my loot pillaged from the ruins.”
He nodded and gestured for her to go on toward the cabin.
Bridger had already settled under the tree he liked best for napping. Jesha cuddled against his chest on his crossed arms. Neekoh had gone to the animals.
Cantor grinned at the young man’s enthusiastic greeting to the pig and goats. “He really should be a farmer.”
“Yes, that might be his calling.” Bixby nodded toward the porch, where empty pegs showed that the old man had taken his fishing gear. “Trout has gone to catch our supper.”
Dukmee came out the cabin door, holding an open book Cantor recognized as one he’d brought from the ruins. The scholar sat on the edge of the wooden porch.
Cantor’s nose itched as he contemplated poring over those ancient volumes. He knew why Dukmee had come out of the cabin. Not only did the sun provide good reading light, but the fresh breeze helped stave off fits of sneezing over the musty tomes.
As Cantor and Bixby walked toward the cabin, Dukmee jumped to his feet, closed the book, and tucked it under his arm. He marched past them without a word and went straight to the resting dragon. He spoke quietly to Bridger, who stood with a long-suffering sigh. Jesha sprang to sit on Bridger’s head.
As the scholar climbed along with his book onto the dragon’s back, he called over his shoulder to anyone who might be listening. “We’re going to make a quick trip to the ruins to check on something. A matter that needs to be investigated before we quit this valley.”
With her fists planted on her hips, Bixby watched them take off. She turned her solemn face to Cantor. “If you insist on us leaving soon, I’d like to remind you to have a go with the writing instruments and paper I picked up at the ruins.”
Cantor’s mind immediately conjured up a half dozen things that he really should do at once in order to leave the next day. But they hadn’t really decided the time of their departure. And he recognized stalling techniques even when he wasn’t consciously trying to get out of this duty.
“All right.” He sighed as if he was making a sacrifice as great as Bridger’s foregoing his nap to provide transportation for Dukmee. “Bring the lot out here. Perhaps it won’t be so stifling done out in the open.”
He sat on the steps as Bixby disappeared into the cabin. He heard her shifting things, banging around, and stacking something heavy on the table. When she came out, she had dust on her nose and carried a light green hamper decorated with lace flowers, ribbons, and a frill of shiny pink material.
She held it up for him to see. “I put the writing utensils and paper in this so you could work with one thing at a time. Perhaps stowed away like this, the others won’t bother you.”
Cantor nodded. She sat beside him with her legs dangling off the side of the porch. Reaching into the bag, she brought out a pencil and a small sheaf of paper.
The urge to put the chore aside warred with Cantor’s curiosity. Dukmee had first taught him about the strange feelings that crept up his skin and worried
his mind whenever he came in contact with writing instruments. He’d learned then that he had the ability to retrieve movements made long ago from a pen, pencil, quill, or even a burnt stick. Thus he gathered information that was lost to all those who did not have this talent. That stipulation seemed to encompass everyone else existing in their world.
He took the pencil Bixby held out and held it over the paper. Within seconds the pencil made contact, and with the guidance of those disturbing vibrations, Cantor wrote out a list of words.
“Ha!” He slanted the paper for Bixby to see. “A grocery list?”
“More like the ingredients for a specific dish. Try again.”
Once into the experience, Cantor moved on without all the dread he’d manufactured before he got to work. Under Bixby’s encouragement, he tried out different writing tools she had in the hamper and different types of paper. Sometimes he couldn’t get a reaction from a pen held over one paper, but when they changed to a different sheet, he produced what the pen had last done. He drew buildings, a diagram for an aqueduct, herbs with names and uses printed beside the sketches, and people.
One lot of paper and a particular pen evoked the images of many citizens of the ruined community. Beneath his hand, a sheaf of papers displayed a staff of professors, a number of scientists, a good many servants, a few children, and horses, dogs, and cats. The images were grouped according to activities and packed closely together.
But the last one he drew took up the entire sheet. He drew with tiny precise lines, and the muscles of his hand cramped. He tried to rest, put this drawing aside for a bit, but he returned to the task as if driven.
The picture was of an old man wearing a wizard’s hat. Long hair covered his shoulders, and a beard spread out over his chest. He wore priestly robes and carried a carved staff. The pencil hovered over the face, and then Cantor drew the telling details of eyes, nose, and mouth.
“That’s Trout,” whispered Bixby.
Cantor’s hand dropped down to the bottom edge of the portrait.
The pen spelled out, “Chomountain.”
SORTING THINGS OUT