~~~~~~~~~~
Avis kept his word, though not in the way I expected.
"You use your Spark to beat others in combat, but you can't defend yourself against another Reader." Of course he had always beaten me at any sort of fight, though I hadn't made the connection between his Spark and his fighting skills.
"Even without your Spark, you're strong and fast, and you have a natural ability. But against another Reader, you lose the only advantage you actually use." So for the spring in the Oakwick, Avis and I fought.
In the mornings, I hunted or made repairs to clothing that had torn, fed the horses, and collected water from the stream not far off. But in the afternoons, we always fought. And for a while, he always won. No matter where I threw my punches, he would be there to block a half-second before.
"Clear your mind. You're thinking about it too much. Just let your body take over."
As many times as he said it, to put it into practice seemed impossible. As soon as he would tell me not to think about where to land my punches, it was all I could think about. By the time the snow had melted and the vines bloomed their tiny purple flowers, I wasn't any closer to hitting him or emptying my mind; the frustration started to sink in.
"You'll get there. Just keep at it." He told me when he sensed I was getting discouraged.
"Why do I have to do this? You're the only other Reader I've ever met."
"There aren't very many, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't know how to defend yourself against one. It only takes one man who's better than you to kill you."
I knew he was right, but it didn't make my frustration any easier. And I didn't like to think that someone besides Avis could make me feel that inept.
By the heat of the summer, the trees were fully green and it was difficult to see through the increasingly-thickening vines. Aside from the agony of my daily defeat, life in the Oakwick was better than I would have expected. My hunt each morning put me back on touch with how much I loved the woods, even if those were very different from the Creekmont where I grew up. I had quiet, and time to go out alone, and over those months, I cultured a new and strong sense of independence. I had no doubt that I could provide for myself and Avis, who proved to be quite a skilled tracker himself. We never saw another person, and soon it became clear that Avis had chosen that spot in the densest part of the Oakwick for that very reason.
Towards the end of my seventeenth summer, Avis decided it was time to try a new tactic. "If you can't empty your mind, then fill it with something else."
"Like what?"
"Anything. Something strong enough to block out your thoughts about the fight. Tell me about it out loud."
"What?"
"Just think about anything else! Your parents."
As I threw the first punch, I began telling him about how my father had taught me to track a deer, looking for the turned leaves on the ground or hoof prints in the mud. I told him how strong he was, and how patient he was to teach me. His voice was always kind, and he never became angry when I made a mistake. I told him how much I missed him.
When I was finished, Avis was holding his hand up to his bleeding lip. "That's it. You'll have to think of something stronger, but it worked at the end there."
Stronger than how much I missed my father? I didn't know if I had emotions like that, but if that was the key to moving on then so be it.
Over the next few weeks, I struggled to think of something that would keep my mind from my moves during a fight. I thought about Micha and how he was probably my only real friend. About Parvani and how strong and intelligent she was, and what other man had slipped into her bed at night. I thought about how much I wished I could see my mother again, so I'd know it was all worth it.
By the time the autumn chill began to set, I had made better progress than the whole of the last season. At least that's what I thought.
"You can do better. I can still catch glimpses of what you're about to do. At the wrong time, it's enough to beat you. It has to be a stronger memory." he told me as we started a match one day.
"I don't have anything else."
"Yes, you do." It was beyond annoying that Avis was inside my head constantly. And now he thinks he knows my memories better than I do?
"Do you just want me to tell you?" he asked arrogantly as he launched his fist towards my chin.
"Fine, since you're the expert on my life." I replied as I lifted my leg to strike him in the chest-missing, as usual.
"Khea. In the blue dress at the Moonwater."
I immediately thought back to that night. I had spent it with Parvani, but I had been thinking about Khea. The way the blue dress fell from her small frame, her blonde hair straight and lying across her shoulders. The black necklace she wore, which sparked a jealous rage that there might be someone who could give her those types of things. Her blue eyes, which caught mine despite the room full of people between us.
Avis started laughing as he pulled a piece of cloth towards the bleeding wound on his left cheek. "See?"
If I hadn't just been lost in a vision of Khea, I would have been angry at how right he had been. But, as it was, I was relieved to have accomplished one more challenge, even if it did leave me a little confused about how Khea could have had such an effect on me.
The next morning, Avis packed the camp at breakfast. A small, grey bird landed on one of the vines of a tree and chirped a cute song. I sat numbly and watched it for a moment before Avis interrupted.
"You like her?"
"Sure, why not."
"That's the Khea." The bird my Khea was named for? It was short and squat, and it's only color was grey. How could anyone think it resembled Khea in any way?
Avis only laughed, and gave me instructions to hunt in the nearby area and have a kill within an hour. I accepted his challenge and moved towards the east a mile or so before I heard the hawk above me.
It had been with us for the last year. It would fly over in a loop as it called out, then circle back to wherever its nest was to the south of us. It was a beautiful bird, with an orange tint to its breast, and would make a lovely kill to show Avis I could hunt well-even within his limitations that day. My arrow flew out but the hawk swooped under and called out as if it was angry. Disappointed, I pulled a new arrow and shot the rabbit that bounced to a tree a few feet away. I had made a kill, but it wasn't nearly as impressive as the hawk, and I had lost an arrow in the process. Avis's smirk as I returned to our recently-cleaned camp told me he still enjoyed my failure.
Mounted on our horses, I noticed the camp had been all but wiped out. No one but the most expert Tracker would be able to tell someone had been there, and two of the best were about to leave it behind.
"Where are we going?" I knew it was foolish to hope we would go back to Myxini, but I couldn't keep it away. I was eager to see Micha again and tell him why I left and hear about his recent tracking ventures. More so, I was curious to see Khea and hopefully get to the bottom of her strange effect on me.
"I'm sorry. The Andover." It had been a year since we left Hubli. We should have been able to go back by then.
I was sorely disappointed, but I knew it was unlikely I would return. Aside from the sourness of missing school and my friends, I was a little excited to go to the hook of the Andover. It was rumored to be the most beautiful area in Madurai; sprawling beaches surrounded a humid tropical forest with all kinds of strange animals.
"And we will go back. But you have to learn Nakben first." Avis handed me my seventh black stipe before he trotted forward on Pearl with a tricky grin, clearly pleased that he had kept it from me for so long. At that moment, I didn't care. I was going back, and that was all that mattered.
It didn't take more than three weeks to reach the northern tip of the Andover at the fierce pace Avis set. The snow fell sparsely on the twisted trails even as the increasing cold left more heaped on the ground. Skeletons of vines hung lifeless from trees that gradually grew taller and thicker as we entered the forest
s of the hook. Upon arrival, I didn't see the rumored beauty, but instead more snow.
"It snows more here than in the southern part of Madurai. You'll see the beaches in the summer."
Avis led me to the southern edge of a small village called Firethorne, where a grey-stone house sat in the quiet. Surrounded by several feet of snow, the house was chilled to the bone and covered with a thick layer of dust inside. It even smelled abandoned.
"Whose house is this?" I asked him.
"Ours. Now go get us some dinner." Avis could be difficult at times, but I was used to his abrasive ways, and it was strangely comforting to know he wasn't going to lie to me, or even sugar coat anything for the sake of being nice. I knew what to expect from him, and that was enough.
Slogging through the thick snow, the icy chill was already beginning to settle into the front of my boots. I would need to be quick or be subject to losing a few toes. Southern boys aren't meant for this kind of winter. The orange chested hawk still flew above and made its call, though I was too cold to wonder why it was so far north or try to shoot it. I was in a hurry to get back to the warmth of the fire. Scoring an owl as fast as possible, I hurried back to the small, stone house and slammed the door behind me.
So why do I need to learn Nakben if the election has already happened? I asked Avis silently as the bird roasted over the fire.
"You still have a part to play in the Madurian relationship with Nakbe. Just not the one Lheda expects."
"Why would I do it then? If it doesn't earn me my pendant?"
"Because it's the right thing to do." He must have known it would at least get me to listen.
Avis spent the winter trying to explain some of his history with Lheda and convince me of why I should participate in destroying her plans.
"She wants to use the Nakben forces to take over Takla Maya, but she needs to persuade them. They have all the resources they need. Madurai can't offer them anything besides pride. She wants to convince them that their god wants them to defeat Takla Maya, so then she seems like she's doing it to help them. When they win, which of course they will, they'll leave Madurai to someone they trust."
Her.
"Right." I could see how the plan would work, if played right, but there were still so many questions. I remembered that the Nakben tribes believed in a bloodthirsty god that demanded sacrifices and removal of weakness from the population, something I had read once. They were considered highly skilled with weapons and extremely violent.
"Why don't you want her to run Madurai?" While she wasn't my personal favorite, she seemed to manage Myxini pretty well. It seemed like running the country was within the realm of possibilities.
"I worked with her a long time ago. She was willing to do everything possible to put herself in power, even if it meant thousands were killed, raped, or injured. She wouldn't listen to warnings. She doesn't care. I won't let it happen again." Avis spoke with a tone that ensured he was done talking, but I knew it would take more to convince me, and he knew it, too.
"So what do I learn now? Fight you with my eyes closed?" I asked sarcastically.
"Read over a great distance. And Nakben."
Throughout the brutal Andover winter, I continued to hunt in the morning-though the game was noticeably smaller courtesy of my cold toes-and fight Avis in the afternoon. I would bring up the image of Khea each time, costing him his advantage and letting me use my strength, speed and youth against him. Before the spring thaw, our matches had grown long and even, each of us challenged by the other. Some days I would win, other days he would, but we both knew I was a skilled fighter by the end of winter. It would take someone with serious ability to defeat me in combat.
The snow finally melted enough to allow us more than hurried hunts outside our warm stone walls. Avis brought me to meet an old man with empty, grey eyes. A quick read told me he didn't see anymore and that Avis was paying him well to teach me the language from the islands just across the Northos Sea.
"Mahuiztli." Thank you. I didn't need to know what the words meant to understand he was grateful for the payment. It seemed there wasn't much left for a blind man to do to earn his way.
I searched his memories for the appropriate response. "Quima huiztilaya temochtiani" You're welcome, teacher.
Avis slipped away as the man named Quauhtil and I spent the rest of the day talking. He told me how to say some of the more common phrases, such as greetings, types of weather, and some of the major features of the islands. The Nakben language was strange sounding and even stranger to speak. It included sounds not found in Madurai, and several ti, chi and tl sounds in words. Many smaller words could be combined into a long compound word, confusing even simple phrases. To get the pronunciation right was half the battle. When I returned to the stone house at dusk, I was excited to share with Avis all I had learned.
"Did you know the islands were formed from a volcano? And the lava turned to stone as it cooled? And some of the islands still have molten lava flowing under them. It keeps them warm in winter."
Avis laughed at my enthusiasm as he handed me my portion of the evening meal. "And now the real work begins."
I had wondered when I'd start to read from a distance and was excited to get started. Maybe I'd finally get a chance to learn why Khea was such a big part of my life.
"How do I start?"
"Well, you use threads. So just draw one to the person you want to read. Start with Quauhtil." A thought occurred to me then and I decided to ask before I forgot and moved on to my lesson.
What do you see instead of threads?
"More like bubbles. They float out from the people I read."
So is it different for each Reader then?
Avis nodded. "Now, Quauhtil."
I attempted to trace out a thread, but I didn't know where to find him. I knew what his house looked like, but I didn't know where in Firethorne it was or where he was within his house. Several minutes later, I still listened to the sounds of my mouth chewing my dinner.
The next day was much like the one before, as were the rest that spring. I continued to speak Nakben with Quauhtil during the day and try to trace his thread at night. Avis took over hunting even though I expressed how much I wanted to have my time in the forest. I didn't have to tell him how the hawk that circled overhead teased me-or how I wanted to slide my arrow right into it.
Quauhtil's memories of his childhood in Uxmal were traumatic and foreign to me. He had killed another boy his age after the start of his seventh summer, beating him with a rock to the head until his eyes went dead. His parents had been supremely proud and awarded him a thin tattoo that wrapped around his left arm as a symbol of his kill. Like the black stripes at Myxini, the tattoos were a public sign of accomplishment, though a bit more painful.
He showed me lines inked around his arms and told me what they meant. Each one was fairly simple on its own, but all together they looked intricate and complex. The square repeating patterns indicated a kill against another man in an organized fight. The triangle pattern with dots in the middle was for killing in battle, and he had at least five of those. There were others he didn't have, a sun pattern for killing the queen, or a dog for killing a priest. I found it difficult to understand a culture that honored killing so much, a stark contrast to life in Madurai.
When he learned his eyes were going, he made the decision to leave for Madurai; on the islands, he would surely be killed for his weakness. It had been hard for him to leave his children, but his wife had died before him and he preferred to live.
We talked at length about the islands, how the four major islands differed from each other. The largest island was farthest north and had the capital city Uxmal in the center, surrounded by a thick jungle and accessed only by a narrow river.
A nearby island, named Teocuitlatl Oztotl or Silver Spring, for the striking water source in the center, was the smallest of the four and was more of a hunting ground than population center.
The third island was
farther south and held the large city Tlaloc that was made entirely of aged copper. His memory of the aqua patina on the metal was a stunning sight I hoped to one day see in person.
The island closest to Madurai held the largest city, Chimalma, where religious figures performed sacrifices to the dog god, Chichiton.
"The priests in Chimalma are brutal. They choose young men and women for sacrifice. The more beautiful the woman or the stronger the man, the more pleased the dog will be," he told me in Nakben one afternoon. His memories associated with the city were filled with fear as he tried to quickly move to Madurai without being detected. His looming blindness would make him a target.
Another day he described Huitzilin, who had been queen until she died the year before. She had been a powerful ruler and was well loved by her people. She found a way to limit sacrifices without angering the dog, so the young men of Chimalma could be put to work mining ore or farming. The women could have more children and the strength of the Nakben Tribes could grow. It had been very sad for the tribes when she died, and there was fierce competition over who would replace her.
Yaotl was one of the priests from Chimalma that organized the sacrifices and selected the offerings from amongst the crowd. She wanted to increase the offerings to the god as repayment for the years of limited sacrifices under Huitzilin. The competitor, and eventual victor, was Xiuhpilli, Huitzilin's beautiful daughter who shared her views on limiting sacrifices. The competition had been so fierce between the two candidates that Yaotl had even suggested sacrificing Xiuhpilli instead of electing her. In the end Xiuhpilli had won, more due to her bloodline than anything else, Quauhtil suspected.
"All Nakben rulers are women, teacher." I told him uncertainly in Nakben, and he nodded. It was strange to think of women in power of such a strong nation. Takla Maya, Madurai, and Hurgada had always had men as their rulers.
To learn the Nakben language wasn't half as interesting as learning about their culture. Men could take any unmarried woman they pleased, but they weren't considered married until a child was born. Married men could never take another woman, but men were free to engage with other men and the same for women. Children were encouraged to begin killing the weak as soon as they were able.
Nakbens were barbaric and conflicted in a way that puzzled me, and I was almost excited that I would get to experience it for myself one day. They were a culture that valued the strong, and hunting was an honorable skill. It seemed like a place I could be successful, though I would have to be careful not to be too successful.
Despite my progress with the language, I had no such luck at drawing threads from a distance. I had been careful to learn exactly where Quauhtil's house was within the beautiful coastal city, but I still struggled to draw his thread over the several miles between us. At least I'm learning the language quickly. I tried to remind myself of that when Avis pressed me to do better.
As the heat of summer began to spread across the warm sand and permeate the humid forests, Avis gave up. "No more Quauhtil. Read whoever you want."
"But I don't know anyone else here."
"You're trying to read at a distance. Pick someone else."
"Who?"
"Someone whose thoughts you'd recognize."
There was only one person who might work, as Avis had probably known. I tried to draw a thread from our small stone house in the Andover to my best friend in the Creekmont. There was no way of knowing where he was precisely, but all I could do was listen for the thoughts I knew as well as my own. Within minutes, I could hear Micha as he planned a late night visit to Isuet's room, and I had to laugh.
It was good to have him with me again, even if he didn't know it. I had missed him, missed the fun we had, missed having someone I could be myself around. I guess Avis counts. I could hardly have a secret from him, but it wasn't the same; Micha and I had the bear.
I left the thread connected until Micha arrived at Isuet's room and the time had come to cut it. His pulse jumped with nerves that told me he truly loved her. I wondered if I would have someone if I hadn't been camping with Avis instead of being at school. Would I feel that way about Parvani if I hadn't been separated from her for the last two seasons?
As I lay in bed, waiting for sleep, I traced a thread to the only other person I missed hearing in my head as much as Micha. My father was lying in bed, hungry and hoping he would get to eat tomorrow.
"Lark-"
"I don't understand." Why is he hungry? My father was a capable hunter. There was no reason for it. I knew deep down in my bones that something was wrong.
"Go to sleep. We'll talk about it in the morning."
I cleared my head by thinking of Khea until I heard Avis drift to sleep, his breathing becoming easy and slow. I pulled on my shirt and packed my bag silently before I slipped out the open window and quickly saddled Obsidian. Ten minutes later, I raced down the Greenwood Road headed for Lagodon and the father I suddenly hated myself for leaving behind.