Compis: Five Tribes (24 page)

Luka wasn't foolish enough at this point to think it was going to be an easy task. He'd learned that common magic, though thought by many to be the most elementary of the magics, was complicated when attempting even the most simple tasks. Leaning forward, he worked at moving a grain of sand, but his gestures were too sharp and most of the sand landed in the bowl.

Duor Ethos picked up the bowl and poured the sand back into the tray, smoothing it back out with a little magic of her own.

“Again,” she said.

He did, again and again, and yet again. He spent the entire afternoon trying, but the smallest amount of sand he could move was a handful. Yet Duor Ethos was pleased.

“You've made great progress, Luka,” she said.

“I don't think so,” he said.

“Most Initiates couldn't make that much progress in a week, much less a single afternoon. Give yourself some credit,” she said, patting him on the shoulder. “Go off and take a break. Run around or find where Joah ran off to.”

Thanking her, he jumped up and ran outside and off toward Kanae's workshop, thinking of his statue. He'd started working on the feet, which fascinated him, because they were much like bird feet, with sharp talons, but also similar to hands—like a human's they had opposable thumbs. As he carved, he started to think that one of the talons was wrapped around a large salmon. He wasn't sure, everything was still fluid in his mind and he was trying to let his hands do the work, not his brain.

“I'm done for the day!” he called as he entered the workshop. Kanae was sitting near the little stove, sanding down an oxen yoke. It was especially important for an animal not to be scratched or nagged by a rough part, for sores could form, rendering the animal useless.

“Why don't you grab your sculpture and come sit here by me?” she suggested.

He was happy to comply, pulling up a chair near the warmth of the fire. Since the rains had started, there was a chill in the air that couldn't be erased from his bones. The heat helped.

“How was your lesson in common magic?” she asked, sliding the sander in a smooth line down the side of the wood.

“Frustrating, as everything is here. Duor Ethos is pleased with my progress. Can I ask you something, Kanae?”

She nodded assent.

“Why is everyone so positive about my
situation
? Why am I frustrated while everyone else is satisfied?”

It was a point of contention that he was failing at being an Initiate.

“Maybe it's because we're all so much older. That sounds condescending, but it's at least partly true. When I was an Initiate, I was you—angry and confused. I didn't know my place in life. I felt out of touch.

“As the years have passed, Luka, I've felt more and more at ease. I know my place now, where I'm going, and what I'll be doing to get there. I'm happy in a way I wasn't once.

“The reason we are satisfied, is because we see ourselves in you. Someday, you'll be right where I am, talking to a confused young Initiate, saying the same sorts of words.”

It was comforting, the idea that the world was circular, so Luka held onto the thought, while his blade moved through the wood.

It was the last of Zyander's wanderings, the lair of the Sanguis. After that, he assumed the dreams would end, since the vixen had made it clear this dream journey was about the other tribes' elements, and not his own.

He'd be sad to see them end. With the monotony of his daytime journeys, filled with rain and the smell of damp skin, the only interesting part of his travels had become his dreams. It was probably silly to dwell on them, as Zyander plodded along on a damp Twitchfoot, but the hours were endless and it was better than spending all his time thinking about Nikka.

Without the dreams to capture his attention, he would have spent hours picturing the sun glinting off her golden curls, or the way her eyes tilted up when she laughed. He could still feel her lips on his, her body in his arms, her soft voice in his ears. He would have done almost anything to see her again, but since that was a mistake, according to his father, Zyander knew he was where he should be.

He sat on a log, under the shelter of a tree large enough to keep most of the rain off his head. He was waiting for her, for once having entered his dream in a lucid state, and ready for wherever the dream would take him next.

It was quiet, without the normal forest movement, so he heard her wet snuffling when she neared him. Standing, he turned to see her looking up at him.

“I see you are ready, Fire Child,” she said. “Let's be off.”

The vixen nosed through some damp foliage, and they were on their way.

Unlike their previous trips, their travel time was less than an hour before she had led him to the entrance of a cave. Springing up from nowhere, it seemed, he discovered that there was a pocket of large boulders that perfectly covered the cave's mouth.

The entrance was a good foot shorter than him, so he had to duck as they entered it. Like the rest of his tribe, he wasn't partial to dark, small, enclosed places. With its tight quarters, this place gave him the chills. His breath quickened.

“Be at peace, Fire Child. Here is your light,” she said and pushed him with her nose to the wall. He felt a torch under his fingers, and using a simple common magic spell, he lit it. They walked on, and he was feeling much better with a light showing the way.

The passage was long and narrow, and it took some minutes before they found what she had been leading them toward. It was a circular room, large enough for men to stand stacked in twos tall, and wide enough to fit about a hundred people standing side-by-side. The centerpiece of the room was a rough stone table, waist high, and circular.

Zyander moved around the room, lighting torches, and now he could see three objects resting on the table. When he walked over to it, he saw they were all carved from stone, like the table. There was a long spike—sharp to the touch, as thick as his arm. Next to that was a bowl, as deep as his hand and the circumference of his five fingers, spread. Finally, there was a tablet, with a picture of the five elements: water on the left, air on the top, earth on the right, and fire on the bottom. However, instead of the usual symbol for blood in the middle, there was a person, standing tall, arms stretched over its head.

The vixen leaped up onto the table, and sitting on her haunches, proceeded to tell him the story of how the Sanguis' element, blood, came to be.

“Blood is the trickiest of the elements, Fire Child. Though water, wind, earth and fire are all a part of us, they also are elements of the earth and they belong to it. Blood, however, though in many of earth's creatures, is not an element of the earth. It was given solely to the living beings that dwell here.

“Many years ago, when the earth was young, and there were no creatures to inhabit it, Iam walked its surface and thought about what would make it more rich and diverse. In all the elements of the earth, there was nothing that gave it that feeling of
other
, nothing to draw the eye or make the heart soar. So Iam set about to make a creature that contained a pinch of the other elements, but would also have an element all its own, something to set it apart on all the earth.”

Looking around at the room, she said, “This place is only a representation of what happened next, but it suits the illustration. Iam came to a room similar to this, and drawing a knife across an arm, let some blood drip into the bowl on the table. Using this blood, Iam created humans, and with the remaining blood, every other creature that walks the earth.

“So you might say that we are all special, as we have a part of Iam within us. And now, Fire Child, you have one last task before you. Take the spike and cut your palm. Let your blood flow into the bowl.”

Because he knew it was a dream Zyander didn't hesitate to put out his hand and slice his palm with a shallow cut. He watched without expression as the blood dripped down into the bowl. He thought about each of the elements and wondered, yet again, what the overarching lesson was. Where did his tribe fit into this picture? Why were they dying out? How could he help them to recover their powers?

~~~~~

When he woke later, to the sound of the pouring rain filtering through the tall trees surrounding him, he realized his hand was aching. Looking at the palm, he saw a razor thin scar running across it. Heart pounding, he opened and closed his hand, feeling the dull pain lace across the remnant of the cut. For the first time, he knew his dreams were somehow real.

After they'd gotten up and eaten a quick meal of cheese, tubers found along their journey and flat bread, they broke down camp and plodded along through the pouring rain. Each of them wore woven goat hair ponchos, set with waterproofing spells courtesy of the Aquis, at much cost. Each poncho was carefully taken care of and kept locked away except for needs such as theirs.

Suddenly, Twitchfoot whinnied, sidestepping away to the left, towards Alys and his own mount.

“Hey, hey, now, friend. What's wrong?” asked Zyander.

He looked down over his horse's forelegs and almost fell off in surprise. Looking up at him, from the soggy bottom of the forest floor, was a fox.

“Alys,” he whispered, “Am I dreaming again, or is that a fox looking up at us?”

“You're not dreaming, Fire Child,” said the vixen.

“In Iam's name!” shouted Alys. “That fox just spoke, Zyan!”

“We do that, silly human,” said the fox. “Now, come, we have work to do.”

And turning, she led them away, back to where she'd come from.

Nikka couldn't sleep. She hadn't slept well in days. Every day, she stared at the book and tried to figure out what to do. Jilli was satisfied—she didn't have to come up with any new lessons for the talented young Compis. Nikka was frustrated and terrified.

After long hours of thought, and some heavy guess work, she'd put together a story that made her feel sick. The Roaneu had lived in the ocean, minding their own business, and one had been caught by a chance fisherman's net. When the creature met air and sunlight, a transformation took place, and it changed from a seal to something resembling a human. They had capitalized on the helplessness of the small creatures and taken away their pelts. The Roaneu were forced to work as slaves for them.

The Aquis were at best accidental slave owners, at worst psychotic taskmasters. A race of people—held, tortured, brutalized, and no one in the Five Tribes had said a thing. Maybe they didn't know, it was possible. She'd be surprised if anyone did. If she hadn't overheard Jerem on board the boat that day, she would have gone on, oblivious to the dark side of the Aquis.

At first, she'd been determined to break the spell on the book, sneak into Jilli's workspace, and free the pelt for her friend, Agga. After about two minutes, she had ruled out that idea. First of all, Jilli would know who had done it, the only person besides herself who could have, Nikka the Compis. Second of all, even if her plan worked and she freed Agga, that would still leave hundreds, maybe thousands of Roaneu still under duress.

There was no good way to solve this. If she could gain proof, and tell the other tribes, maybe they could use their position to force the Aquis to give up their servants. She tried to remember if there was a rule about slavery, but to be honest, she'd never heard anyone speak of it. It was an outlandish thing. Every person and animal was to be treated with respect, even when being used as a meal. It had never occurred to her that this could happen.

She got up and went downstairs. It was the middle of the night, Jilli had long since gone to bed—she was supposed to be up early to travel to the Citadel for a few days in preparation for the next gathering. It was only days away now, she could count it on her two hands. She had ten days to figure out what to do and she had no idea.

She started tea water in the kettle and searched through the cupboards for the tea mix Agga always made it with.

“It's the next cupboard over, pup,” said a voice behind her.

She wilted.

“Thanks, Agga,” she said, but before she could get it, Agga was there, pushing her over to the little table where she ate most days.

Nikka couldn't hold it in any longer. She folded her arms, laid her head down, and cried like a child who'd lost her favorite toy.

“Pup, what is it?” Agga touched her golden curls. “You haven't been sleeping and you look like you can't wait to be anywhere but here. Are you dreaming again?”

“I had one more dream, yes. It was about you, Agga. I saw what happened with Jilli, and I know how she keeps you prisoner here.”

She looked up at Agga, but the little creature's face held no expression.
I wouldn't want to talk about it, if it had happened to me,
she thought.

“I can't stop thinking about it, Agga. It's there, every time I see you or Jilli or all the other Initiates. It makes me sick. Jerem, yelling at Joaga. Jilli holding your pelt and cutting it. The hardest part is that I know it's in her workshop right now. All I would have to do is sneak in there, unbind the spell, and take it for you. You could have your freedom. It's driving me mad.

“I can't do this. It's too hard. I can't save your people. Being Compis is too hard,” Nikka said.

“You say you can't, but, pup, whatever do you think you're here for? Why do you think Iam sent you? Do you think things like this have no consequences? Do you think what goes on in the separate tribes doesn't matter?

“You were sent here to heal the tribes, Nikka. And heal them you must. I do not tell you how, but I know it to be true. You must heal the Five Tribes.”

~~~~~

Jilli was gone, and once again, she was staring at the book, trying to figure out what to do. If only Iam would just
tell
her!

“Just tell me,” she whispered. “Tell me.”

It was at that moment she solved the puzzle, looking down on the whirls and squiggles of light before her. It was a trick of the light, the way she could only see it if she bent a certain way. There it was, a little orb, moving along the lines of the book as though someone had traced it with a finger.