Vessel (8 page)

Recks finally returned with a hodgepodge of wild food for breakfast—three brown duck eggs, mushrooms, and a few fern shoots.

“Thank you for the tea,” I said, eyes down.

Recks sighed as he set the food down by the fire, which smoldered with charred wood now. “You’ve got to stop that. You’ll attract attention.”

“Stop what?” I asked as I moved to stoke the fire.

“Stop staring at the ground when you speak to people. Look at me.” I did as I was told and waited.

“Now smile,” said Recks. The corners of his mouth turned up as he said it.

I struggled with how to do the same thing, my lips moving in uncomfortable ways. The pained expression on Recks’s face told me it wasn’t going well.

“Okay, never mind about smiling. Just look up from now on.”

“Yes, Master Recks.”

“And for Mother’s sake! Don’t call me Master. People will know you’re a slave in an instant.” Recks shook his head and gingerly placed the eggs in the hot ashes of the fire to cook. “Maybe we need to disguise you.”

“I lost my
billa
when you stole me,” I said, watching him as I’d been instructed to. He was slender, with long legs bent as he crouched by the fire. A tiny bit of hair sprouted from his chin, but otherwise he appeared clean-shaven.

“Good riddance to that thing! That was no disguise.”

“No one in Roma knows what I look like without it, except Dine. He’d look at me sometimes.”

“Then we’d better disguise you.”

“How?”

“We’ll be getting to Tingrad soon. There are a lot of people there, Reticents too. If they sent word from Roma, they’ll be looking for a woman with long, black hair. They wouldn’t suspect two boys traveling together. What if we cut your hair? You could probably pass for a boy.”

“Cut my hair?” I felt myself recoil from him the way I had when I thought he’d force himself on me. The horror must have been plain on my face because his expression softened.

“It would be safer for you. Not all men are like me. It’d just be until we get beyond the Black Sea. It’ll grow back.”

“Yes, I suppose it will.” I ran a hand over my long locks, pulling it across my lips, a gesture that’d become habit long ago. I couldn’t help looking away from Recks, even though he’d told me not to.

“Are you crying?” he asked.

“No,” I insisted, even though I felt the hard spot in my throat and the wetness in the corners of my eyes.

Recks crawled over to me on his knees and sat next to me. “Does it mean that much to you?” he asked softly.

I nodded. I knew if I spoke I wouldn’t be able to stop my tears.

“Maybe there’s another way. We could find you a hat.”

“Really?”

“Sure. Tingrad was a huge city in the Darkness. There’s no doubt we could find something there to hide your hair.” Recks smiled and gave me a reassuring pat on the arm. “I think we’d better lose the horse too. If Dine recognized it, others might.”

I wasn’t especially sorry to hear that, still sore from riding the day before.

“Do you think he’ll come after you?” asked Recks.

“I don’t know,” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand.

“My guess is he will. A man doesn’t part with a pearl like you easily.”

“If he does, it’ll be because his wives can’t get all the chores done by themselves. I’m sure Shel is happier with me gone.”

“You really don’t know, do you?”

“Know what?”

“Dine hid you not because you’re ugly but because you’re beautiful.”

A snort escaped my nose at such nonsense.

“There it is!” said Recks.

“What?”

“A smile. I knew you could do it.”

I shook my head at his silliness and ate the food he offered me.

“I never really asked you … do you want to go to Lhasayushu with me?”

“That place sounds too good to be true, like a dream world. But I’d like to go to the East to be among my own people. There’s nothing for me here.”

***

We finished breakfast, packed up what little we had, and headed for Tingrad. As we got closer to the city, the path became wider, more of a road, made of black gravel with weeds pushing through here and there. Tall poles dripping with wires lined the road, as well as hunks of rusted metal in various colors. Recks said Kinder told him the little metal boxes with small windows were called “cars.” According to Kinder, the machines were used for transportation before the Dark Times, but I didn’t see where they hitched a horse to them. They sat like boulders scattered along a riverbank, forever motionless now.

By midday, we came across a farm. Rather than trying to sell the mare and raise suspicion, we left her grazing in the field. She was more than happy to eat fresh grass and be rid of us. We continued on foot the rest of the way toward town. I’d never seen so many buildings or such tall ones. The castle was the largest building in Roma, but these structures dwarfed it easily. Recks suggested we climb into one to rest for the night.

The towers seemed uninhabited. We hadn’t seen anyone all day. I followed Recks up several flights of stairs littered with rotting papers and other belongings abandoned long ago. Finding an open door at the top of the stairs, Recks ducked inside but reappeared instantly.

“This room’s no good. It’s been looted.”

We continued down the hall, already dim in the late afternoon. The only light filtered in from a dirty window at the far end of the hallway. Recks checked another room and found it acceptable. The west-facing windows flooded the room with afternoon sun. I sank down on a dusty couch while Recks went through all the cupboards in the tiny kitchen.

“Empty … empty,” he muttered, letting each cupboard door fall shut. “Wait a minute.”

Recks reached deep into the last cupboard and pulled out a small glass bottle of something black. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed the contents, making a face.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Don’t know.” He handed me the bottle. The red and black label bore white markings that meant nothing to me. Decoration, perhaps? The smell of the contents was harsh and somewhat dust-like.

“A spice. I smelled something like it once at the market.”

“There’s no food here. I hoped we might get lucky,” said Recks. “Let’s see if we can at least find you some clothes.” He walked down another narrow hallway into another room out of sight.

“Will someone be coming home?” I worried. I followed him, not wanting to be alone.

“No one’s lived here for ages,” said Recks, opening a closet door and rifling through the garments he found. He pulled out a heavy shirt and a pair of blue pants that looked about my size and offered them to me.

“Might be hot during the day, but they’ll keep you warm at night. Try them on. I’ll wait out here.” Recks pulled the door shut behind him, and I saw someone on the back of the door who made me scream. Recks jerked the door open again.

“What is it?”

“On the door … ” I pointed.

He closed it and examined the reflection of us on the door.

“Is it glass?” I asked.

“No, a mirror. You’ve never seen one?”

“No,” I whispered. My fingertips glided over my image, half normal, half abnormal. I’d never seen it so clearly.

Recks found a hat somewhere. He twisted my hair up and shoved the hat over it.

“See? It might work,” he said. I tucked the loose ends of my hair under the hat, still mesmerized by my reflection.

“Maybe,” I said, wanting to please him.

“It’ll be safer for you.”

As night fell, lights flickered on here and there across the city. Recks said it was how you could tell where the people were. From our perch high above the ground, we saw a growing fire by the river near a bridge. And out on the east horizon, there was an even larger glow, like ten thousand fires. I couldn’t imagine how it could be so bright this far away.

“What’s that?” I asked Recks. “Another city?”

“I don’t know. That by the river is probably a Cleansing. They have them a lot.”

“A Cleansing?”

“A burning. The Reticents burn things to make an example, to scare people mostly.”

“And sometimes execute people.” I remembered how close Recks had come to being in one.

“I should go check it out. See if I can find some food.”

“Down there?”

“You can stay here. I won’t be long.” Recks put on a jacket with a hood, which he pulled over his hair.

“But what if something happens to you? If you don’t come back, how will I find you?” I clutched the soft sleeves of his jacket and looked into his green eyes, forgetting how I must look to him. His hands on my arms were gentle like a summer breeze.

“Do you want to come?”

“Yes.”

“Then put on these clothes and hide your hair,” he said, leaving the room. I did as I was told, pausing only to see how thin my undressed body was in the reflective surface on the back of the door, the outline of my bones clearly visible beneath the skin of my chest. I struggled into the musty clothing, baggy on me but not a bad fit. I hoped I could wash them somewhere in the near future. I even found a pair of rubber-soled shoes that felt good on my sore feet. My sandals from Roma gave little cushion for all the walking we’d done. Twisting my hair up, I tucked it back into the hood of my pullover and joined Recks in the outer room.

Recks didn’t look up. He was hunched over, studying the thing in his hands intently.

“What have you got?” I asked, kneeling on the floor next to him.

“Kinder called them books. Look.” Recks handed me the small, rectangular thing “I’ve never seen so many in one place before.”

The rectangle fell open in my hands to reveal something like cloth but rougher. My fingers made a soft scraping sound along the edges. On this rough cloth were dozens of little black markings, very small and close together.

“What’s it do?”

“Do? Nothing. Kinder said people put down their knowledge in them so others could learn what they knew.”

“Is that what this is? Knowledge?”

“Yes.”

“There’s so much. But what does it mean?”

“Don’t know. No one does anymore. I think Kinder tried to figure it out. I like the ones with pictures.” Recks smiled as he handed me another book open to a view of a turquoise-blue body of water. “That’s the ocean I told you about.”

“It’s lovely.”

“And we’re going to see it, you and me.”

I felt a smile, a real smile, spread across my lips.

“You make a good boy,” said Recks, watching me. “Just don’t let anyone see your eyes up close. And don’t talk. That’ll give you away for sure.”

“What’s wrong with my eyes?”

“Too pretty for a boy.”

His words sent a rush of heat through me. He thought my eyes were pretty.

“Take this,” he said, handing me a slingshot from his pocket.

“What for?”

“For protection if we get separated. It’s sort of a weapon.”

“A lot of good it’ll do me,” I said, shoving it in the front pocket of my pullover.

“Do you know how to use it?”

“Of course.”

I’d caught plenty of small game with a similar slingshot of Dine’s. Never thought I’d be using one on a human.

Recks and I walked along the street hand in hand, our feet crunching on the gravel in the dark, the acrid smell of smoke bending around us the closer we got to the bonfire. Shouts ripped through the night, mixing with the roar of the fire. Soon, Recks dropped my hand. Even in the dark, someone might see and suspect us. With the same eyes, I passed for his little brother if I kept quiet. I followed him as close as I could, trying to walk the way he did—comfortable, as if he wasn’t a wanted criminal. It didn’t seem to bother him that the crowd gathered by the fire was close to screaming. Nervous, I stooped to collect a few good pebbles should I need to use my slingshot after all.

Like Recks predicted, they threw things into the flames and shouted: “For Mother Sun!” It wasn’t wood. They threw metal things, machines, I assumed, and small waxy squares of plastic and glass. And then I saw the books. There was a pile of them almost as tall as me next to the fire. I longed to open them, feel their pages, and hunt for pictures of the ocean.

Suddenly, the shouting died and a priest, a Reticent, appeared. I froze when I realized it was Anders, still in scarlet robes that reflected the light of the flames.

“Mother Sun thanks you for your offerings. She knows every heart, every fear, and she knows those who would betray her,” said Anders, raising a book into the air above his head. “The men that made these things, these profane, vile, disgusting things, did not honor Mother Sun. They made more and more until the whole world was littered with their junk. You see it around you every day: their plastic, their glass, and their metal boxes. Mother Sun grew impatient with their obsessions. To cleanse the world, to wash that away, she bathed us in fire. She killed the machines and the obsessors, leaving only the faithful: the farmers, the sun worshipers, and you, my friends. And so, we honor Mother Sun by continuing to cleanse the world of machines, of objects of obsession. Once the old is gone, mankind will bask again in the glory of her light.”