The Ishim Underground

by Carrie Bailey

CHAPTER EIGHT

  The pungent scent of dried leaves left by a previous occupant filled the locker as Eron was trying pitifully to keep his eyes shut not that that mattered in the darkness. He passed his hands over something. And then another something. It felt rugged metal, too straight and cold to be tree bark. A sort of drying rack. Whatever had remained on the bar crumbled at his touch.

  Eron didn’t recall when he finally drifted into a set of dreams he wasn’t going to remember, but by morning, there was enough light filtering in through the ventilation shafts that he could see the stairs he missed the night before and protruding from the locker wall were the now obviously iron bars. Wilted tobacco leaves or what was left of them. And only inches from Amit's bare feet lie a large pile of bones. It was human, which Eron could see clearly though the little flesh that remained and the jaw bone that hung unnaturally, as though the skeleton had been punched a few times… postmortem.

  After it was dead.

  Died. Right there.

  In the corner of the small concrete box.

  He screamed.

  Amit mumbled.

  Eron continued screaming.

  “What is your problemation?” grumbled the boy lifting his flaxen head like a swiftly rising cloud of tangled wool.

  Without stopping to answer, Eron blasted his way up the stairs leaving his cloak and everything else behind. He tripped. With his face planted on the ground outside, he was panting heavily and his chest heaved up and down against the hard earth.

  Yes, he had just run from a dead man. No doubt Amit would soon be out in the clear fresh air laughing at him, but it was prove of one thing. He had instincts. Wherever they had come from, they’d overridden his logic in vain attempt to save him.

  As predicted, the wild boy poked his spotted head through the opening to the locker fixing his golden eyes on Eron. “I’m taking the head,” he said with the same expression he used to announce he’d passed gas.

  “I forbid you to take the head,” said Eron picking himself up and surveying the dust on his trousers and trying to sound in control.

  “Ill selling it to a fortune teller,” came the hollow echo through the ventilation shaft. “There’s a lot of them at Waimate.”

  “Leave it.”

  Amit hissed.

  “It’s civilized to show respect for the dead,” Eron shouted at the locker. It was still quite dark as he stood to dust himself. If only he had an excuse to lie there a little longer. The trampled ground outside had seemed much more comfortable than the pebbled ground inside the box.

  “That’s not respect. Maybe for the next person,” muttered Amit. “Five bowls of soup for one head. Hot soup. THAT is civilized.”

  “Who needs soup if it compromises your dignity?” said Eron.

  “You eat your dignigty,” Amit yelled from the locker. It was not yet day when the boy emerged with his bulging bindle. “I’ll be having takahe and vegetables with more salt than some sorry scribe like you can afford.” He said grinning again.

  It was going to be a long day. Eventually, the sun graced the edge of the horizon bringing confusion of the early hours to a sort of hesitant illumination, but not color. It took awhile before they could distinguish what was cloud and what was sky during the hour when only shepherds, farmers and Auckian street sweepers were normally awake.

  Starting down the road, Eron felt like he was intruding, not just on the paths the nomads frequented, but on the time reserved for those who earned their living with their hands. But, he reminded himself, he never was a Yellow Guardsman. Really, he was a Green Guardsmen. He had as much right to be awake before dawn as anyone during the hour of the grunts.

  It wasn’t long before the two boys settled into a comfortable routine. They walked. Amit learned the alphabet. They walked some more. Sometimes they ate stew, but always, just before dusk they scrambled to get a clean locker. Eron insisted on one that didn’t smell too much like a latrine and no bones. At least, not human bones.

  Sleep. Wake. Walk. Sleep. In between, Eron developed a transient awareness that not the all of the nomads were the same. Some slept in lockers. Others were successful tradesmen who traveled in vardos, ornate wooden carts that protected the travelers from becoming the dinner for the megafauna almost as well as a locker. The men driving vardos grouped together at night, forming a chain, linking their vehicles end to end as closely as they could manage with help from their horses and hebras. When Eron tried to tell Amit what he had observed about the people, the boy spat on his boot in disgust.

  But, it was clear that only Auckians owned carriages, which Eron had always assumed was because the nomads lacked the skills or the resources to make them, or buy them, but after a bit of time spent walking with them, he realized that the cylindrical carts simply suited the nomadic life style better, another rejected fact he shared with Amit. And some of the carts had been carved with such intense precision and intricate design that he doubted any of the owners would trade one for an average Auckian carriage. While Eron had run around the maze of vardos parked in the city markets all his life, he never really saw them as more than part of the nomad’s businesses whereas in fact, they were proudly defended homes. But, for every nomad in a vardo, there were at least five ragged travelers following the trails and roads on blistered foot.

  “Have you ever thought about moving to the village?” Eron asked one of the younger women drawing water from a busy brown stream one morning. They had stopped so Amit could listen to people chat about road conditions. And he was bored.

  “The gawds have not been so unfair to me yet,” was all she was willing to say.

  But, Eron could tell from the glares of the others traveling with her that he had said something wrong.

  Eron counted only one highway man for every fifty nomads, on foot, horse or in vardos. In Auck City, the highwaymen were demonized as murdering thieves, but to the nomads, they were the wardens of the road that kept order and ensured security. They were brothers and cousins. The strongest and the fittest, not unlike the Red Guard, although Eron hated drawing that conclusion. To Eron’s knowledge, the highwaymen never made themselves known in the city, but on long stretches of road in the Eastern wastes, they trotted openly and were adored almost as intensely as they were feared within the city.

  But, Amit didn’t merely appreciate the men who worn tricorn hats and most often sported eye patches. He worshiped them.

  “They will fear me,” he shouted when Eron asked what the boy planned to do with his life. Amit explained in great detail how he would buy a horse and rob every Auckian who left the city walls.

  “That’s entirely nonsensical,” said Eron. “Are you going to go set up the lockers every night? That has to be so dull.”

  “It’s ultra-sensical,” said Amit. “I’ll defend the people from everything.”

  “How would you carry all the stuff you steal?” said Eron.

  “I’d give it away and then everyone would own me a favor. I’d be the richest man on the road,” said Amit swinging his bindle. “And what I don’t give away. I’ll bury deep underground.”

  “Right,” said Eron. “Where are you from anyway? Hatched from a moa’s egg and raised by loogaroo?”

  “I’m a Prince,” said the boy.

  “Prince of what?” said Eron incredulously.

  “Just a general sort of Prince.”

  Eron stopped on the dry patch of mud he was crossing. “Why do the highway men wear eye patches? They must lose a lot of eyes fighting the panthera.”

  “My father was the bravest highway man on the road,” said Amit ignoring him. “He killed 20 guardsmen with his brain. And he escaped. My mother and all of his kids were left to die in a burning temple by his mortal enemy, Prince General.”

  “There’s no such thing as princes,” said Eron. “And if all of his kids died, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “I came on a boat from a distant land where the people have CARS and PLANES.”

  Eron shook his head. <
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  “The Ishim bought me from Hansa to serve them, but turned me out of their cave for having too many spots.”

  But, each time he asked, the boy told a more and more preposterous lie until finally, Amit declared, “I hatched out of an egg laid in forest by a red moa.”

  “I believe it,” Eron agreed wearily.

  Together the fugitive Green Guardsman and wild boy of the waste formed a slightly unbalanced duo, which required little ingenuity for Eron to maintain. He kept them occupied between their lessons betting on who would pass next. Eron called the game, Horses, Wheels, Feet and Hats. Each win equalled a bite of stew. After a two days playing, Amit quit.

  “No more,” he said looking over his shoulder at Eron who was dragging his feet in the gray dust clouds.

  Five bites. Fair enough. There was only fifteen to began, he thought. But, the boy had a point, by dawn on the fourth morning, there would be nothing left, no matter who won the gamble.

  It came with a clear cloudless sky, the day Eron ate his last piece of pemmican. They still four days travel to reach the camp. At the hour when Eron would normally have had breakfast, he ate nothing for the first time in his life. By the afternoon, his stomach rumbled. The cheese was gone. The sausages had been cooked into the evening stew. With nothing left to share around the fire pit that night, they had nothing left to eat.

  "I need to eat," he told Amit glancing along the side of the road where the packed mud and footprints ended and the dry yellow grass began. There must be a sort of plant he could chew on.

  “You just ate,” said the boy sneering at him.

  “Thanks,” said Eron, touching his stomach. It didn’t feel different. Not yet.

  “Now I know my ABCs, next time won’t you sing with me. Eron likes to eat all day…” The boy paused and thought for a moment having started the improvised tune without deciding how to end it. “And looks like a monster made from clay.”

  “You mean the Golem?” said Eron.

  “Whatever,” said the wild boy. “If you’re hungry, go steal something. Quit bothering me.”

  “Maybe I can trade something with one of the nomads?”

  “Gloves,” said Amit. “Clothes. Or you can try working, but I doubt anyone would hire you.”

  “Or maybe that metal container. It’s useless, but it is metal. And you can just keep whatever is in it.”

  “I will not give it to you,” said the wild boy somewhat solemnly.

  “It’s mine,” said Eron still listening to the rumbling in his stomach. The boy had never sounded so serious. He found it unnerving. “In fact, I think we should stop someone and trade it now. That man with the limp that passed just before the bridge. He had a lot of feathers on his stick and a bow. If we run, we could catch him up. ”

  Amit said nothing.

  Eron’s brow furrowed in anger and a bit of desperation. Even if they got to Waimate to trade, no used gloves would fetch enough supplies to arrive anywhere near Pict City. Eron marched swiftly up to the boy and grabbed at neck of his tunic with the heat of his anger building inside him, but the wild boy was fast. Faster. And he was gone. Amit ran from the road and disappeared like water through a sieve through the dark foliage of a shady grove. Eron had started the chase, but his legs were sore and there were open blisters festering on his heels and around his toes.

  He’ll come back, he thought. Eron wasn’t sure of it and looking at the brush, he could not hear a sound. He sat on a sandstone rock beside the bright open road. There was tree on the horizon and in the blurry beyond, a few minor hills. He picked at his sunburnt arms trying not to think about how far it was to Waimate or how much farther it had started to seem without the speckled menace.

  He wasn’t going to cry, but holding it in was empty solace when subjected the logic of the natural scribe. He was still lamenting his mistake, when someone tapped him on his shoulder. Without indication or warning, Amit had made his way behind him holding a large moa egg. It was bigger than a man’s fist and according to Achzya, full of protein, whatever that was. Eron salivated instantly.

  “I knew you’d be back,” he lied.

  “Let us eat from the bountification of my people,” said Amit mocking a village priest… and Eron.

  The wild boy headed off in a steady gait forward with a shuffling sound that marked every hour of every day from first light until sundown. It had become a new normal. Eron followed the boy and kept his mind busy by stepping over large pebbles and repeating phrases about food.

  Good food. He touched his toe to a larger pebble.

  Good meat. Eron placed his heel in front of a pebble that looked slightly larger than some of the other pebbles on that step.

  Thank the gawds. With no large pebble in sight, he lined his toe up with a dead leaf that might look like a large pebble if he hadn’t been paying attention.

  Let’s eat. On the last line, he compromised by lining his toe up with a twig that was in no way comparable to any sort of pebble, but least it was something.

  When they reached the lockers that night, they offered the egg for the stew. Ate. Slept. Woke up hungry again. It was warmer and muggier that night and none of the nomads had been too talkative, but at least they accepted the egg without complaining.

  “Big fat mouth,” said Amit curling up in a corner of the box the next night. “Big fat soggy mouth.”

  “What do you want?” said Eron.

  Silence.

  Amit had not found an egg and he hadn’t been hunting. Eron, on the other hand, could hardly stand his ground in line before a fruit vendor’s cart in the Auck City market. Capturing an animal was clearly outside of his skill set. Finding eggs was something he decided he could work on.

  After trying to rest for a while on the first night of his life without food, he got up, lit his oil lamp and unrolled the discourses while Amit shifted and kicked him in the ankle. Eron shoved his scrawny leg away.

  “If I tell you a story, will you put that out?” Amit asked, sounding almost parental.

  “I need to read.”

  “Then give me some medicine,” said the boy. “You’re annoying.”

  “You don’t need it.”

  "I'll start singing," said Amit.

  “Singing what?”

  "The alphabet song,” he replied gravely.

  Eron closed his eyes, breathed heavily and pinched the lamp wick with his fingers. “I think I would prefer the story.”

  “Good. There once was a scribe from Auck who never shut up and did talk. And the fat boy did eat, all of his meat. So I bashed his head in with a block.”

  “That’s a limerick,” said Eron. "A decent limerick.” The concept of rhyme not being lost on a boy who couldn’t write took a moment to penetrate. “How long did it take you to think of it?"

  Again. Silence.

  "Well, it wasn't a story," said Eron shifting his torso into a slightly less uncomfortable, but still dusty position on the ground.

  “Alright,” said Amit a few moments later. “But, you’ll regret asking.” He then described in great detail a group of desperate nomads who plugged the air shafts of the lockers with oiled clothes at night. They robbed the suffocated corpses in the morning.

  “I don’t believe you,” Eron whispered.

  “And the only way to survive is if you shut up,” concluded the freckled boy.

  “You fell off a cart, didn’t you?” said Eron. “That’s it. Dropped on your head and forgotten.

  Before long it was daylight again. Night. Day. Night. Day. On the road, one almost became the next and there was no telling the two apart.

  On the long stretch of dirt road that dug through the Eastern Waste like an old hag’s ridged fingernail, Eron walked. The crackling of the earth before them reminded Eron of dried bits of gravy on unwashed pots. In fact, he hardly noticed when the landscape started to change. Everything looked like some form of gravy.

  As he trotted past the fields where the medicines, dyes, fibers and other resources
were grown in the fragile patchwork of inedible plants, he got an idea. Eron put his hands to his throat. Amit had wandered ahead and would not see his peculiar little experiment. So, he pressed his hands deeply across his Adam’s apple and…

  It didn’t work. For some reason, he couldn’t suffocate himself. So, he tried holding his breath. He managed a fleeting sense of floating and a bit of gasping. Eron could hardly see the round pebbles under his feet and his head pounded like a nomadic drummer with anger management issues when he finished, but…

  That didn’t work either.

  His morbid experiments did distract him from the emptiness growing louder in his gut, but only momentarily. Anxiety, it seemed, had settled into every bone, radiating its discomfort. It followed him to the lockers. Nervously tapping his feet against the walls that night, Eron considered his options. Chewing grass, boiling the leather straps from his bundle, stealing, licking the bowls after the nomads finished eating, accidentally chopping off one of Amit’s digits. No, the boy’s fingers were too skinny.

  He couldn’t even cry.

  The vial. Shaped like rosebud, the browning tincture had started to harden around the opening. Four drips on his tongue. That was all. His mind and stomach went numb and he dreamt without sleep about cats and cars and guns and things that were more easily forgotten.

  But, very unlike the renegade piece of sand that stuck under his finger nail from when he tried digging for tubers, whatever they were, the tightness in his abdomen was painless, almost comfortable the next day. Feeling pleasantly delirious, Eron catapulted down the road on a mysterious energy wave.

  “I feel so alive,” he told the beautiful blue sky as he bounced and skipped down the road kicking up dust. Sure, his head was a bit foggy, but he was ready to take on a panthera single-handedly. “Amit!” he screamed at the dark sillouette on the road behind him. “How long does it take to starve usually?"

  "Do you think we could run the rest of the way?” Eron said when the boy didn’t respond. “Or get some pikes? Were on the road. We could get some good pikes. Or we can make some. Let me think about it.”

  He veered into a meadow as the perplexed looking boy with the golden hair followed after him. Amit was a nice boy. Of course, there was nothing on the trees that would make a good shaft, but he found some urigold flowers. Their radiant yellow assaulted his eyes, but he took some and one by one he dropped the petals behind him as meandered farther off the path under the welcome shade.

  Until he collapsed.

  “You know they’re not after me,” said Eron. Amit was on his knees beside him muttering something he couldn’t hear. “The guards won’t discover Gil and they won’t come looking for me. My skin is too dark to be mistaken for Gil and as far as they know, he’s me and I’m him. I’m delirious,” said Eron touching his face. “I have to eat something.”

  “No, already. It’s harder if you keep eating,” said the boy. “Just wait. Don’t run. Walk. Have some water. Stop being soggy.”

  His feet ached and his head pounded like a village drummer. Was he getting sick from not eating? “This is the end,” said Eron taking the bota and dripping it in his mouth. It leaked and went up his nose. He coughed horsely and started to whine.

  “Give me your gloves,” Amit sighed tugging at Eron’s loosely bound bundle, which was still under him.

  No more than an hour later, he returned with some pemmican. It was hard, portable and something to chew, but for flavor it was not a vast improvement over the oatmeal soap. Eron knew, because he had taken a small nibble from his loaf while the boy was gone.

  They rested early that night beside the tantalizing scent of roast takahe in the pit beside the lockers. When the other nomads had long since finished their meals and gone below, Eron took his lamp out and stood on the metal bars that led to the locker’s opening. He looked to the fire pit while the memory of the meal poured into this nostrils, but there was nothing there. He closed his eyes and saw the juicy bits falling from the crisp bird and sizzling on the hot rocks was doing something to his head.

  “Nomads steal,” he whispered aloud. “So there is nothing wrong with stealing from nomads.”

  “They’re poor,” said Amit whose features were grossly illuminated by the flicker of the lamp.

  “Give me my metal tube,” said Eron. “I just want a bite of something.”

  “You don’t want to trade it,” said Amit rolling over.

  “You’re a feral nobody,” Eron said. “You know nothing. Right now, I want some of that bird.”

  “The bird is gone,” groaned the wild boy.

  Eron reluctantly lay down on the cloak and patted down the rougher parts of the dirt he was going to sleep on until a crisp sounding crunch tore through the air.

  "What is that?!"

  "It's a hat," said Amit dryly.

  “That’s an apple!” contradicted Eron quickly. One solid fruit struck his head from the boy’s direction. Without complaint or retaliation, Eron ate it and most of the core, too. Then, when he had finished, he found a tastelessly textured lump of pemmican next to his blistered foot. It seemed the wild boy had not eaten his share.

  “Shame,” whispered Eron carefully biting the edge.

  Although Eron briefly plotted to take the metal canister from Amit as the boy slept, before nodding off that night, Amit had dug a shallow hole, tossed the tube in and covered it with his ragged green tunic. And he just lied down on top of it.

  Eron hated him.

  “Are you awake?”

  The wild boy did not reply.

  Eron waited.

  More nerve shattering silence.

  “I never went without food before,” he whispered to the emptiness in the locker. “I haven’t ever walked this much. I sleep in beds. I have a family. I read my books sitting on chairs or benches.”

  If the gawd of the lockers was listening, it didn’t respond. Not that Eron was sure there was a gawd of the lockers, but in case their might be, it wouldn’t necessarily hurt to explain himself.

  Night again followed the day while the road stretched onward before them like the empty days on Eron’s calendar back home. Hunger itself didn’t hurt, but the fear did. If Eron had marked the days, he would have been counting hours of worry and in the end, it was better to let them pass unnoticed.

  Whenever dawn broke on the waste, the sun illuminated an ellipse of light through the air vent at a sharp angle, but eventually the clouds got in the way. Eron could tell they’d overslept. It was overcast and Amit was still sleeping soundly on the cloth from his threadbare bindle.

  Eron prodded him. The boy’s skin was wet. His body felt chilled to his touch, but he was breathing normally.

  “Get up!” he screamed. He shook the child’s freckled arm.

  Amit groaned.

  Eron lifted the inside cover to the locker and let a gust of fresh air circulate. There were nomads outside. A fire was burning. It must be lunch, he thought. Help. The locker gawd sent help. Maybe even a highwayman. Before going out, Eron decided to give Amit a little water from his bota and a bit of medicine from the herbalist’s glass vials, but even as it dripped the liquids into his mouth, the boy did not respond. He didn’t swallow. He did not move.

  Limp as a rag, only one twitching arm betrayed the life within him.

  Eron draped his tunic over the boy and starred at his slender companion. How many days had it been without food? Amit had never complained. He was a nothing more than a kid living his life on the road with no one to protect him. Maybe a runaway. A child abandoned by a widow. Perhaps he was just got lost and his family gave up hope of seeing him again. But, he was just a kid. No one to fear.

  Germs, on the other hand, were tiny, vicious little creatures that hid everywhere assembling their forces to strike at random. A true enemy of Auckland. Normally, the Yellow Guard were tasked with eradicating them, but on the road, Eron would have to fend for himself. So, he prayed.

  And then he went outside for help.

/>   But, the faces that met him were not the ordinary men and women he had grown accustomed to see around the pit. They seemed equally startled by Eron’s sudden appearance.

  “I thought you prechecked already,” said one man to another, barely older than Eron.

  Their faces were clean shaven directly under their noses and chins and they wore their hair short like a guardsmen preparing for battle. Normally, both Auckian and Nomad let their hair grow, because the gawd of memories read it to the gawd of new year resolutions who was very good friends with the gawd of just deserts. No one wanted to be on his bad side and because the gawd of memories would make stuff up to entertain the gawd of new years resolutions known for his dramatic flare, hair mattered. At least, that was what Achazya had said though Eron recalled the fat tutor had been drinking heavily when he explained it all.

  “Looks like someone is strangalating behind his clan,” said the tan nomad with ginger mutton chops. There were four men in total.

  As humiliating as it might be to a man to fall in combat after someone yanked his braid, it still took courage to wear such menacingly short hair, which was clearly visible under his black akubra. Nomads typically wore the wide brimmed hats tied up on one side.

  “I’m not alone,” Eron said, a bit unsteadily. His abdomen flushed with panic as he emerged from the cool dark of the locker. Something instinctually told him that if there was anyone on the road who might stuff air vents with oiled cloth, these would be the men inclined toward that sort of base criminality.

  Stretching his arms and yawning, he approached their fire. “Rough night. Hangover. My friend is still sleeping it off.”

  Eron had never been a good bluff. And with the first crackling spurt of flaming wood, he skittishly jumped against the concrete box like a helpless rabbit taking cover from the roving megafauna. And it was completely unhelpful to his brave facade that at the exact next moment, a thick blast of smoke crossed his eyes. They watered uncontrollably as he tried again to sound as road worthy as possible.

  “But, I can handle it better,” he said, starting to choke just a little.

  "How old are you?" asked a dark haired man. In his weathered hands sat a steaming ceramic bowl. It smelled divine.

  Eron was salivating.

  “Twenty and five,” he said. Thadine had never told him exactly when he was born, but Eron was sure he was at least sixteen and had the wispy strands of early facial hair to prove it.

  They smiled, which Eron didn’t like, and then begin a complex series of hand signals.

  “Scribe,” said one.

  The other nodded gaining some comprehension of what the men were saying to each other.

  Whoo. Hooot. Woooot. Hooot.

  It sounded like an owl. Eron and the rough looking men watched as the wild boy’s legs buckled and he hit the ground with a thud only paces away from the fire pit. He continued to hoot on all four. The nomads backed away to the far side of the fire as Eron tried to process the confusion. Amit was naked, barefooted, in only his tattered loincloth with his freckled knees gleaming in the midday light.

  Eron had no idea the boy was so pale. He had never seen anything like it before.

  Amit rigidly arched his back and shook as if Earth was moving him throwing him onto his back, white skin in the mud and the dust and the traveler’s debris. The boy’s head and his drenched shock of pale hair bashed violently against the ground. His eyes rolled back.

  “Ishim!” cried the red headed nomad who had not yet spoken. His voice was high for a man his size.

  One of the other men, the tallest of the four with the most clearly almond shaped eyes, grabbed his cat skin mantle, a white long haired fur over his shoulders and grunted. In response, another pulled his leather pot from the wooden cooker and flung the rest of the beany muck fiercely onto the ground, rolling up his cookware while it was still hot. The men didn’t wait long enough to see Amit’s lips turn blue.

  But, he heard the ginger chopped man call it a fit.

  “In the aftermication, grandma would be knitting trousers as if nothing happened,” he was muttering, but the others were saddling their horses and did not seem reassured.

  Finally, Amit’s muscles gave in and his body conformed to the puddling nature of flesh conforming perfectly to the will of gravity.

  “He’s finished,” said the nomad with the sick grandma heading back to the fire pit.

  Instinctually, Eron fell on his palms. While he didn't bash his head quite as hard while flipping over, he barked loudly. The man changed his mind and joined his rugged companions in a swift retreat just as Eron got into the full swing of his performance. A little drool dribbled down his chin. It was a nice touch. His wrist stung where the dirt had collected in the wound made by the hags’ rope.

  Only one wrist. While Eron’s right arm was still scabbed and ached a little when he moved it, the other had healed clean, the skin perfectly intact. As soon as the clopping hooves faded down the road, he tore down the stairs into the locker to retrieve the two vials from the Dunedin herbalist still tucked into his bundle. The vials, made from a red glass, were hard to tell apart, but there was on the base of one, three bumps of glass in the shape of a triangle, and on the other, a squiggly line. The one with the three bumps healed. He placed a single brown dap under Amit’s tongue. Then, dripped a little more on the wrist, which had not healed.

  The boy slept soundly under the gentle warmth of the midday sun. As he waited, Eron gathered a few scattered beans left the stone benches and ate them, dust and all. It was officially the lowest moment of his life, he thought as he bit each bean carefully.

  “What happened?” said Amit when he finally rose.

  “You hooted,” said Eron.

  Although Eron had heard of the Ishim and how they could take control of a person’s body, he didn’t believe they were real. Just stories for children. Some people claimed that original settlers transformed into Ishim after living for a very long time. They lost density after drinking a special sort of herbal health tonic until their bodies became gaseous. The Ishim were immortal. Beings composed of only smoke and steam. It was a ridiculous idea.

  “Why did I hoot?” said Amit examining his filthy sunburnt body.

  “Maybe you were possessed,” said Eron.

  “Simple!" cried Amit. “I wonder what the Ishim wanted with me this time.” And he dusted himself off as if nothing unusual had happened.

  Already, the wound on Eron’s wrist was little more than a scar. But, for some reason, he was just glad the boy was alright.

  “Did you take your tube?” he demanded realizing he’d been unconscious for half the day.

  “No,” said Eron, “But, we’re only one day away from Waimate and you have learned the alphabet.

  The wild boy looked crestfallen.

  “I’m going to the D.O.T.,” said Eron. He hesitated for only a second. “You can come if you want.”

  The boy’s face lit up. Eron had never had many friends and none of them were younger than him. He tried to think what Achazya would do. He grabbed the boy’s head and starting rubbing it with his knuckles. Amit misunderstood. Pulling back, he tripped Eron and before he could blink once, the spotted boy had his elbow pressed into his trachea. It hurt. And he couldn’t breathe.

  He drew a desperate raspy stream of air inward.

  “I keep the tube,” said Amit releasing the pressure. “And you don’t mention food until we have some.”

  “Yeah, alright,” said Eron, and the boy let go.

  For the first time since he left the city, Eron was happy. He used the medicine on his blisters and even a pimple he felt growing on his forehead before they left down the road. Alive. That was all that mattered. If there was anything the road had taught him that city and village didn’t seem to know, it was that sometimes just being alive was the best thing that could happen.

  As agreed, he kept his mouth shut. Eron never mentioned eggs or takahe on their last day. He didn’t even breathe in dra
matically when they passed a vardo where two nomads stopped to cook rice and beefalo broth long before dusk.

  Though it was divine. Hunger did that. It made everything edible seem like a gift from the gawds. Root vegetables. Spices. Other things Eron didn’t talk about were boiled grains with sugar beet syrups and berries and nuts. And especially not hazelnuts, which he loved. He uttered no sound in reference to the packets of roasted hazelnuts served in Auck City at the ball games though they were on his mind for hours. Kebabs in garlic and bean sauce. Hot chocolate. Cheeses from the Saturday Market. Fresh cheeses. Old cheeses. Butter Cold slices of beefalo with mustard.

  Tight lips. Straight back. Straight legs. Eron kept walking.