Tremain became animated. He was getting somewhere, he thought.
“And Ka-tahn?” he asked.
“I became Ka-tahn when my father passed through the portal, as did he when his father passed. There is only one.” He shook his head. “But I am the last of my line. I had no children.” He looked sad for a moment, then shook it off. “I will have to choose a successor when my time to pass through the portal comes.”
“Portal?” Tremain asked. The Ka-tahn shook his head again, in confusion.
“How is this that you know nothing of my people? Are we not the same?”
Tremain, warming to this old leader, scooted a little forward in the cot.
“Seeing as we come from . . .” he glanced at Christopher, “beyond the Godswall,” he continued, “let’s consider that our lives are very different from your own.” He paused for emphasis. “Think of us as total newcomers.”
The Ka-tahn nodded his head, understanding.
“Very well. I’ll play at your game.” He waggled a finger at Tremain, as if the younger man was toying with him. “For as long as I can remember, the Portal has been a place one only goes when it is his time to become one with the Gods.” He paused and cleared his throat, gathering his thoughts. “It only appears in the wall when the time is close. If the Portal admits you, then the Gods accept you. If it does not open, you are not yet ready.” He nodded his head. “My time approaches. I am an old man. I will make the journey soon.”
Tremain, confused by all this, ran his hand through his hair in frustration.
“How . . .” he stopped. He wasn’t sure if he was going to offend with his question.
“Please, ask your question,” The old man said. “There is no need to fear.”
Tremain stammered a little, still unsure.
“S-So, um . . . ah . . . exactly how does this wall appear? And the Portal as well?”
The Ka-tahn thought a moment.
“I remember when my father passed. The walk seemed long to me, but I was young and impatient. I am ashamed to admit I was eager to become Ka-tahn.”
Tremain made a conciliatory noise and waved the man on.
“The trees parted and I could see the valley below us. It was so beautiful. I took one more step and it all disappeared as if a dream. The wall stood there in its place. Implacable as is the will of the Gods.” The Ka-tahn nodded, lost in his memory. “I remember wanting to touch it, but was kept back by the Mehdi. The Portal beckoned to my father. It allowed him to enter. It was his time.” He bowed his head, honoring his father. “I became Ka-tahn.”
Christopher had pulled out his Philosophies book and was turning pages, looking for something. The Ka-tahn stared at it. “What is this?” He stood, shuffled over to Christopher and pushed at the pages with his fingers.
“It’s one of my text books.” Christopher replied. “You should see the homework I have to do.”
“Christopher,” Tremain said softly. Christopher saw the look in his uncle’s eyes. He closed the book and set it aside.
“Really, it’s not important.”
The old man, staring at the book as if it would bite him, stepped back and became the leader once again.
“I find your company very confusing, but I am curious.” Looking out the window, he remarked, “The dusk approaches. If you are still hungry, I’ll have evening meal sent to you.” He made for the door. Tremain stood, in respect. The Ka-tahn motioned him to stay. “There are times an old man wishes to forget the formalities. I’ll come visit again in the morning. We shall continue our conversation.” He pointed to Christopher and his books with a smile. “And you can explain to me all about your hom’erk.” With that, he left.
Tremain dashed to the door, opened it and watched the Ka-tahn shuffle back to his own residence, the guards following. Tremain shut the door and stood there, lost in his own thoughts.
“Funny old man, isn’t he?” Christopher asked. Tremain shook his head.
“Funny? No, I don’t think that’s the right word.” He came back to the cots and sat slowly. “He’d obviously never seen a book before, let alone your text book.” He reached for the book, which Christopher handed over. Tremain opened it and turned some pages. “What were you looking for just there?” He glanced up at his nephew as he kept leafing through the book.
“I was hoping to find a reference to the Godswall and the Portal. It seemed important to him, and I really don’t remember hearing about them.” He looked at the floor, sheepish. “I may not have been paying close attention in that class.”
Tremain chuckled a little at that.
“It’s not funny, Uncle, it’s boring!”
Tremain shook his finger at his young nephew.
“Boring or not, it’s all important.” He skimmed a few pages before closing the book again. “Still, I don’t see any mention of any sort of walls or portals.” Rubbing his chin, he handed the book back to his nephew, then lay down on the cot, lacing his fingers behind his head.
“So what does that mean? Nothing in the books, I mean.” Christopher asked.
“It may not mean anything at all, to be honest. There are always lots of little facts that are left out of history books, or philosophy books. That being the case, I think we need to learn more about these people.” He turned his head to face Christopher. “Maybe you should make some friends. Children usually know more than they let on about. You might learn something from them that I couldn’t.” He turned back to staring at the ceiling. Christopher huffed.
“You mean, just go up to someone my age and ask ‘So, what’s up with this wall thing?’” He abruptly plopped his books and pack on the floor and lay down himself. “Yeah, that’s going to work.”
Tremain chuckled.
“You’ll do fine. Just be yourself, Christopher. You’ll make friends in no time.”
Christopher fumed. Make friends. He really didn’t want to make friends, no matter how human they looked. He wanted to go home. He was going to protest some more, but then caught the sound of heavy breathing and light snoring. Tremain had fallen asleep. Christopher sat up and looked over at his uncle. The remaining light coming through the window shone on the sleeping man’s face. He looked peaceful. Christopher huffed to himself
“It figures.” He said quietly and lay down. A little while later, there was a soft knock at the door and the same girl came in with another tray. Taking away the empty bowls and cups, she left, leaving the evening meal on the small table. Christopher gave a good sniff at the bowls. A different kind of stew, but it did smell wonderful. He ate his as quietly as he could, not wanting to wake his uncle, despite his irritation, and lay down again.
He was just thinking about how tired he wasn’t when he started snoring.
CHAPTER SIX
Christopher opened his eyes to sunlight streaming in through the little window. A bird perched on the sill, watching him silently. As he moved, it chirped and flew off.
He stretched, scratched his head a little and yawned. Sitting up, he saw the other cot was empty, messy and unmade. His uncle had obviously woken up earlier and had left already. A delicious aroma made his stomach rumble and attracted him to the table. Grumbling and rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he went over and looked at the breakfast sitting there. It did smell good, but why did Tremain have to take off and leave him alone? Where did he go? He grabbed at one of the bowls filled with what looked like a porridge. As he hungrily slurped the warm gruel, he noticed a note tucked under the bowl. Setting the now empty porridge bowl down, he snatched up the note.
It was a paper from the lab, the address clearly printed at top. It was full of equations, notes, scribbles, doodles and was completely indecipherable except for one little note at the bottom left corner;
Christopher, I’ve gone exploring a bit. Be back soon. Eat the porridge, it’s very good. Go make some friends. Uncle Tremain.
“Go make friends he says.” Christopher muttered to himself. He drank a provided container of cool, crisp water and s
tood, brushing his clothing out and wishing he had a mirror. Feeling his teeth with his tongue, he wished he had his toothbrush as well. He looked over at the chamber pot in the corner. Um, no. He thought to himself. No way am I using that. But where could he . . . ? Going over to the door, he opened it to find himself face to face with three kids roughly his own age. There were two boys and a girl, whose hand was raised to knock at the door. He gave a little yelp and jumped back. The girl brought her hand to her mouth and giggled a little.
“Y-you startled me!” He said after recovering. The taller of the two boys, a dark, wiry kid, walked up to Christopher and gave him a steely look in the eye. Christopher, not sure what to do, stared back.
“You don’t look like a God to me.” He said and moved back a few steps. Christopher stammered a little, not sure how to respond. He held up his finger, as if making a point.
“Ah . . . no, I’m not a god. I’m just a kid.” Grabbing his backpack, he went outside again. He took a deep breath and held out his hand. “I’m Christopher.”
The others just looked at him. Lowering his hand, he put it in his jeans pocket and cleared his throat. The girl shook her head and growled at the boys.
“They’re just being stupid boys.” She moved over to Christopher and placed her hand on her chest. “I’m Tika.” She pointed at the tall dark boy. “That’s Dorin, and that’s Egger.” She pointed to the other, shorter and stockier boy. His big, brown, cow eyes stared back at Christopher. He held a fishing pole in his right hand and wiped his nose with his left. Christopher was unimpressed. He turned his attention back to Tika.
“You guys were the ones who saw us when we . . . um . . . arrived.”
She nodded.
“How did you make the light?” Her eyes were wide. Christopher noticed how blue they were and gulped hard.
“Uh . . . t-the light?” He felt his face flush under Tika’s stare. He looked down at the dirt and shifted from one foot to the other. The tall boy, Dorin, gave him a little shove on the arm.
“Yeah, the light. I saw it too.” He stepped back, his jaw forward and his feet apart, as if waiting for Christopher to charge him. “You weren’t there, the light came, then you were there. How did you do it?”
Christopher finally understood what they were talking about. He hadn’t seen the light himself, being in the middle of the transmission.
“Oh. I get it. The light. When we got here. Um . . . I don’t know, really. It must be part of the . . .” How could he describe the transmitter? If this was truly their past, they wouldn’t understand anything he said anyway. Plus, thinking about some of the stories he read over the years, he really couldn’t say much about the future, now could he? “. . . the way we got here.” He nodded to himself, sure of his quick thinking. Dorin stared at him, his eyes narrowed. Cow eyes stared too, snuffling a little, not interested. Tika’s eyes were bright, her hands clasped up by her chin, as if Christopher was telling the secrets of the universe.
“Did you come from beyond the Godswall?” She asked breathless. Dorin whirled to her and growled.
“There’s nothing beyond the Godswall, Tika. You shouldn’t ask that.”
“No, it’s okay.” Christopher waved his hand, dismissing the supposed problem. “She can ask.”
Dorin stomped to Christopher and stood nose to nose with him, nostrils flaring, eyes narrowed to slits.
“There is NOTHING beyond the Godswall.” He hissed.
Christopher’s heart pounded and his palms were clammy. What the heck did he do to get into this mess?
“Have you been there yourself?” It came out as almost a whisper, he couldn’t find his breath. Dorin stared at him, then looked away and stepped back. Christopher could see the boy’s jaw clench and a vein in his neck pulsed.
“Nobody has.” He said through gritted teeth. The ones that do, never come back.”
The silence became thick.
Egger shuffled his feet.
“I’m going fishing. If you want to talk like some old women, go ahead. I’m going.” He started down the path, heading towards the lake. Tika grabbed Dorin’s arm and pulled him along too. Dorin followed. Tika turned to Christopher.
“Do you want to come fishing?” Her golden hair caught the sunlight and her eyes glinted. Christopher could barely think straight when he looked at her.
“Uh . . . sure, I’ll come.” Make some friends, his uncle had said. Sure, he’ll go fishing. Hopefully he could learn something and not get into any fights. He followed the other three.
The path wound around the village and faded into the scrub as they left the trees. Christopher could see green grass ahead of them, off to the right villagers were tending to the fields, small figures visible between the rows and rows of plants. Directly ahead of them grew more willows, beyond which he could see the lake. It was partially hidden by more trees and a rather large hill, but stretched out into the distance. He walked up next to Dorin and Tika. She looked over at him and touched his backpack.
“What do you have in there? It looks heavy.”
Dorin pulled her a little closer to him, ignoring Christopher, who hefted the pack a little higher on his shoulders.
“Just my books. I was at school earlier and . . .” He trailed off, not sure how to explain it to them.
“Books?” Dorin finally found interest. “What are books?”
Christopher stopped, pulled off his backpack and pulled out a text book. It was his history book, not that he had any worry of them reading it. He handed it to Dorin, who took it, uncertainty in his face.
“That’s a book.” Christopher showed Dorin how it opened. Dorin ran one finger over the writing.
“What are the little marks?”
“Words. You read them. It tells a story.”
Dorin made a dismissive noise in his throat, slammed the book shut and shoved it back at Christopher.
“We don’t need little marks to tell stories. We have people to tell us stories.”
They walked on, Christopher replacing the book and shouldering his pack again. He knit his brows, thinking hard. No idea of books or writing. What kind of people are they?
Rounding a bend, they finally reached the lake. The shore was gravelly, with larger stones haphazardly strewn about. Christopher could see fish jumping, the ripples rolling along the water’s surface. He could smell the sharp tang of the water plants that grew along the edge of the lake. Egger marched down the edge of the water to a group of larger, flat stones that he climbed up, then threw out his line. Dorin set up his pole where they stood. Tika sat on the ground, her feet in the water, splashing a little. Dorin shook his head.
“You’re going to scare the fish like that.” He said. She giggled and slapped at his legs.
“You always say that.” She turned to Christopher. “He keeps saying that but he still catches fish.”
Christopher watched Dorin cast his line out, whipping the pole in the air a few times, then reaching out long, the line playing itself out into the water. He sat down next to Tika.
“So, what’s your tribe like?”
He looked over to see her staring at him.
“My tribe?” He really didn’t live in a tribe. But looking at it, he supposed Capital City could be described as a very large tribe, couldn’t it? He watched Dorin pull his line in, then whip and cast out again. The line looked like a shimmering line of spider silk as it gracefully arched over the water.
“Where I live it’s very different from here, let me tell you.” He finally answered. She brightened.
“How is it different?” She gave his clothes a once-over. “Do all your people wear funny clothes like you do?”
Christopher laughed at that.
“Funny? Nah, there are different clothes that people wear. I like comfortable stuff, like my sweatshirt. My uncle always wears his lab coat.”
She wrinkled her nose at him.
“Like she said, funny names, funny clothes.” Dorin snorted and went back to fishing. Christopher s
hook his head. Even here, the boys played the same games, always trying to one up the others. He was different from them, so to Dorin he became something to ridicule.
“I’m sure you’d feel right at home in my school, everyone wearing what I am and you having the different clothes.” Christopher countered. “I’ll guarantee you wouldn’t be laughing then.”
Dorin ignored him and concentrated on his pole. Tugging at the line, he pulled in a fish. He shouted over to Egger, who waved back at him. Tika clapped her hands together with glee.
“Dorin always catches a fish.” She clapped a little longer, then turned back to Christopher. She looked sideways at Dorin, then down at the gravel before she whispered; “You do come from beyond the Godswall, don’t you? She flinched a little as Dorin stiffened. Christopher, quick to diffuse the situation, nodded.
“I think we do.” He paused a little. “To be honest, I’m not sure what you mean by a Godswall.”
Tika gasped. Dorin dropped his pole. His fists clenched, he stormed over to Christopher.
“The wall is sacred! Everybody knows about it!” He was all but shaking in fury. Christopher realized he was walking on thin ice. He didn’t want to offend anyone, but he felt he needed to understand what this thing was.
“I’m sorry . . . but if I do come from somewhere else, and I do, how would I know about it?” He held his hands out, trying to calm Dorin. “I don’t want to offend you, but I would like to understand.”
Dorin, breathing heavily, snatched up his pole and walked down the lake shore, away from them. Tika, wringing her hands, turned back to Christopher.
“Don’t worry about him. He’s just scared about the ceremony.”
“What ceremony?” Christopher was curious. What was there to be scared about in such an apparently idyllic place?
“The ceremony of adulthood. Every child has to take the walk to the Godswall and back.” She looked into Christopher’s eyes, her eyebrows turned up, pleading. “Some go and don’t come back.” She almost whispered. “The wall takes them.”
Christopher, his curiosity fully fired up, felt he was onto something.
The Adventures of Tremain & Christopher BoxSet Page 5
