Vacillian

by Joseph Burgo

  “I am called Savino. And you are one of the king’s brothers, I believe. I saw you last night. Might I ask your name?”

  When Tavi didn’t answer, the old man stared at him. Something about the bard reminded him of Pamina. The same kind of invisible light or heat seemed to emanate from him. Tavi wanted it to stop.

  “Ah well, I see. You have nothing to fear from me.” He removed his gaze from Tavi’s face and looked at him no more.

  “I’ve been studying this map of Messano,” the bard told him. The sound of his voice was full of tones that eased Tavi’s agitation. “It has been a great many years since I’ve seen one.”

  Map. What was the meaning of this word, map? Tavi stepped closer and tapped at the parchment – there, where the symbols looked like trees.

  “You’re wondering what place that might be. That would be the Forest of Calario, on the western edge of your country. It’s near the border with Bregasso.”

  Then the symbols actually were trees. Tavi felt his thoughts begin to race. They weren’t out of control, not yet. He made a broad motion with his hand, encompassing the whole drawing.

  “The map shows all of Messano, the known world. Here is Estneva, your country. Here is Salicia. And here, far far away, is the place I come from. It’s not marked on the map but it’s just there at the northern reaches. The Refuge, we call it.”

  A map then was a picture of the world. Those other curving symbols that repeated off to the right – they must be waves. With two fingers, Tavi tapped upon them.

  “The Sea of Migara,” said the bard.

  His thoughts were hurtling forward with such speed that soon he’d need relief. He might need to run for the shore.

  He tapped the figures that looked like little arrowheads.

  “Those are the Talomin Mountains.”

  Tavi next pointed to the symbols that looked like the ones that filled book pages. With his pointing finger, he moved from one symbol to the other.

  “Now that I cannot tell you. The Elders didn’t teach me to read or write, I’m sorry to say. Those skills are reserved for the scholars. But I can hazard a guess. Because these letters appear within the borders of your country, it must be the word Estneva.”

  The symbols were called letters. Groups of letters represented words. Tavi moved his finger to a different set of letters, a different word.

  “Bregasso.”

  And again.

  “Salicia.”

  One by one, Tavi pointed to each word on the map. The bard couldn’t identify every single place, but he said the ones he did know and Tavi committed them to memory. Muldina, Campalto, Andor. Before his mind’s eye, the words lit up and broke apart into letters, jumbling together at great speed in a way that sickened him. He couldn’t make them stop. He’d always known there were patterns on those book pages but now he had the key. His stomach churned with excitement. For a moment he thought he was going to vomit.

  Once he calmed himself, once the nausea had passed, he would put the letters back together into words. He would learn to decipher the patterns, to “read” them.

  But first he needed Mina.

  * * *

  Tavi found a tally stick in the counting room where his brother stored bags of gold pieces. Nical had the only key and always kept the door locked but Tavi knew how to coax it open. He’d never cared about gold but locked doors made him uneasy, so uneasy he felt compelled to find out what lay behind them. In the counting room, he also found a tally slate Nical hadn’t yet used. The other ones looked all the same: groups of four up-and-down lines in a row, with a fifth line slashing through them.

  Tavi could do most of the work in his head but some words he would need to copy down; he’d need to rearrange their letters before he could make sense of them. For this he needed a clean slate and tally stick.

  When he returned to the shelving room later that day, Pamina and the bard were talking near the table with the map of Messano. Tavi had the place names inside his head, so he didn’t need the map, but many more words would be necessary for him to decipher the full pattern. He needed books. The pressure to begin “reading” was intense. He could not resist it.

  The other two stopped talking as soon as Tavi entered. He quickly moved behind one of the freestanding shelves and into an alcove with a table and chair. He pulled a book from one of the shelves and opened it. From where he sat, he couldn’t see the other two but he heard their voices clearly. He went to work with the book and the tally slate and the word pictures in his head, all the while absorbing the conversation between Pamina and the bard. Though he paid no attention to what they said, the sound of their voices seeped into him.

  “I’ve never met one like him before,” said the bard.

  “Nor I, poor thing,” said Pamina.

  “He understands much more than the others realize, doesn’t he?”

  “I believe he understands almost everything.”

  “Does he never speak?”

  “Only a few words now and then. His thoughts are trapped inside his head. He was already like this when I first came here. I’ve tried to reach him but …”

  That letter there – it had to stand for the hissing sound. Salicia, Sudana, Estneva.

  “What about the king, his brother? Have you managed to influence him?”

  “Very little. I’ve wondered for a long time but now I believe ... I believe he is Rassitan.”

  “Are you certain?”

  “Yes. The third one died only yesterday. He is Rassitan though I believe he hasn’t yet realized it.”

  The hissing sound again, out there in her voice. Rassitan.

  “I wish I’d known. If only we’d spoken before my oration, I would have chosen differently. A Rassitan on a throne could be dangerous.”

  “Don’t trouble yourself. Nical is a man of few ambitions. Not terribly perceptive, either.”

  “There’s nothing to be done about it now.”

  Putting his top teeth against his lower lip made a sound he found only once within the place names – there in Estneva. The first Soltan had been named Vilan. The bard had called himself Savino.

  “And the youngest? How is he called?”

  “Arn. I still have hopes for him.”

  “He appears to be a drunkard. Not very promising.”

  “But with a good heart. He’s a loving boy in a world entirely without love.”

  “Except for yours.”

  “His mother ran off to join the Rabbians when he was less than a year old. I’m all of mothering he has ever known.”

  The humming sound with his lips together – in Pamina’s name and there upon his slate – Muldina, Talomin Mountains. Also in the word Mothering.

  “How old is Arn?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “A fully grown man. Isn’t your work here complete, then? Perhaps it’s time you returned to the Refuge.”

  “Arn needs me still. I know he does. Nical, too, in his own way. I am needed here.”

  “But what of your needs? Haven’t you earned your rest after all these years? At the Refuge, you might …”

  “I want for nothing here. I am content.”

  The open-mouth sounds – one like a sigh, one like a smile, one with lips fully rounded. There, there, and there.

  “You’re certain? Need I remind you of the False Comforts?”

  “Yes, I’m certain. Please speak of it no more.”

  Tavi had it now, the full key to the patterns. The agitation was almost unbearable – the speed of his thoughts and the way the letters kept appearing before his mind’s eye, word after endless word in a steady stream of light-points.

  Now he could read.

  * * *

  That night on the throne dais, cross-legged at his brother’s side with Mina’s head in his lap, Tavi could not stop himself from “reading.” Whenever Nical spoke, Tavi saw his words as if from the pages of a book. Pamina’s words, too. She stood before the dais with her head bowed. Nical’s voice was very loud
.

  “You’re so good at knowing what I want,” he said, “why didn’t you prevent him from going?”

  “I have no power over other people,” she said. “I am a Placekeeper.”

  “But you might have told me he intended to leave.”

  “I’m very sorry, your Highness.”

  “What good does sorry do me, you stupid old crone? And you’re still wearing that ugly dress. You are forbidden from entering my presence until you have changed it. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, your Highness.”

  “Out of my sight!”

  Now Tavi and Mina were alone on the throne dais with his brother. No one from Sudana had come to the great hall that night. During the evening meal, Arn had fallen asleep at table and was carried off to his room by two slaves. A few more slaves stood against the far walls, waiting for commands from the king.

  Nical made a rough rumbling noise in his throat. “This is a bad turn of events, don’t you agree? I was so looking forward to another story from the old man.”

  Nical meant the bard. Savino. The letters fell apart before his mind’s eye and came back together again.

  “You’re right, I could send the guards after him, but we don’t know which direction he chose. And maybe after all, now that I think it over, it’s for the best.”

  Tomorrow morning, he’d return to the shelving room. He’d choose another book from the shelves and read it.

  “If you must know, it’s because he’s given me quite enough to think about. That’s why.”

  He wouldn’t go back to the book he’d used to help decipher the pattern. That one spoke of plants and herbs and what to do with them when a person became sick. Tavi had no interest in plants and herbs.

  “You’re usually so observant. Isn’t it obvious to you?”

  Mina suddenly rose up and stretched, arching her back with front paws reaching forward from her body. She needed to leave the castle. She wanted to hunt.

  Tavi stood up and followed her away from the throne dais. His brother kept talking. The spoken words appeared before his mind’s eye as he walked away from the dais.

  “Let me put it this way. What would you think if your brother were to be King of all Messano? Would you like that? Now what name did the old man call it? I can’t remember. As for me, I think I’d very much like to be Supreme King of all Messano.”

  Soltan – that was the word the bard had used.

  Before his mind’s eye, Tavi saw it clearly as he followed Mina out of the great hall.

  Chapter Six

  Now that he was fully Devian, his worm weighed on his thoughts. It seemed such an important part of him, maybe the most important part of his body. For an hour or two, he’d forget about it and think of other things – the best way to trap a fish, or why the bird eggs he gathered kept exploding when he cooked them in the fire embers. Awareness of his worm always came back, and as time passed, it grew more intense. At least once a day, he had to give his worm what it wanted.

  Devian felt proud of it, too. When his worm grew to full size and he put his hand to it, he felt strong.

  His memory of earlier times spent as a boy seemed very different from what he now felt, and not only because of his worm. Broad shoulders, large muscles, and the soft beard on his face told him he was no longer a child. Most of the time, he didn’t mind living alone, hunting alone, or sleeping alone in the thickets and caves he found along the road. For the first time in his life, he didn’t have to pretend to be a girl. He was Devian now, not Devianna.

  In a vague, distant way, he remembered what it had been like to have a woman’s body and the opening within it. He dimly recalled the desire he had felt for men, but that feeling seemed weak compared to the urges he now felt. Many times a day, he imagined rutting – on top or from behind. Sometimes he felt frustrated that he could only picture it.

  In other ways, he felt himself to be the same person as before. He had the same memories of his village and still pined for Mother. He knew everything Devianna had known. It seemed like very little now that he had traveled far from home. Hunting with a bow came as naturally as ever, but what did he actually know of the wide world? Sometimes when sheltering at night in a thicket, the howling of the wind made him feel very small.

  Still a child.

  * * *

  He usually stopped in one place for several days though he’d been traveling steadily westward for weeks now. He hadn’t made up his mind whether to follow the old man’s advice and head for Nido, the abode of the Orsallins; for now, he enjoyed roaming wherever he liked without thinking ahead. Most of the time, he believed he would continue living on his own this way and worry about the next shift once he felt it coming on.

  But during those nights when the wind howled and rain dripped through the branches of his thicket, Devian wondered if Nido might eventually come to feel something like home. Not at first, but after he grew used to it. Maybe one day he would feel that he belonged.

  Other than the old man, he’d spoken to no one since leaving his village and rarely sighted other people along the westward road. Early on, he heard a baby’s cry in the distance and swiftly climbed up a tree. Concealed by its leaves, he watched a small wagon pass below with a single horse in harness. A huge man held the reins and a stout woman sat beside him on the bench. She wore a blue headscarf and apron like those women who’d come to the village the day Gianna died.

  The baby in the wooden crate lying on the wagon bed might have come from his own village … Devian’s throat tightened at the thought. It might even be little Enzo who was wrapped in that red blanket. The baby had stopped crying now. The man and the woman said nothing to each other as they sat side by side, staring straight ahead into the forest.

  Twice after that, he heard whoops and shouts in the distance and hid himself from view. Better not to come up against a pack of wildmen – they might not be so easily frightened as the last ones.

  As he continued traveling west, the ground gradually sloped downward and the forest began to thin. One misty morning, he came to the end of the trees just as the sun burned through. Before him stretched a wide plain covered with knee-high grasses rippling in the breeze. At its far edge, faint purple-hued mountains reached skyward, their peaks lost in thick clouds. The old man had spoken of a road that hugged the foothills, a road that would lead him to Nido.

  Never had he seen so vast a plain. For all his life, he’d stayed close to the village, and since setting out on his own, he’d lived beneath the forest cover. The wide-open space ahead made him feel very small. How far away were those mountains, and how long would he need to cross the plain? He had no sense of distance. Three or four days at the very least, maybe much more. He wanted to turn back and hide within the trees.

  Out there, he’d have no place to hide if he met with strangers. And what would he eat? He’d filled his water sack at the last stream, but it would last him no more than a few days. What if the plain were completely dry, without a single stream running through it? Maybe he should return to the forest, hunt and trap fish and maybe solve the problem of the exploding eggs. There was no reason why he had to go forward.

  He lingered three days at the edge of the forest, retreating into its depths whenever he needed to hunt. He gathered nuts and berries, more than he could eat, and stowed the extra ones in his pack. If he decided to cross the plain, he might have food enough to last a few days. If he cooked deer meat and wrapped it in wet leaves, it might not spoil before he reached the other side.

  He couldn’t decide what to do – go forward or turn back. The loneliness began to feel heavy.

  * * *

  When he awoke on the morning of the fourth day, his fire had gone cold. His right shoulder ached and a rock beneath his blanket had rubbed a sore place into his back. With twigs and branches he’d gathered the day before, he started a small new fire. Huddling next to it, he tried to warm himself but couldn’t shake off the chill.

  During the night, a squirrel or some other
burrowing creature had crawled inside his pack and eaten all the nuts and berries. He’d have to start over now. Or forget about crossing the plain. From his camp at the edge of the road, he gazed backward into the thickening forest. The longing for Mother grew strong. All morning he sat cross-legged beside the fire. The sun rose high but he felt as if he were still enclosed in darkness. For hours, he felt unable to move other than to stoke the fire from time to time.

  Hoof beats brought him suddenly to his feet with a racing heart. A horse or some other four-legged animal was coming toward him along the road, at full gallop, from the sound it. Too late to hide the fire – he should have made camp further from the road. Devian took up his bow and fitted an arrow in place. He set his stance and drew back the string. In the distance, he glimpsed a horse with a black hide within the trees, a rider on its back.

  Closer now. The rider kept craning his neck to look backward. The sound of hoof beats grew dense and complicated – there was another rider in pursuit but Devian couldn’t yet see him. He stood ready, tracking the front rider with his arrow. The front man was clearly afraid, in flight from danger. The pursuing rider and his gray horse jumped into view, gaining ground. A beam of sunlight through the trees caught a large patch of red on the second rider’s chest. It gleamed brightly for one moment and went dark.

  “Bowman, help me!” he cried. He must have spotted Devian standing at the ready. “He stole my gold!”

  The first rider was nearly even with the campfire now, a hundred yards or so away. Sighting down the shaft of his arrow toward the horse, Devian followed closely then let fly. The arrow pierced the horse’s shoulder where he’d aimed … it stumbled. The rider came down hard upon the road, tumbled once over, and lay unmoving on his back.

  Within seconds, the second rider had caught up, dismounted, and knelt next to the fallen man. He pulled a knife from a sheath strapped to his thigh and held it to the other’s neck. Light glinted on the blade – real metal. The wounded horse had regained its feet and stood nearby, the arrow sticking out from its shoulder.