Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  In the distance, Asha saw a dark shape towering above the hills. The ancient temple rose sharp and sheer to a level roof, a rectilinear silhouette of black on sky blue. She wondered idly how many hundreds of statues, how many countless painted gods stood posed along the tiers of the temple walls, and which one presided over the region. Shiva, probably. She didn’t wonder very long. It never mattered unless there was a festival, and then it only barely mattered. At least, not to her.

  She chewed on the sliver of ginger in the corner of her mouth. “There’s a town up ahead. We’ll probably get there by supper time if we keep up the pace.”

  “But you don’t want to keep going this way, do you?”

  Asha sniffed. “It’s a nice lake. I’d like to stay here a day or two and look at the frogs, and snails, and maybe the lilies. You never know when you might find something new.”

  Priya sighed. “You know, I’ve been hoping to stay somewhere larger than a village, at least for a little while. I have so much to teach people. So much to tell them about the things we’ve seen and done. How big do you think this town is?”

  Asha squinted at the massive temple rising high above the trees. “I’m guessing it’s pretty big.”

  “All right then. We’ll stay by the lake for a few days and you can play in the mud, but when you’re done we are going to that town and we are going to talk to people. Real people. Lots of people. Deal?”

  Asha rolled her eyes. “Deal.”

  They continued along the edge of the lake and passed the turn in the road that led south toward the temple. As the sun blazed small and white overhead, Asha spotted a handful of houses nestled in a grove of slender trees crowned with fiery orange flowers. Asha smiled. “Palash.”

  “What’s palash?”

  “A tree. A beautiful tree. It’s called the flame of the forest.”

  “Why is it called that?” asked the nun.

  “You’d know if you saw it.”

  “Is it good for anything?”

  “Skin cream,” Asha said. “But mostly I just like to look at it. I think I found a place for us to stay for the next few days.”

  There were four houses together at the water’s edge and each one had a small floating dock jutting out into the shallows where fragile canoes bobbed on the waves. Two jute-string fishing nets hung from the trees.

  Asha knocked at the first house and a smiling woman stepped out to welcome them. She introduced herself as Nisha and when they asked about staying with them, she regretfully admitted that three of the houses were quite full of the fishermen’s families. But there was room in the fourth house. Nisha winced and wrung her hands, and fell silent.

  “What’s wrong?” Priya asked. “Who lives in the fourth house?”

  * * *

  Nisha led them closer to the water. They could see a handful of little boats far out on the lake and off to their left Asha saw more than a dozen small children wading and splashing and running through the shallows as they chased frogs and hunted for snails. Nisha pointed to the right around the edge of the last house and Asha saw a pair of legs dangling off the porch into the water, back in the shadows.

  “Who is that?”

  “Rama.” Nisha sat down on the grassy bank and motioned for them to join her. “Poor Rama.”

  Asha tugged Priya’s sleeve and they sat down beside her. “Why poor?”

  “He was just such a nice young man with a lovely young wife. He built that house himself. He wouldn’t let anyone help him.” Nisha smiled. “He has such a nice smile.”

  Asha nodded. “But?”

  “But she died.” Nisha sighed. “Vina, his wife. She took ill during the rainy season a few months after they built the house. Rama was devastated. He just sat there in his house and stared at the lake. He barely fed himself. I was so worried, we all were. And then he began taking off at strange hours. He would disappear for days and later we learned that he was going into town to sit in the temple and stare at the images of Lakshmi. Poor boy.”

  “So he’s in mourning?” Priya asked. “Would our company be more helpful or harmful, do you think?”

  “Oh, he’s not in mourning,” Nisha said. “Not anymore. About seven or eight months after Vina died, Rama was out on the lake fishing by himself. We heard him cry out. It was a strange cry. A bit of surprise, a bit of pain. It only lasted a moment, but after that he stayed out there all afternoon, just sitting there. Eventually my husband paddled out to check on him and found that Rama was blind.”

  Priya leaned her head to one side. “How?”

  “We don’t know. He says he was just sitting in his boat, working his nets, when suddenly everything went white and he couldn’t see anymore.” Nisha nodded over at the last house again. “But that’s when everything changed for him. Rama stopped spending all his time alone. He eats with us in the evenings, laughs, and tells stories from his home village to the east of here. And he still fishes by himself. He ties his boat to the dock with a long line so he can pull himself back again when he’s done.”

  Asha frowned. “He was mourning his dead wife, but then he suddenly went blind and now he’s happy?”

  Nisha shrugged. “It seems so.”

  Priya touched Asha’s arm. “Is that bad?”

  “I don’t know if it’s bad, but it is strange.” Asha picked up a pebble and slowly turned it over in her hands.

  “Maybe there’s something you can do for him,” the nun urged. “I’m sure you know of something that could restore his vision at least.”

  Nisha cleared her throat and raised an eyebrow. “If you can cure the blind, then why…?”

  Priya smiled and touched the cloth covering her lifeless eyes. “I’m a bit of a special case. But Asha can do amazing things with a few twigs and leaves and seeds.”

  “You’re a doctor?” Nisha asked. “Can you help him?”

  Asha scowled and threw her pebble into the lake where it splashed down with a deep plop. “I’m an herbalist. But I’ll see what I can do.”

  * * *

  Asha approached the last house slowly, taking heavy steps in the thick grass to announce her presence to the man sitting with his feet in the water. He was tying knots in an old fishing net, weaving fresh jute strings among the old. His fingers paused in their little dance as he leaned his head toward her, just for a moment, and then he resumed his work. “Hello there. Nisha?”

  “Hello yourself. I’m Asha. Nisha said to remind you that she’s baking catfish tonight.”

  “I can smell the pepper already,” he said.

  Asha smelled it too, though she suspected the pepper wind was blowing from the town to the south from some vast storehouse where soft hills of peppercorns and pepper grounds waited to be carted off to other cities. Though some small trace of the scent might have come from the sand ovens of the neighboring houses. “Do you mind if I join you?”

  “Please.” He slid over to make more room on the narrow walkway at the water’s edge. Asha waded into the shallows and sat down on the warm wooden seat. The lake sparkled brightly as the westering sun glanced off the tiny waves, shining in brilliant silver and gold.

  She took a small pouch from her bag. “Ginger?”

  “No, thank you.”

  She poked a tender sliver into the corner of her mouth and began to chew as she examined the man more closely. She had expected someone younger, or thinner, or older, perhaps with tufts of white hair on his shoulders or a spotty beard, a weak chin, or gnarled hands. She had no idea why she had thought he would have any of those things, but when she first saw the cluster of houses on the edge of the lake, she had not thought to find a man who looked like this.

  Rama was tall and lean, and hard muscles rippled under his smooth skin as his hands worked. She didn’t see a hair on him except for the thick black waves hanging from his head to his shoulders, and the dark shadow on his chin. He wore mud-spattered cotton trousers and a colorless shirt of the same material lay at his side, pinned under a small stone. Instead of weari
ng a blindfold, Rama merely kept his eyes closed. Not squinting, not half-lidded. Just closed, as though he was only resting his eyes and at any moment he might opened them again.

  She saw the long black lashes skirting his lidded eyes, and the sharp black brows stretching above them, and the sharp brown cheek bones below them. And his smooth cheeks, and his long straight nose, and his strong square jaw.

  And his lips. Asha inhaled slowly, hoping to catch some of his scent, hoping to hear some quickening in his heart. Her eyes lingered on his lips.

  His lips moved. “That’s a strange habit you have.”

  Asha blinked and turned back to gaze at the lake. “What?”

  “Chewing ginger. I haven’t heard of that.” He smiled, his face still angled down toward his nets, his fingers still dancing through their knots.

  “Oh. Just something I picked up when I was younger. It’s good for a lot of things, which is important in my line of work.”

  “Which is?”

  “Medicines.”

  “The Ayurveda?”

  It was Asha’s turn to smile. “Yes, among other things. You’ve studied?”

  “Me? No. No, I just listen. I listen to everyone, wherever I go. You learn to listen really well when you can’t see.”

  “I know a little something about listening,” she said. “A dragon bit me once because I didn’t listen when I should have.”

  “A dragon? Really?”

  “Oh, yes.” She touched the scaly skin of her right ear. “I also have a blind friend with me who knows how to listen pretty well. Maybe later you two can trade techniques and secrets for eavesdropping on me.”

  He smiled a little wider. “I’d be honored. So, are you on your way into town?”

  “No. Well, maybe later. In a few days. I thought I might stay here and explore the lake for a while to see what’s growing around here. There might be something I can use.” She glanced up at the fiery tips of a palash tree reaching out toward the lake above them. “And if not, then at least I can enjoy these trees and the water for a few days. We’ve been in the hills for ages, or so my feet are telling me.”

  Rama nodded. “Well, you’re welcome to stay here. There’s plenty of room. I live alone. And I don’t mind sleeping outside.”

  “Thank you. We’d be honored to be your guests. But please stay inside. I wouldn’t dream of…” She trailed off.

  “Of making a blind man sleep on the ground?” He shook his head. “It’s nothing, really. Although I suppose I’d rather not wake up outside, forget where I am, and begin walking the wrong way. It might be a very long time before I reach another lake and realize it’s not mine.”

  Asha laughed. “You think you could tell one lake from another?”

  “Of course,” Rama said with a mock seriousness. “This is my lake. My home. Everything I care about is here. My life is here, in these waters.”

  Asha nodded to herself. “Nisha said you used to live in the east before you came here and built this house.”

  “That’s right.” He carefully rolled up his nets and set them aside. “I was born in a very large village on the banks of a very large lake. I loved it there. There was more trouble than any boy has a right to get into in a place like that. Fishermen, merchants, foreigners, weavers, tinkers, farmers, herders, priests. And then the real fun, the water and the boats, the nets and fish and clams and frogs and birds. So much to see and do. So many people to push into the water.”

  Asha smiled. “Really? That’s what you did for fun?”

  “Well, we spent most of our time in the water anyway,” Rama said. “But we had to grow up eventually, and the village was becoming a town, bigger and noisier. And one day I looked around and realized it wasn’t home anymore. So when I heard about this place from a man selling pepper, we packed our things and came here.”

  “Just like that?”

  “Well, we didn’t have many things to pack.” He lifted his face toward her and smiled. It was a genuine smile, broad and beautiful. “Those were the best days.”

  Asha felt guilty for breaking the spell of that moment, the spell of his smile, but she had to ask the question. “What happened after that?”

  Rama’s smile contracted, his mouth tense, a faint wince around his lidded eyes. “My wife, Vina, died shortly after we arrived here.”

  “Nisha told me. I’m sorry.” She reached over to squeeze his hand.

  He didn’t seem to notice as he sat nodding slowly to himself. “These things happen.”

  “I know. But it doesn’t make it any easier.”

  “Have you ever lost someone?” he asked quietly.

  “I lost everyone,” she said. “When I came home from my training, my father was dead and my mother and brothers had left the city. I never learned what happened to them. I suppose they might still be out there, somewhere.”

  “Do you miss them?”

  She shrugged. “I barely remember them now.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  Asha waited a few minutes for the melancholy shadow to pass. The wind rose, whipping the surface of the lake into a sparkling frenzy of sunbursts and water-jewels in the afternoon light. “Nisha also told me about how you lost your sight.”

  Rama’s enigmatic smile returned. “She’s a little protective of me, I think.”

  “Yes.” Asha dragged her toes back and forth through the cool water. “But I was hoping you might tell me what happened. There might be something I can do for you.”

  “Ah. The herbalist wants to heal me. Well, I think you’re going to be disappointed. I didn’t eat a bad fish, or step on a nettle, or poke myself in the eye.”

  Asha shrugged as she shifted a little closer to him. “Maybe not. But I’d still like to hear about it.”

  * * *

  Rama said, “It began like any other day. I woke up, washed up, ate a mango, and threw my nets in my boat. I paddled out to the southeast. There are some rocks out there that make a sort of shoal where I can usually find a catfish or two. The water is murky and there’s a lot of grass on the bottom around there. I cast my nets for a few hours, but didn’t catch anything worth keeping. I dove to the bottom a few times and spotted a few big ones, but I didn’t catch them. So I moved on. I think I paddled sort of northward, out toward the center of the lake. Somewhere that way.” He raised his arm to point out across the lake, though he didn’t turn his face to look where he pointed.

  Asha noted the direction, but saw nothing out there beside the bright flashes on the waves.

  “I threw my nets a few more times. I dove a few more times.” Rama sighed. “It was a lazy day. Hot. Still. All the birds were sitting in the shallows, in the shade. Even the children were lying on the banks. I was still mourning Vina then, I suppose. I felt so lost, and angry, and empty. I remember sitting out there on the water, staring at the nets in my hands, asking myself why I bothered to keep working. What was I working for? To feed myself? To stay alive? It all seemed so pointless.

  “I tossed my nets in the water one more time and watched them sink down into the darkness. I stared at the line in my hand, debating with myself over whether I should bother to pull it back up or just let it stay down there and rot.” Rama reached up to ease his long fingers back through his thick hair. “But of course I didn’t. I felt a tug, a shudder in the line. I pulled up the net and it was full of fish. Full.”

  “Full.” Asha nodded slowly. “Sounds like a good thing.”

  Rama laughed. “I guess it would be, normally. But we’ve never pulled up a full net. None of us. Not ever. But my net was full. I almost fell into the water wrestling it all into the boat. Catfish, carp, loach, and trout. I just sat there for a minute, staring at all that life squirming and wriggling and flopping in my net. And then I rolled it over to dump them all out again into the water. The net snagged on something. Probably my own foot. So I sat there trying to shake myself free and get the fish out the boat and as I looked down, a flash of gold in the net caught my eye. I reached down into the
net, into all those fish, and just for a second, I saw her.”

  “Her?”

  “Vina. I saw her face in a blaze of light, like fire, like the sun. I saw her,” Rama said, smiling. “She was alive, and happy, and waiting for me. She was so beautiful.”

  Asha chewed her ginger. “But then you were blind.”

  Rama nodded. “But then I was blind.”

  “Any other symptoms?” Asha took a moment to look him over again. Perfect skin, straight white teeth, clean nails, and healthy lips. Such beautiful lips.

  “You mean pain or something? No. No, I feel fine. I feel wonderful.”

  “Good.” She looked down the floating dock at the two narrow canoes tied there. “Can I use one of your boats tomorrow?”

  * * *

  When Asha woke at dawn, Rama was already gone. She stepped outside and spotted the man far out on the lake, a slender line snaking out across the water from the dock to his boat. Priya stood in the doorway behind her holding Jagdish in the crook of her arm. The mongoose stood up and squeaked.

  “So, do you think you can help him?” the nun asked.

  “Maybe. What do you think about him?”

  Priya smiled. “I think he’s a very nice person. And considering how happy and content he is after losing his wife and his sight, I’d say he has a remarkable soul.”

  “Maybe.” Asha paced down the wobbling, floating dock and untied the remaining fishing boat. She sat down in the bottom of the boat and pushed away from shore.

  “What are you looking for?” Priya called from the house.

  “Actually, it’s something I’m hoping to not find.” Asha picked up the paddle and began drawing long slow strokes across the surface of the lake. The little boat glided swiftly into the rising sun that flashed and glared in her eyes. She shaded her eyes as she dragged her paddle and let the boat come to a stop above the wavering shadows on the lakebed below. Leaning over, Asha could make out the shapes of the rocks and the slithering tangles of the long grasses on the bottom. A dark fish drifted past.