by T. Wyse
He ejected the pack onto the ground with a clamorous final rattle, and his heart reluctantly cooled as he met the slower echoing footfalls that led him past the Black Tent and towards the house.
The house was a skeletal sibling to Mana’s, or any of the other elders’ dwellings. It sat in a grumpy exile at the foot of the mountain, far away from even the smallest remnants of road. Kechua had never seen the old man leave his tent, which stood about thirty feet from the dwelling, and even his most intense concentration could find no history of the man leaving his shadowy world for anything. Where the other elders painted their houses white, Xatl’s remained a naked brown, a gradient of red growing more intensely as it embraced the sand of Glalih at its foot.
The earth and floorboards around the tent and inside the house only remembered three pairs of human feet. He and Anah formed the most recent memory, with a lonely and reluctant rhythm before his that had to have been Mana’s. The faintest memory of a flurry of construction were the only traces of other humans within, and to even get a taste of that, Kechua needed to push his sense far enough for his head to ache.
One could approach the house and peek through the sides of the unfinished boards, into the dusty shadows of the insides. Such a snoop would see a house mirroring the design of any within the white circle, larger than the slender trailers given to most in Glalih, and yet with the fleshed-out comforts stripped away from its bones. The floors and ceiling of the house were as gaping as the walls, leaving naked boards with unsure gaps above and below. A set of solar panels above kept the house mostly in the shade, and the pithy rain took pity upon the boy’s dwelling, never intruding more than a fine mist at best.
No rugs hung to make false hallways and rooms within the house. Only a single couch sat starkly in the middle of the open space, facing directly at the window, though the black husk stood interference on almost every inch of whatever view that could have existed.
If the visitor’s curiosity were enough to push inside the door, which bore only empty holes where the locks should be, they would immediately be assaulted with the piercing scent of sap and dust. A layer of Glalih’s reddened powder settled upon every surface fit to carry its weight, though only half-constructed shelves and raw flooring lay behind the couch. A tiny nook to the left of the door had a competing set of pale grit; wood shavings that grew in size closer to the little workshop of the boy. Two narrow paths formed a linear circuit throughout the house; a crescent path leading from the nook, stopping to clean most of the couch. It passed in a blob spilling from the door, only to stop with another blotted end in the kitchen opposite the entry.
In the tiny nook, which served as Mana’s patient area in her version of this prefabricated world, sat all the universe Kechua dared carve for himself. A raised bed, close enough to the ceiling that it bore scuffed scars from him rising to sit at night, hovered just above the beginning of the window pane.
Below, in his terrestrial realm, sat a sparse table with a heap of his various clothing pieces folded and stacked in as much of a measure of order as could be managed. The dirty pieces of laundry lay tossed into a basket, a muted scent of earth and blood rising from it, but one no longer bothering him or Anah.
Directly below the bed sat a stool and a raised workbench beside it. A plethora of carving knives—almost all the same size and make—sat in a uniform soldiered march to form a kind of backboard. Lean and pale wood lay in stacks to the side, and towards the end—where the light touched a wall of about ten logs—aliens imported from the northwest, waited to be shaped.
Upon the wall beyond the nook, stacked in a tight chaos stretching to the beginnings of the window, stood a grim zoo of carved monsters. The creatures varied in form. A spider-eyed dragon writhed its way across a trio of horned bears, all of them frozen, with their jagged and mismatched teeth yawning in threat. The blobbed form of some watery beast reached up with squared razor claws wound upon thin sinew. It awkwardly held an armadillo, whose back opened into a hollowed cave of daggered stalagmites. The creatures bore only one common feature: They all cast their carved eyes upwards at the cot hovering above them, and they were the first shadowy things the boy saw when he woke.
Reddened sand served to clot the space between most of the floorboards. The sand fled from the area under the small kitchen. Gaps, from the sickly liquid the air conditioner dribbled out from time to time, allowed a peek into the puddled green stain left under that section of the house. None of these units ever did more than leak this fluid, serving to harden the sand into a limey green rock before eating their way into disconcertingly shadowy pits.
The kitchen itself featured a tiny counter, which was taken up with his toothbrush, soap, and a towel he used for makeshift showers. Wires flowed in from the solar battery above, feeding exclusively into the fridge and to the two lightbulbs in the house, though they required the window in the kitchen to have a circle sawed into the middle of it. Piping reached from the sink towards the roof, managing only to block the rest of mountain’s view from that angle, as the pipes were connected to nothing. No COT truck ever came to service that far, and none would have been welcomed. His ragged outhouse and having to lug his own water was a fair price to have to see them less, if they even knew of the spot.
The acid smell was worse that day, and he bit at his nose as he opened the buzzing fridge. The fluorescent wasteland yawned sleepily at him, revealing rows of water jugs upon the upper shelf dwarfed by a bulbous grey container labelled “COT M-Provisions: Cheese Snack.” A cluster of single-serving ration packages—all bearing the COT mark —filled out the middle shelves, and a few larger packs lurked in the drawers below. The only oasis away from COT was the door of the fridge, stocked with dried meats of various sources and a cluster of preserved fruits.
He scooped out the old man’s ration of the blinding orange cheese, completing the meal by cracking open a package of “COT M-Provisions: Bread,” and put half of the dried square pieces of ‘bread’ onto a waiting grey plate. The overwhelming stink of the cheese made him crave the stinging bite of the chemicals below.
He mused at the plate as he passed the door with his offering in hand. The cheese had to be magic, as it sustained and preserved the old man perfectly for the last twelve years.
He slipped carefully into the blackened world, the tent flap snapping the chasing light away. The smell of leather and earth, with a hefty dosage of spice, filled Kechua’s nose. The ever-soft scent of the fire chased away the wicked spirit of the cheese’s aura, and he slipped down to his knees, shifting into his cross-legged rut.
The darkness opened around him as his eyes adjusted. Even with the clutter of the boxes around the floor and the bonfire ever burning within, the place seemed larger inside than the neighboring house.
The floor of the place was formed from a tapestry of hides, all of them large, shining, and long-since cured. Kechua always found himself upon some grey hide, bearing a few black stripes at its side. The fur was too soft to be canine, but far too large to even be some twisted panther. The hides formed the ground of this pocket world, curving upwards to meet the first rung of the tent, where the unwoven blanket draped over a wooden rail and gave the place the feel of a loose, concave drum.
Echoing footfalls skittered a beating rhythm against the surface of the drum, interwoven with the hidden habits of the old man beyond the flame. The shaman never really moved in Kechua’s presence, but the memory of the earth betrayed his snoring, his stoking of the fire, of tending to his needs, but never once leading outside.
His—and to a rare degree, Anah’s—footfalls intruded upon the memory of the place, but any other intruder wasn’t consistent enough to be ingrained in the earth. Scratching and slithering on many different counts of feet also came to the old man, evidence of something Kechua didn’t quite understand, but could not deny and never dared ask.
Kechua slid the plate around the flame to the right, and the old man’s form shifted. The fire obscured the old man’s face in full, only
offering ever-changing pieces as it crackled and danced between them. He would sometimes see an entire eye, or catch sight of the stained ash upon his face, but little more. Xatl’s staff, however, was something Kechua could recall with crystal clarity.
The empty plate and sealed pot of ash and filth slid around the fire to the boy. The old man let the silence hang longer than usual, letting his meal sit untouched.
He swore he could see something move upon the second highest rung of the hut and glanced upwards slowly.
The hut’s reality was forged of circles within circles. The circle of the base rose to meet the open chimney above—the circular pit the fire obeyed in full—never once being so brash as to cast a spark anywhere but directly upwards. Three halos rose above the hides, and from each hung a different set of objects. From a demure pair of feet above the curved floor dangled talismans and fetishes of all makes and wildly varying shapes. Bone and twig served as the old man’s medium, though Kechua had never seen him actually weave any of them, nor could he figure out if their numbers ever changed. What baffled him most about the trinkets was they shuffled from day to day like restless children, impatiently waiting to graduate in some impending ceremony. He never saw them move, of course, but often imagined them trembling to life the second he left the tent.
On the highest rut, framing the chimney hole, lay a string of something Kechua could only assume were gems of some kind. They shone a brilliant and glaring yellow into the tent in the daytime, and in the night, they glowed a bluish white and cast pale and long shadows into the world beneath.
The middle rut sat just high enough that its occupants dangled above and below the old man’s hunched shoulders. A pantheon of animal hides dangled from the hoop, all of them hanging from their back legs, and all of them facing inwards. These also wandered like the fetishes, but Kechua was always faced with a predictable selection of them during each visit.
A shrunken creature—perhaps mistaken for a coyote—with a pelt noble enough to hint at some dwarfish wolf of some kind, tended to dangle on the outskirts, just beyond Kechua’s peripheral sight.
A pair of shed snakeskins always bracketed the preserved scales of a full python of some kind, large enough that it needed to be folded upon the ring to dangle without touching the floor.
A tiny white thing, face too snubbed to be a fox, but pelt too pure to be any sort of wildcat, tended to sit squarely behind the shaman, sometimes swapping with a faded crocodile skin.
He felt their gazes every moment spent within the tent, the fire casting a playful life upon the beads shoved into dead eye sockets. He waited on the pale rug, the flames trickling over the shaman’s face, washing shadows over his thoughtful expression. The man looked like tiny hands crinkled his face playfully when he thought hard.
“You will do as she asks,” the man croaked. “There is wisdom enough in what she says. You will first go to each of the hands directly, in turn, and see what has become of them. Use your sight to feel what they once were. You will then go to the head and spend your meditation there. Dance, feel the echoes of what the place once was, and allow yourself to fall into sleep within the rocks.”
Kechua’s stance faltered a moment, not from the demonstration of omniscience by the man, but rather something he hadn’t ever shown before. “After all these years, you’re agreeing with her? That’s a first,” Kechua bit, thinking of the beaded garment. “I thought she was an idiot who caved and s—”
The flames parted as the staff cracked Kechua across the shoulder.
“Ow!” The surprise of it caught him more than the pain, though the shaman knew where to make it hurt more than Talah ever could.
“Mana is a shaman. No matter what you think I have said, the spirits gaze upon her still. You will do what she asks in full. You will carve the totems for her so they can pay for the medicine she requires. You will dance again for the outsiders.”
The boy squirmed on the rug, but he sat in silence.
“It is true that in the past, I have been . . . harsh. She has earned that much. However, the attention and affection of our gods is something earned. Something, you may remember, that you have not.”
The old man drew a long breath and planted his staff in the ground, letting the head rise into the circle of watchful pelts. “Whether you have listened or not, I have told you of the ways we earn our favor; what pleases them and draws them to us.” The fire crackled pensively a moment. “Now stay silent, but ponder: How do we fulfil this expectation as our world shifts?”
A lifetime of similar fire-splitting strikes silenced any answer he could attempt.
“The spirits still watch us and watch over us, though their eyes are slit and tired. Yet it is as it was before: To attain their favor, you must either do what they expect and do it to perfection, or you must surprise them; wake them from their boredom. Inspire the timeless to shake the dust from their hides and accept either the blessings or wrath that follows.”
The sparkle of the Shaman’s gaze, a single-gemmed eye, cut across the conceding flames and into Kechua’s skull. “For most young folk, the trip takes four days. Upon your practiced feet, you will take two. You will see what has become of the hands, for even the poison leeched into the earth will not hurt you. Do not be seen by the outsiders drilling, but see it and feel it with your gift. Then you will go into the head and dance alone and true, for yourself and the sky and the earth. When sleep finds you, if you have been honest and worthy, earning the attention of the spirits, your answer will come.”
“Then you will go into elder’s circle, a man already and now much more, and you will dance for their entertainment again.”
“Why?” Kechua bit. “You don’t care about that.”
The stick turned but remained standing. “It is for you. Not me; not Mana or the circle. This is an answer that you seek, to the questions that I cannot share because I do not know. You have been true to your path these years, and for that, the spirits now know you; now wait for you to reach to them. Little has changed in these years, but I believe you will finally have the guidance you crave.”
The words clashed against the set rhythm, clattering like a shattering glass against a rock.
“Good enough reason then?” The stick lay down in the old man’s lap, and he waved at the discard pot and the boy in one dismissive motion. “Good. Now take that and go.”
***
He glanced at the magazine again, brushing the carving chips away and back at the log, his knife in mid-stroke against the naked face. He had to fight his hand from striking against the forming face, of letting it move as it wanted, to scar it and bring out the ugly ferocity within.
“Okay, right. Right,” he muttered, fighting his eyes back onto the page. His hand brushed his hair, tangled and held in place with jagged chippings. His hair only tangled in his still moments, the shine imbued in it fading when he slept, and immediately shed such imperfections the moment he returned to his rhythms and run. The door clacked quietly and broke his trance, but he ignored it, forcing the blade to strike the soft wood as instructed.
At first, he glanced at the page every few strokes, and each cut thin shavings away. He felt the rhythm of it, allowing the tool to knock against his bones, to flow with his motions, and to chew into the block. The light footsteps crept carefully behind him, but he used their rhythm to drive him further in. Within moments, he reached the climax of his pace, tearing at the meat of the wood; molding the faces in a style aping but not copying the desired goal.
A hand tickled at his shoulder, the fur upon it not entirely a surprise. The face of a dog slipped into his periphery, the fur real enough to retain a little eeriness.
The puppet looked at him, then down at the carving.
“Ooh, can’t wait to see!” the dog’s lips flapped in loose timing as it spoke with a barely garbled girl’s voice . . . The puppet slid backwards, and Anah leaned into his hair a moment before slipping away.
Kechua moved into the pace of it; of the wood peel
ing and the grain flowing away. He turned the evolving totem furiously, defining not the shape of the expected bear and hawk, but of something beyond them, of what he imagined the face of the skinned cat creature to be, of the snake with two skins; of the tiny wolf. He poured them all into the totem, defining a four-headed shape to the wolf only around the middle of the totem, and gave the other two legs and tails instead.
He finished, the beady and sparkling eyes of the six faces shaped within the furious drumbeat of his still-racing heart—no monstrous glare upon their faces; no elongated fangs or teeth bared against him. It was a pure creation, one that made his hands ache with loathing.
“Mnh,” he muttered, his eyes noticing that evening had flowed into night, and the dangling artificial sun glowed above. “Garbage.” He sighed with an angry twinge.
“It’s beautiful.” Anah leaned in, showing her face.
“It is!” agreed the grumbling wolf puppet.
“Is it for Mana?” he asked.
The puppet, unoriginally dubbed “Talah,” served as her teaching aid. She used it whenever tasked to substitute or aid in the schoolhouse, though the gaping jaw and flapping tongue of the thing terrified more than delighted.
“Yes.” He stole a look at the stacked wall of logs behind them and took a longing look at the aged and twisted wood sitting at the edge of his desk.
“You can do that any time,” Puppet Talah grumbled happily.
“Is that a new chisel? “ Anah added.
“Of course, it is,” he mumbled, rising to give a lingering stretch before gripping her close. “New chisel, new shirts, new shoes, and an apology letter. Same as ever.” He snatched the hastily-penned splurt of words and waved it at her. “Take that thing off, would you?”
“Aww, don’t make me go!” the puppet groaned. “I wanna hang out!”
“Nope, I guess he doesn’t like you either.” Anah gave an exaggerated sigh, and the little wolf slumped. She slipped it off and let it rest on the desk.
