Tull wondered how he could carry the bag with Ayuvah’s belongings and give it to Etanai. He imagined handing the doll and the cloth to Sava, gifts from a dead man.
Of all the things that had happened to him on the journey, this one act seemed as if it would be hardest to bear.
***
Chapter 41: Widow’s Rock
Tull reached Widow’s Rock nine days later without sighting another black sail, and from there he turned west and followed the fjords back to Smilodon Bay, through the wide channels where redwoods rose at water’s edge.
The weather seemed unseasonably warm after the cold of the north, and the tide was low.
He landed the boat on a brushy shore near a rock slide, tied the boat to the roots of a fallen redwood that protruded into the water. Then he unfurled his sail and laid it upon the ground, filled it with rocks, and tied the three ends of the sail together to form a bag. He walked out onto the redwood, fastened the black cord from the egg mass to the rocks, and pushed them all into the water.
He held onto the bag, let the rocks carry him down into the water, and at forty feet, he could still not see the bottom, so he let the bag go, watched it carry the eggs down into the murky depths.
Air escaped the bundle, bubbling up, and for a moment he remembered the ceremony he’d had near here months ago, when the Pwi adopted him into their family. He imagined that the bubble escaping were like the ones that had risen from his own bag.
He swam back up to his boat, and with the rising tides pushing him, he paddled into town, tied the boat at the docks.
The sky was gray and overcast. A light rain drizzled. He felt surprised that no one met him at the dock, yet the smoke of cooking fires rose from the houses, and between the rain and cooking fires, he figured that everyone must be safely tucked in their homes.
He unloaded the boat, putting his spare clothes in one bundle, along with his war shield, his battle armor, and his blade of Benbow glass. He looked at the tiny bundle of Ayuvah’s belongings.
Tull grabbed the two bundles, hiked one up on each shoulder. He decided to go to Moon Dance Inn first, tell them that Scandal would be returning in a few weeks, get some paper to wrap his presents for Sava and Etanai.
He walked up the streets of the city, and everything still looked the same—the old stone buildings leaned at odd angles from their crumbling foundations; peacocks scurried from his path as he made his way through the street. Yet something seemed … off.
He gazed down the alley where he had first kissed Wisteria as a child, and felt only old sorrow, not the hot arousal of his youth.
He headed uphill toward the black part of the city where he’d run from his childhood, where the kwea of fear always made his neck tingle, and the fear was stale, like flat beer. He marched through the city, and though nothing had changed, nothing was quite the same.
Some children were out in the street rolling a barrel, and they stopped to watch him. He thought for sure that they would raise a shout, tell everyone of his return, but no one spoke.
Then Tull realized that they were not looking at him. They were only watching his blood-red cape, the cape he’d taken from the Blade Kin.
At the top of the hill, outside the front porch of Moon Dance Inn, sat a barrel with a dried-up rose bush planted in it. A tiny orange-haired Thrall child squatted next to the barrel, dressed in rags. Tull wondered what a Thrall was doing here, so far from Denai, so far from the Okanjara of the Rough. But as he approached the child looked up and shouted, “Tull! Tull!”
It was Wayan. Tull had mistaken his brother for a Thrall. He dropped his bundles and scooped the child up, and Wayan hugged his neck.
The hard metal edge of Wayan’s leg shackles pressed against Tull’s belly. Tull touched the shackles with his hands, remembered the shadow of the Mastodon Man.
His childhood had been such a terror that even now he could not dredge up a single pleasant memory. Tull felt his chest warm with rage. Ah, home at last, he thought. At least one thing remains the same.
Scandal’s steward rushed from the inn and shouted, “You’re back!” then looked about nervously and asked, “Is Scandal with you?”
“He’ll be back in eight weeks.”
“Oh, good,” the steward said, brushing sweat from his forehead. “I’ve got a lot to do to get ready for him. A lot to do.”
Tull wondered briefly how the steward could get eight weeks behind in his work. He handed Ayuvah’s bundle to the man. “Get some paper to wrap the doll and silk,” he said. “I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
Scandal’s whores and serving wenches began issuing out of the building. “Did you catch some serpents?” one of the whores asked, her eyes wide.
“Maybe a thousand of them,” he answered softly. “The eggs are in the harbor.” A serving maid clapped her hands, and everyone began speaking loudly.
Tull opened his own pack, pulled out his sword of Benbow glass. He ran his fingers along the black cuirass of Blade Kin armor, but decided he didn’t need it. He picked up his wooden war shield, painted in shades of forest green and brown.
“Keep Wayan here for a moment,” Tull asked of the whores. “Keep him inside.”
Out in the city, someone announced that Tull was back, and one of Scandal’s cooks shouted that the serpents were in the bay. Everywhere, everywhere the people began running out the doors to see if it was true.
Tull headed into the dark part of town, toward his father’s home.
He felt like a salmon swimming upstream; people were water that parted as he passed. They gathered all around him, talking at him, enjoining him to speak, but he simply moved beyond them.
At the bottom of the hill, past the inn, he saw his father’s house, and as always, the sky seemed to darken over that place. He could feel the evil issuing from it, all the old cold and rot that had ever been here, as if this were the very abode of Adjonai.
Ah yes, Tull repeated, home at last.
His mother opened the front door and flew from the house shouting, “Is it true? Are you home?” and Tull looked past her.
He shouted, “God screw you, Jenks Genet! Come out here! I’ve come to kill you as I promised!”
Tull’s mother looked up at him and cried, “No! No! Don’t do this evil thing! This is very bad!”
She rushed to touch him, as if by grabbing his shirt she could make him listen. But then she stopped short and looked in his eyes.
“Thea!” she shouted, and backed away, searching frantically for something to save her.
She thinks I am holy, he realized, moved by pure emotion.
Yet he did not feel it was true. Phylomon had said that the Tcho-Pwi were a new race, one who could think both with heart and head, a creature that needed desperately to find a kind of balance, and Tull wondered if he had achieved that balance. He recognized that his hands were shaking, that his knees quivered. Surely he felt some rage. But his mind seemed clear. It was reasonable to kill Jenks. Phylomon would understand his logic.
A crowd gathered behind him, and someone pressed against his back. Tull shoved them away.
Jenks stepped into the doorway and looked uphill at Tull.
“So, it’s come to this, has it?” Jenks called. “You were always such a shit. I knew you’d come for me someday. Let me get my war gear.”
He turned and headed back into the house, and Tull just stood. From the house came crashing sounds. Tull steadied himself, as he had in practice, considered how he would bash through Jenks’s parries.
“You can’t beat me,” Jenks shouted. “You were always such a parasite, feeding on me—a little tick feeding on the butt of family Genet.” He grunted, and came from the house bearing a short spear and shield, leggings and wrist guards, a dusty lacquered war vest that was twenty years old.
He set the shield on the ground with the spear, pulled the stiff leather of the war vest over his head and inserted his arms. It was far too small. It didn’t cover most of his belly, and the lacings at the sides un
der his arms pulled apart, rotted.
Tull laughed. The fat old man fiddled with the lacings on his armor and for five minutes worked on getting the armor tightened over his belly. His head was bowed, showing silver hair and a bald spot.
Tull wondered how he’d ever feared the ridiculous old ass, feared him with the kind of terror the sight of the Mastodon Men aroused in him, yet he did not pity the man.
Jenks responded to the mocking laughter, glared up at Tull. “God, I hate you,” Jenks said. “To think, I once had to shackle you to your bed to keep you from running away.” He sat and began strapping the leather leggings on. His legs seemed unnaturally thin to bear such a massive body, and the leggings fit him fine.
Tull realized something very strange. In Craal, the Thralls remained in slavery because they were chained by fear. Certainly as a child, Tull had been terrified of the old man, but even fear had not been strong enough to chain him. Tull could never be chained by fear.
From behind, his mother shouted, “Wait! Wait! Let me through,” and people gasped as she shoved past them.
She rushed up to Tull with tears in her eyes, and the sunlight flashed upon the silver strands of her hair. She held Wayan at arm’s length, and she shoved the child into his chest, until Wayan grabbed his neck, and Tull was forced to put his arms around Wayan’s legs to hold him.
“Take him,” she shouted, “Take him away forever! I should have given him to you long ago, but I was afraid. I’m so evil! Don’t send me to the House of Dust!”
Tull looked at her thin leathery arms, and for the first time he understood the love she had for Jenks. It did not matter that Jenks was evil. She had been married to him for years before the children were born, and was bound by the love that enslaves. If Jenks were to die, she would follow him to the House of Dust.
It was not reasonable for her to love Jenks, but Tull saw that there comes a moment when ecstasy is pure, as it was with Tirilee; when rage overcomes as it did in the ghetto of Denai; when fear makes us crawl, as Tull had crawled in the shadow of the Mastodon Man.
There comes a time when each of us become Thralls, ruled by fear, whether we want it or not, whether we perceive it or not. At that moment, whether the moment seems exhilarating or soul-destroying, we are no longer moved by reason.
Tull had felt the power of Wisteria-zhoka-thrall, the love-that-enslaves for Wisteria, and he knew that his mother felt it for Jenks. It had nothing to do with reason.
“Keep him! Keep the child,” she shouted at Tull.
Jenks jumped to his feet, dropping one of the leg guards to the ground, tossing his wrist guard down. “Stop!” he said, but Tull’s mother ran to Jenks, fell at his feet.
“Beat me!” she begged. “Beat me to death if you have to! Beat me! But leave my children alone!” She clung to his legs and sobbed, “Beat me! Beat me!”
Jenks kicked at the woman in disgust, but she held him tight. The love that enslaves. Yet Jenks was so cold, so alien, Tull could never understand him—a man who wanted to own his children.
All his life, Tull had felt nothing for his mother, had felt cold and empty of love—because inside he knew that she understood him, that she knew of his pain, yet she’d never set him free. Now, at last, by giving Wayan to him, she was trying to give him back his own childhood, trying to right her mistakes.
“I’ll be good to him,” Tull said, looking hard at Jenks, and he carried Wayan back up the street to Moon Dance Inn.
This would make a proper tale for the Pwi, he thought, almost laughing. The tale of people estranged by evil deeds, the tearful reconciliation. But there would be no reconciliation, no happy Pwi ending. To simply walk away from Jenks was the most that Tull could manage. Tull was going to let the bastard live.
The thought galled him. Phylomon would not approve, but once again Tull struggled to rise to a new plateau on his spiral journey. It is enough to be a wall.
***
Chapter 42: The Homecoming
Tull gathered his presents together at the inn, and with a heavy heart took the news of Ayuvah’s death to his family. It was as hard to do as he’d imagined it would be.
Chaa had known of the tragedy, of course, and when Tull reached his home, the old Spirit Walker opened the door silently and greeted him with eyes that were already red with tears.
Fava rushed in from the kitchen, and stood staring hard at Tull, peering behind him, as if looking for Ayuvah. She began to tremble, and asked, “How?”
“A Mastodon Man,” Tull said.
If people could break, could shatter like a dropped earthenware cup, she would have. “Oh,” she wailed, and fell to the floor.
Tull went to lift her up, and she had to work hard to get to her feet. He tried to hug her, to let her work out her pain, but she pushed past him and ran from the house.
He would have followed, but Chaa whispered, “Let her go. I did not tell the others. I thought it better, since it happened so soon after Little Chaa.”
“We must tell Zhopila,” Tull whispered, but he shook his head.
“That task falls to me.” Chaa went to the back, to the kitchen, and a moment later, Tull heard Zhopila’s scream.
Etanai had been in the kitchen too, and now she came to the doorway, a dishtowel in hand, her face white with shock.
Tull went to her, hugged her, kissed her neck. He did not want her to follow her husband into the House of Dust, and so he begged Etanai to stay with them, to live for her daughter.
For long hours he worked to help save Ayuvah’s family.
Little Sava was too young to understand that her father would not come home, and so when Tull broke the news, she screamed at the top of her voice, begging her father to come, promising to be good.
When Tull brought out the present Ayuvah had made, Sava took her doll and stroked it gently, as if it were a treasure, and then put it in her room, in a place of honor.
He tried to give Etanai her gift also, but she would not look at the silk, for it was tainted by the message that came with it. For her, it would always hold the kwea of Ayuvah’s death.
That night, while Wayan slept, Tull and Chaa gently placed the silk in the fire, so that Etanai would never have to look upon it again. Afterward, Tull went outside.
The night was fairly still, and only the tiniest wind blew down from the mountains and out to sea. In that wind, Tull could feel something odd. The darkness he’d always felt in Smilodon Bay was breaking. The Pwi say that “no two men walk in the same world.” And Tull knew that for him, Adjonai, the God of Terror, was dead.
In the morning, when Tull rose, the sun seemed to shine brighter over town, and peace filled the air. He spent the day preparing for Ayuvah’s funeral, and since the Pwi did not have his body, they took his old clothing and made an effigy of him, then placed it on a raft and let it float out to sea.
As Ayuvah’s brother, Tull took his place in Chaa’s household, moving all his own possessions into the hogan.
Etanai departed that evening, took her daughter Sava to White Rock, so they could move back with Etanai’s father and mother.
Tull checked the moneybag that Scandal had given him, and found three hundred platinum eagles, a hundred times more money than he’d earned. It was more money than most thralls would earn in a lifetime.
He gave half of it to Etanai as she left, so that she could live in comfort.
With the two oldest boys gone, Chaa’s house seemed almost empty. Only Fava and the three little girls remained.
After several nights, Tull was lying on the floor with Wayan when he heard Fava weeping. He put a wolf hide on Wayan and rolled over to Fava, put his arm around her. The coals in the fire glowed with a soft light.
Outside it rained again, as if it would never stop.
She took his hand and placed it above her heart, clutched it. He could feel her soft breasts brushing either side of his wrist, and he dared not move his had.
“I know you are grieving for your brothers,” Tull said. “I am sorry I
cannot take the pain away.”
Though her back was to him, she turned to look at him, and Tull smelled the scent of vanilla water. She kissed his lips, a soft kiss that barely brushed against him, and out of long habit he jerked away.
She turned her face, set his hand on her hip.
He did not know if he should move it.
That night, he dreamed he was a great wall encircling an orchard. Hungry children came to the orchard to eat, and they tried to scrabble over him and walk around him, but he would not let them in.
He wished he could give them something, but he was a wall, not meant for giving. After a time, a pear—most generous of trees—leaned its branches over the wall and dropped fruit to the ground. The children came and fed in a frenzy, smearing pears upon their smiling faces.
The next day, Tull went back into town. For a long time he stood by the mayor’s house, looking at the place where Tirilee had once sat in her cage. The ache he felt, the desire to be with her, left Tull feeling weak and dizzy, as if her aphrodisiac kisses were blown on the wind.
Mayor Goodman finally came from the house. “Is there something I can do for you?” Garamon asked. Garamon had heard the story of the trip—a watered-down version that made Wisteria’s death sound like a tragic accident.
“No …” Tull said, watching the spot where Tirilee had once been caged. “No.”
Garamon clapped Tull on the shoulder, “I understand that congratulations are in order,” he said. “Yet I’m deeply sorry about your loss.”
The phrases were trite, yet Tull looked in Garamon’s eyes and could not tell if the man felt anything—guilt, gratitude, disappointment.
“Thank you,” Tull said. I’ll be watching you, he thought.
At noon, he returned to Chaa’s house to feed Wayan. He found Fava caring for the boy along with her three little sisters. She’d made a large lunch, and Tull sat next to Wayan, got his clocks and tools, and began putting together a tiny daisy watch that he had taken apart earlier in the day.
Serpent Catch: Book Two of the Serpent Catch Series Page 25
