by Kyrja
* * * * * * * *
Since he had already promised himself not to complain about anything on this journey, Honsa scolded himself for noticing how dry his skin was already beginning to feel, now that they were out of the mountains and away from the shade all the trees there offered. He would admit to himself – but only to himself – that he probably wouldn’t have even noticed it at all if it wasn’t for the fact that so many others had come with him. He looked over to Ordan when he heard him chuckling lightly.
“What’s so funny?” he asked, immediately sorry his voice was a touch too harsh for his own liking, let alone what he probably sounded like to his lover.
“You are,” he smiled with genuine pleasure. “You’re so busy trying to pretend like you’re not irritated, that you’re making yourself crazy,” he said, smiling again. “Give yourself a break,” he recommended, gently pushing him with his hand so he swayed slightly away. “It’s all right to be unhappy this outing isn’t anything at all like what you had planned.”
Honsa sighed, trying to let himself feel irritated, then gave up. Ordan knew him far too well. It was easier to be irritated when he was trying to pretend he wasn’t, than when he really was. Ridiculous! Then he chuckled at himself, relieved to be feeling … if not “better,” then at least less grouchy. A little less grouchy anyway.
“Do you remember when we came this way last time, with Denit?” Ordan asked, his face a mask of pleasure.
“It was probably a lot worse than we remember it being,” Honsa laughed. “It was such an adventure!”
“We thought it was, didn’t we?” Ordan nodded, still smiling. “You were so worried about the weather and how things were changing you couldn’t explain. You were determined to find the answer.”
“True,” Honsa agreed. “It never occurred to me that we would do half the things we did, let alone find a hidden land!”
“Or die for that matter!” Ordan shrugged.
“I’m really glad you’re here,” Honsa said, reaching out a hand to squeeze Ordan’s.
Ordan looked behind him at the other members of their party, then said, “That Gaku is a jerk, isn’t he?”
“What?” Honsa feigned surprise. “You think so too?”
“I think he has problems behaving in a way that most people find acceptable, so he is trying to act like a jerk. Why bother trying to fit in, when it’s so much easier to just make everyone dislike you right from the start?” Ordan responded.
“Well it would sure be nice if he would try,” Honsa observed. “At least a little bit.”
“Do you know who he reminds me of?” Ordan pressed. When Honsa didn’t reply, he said, “Denit. When we first met her.”
“No he does not!” Honsa hotly disagreed. “She was … “ he paused. “Scared. And alone,” he tried, reaching for the truth, but remembering all too well just how disagreeable she really had been when they’d first met. “I get your point,” Honsa groused, not at all pleased to find he had to agree.
“Danger!” Ceirat suddenly called out, bringing the entire party to a standstill. She had stopped walking and stood facing south.
Honsa, Ordan, and Tyran knew to hold perfectly still while Ceirat assessed what she was feeling. But Vory hadn’t spent much time with them yet, so immediately spoke up, “What’s wrong? she asked, adding, “I don’t see anything.”
All three of them looked at her, holding a single finger to their lips, telling her to be quiet. She just shook her head, obviously not understanding what was going on around her.
“One person,” Ceirat announced. “Walking. There is grave potential for terrible danger within him, and ….”
“And what?” Vory interrupted again.
“Be still,” Honsa told her, wagging a finger at her to be patient.
“And … “ she paused again. “Oh. Honsa. Oh. He’s not alone,” her eyes were glazed, as if staring at something amazing, then she cocked her head.
Honsa had never seen her act like this. It was as if she was too excited to speak. Or, maybe too afraid. “Tell us,” he said quietly, noticing that Vory rolled her eyes when he had spoken.
“He has … an amazing thing about him. I …” she seemed practically speechless, which worried Honsa. A lot. “He has a whole chorus with him, and it’s beautiful. Oh. He can help us. He must help us. We can’t get where we need to go without him,” she said, as if in a trance. “Oh … but …” then she turned to Gaku, her face suddenly sad, to say, “But you’re not going to like it.”
* * * * * * * *
So here it is, Gaku told himself, turning away from … from Ceirat … he remembered her name. He knew he had to remember her name. She was a woman in a man’s body. For some reason, that seemed especially important right this moment. Probably because he felt numb and didn’t want to think about what was coming towards them. More accurately, who was coming towards them. Ceirat had said “he,” so it could only be one person, he knew. He felt a chill run its fingers up his spine. He’d taken great pains to avoid exactly this confrontation for years, and now that he was finally among other people, it was here anyway. It just wasn’t right to take away a man’s privacy during one of the most distressing times of his life, he knew. But these people weren’t likely to just walk away so he could have a private conversation with his dead grandson. No. And besides, there wasn’t anywhere they could go to give them a moment alone, here on the open desert.
He listened to her trying to explain what she could sense from the stranger coming their way; at least he tried to listen to her, but her voice was lost to him. “I love you ‘Yapa,” he felt his lips twitch a bit as he heard Yakuza’s small voice again in his heart’s memory. The day he’d last heard those words had been the worst day of his life. Turning away from the memories that still haunted him, he stood up straighter, waiting. He wouldn’t be able to escape this confrontation, that much he was sure of. And, of course, as Yakuza came closer, the Song came with him. The sound of it hurt his bones. Just like they hurt mine, he heard his wife’s voice whisper through the sand.
He felt one of the others looking at him, but couldn’t turn his head to look. It was just too much to ask. So he stood there, watching Yakuza come closer, his shape becoming clearer as he approached. He felt one of the others walking towards him and closed his eyes, willing him … or her … away. To his surprise, the voice merely whispered “You are not alone,” as it walked past him, then circled around behind him to rejoin its companions. He was pretty sure it was Honsa’s pretty lover boy, but he could never seem to remember his name. It didn’t matter right now. Maybe it never would. Maybe Yakuza had come to claim him, now that he was finally leaving the mountains.
Join us …. He heard his wife’s voice winding through his guts. She used to sing to him, he remembered. She used to sing all the time. Of course she did, he scolded himself, shaking off the memories. How could she not? She’d always known she was a Singer and would have happily joined the Song as a young child, but had wanted to wait until she was older, so she would be able to bring her children to join her in the Song. She had failed in that, though. He’d made sure of it, much to his everlasting sorrow. Sangeet had taken her grandchildren with her though. And now one of them had returned. He wondered just how badly he was going to have to pay for this visit.
The voice had told him he wasn’t alone as it had passed by, undoubtedly trying to comfort him. He sighed. Being alone wasn’t something he’d had to deal with for many years now. Never being alone was the problem.
* * * * * * * *
Tyran felt herself tense as the first notes of the melody wrapped itself around her. No! she whispered to herself. The old woman of her childhood had been wrong. The memories of her boy-self were overlaying her present-day vision now; she almost recoiled at the smell of the woman’s onion breath. She could feel her body trembling softly. The woman – she suddenly remembered her name now, seeing her again through her boy-self’s eyes, it was Senkensha, but everyone called her ‘Kenshi. She h
ad asked her boy-self about his dreams and his nightmares.
Instead, he had told her about other people’s dreams he’d seen. He had been afraid of the old woman, even though everyone liked her, so he’d lied. He had known that if he had told her about his own dreams that his nightmares about being buried alive would come true. He had convinced himself that if she had never asked the questions, then none of it would be true. He had been certain it was she who would be the one to bury him alive. And so Tyran the boy had revealed his biggest secret to trick her into asking different questions. Indeed, it had taken very little effort – once his “secret” was known – for everyone to completely abandon the questions about the Song of the Earth. He was a Mezhdu, and that had been a big enough secret to distract the old woman with the onion breath and everyone else too. In fact, Tyran had completely thrown herself into remaking herself as a girl. So much so that she had convinced herself she had never even heard the melody in her bones before. And even if she had, that had been her boy-self, and certainly not her new, girl-self. She had even overheard ‘Kenshi telling her grandfather that she’d been wrong, after all, that she was not a Singer.
Singer. That’s what was coming their way now. A Singer. One who had returned from the dark. She could almost feel herself in his skin.
“Tyran,” Ordan was shaking her. “You must not lose yourself in the music. You must stay here with us. We need you still.”
She blinked rapidly, then shook her head vigorously, more than a little frightened that she hadn’t even realized she had started to surrender herself to the Song. Then she felt mad, and let the anger well up inside of her. How dare they try to take her conscious choice from her! She nodded her head once, sharply, at Ordan, her eyes connecting with his and clenched her jaw in determination when he smiled at her in return.
“We could bond to shield ourselves from him,” Honsa suggested.
“No!” Ceirat shook her head, “We can’t go where we have to go without him. We need him.”
“How do you know he isn’t influencing you?” Honsa asked, skeptical. “He might be using his … magic, or powers, or whatever it is he’s doing, to get you to keep us off guard.”
“That’s not what’s happening,” Ceirat disagreed. “I promise you, I am myself.”
“You seemed pretty … taken with him just a minute ago, like you’d seen something amazing just out of reach and wanted to get it without seeing that you would fall off a cliff you tried to take it,” Honsa pressed. “You were pretty far gone.”
“No,” Ordan disagreed, shaking his head. “Ceirat is herself. She was more amazed than dazed.”
Honsa sighed. “If you’re both sure?” he asked.
“The four of us are all right,” Ordan assured him, “even Tyran who is most at-risk. Vory is curious, but not affected. Gaku is … well, this is extremely personal for him.”
“Extremely,” Ceirat agreed.
Together, they watched as the Singer approached his grandfather, looking neither left nor right, paying no attention to any of the rest of them. Neither of them spoke, nor did they reach out to each other with a demonstration of affection. When he was only a few steps away from Gaku, the stranger stopped, looking up at his slightly taller grandfather.
* * * * * * * *
“Do you understand that once your body, this body,” Yakuza lifted his hand with an up-and-down gesture to indicate Gaku’s body, “has died, then it will be too late to join us?”
“If that’s the reason you’ve come, to tell me what I already know, then you’ve wasted your time,” Gaku replied, feeling his bones tremble. There was a time, when he’d been a young man, when he had become far too accustomed to drinking more than his fill of wine, beer, and other such potent drinks. When Sangeet had told him he was going to be a father for the first time, he had decided that if he was going to be the best father he could possibly be, that he would stop drinking altogether. After a few days, his body had started shaking uncontrollably, just like it was doing now. And for much the same reason. He had tasted the Song. And it had taken the measure of him in return. He knew the feel of its touch, and the welcome of its caress. He had turned his back on both. But he was feeling more tempted now than ever he had been for the taste of wine.
“She misses you, ‘Yapa,” Yakuza told him, cocking his head a little to the left, as he’d done many times as a small boy, sitting on his lap.
“Why have you come?” Gaku barked, barely able to control his emotions. How he’d loved this little child when he was small. And his mother before him, but she was gone now. He had chased her away so that she would never return. He had saved her life, if not her love for him. He could live with that. She was still alive. Probably singing to the child she’d been pregnant with when she’d left. Somewhere. Anywhere, other than with the Singers. It didn’t matter. She was alive. Unlike her brother, whose death he was responsible for.
“You wish to travel to a place that only those who are dead may enter,” Yakuza told him. “I have come to take you there.”
* * * * * * * *
So there it is, Gaku thought. He would die after all; not live forever as a Singer. He’d been avoiding this choice for longer than he could even remember, knowing he had only to surrender to the Song of the Earth and he would be forever with his Sangeet. He knew it would be an entirely different existence than the one they had lived together as husband and wife. As mother and father. As lovers. As everyday people. Instead of laughing, fishing, farming, and sleeping together, they would sing together. Their souls would intertwine, or so he’d been lead to believe. On the days he missed her most, he considered that such a fate wouldn’t really matter, because he would probably no longer remember his life with her “above the mantle.” He would only know peace and the harmony of the Song. His eternal life would have meaning. There were even days he considered himself a coward for not surrendering.
But today was not one of those days. Today, he wanted to live as a man. With arms, legs, a heart that beat in his chest, and his own will dictating his choices. He knew he could still turn his back and walk away from the rest of these people. The choice was still his to make. He realized he was afraid Yakuza was about to take away all of his choices.
“What must I do to travel to this place?” he asked, not yet decided which course of action to pursue.
“Why,” Yakuza's face lit up, “you must sing!” he exclaimed with a wide smile. But Gaku didn’t return the smile.
* * * * * * * *
“You know,” Vory drawled, looking at Honsa while moving closer to Gaku and the boy who were talking to each other, but not the rest of them, “you people aren’t very good at making introductions.”
“Don’t!” Honsa shouted, waving her back.
“Let her,” Ceirat disagreed with a strange look on her face. It seemed to Honsa that his bondmate knew something he didn’t. That wasn’t necessarily an unusual thing, and he’d learned to trust her, so he lowered his hands to wait.
Turning away from Honsa, Vory looked directly at the boy. “My name is …”
“Vory,” he told her matter-of-factly. “You will meet your father where we are going, but not your mother. You would make a very poor Singer,” he told her, shaking his head. “Do you never tire of not staying dead?”
“Is this some kind of jest?” she asked angrily, looking at Honsa again. “What else did you tell him about me?” Then looking back at him, she asked, “How do you know I will meet my father?”
“Enough!” Gaku barked, then sighed loudly. “This is my grandson, Yakuza. The son of my daughter. He died many years ago …”
“You know better than that, ‘Yapa,” Yakuza interjected. “I did not die, I just live differently than you do.”
“Perhaps,” Gaku conceded, “but you don’t eat, drink, or breathe where you live.”
Vory interrupted, asking, “How does he know about me … dying?”
“The Singers – those who “live”” Gaku said the word with derision
, “within the Song of the Earth, are aware of everything. They just don’t care,” he told her. “That’s why I want to know why you are here,” he said, turning back to Yakuza. “Why do you care now?”
“I am pleased you have learned to ask the right questions, ‘Yapa,” Yakuza replied with a charming smile. “The death of the Earth Goddess cannot be permitted, or the Song will cease. You are needed to ensure this doesn’t happen.” To Honsa, it seemed like the boy was far too cheerful to be talking about such a grave matter.
“Me?” Gaku asked, his eyebrows rising. “You need me?”
“You are one,” he nodded.
“What about the rest of us?” Honsa asked.
“Another excellent question!” Yakuza smiled. “Yes! You must all come.” Honsa frowned, thinking the boy might actually start clapping, as if he was playing some kind of game with them.
“But why?” Ceirat asked, holding up a hand that meant her gift of knowing the potential of something was in play, and the others should allow her to take the lead.
“Because you can,” Yakuza replied, but this time his face was serious. He wasn’t close to laughing, nor was he even smiling. And there was something about the way he said the word “can,” that seemed to indicate that not everyone could. He had every confidence Ceirat had heard it too.
“Why is that important?” Ceirat asked, narrowing her eyes, as if she wasn’t sure that was the right question to ask. It must have been though, as Yakuza smiled again.
“Because if those who can, do not come, then the Song will die, and that cannot be allowed to happen.”
“You said that Vory will meet her father there,” Ceirat said slowly, closing her eyes, obviously looking for the right words to use. Honsa could see Vory had questions she wanted to ask, by the way she kept pursing and unpursing her lips, but wisely kept quiet, letting Ceirat take the lead. Gaku, too, had questions, although it was harder to tell with him. He was used to keeping his own counsel. No doubt he knew more than he was sharing, but his eyes were bright with emotions he was keeping to himself. He knew though, that if any of Gaku’s feelings were a cause for concern, Ordan would alert him. “Why is it important that he is there?”
