The First Desire I am sure Josh plans to have the story forum up soon, but if I don't share this new story with everyone here I will explode, which will make an awful mess of my house. I am introducing Ben, a new character. He may seem a little phlegmatic in his thoughts and behavior to start with, but I believe he'll grow on you as the story gets going, and as he meets up with new friends. Comments and feedback on my stories have always inspired me and given me new ideas about the characters and where they're headed. They are more than welcome, good and bad. But here, first, is the PROLOGUE Her hair was black, her clothes were black, and her face was partly hidden by some kind of mask. Her red lips were spread wide in a smile. She moved slowly toward me until she was so close I could see the moonlight reflected in her eyes. You have made a dangerous enemy in that one, Errol Waring. Kodran will kill you. Then I will fight him for eternity, with nothing else to lose. She laughed softly and said, Well done. Now go from me. Warm beds await you and your friend here. Rest in them. I will see you tomorrow morning. Harcourt closed his fingers around my elbow and pulled me away from her. Think of Kate, he whispered. Keep thinking of Kate. I blinked at him, confused. Kate? Yes. He pulled me up the steps into the larger building. That creature, he nodded toward the woman in black who faded into the shadows even as we looked at her, is not a woman. She is only another like the one you just did battle with, but stronger and with more magic. You must beware. She is consuming you. I looked all around at the night before we stepped inside. I heard crickets. Maybe it was crickets. My sleep was restless and full of strange dreams. I fought the monster again and again. Then peace enclosed me at last, and the shadows called to me. I climbed the long stairs up the mountain and faced her across a pit of fire. I knew I was in bed asleep, and yet...I was also with her on the mountain... excerpt from I,Sim, the first of Errol Waring's adventures. (http://forums.worldsims.org/showthread.php?t=7460)
I know only three things about my father. I know his name, because it is also mine. I know his face, because it is his face I see in the mirror. I know he was a prisoner of the temple for one night, and then escaped. I know these things because of a lullaby that my mother sang to me when I was a child in her arms. It was a song about me and about my father. I remember the smile in her dark eyes, the lamplight on the curls of her black hair, and the sweetness of her low voice as she sang and rocked me to sleep. And I remember her instruction to me, as I grew older, that I must find my father so that he would know of his son. Each time she said this, I would ask her, why did he leave us? And she would tell me, once more, the story of the high temple, where the servants of Napayshni pushed the innocent into the flames, as sacrifice to that ancient god. My father and his friend killed them all, and then escaped into the desert. I think they must have died there, but my mother insisted that they survived. She saw them in her dreams. The temple is rubble now. I often walked around and through the fallen stone, wondering how it must have looked when the servants of Napayshni brought my father and my mother together there, under a spell that seemed a dream. That is how my mother described it. I am more practical. Someone stirred a potion into their food. The reason was to produce a child for some evil purpose, but the reason no longer matters, because the servants of Napayshni are dead, and I am here. My mother is buried in the village cemetery. I have decided that I have no interest in farming, and no skill at fishing, nor much of anything else. So I am going to do as she instructed, and find my father. I will tell him about her, my mother. I will tell him that she was beautiful, and that her name was Mia. My name he will surely know when he sees me, but I will tell him anyway, that I am Errol Benam Waring, his son.
I will tell him, also, about Kemee, which means secret in the language of my mothers people, and it is the name of the village where I was born. The walls and streets are built with rock from the sacred Napayshni Mountains that surround us, but the sand from the desert is everywhere in our clothes and food, stinging our eyes and wearing away our teeth. Once, there were stairs up the side of the Kemee Mountain to the temple on its top, but when the temple was destroyed the people began using the stone from the stairs to repair walls in the village. It was easier than cutting fresh stone from the quarry. So the stairs are gone now. If you want to see the ruins of the temple, go right ahead, but its a dangerous climb over loose stone. Oya means invisible, and that is what the village has become. We are also very poor. Without the temple to draw the pilgrims here, we became even more secret than we were before. No pilgrims, no trade. Our walls, however, are in very good repair. Some people are less poor than others. Stasio, for instance. Stasio owned a horse cart and horses, and if I wanted to leave Oya Kemee to find my father, I would need them. My mother said that my father and his friend walked across the desert to the Wahanassatta Mountains and the Pass to the Sea, but I know that if you miss the well, then you will die, and the sands will bury your bones. I believe that is what happened to my father, and that his bones are somewhere out there in the desert. I thought that I might even find some bones on my way to the Wahanassatta, although probably not his. A lot of pilgrims tried to walk to the temple, and missed the well, and died of thirst under the hot sun. If you add them to those who perished in the annual sacrifice to the flames, then Napayshni was a well-fed god. Until my father showed up. If his bones are out there, he was Napayshnis last meal. Regardless of what I believed about the death of my father, I left the village of Oya Kemee. I bartered for Stasios cart and horses, trading almost everything I owned, which included a very good iron cooking stove. We struck a deal, and in the morning I loaded my trunk on the cart and started on the old road to Mungans Well.
The desert is a cold and lonely place at night. When I could no longer see the road clearly, and feared that its crumbling stone would lead to damage to the cart or injury to the horses, I pulled up near one of the rare desert trees and made camp. I fed the horses a little grain and tied them with rope long enough to allow them to reach some of the wild grasses. Then I made a fire against the cold and sat close, thinking about loneliness. The horses munched nearby, snorting at each other, and kicking at the stones under their hooves. My mother knew loneliness. She should have had many suitors. She did not, because of me. The village is small, and everyone knew that I was not the child of any man there. She was not to blame for this. The servants of Napayshni came down from the temple on occasion and took a villager or two back with them. My mother was the only villager who ever returned from the temple, and that was the same night that the mountaintop burned and the temple was destroyed. She came stumbling down the steps, her clothes blackened and ripped, and would not talk about what had happened. Except with me, when I was older, and only when I swore never to speak of it to anyone else. To do otherwise, to tell anyone, she said, was to endanger both of us. "How?" I asked her. "What is dangerous about telling anyone the truth?" "Kemee was always prosperous because of the pilgrims to Napayshni's temple. Now, we are poor. The traders rarely come, and when they do, the young go away with them, in search of an easier life. Those that remain would blame your father for these hard times. They would also blame you, because you are his son. So pretend ignorance and forgetfulness, as I do." This beautiful woman, my mother, grew old quickly and died too young. It was the loneliness. It was the secret love that she carried in her heart for a man she met for only one night, but whose face she saw in mine every day for the rest of her life. I lay back and counted the desert stars. There were too many, and after awhile, I fell asleep.
I was awakened before the sun rose by the nose of a horse against my ear, breathing loud. They were wide-awake, restless, and annoyed by the flies. Their ears twitched back and forth. I hitched them to the cart and had a little trouble keeping them to a walk. Although I had watched from a distance as people in the village cared for their horses, I had never had one of my own until now. Stasio had assured me that these two old boys had been pulling the cart all their lives, and would give me no trouble. But they are big animals. And they think about things. I could tell. I worried that they might be thinking they would be better off without me. So I talked to them, and I knew from the way their ears moved that they were listening carefully to every word. I watched their ears because they show their feelings with them, and that is how they told me to pay attention to the road ahead of us. They knew someone was there before I did, and we all watched the man run from the old wall on one side of the road, to the dunes on the other side. I could see that he was wearing rags and I thought that he must be even more poor than I am. But if he could run that fast, I knew that he was in good health. He knew where to find water out here. I did not plan to stop, but I saw something blue in the weeds near the broken wall. I pulled the cart over, got down and looked at the blue thing. It was a book, a real book. I knew of books. I had seen them before but had never learned to read, because the lessons I received from my mother were just those any villager needed to survive--lessons in growing, cooking, and preserving food, in weaving, in repairs, in healing wounds, in reading the signs that come before bad weather. All these things that matter. I had found work for a while with a farmer, and had learned even more about planting and harvesting, but most particularly, I learned that I hated farming. My mother had never learned to read, and so did not think to send me for instruction in something she did not understand. Others in Oya Kemee had learned to read, taught by an elderly man who had nothing else to do. But there were few books and little interest in them. So, I picked up the book and examined it, curious about it, but even more curious about why a desert vagabond would have a book, and that he might even have been reading it. The vagabond was standing high on the dunes where he had run, and was watching me. He decided that I was no threat to him, and that I might, in fact, have interesting things in my cart. Food, perhaps. He came over to me, a smile on his thin face, and a swagger in his step. I tossed the book away, and studied this stranger.
I could not see his eyes very well, under the dirty hair. I suspected that he did not own a comb. And I knew for certain, as he got closer, that he did not own any soap. The smell was strong. My horses shook their heads and flipped their tails as they tried to brush away the odor. Their ears twitched, too. They were paying close attention to this stranger. "Hello, Farmer," he said. Already, I did not like him. I said, "I am not a farmer. I am..." I paused. "I am just a traveler." I looked down at his legs, wrapped around with sacking. The same rough material hung from his shoulders and was belted around his thin waist with rope. "And you?" I said. "Who are you?" "My name is Thackary. I was dozing in the shade over there, resting from a very long walk, when I heard the sound of your cart's wheels. They need to be greased. They make such a racket of noise that I think your axle is about to break in two. If you show me to your jar of grease Ill be happy to do the job for you, in exchange for a lift to the well." He was right about the noise, and might even have been right about the risk of a broken axle. If I broke an axle, I would have to ride one of those horses. I did not want to do that. I led Thackary over to the cart and handed him the grease jar. He got down on his knees and crawled underneath, talking the entire time. Yes, my traveling friend, he said, shouting out to me, although I would have heard him just as clearly if hed spoken in a normal voice, Ive worn myself out with walking, and Ive lost all my clothes and money to bandits. I would have lost my life as well, but they started quarreling over my shoes and I had a chance to escape. Fortunately, I found some grain sacks along this road. They must have fallen off someones cart. Sacking isnt good for clothes, in case youve ever considered it, but it will do if theres nothing else. He crawled back out into the sunlight, and was even dustier and dirtier than before, if that is possible. He said, We should rearrange the load on your cart, to balance it on the wheels. The ride will be smoother. He started on the task immediately. I began to worry as I watched him unload the cart. There wasnt much. I had my trunk, some bags of food, and a couple of sacks of grain for the horses. I looked around at the dunes, because I had heard of thieves and bandits attacking travelers along this road. Thackary might even be one himself. But I decided that if he had been part of any gang, they would have attacked and killed me by now. A beggar or a thief, I did not know, but I knew that he was alone. Your horses, he said, look like they need to rest before we go. The suns high, and I think its asking too much to expect them to pull this heavy cart now. We should wait until the air has gotten a little cooler. At dusk. Do you agree? Give them a handful of grain, too. Then he nodded toward my bag of food. I see a loaf of bread there. Do you suppose we could have a little while we wait? It occurred to me that putting some food in this mans stomach might lead to a clearer truth about who he was and where he came from. He was not from Kemee, and there was no other village between the mountain ranges that bordered the desert. I brought out the bread, and we sat near the old stone wall, in the bit of shade it offered. The horses seemed content to stand with the cart, dozing. Thackary wiped his hands back and forth on the coarse sacking that covered his thighs, and reached eagerly for the hunk of bread I held out to him. He turned it over and around in his thin, dirty fingers, so intent on his examination that he was quiet for the first time since wed met. He finally opened his mouth to take a bite, and saw me watching him. He smiled a crooked smile, and said, The grain is ground to a very fine texture. It smells good, too. Fresh. The man was clearly hungry, and I believe he was trying to hide that fact from me. I do not know why. I have known what it is to be hungry. Perhaps it was not a familiar feeling for him. I could see, as he bit into the bread at last, that he had good teeth. He chewed slowly, with his eyes squeezed shut. I realized in that moment, that Thackarys bold confidence and chatter were intended to deceive me about the grim reality of his situation. The hardship he now suffered, in dirt and rags and an empty stomach, were recent events, and not what he was accustomed to, although he walked proudly and pretended to shrug off such things. It also occurred to me that I should check the wheels and the axle of the cart. Did he really know where to grease them? Then I decided that there was no need to crawl under the thing. The proof would be in the ride.
Thackary swallowed the last of the bread I had given him, and I said, The sacks you wear smell too foul to take with us. The horses will give us trouble whenever the wind blows the odor over their heads. I have some other clothes for you to wear. Once changed, he looked better, and most of the odor was gone with the sacking, which we threw into the weeds behind the wall. Im grateful, he said. I owe you for these. I dont know where or how, but I will repay you. Whats your name, Traveler? I didnt catch it. Errol Benam Waring is my name. Lets get all of this back into the cart. The horses have rested enough. Sure thing, Errol Call me Ben. Right. Ben it is. Balance, Ben. Remember that we need to balance everything. The trunk should be centered because it is the heaviest. And wheres my book? I saw you pick it up. Over there, and it weighs nothing, so you need not worry about it. But I do, because although you believe it weighs nothing, it is, in fact, weighty matter. I stopped arranging a sack of grain next to the trunk and stared at him. He scratched at his dusty jaw, and then went to look through the weeds where I had tossed his book. He found it easily enough, since it is a blue thing in the middle of a brown world. Smiling broadly, he brought it over and set it on the floor of the cart in front of the bench where he would sit. I said, Is it valuable? To me. And to one other, perhaps, if she still thinks about me. As I tied up the back of the cart, I said, I know how you can repay me. Get in the cart and I will tell you what you will do. He looked puzzled, but nodded and climbed up into his seat. I settled into mine and flicked the reins at my two impatient horses. The cart jerked forward, then settled into a steady and very much quieter pace. The grease had helped a great deal. Thackary leaned back in his seat. So tell me, my traveling friend, Ben, what I can to do for you today, to repay you for all this kindness you have shown to a complete stranger. I will let you know immediately if I agree to it. If its beyond my powers, or more than my pride can bear, then I will get out here and walk. I had to smile. You talk easily enough, and thats all Im asking. Talk to me. Tell me who you are, where you came from, and about the woman who is responsible, I think, for your presence out here in the desert. Thackary stopped smiling and turned his head away. I did not press him further. It was he who had insisted on his obligation to me. And it was he who had wondered out loud if a woman in his past still remembered him. It must, therefore, be a story he wanted to tell, although a difficult one.
The cart swayed and bumped along the ancient road. I held the reins loosely and stared at the horizon far ahead of us. The horses moved their ears to throw off an occasional insect, and their hooves hit the dirt of the road with a rhythmic thud. It was not the crisp and hollow clatter of hooves that I had sometimes heard at night inside the village. That sound on the cobbles beneath my bedroom window had led me to believe, as a boy, that the houses of Kemee were built on a giant barrel full of dark and slimy things looking for a way up to the light, where I lived. It may be why I did not like farming. I did not like digging holes. But out here, the ground felt solid, like a thing of rock as deep as the mountains were high. Nothing lay in wait beneath my feet. There was only the sleeping rock, and the loose sand that blew across its face. That is how my mind wandered as I sat patiently waiting for the stranger in the seat beside me to find his voice again. I almost forgot he was sitting there. If he never answered me, then it was of no concern. I had thought I might learn something of the world from him, of the world beyond Oya Kemee. But the knowledge would come soon enough anyway. The sun set on our silence, and he stirred at last and looked around at me. Have I slept? he said. I closed my eyes for only a moment, and whats this? The sun is down. What was it you asked me, Ben? About my life? Its a dull story. Wheres your village? Across the sea. Have you ever been on the sea? Its alive, or at least it moves like something alive. I thought Alfriggs boat was big enough, but when that storm rushed over us, tearing away his sails and screaming through the rigging, that big boat was suddenly very, very small. And yet it did not seem as small as the people thrown from its deck into the waves. They vanished, swallowed by the sea. Its a hungry thing. I think it swallows a lot of people. I said, Ive heard talk of the sea. Ive never seen it. Did you know that the wood of trees will float in water? I have seen the wood splinters that float on top of the water we collected in our rain barrel. However, they are very small. Small things float on water. Bugs float. I saw those, too. But their wings get wet and they die. Leaves and bugs float on top of the pond near the farms. The fish dont. They stay hidden until their mouths are hooked and they are dragged out into the sun. Stones dont float, either. I nodded in agreement. It was true. I had tested that curious fact with bits of cobblestone and the rain barrel, until my mother caught me and became angry. Thackary said, People dont sink like stones, not at first. I think it happens when they swallow too much water. And when the empty belly of a boat is full of water, it sinks, too. I have never swallowed too much water. I put my head in the rain barrel once. The water was cooler than the air, but you cant breathe it. When I sucked it up into my nose, it made me cough, which scared my mother. Remember that, Ben. I've never swallowed too much, either, and thats why Im sitting here beside you. Alfriggs boat rolled over in the storm and its belly filled with water and it sank. It sank fast. All the people on it were either caught in its belly and sank with it, or they fell in the water and swallowed too much of it, and were themselves then swallowed up by the sea, sinking out of sight. Very fast. How many people? Thackary held up both of his hands, fingers spread, and stared at them. This many, Ben. One of them was Paden, a friend of mine. The storm and the sea took him. He lowered his hands to his knees. Was he from your village? No, he wasnt. Have you ever seen a map of the sea and the lands that surround it? The sea is big, huge, but it's not as big as the lands around it. There are three. Theyre called Nikomos, Asvoria, and Ishakt. This is Ishakt. I knew that much at least. Beyond what my mother had taught me, I had listened to the talk in the tavern, and in the fields where I worked. When I repeated some of it to my mother she reminded me that people often entertain each other with foolish tales of things that never happened, in places that dont really exist. Enjoy the story, she smiled at me, but remember that its just a story. However, when some things are repeated frequently by different people, it begins to sound like more than a fantasy. And from the mouth of Thackary I heard the name of the desert land that Id heard many times before from other people.
I liked talking with the stranger. I was learning things, although the story of the boat on the sea could not be true. It must be a tale told to entertain me. Sometimes, when visiting the tavern, I had heard the men around me talking of boats, and when I asked them to describe the boats they said that boats are like barrels that will move on the surface of the water, pulled by the wind. But I knew from my experiments with the rain barrel that only small things float, not big things. And a thing full of people could never float. It would go down like a cobblestone goes to the bottom of the barrel. I had tried wrapping leaves around the stones, or tying splinters of wood to them. They always sank. And yet there were always stories about boats going to sea, lots of stories. Which would make it more than a fantasy, I reasoned. But its not possible. Unless, I thought, the sea is very shallow, so that the boats are just barrels on wheels that are pulled by horses through the water. Still, there must be a great deal more water than I have ever seen before. The story of the boat, I said, is very entertaining, but you did not explain why you were the only one who didnt swallow the water and get eaten by the monster sea. Anyone who tries to swallow water will learn, as I did, that its a bad idea. Your story doesnt make any sense. When the water is deep and the storm throws it over your head, you'll swallow it whether you want to or not. I escaped because wood floats You are not made of wood, I said. I was annoyed with him now. People and boats cant be swallowed by the sea, because it is too shallow. Boats have wheels and are pulled by horses. Your story of Alfriggs boat is stupid. He stared at me, and then shook his head. Interesting, he said. You told me you were a traveler, but thats plainly not true. And you're not a farmer, as I first thought, because you dont have the hands of a farmer. If you were a trader, youd have goods in your cart, but you dont. If you owned a smithy, a mill or a tavern in your village, then youd still be there, taking care of it. Who provided for you? An older brother? I have none. I provided for myself. I am stronger than some men, and I carried stone and repaired walls and other things, and earned my keep that way. Sometimes I worked the farms. After you get to the well, then where will you go? The pass through the Wahanassatta Mountains. To the sea, then. Me, too. And by sea I'll go to Nikomos. What about you? I dont know yet. It may depend on who I find at Mungans Well. Although the sun was down, the moon was big, and sent shadows from the dunes across the road. The horses plodded forward, the wheels creaked on the axle, and the wind hissed through the sand as it slowly covered the ancient stone trail to Mungan's Well. Without the steady traffic of the pilgrims the road would soon vanish completely, and it occurred to me that I might never come back to Oya Kemee. I said, Is your village in Nikomos? No. He shifted on the seat and rubbed at his arms. The night was getting colder. Ive heard, he said, that there is more than one way to get to Nikomos. Ive heard of a road through the mountains, going around to the north of the sea, but then you have to ford rivers and deal with bandits. The sea is better, and I think the worst of the storm season is past. He talked about Alfriggs boat, again, as he had before. Every time I asked about his village, he started talking about something else. He was not yet ready to tell me why he was so far away from home, but I could guess this much, his problems had started in his own village. I also reasoned that his village must be in Asvoria, since its not here in Ishakt, or in Nikomos. Of course, there might be other places beyond those three he had named. It was dark. It was getting much colder. I decided it was time to build a fire and rest for the night.
I can't help but laugh at Ben's...well, stupidity. Yes, he does sound rather phlegmatic. Great so far! I'm excited!
I like Ben's simple naivity. At least he is nobody's fool, prepared to believe everything he is told. He takes ideas on board as carefully as a good haulier loads a cargo.
LOL, I'm afraid I like that word, phlegmatic, and can't get it out of my head whenever I'm thinking of Ben. I imagine him as reasonable and deliberate in his thinking, but limited in some ways because he grew up in a remote and isolated village. However, be careful what you say to Ben about his mother...
We found the broken remains of a cart buried in the sand near a desert tree. The wood was charred in parts, as someone else had once used it for a fire. But there was enough of it for us, and we sat close, warming ourselves, and eating another loaf of bread. We also had a few pieces of cheese, and drank from a jug of wine. That jug was all I had, but the wine helped to warm us. The horses were tied loosely enough to move around and put their noses down to the few stray blades of desert grass that grew between the stones of the road. Thackary wiped a sleeve across his mouth and said, "So you're from Kemee, Ben?" "Yes. Did you go there?" "Nope, but I was headed for it when the bandits caught me. I heard about the temple on the mountain, and I was curious." "It's gone. It's been gone for more than 20 years. Are you a pilgrim?" "Gone? I guess that explains the bad state of this road. And I wondered why I was the only one going to Kemee." He hadn‘t answered me the first time, so I asked him again, "Are you a pilgrim?" "No, Ben. I'm not. What about you? Why did you leave Kemee?" "I want to find my father. He left before I was born. I think he died in the desert but my mother said he was alive, so I will look." "Forget about him," Thackary shook himself as though cold, but I thought it might be for deeper reasons. "Do you know your father?" "Too well," he said, and frowned. "Let me tell you something about a father. He owns you. Rather, he thinks he owns you, like a horse or a dog. And he will never be pleased with you, ever. A father of many sons will use one against the other, and each against them all, until they are equally bitter and full of hate. A father will destroy his sons, unless they escape his reach." I had never met my father, but I had seen fathers and sons in Kemee, and had not seen anything like what Thackary described. In fact, I had envied those families. I said, "How many brothers do you have?" He stared at me across the flames of the fire. "I had three. One is dead. His name was Ailward, and he was the youngest and very rash. He left, and I left to find him, and I did, but he was already dead." "You never went back," I said, not as a question. "But I did. And I brought the body of my brother home to his father. Then I left, and will not return." He straightened his shoulders, took another swallow from the jug, and handed it to me. "Don't waste your life looking for your father. That road leads only to grief." "My mother loved him." Thackary laughed, "For a moment she did, or you would not be here." I have never been tolerant of words like this about my mother. In an instant I had leaped across the fire and pinned him to the ground. He fought back. His strength surprised me, and I think that mine surprised him. We rolled in the dirt, scattering the hot logs of the fire and angering the horses. They tried to avoid our flailing arms and legs. One of them reared on his back legs and came down with his hoof so close to my head that some of my hair was pulled out by the roots. In the end, I won, although barely, and let him loose again. He pulled the back of his hand across his bleeding lip. I felt dampness behind my ear, where a little blood ran down from my head.
I watched him closely, still angry. I saw in his eyes a look of wildness. It was a look I'd seen in the eyes of wolves that sometimes roamed Kemee at night. It is a dangerous look that may get you attacked if you are not careful. Slowly, he calmed down, and appeared less dangerous, but I still watched him. He said, "I'll fix the fire." I nodded and stood back as he gathered the glowing embers and managed, with a little dried grass, to get the fire burning again. Then he sat down in front of it and glanced up at me. He said, "I've done that before, and so you would think I'd learn not to say stupid things to a man about the women in his family, particularly about his mother." He touched his lip which was still bleeding down his chin. "I am sorry, Ben. But I should warn you, I am a far better fighter than you experienced tonight, and at any other time, I might have killed you." I did not believe his boasting, but I said nothing. I had almost broken his neck. I went to the horses to stroke their noses and talk to them, until they were breathing quietly. Then I sat down next to the fire and allowed the muscles of my arms and back to relax. I thought about what I should do with this man. Leave him here? Take him with me? I decided that I could not leave him behind. The bandits might find him again, or me, and the two of us against them gave us a better chance of surviving. Nor did I want to be responsible for his death from lack of food and water as he tried to follow the road to the well. He deserved a beating for his words about my mother, but not death. Thackary said, "Anything left in that jug?" I picked a piece of pottery out of the sand and held it up. One drop of wine sparkled in the firelight before falling to the ground. He watched it fall, and made a face of pain. Then he lay back and stared up at the stars. So did I. A log fell apart in the flames, and small bits of the fire jumped up and floated away into the darkness. I said, "How did your brother die?" "Suffering. Do they have swords in Kemee? No? I had no imagination for what Ailward felt when he died, until I killed his killer the same way, with a sword through his middle. Then I knew. It's a bad way to die. If anyone raises a sword to you, run fast." "I saw a sword once. A man came to the tavern, and a sword hung from his belt. Stasio told him to take it off in the tavern but the man refused, and he left. I asked Stasio why it mattered whether the man hung his sword on the wall or on his belt. Stasio showed me a scar on his leg and said it was from a sword that a man drunk on wine had done to him. It was an ugly scar. Then I knew why Stasio always walks the way he does, with one knee a little stiff." Thackary did not say anything about the sword in the tavern. He snored, asleep with his mouth wide open. I closed my eyes and listened to him, and to the night around us, the fire in the log, and the foot of a tired horse kicking at the dirt. The sand drifted slowly across the road back to Kemee.
The sun was just rising above the dunes as we packed up the cart. The wine was gone but I had a skin of water. We drank a little, and I gave the rest to the horses. We had not gone as far the night before as I had hoped we would, and I did not know how long it would be before we reached the well. We climbed into the cart and I snapped the reins lightly to get the horses moving. I said to Thackary, How far to the well? Do you know? He had managed to clean the dried blood from his face, but his lip looked sore. He did not complain, and I did not complain about my own bruises. He shrugged at my question, One dune looks like another. I left Kemee believing it would be two days to Mungans Well. Travelers with horses have said as much. But youre dragging a cart. A horse with only a man on his back would go faster. So add another day. Or at least half a day. Ouch. Talking hurts. Laughing would be worse, so dont say anything amusing. I dont know how to be amusing. Thackary smiled with one side of his mouth. Then what did you say to a woman when you wooed her? How did you first capture her interest? How did you introduce yourself? I did not woo anyone. What? But how old are you? I cannot believe, Ben, that a full grown man of your fine looks has never Stop there, I said, and I felt angry. Kemee is a small village. Since boys and girls are matched for marriage at a young age, and I am not a good match for anyone, I did not have a woman. I knew that Thackary was staring at me, although I ignored him and watched the road beyond the heads of the horses. I had told him enough about my father already, and decided not to explain any more of it. I saw him nod, Ive heard of that method, where the parents arrange for the childs marriage, sometimes at birth, or very soon after. Thats not true where I come from. Were free to make our own mistakes. Ive wooed several women, and lost them all to other men. I have no trouble capturing a womans interest with witty conversation, but keeping her interest is an entirely different matter. Ive never been able to understand what I lack that other men have. It is possible, Thackary, that it is not a lack of wit, but an excess of words. He laughed, yelled Ouch, then laughed harder. I said, I did not intend to amuse you. I am serious. Have you ever asked one of these women why she chose another man? No, and that was not for want of trying, but usually because her new love was chasing me down the street with a big sword in his hand. Either the lover, or her father, or her brother. While I tried to picture these events, he leaned forward and picked the book up from the floor of the cart near his feet. But this, he said, and held the book up, may answer all our questions, both yours and mine. I have no questions. About women? All men do. What does the book tell you? Ive only read a little of the beginning. The good part is yet to come. Its a diary, Ben. Its written by the hand of a woman I thought I loved. But she did not love me, as I discovered, and now Im cured of that love, and I have her diary, and Im going to read it aloud so that you and I can laugh at her foolishness. I dont understand. Whats a diary? A journal, a log, a personal history of day to day events in a persons life. Didnt anyone in your family keep a diary? No. I did not want to tell him that I couldnt read or write. I was not ashamed of this. It was a skill Id never found necessary. But Thackary was always too amused about everything I told him of myself, as if I were making up stories for his entertainment. Not even your mother? Ah, he said at my angry look, A sweet and beautiful woman, Im sure, who was too busy taking care of you. Anyway, Ill summarize, then, what Ive already seen here. I havent had time to read more than a handful of pages. Her name is Claudia, and her father gave her the journal as a parting gift when he sent her away to school in the city of Urquhart. Now why, you are probably asking yourself, would a father do that? The answer is that Claudia was the cause of some trouble with his business partners. She is very beautiful. She also loves to dress in expensive gowns and go to balls. Balls? Dances, parties. Stasio had a party at the tavern one year Was there dancing? Claudia likes to dance, especially on the hearts of men. She says this in the first pages of her diary. She writes how she enjoyed seducing the men who were betrothed to her friends. Betrothed? Ben he sighed, and scratched behind his ear. It means to be engaged to be married. She caused trouble for the young women who were her friends. Someone who behaves that way will soon have no friends. Exactly. And the young men she toyed with are the sons of friends of her father, friends with whom he had business dealings. She caused a lot of trouble. So her father sent her away to school. She describes the school as a dreary place, and populated entirely by women. No men are allowed there. No parties, either. Then she must have been sorry for her behavior, and learned from the punishment. Once, when I threw a pot of flowers from my bedroom window to the street below, I almost hit Jed Holman, and my mother had a very smart lad to raise. Claudia, on the other hand, learned nothing from this punishment. She was living at the school in Urquhart when she started the diary, and she was furious with her father and with everyone she felt had betrayed her. She writes in a large and scrawling hand, and underlines some of her angry words, as well as the names of people she detests most of all. Nope, our Claudia is not repentant. I would not have been her friend, either. Oh, Ben, my innocent friend. If you were ever to see her, you wouldnt think about friendship. Youd think only about love. Is there any woman in Kemee who caused you to ache with a need for her, so much that you could not behave well around her, even to forgetting that she might be engaged to another? Is there such a woman in Kemee? I did not answer him. Yes, there was a woman that I loved from a distance. Our eyes met once, when she came from one direction, and I from another. She smiled at me and my heart pounded so loudly in my chest I was certain that everyone on the street could hear it. After that, I found reasons to walk those streets near where she lived, hoping to see her smile at me again. It was all I could ask of her, that smile, because her marriage to another had already been arranged for the following year.
Thackary sniffed and said, From your silence, I think there is such a woman. What color is her hair? Light, like the grain. The sun on her hair is like gold, which I saw once, in a coin at the tavern. And you wonder what it would be like to touch it, dont you. Are you surprised that I know what you are thinking? I know everything that you are thinking about her, because I felt the same about Claudiaand a few others. She is nothing like Claudia. From what you say, Claudia is like a child who has tantrums and throws things. Amara is kind and gentle, and will make a good wife for Dagon. My mistake. No fighting. Right? Good. For one thing, Claudias hair is red. Its thick and wild, and as impossible to tame as the woman herself. Her skin is pale with a touch of freckles. Her eyes are green. Are you sure that you no longer love her? Absolutely! She only pretended to love me, just to get her way with her father. Shes thoroughly heartless. I hope she is miserable for the rest of her life with that chinless snob that she married. I dont wish that for Amara. I do not want her to be unhappy. You are right; you feel nothing for Claudia, as you said. Yes, as I said. He turned the book over on his lap, opened the covers, and smoothed the pages. Im going to read this aloud, Ben. You may have questions, but please dont interrupt me. He cleared his cleared his throat, took a deep breath, and began to read in a very loud voice. Wednesday~~ One candle is not enough, so I brought two with me tonight. Yes, much better. But two add to the heat. I hate the heat, and its always hot, even up here on the roof five stories above the street. The night presses down like a hot, dusty blanket on my shoulders. My skin is damp and sticky. The moon is behind a cloud, and the stars are dim with the city haze. Urquhart is hot all day and all night, every day and every night. I HATE it. I will ALWAYS hate Urquhart. I DO NOT CARE about art museums, and architecture, and boring history about General Fuzz and Major Scowl. Why doesnt it snow here? It hardly even rains. The hills nearby are brown and bare and no one knows what I am talking about when I talk about snow. No one here has ever seen it. I want to see the white mountains again, and the snow across the fields behind our house. I want to hear the snowflakes on my window, and see them piling up on the sill, while the frost draws fairytale flowers on the glass. Thursday~~ I am bored. All of the lessons are stupid. I already know how to read and write and count and embroider and make broth for toothless elders. There is nothing more I can learn. And why should I? My father is rich, and I will marry a rich man and have servants to do the sewing and cleaning and cooking. I will spend all my life in fine dresses and shoes and bonnets, new every day, for the dances I will attend. I want a dress of blue silk the same color as the sky above the mountains, with white lace like snow falling all over the skirt. I want shoes to match. I want white ribbons in my hair and I want my hair in a thousand curls falling loose around my shoulders. Saturday~~ He is a pretty boy with a smooth cheek. Id so like to kiss him, and touch my fingers to his face, and then rest my hands on his shoulders while he rests his hands around my waist. Then we dance a little, and I move closer, and I breathe the air that he breathes until our lips Thackary stopped reading and closed the book. My throat is too dry to read more now. I want to wait a little while. Not very long, I said. I want to hear more about Saturday. But it was a long while later when I heard the rest of Saturdays story, because the horses smelled the water of Mungans Well, and began to run. The cart bounced and swayed wildly. I pulled at the reins but the horses would not slow down, and I could only control them enough to keep the cart upright on the road. They wanted water. So did we. And so did the bandits.
