The First Binding, page 59
The other passengers had already boarded and stared at me as I took my place.
One of the men wore clothing clearly from Laxina. Fine fabrics but fit tightly to his frame, not the loose and more comfortable fashion found more among the Mutri. He reminded me of a cat, round-faced and smiling with all the guile of one in his eyes. Both his eyebrows were so thin I thought them to be drawn on with charcoal. He nodded to me, a gesture I returned.
“Ari.” I placed a hand to my chest.
“Lixin.” He repeated my motion.
I left it at that. His voice had an odd cant to it that made it clear the Trader’s Tongue wasn’t native to him, and pressing him to speak in it could irritate the man.
The other two passengers were just as odd. One looked to be the same age as me. A girl whose hair had more ash gray in it than it ever should have in her youth, barely betraying any hints of rich black. Lean—willowy in body—and parts of her skin were noticeably paler in broad splotches the size of my spread hands. She dressed comfortably in the clothing needed for a long and rough journey.
The last passenger stood out the most. His robes were thin but layered and lacked any pigmentation but a tired gray. It almost looked as if they once had been a different color, but had long since let it go through time and wear. Even the few strands of braided string above his breast had all but lost their hue.
“Never seen an old man before, boy?” His voice carried just as little color and strength as his clothing.
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to stare.” Which was true. I hadn’t. But something about him struck painfully close to a face out of my memory. I just couldn’t settle on which and the name behind it. “You reminded me of someone.”
His face went tight, bringing out the heavy lines along his cheeks and under his eyes. “Who?”
I told him of Mahrab without naming him or his occupation. Some people frowned on binders, thinking them devilish folk who meddled in things that ventured outside of Brahm and his path. Never mind that the bindings themselves were passed down by Brahm in some stories, they were unnatural things.
And people always fear what they find unnatural. Sadly so.
“Your teacher sounds like an interesting person.” The man had a face of hard angles, well-weathered by age, leaving me to guess he was in his fifties at least. If not, he’d lived a hard forty-something years. Very hard. His hair, however, held up better for it, keeping most of its darkness, and his beard only showed faint gray instead of brighter white. “My name is Vathin.” He held out his hand.
I took it and shook. “Ari.”
“It’s a good name. Your family must have thought highly of you to start your name like that.”
I blinked and gave him a look, hoping he’d explain that.
While I didn’t voice my question, he caught my stare and the meaning of it. “Your name, the first letter tells you a lot about names in the Mutri Empire. Any son of Brahm and his caste”—Vathin rolled his eyes and spat over the side of the cart—“often has a name inspired by his. Many use the letter B. But, older names, ones from a time of heroes and legend, are saved for some girls and boys. Take a guess what they start with.” He smiled and gave me a wink.
“A?” I wasn’t sure, but given what he’d said, I nursed a hope.
He nodded. “They didn’t tell you that?”
I frowned. “I never knew them.” My words brought a stillness to the passengers, which said quite a deal considering we were all resting comfortably. “It’s okay. I’ve lived with another family for a long time, and they were good.” That thankfully lightened the mood and I could see everyone visibly relax.
“Are they the ones you’re leaving behind now?”
I inclined my head. “I have to. I have things to do up north.”
“Such as?”
“Attend the Ashram.”
Both of Vathin’s brows went up. “You’re going to be a student? You’re young. Most don’t enter until fully grown. You’re not even to your sixteenth year, are you?”
I shrugged. “People always think I’m younger than I am.” It wasn’t an answer, but I knew deflecting would have him not weigh me with any more scrutiny. So long as I didn’t admit I was, in fact, young, it couldn’t be claimed as a mark against me. “And I’ve already learned some things that will help me there. I won’t know, though, until I go.”
“There is truth in that. Maybe while we journey north, you can show me some of what you learned? Maybe I can teach you something back.”
A part of me bristled at the idea of sharing what Mahrab had taught me. It’s not that I thought the information particularly worth keeping secret, but more that it was something special between him and me. One of the few tangible things, of a sort, I could hold on to and put into practice from my old life.
Before Koli and the Ashura took everything from me.
But I had always been a keen learner. I became obsessive over it. What I lacked in inherent genius and did not take to with the ease of some heroes out of stories, I made up for in tenacity and resolve. I could think of nothing better than to learn from Vathin on the road northward bound.
“I’d like that.” I grinned in earnest and he returned it.
Jaseem came back to our side of the cart, slapping the wood with his palm. “We’re setting off soon. Last rules. We have four other carts, my workers and my family ride in those. Anything happens to them, we all help. I don’t care what you paid. You help, ji-ah?”
Everyone nodded and returned the agreement, even the man from Laxina.
“That’s my wife, Thaiya.” He pointed to a squat woman whose face was just as round as the rest of her. She wore her dark hair in a braid that fell to the middle of her back, and when she smiled, the extra folds in her cheeks couldn’t blot out the genuine warmth in her expression. “She says she needs help with something, you do it. Ji?”
Another agreement.
“We eat what she cooks. If anyone wants to spend coin for more or better, we welcome it, but don’t think you keep it to yourself, ji? Here, we are all one family going north. People thinking of themselves get left to be by themselves.” He paused, letting the quiet stretch and build before turning his voice to heavy cold stone. “They don’t last long on their own up that way.”
Everyone nodded in solemn silence.
“At night, we unload what we can, and we share what room we have. Thaiya and my children get the tents. Everyone else, myself included, get the canvas. We set up high to cover from rain and around for the wind. That is enough. And there is always underneath the wagons.”
Nobody said a thing to that.
“Good. Get comfortable and tell a tale or two, long journeys are made better with stories to pass the time. You’ll get tired of watching stone and stream pass by, and just as bored by trees and skies. They all blur the same. The road is long. And it is hard.”
He was right on all accounts.
FIFTY-FOUR
STONES AND STREAM
Pleaing Day turned into Wanting, then soon into the night of Singing Day. Each lived up to what Jaseem had warned. Hard. The roads were well-worn and rutted how you expected for paths along the Golden Road, but that didn’t make them soft. No amount of constant footfall and wagon wheels could pack down and smooth these lands. Every jostle promised to shake loose my bones, and my teeth occasionally clacked together in a manner to make me wonder if I’d chipped one.
The first night left me tired and shaken enough to want to do nothing but curl into a ball and sleep like stone. The second drove home the discomforts of the journey twice as hard as the first. And the third seemed to make no other point than to find whatever taxed me most on the ride … and give me threefold the agony in that.
But by Waiting morning, I’d weathered the worst of it. The rest of the passengers felt the same.
No longer did low muttering and grousing fill the cart—no. Now Lixin clapped his hands, smiling all the while, all to a tune only he could hear. Vathin sat cross-legged, arms resting on his thighs and knees, breathing slow and steady, much like the pose I’d adopted when taught the folds of the mind. And the silent girl remained as quiet as when I’d first seen her, all the expression and colorlessness of Vathin’s clothing in her face.
Our newfound comfort brought us a new ease that opened mouths and set tongues loose into the first real conversation I feel is worth remembering in this part of my story.
The wagons stopped and we rolled off the path onto an open field, keeping just close enough to get back onto the path and be in view of any other travelers.
Jaseem told us that our bodies would thank us for taking the time to stretch and move about properly. The first three days were always the hardest, but they were just as important to drive hard through to make the progress he desired.
We took him at his word and left the confines of the wagon, going for a stroll.
Unlike some of the others on the journey, I kept my sack over my shoulder, an old habit telling me to not let my belongings out of sight—much less out of hand.
“You hold on to that thing like it’s the last piece of precious left to you in this world, boy.” Vathin reached out toward the sack, hand open to likely give it a pat.
I turned, shying away from his arm, keeping doubly sure my sack remained free of his touch.
He raised a hand to calm me. “You’re more skittish than a stray cat.”
I held back the glower wanting to work its way across my face. The truth was Vathin had spoken accurately. My time on Keshum’s streets had made me wary of those outside my family. And I still remember the first time a stranger extended a hand toward me … and how much it hurt.
“Sorry.” I released the tension from my back and shoulders, letting the sack slump a little in my hold. “This is all I have left after leaving my family behind.” Saying the words aloud ached, but noticeably less than it had back in the city. Even a few days on the road had already dulled the pain from what it had been. I gave thanks for that.
Vathin gave me a long and searching look before nodding. “Then I can see why you’d want to keep that close. I’m sorry for putting you at unease.” He brought a hand to the hollow of his throat. “I swear it by my neck and my voice, sorry.”
I accepted the apology.
“Would you care to show me what’s inside?”
I hadn’t expected that. The fact he’d asked made me inclined to oblige. I lowered the sack to the ground and undid the cinched string binding it tight. “There’s not much. Mostly food and clothes. I didn’t have much to my name except this.” My fingers closed around the book Mahrab had left me. I pulled it out and passed it to Vathin.
He took it in both hands with as much care as I myself showed in handling it. “This is important to you. I can tell that much.”
I nodded.
His fingers clipped under the covers and he pried. Then his face went through a series of expressions so fast I couldn’t track them, all to settle on one of profound confusion. He stared at the book, squinting as he tried to wrench it open. “This isn’t merely stuck.” Before I could answer, he closed his eyes and ran another hand over it, breaking into a loud laugh that rolled through the field. “Oh, that’s good. It’s a binding—cleverly done, too.” He passed the book back to me.
I took it, but didn’t put it away. “You’re not going to unbind it?”
He shook his head. “Whoever bound it did so for a reason. It’s a foolish binder who unmakes another’s without knowing why they made it in the first place. Better so, without knowing what undoing the binding will bring about. Only an idiot releases a binding that’s sealed something, even on a book. So, can you tell me why it’s shut?”
“Only if you tell me how you knew it was bound in the first place?” I waited a handful of breaths for Vathin to answer, but he didn’t. “Are you a binder?”
He waggled a hand. “I’m familiar. It’s a matter of discussion, a great one at that, if I’m a binder by any definition. I’m better suited to philosophy, thinking, and musing on things. They are simpler, and thus, better joys than what bindings can bring a man.”
I didn’t believe that.
“So, why do you have a book shut by a binder that you cannot open?”
I told him. “My teacher said it was a gift for me, and that in it were all the things I could ever hope to know about my family and more. But, he said I’d only be able to open it when I was ready to know and ready to do the binding necessary.”
Vathin nodded like he understood. “Then it would be wrong for me to do it. If this man was your teacher, then he knows you better than I do, and I’m sure he has his reasons no matter your curiosity. But, thank you for showing it to me.”
I sighed in resignation and stowed the book. It had been a bit much, I suppose, to hope that Vathin would have unmade the binding on the spot.
“So is that why you’re heading to the Ashram, then? You wish to be a binder?”
“Yes. And they have stories and records of all the tales I could dream of, or so I’ve heard.”
“That much is true.”
My eyes went wide and I nearly fumbled in tying my sack shut. “You’ve been there?”
He waggled his hand again. “Another matter up for debate. Some of the rishis there think I’ve never set two steady steps through any part of the Ashram long enough to count as being there. No. They say I never really leave here.” He tapped the side of my head. “Maybe they just don’t like the talking they call arguing whenever we speak. I have a habit of making them think about their words and not everyone likes that.” He gave me a mischievous smile that I found myself mirroring. “They’re not fond of philosophers there.”
“What’s it like?” I hadn’t realized the excitement that flooded my voice until I heard myself speak.
“You’ll see it soon enough for yourself. Keep that in mind, hm? It’s not good for a man to fix his gaze too far ahead on things his feet are far behind. Keep your eyes on where you’re at, otherwise you’ll be chasing a cloud on the wind. It gets farther the more you follow. You’ll miss this.” Vathin pointed to the ground.
I followed his gesture to spot a snake slithering through the grass between us. I yelped, leaping back.
“Nothing so bad.” Vathin moved with reflexes better than a man of his age should have had, grabbing the serpent by the tip of its tail. He snapped out his other hand to take the creature by its head as well and cradled it in his hold. “It’s not dangerous.”
I eyed the snake. “How can you tell?”
He shrugged. “Learn to look at things and you come to see the shape of them. And, I’ve lived and traveled long enough to know what’s harmful and what isn’t.” Vathin tapped a finger to the snake’s head, agitating the creature slightly. “Shape of its face, and the coloring.” He traced a finger along the body. “These little ones bite and swallow their food whole.” Vathin moved over a dozen paces from me, setting the snake in the grass. “It’ll leave us alone, and I hope you took its lesson to mind.”
The blank look on my face must have told Vathin I hadn’t a clue what he meant.
“Focus on things now, Ari. Not where and what they will be.”
“Right now we’re in the middle of nowhere somewhere between where we left and where we want to be.” I grumbled something else after that under my breath, knowing he didn’t catch the string of profanity.
“Then let’s be here and enjoy what we can. Besides, it’ll give us time to do more than be discontent in the back of a wagon, eh?”
I tilted my head and looked at him sideways. “What do you mean?”
He smiled. “I think we made offers of teaching one another before we set off. I mean to hold up my end, do you?”
I did.
* * *
Morning passed to late afternoon and I spent the time with a stick Vathin had whittled clean and straight, showing him what I’d learned at the hands of my old choreographer and swordsmanship teacher. He clapped all the while as I flowed through old and long-practiced movements.
In return, Vathin lectured me on philosophy, asking me the greater questions of the world—and, more importantly, myself. He made me think on the bindings themselves, even though I hadn’t close to a full understanding how they worked or what they could do. All I knew was what I’d seen. Even still, I thought on them in as many ways as I could.
He taught me to wonder why people did the things they did, obeyed the rules they did, even though the only things making them were the arms of men strong enough to … and usually a few swords. He made me think on who wrote those rules and for whose benefit. I pondered on why the bindings were so hard that only a handful of people ever learned them well enough to call themselves a binder. Why not make them easier?
I thought and thought on things until my head swam and ached much like when I’d begun learning the folds.
To reciprocate, and maybe give Vathin a head of his own back, I decided to teach him what little I knew of the folds of the mind. He never asked a question, only listened. When I tried to prod him with questions of my own, well hidden within things I tried to teach, he ignored them with more cleverness than I could manage in conversation.
I soon found why the rishis at the Ashram grew weary of him and probably barred him from staying too long among them, whatever his business may have been.
But most of all, and of what I fondly remember, we traded stories. Little things, and large. He taught me why people believed all the silly things they did, and why, maybe, some of those beliefs weren’t so silly at all.
* * *
Waiting Day passed, and we spent the night sleeping near each other. Well, we hardly slept, keeping in conversation and watching the stars until our eyes grew heavy. By the next morning of Listening, we’d set back out on the road, our bodies renewed from the rest. Jaseem promised us it would be the only full day’s rest we’d have, so it was a good thing we made the most of it.
The evening came on us and we crested a small hill before a stream. The only way ahead came by way of a bridge too narrow for more than one wagon to take at a time. My attention drifted elsewhere while Jaseem dismounted and spoke to the other drivers about crossing.
