The First Binding, page 62
My candle cast an odd trick then. Its light and the glow of the moon brought an odd tinge to Vathin’s eyes. The yellow-orange of the fire danced until it brushed aside the gray in him, putting golden gems in their place. Under that light, the man looked leaner and more grizzled than before. Wolfish, if I had to describe him. And it passed just as soon.
Clouds slipped through the sky, hiding the moon behind themselves.
Monsoon season decided to honor the story that night.
Thunder cracked.
Then came the storm.
My candle flickered and the trick of light faded, showing Vathin to be as gray, old, and tired as ever.
And the yellow finally left Vathin’s eyes.
FIFTY-SEVEN
ARRIVAL
Vathin told no more stories after that night and I didn’t have the heart to ask for more. He carried on through the trip in a sullen silence all could feel.
I spent my time instead talking with Jaseem, learning of the many places he’d visited over his travels along the Golden Road.
He told me of the villages, cities, and as well the kingdoms he’d gone through. Yet, he never once left the Mutri Empire. Something that left me rather confused.
Look at it from my perspective. Jaseem had the means and inclination to travel, and in theory, could go anywhere. He had the people, the wagons, and the skills to subsist. But he kept within one empire when there was a world to see. Why?
Then I remembered the Ari of just a few sets ago. A boy who’d kept himself safe within the familiar walls of Abhar, even more so, the city streets of Keshum. Nothing physically held me back. But I had. Whether through fear or comfort, and sometimes the pair are indistinguishable from one another. I had been the one to root myself so firmly in place. Nothing else.
Jaseem had done the same, and I couldn’t blame him. As hard in some aspects as his life was, he had comfort and familiarity. And enough variation in a day’s work to make it exciting. He knew the roads well and the people who lived at their ends. Knew where and when he was welcome to stop. He knew the paths to everywhere he deemed worth traveling and how to turn a coin or two of profit when he wanted.
The little things changed. The people that rode with him and the stories they traded along the way. Sometimes the weather. Other times he’d come upon a rarity in trade, or something worth nothing in tin, copper, or gold, but which intrigued him all the same. He told me these little trinkets could be a treasure to a man with imagination.
“What’s it like around the Ashram?” Vathin hadn’t answered that question for me. I hoped our guide would.
“Mhm. Cold, for one. It’s far enough up in Ughal that it never truly gets warm, even come the summer. Sure enough, the snows melt, but not in whole, and you can feel the air still clinging to their chill. It’s a cold brightness up there, if that makes any sense. Not sure if you’ve seen the like.”
I hadn’t.
Jaseem read my face and knew as much. “You’ll see, then. Wouldn’t hurt a man to get himself heavy robes for that kind of weather. It’s beautiful, though, don’t think it’s not. It’s clean. Calm. There’s something about the place you can’t put in words. You smell it in every breath up there. Special air. The food is good, maybe a touch too hot for my tastes. But then, it has to be, I suppose.”
I let him continue for a while, reveling in the information and letting it take my imagination whole. I needed something to pass the final drudgery of the journey.
I’d run out of my own stores of food nearly a set back, turning to anxious munching in moments of boredom. Thankfully, Jaseem and his wife cooked decent food.
Something a mark above what Small Kaya made for us. I don’t mean to imply she couldn’t cook or didn’t care, but the wagoner pair just did it differently. And I noticed it.
They cooked together, laughing and smiling between themselves as they did. The both of them took an honest pleasure in making things for the people they carried along the way. A true joy, and it showed. I still believe that spark made its way into the food.
“We’ll be there before dark tonight, Ari.” Jaseem never bothered to use any of the titles and calls based on a person’s age, relation, or rank by caste. He’d once told me that he found it beyond useless. They told you nothing of the person you spoke to, only of the one speaking to them.
The true way to measure a person was to watch them on the road, far away from people who cared to use their names and proper titles. To see how they fared on paths that treated all men equally, and in places where you were uncomfortable.
“Are you going straight to the Ashram?” I kept a silent hope that he would keep me aboard the wagon until we reached the place. I had the means to find lodging with my gold rupai, but the idea of spending it so soon upon arrival knotted my stomach.
Jaseem shook his head. “No. I’ll be settling down with Thaiya in the trader’s circle entering the city. Ughal is a small kingdom, but well respected. It has history. And Ghal is an equally small city, but has more coin flowing through it than places many times larger. Abhar may be the wealthiest, but there are places in the world where treasures trade hands easier, and with that, a man can make himself a small fortune. So, for me, it’s work as soon as we get there.”
I nodded, keeping the disappointment off my face.
“It’s not that far of a walk from the edge of the city to the Ashram. You’ll have time. It’s hard to miss that place, it’s not hard to find the path to it, and there are places enough to sleep and rest. You can find a meal, hot or cold, almost anywhere in Ghal.”
I didn’t have the heart to give him even a fake smile as he went on telling me my many options.
You would think with so much money at my fingertips, I’d be at ease. But no. There is a comfort to have something to hold on to when you’ve spent most of your life with so little. Even when that changes, you know the familiar hollowness of nothingness all too well. It never truly leaves you, and that fear keeps a place in your heart and stomach. That gold coin was all I had in the world besides my book and clothes.
Could I have taken more? Of course.
But guilt and fear are tricky things, and they so often work together to plague our minds with their many ills. I worried in doing so I’d subject my brothers and sisters to a similar fear as I now suffered. And my guilt over a worry that never came to pass kept me from tending to my own needs.
To some this sounds silly, but I wonder if those people ever wondered where their next meal might come from … much less when? If they knew the different kinds of pains hunger fills you with. A man grown familiar enough with barely eating could tell the day by the shape of the hunger hurting him.
By the end of my time as a sparrow, I’d built us a small treasure of wealth. But before that, it would be a lie to say we ate regularly. Some of us missed meals staying out past our runs to make up for any lack in tithing. Some of us got sick or were run so ragged we couldn’t keep anything down. Leftovers did not exist in the house of sparrows, so if you missed a meal, you would have to make the next. And then there were the meals themselves. Nothing Small Kaya served—not to her discredit—could be considered a meal. She did her best with what she had, occasionally trying to treat us to something better.
I say this to make clear now that I too came to know the different kinds of hungers as a sparrow under Mithu. And I never wanted to experience them again.
Something of my fear must have shown in my expression, and Jaseem, being the traveler that he was, well-acquainted with the moods of men, caught it for what it was.
“You don’t have anywhere to go when you get there, hm, Ari?” He placed a hand on my shoulder.
I tensed under his touch, then relaxed. “No. I don’t know anything about the place other than the word Ashram. I didn’t even think to ask.”
Jaseem pursed his lips and bobbed his head, adopting silence as he thought. We rode until the sun reached midday zenith. Then, Jaseem finally spoke. “You can stay with us until you need. Thaiya won’t mind. You’ll have to help with your hands wherever we need, but you’ll have a warm place to stay for the night, and food too. In the morning, you can go off to the Ashram. We won’t be able to take you ourselves, still. My business is best done with them when I’m ready to leave Ghal, not when I’m there and fresh faced. Ji-ah?”
Relief welled in me, untangling the twists in my stomach. “Ji!”
* * *
True to his word, we reached Ghal while the sky still held some blue. Most of the color had darkened to something found in sapphires dusted in coal, but still bright enough to not pass for night.
Ghal lived up to all that Jaseem tried to explain earlier. The air gnawed at what bits of me lay exposed outside of my cloak, making me doubly grateful I’d decided to buy the piece after all. The city lacked any of the walls I had lived all my life seeing within Abhar. But the thing that took my mind the most happened to be the sheer space between buildings and the land.
Keshum had been crowded. No, that word fell far short of the mark. Keshum had been packed to the point it threatened to burst at the seams. A consequence of its location. Abhar sat at the heart of the Mutri Empire, and thus, the Golden Road. And Keshum lay at the center of all that. The true and pure crossroads of all roads.
The city never had a chance to be anything but a skin filled to the point of overflowing. Buildings touched one another at times, barely leaving room for an alley to spring between them. People walked shoulder to shoulder in crowds so thick it couldn’t help but birth urchins who grew to be pickpockets.
But Ghal had space I couldn’t understand at first look. Homes and buildings with empty land around them. I spotted wooden posts and beams around some properties, fencing them in. The roofs were sharply canted, some in tiered rings that rose into a conical point. It took me a moment to realize why.
The design shed rain and snow easily.
And then it hit me.
The sheer brilliance of the place’s color jarred me so I couldn’t properly process it. And it all came from the endless sheet of white blanketing the ground and distant hills. Snow covered everything but for the trader’s circle we approached. The stark white brought a brightness to everything, even the colors of the buildings that would have otherwise been darker.
And smoke rose from many of the roofs. Chimney smoke—fires. The plumes of black and gray filtered high into the air before dissipating, but they looked odd in the frigid air and against the white backdrop.
“That’s what you’ll be wanting to visit.” Jaseem tapped two knuckles to the side of my chin before pointing far ahead of us.
I followed the gesture into the distance.
A mountain range sat just beyond the last of the city I could see. Atop it, gilded ringed spires, giant versions of the design common among the low-standing buildings near us. I saw blues bright enough to be gemstones among the gold, and reds strong enough to have been drawn from blood-made stone. The roofs caught the last rays of cold light, throwing them back at everyone in Ghal.
Among all the sights I’ve been fortunate in my life to see, gods and those claiming to be, monsters and magic, demons, and the things that fall between those lines, I confess my first glimpse of the Ashram still holds me, mind and heart, more than the rest.
It was like seeing an old promise, one you begin to lose faith in, come true. The Ashram may have been just out of reach, but it was close enough to see. And there is something to be said for seeing a place only kept to stories for so long.
“They build on top of and into the mountain proper there. Don’t ask me how. And don’t ask them.” Jaseem’s voice hardened and turned a sort of sour that almost had me making a face like I’d sucked a lemon. “Brahm and any other god above or under the sun knows I’ve asked many times how those old nutters did such a thing. They never tell me. One ass once said to me, ‘The same way you build a house on the ground, but this one is on a mountain.’ Can you believe that?” Jaseem didn’t give me a chance to answer. He harrumphed and went on.
“Better to just deal your goods and take what little magics they make to sell off down in the south. It’s better for my mind and peace that way.” Then his face broke into a toothy wide grin. “Plus it’s better for my purse.”
I matched his expression, my mood buoyed by finally seeing the Ashram. Every ounce of me wanted to break into a run and not stop till I reached its doors and began my new life pursuing the bindings. My excitement had reached beyond me because Jaseem put a hand on my shoulder and gave me a gentle jostle.
“Let’s find a spot for our wagons and get things unloaded, ji? After that, we’ll treat you and anyone else who decides to help to some dinner. We’ll haggle for rooms later. You can put up with us for the night.” He didn’t have to say another word.
I leapt from the wagon just as it slowed enough for me to know I wouldn’t tumble and dash my brains out on the ground.
“Oi, boy. You mean to empty the wagon before we even get there?”
“If that’s an option!” My pace had me fall behind Jaseem’s side, bringing me to the rear of the wagon.
Vathin groaned and leaned over its edge, looking at me with bleary eyes like he’d stared at the sun first thing upon waking. “The wise man lets his elders sleep so early in the day.”
“It’s close to sixth candle’s end. Seventh is going to start soon if the sky’s any judge.”
Vathin glowered at me, craning his neck to look at the sky. “The wise man knows if the sun’s still up, it can be argued to be morning somewhere for someone.”
I matched his look. “I’m sure the wise man happens to be the lazy man to someone somewhere too.”
Vathin found enough energy to pop straight up at that, then rock in place as he realized he hadn’t accounted for where he stood. The cart shook and he nearly tumbled from it. “The wise man also knows not to argue with uppity little pissants too full of themselves.”
“I’ve never once claimed to be a wise man. So it stands to reason I wouldn’t know these things and could never put them into practice.” I made a mock bow, throwing one arm out to the side as I did. Something snapped against my head with the force of being flicked by a finger. I winced and rubbed the spot. “Ow.”
I looked to the ground to find a pistachio the size of my thumbnail, still in its shell. I squinted at Vathin. “Isn’t there something about the wise man doesn’t throw nuts at children.”
Vathin grinned. “Nothing of the sort, surprisingly.”
It wasn’t so much of a surprise to me. The more time we spent together, the more comfortable Vathin and I had become in spirited conversation like the one we’d just had. They usually happened when he’d taken a curmudgeonly turn … such as upon waking, whenever that happened to be.
He turned toward the mountains, squinting at them before his eyes widened. “Ah. There it is. I can’t wait to get back there and set some of those old bastards’ heads spinning.”
I’m sure the rishis didn’t have the same enthusiasm for Vathin and his conversations.
“There’s a clearing over there!” Jaseem’s voice drowned out ours as he gestured to a broad swath of empty space in the circle. “No sitting about when we get there, Ari. You help the boys get everything off the wagons and set up. Don’t drop anything. Don’t spill a grain. Don’t tear a sack, crack a box, tip a thing, or scratch the side of my wagons. Ji?”
I answered him but didn’t think he heard me as the noise of the trader’s circle’s evening haggling and banter broke over us.
Everything became a wearying blur after that. I unloaded the wagons as instructed, not taking even a wayward breath to talk to any of the men helping me with the labor. Thaiya oversaw it all, measured and patient, ever with a smile on her face. When we needed a drink, she saw to it. Some soreness in our muscles, and she found us something lighter to do until we felt back up to the task of carrying things.
Jaseem handled the rest, quickly hunting down anyone who’d requested even a bent piece of wood. He sorted his accounts and off-loaded every good he’d brought up from Keshum. “Now, let’s be done with this. I’m going to settle the horses and wagons. Then we get to fill our bodies and rest our bones.”
He made good on his promise.
FIFTY-EIGHT
HAGGLING
I made my farewells that morning to what remained of our traveling party. Half the workers Jaseem employed had been temporary, and had now moved on to other jobs. Lixin had left before the sun had risen, conveying that he had only come here to find the first ride across the mountain border toward his homeland. Vathin was nowhere to be found. I took it to mean he’d left without a word.
That stung after our time together, but it had been foolish to think he wouldn’t want to set about his own business as soon as he could. After all, I certainly planned to.
That left the quiet Laki in my company. The pair of us dressed in what we could, both woefully underprepared for the weather in Ghal.
I left the inn with Laki by my side. We quickly took each other in arm, shuddering under the first breeze to lick its way through the openings in our clothing.
“I don’t think I’ll be able to make it up the mountain like this.” Laki’s eyes settled on the golden roofs of the Ashram’s buildings.
The comment lurched me away from the immediate discomfort of the cold. “You’re going there too?”
She nodded. “There’s something I need to get. Then I can leave for home.”
A piece of my heart sank at that. Though we didn’t know each other well, I had immediately hoped she intended to stay on and study at the Ashram. I would have liked one familiar face, no matter how shortly I’d known them.
It felt like Keshum to me now. I’d again be leaving a group of people I’d become comfortable with.
“What do you need? Where’s home?” I finally found the strength to walk through the cold, in search of the nearest clothier I could find. My sack weighed heavier on my shoulder, though it had in reality only grown lighter. I attributed the feeling to the fatigue of the trip finally settling in, as well as the realization I still had just a bit farther to go to get where I wanted. The weight made me thankful I had decided to buy the cane the old trader had suggested as it did alleviate some of my weariness.
