The Trining : SOME ANSWERS ... MORE QUESTIONS by Jay Squires |
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If you're just joining The Trining, well, you missed out on a lot that happened on the crimson red sea shore, where the protagonist awakens sans memory, and not too much more clothing. His enemy is clinging to his back and there is a debilitating wound on his side. He's able to throw the enemy off his back, flatten her with a right hook, but ends up passed out from his wound. In her cave, he goes in and out of consciousness and ultimately discovers the wound is healed—but the enemy who succored him back to health reigns over him with a makeshift spear and considerable attitude. Chapter Two
"Up! We must go." I opened my eyes to see her standing at my feet. She held the spear angled to the ground near my knee. I was hungry. I hadn't eaten since she put something in my mouth—how long had it been?—probably two or three days earlier. Awkwardly, I got to my feet and stood there reeling until I got my bearings. "I need to eat something." Without a word, she moved to the other side of the now-smoldering fire pit, withdrew something hidden behind one of the stones that encircled it and returned to me. "Here," she said, extending a brownish, porous object. It looked like what she had been gnawing on during one of my brief bouts of consciousness. "What is it?" Cool to the touch, I brought it to my nose and sniffed it. It smelled damp, earthy. "It will give you strength." "Strength is good," I answered, "but meat strength—you know, something that will stick to my ribs." Not surprisingly, this caused her to cock her head and her over-sized lids to blink. "Meat," she said, less -- I was sure -- as a question and more a flat enunciation to allow an extra microsecond for her mental Funk and Wagnalls to pluck the correct definition and dispatch it to her vocal chords, vibrating madly in anticipation of her answer: "My people do not eat flesh." "But, my people do!" I told her, with more animation than I had expected or that prudence would intend. She tightened her palm around her spear. "How about fish?" I asked. I felt a glimmer of hope as we both waited for her words to be ready. "No fish!" she said with finality in her voice and a fear in her eyes that told me it was more than a question of flesh. I took a moment before proceeding with the subject of breakfast. I wanted to tuck away in my bag of useful information the observation of how suddenly a fearful impulse caused her pupils to dilate and almost eclipse the entirety of her golden irises. I couldn't understand, now, precisely how this could be useful, but the fact that she evidently had no conscious control over it, being alert to it might give me an edge. "Eggs," I offered as a kind of last ditch stand. It wasn't flesh. I waited. "Show me this egg," she finally said. "I will look for one." But, I remade the observation that I hadn't seen any seagulls here—or any other bird, for that matter. I tried to remember other creatures who laid eggs. I was sure poultry would be out of the question. Wherever we were off to today, I would make it my constant vigil to find an egg to show her. As long as it was fresh and unfertile, I could build a good case for its contents not being flesh. She nodded her head to the object I held. "Eat. We must go." Motioning me ahead of her, she stood behind with the spear pointed toward my back. "There," she indicated with her head, and I gnawed on the bland root-like object as we proceeded into the shadows beyond the fire pit at the back of the cave. "That way," she pointed with the tip of the spear. I followed the walls of the cave angling off to the left. The soft sand turned into rock clusters under my feet. I maneuvered them carefully, realizing how easy it would be to misstep and twist my ankle. I could hear her breathing behind me as I plodded on, my right hand using the cold cave wall as a guide through the darkness. "It would be too much to hope for," I ventured, "that you'd have a flashlight." She appeared to ignore me. I continued to slide my hand along the face of the wall until I felt it curve to the right and at once a beam of light illuminated the opposing wall. A smaller tunnel snaked off in roughly the direction we had been going in, but the tip of her spear on my shoulder indicated I turn to the right. I followed the light with my eyes to its source, an opening at the far end leading to the outside. The cave walls narrowed until they converged at the fissure. The only way out. I glanced over my shoulder, only to feel the whack of the spear shank on my arm. "Really!" I snarled. "What's your problem?" The blow was actually delivered with so little power that there was no pain. But her intent was to keep me imbalanced and in my place. I was pretty sure I could overpower her, even though I wasn’t up to my full strength. But to what end? She was my only source of intelligence. As much as it offended me, I needed her. We approached the opening. It was irregular in dimension, probably a foot and a half at its widest spot and a foot at its narrowest. Weeds grew in tangles up from the pebbles and rock clusters. I did some rudimentary calculations. If I could go through at all, it would have to be sideways … and there was the danger I might wedge myself in so snugly that I wouldn't be able to continue on or come back. If that happened even her spear would fail to urge me through. "If this is the way you come and go," I offered, "why don't you go first so I can see how you do it?" "Go," she said, simply. "But, if I'm on the outside and you're still in here, how do you know I won't just take off?" "You would die by yourself." She was nothing if not confident of her position of dominance. It wouldn't hurt to let her keep that false sense of power until I was ready to make my move. "Go!" she repeated. I rolled my eyes, took a breath and edged my left hip into the chasm. I wanted my right arm free and facing the inside in case she got impatient and crazy with her spear. I maneuvered my left thigh at an angle toward the outside, and then pivoted my hip back and forth on its axis, feeling myself slipping, inch by inch toward the center. Next, I started inching my shoulder and chest in. Approaching panic, I pushed with all my strength toward the outside. Just as I feared, I was wedged in tightly. I tried pulling back toward the interior. Not a quarter inch, either way. My nose scraped against the wall as I turned helplessly to face her. "Can't breathe," I mouthed. She laid the spear down and approached me. Each of my inhalations was shallower than the one before. She calmly rubbed her palms together, and then inserted her fingertips between my back and the wall. "Breathe," she demanded. "I—I can't!" With my words, my chest wall seemed to collapse more toward my spine. "Yes, breathe," she said again. I felt her hand sliding, easily now, in an up and down movement, from my waist to my shoulder blades. And, I could breathe. She removed her hand. "Now, go through." I seemed to be wearing the crevice like a loose garment now. It was uncanny. I easily rotated my head 180 degrees and looked out at the sunlit slope of land beyond the opening. And with a shimmying movement I was through. She and her spear followed me effortlessly and she stood facing me. Her enormous eyes seemed to consider me, as for the first time. "What is it?" I asked her. She looked down as though studying something on the ground behind me, and then she looked up at me and for a moment I thought I saw her eyes begin to rim with tears. But with two blinks of those over-sized eyelids, they were dry. "You think," she began, "that I would let you trick me?" I raised my shoulders, and then dropped them in a slow half-shrug, trying to figure out what she meant. "You think you would make me believe you do not have Kunsin." Suddenly, before I could possibly react, she slapped my arm with the spear shank. "Now, quit that!" I said, more loudly than the ineffectiveness of the blow warranted. "You have no reason to strike me. I don't know who you think I am, or what I've done wrong. You think I tricked you! Why would I trick you? And … how? I don't understand how I would trick you. I don't get what you're saying I did. What did I do?” She stared at me without speaking. "What is this Kunsin you're talking about?" She corrected my pronunciation, but it sounded exactly the same. I tried it again. "Kunsin." "Kunsin," she said, and again, more loudly, "Kunsin!" as she brought the shank down toward my arm. This time I intercepted it and easily wrestled it away from her. "I told you not to do that." I held it out of her reach. Her once proud and defiant shoulders slumped as she stared at the ground. This time I had no doubt about her eyes filling. A few tears dropped to the ground before she sniffed and seemed to be getting her bearings. She got to her full height and threw her shoulders back. She looked steadily into my eyes, then, with a roll of hers, looked up and to the side, exposing her neck. "I am ready," she said. "I am ready, Pondria!" "There you go again! Pondria!" It was my turn to feel empowered. Holding the spear above my head in both hands, with a shout I brought the shank of it down against the thigh of my right leg which I was simultaneously raising. I let out a yowl of pain as it rebounded off my thigh. Hoping she would take my outcry of pain as a sort of victory celebration, I flung the spear with all my might down the hillside and into the scrub brush. "Now, who is this Pondria you are calling me?" I almost finished it with "woman!" as a final display of power, but thought against it. I still needed some questions answered and that would be best handled if we weren't on a dominance/submission mode. She brought her eyes back to mine and I saw in them a look of perplexity mixed with just a touch of relief. A trace of a smile crept into her lips as she glimpsed what I was not aware of at the time. I had been massaging the feeling back into my right thigh. I quickly withdrew my hand but it was too late. Her smile turned into an outright laugh … which must have been contagious since I began laughing too. "So," I said, once I started to gain some control over myself. "I hope you're not disappointed I'm not this Pondria." Her control was slower in coming as she was doubled over in laughter. "It's good to see you laugh," I said. "It's good that we laughed together. I hope it means we can begin to trust each other. Do you think so?" She straightened up, still grinning, but my words apparently caused her to compose herself rapidly. A troubled look replaced the smile. "The tables warn," she said, with a sigh, "that Pondria will move like sweet-tasting water among my people and my people will drink the water and find it refreshing to their spirit. And even while they want more of the sweet tasting water, a slow poison begins to creep into their spirit." Either I was getting used to her speech patterns or she no longer looked like she was doing an abysmal job of lip-syncing She stopped and seemed to be searching my eyes. "You do want to believe me, don't you?" I asked her. She was perfectly still for a long moment and then she nodded. "If I were Pondria, and as evil as you say he is, wouldn't I have killed you when you asked me to?" She didn't answer, but she seemed to be considering it. "Oh! And, if I had all the Ku- Kun—" "Kunsin," she assisted. "Kunsin—if I had his Kunsin—which I'm guessing—what is it?—a kind of power?" "It is. Power, yes … You would call it a mighty power!" "A mighty power," I repeated. “Would you say it was a power strong enough for the great Pondria to break a spear across his mighty leg?" Without warning her body convulsed again in laughter. She raised a supplicating hand. "No—no, don't!—no!" begging me not to make her laugh. And, then she totally gave into it, slumping to the ground. "It wasn't that funny," I scolded her, but with a grin on my face. "Yes, yes it was." She choked, recovered. "It was very funny." I knelt beside her and put my hand lightly on her shoulder. "Okay, from your standpoint I guess it would have been." As though she had for the first time become aware of the pressure of my hand, she glanced over at my arm, angling down to her and then up to my face. For a moment she looked confused and then she scrambled to her feet. "We must go." "Sure," I acquiesced. "Where?" "This way." Gathering her white gown about her, she traversed the narrow path that hugged the base of the mountain, inside which our cave was housed. I followed behind her. Not nearly as fleet-of-foot as she, once I almost took an embarrassing tumble off the hillside. I wouldn't likely have been hurt, but I was feeling a rather strong urge for redemption at this point. Depending on the pitch of my voice or the tangle of arms and legs when I fell, it might reside up there in her memory alongside the spear incident. There was only one spear incident. It deserved to stand alone and not be rivaled by another humiliation. "You know, you saved my life twice," I said, watching the pathway for any loose rocks or vegetation that might trip me up, "so it would be nice if I knew the name of the person I owe my life to." She didn't respond. Her coolness toward me confirmed my feeling that she had misinterpreted the hand I placed on her shoulder. I wasn't sure I could explain how it found its way there, either, only that it wasn't brought about by any romantic feelings toward her. "I mean, what harm can there be in calling you by your name?" Nothing. "Then I'll name you myself. Last chance. No? Okay, let's see … you seem like a Norma to me. Norma? Sure, okay, I'll call you Norma." She pointed to a place ahead where the path widened as though to accommodate a large boulder. There was still enough space to get around it—which we did—and on the other side there was a spacious opening into the mountainside. She turned and faced me with a brief smile. "The other way in," she said. "You're saying I could have gone out this opening, Norma?" I tried to keep the edge out of my voice. "Instead of almost becoming a permanent part of the wall over there?" "Pondria would have gone through easily." "But, I'm not—oh! So you knew right then!" "I didn't know." "You thought Pondria would have gone so far as to die, wedged in the wall, just so he could deceive you and your people into believing he was not Pondria?" She blinked. "But, wait," I went on, "if Pondria was a dead hunk of meat stuck in that wall how could he confound your people into believing the water was fresh instead of poisoned?" "I wanted to believe you were not Pondria, but Pondria would have used my wanting to believe against me, just as he would have used it against my people." "But the thing with the spear and my leg … that made a believer out of you." She made a snorting noise and a kind of hiccup and held back the hilarity with a hand over her mouth, her eyes wide open and pleading. "Okay," I grinned. "And when you laughed so completely and uncontrollably, that was when I began to believe in you, too… in us … in us not being enemies. And that was when I put my hand on your shoulder back there. I didn't mean to confuse you." "Axtilla," she said, so quickly it startled me. "Axtilla?" I shook my head. She tapped her upper chest with her palm. "Axtilla is my name." "That's beautiful. Axtilla." "What is your name?" "I … don't know." She brought her brows together. "Why?" "I don't—I mean, I just don't know. I'm wondering why, too. Ever since the day I opened my eyes on the beach, I've been trying to remember my name. I don't remember it. I'm not even close to remembering it. What's more, I don't even remember where I came from. Isn't that strange? I don't know where I came from. I have no history. And yet ... I know wherever I came from, it's very different from your country, so that's a start, isn't it?" I paused to see if any of this was registering with her. I could see it wasn't. "Your ocean, for example, is deep red, not blue." For just an instant, the word "ocean" seemed to make her shudder, but she recovered. "Why would it be blue?" "Because that's its color." A rhyme popped into my mind. "In 1492 Columbus sailed the ocean blue." "Your words make no sense," she said, clearly getting annoyed. "What is this Columbus?" "He discovered America. Every school kid remembers the date by memorizing that little rhyme." I thought about what I just said. "Wait! Then, at least I know I came from America." I leaned against the boulder and looked past her into the cave. Would I have to wait for bits and pieces of my identity to pop into my mind, like the poem did? "Where are we, Axtilla?" I asked her. "Where is this place?" She stared at me, puzzled. "And, where are all your people? You mentioned your people and yet I haven't seen any of them. You're young. Your parents must be worried about you — well, unless you're married. Are you married, Axtilla?" Each question seemed to strike her like individual blows and she now reeled under their cumulative impact. "I'm sorry, Axtilla ... did I say something? — Obviously I said something that upset you.” She tried to recover. "I am fine," she said, straightening her slumped shoulders. "Well, sure …" I assured her, "but—" "I'm alone." She announced this with a stony finality. Her demeanor warned me I was broaching sensitive ground; still, I had to ask. "But, your people …" "I have no people!" she shot, like a bullet that was meant to curtail any further discussion. I dodged the bullet. "But your parents, Axtilla." "Dead." "I'm sorry. But, there must be someone. Why is there no one here with you?" "I told you, I am alone." "But—” "My people" — she looked up, through glassy eyes, as if searching for the right word—"My people — b-banished me here."
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Jay Squires
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