The Trining : LIFE WITHOUT AXTILLA? by Jay Squires |
IF YOU ARE JUST NOW JOINING THE ADVENTURE, This is what happened in Chapter Seven: It was a long, but seminal chapter; I hope you will be able to read it in its entirety: In order to explain to Doctrex why it is her responsibility to go to the other side, Axtilla needs to give him more of the history of her people. Since the Bining, her people had become physically and morally soft. This was because of too much peace (light) without challenges (dark). A division had occurred within the Encloy. When her grandfather died her father took over as leader. He got direction from Kyre in his dreams that he was to have Axtilla memorize all the tablets, after which they were to be destroyed. She does this. She goes on to explain the Trining and how is was going to be a "sudden, easy and complete translation of authority." When her father died, she started having dreams where Kyre instructed her to tell the Encloy of the arrival of Pondria & the beginning of their decline in preparation for the Trining. She is ridiculed by some, feared by others. This is why she was banished. And, with the Trining looming before them, the only thing she can do is confront the leader of the Far north, Glnot Rhuether, and destroy him. Suddenly, she gets very sleepy and tells Doctrex Kyre is calling her. While she sleeps, Doctrex hears the voice of a child in distress, crying for help. She his hanging upside down through a hole in the membrane and is begging him to pull her through. He takes as much of a run as he can and leaps toward her. As he grabs hold, she also grabs him by the calves and pulls him up and through, into Kojutake. Chapter Eight
She stood in front of me, smiling her child's smile. I stared at her for just a moment, until my eyes focused on what lay behind her. Even though part of me was aware she was still smiling at me, I took in everything around me in disbelief. Dime-sized pink flowers spread out across an entire meadow; they filled my nostrils with their delicate fragrance. Numberless oak trees left their inviting patchwork of shadows. I raised a hand to shield my eyes from the jarring glare of the sun. Where is the Kojutake? Where's the dirty, yellow fog, the Pomnots, the gory remnants of their kill? Where is anything I saw from down there?[KINDLY READ AUTHOR NOTES FIRST] I felt a sudden wrenching hollowness in my gut. Axtilla! Axtilla is dreaming her dreams down there. Or, has she already awakened and found me gone? What would she be thinking? That I ran away like a coward? That I abandoned her? She already has doubts, thinking I might be Pondria—and Pondria is the enemy of her people. Still …even in the midst of her doubt, she put her hand on my arm. And, while she was giving herself over to sleep—she was awake still, wasn't she—when she rested her head against my shoulder? Might she have even been aware of my cheek as it pressed against the crown of her head? On some level I'm sure she was. A feeling of nausea filled the hollowness. "Why …?" That was all I could think to say to the child smiling up at me. She wore a pale yellow dress, loose at the waist, and little brown sandals. Her knees were stained by grass. "You are sad," the child said, and for the moment she said it her smile was gone. But then it sprang back. "We can play." "I don't want to play. I want to know who you are. And, where I am. This is not what I saw from down there. Where am I, little girl?" She looked puzzled for a moment, and then the familiar smile returned. "You are here." "Well, I don't want to be here! I want to be back … down there." I pointed, but there was no hole there—none! "But it's ugly—dark and cold," she said . "The sun is so warm here." She seemed suddenly inspired. "I watched you and the other one when it was light. I watched you on the little path by the mountain, and when she fell and then when she was sick." "Show me where you saw us. It has to be around here someplace. Can you do that? I need to know if she's all right." "Not now. It's dark there now." "No, but wait! It was dark there a little while ago when you were hanging through the hole. But that didn't stop you. Where's the hole?" She was stricken. "Oh! Please don't say anything about the hole. Tell me you won't." "Ah-ha!" Now I had her. "Then, don't you think you'd better take me there right this very moment? You'd better find it, punch a hole big enough for me to fit in and push me through. Then, no one will be the wiser. No one will ever know." She stared at me a moment, released two rapid-fire hiccups and then began sobbing, her face in her hands, her thin shoulders bobbing. "No! You don't do that." "I ju—jus—just wanted—" Another hiccup escaped.—"someone to play with. T-that's why I called you when you were down there." “Nope,” I said, “huh-uh.” I kept my eyes just above her head, flitting from one thing to another, while averting them from her. “Now, come on, little girl!” "Can we just play a little while? And-and then I'll push you through" "Where are your brothers and sisters? You'd have more fun with someone your own age." "I don't have any brothers or sisters I can play with." I sighed. Axtilla would probably be searching the hillside for me by now. "Okay, listen to me, sweetheart. We'll play five minutes—ten minutes tops. You understand? Then we'll come back and you'll push me through the hole. You promise?" She blinked her eyes and the smile returned. "You promise?" I repeated. She nodded, crinkling up her nose. "What shall we play? Do you know find out where I hide? "You mean hide and seek?" "See those trees?" There was a clump of three oak trees growing close together about a hundred yards away. "I'll hide there." She was evidently talking about another game. I was about to tell her I was supposed to hide my eyes and count to a hundred, but before I could get it out I saw her zipping across the meadow and down toward the trees. While she raced toward her destination, I dug with the toe of my shoe at a patch of pink flowers. It had to be somewhere beneath these she had been hanging down; I stood, gawking at what was clearly an impossibility. The little girl was at the trees, waving up at me. "Sarisa … where are you Sarisa?" The voice, a female voice, came from off to the right. I turned toward it. It sounded like it came from a copse of trees, about as far away in that direction as the little girl was in the other direction. Before I had a chance to gather my thoughts, the child was at my side, not even breathing hard. "Mister, please don't tell her about the hole. She will be so disappointed in me." "Maybe she should be. You might have been hurt." "Please don't tell her. Here she comes. Hi, mommy." I watched her mother gliding toward us down a slight decline, smiling a smile her daughter had mastered. She wore a pale yellow gown, of the same material as her daughter's, cinched at the waist with a woven black cord. She had on brown leather sandals. "Your father will be home soon. We wouldn't want him to worry, would we?" She stopped in front of us, putting a hand on her daughter's shoulder, smiling all the while at me. I smiled back, but with a little less social finesse than she exhibited. She turned her glow back on her daughter. "Where are our manners, Sarisa? Are you going to introduce your friend?" "My name's Doctrex," I said, intercepting Sarisa's discomfort. "What an interesting name. It is not from around here, is it? Is it from the southern province?" "Yes," I said, knowing full-well there was nothing I could answer to this that would not elicit the next question, 'Oh! What town or borough or village?' So I quickly added, "I've been a vagabond for years, traveling by foot here and there, working for my food and a place to lay my head. Today, I was resting a spell in this meadow, enjoying the sun and the fragrance of the flowers, when I saw your Sarisa. We hadn't even made introductions when we heard you calling her." "My name is Metra," she said. I noticed all the while I spoke that she hadn't blinked or stopped smiling. She'd been waiting for a pause in my little lie to introduce herself. "Well," I said, "It's nice to meet you, Metra." Suddenly, and without warning, my stomach gurgled, deep and long. I realized it had been about twelve hours since I had anything to eat; and that was a brief gnaw on a root. "You must stay for dinner, Mr. Doctrex." "It's just Doctrex," I corrected. "It is such an interesting name, Doctrex. Are—" "I accept," I interrupted, "if you're sure I won't be a bother." To the little girl, I added, "Sarisa, I hope we'll be able to finish our game of find out where I hide before dark." "Dark?" Metra puzzled. "It's not the season for dark. You must have been wandering down from the northern provinces." Something in the thought seemed to trouble her. She laid her arm across Sarisa's shoulder. "Come, my dear, let's show Doctrex the way to our house. Klasco will enjoy talking with you, Doctrex. With three females in the house he doesn't get much of a chance to talk." I looked from Sarisa to her mother. "So, Sarisa has a sister?" "Yes," she said, her face clouding a bit. "I should tell you Klea is not well. She doesn't leave the house." She urged Sarisa forward with her arm across her shoulder and she walked between us up the path toward the copse of trees. "Yes," she continued, "Klea was born six-weeks early and during the season of darkness." "I see," I said, but of course I didn't. I waited for Metra to continue. "You'll probably wonder, though she is bedridden, how she is different from, say, Sarisa. She has no difficulty speaking. When she is a good child she sits up in her bed while we gather around her and she laughs and jokes and is caring of our feelings. When she is a naughty child, though, she has a vile temper, throws her food, and—and her voice even sounds different." "Klea loves me," Sarisa said and then fell silent. "Of course she does, my dear." her mother said, and stopped to give her daughter a little hug. We resumed walking. "And, we all love her very much, little sister." To me she added, "I'm sorry, Doctrex, for telling you more than you probably want to know … but we have so few visitors." She fell silent as we walked. "No, Metra, it's good that you told me. Tell me this, though—these moods that she gets, does she have one more than another?" "Oh, yes, she is a good child far more frequently than she is a naughty child." "I see." Where were these questions coming from? I seemed compelled to ask them. I was vitally interested in her answers. I was eager to see Klea. "Do they come on her suddenly or do you gradually see a change coming over her?" "More gradual than suddenly." She stopped and looked up at me, hopefully. "Are you a doctor?" "No. I'm sorry. I'm asking too many questions." "Oh, no, no, no! Please, Doctrex, your questions are helping me think in a different way." She started walking again. "It's not like one day she is one way and the next day she has changed." "I see, but it could happen that way, couldn't it?" "Well, yes—and it has. But, more often it's after we have had fun together as a family, playing games, or just talking. And, then, after a while one of us notices that she has grown silent." "I see … and does it ever happen that she goes from happy and sociable gradually to silent and then back to happy? Or, does she always go from happy to silent to—naughty?" "What an interesting question. I'll have to think about it." She did. "No, I'd have to say that when she's silent for long enough for us to notice it, she becomes naughty afterward." I saw the cottage ahead just as she pointed it out to me. It was small, made, from all appearances, of white stone. The plot for the cottage had probably been cleared from the midst of a cluster of oak trees. The boughs were growing up against the thatched roof on either side of the cottage and I saw more of them to the rear. The carpet of pink flowers, which were present everywhere, went right up to their cottage, except where it had been evidently trimmed back from their cobblestone walk that led to the front door. "What are these pink flowers," I asked Metra. "They seem to be everywhere." "They're called Princess Tears; they grow only during the season of light." I wanted to ask her more about them, but the door opened and the man I assumed to be Klasco occupied almost the entirety of the doorway. With a voice that matched his stature, he boomed, "Well, what have we here?" But no sooner had the words left his mouth than his face lit up with a broad grin beneath his untrimmed, brown mustache. His white shirt was rolled up above his tanned, muscular forearms. Here was a man not afraid of hard work. His heavy, scuffed work-boots supported my conjecture. He thrust an open hand to me. "Name's Klasco. Klasco Braanz." I accepted the hand that very nearly eclipsed mine. His grip was firm, but not boastful. "Pleased. My name's Doctrex." I saw he was waiting, his blazing smile fixed on me. "Just Doctrex." "I've never heard the name before. Are you from the southern province?" "I am … but—" "Doctrex has been traveling up through the northern end," Metra told him. "He's an adventurer, dear. He's been traveling the northern provinces and works for food and a place to sleep. And then he's off again." Klasco's smile was fully on his wife now, but his words were directed to me: "My dear Metra has done what she does best. I hope, Doctrex, you didn't have any secrets you were hoping to keep from her." He reached out his hand, now freed from mine, and placed it on her shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze. "Of course," Metra smiled back at her husband, "I invited Doctrex to have dinner with us." "Of course," he said, returning a full smile of his own. Behind their smiles, they exchanged the briefest of glances that I assumed affirmed to him that Metra had discussed the issue of Klea with me and that I was all right with it. They had no way of knowing just how all right I was with it. I, myself, didn't know why I had such an interest in this mysterious child. Klasco stepped aside so that Metra and Sarisa could go through first and once I entered he laid his arm, which felt as heavy as a shank of ham, across my shoulder, pausing long enough to close the door. "Our home is your home, Doctrex. It's small and modest, but there's love within these walls." "That I can tell, sir." And I could. The house was immaculate. The hardwood floors glistened. A fresh bouquet of flowers was in a vase on the kitchen table; the fragrance filled the room. A black pot bubbled on the stove. I knew there was a bed to my right and to the rear, and that it was occupied, but I chose to keep my eyes averted from that direction until the introductions were completed. I didn't have long to wait. "Doctrex, you've met our youngest daughter, Sarisa. Now, I'd like you to meet her older sister, Klea." I turned to see a beautiful young lady—not a child, as Metra's "naughty child" had led me to believe—perhaps fifteen or sixteen. "I'm pleased to meet you, Klea." She smiled and held out a hand, palm down. I held it with both my hands, gently, until she withdrew it. I had the odd feeling she was expecting me to kiss her hand as a man might have done in an earlier time. Was she testing me? Was she playing me for a fool? Klasco crossed in front of me to his daughter's bed, bent over and kissed her on the forehead. "Hi, Daddy. I'm glad you are home now." I thought that a strange thing to say, since he had been in the house with his daughter before he opened the door and invited us in. Why would she choose this moment to imply—what?—that he was not giving her the attention she needed? He fluffed up the large pillows she was leaning against and then went behind her where he grasped her under her arms hoisted her to a better sitting position. "There, how's that? Would you like me to pull your bed closer to the table so you can eat with us? Or …" His voice trailed off. "Of course she would want to eat dinner with the family. Wouldn't you dear?" Metra glanced at her husband, then back at Klea. "Doctrex is sharing dinner with us, Klea. It would be nice if we could all eat together. Don't you think it would be nice, dear?" "Well, of course it would," said Klea. "That's what families do. Isn't that what families do, Doctrex?" She turned a full smile on me, but her eyes, with her brows lifted, were filled with hidden meaning. "Does your family eat their meals together?" "Klea!" said both mother and father simultaneously, but less with censure than a kind of tired resignation. Klea continued to smile at me. I smiled back. "I am an orphan, Klea. I have no parents." "Everyone has parents." "Yes, but I never knew them." I kept my smile and my voice steady. "It's easier to say I have no parents." I watched as Metra and Klasco drew together side by side, the top of her head at the level of his chest. As I was saying this I was feeling such a fraud. Of course I'm an orphan! It's not that I have no parents, I have no past! I'm cut off from everything in the past. And now—I felt a sudden rush of sorrow pour over me—now I've been cut off from one more link from my past. From Axtilla! You must remember me, Axtilla. Don't give up on me. Just a little longer and I'll be back with you. "Darling," said Metra, "if you and Doctrex could roll the bed forward to the table, I'll bring the food from the stove." As I was positioning myself at the side of the bed, I noticed that there were makeshift wooden wheels affixed to the legs of the bed frame. I pointed out their fine craftsmanship to Klasco. He was pleased, I could tell. Klea smiled down at me as her father and I guided her bed to the table. Metra, hoisting the black pot from the stove, protected her hands from the searing heat with towels looped over the handles. She put the pot on the Iron trivet in the center of the table. Placing five large bowls around it, she retrieved oversized spoons, laying one beside each bowl. I felt myself salivating at the meaty smells of the steam wafting from the pot. She smiled at Klea as she turned to get the loaf of bread from the bin. Klasco got the tray from where it was housed between the stove and the counter. He brought it to the table. Ladling some soup into the bowl, he went back to the pot for potatoes and carrots and a few chunks of meat. Putting the bowl on the tray, he glanced over at Klea who nodded. He cut the heel off the bread, setting it beside the bowl I assumed was his. Then he carved off a generous slice of bread and placed it on a folded cloth napkin, alongside the spoon. "Are you ready, my dear?" Klea said she was and smoothed the blanket over her thighs. She received the tray, holding it at either end while she maneuvered her legs under the blanket until the tray rested securely on her lap. Sarisa took her place at the table, staring sullenly at her bowl. She had seemed to sift into the background since we entered the house. This child who was so energetic before and so talkative now seemed to distance herself not only from me but from the rest of the family. "Sarisa," her mother said, "don't you think it would be better to let our guest be seated first?" "Yes, Mama," she said, getting up and scooting her chair back. She slipped behind it, her eyes downcast. "Please don't make a fuss over me," I protested. "Without manners," said Klasco, "we are little better than Pomnots." INDEX
|
| ©
Copyright 2024.
Jay Squires
All rights reserved. Jay Squires has granted FanStory.com, its affiliates and its syndicates non-exclusive rights to display this work. |