A massive totem stood before us, commanding the road to go around it. Tall as the trees and wider than my arms could wrap around, spirits faced us with menacing growls carved into their wooden faces: Wolf, Beaver, then Salmon, Rattlesnake, and just above Bear was Falcon, all freshly painted in red, white, and black. Crouched atop them all with diamond-tree stones for eyes and His jaws open with gold-capped fangs, was Cougar.
Somewhere near the border between Osenia and Ulum counties, we were never sure which side, was the village of Treanet. The road descended into a valley surrounded on all sides by steep, rocky mountains that reached into the sky like giant tombstones, earning its ancient Herali name, Graveyard of the Gods. Nestled beside a small, flat plain where a half-dozen bison grazed on bright green grass covered in mist, a cluster of stone buildings bustled with life.
Several children played around a small pond chasing ducks out onto the water only to swim after them. Women young and old gossiped as they hung up the wash. Off to the side, two men came out of the woods, with the younger man carrying a deer over his shoulders.
"Look!" Some of the children saw us and rushed over. A couple of the women turned to approach us as well. The young man carrying dinner waved a hand, and Davod waved back.
One of the children threw his arms around Geraln. My friend laughed and stopped for a moment to return the embrace. One of the young ladies approached Davod, her face beaming with joy.
He squinted for a moment, then his eyes popped. "Valya?"
She grinned and nodded enthusiastically.
Davod looked her up and down. "Wow! You've… grown." Then he looked her up and down again, a little more slowly while she giggled.
Two boys covered in mud took each side of me and gave me a hug. They soaked through my clothes—which was probably the point—and shouted for joy. They released me, and one of them grinned. "You'll never guess what we found!"
I returned their excitement and smiled back. "What did you find?"
One of the women crossed her arms and glared at the boys, clearing her throat. The boys ran to her and tried to give her a hug, but instead she ushered them behind her and glowered at me, boring holes into my soul with those evergreen eyes.
We continued towards the village, Davod talking with Valya, and Geraln quizzing the little boy on his lessons. Except the boy's little sister seemed to know a lot more than her brother did. An older girl walked next to me. "Hey Caleb! What brings you down this way?"
"Fabiana!" her mother snapped her fingers from the opposite side of our entourage. She held out her hand to call her daughter over to her, then glared at me with her jaw locked.
We passed by a small house where an old woman sat on a bench milking a goat who ignored her in favor of nibbling on the grass. A few more houses gave way to stone buildings three stories high with canvas awnings over the lower level that lined the main road with narrow alleys running off in both directions. All around us, merchants called out to passersby with tanned leathers, candles, and at the corner was a jewelry shop. A cobbler locked his eyes on me and frowned, stiffening his shoulders and pulling several pairs of boots from display.
Davod looked to one side. "Satie!"
An older man looked up from behind a counter in a shop across the street. "Davod!"
The whole place smelt of sharp, ripe mold, and he had several wheels of cheese on display. The man came to greet us as we walked through the open door, thrusting his hands out for an embrace. Davod smirked and obliged, and the man groaned out in my friend's smothering arms. "Gods, it's good to see you, man!"
Davod's uncle Satie stepped back and nodded at Geraln, taking my friend's hand in his. Geraln replied with a warm smile and greeted him. "How are you?"
The man chuckled. "All grown now, look at you!" He looked at me and frowned, then craned his neck to look behind us. "What brings you here?"
Davod stood with his chest high. "We're supposed to go fight this war."
I added, "apparently, they've been getting their arses kicked, so they called us in."
Geraln smirked.
Davod gave out a light chuckle.
The cheesesmith looked at me with hollow eyes and his jaw open. He then looked at each of my friends in turn before pleading up at Davod with his eyes nearly watering. "You'll be going to Carthia?"
Geraln nodded. "Yeah."
Davod watched as the man shook his head vigorously, then bit his fist and looked away. "What's wrong?"
Satie sat down at a small, wooden table and closed his eyes, lowering his gaze to his lap. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "Shavod and Darius were called up to Carthia last summer. Two months and we got letters saying they were killed. They didn't survive there two months."
That was hard to hear. Every few seasons we would gather to trade stories and dirty jokes, play capture the totem, and talk about how boring the grown-ups were while those same boring grown-ups busied themselves preparing feasts and decorations for the holidays. Darius and Geraln used to quiz each other to see who knew more stuff while Shavod and I would take a boat through the rapids all the way to Zoinia only to get chased away for spending way too much time talking to Kraya's daughters.
Davod chose a seat next to his uncle, who pushed out a chair for Geraln as well.
Geraln asked, "did it say how they died?"
The man looked up at him. "Battle. They died in battle. They never tell you anything beyond that."
The three of us looked at one another. Davod's uncle stood and went over to the huge brick oven behind the counter. On a high shelf was a row of brown paper bags. He grabbed two and brought them over, handing one to Geraln, and one to Davod. He cast his eyes at me for a split second, then turned his attention back to Davod. "I don't like this. You're the only nephew I got left."
Satie's attention suddenly shifted to the entrance behind us.
"Goodness!" A stout man with long, greying, thinning hair dressed in fine silk with a gold belt inlaid with diamond-tree stones came into the cheeserie. He stood shifting his eyes between me and my friends. "Is it true?"
I locked my eyes on him and tried to keep a straight face. "Yes, it's true. The ocean has indeed turned into maple syrup. Trust me, we're all as confused about it as you are."
Geraln eyed me with a sideways grin. "I hear the fish think it's pretty sweet."
Davod pulled his eyes from one of his cheese breads and smiled at me. "Oh, gods, maple syrup would go soooo good with these!"
Satie stood and laughed. "Let me get it for you!"
Lord Nevil chuckled and smoothed out his silk robe, then stepped up to me, resting his hands on my arms and looking up and down my body. "Gods, you've grown. Come. I want you to see something."
"OK?"
With a nod to my friends, he led me out to the main street. We walked side by side. He talked with his hands as much as his words and looked up at me every so often. "Caleb, I need to apologize."
"What for?"
"Ancient traditions. I still remember the first time I heard about someone leaving you on the doorstep of that Goloagi temple back in Gath. I can't tell you how many times I cursed that Yewan for taking you in. But, here you are. Look at you! If I'd known you'd turn out like this, I'd have made you my own son."
That made me blush. "Thanks."
"I wanted to share with you my three rules for survival. You're going off to war. I don't know what you've heard about Carthia, but that place is not a joke. So if my three rules are of any use to you… uh… maybe they will be."
"What are they?"
"Never forget who you are, never forget what you are, and never forget where you are."
I smirked. "What about the when, why, and how?"
Nevil laughed lightly, then continued. "Who I am is a dance between who I believe myself to be and who I wish myself to be."
"Yes, I know. And no one else has the right to tell me who I am…"
He lifted a finger to correct me. "No one else has the power."
I looked down. "Right."
"No, that's good!" he grinned. "You know your scripture. This is very important. That brings me to my second rule, never forget what you are."
"OK?"
"You're a Falcon."
I shrugged. "I know that."
He nodded. "Sometimes I wonder."
I stopped and turned to face him directly. "Look, Nevil. I'm sorry, but Falcon didn't feed me, didn't clothe me, didn't teach me my lessons, didn't give me any of that. I don't know who left me at the church and I don't know why. It was the height of the Great Plague, so that probably had something to do with it, but I'll never know. What I do know is that if there wasn't a church to leave me at, I wouldn't be here."
He opened his eyes wide and raised a finger in emphasis. "Yes, you're right. In fact, the old ways, that old tradition of letting the baby die with the parents, that's cruel. And it's nowhere in scripture. It isn't supported by anything, it's just an old tradition and no one knows where it came from. There's no reason why we can't have a proper Herali orphanage, where Cougar children and Falcon children, orphans of all clans, can grow up knowing what they are. In fact, I have the perfect place. Right up here."
It wasn't lost on me that we were walking towards the Daenma church in Treanet, the only place I was allowed to stay during visits.
We rounded the corner to an open area covered in black charcoals and soot. Charred planks of wood had collapsed onto a black pile at the center of the lot where the church used to be, though houses on all sides remained untouched.
Nevil looked up at me with a stern face. "Never forget where you are."
My eyes gaped and my heart froze. I couldn't ponder what he was showing me. I looked at Nevil. He nodded his chin and slapped my arm. "It's good to see you. Good luck in Carthia!"
He walked away.
I needed some kind of explanation, but I froze. I couldn't will myself to ask anything, and then he was gone.
Back in Gath, we had a guy banging on the church door in the middle of the night, making all manner of ruckus. His wife had come earlier to ask if she could spend the night, and this man wanted her to come back home.
Or else.
He was drunk, but not so much that he couldn't walk or talk. After a good fifteen minutes of shouting curses at us, he went off. I thought he'd gone to bed, but Father sent me to fetch the Baron.
Told me to run.
I told the Baroness what had happened, and she ran back with me. He'd returned with four other men, each with a flaming torch in hand. Father had come outside and was trying to talk to him, but the man was getting quite belligerent. The Baroness bid me stay still in the darkness while she spoke to him. She listened and nodded, then went inside. Some time later she came out again and spoke to the man. That went back and forth for a while, and he eventually went off sulking.
That was the closest we'd come to getting burned down. But this place, I didn't know what to make of this. Father Jarvis was the one who convinced Father Yewan to let me come home after I was exiled from Kyoen. And what happened to the children who lived there? I didn't see any of them. And I looked. All along my way back to the cheeserie, I saw no one who'd stayed there, but a lot of faces turned away from me.
That's when I saw her.
A blur of a Herali girl in a white dress with green-black hair billowing behind her jumped up into my arms and wrapped her legs around my hips before I could reach around to support her. She wrapped her arms over my shoulders, then leaned in and pressed her lips into mine. I kissed her until my arms got tired, then set her back down. I may have accidentally brushed my fingers over her arse, and she poked me in my side with a giggle.
I smiled down at her beaming face. "It's good to see you, Melyce."
Her eyes popped wide. "Oh! You actually remember my name, this time!"
I scoffed. "Since when did I ever forget?" I rested my hand on her back. Then I looked into her emerald-green eyes. Her face was wide with high cheeks, and her plush lips begged me to kiss her again. So I did.
She smiled back and giggled, taking hold of my arm as we walked. "So where are we going?"
"Davod and Geraln are at the cheeserie. What happened to the church?"
"Um…" she turned her head to look over her shoulder. "They were just… talking and yelling. Mostly yelling. Then they burnt it down. That's all I know, really."
"Yeah, but… why? What were they yelling…"
Melyce waved that off. "I don't get involved with all that. What brings you out this way?"
I smirked. "Maybe I just wanted to see you."
At that, she pinched my arm and twisted hard. "Fuck with my emotions again and you'll wish you wasn't born. Tell me true!"
"Melyce," I cooed. "I never lied to you. You know that."
"Uh-huh. You allowed me to believe you and Guenevieve was just friends. Now you're saying that was all on the up-and-up?"
"We are just friends, and I never said anything to you about it one way or another. If you want to believe whatever Talys told you, I don't know what to say about that."
"Uh-huh," she squinted up at me.
By that time, we'd made it back to Davod's uncle's place. Geraln was busy bathing a small cheese roll in thick, brown syrup. He rolled it around and lifted it from a bowl, watched it drizzle down, then closed his eyes to ate half of it in one go. Davod leaned back with one arm draped over the backrest of his chair talking to two ladies who stood beside him.
One of the ladies looked up and down my body with a smirk. The other one pursed her lips and squinted, shifting herself away from me a little.
Davod grinned when he saw me.
I grinned back. "Look who I found!"
"Melyce!" He stood to greet her and opened his arms wide.
She stepped into them, and he wrapped her up and squeezed tight, lifted her up, and shook her back and forth.
Melyce giggled and tried to wrestle free. "Alright, you lug! You can put me down, now!"
After Davod released Melyce, she came back over to me and swatted my butt. Hard. The song of it drew eyes upon us from everyone in the cheeserie. The two ladies looked away, and Melyce gazed up at me with a wicked grin.
Davod kicked out a chair for us. His uncle gave me the side eye when I sat down, but said nothing. While Melyce shuffled close to me, pressing her hips into mine and draping her arm over my shoulder, Davod handed me the rest of the cheese breads from his own bag.
While I dug in, Geraln leaned in close. "What did Nevil want?"
"They burned down the church!"
Geraln's eyes popped. Davod's uncle explained. "Yeah, that Jarvis guy was getting a bit uppity."
"Uppity?" I asked incredulously.
Melyce asked instead. "What brings the three of you to Treanet? You still haven't told me."
"Mmm," Geraln pushed the bowl of maple syrup closer to me, finished chewing his bite and explained. "We were given a quest by the Emperor himself. There's this magic scroll, you see, and we have to bring it to the highest mountain to find the three happy-fluffy-rainbow-baby-bunny-bears. They're supposed to give us a riddle…"
Davod laughed at that and told her, "we're going off to war. Probably home before supper."
Melyce's face instantly dropped into a frown and she stared at him with her eyes wide. Then she shook her head and mumbled. "But… but you're going South. Why are you going South?"
Davod's uncle clarified. "They were called up to Carthia."
Melyce took a sharp breath and pulled her head back. She exhaled slowly and tried to breathe in again, but her whole body tensed and trembled against mine. Finally she looked down at her lap.
I nodded. "That's what I was going to say."
She looked up at me again with a deep frown. "Come… have you had a proper lunch?"
Geraln cut in. "No. And we're starving!"
She looked at him, then to Davod, who echoed the sentiment, then looked at me again. "Come. I've got stewed crickets. It should be ready by now, and there's plenty.
We followed Melyce back to her house. She lived on the other side of the village along the main road that continued south towards Ulum. Hers was a wood frame packed with mud and stone, and a thatched roof. Inside, the floor was recessed towards a small table with several pillows around it. In the back was an iron stove, atop which was a steaming cauldron that filled the air with a rainbow of peppers and spices.
Geraln nearly shouted when we came in. "Gods! What did you do to those crickets?"
She was quiet. Knowing Melyce, I expected her to spend the next hour telling us all about how she'd run into her friend Dayane on a shopping trip to Gravis, or narrate on the importance of time when cooking. Instead she spoke not a word in reply. With a rag in each hand, she solemnly carried the pot over to the center table and put it down along with four ceramic bowls.
She didn't remove her eyes from me, not even as she ladled out a reddish, stewy mass of crickets, pearl onions, sprigs of oregano, and chopped dmusu. The whole thing smelt strong of nice pepper, but beneath that was a faint hint of an extremely dark beer.
I devoured it.
Still she didn't remove her eyes from my face enough to glance at her own plate let alone fill it with something. It was only after I finished when she finally spoke. "Put a baby in me."
Gerlan nearly choked on his bite. He struggled to regain control over his food, and Davod grinned wide and gazed at me. "What was that?"
Melyce glanced at him, then turned back to me. "Put a baby in me. Right now."
I shook my head and tried not to blush. "You know I can't do that!"
She shook her head. "No. It's now or never."
We stared at each other for a long time. Adulthood had been kind to Melyce. She'd always been on the curvy side, and her body owned it gloriously. She lowered her chin towards her voluptuous chest and gazed at me with pouty eyes.
"Melyce, I'm chaste. You know that."
"Bullshit. Who'd you pick for Naveris?"
Davod chuckled and chewed through a mouthful of stew.
Melyce glanced between him and Geraln. "What happened?"
Geraln giggled lightly and crafted his words. "Um… it's best to remain silent, uh… some parties may wish to remain unnamed at this time."
She then furrowed her brow and turned back to me. "So did you have Naveris or not?"
I scratched my head and tried to think of an appropriate answer. "That's more of a… pagan tradition."
"Pagan?" Melyce pulled away completely and furrowed her brow.
Oops. "I didn't mean that…"
She twisted her lips in disgust. "Look so far down your nose at our ancestral gods?"
I scoured my mind for something useful to say and came up empty.
She continued to glare at me. "At your ancestral gods!"
I took in a deep breath while Geraln smirked at me. Melyce rather shook in her seat and rocked back and forth while studying my face. Her lip quivered. I thought she was about to cry when instead she turned away from me completely. "Davod. Put a baby in me."
He chuckled to himself and stood. "Let's go!"
Melyce stood and took his hand, casting a cursory glare down at me as she led him off towards a pile of hides and woolen blankets in the corner. She spoke to Geraln, not to me. "You two mind stepping outside for a bit?"
Geraln moved slowly and mumbled. "Maybe I'd like to put a baby in you."
She didn't answer, neither did she speak one more word to me. I sat still, trying to work out exactly what had just happened, or what was clearly about to happen.
Melyce cleared her throat audibly and stared as I continued to sit. I looked up, then turned to Geraln whose whole body shook with unstifled laughter. Then, like some forlorn thing, I rose and shuffled myself out of Melyce's house only to see her reaching her hands behind Davod's neck. She pulled him down to kiss her lips before closing the door on me for good.
Outside, the midday sun cast a blinding glare that saturated the world, and Geraln and I glanced at one another while he broke out laughing.
"What so funny?"
"You, man!" He pulled his hair from the sides of his face and slicked all of it behind him.
"I'm trying to figure this out… did what just happen… did what I think just happened… happen?"
He laughed again.
We stood outside her house for about a minute when from an open window Melyse's rich voice drifted through the air, a calm exhalation. "Mmmmm…."
That soon gave way to more of those, and she'd settled into a rhythm of moans, "uh… uh… uh… uh…"
It felt as if a dagger was twisting around in my heart, and I had to step away.
Geraln laughed. "She did ask you first, man!"
"Uh… uh… uh… oh gods, fuck me… oh yes, fuck me… uh… uhhh… oh… oh…"
I sucked my teeth and walked down the road.