The Communicator (Part 4)
Metanoia - Chapter 2 - Life Path 3
Character Chart: A Map to the Nine Lives
The sky began to light up with burnt orange and pink as I was filling the packs on my odyk with supplies. It signaled that I had no time left. I had to leave at that moment. I tied two pouches that I had previously filled with fruit from my garden to his sack, and guided him towards the back gate of the labyrinth Denon built for me long ago. Its exit was out of sight from the library and the town that laid not too far from my front door. I would exit out this way and loop around to an area where there were no residents who would see me leave as they awoke to begin their day’s work, a life that officially ended for me the night before. Just as I was about to turn and begin the venture, I remembered that I neglected to take my blanket. I quickly tied my odyk’s rope to the gate, and went back to retrieve it with quiet haste. Next to it lied the last book I had interpreted by Thallon Reides. I desperately wanted to take it with me. It had useful information that I might need on the journey, or perhaps I could even dissect it further and extract more information on the way. But I had convinced myself the night before that I needed the space for things that secured my survival. Taking it would be foolish, and I would regret having the extra weight with me that could have been used for something else. I also didn’t want anything to happen to it. Of course I didn’t know what would happen to it after I left and everyone learned that I was gone, but at least it was a risk with a familiar outcome, compared to the unknown I was plummeting into fast. On a last minute whim of feeling insecure without it, I grabbed it along with the blanket and ran.
As I walked out past the city limits and descended into the vegetation, my mind also plunged into the quick line of events that began with the interpretation of the last binding. As if fate had it, it contained information that answered the question I had posed to my friends. The books slowly provided insight that cultured an understanding conducive to what the last book held. It took me twenty-three days to decipher its meaning. During that time, I had learned three things. One was that there were people separate from our village that existed somewhere else. The second was that this place was most likely somewhere east of our location. The third I inferred from this knowledge, and it was that I knew nothing at all. It all came from the realization of how easy it was for knowledge to be lost. All my life spent reading books, I recovered a total of 444 of them, and they all felt like they were told from the same point of view. Every single one of them, just one voice. It was a voice of the collective belief that adheres to one truth only, our Umarian efficiency that secures life for all. If there was any other knowledge, surely it was drown out by this one overwhelming voice and its descendants. Of course, it took over four hundred books for me to just come close to this awareness, but time and focus inadvertently sparked the revelation. It all came from just one chapter of the book. One chapter, which spoke of travelers who migrated west of their home.
Likened to my navigation through the unplowed terrain, stepping over branches and small pods of Spiny Chyv, my mind traversed through a frenzied mental state. Over a thought, under a memory, straight through a feeling, my head was still trying to figure out where my body was taking it and why. I could tell that my odyk was experiencing something similar, who began to grunt and slightly resist out of confusion as to what was happening. I began to feel bad for dragging him into this. The Entrepreneur was so kind when he lent him to me, said that he usually gave this one to people who needed him for extra work and extended periods. “Strong and enduring” were his words. It took me aback and I wondered if he knew what I was planning. I didn’t stay to chat, just took the rope hanging off his bridle and walked straight home.
Before I left, I made sure everything in my mother’s garden was in excellent shape. We had the same encounter we have every week on my off hours. I harvested what I could from her land and she’d use it to make us a meal. I could tell she really loved doing this and spending that time with me. Her new life called for this leisure, as she didn’t have to work as much as she used to. My siblings joined us sometimes, but they were mostly busy with work, a family, and a life. However, I did not have, and very shortly wasn’t going to have any of these things, so I had the extra time to spend with her. Sometimes it was better than being with Fren and Denon, but I still appreciated having them in my life, and having them by my side from the beginning. As my mother and I quietly ate a meal together, I wondered how their lives would go, what assignments Fren would take on for the village, what things Denon would build. I wondered if they’d collaborate again.
My odyk almost stepped on a Chyv, and I quickly yanked the rope before his foot made the descent. He grunted, and followed faithfully. Further and further down we went, past towering trees, our feet sifting through the dead vegetative life they discarded.
Truthfully what had happened was that I lost sight of the life I was given. Life, which could apparently take on things not only beyond my scope of vision, but in ways I couldn’t comprehend. I wasn’t ever going to belong in my home village in the way it asked of me, that I knew. There was a reason for leaving, but in the middle of the forrest, I suddenly had trouble determining what propelled me in the direction I was heading in, other than the small piece of information that Reides’ books provided. It swirled in my mind for several moments until I could conjure an image explaining this nonsense. When you’ve realized you’ve been floating in a void, you start motioning towards the first thing that materializes and emanates light. Even the darkest object can become the lightest thing in nothingness.
When the sun just began to dip from its highest place in the sky, I came to a clearing. To my surprise, there seemed to be a rough path cut through low lying vegetation, just beyond the field that I walked out into. From what I could tell, it continued west. I sighed in relief for having the break in navigation and not having to nervously weed through what laid on the ground. My odyk, whom I decided to name Thallon in honor of the voyage, paused along with me for just a moment before continuing the journey forward.
As we travelled through the untouched dirt of our new path, we eventually came to a fork in the road.
“Damn.”
A soul crushing encounter. I looked to the left as far as my eyes would allow. It seemed to go on for quite a long time, a horizon. The path had the same dirt that Thallon and I grew accustomed to. I looked to the right, a similar sight, except the path eventually took a turn towards the north, concealing the horizon. Straight through the middle entailed a spiny chyv with every few steps, and now there were vines. I neglected to bring a blade with me. Then again, I wasn’t sure how I’d walk away with one of those unnoticed in town.
It was a good time for a break anyway. I pulled Thallon over toward the shade on the side of our path, preparing the pan for Thallon to drink out of. I realized I had never done this before, feed and hydrate livestock. The lack of experience only became apparent when I motioned for the canteen and food.
How much food and water do these creatures actually need? Suddenly I was unsure of everything I thought I knew on how to take care of an animal.
Can’t be too much different from Opalias. I thought. Now with complete uncertainty, I offered the pan to him, slowly bringing it to his face. At first, indifference. But as the water caught the sun and shimmered, it caught his attention. Kindly, yet nonchalantly, he lapped up most of what I poured, and took a few berries out of my hand. Trust was validated in myself and I finally relaxed.
“I’m going to call you Thallon.” I told him.
It didn’t take long for me to feel nourished. My mind was eager and busy trying to figure out what the next course of action should be. I sat for several moments, staring out into my divided destiny with a fierce gaze.
“I couldn’t decide either” The tone of his voice was so languid and natural with the wind, I almost didn’t hear it.
I slowly turned around, awfully curious as to why I could hear the wind talking. As I turned, I saw a Protector standing a few paces behind me.
As a reflex, I went to Thallon, and circled around the man standing before me, but reason eventually took over despite my confusion, and I realized that there was no basis to be apprehensive. There was no possibility of a threat, nor did I perceive him as one once I got a good look at him, but there must have been a good reason why he was there. I thought that maybe the village sent some people out looking for me, although somehow that seemed unlikely.
“What do you want?” I finally spoke. Now he looked perplexed.
“I don’t want anything. I was traveling through these parts until I got to here. I figured it was a good time to stop when I came to these crossroads.”
“But why? What are you doing?” I asked him.
“Its my day off. I like to learn more about the village parameters.” He replied. This was making less sense. Did he follow me here?
“What brings you here?” He asked.
“The same as you” I said, not really knowing how to admit the truth.
“Well, I’ve made myself a nice place to rest over on the grass on the other side of those trees if you wish to join me. I’ll be over there.” He pointed to the other side of the path I was resting on, past a dip in the trail through the vegetation, and walked away.
At first, it was strange and uncomfortable knowing I was not alone there. It made it difficult for me to think about where I should be going, and what I should be doing in that moment in order to follow through with my plans. Instead, I was repetitiously running through the surprise of the encounter, affirming that it did in fact occur, and how that could have possibly happened. It was above all odds in my mind. As far as I knew, no one went that far. Suddenly, I was reminded of the book on the Protectors that I read years ago on one of my first trips to the Descended Springs. They were mysterious people, not because it explicitly said they were, but because of the vagueness in the descriptions, and the mysterious drawings of black winged, faceless ancestors. I felt they weren’t quite pinned down. Never knowing one personally, I had no frame of reference, just shrugged it off and went to the next book.
Seeing that this was my first chance to privately interact with one, I set out through the vegetation he walked into to join him.
When I came to the small clearing, he handed me a cup of iced tea, as if in obvious expectation of my arrival, and lead my odyk next to his where there was shrubbery for them to graze on.
“This odyk is good for journeying, doesn’t have that anxious look in his eyes that some of them have. Those tire easily.” He explained.
“I named him Thallon” I responded after taking a sip of his tea. I could tell it was previously chilled, as it was slightly cooler than the air temperature. Either he left his tea outside for the night, or he spent the previous night in the wilderness.
“Good name too! So where are you headed today?”
“I don’t know.”
“Me neither.” He said as he poured himself a cup. “I just wander sometimes.”
“That’s allowed?” I asked him
He looked puzzled. “Well, its not not allowed, I suppose. I sign on and off of duty periodically. We’re allowed to do that.” He clarified. “They don’t ask me why”, now laughing.
I suppose its just different for Protectors in this way, I thought.
“I think I should start heading back today though.” He continued.
“What makes you think that?” I asked
“It just feels right”
So, I was not the first Umarian in my village to act on instinct alone. In the silence of enjoying the shade and refreshment, I got a better look at him. It was almost unnoticeable, but I could see a peculiar glow to his skin. Perhaps it was just an illusion created by the dark backdrop of his black feathers and hair, now that we were out of the sun.
“My name is Xenia.” I said when I realized I forgot to mention it.
“My name is Alaster. Thank you for keeping me company” He replied humbly. “It was a pleasant surprise to find someone else out here with me.”
“Likewise. I have to say, I was also surprised to find myself out here” I laughed. But even though I laughed, I suddenly had the strangest impression that I was actually very sad.
“You’re not so strange and different as you think you are, not in the negative way it can be perceived at least.” He said. “Our people are just conditioned to stick with what they know. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. And that means you’re not necessarily a bad thing either. You see?”
I was tightly grasping my tea now, slowly motioning in external agreement with his statement. I suppose we didn’t have to exchange words about this particular topic for him to be guided to express this to me. My body alone was a good enough indicator of what I could have been dealing with. Finding me in the wilderness was also a good indicator. Maybe he had a point, I wasn’t sure. While I thought about it, I became acutely aware of how tired I actually was. Perhaps it was partly due to the walking, but for the most part, I think leaving like that was emotionally exhausting. What had I been leaving behind really?
“I think I’m going to stop traveling for today, Alaster. I need to rest, and I feel like I have a lot ahead of me.”
He looked at me with understanding eyes.
“I think that’s the right thing to do, was about to suggest it myself.”
I set up camp in the perfectly chosen clearing that Alaster had found. It was extremely sheltered from any wind that might have picked up during the night. A wave of relief washed over me from the sheer security of the evening, and with the warm presence that Alaster provided. It starkly contrasted how the day began, and what my mind was prepared to endure for the first night. I took out my tarp, which I let half lay on the ground, and half hang on a low lying branch as a buffer from the could night, and made a comfortable space with a blanket, a ceremony I would have to get used to indefinitely.
Alaster brought a lamp with him, which I immediately regretted not bringing. It softly illuminated our surroundings, but did not add glare to the night sky that brightly shown a million tiny suns through the trees. I kept having strange sensations of feeling at home. I had to remind myself that I was in fact in some random place, and quickly heading towards the middle of nowhere, in hopes of the eventual arrival to somewhere. I was not somewhere familiar and yet completely trustworthy on the ground in the wild with a stranger. My mind must be desperate to have something to hold onto, I thought. And then there was the oddity of our quiet company together. Alaster and I seemed perfectly fine not chatting. I supposed that there was just an unspoken word between two wanderers. Finally, Alaster turned towards me from his makeshift shelter, and said something.
“What are you trying to reach, Xenia?” I turned toward his face so he could hear me better.
“I don’t know, I don’t know if there’s something to reach”.
“Oh, you’ll reach things. I don’t know what they are but if you walk long enough in one direction, you come upon different things. I was wondering if you had anything in mind.”
“What do you mean ‘things’?” I asked.
“Anything, plants, animals, lakes, streams, waterfalls rivers, jungles, mountains, hills, fields…”
“Umarians” I added. He paused.
“Yes even those. Who knows what you’ll reach.”
I wondered if Alaster knew more than what he was leading on. He seemed humble in his knowledge. We talked for a while longer before falling silent again. I decided I didn’t feel like sleeping yet and got up to sit next to the flame of the lamp. Somehow, I was not cold. I wanted to get a better look of the sky, mesmerized by the swaying trees amongst the backdrop of the night.
I could hear rustling on the ground as I rolled over to see what it was. I had fallen asleep by the lamp, my tarp moved to where I was laying. The night backdrop had turned into a blue sky and golden bans of light. The sound was Thallon. He had migrated over to where I was, obnoxiously grazing on something near my head. In the few minutes upon awakening, I asked myself where the hell I was and why I was doing this. I slept deep enough to momentarily forget what I was doing, maybe even who I was for a very slight moment.
Alaster was gone, his possessions packed up but thankfully still there with me. After wrapping up the tarp and securing my belongings to Thallon, Alaster emerged from the forest. He told me he had to leave, and that there was something he had to tell me before leaving.
“You must take the path on the right” he said sternly as he brought me and my odyk over to the fork in the trail.
“How do you know” I asked him
“I just know.”
“So you’ve been down there? Where does it go?” I asked him.
“It doesn’t matter. It’s the right way.”
I trusted the sound of his voice. I would take his advice, as I was undecided anyway and it didn’t matter to me.
He left me there for a moment to get his odyk and came back to me.
“I’m going back, so I don’t need these things anymore.” Before I could object he was taking objects from his odyk and attaching it onto mine. He gave me his lamp, extra food rations, and a small pouch filled with something, and firmly connected it to the straps on Thallon, who gave a reserved grunt in response.
As if finding another person wandering in the wilderness wasn’t strange enough, our last interaction was even stranger. Since it was the way everything was heading, I withheld objection when he suddenly took his thumb to my forehead in between my eyes, his index finger grazing the side of my head in the process. It was a goodbye, I thought. A very subtle, gentle motion, as if it even didn’t happen, although it took me aback. Then he gave a kind gesture of pardon, and began trekking back towards our village. Mysterious, indeed.
Thallon and I turned and began journeying as well. An uncontrolled sob crept out from somewhere deep where I’ve never been before, traveling up through my chest, and out through my face. I hadn’t cried in a long time.
In short notice, I began to know the pain of feet that ached from hard ground, and calves that cramped with each peak. Even walking downhill became painful. Although I started out without having to take many breaks, it eventually became every fifteen minutes that I needed to stop. Always stopping, always looking for water, which thankfully was plentiful for most of the trip. If we crossed water twice in a short period of time, I drank as much as I could and refilled the canteens. Food, however, was not always so plentiful. It didn’t occur to me that the farther I went, the more vegetation would change, and the less I would see of the edible plants that I knew of. I filled my food pouches as much as I could, saving Alaster’s rations for when I really needed them. Thankfully, Thallon was not a picky eater. I caught him eating nearly anything we came across.
On the first night, I peered inside the pouch Alaster gave me, and dumped its contents into my hands. There were several dark green crystals. I admired them, and thought they were interesting, but couldn’t understand why he gave them to me. Maybe as a nice parting gift, I thought to myself.
When the path I cut out for myself was not mountainous and heavily vegetated, I dropped down into vast expanses of grass, where I could see the horizon. These were my favorite parts of the journey. Every now and then I came to a clearing in them, with a tree to rest under, and this is where I would set up camp. There was something about these fields that were mystifying. The wind moved like waves over the grass, the lighter shades from underneath their blades flickering in and out of sight. Eventually I would find mountains again, which dipped into valleys that always had water.
Each night I had Reides’ book to keep me company, the words in the blank spaces providing comfort like they did years ago in times of insecurity. Books to me were not inanimate objects. It was not one-sided. When I had them in my possession and flipped through their pages, it felt interactive. Books were vessels of creation, something a person thought into real life and when I had them with me, I was carrying a piece of them too.
On one of the nights, the wretched bird nightmare paid me a visit. Having woken up where I was and not in the comfort of everything I was accustomed to, the fear nearly drew me to vomit. I rolled off the tarp and doubled over in tears. Without really thinking, all I wanted to do was pack up and start going back to the village. The shadows of night haunted me and all I wanted to do was go home. Maybe I could find Alaster again and develop a friendship with him. Then, away from the branches that obstructed my view of the sky, I saw the moon. So perfect with its full body illuminated, it suddenly reminded me that the sun was still shining somewhere. The moon relayed this message as it reflected its light onto this surface for me to behold. I quickly calmed down, followed the moon’s slow descent until sunrise, and began another day.
Eventually I lost track of the days and how long I had been traveling. I stopped because it grew daunting, and the only thing I knew for certain was that the only way I’d reach anything was by moving forward, and following the direction of the rising sun. On one of the days, I was approximately a month and a half into my journey when Thallon and I took refuge in a mountain valley by a stream. I was terribly exhausted, having been hiking the entire previous day and didn’t get any sleep due to a rainstorm that passed in the night. The sun had just barely set when I fell asleep at my camp, and was awoken in the morning with a sound that invoked instant panic the moment I heard it. Rolling over abruptly to see what was happening while I was unconscious, I saw Thallon chewing the half-eaten book that I had so dearly clung to every night. I flung myself onto my feet and swiftly snatched it out of his mouth. It was so far gone that even the wooden binding that held it together had cracked in half. Desperate to salvage something, I sifted through the torn pieces of paper, which were flying in several directions from the gentle breeze off the mountain, but there was nothing. I sat for several moments trying to resolve how I would come to terms with losing the subtle sentimentality that kept me going, kept my heart content. Mourning the loss, I took it over to the edge of the stream, and held its remnants in my lap. I had grown accustomed to the smoothness of its cover. I wanted to carry a piece of it with me in memory. Delicately taking the cracked cover, I teared it open with both hands to find a folded piece of paper, which fell right out of its hallow center.
For a moment, I thought it was just another tattered piece of paper fallen victim to the breeze, but as I looked at it, its weight and folded symmetry became apparent. With puzzled conjecture, I quickly snatched it from the ground. It was large, and very well preserved. I began opening the creases one by one, which did not give willingly. One, two, three… six times I teased the page open until it was at its full length to reveal an illustration.
It was an image of a large mass with several markings drawn into it. There were mountains and waterways and empty expanses, with lines drawn through them haphazardly. It was a map.
I wouldn’t need the sentimentality of Reides’ book when I could see everything. I had limited the trails down to two that could possibly be the one I was on based on everything I had traversed, with both having the unmistakable fork. I could see that on one of the forks, the path that turned left eventually came to a dead end.
Where the path I chose was taking me, I could not be so sure. It appeared I was approaching the end of the paper, and after exiting the mountain valley, I would be greeted with an empty expanse twice the size of the previous ones, which I assumed was similar to all the others, a vast field of grass. The end of the trail was marked with a symbol that I did not recognize.
The sheer vastness of this mass bewildered me. I had only ventured through a small portion of it. It extended in all directions from where I began and where I would end up. It was mostly symmetrical, except for the southeast portion of it. Here, the mass jutted out and went further south. Another symbol, but different from the first, was also marked on this section.
Now that I could see I wasn’t going to be encountering another mountain valley, I drank as much as I physically could from the stream, and filled all the canteens once more before heading out. Thallon and I had grown very accustomed to the routine we established. In fact, I would go as far to say we were nearly thriving, with the small exception of not having an ample food supply. It seemed that over time, I had become less concerned with reaching the destination. On some level, I was enjoying myself, and my biggest hope became that we’d stumble upon a chance to stock up on food.
Once I could see a dip in the mountain that we could walk through to get to the other side, we set off.
As I came around the mountain, something was waiting for me that I could not have anticipated. Initially, the land transitioned into grass, but then from the high point I gazed out upon, I saw a desolate expanse of dead, dry terrain that extended far out into the horizon, waiting for me. It hit me suddenly and with great force. The map had given me a false sense of security, and I was not prepared to encounter this landscape that I had never seen before. I took out the map and looked once more. The empty expanse had a symbol that comprised of several small dots. This must have been what it signified.
The dead land gave way to the wind, its surface radiating the scorching heat that bore down on it day in and day out. I felt it hit me when I was a good distance from the mountain and emerged out of the grass. Strange creatures lurked in the sands, and it became my first priority to avoid them as best I could. They slithered and crept and wobbled, bearing a strange black armor as skin that came to sharp points. I did not want to find out how an interaction with them would turn out.
Robbed of the comfort of the dispersed trees from the fields of grass, I no longer had a sanctuary at night, and as the sun dipped farther and farther into the sky, I began to panic. Despite the risk of over exertion, I walked faster, urging poor Thallon to keep up with my pace. We were fully in this together now, away from home and completely out of our element. I told myself I could make it, that I didn’t need to stop my quest into the unknown. I had walked so much farther than this portion of the trip entailed. I told myself that if I could do that, this would be easy to achieve.
In desperation from aching feet that sunk with each step, I realized just how hospitable the lands I came from were. I had found true nothingness. I felt as though maybe my home was the focal point of all there was here in this world. Perhaps I was born right where I belonged all along. I felt foolish for having questioned the abundant life I previously had. These were the thoughts my mind naturally gravitated towards as I baked in this desolate furnace. My own personal sense of life was not life. Water was life. Food, shelter, and rest was life. It was these external things that didn’t inherently come with my being, but rather was given to me long enough to create the illusion that it was.
When the sun did come down, I was finally forced to stop. But where and how? Thallon didn’t seem to question this, as he immediately slumped down onto the ground with the first sign of rest. If he could do it, so could I, I thought. I took out the tarp and laid it up against him on the sandy ground. My most prized possession, I leaned my head against his warm fur coat, which provided extra warmth to the night that grew colder, and a buffer from winds that occasionally intensified.
