Sephirot, p.7
Sephirot, page 7
A tall metal samovar sat on the floor, on a little wooden platform. It had a long metal pipe through the center, and a thin wisp of smoke twined up from the pipe. She turned a spigot near the bottom, pouring out steaming tea into two small cups, and brought one to him. He took a sip. It was strong and sweet, and tasted a little of cardamom and cinnamon. She set a brass plate with bread and cheese on the rug in front of him, and sat down cross-legged opposite. He took a piece of each, his stomach rumbling. The bread was coarse and chewy, the cheese strong-flavored and sharp.
“This is delicious,” he said, his voice a little muffled as he chewed.
She smiled.
After a short while in which both of them simply sat, drank their tea, ate, and listened to the storm, he said, “You told me you knew I was here. That you wondered if you’d have to come and find me. How did you know?”
“We always know. We who live here. When someone comes, we always know it. I do not know how.”
“So Diana, the woman in Yesod, who rescued me, she was lying when she said she just happened to be in the right place to drag me out of the lake and save my life?”
A wry quality came into Fatima’s smile. “Diana? So that’s what she’s calling herself now?”
“Yes.”
“Hmm.”
“It isn’t her real name?”
She shrugged. “It’s as real as any other name that she’d give. But in answer to your question, yes. She was lying. She certainly knew that you had gone through a portal into her world. It was fortunate, of course, that she was nearby—had she been miles distant, she would have known but might not have arrived in time to save you.” She looked at him curiously, and a thin eyebrow went up a little. “She rescued you? She and her people are not often so kind to new arrivals.”
“That came later,” he said. “She saved me, and took care of me until I was healthy again, but then…” He stopped. He shouldn’t trust this woman simply because she looked like Tania. He’d trusted Diana, and look where that got him.
“She made you the prey in their hunt.”
“Yes.” He pulled up the hem of his robe a little, showed her the long gash on his leg. “It’s how I got this.”
Her brow drew together in concern. “I did not know you were injured. All I thought was to get you inside before the next blow from the haboob struck. You must let me clean that wound. Otherwise, it may fester. I have a salve for such injuries. It has great benefit. With luck, it will leave barely a scar when it heals.”
She took a small vessel with water that had been sitting to the side of the samovar, and moved it onto the top, next to the little smoking chimney. After a few minutes, she tested the water with a finger, and evidently it met with her approval. A cloth bag hung near the door to the tent,, and she went and rummaged through it and finally drew out a strip of clean linen cloth.
“Lie back and I will clean this,” she said.
He was too tired to argue, and did as he was told. She dipped the cloth in the warm water, and gently cleaned away the dried blood, sand, and dirt caked around the wound. The pain made him wince more than once, but it was bearable, and he knew it was necessary. Finally the gash was clean, but bled a little. She went to the chest where she’d found him clothing, and came back in a moment with a small wooden box made of some strongly aromatic wood. She opened it, and showed him a greenish cream.
“My husband had some skill in the healing arts. He bought this from a trader we met in Tannar some years ago. It stings a little going on, but will stop the bleeding, and make it heal cleanly.” She rubbed a little of the cream onto the arrow graze. He jumped at its peppery bite. Afterwards, she gave him a wide band of linen cloth. “Here. I will let you wrap this yourself, as I have done all that I can do in seemliness. Do not be afraid to tie it firmly. The cream will keep the bandage from clinging to the wound as it dries.”
Again she turned away from him. He sat up, hitched his robe higher, and wrapped the linen bandage twice around his upper leg, ending by tying a clumsy knot in the ends. He tugged on them to test their tightness, then readjusted his robes to cover himself.
“There,” he said. “I’m done. Thanks for this, too. Thanks for everything.”
She turned back with a smile, and did not answer, but put everything she had used back in its place. The soiled and bloodied piece of linen she’d used to clean the injury she disposed of by opening one button on the tent flap, and thrusting it out into the storm, which by now was abating.
“Now,” she said, “sleep. There will be time for talk tomorrow. Sleep, and let the haboob blow itself out. Tomorrow the weather will be clear and kind.”
He took one of a stack of pillows that sat against the tent wall, put it behind his head, and then lay back.
“Can I ask one question?” he said, as she prepared her own place to sleep, on the other side of the tent.
“Certainly.”
“What is happening to me? Why am I being bounced from place to place like this? Nothing I’ve ever done in my life was anything like this.”
She blew out one of the oil lamps, and the light in the tent dropped by half. “I do not know the answer for certain, but you are correct that there must be a reason. Perhaps you are able to jump between the worlds for some purpose you have yet to determine, but which will become clear later.” She picked up the other oil lamp, and held it in front of her. The flame light flickered over her features, at once familiar and unfamiliar, and she smiled a little. “One thing, however, I can tell you. The worlds you are moving through… their inhabitants have one thing in common. They all want to be able to do what you appear to be capable of, by nature—to jump from one place to another. So you must be careful. Because there are ones who will trick you, convince you that you have gone mad, even hurt or kill you to find that out.”
A sudden chill struck him, and his eyes narrowed as he looked at her, smiling down at him. “Even you?”
“Me?” She laughed. “No. Not me. Perhaps, years ago, when my husband was alive, we would have been tempted by such knowledge. But now, I am content where I am.”
“How can I believe you? Everyone else I’ve met has lied to me.”
A strong gust of wind shook the tent, making one wall bellow inward. Fatima gave a little shrug. “At the moment, you should believe me simply because it is better than the alternative, which is to go back out there and meet the haboob again. But tomorrow, we will speak more, and perhaps I can give you other reasons.” She blew the flame out, and the room was plunged in darkness.
Duncan woke the next morning to light streaming in through the open tent flap. He blinked, yawned, and stretched, and squinted out into a vista that was composed of only two colors, a stripe of bright blue, and a stripe of beige. He sat up, winced as the motion pulled on his injury, and spent the next few moments unwrapping the bandage to check on the wound. The linen strip had a little blood on it, but was mostly stained green with the salve Fatima had applied the previous evening. The gash looked clean, with no inflammation, and he re-wrapped it tightly, adjusted his robe, and walked barefoot outside.
The sand was already hot underfoot, but the sky was a sparkling sapphire blue, with not a single cloud, and no trace of the ominous brown streaks that heralded the approaching sandstorm. Fatima was down by the little lake, filling round-bottomed clay water jugs, and he walked down toward her. Near the bottom of the swale the sand gave way to sandstone, and the footing was easier.
She turned as he approached and smiled at him. Her head was covered, but the mesh she had worn over her face was still pulled back across her shoulder like a veil.
“Good morning.” The dipper she used to fill one of the jugs never slowed. “The haboob has turned the water murky, but it will settle out. This water is very pure, and very deep. We are lucky to have such a spring.”
He dropped into a sitting position with his back against one of the palm trees. “Tell me more about this place.”
“What do you wish to know?”
“Anything you’d like to tell me.”
She considered for a moment, the dipper hanging loosely from one hand. “It is beautiful. As you can see. Beautiful and harsh, like the sun that governs it. You must come to term with its rules. It will not conform to yours.”
“How do you survive?”
“I and the others in my tribe have learned to deal with what the desert does. We rely on each other heavily. My family has lived here by this spring for generations, and these palm trees produce many baskets full of dates every year. I trade water and dates for meat, bread, and cheese. We care for each other, and see that no one goes without if ill fortune strikes.”
“My father used to say, ‘We have to hang together or we’ll all hang separately.’”
“Precisely. Your father was a wise man.”
“I don’t think he made that saying up.”
She shrugged. “Wisdom can also be found in recognizing the wisdom of someone else.” She picked up two of the jugs using a rope handle that she slung across her shoulder. He stood and picked up the other two in the same fashion. They were surprisingly heavy, but she wasn’t bothered by their weight.
At least that was one thing that hunting with Diana had accomplished. He was in way better shape now than he had been before all of this started. He’d have looked like a fool, struggling with these, while Fatima carried them without breaking a sweat. He followed her back uphill toward the tent, and they stood them next to one of the tent walls in the shade, their round bases partly buried in the sand.
“You said that there were other questions you had for me,” she said. “Have you eaten yet?”
“No.”
“Then come inside out of the sun, and we will eat and talk.” She went into the tent, and unbuttoned a flap on the wall across from the doorway. There was an immediate cross-breeze which, if not cool, at least took away some of the oppressive and pervasive heat.
“I do what is necessary in the early hours,” she said, tearing up the remainder of last night’s bread, and placing it on the brass plate they’d used the previous evening, adding a handful of dried dates from a mesh bag hanging from a hook on the tent wall. “Before noon, the heat will make it impossible to work, except in dire need, and I usually take a rest. You would be wise to do the same.”
He picked up a date and put it in his mouth. Compared to the dates he’d had, purchased in plastic from the grocery store, this one was soft and sweet, with an indescribable perfumed taste like nothing he’d ever eaten.
After they’d eaten in silence for a few minutes, he said, “Most of the questions I have, I don’t think you’ll know how to answer.”
“There is no harm in asking, even so.”
“I suppose not.” He looked down, and frowned. “I mostly want to know how to get back home. Diana told me she knew about the worlds, and the paths between them, but she obviously didn’t know how to get from one to the other herself, or she’d have done so.”
“That is correct.”
“And neither do you.”
“No.” She gave him a thoughtful look. “What is it in your world that you wish to return to?”
He didn’t answer for a moment. He had been about to say, Everything, but realized before he spoke that it would not be the truth. He missed his girlfriend, he missed the familiarity of his life, but honestly, there was little else about his existence that he had any real attachment to.
Finally, he said, “I’m not sure. It’s home. I don’t know how else to say it.”
“That is a reasonable answer. Were someone to come to me, and offer me a life in a different place, with verdant woods teeming with fruits and nuts and wild game, all within easy reach, and no sandstorms and killing heat and drying wind, I would choose, all in all, to stay here. The pull of home is very real.”
“I might feel different if I knew why I was here. So far, it’s all random, as if I’m being thrown from place to place as part of some arbitrary game.”
“Are you unhappy?”
The affirmative died on his tongue. “Actually,” he said, with a lopsided smile, “I feel more alive than I ever have. Even when I was running from Diana, there was part of me that felt like if I’d died then, if she’d shot me with her arrows, I still would have been given an opportunity to live that was far beyond what most people get.” He shook his head. “She said that to me, you know? When she thought she’d won, that she was seconds from putting an arrow through my chest, she said that it is how I’d have chosen to live the last couple of weeks of my life, if I’d had the choice. I told her she was wrong, but I’m not certain she was.”
“It is perhaps easier to say this when you are not facing a drawn bow.”
“That’s true.” He lay back, hands cupped behind his head. “Both of the places I’ve been have looked okay at first. Well, Malkuth was pretty bleak, but it didn’t seem dangerous, and Yesod was very close to paradise. Then in both cases, something changed, and nearly killed me. Is that going to happen here? I mean, you’ve been friendly so far, but so was Diana. Diana was very friendly,“ he added, a sudden blush heating his face, and one of Fatima’s eyebrows arched a little. “You’re not suddenly going to try to murder me, are you? Because if so, I’d prefer it if you’d tell me now, and skip all of the preliminary nonsense.”
She laughed. “I have no intention to kill you.”
“And that won’t change? You won’t suddenly remember that you’re an undead vampire, or something, and try to rip my throat out?”
“No. You are a guest, both to our world and my humble household, and I owe you the honor and respect and kindness that all guests receive. But even did I not owe you a guest’s care, I would still have treated you as I did, and as I will continue to do. Truth be told, I am happy for the company.” Her smile faded. “It is hard sometimes, being alone.”
“How did your husband die?”
She looked down, and was quiet for some time.
“I’m sorry to bring back bad memories.”
She looked up. Her quick, easy smile flashed across her face, but then was gone again, replaced by an old, familiar pain. “Bad? No, they are not bad memories. It is not so long ago that I do not still grieve him, but he was a kind man and a loving one, and I have no bad memories of him, nothing that does not bring me joy to recall, with the lone exception that our time together was too short.” She cleared her throat, and her expression became resolute. “Izem was thrown from a horse, and landed badly. I knew he was injured beyond my ability to treat, and that he would either mend or end without regard to what I did. I cared for him as well as I knew how. He lingered for two days, but never spoke again. He breathed his last while cradled in my arms.”
“That’s sad.”
“It is. But all living things die, and to be held tenderly by the one who loves you the most dearly as you make the transition is the best that anyone could hope for.”
“My friend Tania,” he said. “The one who looks like you. She also lost her husband, but it was in a freak car accident.”
“Car?”
“Like a wagon, I guess. But it goes by itself, and fast. It is something we have a lot of in our world.”
She nodded.
“His car flipped. He broke his back, and also lived for two days afterwards. It was a little over a year ago when it happened.”
Again, there was a curious lift of an eyebrow. “That is also when my husband died. Strange.”
“So you really don’t know why I keep seeing people who look like folks I know?”
She shook her head. “Perhaps that, too, is something you will need to figure out on your own. The reason may be something that only you would understand in any case.”
He ate another date. “So, what now?”
She smiled. “Now, we clean up after our meal.”
“I meant, what do I do now? What do I do about my situation? I appreciate your hospitality, sincerely I do, but I am still stuck in a world that isn’t my own, and I don’t know what to do next.”
“I do not see what you could do. Perhaps the only real answer, for now, is to fall in with my routine, and wait to see what happens. Therefore, we should clean up after our meal. Then, afterwards, I will find you shoes to wear. Already the sand will be too hot to walk barefoot, as you are. As you may have noticed, however, my people do not wear shoes indoors. There is a pouch on the inside of the tent door to place them when you come inside.”
“Okay.”
“Then, if you are willing, you can help me with the four other water jugs. There are the dates I harvested yesterday morning still to set out to dry. I could not leave them out in the storm, and they still have another two days in the sun and open air before they will store without spoiling. Then we take a rest until late afternoon. If they were not delayed by the haboob, my cousins will be arriving by evening, and will bring meat and bread and cheese. My Uncle Anir will be with them, I hope. He is wise and may be able to answer more of your questions than I can.”
“That’d be nice.”
“I’m certain,” she said. “To be left in ignorance and doubt is the most uncomfortable of states.”
The morning and afternoon passed with the completion of chores and a long doze in the tent, as the dry breeze made the sides of the tent ripple and flutter. Duncan woke before Fatima did, and went over to the wooden chest where she had found clothes for him. He opened the lid. It swung upward without a squeak on finely-wrought brass hinges.
Inside, folded with reverent care, were more clothes, including an embroidered shirt and pants that could only be wedding finery. There was a fancy braided leather belt, coiled and tied with a cord. Two books with covers made of some sort of cream-colored skin lay in one corner, but both were in a curling, sinuous script that he didn’t recognize.
At the very bottom was a short, straight sword with no scabbard, wrapped in a piece of oiled silk. It was obviously of outstanding workmanship. The grip was wrapped with thin strips of leather, the cross guard carved with a design like fish scales. A single orange jewel, perhaps a topaz, was set into the pommel. The blade’s surface had a swirling marbled pattern, and shimmered like satin.
