Worlds within Worlds #9.5

'SAM!'

The long house has seen some changes since I left it by the wrong door. There's holes in the roof, for a start; a scattering of blackened thatch around the hearth stone suggests that Sam has been using the great dried leaves to keep the fire burning – for a while at least. The stone has not hosted a flame for a good while, and the ashes are cold. Some of the soot has been used to mark words across the floor of the house: I watched Maak-em-ay-are-see's face become worried as his inner Voice turned them back into sounds.

'Shouting won't work,' I say. 'We should have hunted him.'

'He's got to be somewhere near!'

'He watched you die, remember? He was going to bury your flesh in the sands; I had to persuade him to carry it up the cliffs so we could burn it.'

'And eat it?'

I don't understand why these men are so disgusted by the consumption of old flesh. I still haven't told him where the leather for our bags came from.

'Women eat man-flesh. He will remember burning you; he was adamant that you would never return.'

'Maybe he saw us coming down that track ...'

'... or heard you. I told you not to scream his name. Names are too important to be uttered so carelessly ...'

'Hah. So that's why you told me to call you "savage". Makes sense now. And you're sure he's alive ... you're not just saying that?'

I point over to the corner furthest from the ladder and closest to the hillside. 'That daffask root has fresh tooth marks in it, he was here no more than 500 breaths past.'

The man looks inwards as he counts: 'Half an hour ago, maybe 45 minutes. Is that thing safe to eat?'

'It's bitter, but it fills the belly. He should have boiled it to a mush and drunk the broth, maybe with poached fish and ...'

'It won't have sent him to the healing pools.'

'No,' I agree. 'Though you need to be desperate to try and eat such a thing raw.'

Maak-em-ay-are-see offers me a queer look as he returns to the ladder.

'What do the words say?'

'He was trying to keep a diary, but he didn't keep it up for very long.'

The explanation doesn't help me. Diary – the word sounds a bit like "die" which, I've come to understand, is a form of "kill". I walk over to the seaward side of the long house (avoiding the space where Sam and I had fought) and scan the small bay and the littoral across the water.

'He thinks he murdered you.'

'Is that a bad thing?' I can see movements along the shore: birds mainly, but possibly rabbits too? It will not take me long to gather the materials to make a snare ...

'It's bad for him. Some of the rougher writing seems to be about demons ... I never knew he could write shorthand.'

'Bad enough to make him eat daffask root?'

The man takes a moment to stare at me over his shoulder. 'Bad in his head ... I'm really worried for him.'

'We should have hunted him,' I say. 'The healing pools can fix more than a man's flesh.'

Worlds within Worlds #9.4

I do not like walking along the avenues. As the flayman had shown, avenues collect dangers like a dip in the sand collects water.

This avenue, I am sure, is the one that will take us out of the hills to the long house where Sam kissed me. When I had shared this news with Maak-em-ay-are-see he became very excited; he, too, has come to believe that Sam would most likely stay near the place where we had parted on such – unusual – terms.

Not that I've shared those details with him. All I have said of the matter was that I slipped while looking for food and tinder.

I don't like the idea of meeting brother Sam. I have a feeling that he will not enjoy seeing me again. I have spent a quiet while sharpening my knives to a keen edge: if there is to be trouble, it will not be my Vital Breath heading back to the healing pools.

Sam's reaction to seeing Maak-em-ay-are-see will be ... interesting ... I think.

Worlds within Worlds #9.3

Once upon a time, God made a seed ...

The sky has dimmed somewhat, and the wind has cooled from its unnatural heat. Still, I cannot sleep. The words that Maak-em-ay-are-see has fed into my ears turn tumbles like waves, capping my swirling thoughts in white foams.

There is a book, he told me, that sets out the true history of how God had come to his world and filled it with wonder. Or, more accurately, there was a book, until his brother Sam set its pages to the flame.

Books are wonder-filled things, I have learned, where the knowledge of many men – and women – lies captured in lines and loops just like the ones he has been making on bark. When I asked him if he was going to capture me in his new book, the man had laughed and shown me a drawing of a face that he says is mine. That sketch worries at me, though I don't feel any different: my fingers confirm that I still have my face on the front of my head.

The words tethered within the burned book could speak when they were looked at, and the story they told were all about his God's seed – a tool, of sorts – which gives the man that holds it great powers to rule other men and women, even the wind and the storm.

These words make no sense. Why would a man want to rule a woman? Perhaps to stop her chewing on his muscles while he still breathed, or to make her give him good medicines or fine clothes ... but such a thing is a dream: women are too tricky to be ruled.

Maak-em-ay-are-see has no idea what his words have done to me. He lies on the other side of this grove's hearth stone and snores. I probably pushed him too far on this first day of our trek; his body is still mending itself, even though he seems happy with it: the body of a fit teenager, and the mind of a full-grown man – I can't wait to find Sam!

He told me that the book had been guarded for many years by a gang whose brothers were the best men in their world. Their job was to search for the God's seed, which had been stolen by demons. They had invisible creatures – angels ­– to help them track down these equally invisible demons who lived in the heads of unsuspecting men. For only when the seed had been reunited with the book could it bloom and fruit as God's final plan for the world.

I do not understand it when something is both true and false. My gang mate's story feels true in my gut, and yet my eyes and ears and nose and fingers clearly show the falseness of his words. This is the battle which sets my thoughts foaming.

'So what part does Fol Huun play in this story,' I had asked.

'Why do you call the rock pools "Fol Huun's gift"? Quid pro quo.'

'They are her way of restoring a man's Inner Voice to the flesh.'

'So that's how new people are generated – when somebody dies they reincarnate in a new body?'

'Only men.' I catch his next question in his eyes: 'I don't know where women go to be healed. They have more secrets than trees in these valleys, and a clever man knows not to ask the wrong questions.'

'But Fol Hoon ... you speak as if it – she – is a real person.'

'She is not a man, nor a woman. Not even a guardian – great gull – though sometimes she will take the form of one.'

'So she's a God?'

'She is ...' I look around me and spread my arms wide. 'She is everything!'

'Even you?'

His question made my forehead hurt, the way it scrunched skin across brow. 'Quid pro quo!'

He had smiled at that – the first smile he had offered me since I hauled his hairless flesh from the healing pool.

'My uncle told me something – a thing not written in the Book. He had set me a task of looking for the God's seed and, for a while, we thought that Sam's parents might know where it was. He said that while the Book has much to say about the seed, it never describes what it actually looks like. When I asked him why not, he said it would look different to whoever looked at it: maybe a ring, or a brooch, or a statue – it could even look like a teapot or a watch. But whatever form it took, it always had seven different coloured stones in it. Always the same stones, in the same sequence. He said that the stones had secret names that could never be spoken out loud – except for one of them: Fol Huun – the missing stone. Because originally there had been eight stones in the seed ...'

I roll over onto my side, facing away from the hearth stone, wishing my Inner Voice to stop its chatter so I can sleep. It refuses to heed my pleas. It keeps telling me: he's wrong; the seed has nine stones, not eight ...

Worlds within Worlds #9.2

'Tell me how you got here. You and Sam. How did you come to be in Fol Huun's healing pools?'

The peak on which we sit is easily the tallest between here and the sea which, thanks to the lack of trees, I can see. It seems to go on forever before colliding with the sky.

Maak-em-ay-are-see is fascinated by the view: 'The horizon must be at least thirty kilometres. Are there other islands out there?'

'Kewid pro ko,' I remind him.

'Ah ... okay. It's all a bit messed up in my head, to be honest.'

'We have time. We can give ourselves a thousand breaths here before looking for somewhere to sleep.'

'And food ...'

'And food,' I agree. 'Give me the water, yes?'

He hands the water bag over to me thoughtlessly, already lost in his puzzle of memories. I take a moment to wipe the wooden spout glued into the leather before squeezing a trickle of liquid into my mouth. The bag was a good find, discovered in a storm-blown glade not too far inland from the first. A tattoo that I recognise winds slantwise across it: this skin's owner had belonged to a gang that had some repute in the Race.

'I know how I died. There was a fire in the Sanctuary – Sam ... he set fire to the Book, and the fire spread. I choked on the smoke. It was ... horrible! Worse than the choking after I got out of those rock pools.'

'Fish breathe water,' I agree. 'Not men. Did you die and then wake here?'

'No ... no. There was a time in between. I remember floating away from my body, towards Sam ... and then Sam was with me ...'

'He told me he died,'

'Did he? I asked him, but he wouldn't talk about it. I remember that I was ... happy, content. I would have been happy to fly away from that room, with Sam, forever. But Sam ... he was angry, man! There was something else – someone else? It wasn't my uncle, I'm sure of that. Sam was angry. He chased after the other one, dragged me with him – like he had a towing rope buried in me and I had no choice but to follow.'

He reaches out to take the water bag from my hands, and lifts it to splash the warm liquid over his face.

'Don't waste it!'

'Sorry. I don't remember much else. Sam pulled me round his body and then ... into his arm? There was something in his arm: it scared the shit out of me, but he headed straight for it, after that thing ... and then I was here. Floating.'

'In the healing pool ...'

Somewhere deep inside me, the story feels – right, good; as if I've unravelled a knot on my guts, a reminder of something needing to be done, now done.

'So what's the story with the healing pools? Every time I die, I'll go back to them and be reborn?'

'They are Fol Huun's gift, yes ...'

'Fucking marvellous! Immortality – I can really live forever!'

'We do not die. We exist for the Race.'

The man seems to have lost interest in my words. His eyes have glazed in a kind of wonderment. I am concerned enough to check around our vantage for dangers: more than one kind of creature uses miasmas in the air to calm their prey.

'What was your world called?'

'Huh?'

'The world where you and Sam lived – what did you call it?'

'The world is ... The World. Or Earth. Planet Earth.'

'Not Uekh, or ... Tintuun?'

'Maybe in another language. The French say "le monde" – every language has a name for the planet. "Terra" is another name. What did you say just now? The pools are someone's gift?'

'Fol Huun's gift.'

'Fol ... I've heard that name! I remember it from somewhere – something my Uncle told me? It's hard to remember everything ... and my memories feel all jumbled up.'

He has my full attention now. You'll need extra ears for this story, my Inner Voice tells me.

Worlds within Worlds #9.1

9. The Search for Sam

One thing Luntas taught me was not to fear the hills. Most of my former gang mates had no trust of the land beyond the shoreline; they would panic if they found themselves stranded in a place where they could not smell salt in the air. For them, such places were part of a woman's mysteries: not to be trusted. Men fished, and played, and prepared themselves for the Race. Women did – everything else.

Luntas taught me that the best fruits and nuts are to be found a good walk beyond the cliff walls. Water tastes freshest when taken from springs, not rain puddles. He also taught me that while women are dangerous, they are much the same as men in many ways – they have their pride and their shame, their skills and their needs. A clever man can survive well in the hills if he can gain the trust of the local clans.

These hills are as deserted as the shoreline.

Maak-em-ay-are-see is a fast learner. He doesn't ask questions incessantly, like his brother Sam; rather he watches, and copies. When he does ask a question, he listens to my words and then captures them on thin bark in a series of tattoo-ink loops and lines.

I think he also steals the essence of things in his ink marks. With a few quick lines and smudges he can capture a hill, or a worm, or a fruit, and fit it amid his squiggles ... they look so real, these sketches; my jaw slackens in awe each time he performs that magic!

We could have followed the route that Sam and I had taken before, tracking the coastline downwind towards the long house on stilts overlooking the narrow bay. But since remembering Luntas and his lessons, I have grown curious. The guardian was clear to me: the men have gone elsewhere. Was the same true for women?

'Which leaves are best?'

The voice pulls me from my thoughts. I can see he has dug a hole and performed his business. In his methodical way he has collected a selection of leaves and spread them before him.

'To clean between the buttocks? The sculler leaf – it has three points, feels soft, yes? Use it quickly, folding it between wipes. The lighter side has a sap that will sting your fingers if you press too hard, so wrap them first in that longer blade – that's right: that one.'

'And then bury them all?'

I nod, then turn away as he follows instructions. Maak-em-ay-are-see does not like to be stared at too long.

This vale is filled with trees, each competing with its neighbours to stretch its twigs closer to the sky. They offer us some welcome shade, and make a good home for a wealth of herbs and flowers, some reaching above my head. The tidiness of the made me wary at first: surely a woman had made it her garden – but this soil had not been tilled for a long while.

'Can I have the water, please?'

I turn to the man now standing by my side: 'We've not long drunk water ...'

'I need to wash my hands.'

I sigh a glance to the cloud wisps scudding above the canopy: 'Your left hand for wiping; your right for eating.'

'Oh,' he says. I hand over the water skin and return to my considerations.

My new gang mate is keen to go to the city in the caldera. He still thinks that we can get help there. I have a feeling that we may need to go there, but not yet. And I am certain that Sam will not have strayed far from the long house where he kissed me; I have a strong memory of our encounter with the flayman. That had scared Sam badly – why else seek comfort from a stranger? A scared man rarely moves far from the long house.

'Shall we collect food here?'

'Mm?'

'Food. We didn't bring much with us.'

The man has a good point. I check the undergrowth around me, sniffing the air, but my nose offers no guidance. We are surrounded by herbs and grasses which, while useful in their own way, won't help a man fill his belly. I let my eyes wander further, looking for signs of fern stands or clambering plants wrapped around trunks. I spot some sweetmoss hanging from a bough not too far downhill from us – it will give us a snack to keep the shakes from our limbs while we cross the shallow valley to the next hill.