Walker Ch. 01.18

Walker 1.1.8

Her thighs burned and her calves ached. 'It's heavy.' Shuq complained eyeing the three steps to the front door. They were dauntingly steep under the weight on her back.

'Ridiculous.' Walker commented pushing open the door. He held the door open, waiting for her.

Food, clothes, coal, candles, oil for lanterns and bathing, and all the sundries of life that the steader girl knew of, had been packed into two crates hanging from ropes that bit into her shoulders. The course fiber and the knots burned her palms. She half hopped to readjust the biting ropes on her shoulders. She inhaled deeply then set off resolutely. Her leg buckled but she made it up the first step. Dragging her left foot onto the second step, she threw her weight forward and tried to push herself up. Too weak, her leg folded.

The tiger lunged, managing to grab hold of a rope. He held the supplies aloft with the girl still hanging on.

'Let go.' he said reaching for the second rope and lifting his knee supportively to her abdomen, 'You must move. Can you stand?' She stumbled out from under the supplies, allowing him to take the weight. Walker pulled the crates onto his knee and took hold of the bottom edges. With the supplies tucked under his chin, he entered with Shuq following unsteadily behind. 'Next time, I help carry.' he crossed the large space to the kitchen door.

'No. You won't.'

It was a simple kitchen with a long table under a window. Crude shelves had been nailed into the walls. A sturdy cabinet stood beside the door to the bath and the rear garden. Walker put the crates on the table, setting the food crate beside the other.

Wael, the previous owner who had died in the forest battle, had left little behind but some bread, dried meat and a cabinet filled with bottles of whiskey. Shuq closed the door, straightening up to face the tiger. The late afternoon sun cast its gaze through the window and across him. 'Hrmm.' The head tilted sideways. The chin lowered catching the edge of the light. Glinting motes of disturbed dust danced about the tiger's form; his face was black in the shadow but the coloring of his exposed arm shone darkly, turning it almost blood red. His eyes caught the sun, reflecting dangerously yellow around the narrowing slits of pupil.

Her breath caught. She experienced the sensation of being cornered by a wild, unknowable beast. Able to rend flesh with claw and tooth. He blinked, those eyes shifting inhumanly across the room.

'Do you want me to cook?' she asked.

His shoulders rolled in a shrug, 'I can.'

'No.' she gripped the cabinet to support her aching legs.

'Bath.' he said stepping towards her to go outside.

She held her hand up before him, 'No. I'll make the fire and ready the water.'

'Hrmm.' he loomed over her, impossible to read. He turned to the boxes and began to pack things out on the table.

She threw her body against his, forcing the surprised Tigreni to brace himself. 'No!' she shouted, shoving him two handed, 'Go out!'. Her shoulders rose and fell with her fast breathing and her cheeks were flushed with fear and frustration. 'Go.' she softened, 'Go lie down by the hearth.'

He stood like a statue, his eyes narrowed to thin slits, observant. The words came out carefully as if he packed them out on the table one by one, 'I go find the other one.'.

She nodded rapidly, relief washing through her, 'Ok. Be careful.'

'Hrmm.'. He lingered, still watching. 'Whiskey.' he pointed past her at the cabinet. She bent and retrieved a bottle for him. Taking two cups, she checked their cleanliness then placed both in the tiger's free hand. Satisfied, he left.

The trek with the crates had awoken the painful gifts Batrus had bestowed on her just days past. Like a gift of flowers it would be some time before they wilted and went away.

As she unpacked, she saw Batrus in her mind's eye. Her young years, spent excruciatingly, waiting for the day she was old enough to be married; a virgin bride to the most prominent man in the village. He had promised a farm as dowry to secure his offering to the gods; the purity of a virgin bride. A gift to the heavens in exchange for blessings and marital bliss. 'So blessed.' had said the women from the village; 'Few are ever chosen-' the shaman had reminded her; '-to be married. Do not squander the favor of your husband to-be, the gods don't give second chances.' But Batrus' cruelty had been no secret and there were graves of wives who had perished suddenly outside of childbirth. Yet, she had only heard of it in fearful whispers and only fully confronted it when her wedding day became imminent. Her father only had a care for the farm he was to receive.

Small feet thumped on the wooden ceiling above her. Shuq looked up, following the sounds with her eyes. The pattering footsteps reached to the outer wall then stopped. Some feet away, a heavier weight made the floorboards creak as Walker stalked the redhead in the room above. A short shriek filled the house. All noise ceased for a moment, then the creaking passed above Shuq's head again and went off towards the stairs.

'We-' she stammered, wiping away at invisible tears, 'must get used to this.'

She looked into the main-room. Walker had wrapped his arms around the redhead to restrain her. Her feet danced a queer dance, not quite kicking at him so much as blindly struggling.

He went to the old couch and flopped her stiff body down on it. She tried to ward him off as he slowly crawled on top of her. Her thumb almost caught his eye, so he took control of her body. Folding her wrists across her stomach, he straddled her small legs between his knees. His back bent upwards like a cat wrapping itself around a toy. His snout resolutely followed the girl's face as she tried to twist away from him.

Shuq heard him murmuring in a low animal language. His tone varying to a fixed reassuring rhythm. It reminded her of a nursery rhyme.

'What is that- ' she began to ask but his eyes flicked to her in the doorway, warning silence. She watched for a while as his voice slowly worked up to those crackling notes that no human voice could achieve, all the while following the girl's twisting face with his snout. Shuq felt his voice rumbling through her in waves, the vibrations ebbing and flowing as he repeated the patterns. But each recitation seemed to swap out certain words at the lowest intonations. It was mesmerizing and alien, scary but calming. She turned back to the kitchen where his voice made the windows rattle faintly in their frames.

She would fry slices of the dried meat and serve it with butter, melted into the still steaming bread, and some small green apples. With a start, she realized there was no stove. There was no pan, nor pot.

She went looking in the backyard and found it surprisingly clean and spacious.

The captain's home allowed one to enter the bath through the kitchen. The bath here had been built as an outside room, partially sharing a wall with the kitchen. There was a closed barrel tank which held water that could be released into the bath at will. A raised cobbled path between the doors would prevent muddy feet at least. She caste her eyes appreciatively over the large yard and the high fencing. She found a cooking hut protruding from the house to her left. Inside, she found a spit, grill and a cauldron beside the wood pit. There was a chimney that one could raise or lower by loosening a screw in the pipe. Much like the rest of the house, the cooking hut was basic but had clearly been built with skill and forethought. She imagined the previous owner as a man who had stretched every silver in pursuit of this dream. Scrutinizing every plank before it was hammered onto the structure. It was not opulent but it had been cared for and lived in.

There were no flowers or bushes, no adornment to be found, but clumps of ground-covering plants crawled the entire surface of the yard, seeming to knit themselves into a carpet of differing soft green hues. Before her, the sun lowered itself through dense, distant clouds. Gentle oranges with purple highlights rose up, bleeding across the blues of the dying day.

The biting beat of axes into wood, carts rolling over cobbled roads and pained voices exclaiming at cruel leathery stings, it all seemed very far away. Her frozen breath released against the tightness building in her chest. Cool, moist air entered her lungs... then her mind let go and everything inside of her simply fell away.

Her legs folded and she sat. Her eyes beheld, her ears absorbed and goosebumps crawled over her skin like a cold serpent. The girl who had discarded her birth name had disappeared. She had fallen into the vertigo inducing vastness of the sky. Like a turning leaf, she'd been swept away by breezes that whipped across numinous bridges and living waters.

Walker found her under the young moon. He watched her briefly, his head swaying in ponderous thought. He went about silently taking logs from the woodstore beside the door and carrying them to the bathhouse. When the stove beneath the tightly packed stone bath was full, he went to the kitchen and found the flint with which he lit one of the candles. He was careful for the striking of sparks not to disturb Shuq.

He slithered across the yard until his keen eyes spotted the cooking hut, he peered inside and silently brought wood. He checked on the bath-stove, then crept towards the girl's back. Lowering himself to his haunches, he closed his eyes, felt and listened and consigned himself to be a figment of Sarosa's dream. His mind cleared and all of him melded with the undulating streams of existence. His suffering ceased.

His ear eventually twitched as the fire crackled from the bathhouse. It popped loudly as a pocket of boiling moisture burst from the flaming wood. Shuq stirred, looking about her in a daze. He watched her in the evening twilight as she shot to her feet and nearly ran over him.

'Whahhh!' she exclaimed as he rose up into the dim light, 'Master Walker, I-I was...'

'In a good place.' he finished for her. 'Your wounds are fresh inside.' he said tapping his chest. 'Sometimes the pain only comes after the fight. If you ignore the pain, the wound can kill you. The spirit can die.' his face twitched and pulled as he sought words, 'It is the wound that kills you. It is the pain which makes you suffer. Seeking release from suffering drives us to tend the wound, or surrender and die. The body can be without a spirit and the spirit can be without a body. That is how Sarosa dreamed it for us in body and in spirit.'

She felt light, unburdened, and somehow a deep sense of gratitude, not for the words he spoke but for the fact that he'd been the only one, ever, to consider her enough to speak words of genuine concern at all. She threw herself at him, circling his waist and locking her fingers in his back; she wept and laughed mindlessly into his chest.

The tiger stood stiffly for a while before he whispered to her, 'I don't know how to let the water into the bath.'

'I'm sorry.' then she rushed off.

The fires from the bath and cooking-hut cast gentle, dancing hues against the plain walls. He watched her black outline turn against the warm candlelit kitchen door. She went in and her silhouette smeared across the window. He stood there, listless, unsure.

Too late, had he realized the Norrish trap. No, he thought, you could have left, you could leave now. The night of the battle; I could have run, let them die. His Walk had been not yet been interrupted, the Norrish had poured silver into his hands, there was plenty to continue his journey with. If he did, would he take this strange one with him? The Walk is rigorous and no human could keep pace.

The dream does not always flow, he heard his mother's pleading voice, still pools pull us in. Sometimes we wash ashore until the tide pulls us back. Do not leave us. He had left, and now he was here. Decisions would have to be made soon; the obstacles must be negotiated.

Walker's eyes drifted to the large but simple structure of the house. Humans carved away the wilderness to build their tribes. The Dream was often ridiculous and infuriating in its outcomes. There was no destination; one simply threw oneself into the undulating rivers of the Dream. He crouched, watching the girl rush to and from the kitchen with full hands. The scent of frying meat wafted across the yard. His stomach burned.

Her teeth flashed in a smile as he leaned in the doorframe of the hut. Shuq perched on a tiny bench beside the firepit. She'd removed much of the wood he had packed and the small fire made little smoke. Thinly cut strips of meat sizzled on dabs of boiling butter.

'I got lost for a while.' she let out in a bemused way, 'The water is heating and the food will be ready soon. Do you want whiskey? Do you want to bath before you eat?'

'This is what I want.' he gestured vaguely around them, 'Nothing else.'

Silently, she packed the strips onto a wooden plate and went past him to the kitchen. He followed sedately.

Shuq cut and laid out bread, smearing it with the melted butter.

'We should feed the feral one soon.' he said.

Her large blues eyes widened, 'Where is she?'

'I made her sleep. The lullaby took her spirit, allowing the body rest.' he saw her mouth open, curious, wanting to ask. 'Come,' he took his plate, 'I will tell you the story of the lullaby.'

She followed moments later when he sat in the middle of the yard. He took the cup of water she offered and nestled its bottom into the carpet of flora. Pulling the lavender dress up she sat, cross legged, beside him so her left knee touched his leg. He held his palm up, 'Give me your hand. Straighten your back. Close your eyes.' She did as asked, 'We will taste the food. Now you say.'

'We will taste the food.'

'We will savor the water.'

'We will savor the water.'

'Find peace in company.'

'Find peace in company.'

'I will do these things.'

'I will do these things.'

His fingers tightened then released her hand. 'Now we can eat.' His hunger was intense but found his plate stacked with too much. The girl's plate was bare in comparison.

Folding a slice of bread around several strips of the beef he bit into it. There was immediate relief from his stomach as the crisp textures merged with the butter moist flesh of the bread. He chewed deliberately then used his large tongue to roll the food into a mixed ball against the roof of his mouth. He swallowed, 'Good food.' he told her reaching for the cup. 'There are many verses to the lullaby, each tells a little more. A young Tigreni named Tju'ris started his own tribe. He wanted more. Defeated his enemies. But he wanted more. He took the enemy's cubs, bred the enemy's females and gifted the offspring to his tribe. The tribe grew strong. But he wanted more. When there were no more enemies and all tribes had become his tribe, he knew not what more to have. Tju'ris grew frustrated. He wanted more. A... healer... a Tigreni mystic, cautioned him, "You are already Sarosa's favored. Why not bask in what you have?". Tju'ris refused the advice and decided to leave his tribe. He became the first Walker.'. Walker took another bite, chewing slowly, savoring the textures and taste.

Above the Tigreni and the Norrish, the moon was a drop of wax drifting across a clear pond.

'His name changed,' Shuq said, following his gaze into the sky, 'you told me your before, your name was Shuq; despair. Is that why you left?'.

'Hrmm. My mother's tribe is strong, now. Many strong females, breeding harem of enemy females. Many cubs. Much land. Many warriors. She is fierce and fertile. She does not need me anymore.'

'But you are looking for something.'

'Hrmm.' he agreed, 'My companions. My friends. My mate. They have all gone back to Sarosa, fighting for my mother's tribe. I am the last of that clutch.'

His thick brow had drooped and his maw hung half-open. 'I'm sorry.' she told him beginning to understand.

'Hrmm. That is the beginning of the lullaby story.'