Quibble, 47. Elk
The blind boy Nemo imparts some wisdom.
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47. Elk @Quibble
The rain lasted into the night. When the sun went down, the temperature in the cave plummeted. I huddled in my cloak. As the rain died down, I heard Nemo stirring. I espied in the pitch black of the cave. He was retrieving a store of wood, kindling, and tinder from a dry corner. He carried the makings for a fire to the one dry spot left below the cave’s seam, where smoke could escape. There he stacked wood, the largest pieces on the bottom, in a crisscrossing pattern. He made a tipi of kindling atop it.
Rather than flint and steel, Nemo’s fire-making tools were a short hickory bow strung with cord, a bluntly pointed wooden spindle around which he wrapped the cord once he’d strung the bow, a flat plank of wood with divots, and a bowl-shaped wood block. Pressing on the spindle with the block, he worked the bow back and forth to spin the spindle on a divot in the plank. I took a damp seat near him and espied his work. Only once did he give me any instruction about how he was making the fire: “Make sure the cord doesn’t rub on itself, and it lasts longer.”
There was a faint smell of smoke. Nemo sniffed the air, spun the spindle some more, sniffed again. Laying bow and spindle aside, he took up a ball of dry fir needles and wood shavings, tapped out a burning coal from the divot in the plank into the tinder, wrapped the tinder around the coal. He blew on it, waited, blew, waited, blew again. Sparks leapt in the tinder. He shoved it beneath the tipi of kindling and, leaning close, blew a few fierce gusts. Fire burst forth and shot up the kindling. He fed it twigs, bark, sticks. Cinders fell into the crisscrossed layers of wood below the kindling. Soon, the fire was going well.
“So,” I said, “not from the bottom up but from the top down?”
“It’s easier,” Nemo pronounced as he unstrung the hickory bow. “Once you have the coal, be patient. Don’t blow too hard at first. Have faith it’ll light, and it will.”
“Faith isn’t my strong suit,” I mentioned, thinking of a conversation with Alnasl in the monastery’s byre. Could that really have been only four cycles ago?
Nemo chose a spot to lie down, and Clarity lay nearby, farther from the fire but within the boy’s reach. “In the vale,” Nemo said, “you need faith in something, lady, or you’ll run scared. If you run, they’ll eat you alive.”
“The woods or the wolves?”
“Both. You didn’t run from Clarity. That was smart.”
“Quotation told me about facing a wolf, and I had the glass. But you don’t need a glass. I’d rather do it your way.”
Hearing this, Nemo smiled for the first time. “Who are you running from, lady? Who’s such a threat that you found your way to the Vale of Teeth?”
Spreading my cloak open to swallow the fire’s warmth, I recounted what befell me since I came Without. I made no mention of Definition, and I had to omit much else as well – conversations, irrelevant details. I had never told such a long story about my life, so I’d been unaware of how much culling it would take, how my retentive memory would work against me. What would it be like to write all this down? When I finished my recitation, Nemo lay silent a while, thoughtful, then said, “You’re an elk, lady.”
“What do you mean?”
“This Zero, Asuja – he’s hunting you. When wolves hunt, they go for the weak and the sick. They aren’t stupid. They don’t chase a strong, full-grown bull elk unless they have to. He is a better meal, true, but he’s bigger than they are. He can kick a wolf to death. And he’s a fast runner on open ground. Midwinter, he can run out into deep snow where wolves can’t go. The wolves lose more chases than they win. What do you suppose the lessons are in all that?”
“Save your strength,” I posited. “Choose your foe and your moment.”
“True, lady, but you’re thinking from a wolf’s point of view. You’re elk, pursued. What do we learn from the elk?”
I pondered and guessed, “Be aware of your advantages?”
“Yes. And?”
“Don’t panic. Judge whether to run or fight. Whatever you choose, commit to it.”
“Yes!” Nemo said. “But remember, lady, you can’t always outrun the wolf. You may just have to take a stand and fight.”
Now that he’d adopted the role of teacher – at which he was a natural, and I saw he took pleasure in knowing it – Nemo had relaxed considerably. He spoke courteously; all the derision was gone. He wasn’t imperious, as Nish could be, yet he expected me to listen and take him seriously.
What’s more, I reflected, he’s wise, worth hearing out.
“I’m sorry I taunted you,” I said to him. “I meant none of my threats.”
“I never thought you did, lady.”
“There’s no need to call me lady. I’m just a One, you know.”
“That’s just your difficulty.”
Nemo said no more than that, and I thought that if he thought there was more to say, he’d say it.
“You don’t hunt with the pack. Did Gloss teach you all about wolves and elk?”
“Quote did. He never comes to the vale, but I’ve met him sometimes up near the High Meadow. He taught me all about birds.”
That news bothered me. Surely Quote knew who Nemo really was, yet he hadn’t told Nish of seeing Index alive. Could he not see she’d buried herself in grief?
That was, I now saw, what drew me so closely to Nish. The acknowledgment I wanted: Your mother existed. Coming Without in the hope of finding Quiddity. Refusing grief for myself, but seeing Nish’s – and so much of it.
She ought to be told Index was alive, even if she couldn’t be with him. Why not let her live in hope, even if it was only a vague hope? Who in kindness did Quote and Vega think they were to hide the truth about Index from her?
Can’t silence be kind? Meissa said.
Not in this! I countered. You haven’t seen how bad it is for Nish!
I doubt Vega has, either. She may think she’s doing the right thing.
“The lady Vega is your guardian, isn’t she?” I asked Nemo.
“Yes. I lived with Glossary when I was younger. I know the silence Aladfar, too. He comes more than Vega does. When Vega comes, she brings an adept called Gienah. He’s silly but ever so clever. He’s always poking and prodding, though.”
“I’ve met him. He’s a doctor.”
“Don’t you think I know that, lady?” Nemo said, lapsing into surliness. “Think I’d let anyone poke and prod?”
I skanced the boy: he was smirking. I laughed, and soon he was laughing with me. Roused, Clarity got up and came to me for a pet. As our laughter died down, she returned to Nemo and curled up into the crook of him as he lay on his side.
“You’re not letting me stay for the work, are you?” I said. “It’s Clarity.”
“We have a rule, Quibble. We never put the wolf out. Clarity comes and goes as she pleases. I had to know the two of you could accept each other and get along without the glass. She let me know when you did.”
Deep in the night, I woke from a dream. Mirroring had availed me. I withstood Unity. I woke without fear.
The fire was low. Nemo and Clarity had drawn closer to it. I followed suit and put a new log on the fire. The boy and wolf slept in each other’s warmth, but I was cold.
I watched them as I let myself drift back to sleep. Every so often, Nemo’s eyelids fluttered open – he briefly awoke – and then fell shut. He softly stroked the wolf’s ears and neck and shoulder, petting her but not waking her. This lasted perhaps ten seconds, and then he fell still, again soundly asleep.
It was their adroitness.
Though glasses couldn’t trance him now, Nemo bore the scar of a glass. Just like One Without, he found consolation in touch.
As you find consolation in touching me, my amber sang.
Not Meissa. Not Kaus. No single voice. A choir.
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