Compis: Five Tribes (17 page)

As he was finishing his porridge, he turned to set aside the smooth wooden bowl to wash, when he heard a loud popping noise from above. He and Alys both jumped and gasped when a bit of folded paper floated down into Zyander's lap.

“What is it?” asked Alys, staring at the curious package.

“It's a letter for me,” said Zyander.

It had been a frustrating few days for Luka. Upon reaching Akme, the Duor had installed the Initiates in their temporary quarters, where they would stay for a few weeks to a few months, depending on how their schooling and talents indicated they would be progressing. The quarters where the boys lived was a long low building with fifty beds lined up against the walls and a small trunk for their belongings at the foot of each bed. Through a doorway opposite the entry there was a bathroom with sinks and a complex bathing mechanism unlike anything Luka had ever seen that Duor Hama called a shower. He wasn't the only one nervous about the contraption, several of those from the Aquis tribe refused to go near the thing, and instead took their soap bars down to the creek to bathe in the cold water.

This wasn't the first of the alarming changes that was to take place for Luka —he was also expected to do a good deal of research every day. Luka came from parents who were carpenters, specifically furniture makers, so he was used to working with his hands, carving, sanding, hammering, and polishing. He had thought, since the Terris were legendary gardeners, able to grow several exotic varieties by some unknown technique, that he would be given some grunt labor, digging or hoeing, but that was not the case.

Instead, the next year of his life was to consist of studying: common magical theory, animal husbandry, and gardening sciences related to tribal magic. The Duor took them to the study hall where shelves and shelves of books lined the walls and he cringed. Was he to spend his life stuck inside reading?

“I thought we were going to learn about transforming into our Lumenta,” said Joah, never one for staying quiet.

“This research will be part of that process. Finding your Lumenta is a delicate endeavor. You don't wake up one morning and become an animal. We need you to do painstaking research to help you narrow down which of the animal groups your Lumenta resides in, and then, with some guidance, you will pick out which animal it is. After we have done all that, you must study your animal inside and out, learn what it eats, how it breeds, how it will walk or run or fly. All these you must know for the act of transformation to be complete.

“For most of you that will take months of research and work. The lucky ones will have their animal narrowed down in a few days, but for some it can take weeks. That is why we couldn't tell you when you would move from the temporary quarters and into a mentor's house. We need to place you with the right mentor,” concluded Duor Etho. She seemed sympathetic and Luka found himself grateful that she would be helping them in the coming weeks.

His discovery on the day of arrival in Akme was the worst of all the changes in his life. For the days it took to reach Akme, he was in an agony of anticipation, waiting for when he would reach his new home and write a message to May, beginning the long work of persuading her to run away with him when they met again at the next cusp of the season. He knew it was a matter of time, he only needed to keep reminding her of all that they meant to each other.

“What?” he cried, when Duor Hama read off the list of rules for the Initiates during the next year.

Most of them had made sense.
Don't wander off into the forests alone. Don't swim in the creek alone. Keep your bed, trunk and personal area neat and tidy. Complete your assigned chores in a timely manner. Treat your fellow Initiates with respect. No fighting, no violent actions. If you have a problem with any Initiates, go to your Duor.

Then came the final and most objectionable rule.
No communication with anyone from your past, whether in a letter, or at any of the gatherings in the next year. We are your tribe now and creating a longing in your heart for things of the past will hinder the bonding process with your new tribe.

“They can't keep me from writing her,” he told Joah.

It seemed, however, that they could. He'd started a letter to May, but one of the other boys, probably Grem, who had turned out to be a disgusting goody-goody of the worst kind, had ratted him out. The letter was confiscated, burned in front of him, and then he was subjected to a lecture on following the rules.

This didn't stop him from composing letters to her in his mind or concocting ways to get a message to her somehow. No ideas came to him, and he withered with sadness and longing for some way to tell her how much he missed and loved her.

He lay awake at night, wishing for her in the worst way, wanting to run all the way back to her door, where he would do as he had done so many times and sneak up to her window. Climbing through the window, he would slip into her bed and hold her, kiss her soft skin, and convince her to give up the one last piece of herself she'd held back when they were together. He cursed himself for not pushing more in that regard. Maybe if she'd had his child, the Five Tribes would have been forced to keep them together.

In the end, the decision to rebel against the sanction on writing letters was taken out of Luka's hands in the form of High Council member Koen, who sought him out a few days later and asked him to take a walk along the path that wound by the creek.

“I understand you know our newest Compis, Nikka,” said Koen.

“I do sir. My girlfriend is her cousin,” said Luka.

Koen harrumphed and moved past the obvious comment on the shenanigans that occurred during Initiation.

“You and she were close?” he asked.

“We grew up together,” said Luka, wondering where the conversation was going.

“We have a strict policy on communications with the outside world here in the Terris. I am also bound by a code of honor not to influence your friend Nikka with bribes or gifts. However, I have it on good authority, that the other tribes will be doing whatever they can to gain her favor and still stay within those bounds.

“I have talked to the others and we have agreed that we will bend the rules a bit—I'm afraid this won't allow you to write your girlfriend—and let you send letters to Nikka, telling her about your experiences in the tribe. Just think, if you convince her what a welcoming and powerful tribe we are, she would live here and you would have a friend to share experiences with!”

Luka listened with continuing skepticism to the lies spewing from Koen's lips and started to form a plan of his own. He would write to her, but he would send the letter he wanted to send to May and have her send it on for him. It was brilliant!

True to her word, Jilli was gone much of the time during the first group of days Nikka was at the house. She left well before Nikka woke and came home long after she'd gone to bed. Nikka's days became filled with whatever activity Jerem could invent for them—touring the town, haunting the beach during low tide to find shells and trinkets for her hair. His friend Luba was only a year past Induction, a pretty girl with hair down to her waist entwined with every shell and pebble and pearl. She showed Nikka how to make holes in the shells and use bits of twine to tie them in her hair.

Today she was meeting them at lunch for a picnic and as she skipped downstairs for breakfast, she thought she might look over the books on Jilli's shelf in the great room and see if there was anything worth reading. She remembered seeing a book on sea tales that looked interesting. She would look first thing after breakfast, and after she had given Agga her letter to mail out.

Once again she wondered at the wisdom of writing it, but ever since she had seen Zyander practically run from her during Initiation, she'd been burning with the need to write and tell him all that was in her heart.

It may be a mistake,
she thought,
but I know I'll feel better after sending it
.

She went into the kitchen and sat at the small table in the corner. Agga had tried to convince her that her rightful place was in the dining room, but she'd laughed outright at the idea of sitting by herself at the large table, which seemed to swallow up the room.

“Good morning, Agga,” she said, “What have you been cooking? It smells wonderful.”

“It's just fried fishcakes and beans, pup. Eat up, and then there is a letter arrived for you. Herself has had her hands all over it, as you can see,” said Agga, placing the plate of food, then morning tea, and finally the letter, glowing blue, next to her plate.

“Why is it blue?” she asked, touching it to make sure it wouldn't do something strange like pop or explode.

“It is blue because Herself tried to read the contents and that letter has a locking spell on it. It is a useful bit of common magic that most don't know about, unless they are used to keeping secrets, the way Herself is. She wasn't expecting your letter writer to know about it, I suppose.”

“She tried to read my letter?” Nikka was appalled. In that moment she felt another part of her naivete wash away, as she realized that she would have little privacy among the powerful High Council.

“I'm sorry, pup. You are the most powerful being that Herself has ever come across. You didn't expect that she would leave you to follow your own whims, did you? They all fear you and will wish to control you. This is only one of the ways.”

Nikka stared at Agga, who had never said more than four words to her up until now.

“You better not be thinking of giving me that letter to send, either,” said Agga, pointing to the one that Nikka had brought down for her.

“Let me guess, you have instructions to delay any letters I send so that Jilli can read them? Can't you send it without letting her try to read it?” asked Nikka.

“I don't have the ability to say no to Herself. It's impossible for me. Better to do yourself the favor of keeping it out of my hands. The same goes for that boy you've been bustling about with.”

“Jerem?” Nikka felt silly even asking, since it was clear to her now that he was a spy for Jilli, meant to watch her and coerce her into staying. He was probably under orders to make her like him, too.
If I fell in love with someone in the tribe, as Compis Samain did, then I would want to join the Aquis. Let's face it, Jerem is a handsome man
, she thought.
If I weren't already thinking of some other man, I might be tempted to fall for him. He's charming, intelligent, funny and respectful.

Nikka glanced down at the letter she hoped to send out today. She didn't have space in her heart for another man. Even though Zyan had made it clear that he didn't want anything more to do with her, she could not change her own mind so easily.

“I see I don't have to say anything, for your quick young mind is there before I do.”

“I really wanted to send my letter today,” said Nikka, at a loss. “Can you take me down to the Praete Line and show me how to do it?”

“Take you down? Is my time worthless that you would waste it so, pup?” Agga huffed and took away Nikka's now empty plate.

“I'm sorry. I just thought if I could do it myself, then you wouldn't have to worry about following Jilli's orders,” said Nikka.

“Well, now, that's a worthy thought. Taking the matter into your own hands is an admirable desire for one of your powers. There's no reason why we have to go all the way down to the Praete Line Herself uses. You know as well as I there are others much closer.”

Nikka was startled. Looking around her with her
other
eyes, as she tended to think of them, she saw many small Praete lines scattered throughout the room.

“You see them? You see the lines, too?” asked Nikka.

Agga chuckled—a low gurgling sound. “Did you think I was one of the Aquis tribe, pup, who can't see past the nose on my face? I'm a creature of the common magic, as tribeless as you are, and I can see all the lines in this room.”

“I'm not a creature, how is it that I can see them? I'm tribal born.”

“Oh, you're not entirely of the Five Tribes, I knew that the moment I saw you. You glow with the same light as we do, look at yourself. Have you ever seen the light of a person's tribe glowing from within them? It's the same with you,” said Agga.

Remembering the golden light she saw pulsing within Zyander right after her vision was changed by Initiation, Nikka looked down at her skin and stared for a few moments, trying to see what Agga did.

“You try too hard,” said Agga, “Relax and let your eyes show you.”

Nikka closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and opened them again, looking down at her hand. This time, she saw little threads of silver light move over her skin. Then she looked at Agga, but instead of seeing the same light as the Praete Lines moving within her, as she expected, she saw nothing.

“I don't see any of the light glowing in you,” she said, puzzled.

“That's because the source of my magic doesn't reside in me, like a human's does. My magic comes from other sources.”

“What?” Nikka wanted to know.

“Do you want to sit here all day chirping questions like a noisy bird or do you want to learn how to send your letters without them being read by anyone else?”

“I'm sorry,” said Nikka, then took her letter and stood up. “Where should we go?”

“No need to leave the kitchen, silly pup, as I said, the lines are everywhere.”

Nikka hesitated. “It's just, they're so small in here.”

“You want to send a letter, not a couch. A small line will do just fine. Now put the letter in its path.”

Nikka moved to the nearest Praete Line, about a handspan in front of her and held the letter so the light of it seemed to flow right through the paper.

“Now, think of the person you want to send the letter to. It matters not if you don't know where that person is at this moment,” she said, cutting off Nikka's objection. “When you have the person in your mind, strongly in your mind, imagine the line is a piece of thread, connecting you to the person. That thread is as strong and sure as a tree trunk, bending and moving when it needs to, but pointing straight to where you want it to go. And when you are sure the thread is connected all the way to that location, release your letter, and it will find its source.”