Seeklight

Like you. It stays strong in you, becomes stronger, a tool instead of a gift. So that, like your father, you could someday rule a world where every piddling village has its own language. There are some people who can pick up a solid thing, and tell you the face of every person who’s ever handled it. You,” the finger tapped the boy’s chest again, “can hold words and draw out whatever their speakers were saying with them.”

Daenek studied the faded gilt lettering on the cover of the book. The other language used the same alphabet as the stone-cutters’ language. He held the tip of his ringer under the first word of the book’s title and turned it towards the mertzer.

“Does that mean thane?”

“Close.” The mertzer nodded. “The book is called Master Poems of the English Language. ‘English’ is what they speak in the Capitol and, so I’ve heard, on some of the other worlds way beyond this, and even Earth itself.” He suddenly noticed the empty glass tube and the metal packet. His hand reached down and pushed them out of sight.

The pages slowly passed under Daenek’s hands as he opened the books. Words that were already becoming a part of him, sinking into the flesh under his flesh.

“It’s late,” said the mertzer. “Go to bed. We’ll start on the first page tomorrow.”

When Daenek got back to his room he opened the book and saw a single word inscribed inside the cover. Stepke. He switched off the light and got into bed. That’s his name, he thought. It joined the other words massing at his heart.

The mertzer Stepke was right—by the evening of the next day Daenek knew the language well enough to read aloud from the poems, while the mertzer sat with eyes closed on his makeshift bed. The sensation, the feel of the words on his tongue, was intoxicating to Daenek. He felt as if he had grown another pair of arms.

Their voices went on for a long time, the words coming faster and more sure from Daenek’s mouth. He even talked for a while about living with the Lady Marche in the house so far above the friendless village. Stepke finally gave in and spoke of some things he remembered about the old thane, a long time ago.

“The rumor was,” said Stepke, “that he had a power, a tremendous power. He could reach into a man’s mind with his own and command him. And the man would obey, as though he were nothing but another hand of the thane’s. I heard that he quelled a riot in the quarters of his militia that way. By just striding into the barracks and looking around, pressing them all under the weight of his power.” The mertzer paused for a moment. “But the thane hated the power, didn’t want his people to be only puppets at his bidding. He wanted them to be fired with his ideas, the hopes that fired him. Some were—but not enough.” He was silent again, and turned away to gaze out the window.

In his own room, Daenek sat on the edge of his bed, thinking.

Something was growing hard within his chest. Not to be a thane—who could come after a man with a power such as that?

Daenek knew there was nothing inside himself like it—but to wrestle from the devouring past the truth about his father’s death. A son’s obligation.

That night Daenek heard angry sounding voices from the kitchen downstairs. Lying in his bed, he couldn’t make out what the mertzer and the Lady Marche were arguing about. He knew he didn’t want to sneak out to the head of the stairs and listen, either. He turned his head toward the window and watched the cold stars until the voices were smothered by sleep.

The next morning, with the sun forming thick, dust-filled shafts in the little room, Stepke was busy re-assembling his pack.

Daenek stood in the doorway and watched him as he knelt, stacking his books and rolling the blankets into a tight cylinder.

“Where are you going?” said Daenek.

The mertzer did not look up as he began stuffing the items into the leather pack. “A man has to work,” he said. “Cutting stone is as much to my liking as anything else, I suppose.”

“But you could stay here. You don’t have to leave. You could go down to the quarry every day from here.”

The bearded face looked up at Daenek, then turned back to the motions of his hands. “No,” he said quietly. “That’s not possible.”

“I know why,” said Daenek, his voice choked tight with a sudden, overwhelming bitterness.

The mertzer reached out and took Daenek’s elbow in one hand and drew him closer. “No, you don’t,” he said, holding Daenek before himself. “The Lady Marche loves you, but hearts wear down and become fragile, just like all the other machines have.

There’s a world of pain and confusion below this one, and it’ll come welling back up like blood soon enough without my being around to remind the poor woman of it. Everything breaks down and ends, eventually.”

Daenek pulled away from his grasp and ran out of the room.

He returned in a few seconds and thrust the book of poems at the mertzer. “Here. This is yours.”

Stepke shook his head. “Keep it.”