Chapter IX

  Wiolàr

  Thing was inconsolable. Its pupils fluctuated wildly, shifting between shapes as it cried, giving no words to guide Cor or Vito in comforting it. Cor would say:

  “They’re wrong, it’s up to you to decide who you are, don’t listen to them!”

  But Thing could only shake its head, and Vito knew that it desired Arbiter’s approval far too much to act on the advice.

  Vito would say:

  “It’s okay! It’s okay!”

  But even he knew that this was vague and ultimately unhelpful. Despite this, Thing placed its arms around them, embracing them, and crying into their shoulders.

  When Thing wanted to be by itself for a moment, Vito took the opportunity to discreetly explain to Cor what had been said after he’d begun yelling at Arbiter.

  Cor nodded, and seemed to be thinking about it deeply even as Thing returned to them. It was a long evening.

  Eventually, yawns from the two boys began to punctuate Thing’s cries, and while Cor stayed with it, Vito gathered driftwood to make a fire.

  Vito had wanted to be the one to leave Thing. He felt like he had begun to repeat himself in his affirmations to it, and while he knew that it probably didn’t matter, it was beginning to exhaust him. He had never thought of himself as very good at being compassionate with others. All he could really do was be silent, and listen, or say the same generic phrases ad nauseam: “it’s okay,” “it’s not your fault,” “don’t worry,” etcetera, etcetera. As he watched Cor, on the other hand, it was clear that he had things to say, real things. Cor couldn’t understand what Thing said, but it didn’t matter, because it didn’t speak.

  Cor had good advice for Thing. He told it not to subscribe to Arbiter’s claims, to forge its own destiny, to eschew their authority. He had actionable items which he brought up:

  “Listen— they don’t really control you, Thing, you do.”

  “You can prove them wrong if you try. You can do great deeds, and they’ll have no choice but to call you whatever you want!”

  “You get to decide what you’re called, not them.”

  Vito didn’t know if the spirit found these words helpful or not, but still, he wished he could articulate them as Cor did, generate those useful maxims in times of need.

  When he’d found enough firewood, Vito returned, stripping a few of the smaller sticks of their bark for kindling. Thing let him borrow its ring for a moment, and, striking it with a stone, the rock broke in two, bring forth a shower of sparks which lit the flame. The ring did not sustain so much as a scratch. Vito gathered a few bundles of kelp that had washed up and dried out under the day’s sun, and heaped them nearby to feed the flames. He then went and got their boat, dragging it slowly until it was next to the fire, though far enough away that the sparks wouldn’t sputter onto it. As he did, he noticed that his pen was lying on the ground. It had fallen out as they had been talking with the Ashi’man. He picked it up, and tucked it back into his ear.

  Cor seemed intrigued by the materials Vito had gathered, “wow, you’re like a frontiersman!” he said.

  “Thanks,” said Vito, attention still on the boat. “We can sleep in here. It won’t be very comfortable, but it’s better than on the rocks.”

  Thing by now had sunk into occasional sniffles, and immediately crawled over to the boat and rolled into it. Cor nodded, just once, and got into the side of the boat opposite from Thing. Vito laid in the middle.

  Thing closed its eyes almost immediately. Vito wasn’t tired yet, and sat in the shape of a shallow ‘u’, with his back up against the port slope of the boat, and his feet resting on the rim of starboard.

  Cor’s eyes were still open. He stared into the rainforest, up the shore.

  “Hey,” Vito said, softly. Cor immediately turned his head back to him, which surprised Vito. Cor’s face was neutral, and he said nothing, waiting for Vito to talk.

  “Uh, thanks for your help back there with the Ashi’man. And with Thing.”

  “My pleasure,” said Cor, with a more reserved smile this time. The night had returned to its deep black after the Ashi’man had left, and Cor’s face was lit solely by the campfire. It made him look old, accentuating the creases of his face. It suited him. At that moment, Vito wanted to know his age, and so, “How old are you?” he asked.

  Cor didn’t seem to find the question the least bit strange, and with almost no hesitation said, “I’m twenty-one.”

  So he was three years Vito’s senior. While it was a bit strange how quickly and readily he had answered, Vito appreciated Cor’s openness to his questions, which others might consider impertinent. After all, Vito loved his questions.

  “When you were talking to Arbiter, and you mentioned the apocalypse, how were you so calm?”

  “Hmm… what do you mean?”

  “Wasn’t it scary, thinking about all those people, the end of the world?”

  Cor laid his hands on the rim of the boat, and leveraged himself into sitting up. He put one hand up in front of him, making all kinds of gestures as he talked. One finger would come up, his hand would swoop, dive, and rise again, like a conductor leading a band.

  “Yeah, but you have to separate yourself from that for a second, you know? You have to put yourself outside that fear, in order to get things done. If you don’t, you’ll get stuck. That’s what I think, anyway.”

  Vito thought about that. He didn’t think he was capable of it.

  “But your connection to them? People you know? Your family? Can you really put them aside, even for a moment?”

  “Sure you can,” Cor answered without a second’s pause. Vito gave him a troubled look. He didn’t know how to feel about that claim. Cor could see on Vito’s face the distressed thoughts moving through his mind, and said,

  “I don’t mean like that! It’s not like you’re just forgetting about the people you love, but sometimes your emotions can cloud your judgment, you know? You have to put them aside.”

  “But the people you love?” Vito heard such a heartfelt tone of earnestness in his voice that he cringed with embarrassment.

  Cor grimaced.

  “I still love my brother and my parents, Vito, but there are times for that, and times where you have to do what’s gotta be done, don’t you agree?” as Cor said it, his gaze turned upwards towards the horizon’s stars, like a philosopher examining the heavens.

  Vito nearly rolled his eyes at this gesture. The frequency with which Cor punctuated points of his with grandiose skyward gazes hardly seemed to be a matter of chance.

  Cor’s eye descended again to meet Vito’s, and it was clear that he expected Vito to answer what he had said.

  Vito didn’t want to upset Cor, but he didn’t want to lie either, so he settled for, “I guess I don’t agree.”

  Cor nodded slowly, a genuine, thoughtful expression on his face, and Vito reconsidered once again whether Cor’s mannerisms were actual or artificial.

  Cor chuckled.

  “I don’t know, man, there are these times when somebody’s gotta be more than the sum of their parts, when they have to be more than human, in order to face big problems. I believed that Arbiter, and the fate of the world, was a time when I had to put my feelings away, and perform beyond my limits for you and Thing, and the world at large. I mean, who knows what Arbiter might have done if it was upset, right? Gotta go in clear-headed when lives at stake.”

  Vito nodded, since he didn’t want to discuss it anymore, but he did not agree. He felt that compassion, and love for one’s family and friends, should always factor in. He didn’t think that every decision should be motivated by these, but he also didn’t think it was right to separate them from one’s person, even for a brief time. It felt instinctively wrong to him, and it seemed dangerous. If a person could completely shut off their feelings for other people, even if they were doing it for a good cause, what would keep them from becoming a monster— continuing their (perhaps initially brief) lack of emotion for ease or personal benefit? It was too slippery a slope for him.

  Vito could see that Cor wanted him to respond, but Vito didn’t want to. He smiled, and turned to look out at the ocean.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  He felt Cor’s hand pat him on the side, and turned to him once again. Cor was grinning, still expecting an answer. Vito felt his frustration suddenly flare, and told Cor:

  “I don’t think a person who can forget about compassion sums up to much.”

  Cor’s head jittered slightly, like he’d been zapped. He didn’t appear angry, rather, he seemed to look at Vito more generously, as though he had impressed him.

  “So the bookworm bites!” Cor said. He nodded, just once, with a chuckle. “Perhaps the world needs both kinds of people.” He smiled his close-eyed smile, and chuckled once more. Then, his attention seemed drawn elsewhere, “that fire’s awfully close.” He looked to the rainforest. “That rainforest is awfully close too. We should really have a watch, to make sure no embers fly onto the boat or the forest, and torch us all, and for any bugs come out of the jungle. Wouldn’t want a Leon Gio sucking us dry of our blood during the night!”

  “Yeah,” said Vito, considering that Cor may have been looking at the rainforest earlier with this concern in mind. Perhaps it had not been so grandiose a gesture as he had concluded.

  “Cool,” said Cor, “I’ll go first. I’ll make sure to wake you before they get too much of your blood.” He winked.

  Vito shuddered at the thought of the giant mosquitoes even though he knew Cor was joking. He supposed that Cor, who lived here, had gotten used to the idea of the massive, dangerous insects.

  “Yeah… okay,” he said.

  That night, Vito dreamt that he was back home, in his warm bed, with his mother reading to him. In the dream, he was young, only a few years past his toddler days. As his mother read, he noticed a shadow in the corner of his room, cast from the window above his bed. He could tell that it was a man. As the shadow began to coalesce, he tried to tell his mother about it, but his mouth could not open.

  His mother read:

  “He who seeks finds naught his mark

  He who rests finds a peace in the dark

  When breath is drawn, no offense is meant

  Till Horror comes the way that Beauty went.

  Seeking, seeking, under every moon

  All through the night till the roosters croon

  Dreams of avoiding each coming breath

  To sneak a glance at the Dance of Death

  Life is wound tight, like an iron chain

  And to escape is as a smile, marked with a stain

  Consider ending the search, and the mind is kept

  But Horror laughed as Beauty wept.

  Withered flowers under pale moonlight

  Drift on island breezes into endless night

  Leave this safe fortress, feel the shortness of breath

  Drawn by the rumor of the Dance of Death.”

  Vito tried to shout out, to ask her what the poem meant, and what the shadow was. He managed to get his mouth open, but now no sounds would come out. When his mother had finished reading, the shadow’s form had been made manifest, and by the pointed ears and coal black skin, Vito knew that he was looking at his father. However, in addition to his normal features, he sported two glowing antlers, and his feet were hooves of smoldering black wood. His eyes were as they had always been, two purple irises the color of anemone. Vito tried to get out of bed to get away from his father, but his mother held him in place with her hands.

  “I still love him, you know.”

  Vito’s father sat down at the edge of the bed, but when he spoke, his voice was Arbiter’s.

  “WHY DO YOU SEEK THE DANCE OF DEATH?”

  Vito couldn’t move or answer, and stared into his father’s menacing eyes.

  “WE KEEP THIS FROM YOU FOR YOUR OWN GOOD, YOU KNOW.”

  Vito shook his head.

  “THE PRICE OF THIS KNOWLEDGE IS TOO HIGH FOR YOU MY SON. FOLLOW THIS RABBIT DOWN ITS HOLE, AND SUFFER MY FATE.”

  Vito turned to his mother again, pleading with his eyes for her to let him up.

  “I still love him, you know.”

  “YOU CANNOT IGNORE ME. TO DANCE THIS DANCE IS TO DANCE FOREVER.”

  Vito felt something soft graze him, and imagined a Leon Gio crawling on him, its hairy legs brushing against his arm.

  He woke with a start to see Cor’s hand on his elbow. It was nearly morning.

  Cor could evidently see Vito’s fright, and put his hands up.

  “Just waking you up for your watch shift. No bugs, don’t worry.”

  Vito looked left and right to confirm this statement, and saw that it was true. There wasn’t a bug (aside from the usual small variety) in sight.

  “You okay?” Cor asked Vito.

  Vito was reminded by this interaction of how Thing had woken him yesterday.

  “I’m okay.”

  “Cool,” said Cor, relaxing into the boat, closing his eyes.

  Vito couldn’t shake his father’s words: “you cannot ignore me”. It struck Vito as strange that his father should have Arbiter’s voice in his dream instead of his own, but as he tried to imagine what his father had actually sounded like, he found that he could not remember anymore. Vito discarded this thought, and put the whole thing out of his mind. He was going to learn the truth about the Dance of Death no matter what cost, and no part of that endeavor involved his father.

  Vito loved to learn innately, but the fact that so many people were keeping the truth from him made the mystery all the more seductive. On a basic level, Vito wanted to prove that he could figure out what it was, even if many people tried to stop him. He wanted to show that his intellect could not be vexed. Vito frowned as he thought that.

  Vito believed that information— all information, should be freely accessible to anyone regardless of age, wealth, or education. He didn’t like that they kept the books locked up at school where people couldn’t easily get them— “where they were safe”. This situation was just the same to him. He didn’t like it there, and he didn’t like it here.

  Vito figured that the books’ knowledge was the valuable thing, not the paper, and the knowledge would be safest if there were many copies in many places. That way, if one was destroyed, the book would not be lost. As it sat now, there were many books in Town that did not have copies. When a textbook was lost, it was lost.

  Vito couldn’t image any situation where the dissemination of knowledge would be harmful. Vito had read many books, and had learned of so many things in the world, like the moons of other lands, the Nguichi of the Singing Rainforest, the Crotuparlans of the ancient times, and so much more. This obfuscation of the Dance of Death— it was the same as saying that reading about a spear was dangerous because spears can kill. That was what this was, this arbitrary privileging of the Dance of Death. Vito was sure of it.

  Vito did not believe that any knowledge was dangerous enough to keep away from people. He accepted that some knowledge was dangerous, but felt that the sum of good lost to the world would be greater if dangerous knowledge was withheld, rather than if it was learned and abused. Even if the Dance of Death was dangerous, it was better to be known by all the people of the world, and abused by a few, than to be unknown by all people, leaving them vulnerable to those who would seek it out and learn it anyway. Vito resolved to spread this knowledge as widely as he could, once he had it.

  “I’ll need documentation,” he thought. If he were to ever compose a volume on the Dance of Death, a pamphlet, a speech, he’d need to give the context for how he had discovered this knowledge. It might not be important to know how he had found the Dance of Death, but then again it might be. If some important dynamic were at work in this adventure relating to the Dance of Death, then it was paramount that he document it. Besides, it would be better to have the account and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

  He retrieved his bamboo notebook from its goatskin holster, took his stick pen from his ear, and slipped his vial of ink out from between the pages of the textbook he’d brought. He began to record all that had happened to him, Thing, and now Cor, since he had first heard of the non-festival Dance of Death from his mother two nights ago.

  He wrote and wrote, beginning to enjoy the pleasure of the narrative. By the time the sun rose on the third day of Nubye, he had gotten to meeting Cor on the dock. He also updated the “Investigation” and “Lost Memory Clues” section. The three clues writ large were: “why did Arbiter bring so many spirits just to tell Thing it was wrong,” “king Noell knows about the Dance of Death,” and the full poem his mother had read to him. Vito could remember every word. Under “Investigation,” he wrote: “find Thing’s original name.”

  When he’d finished, Vito looked around himself, seeing if any embers had flown onto the boat. None had. In fact, the fire had died a while ago. He examined their surroundings, looking for any insect visitors.

  He saw one, peeking out of the rainforest, so large that one of its eyes was nearly the height of Vito himself. It had two wings, and three trunks like an elephant’s hung from its face. Vito froze. The bug took to the air, slowly rotating to face the interior of the dense canopy, and flew off. It seemed to have no interest in them. Vito breathed a sigh of relief.

  Cor woke not long after the bug had departed, and Thing once the sun had fully risen. As they were getting out of the boat, Vito noticed that the giant insect had returned, and this time crept a few steps out towards them. Revealed in the light of day, Vito could see that it was a fly, though with a body as large as a pony, and huge, compound eyes.

  “Uh…” Vito said, pointing in the direction of the approaching beast.

  Thing flinched. “Eww!” it said, making a disgusted face towards the fly.

  “Do you think we can get away from it?” Vito asked Cor, who was sure to have the most knowledge about the creature, being a native of the region. As he spoke, a second and third fly appeared.

  “Don’t have to. They’re Wiolàr, they only eat dead things. They probably want the marrow in these bones.”

  Vito still didn’t like the idea of the bugs being so close to him. Thing spoke up, sounding worried,

  “What if they destroy the sigils?”

  Cor also appeared concerned at this prospect. Vito shook his head.

  “I don’t think they will. If the Ashi’man carved those sigils shortly after humans made the pantheons, then they’ve gotta be pretty old. The marrow in the bones is probably all gone.”

  Cor nodded, just once.

  “—So they’ll all go for the freshly washed up ones! Whoa, Vito you’re really really smart, man. I would’ve never thought about that.”

  Vito smiled.

  “Thanks, Cor.”

  The flies crept closer.

  “Even if they won’t eat living things, I’d rather get going…” Vito said, looking southwards towards Onagio.

  “Plus, they could just kill us, and then we’d be dead and they could eat us!” Thing added, translated by Vito.

  Cor laughed.

  “No, they’re cowards, really. Even though they’re big, they’re not very strong.” He turned to the rowboat. “How are we gonna move the boat?”

  Vito batted his hand.

  “I think we can probably leave it here, I don’t think anyone will take it. Will the Wiolàr bother it?”

  Cor took a look inside the boat.

  “Not unless there’s any food inside. I’ll have to stay here, maybe you guys can bring me back some new clothes from the city? I’ll be noticed in these,” he indicated his shining shirt and his canvas pants, and the long black coat thrown across his shoulder. “Please hurry,” Cor added, “the guards will come searching this coast for me at some point.”

  Vito nodded.

  The flies by this time had flown away from them, up the shore where another collection of gristle and bones lay. One of the Wiolàr slammed its body into them, breaking them open. Their strength did not seem so minuscule as Cor has said. The three trunks hanging from its face dove inside, sucking out the brownish-yellow liquid. Its two companions followed suit. Thing and Vito both were unnerved by the sight, and as the two of them departed for the city, Thing commented:

  “Let’s get outta here before we find out what eats them!”

  Vito looked back at the Wiolàr as the two of them followed the beach towards the city. They really were some of the ugliest creatures he had ever seen, just like the noisy cicadas which plagued Bangye-Rua, and the vile little ticks that prowled the island. He thought of their task instead, of the market he knew, where they could buy a hooded cloak for Cor. He didn’t want to think about the bugs for even a moment more.

  Vito laughed— a little laugh, just to himself. He had learned something about himself over the last few days.

  “I really hate bugs,” he said.

  Thing raised an eyebrow, but then agreed,

  “Yeah, me too.”