Chapter 17: Influence

Tarek awoke to the indescribable feel of a wet tongue prodding the inside of his ear. He jerked awake with a yelp, pushing away the snuffling something that had invaded him so thoroughly. The dream-taste of Kanga’s blood faded from his wistful tongue. He blinked himself into full consciousness and found that he was holding a happy, tail-wagging Axies at bay, her wriggling pleasure at discovering him again radiating down his arms as they touched. She was a frightfully dim animal, he decided, but her joy was infectious. He rubbed her behind the ears, and she flopped onto the floor, perfectly content. Her happiness dissolved into bliss when he rubbed her belly.

He saw Tavi sitting in Xochil’s chair out of the corner of his eye. “Where do you think she came from?” he asked the boy.

“The tail-wagger? Who knows?”

“He said she was a dog. Did you remember anything like that from Ryki’s stories? I’m sure I’d have remembered.”

“I don’t think so,” Tavi replied. He sounded distracted.

Looking over at him for the first time, Tarek saw that he had one of the strange, colorful rectangles that lined the shelves of the wall and had pried it open. “Tavi!” he whispered urgently. “Put it back! He told us not to touch anything.”

“It won’t hurt me,” Tavi protested. “I knocked it over onto the dog-thing before I touched it. Didn’t seem to hurt it, so I figured I was fine.”

“What if Xochil sees you?”

“I thought about that disappearing-mouth trick a lot last night. I’m not even sure it was ever really gone. I think all his magic is illusions.”

“What about holding back the flood? The vine that eats people?”

Tavi cocked his head. “Hm. Didn’t think about those.”

“He’s not safe, Tav. Put it back!”

“Look at it, though. It’s paper inside.”

Curious despite himself, Tarek crossed to the chair and peered at the thing. What he’d taken for a colorful box on first glance was actually a collection of impossibly thin papers all cut to the same size and stored inside hard covers. The light coming through the windows was a fitful gray as the flood continued, but the globes suspended from the ceiling gave enough illumination for him to see that the pages were covered with small, spidery writing.

“That’s not bark paper,” he murmured, touching it.

“I don’t know what it’s made of,” Tavi replied, excitement in his voice. “But see how smooth it is? How evenly it takes the ink? The sheets are all glued together on one side. They must be sewn in, too, or it wouldn’t hold. Locotl would cut off his thumbs to have something like this.”

“The letters are so small. Can you read it?”

“Some. This was the only one I found with lettering I recognized on the outside, but it’s not quite like our language.” He flipped it closed, and letters painted in black graced the dull red cover.

“Book of Tales,” he read. “What’s a book? And they spelled ‘tails’ wrong.”

Tavi laughed. “It’s not misspelled. Tales means stories. I thought there might be some that I knew in here. Ones about Axalat, or Pahtl, or Neris.”

“Are there?”

“I can’t tell,” Tavi sighed. “It looks like our language, and lots of the words are the same, but there are others I don’t recognize. Nearly half of them. Makes it impossible to read. Ever heard the word ‘agley?’ Or ‘cranreuch?’ I’m not even sure how to say that one.”

“Axalat isn’t in that one,” came a dry voice from the entryway. “Pahtl is, though. Toward the end.”

Tarek straightened, and Tavi shut the story pages with a snap, trying to look innocent.

“I ought to take off your fingers for not obeying me, but in all honesty, I don’t care if you look at the books. If they had anything sensitive, I wouldn’t have left them in the front room.”

Xochil strode in, looking hale and hearty once more. He hardly seemed the same man as the one who had vanished in palsied weakness only hours before. His sepia skin had a rosy glow entirely at odds with the slack grayness they’d seen so clearly, and there was a spring to his step. Were it not for the long, wispy beard and unruly eyebrows, Tarek would have thought they were looking at Xochil’s younger brother.

“I apologize for acting so rudely last night,” he said smoothly. “And for leaving so suddenly. When you get to my age, bedtime is no trifling matter.”

Tarek did his best not to gape at the old man. The rapid, obvious aging they’d seen him undergo last night was far more than just an elderly man needing his rest. He wondered whether Xochil hoped to just breeze past with the ridiculous lie or if he really thought they were that stupid.

“Are these all full of stories?” Tavi asked timidly, gesturing to the paper containers lining the shelves.

“Many of them, yes. Others are histories. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference.” He gestured expansively about the room. “You could probably learn more about the last thousand years of the Land in this room than anywhere else.”

Tavvi’s eyes widened. He looked almost hungry. “Can I read them?”

“No. And I’m not saying that just because you’re a little shit. You literally couldn’t read most of them. There are only a few in the room as close to our current language as the one you hold, and the rest are much older. It gets all the way back to the pictograph era, if you can believe it. Even I can’t read that nonsense anymore.”

“Could you teach me?” Tavi asked desperately.

“If I wanted an apprentice, boy, it wouldn’t be you.” Xochil waved a hand dismissively. “You’d hate it, anyways. Knowing too much isn’t good for a man.”

Tavi shook his head in disbelief.

“I was hoping we could continue our discussion from last night,” Tarek said.

“Of course you were,” Xochil replied. He gestured to the front door. “Step outside and we’ll get to it.”

Tarek glanced out the window. “It’s still raining hard, elder, and it’s been very nice to get dry and warm.”

“I’m sure it has,” Xochil said testily, “but I wasn’t joking when I said I don’t like people in my house. It’s not just that I’m a cranky recluse, I’ll have you know. There are no less than twenty objects in the next room that could kill you.”

“Then we won’t go in that room,” Tavi said, shrugging.

“There are six in this one.”

Tarek frowned. “And you let us sleep here? Unattended?”

Xochil clicked his tongue. “I didn’t expect to run off like that, and I certainly didn’t intend for you to sleep here. But the likelihood of you stumbling across one of those six items, none of which are obvious, and then using it in a way to get yourself killed, felt acceptably low in the state I was in. Now that I have a clearer head I’m beginning to reconsider.”

“Which things are they?” Tavi asked, fascinated.

“One of them is a book,” Xochil said.

Tavi carefully laid the book he’d been looking at on the floor. Axies sniffed at it.

“This isn’t a debate, children. You’re leaving.” Xochil pulled the front door open. Looking at their reluctant faces, he rolled his eyes. “I put up a canopy to keep your pretty little heads dry. There are two plates of food waiting underneath it.”

Tarek peeked out through the rain and saw a gray, oiled skin stretched out over a frame of rough timbers only twenty steps away. “How’d you get out without us seeing you? Why aren’t you wet?”

“If you want to waste your time on stupid questions, that’s up to you, but either way, do it under the canopy.” He waggled a finger at Tavi. “You first, you nosy maggot. Don’t think I missed it when you snuck into the lab room this morning.”

Tavi’s eyes went wide with outraged innocence, and Tarek sighed as he shouldered his bag and bowstaff. He knew that look. “Come on, little elder. He said there’s food.”

A short dash through the rain was rewarded with a dry canopy overhead and two carved wooden platters sitting on a flat, broad stone. Each plate held a steaming hard-boiled egg the size of Tarek’s fist nestled among several pieces of flatbread. An unfamiliar oblong yellow fruit rolled around the edge of the plate, and Tarek nearly dropped his when he picked up the platter.

Tavi looked back to the house, but the door was shut. “Is he coming out?”

“He will or he won’t,” Tarek said. “I’m too hungry to worry about it.”

They sat on the low stone with their backs together and focused on their meal. The eggs had a thick shell, but the rock underneath them made short work of that obstacle. The white of the egg was tangier than the little groundfowl ones Tarek was used to, but the yolk was creamy and firm, and there was plenty to spread on the bread. The fruit was sour enough to pucker his lips, but strangely pleasant after a couple of bites. He ate it rind and all.

Tavi groaned with pleasure and licked the juice from his fingers. “Real food. I never want to eat your journey meal again.”

“You may change your mind after a day or two back out in the water,” Tarek said dryly. “Not that there’s much left anyway. It’s going to be a lot of raw fish for the next little while. If we’re lucky.”

“What kind of eggs were those?” Tavi wondered.

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“Screamer roc,” Xochil said.

They both jumped. The old man was standing right behind them, perfectly dry, leaning on his staff. He smiled blandly. “Birds as big as a man that live in the cliffs to the west. The Yura bring me the eggs sometimes.”

Tarek tensed. “Are there Yura here now?”

“No, only you two are stupid enough to be out in the flood.”

“If only there were a nice dry house we could stay in,” Tavi muttered.

“I liked you better without a mouth. Keep talking and you’ll lose it again, and maybe your man parts, too.” Xochil tugged his beard, annoyed. “I told you, it’s not safe in there. You have no idea. I’m doing you a favor.”

“It’s fine,” Tarek said. “That’s not what we’re here for. You said you could cure me.”

Xochil frowned. “I did, and I can. But you need to stop for a moment and think this through before we do anything hasty.”

Tarek scoffed. “I’ve hardly thought about anything else the last few days. The blood magic is every bit as bad as the old stories say, if not worse. I…” He reddened and had to force the words out. “I still thirst for blood even though I don’t want it. I went out of my mind when I tasted it. I can’t be trusted – no one could. It’s overwhelming.”

“The thing about us, Tarek, is that we adapt. Even something overwhelming can become manageable over time. You couldn’t pull your bow as a child, could you? You had to grow, become stronger, learn. This is no different.”

“It is,” Tarek insisted. “A bow can feed a tribe or protect a family. All the blood magic does is make a beast out of me.”

“You know as much about the blood magic as a fish knows about the water it’s swimming in,” Xochil said. “It can do many things. It offers power. Control.”

“No one should have that kind of control over someone else,” Tarek said, shaking his head. “If I’m unable to convince someone to do what I want just by using my words and my heart, then I shouldn’t be able to force them into it anyway.”

“Plenty of men do so with nothing more than their fists. Should we chop off your hands?”

“I don’t want to be that kind of man. And my hands, much like a bow, have other uses.”

Xochil sucked at his teeth and looked up at the canopy as he considered his next words. “Why,” he finally said, “did anyone in your tribe ever like you?”

“Uh,” said Tarek. “Because I tried to be nice?”

“Nobody actually cares about that. When we say nice, what we really mean is useful. ‘This person makes my life easier or better or keeps me safe.’ But you were the village cripple. Bad at hunting, average at best in all other regards, and most importantly, utterly deaf to the Song. You can’t do what every single other person can do without thinking, and it’s only because people watched over you constantly that you survived in this savage part of the Land. You take from your tribe and have very little to offer in return. Am I right?”

Tavi took a breath, looking irate, but Xochil glared at him, and he subsided.

“No,” Tarek said, nettled, thinking of Yaretzi. “I always helped.”

“But someone always had to be with you. They’d have done as much or more without you, whether it was hunting or picking berries or anything else. I’ve watched you, Tarek. I know.”

Tarek thought back over all his interactions with Shad, with Zuma, with all the adults of the Catori. The only counterexample he could think of was his manhood hunt when he’d used the blood magic, and that only served to reinforce the point that he was useless without it.

“So why didn’t they hate you?” Xochil asked pointedly.

“Because they were my tribe,” Tarek said. “Because they were good people.”

“Good people,” Xochil said, drawing out the words. “How’s your neck feeling?”

Tarek touched the deeply bruised flesh under his chin and said nothing.

“They liked you because you touched them,” Xochil said, poking at the air. “I saw it more than once. Someone was angry with you, annoyed, ready to give you the back of their hand or curse you for a cripple… and all you had to say was a few words, give a light touch on the hand or the back, and the person would smile and forgive you.”

Tarek scoffed. “People touch. They embrace. It’s normal.”

“But it’s not normal for it to be so effective,” Xochil insisted. “You should have been a pariah. Laws of conduct as old as humanity demand it, but instead you were loved.”

“So what?” Tavi whispered, looking rebellious.

“So he’s been using the blood magic all along, little shit, and don’t think you can start talking again.”

“I never…!” Tarek protested. “I spent my entire childhood trying not to use it.”

“And you were unsuccessful even then,” Xochil said. “You couldn’t help it. So you didn’t talk to animals after your father beat you – who cares? You used your magic the whole time and didn’t even know it.”

Tarek shifted uncomfortably. Xochil seemed to know all the things he’d long thought hidden.

“It was when I saw how they loved you that I was sure,” the old man continued. “It was subtle but unmissable. You can’t help but influence people and draw power to yourself. You’ve done it all along. Do you really want to discard the only thing that has protected you your whole life?”

“I don’t believe it,” Tarek said. He turned to Tavi. “People don’t just fawn on me because I touch them. Tell him!”

Tavi looked askance at Xochil, who gestured an irritable assent. “I don’t know. Shad always favored you even though you were slower than the other hunters, and so did Zuma.”

Tarek gaped at him. “And you think that’s magic?”

Tavi shrugged, looking down at his hands. “You don’t know how many times Tata talked about beating you for some little thing you’d done. You left ashes in the hearth, or you didn’t knock all the bugs out of the reeds before you brought them in. Anything. He’d work himself up and pace the house, and then when you came in… most of the time he’d lose all his anger suddenly and just sit by the fire.”

Tarek felt sick to his stomach. “Because I touched him?”

Tavi hesitated, then gave a nod.

Tarek had always known when his father was upset when he walked in the house and had gotten very good at defusing his anger. All it took was a little flattery, avoiding eye contact… And a touch? Was that part of it? He wasn’t certain. His reactions to Tenoch had been so instinctual that he’d never really thought about it.

He sat down heavily. “Tata hit me plenty,” he said woodenly.

“One time in ten,” Tavi replied. “Less, maybe.”

“Yes, dysfunctional family, very sad,” Xochil said, waving his free hand as if shooing away mosquitos. “My point is, all of us seek influence. It’s how we make friends and stay safe. You just happen to be very good at it. So when you say ‘make it go away,’ what I see is a lifetime of opportunity thrown into the fire in a misplaced moral panic. Don’t do it. The floods are going to be bad for the next few years, and life’s going to be very hard for lots of people. Someone of your particular gifts could make all the difference.”

“How? By drinking everyone’s blood and forcing them to do what I say?”

“If necessary,” Xochil said. “If there’s anything the tribes of the Lost all have in common, it’s stubbornness. Someone who could get everyone moving in the right direction would be invaluable. He might even save lives.”

Tarek shook his head. “You don’t know how it feels, Xochil. When I took Kanga’s blood, I didn’t want to save lives – I wanted to take them.”

“If only there were someone wise and experienced who could guide you,” Xochil said flatly.

Tarek closed his eyes, and the sight of Kanga’s bloody, battered body rose out of the darkness to accuse him. “Blood magic can’t be guided. It can’t be controlled. It will eat every last bit of good out of my heart.”

“Which would leave you no different than anyone else,” Xochil said, clicking his tongue. “Listen to me, stubborn boy. This is important.”

“No,” Tarek said, resolute. “I can’t do what you’re asking, and it’s a bad thing to ask, anyways. What is important is keeping my word to my brother. Being a good man who can look to Yaretzi without shame. It’s not having control or forcing people to bow to me. That’s wrong. Either I rid myself of the blood magic or I walk out into the Ix River to drown. Those are the only options.”

Xochil glared at him. “I could force you to comply.”

Tarek stood. His chin was taller than the old man’s bald pate. “If you could, I don’t think you’d have bothered trying to talk me into it.”

Tavi came to stand by Tarek. “Please, honored elder,” he said with uncharacteristic deference. “We just want to be safe. Don’t ask him to become some kind of monster. Cure him. I know you can.”

Xochil’s glare turned ugly as he looked at Tavi, and Tarek could hear his teeth grinding. Then he looked back to Tarek and the rage in his face flickered and died, giving them a brief glimpse at something that looked almost like affection. He ran a hand over his head and sighed, the tension flowing out of him. “Damned know-nothing boys. All right. Have it your way.”

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