A DAPPLED CANVAS OF BURNING WARMTH RIPPLES, ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND LEAVES LIKE A WAVE ON THE OCEAN, A MOUNTAIN VALLEY GLITTERS IN THE SUN SHINING THROUGH THE PARTING VEIL OF GREY.
Tomas groggily opened his eyes, sitting up. He was back in his room in Lukan and looking over to the other side of the room, he saw Ki’nam, also groggily rousing from his sleep, only he looked less than a dozen cycles old. Ki’nam locked eyes with him and the twin brothers glanced down at their bodies in unison, before looking back up at each other.
“What are you thinking?! You’re trying to meld with me?” Tomas demanded.
“What am I thinking? Brother, we cannot even dream together without both our intent, let alone force a melding,” Ki’nam snapped back. “No, this is something both our souls desired, I would guess. Best find out why.”
Tomas moved to get out of bed, but the instant his feet touched the floor he found himself suddenly standing with his brother, feet on the dirt floor of the central chamber of their childhood home. Before them, seated on a wooden stool in front of a flickering fireplace and stirring a pot of steaming broth was their mother. She seemed to not have noticed their presence. Tomas moved to step forward, but Ki’nam placed his arm on Tomas’ chest, stopping him.
“Wait,” Ki’nam whispered. “You know she never liked being pestered while she was cooking.” Tomas nodded in response.
The two brothers stood in silence as they watched their mother stirring the broth and the aroma of tanajim wafted over, filling their noses with the deep earthen flavours. Tomas heard a shuffling come from outside the hut and the door opened, revealing their father, not quite a young man but not yet old, hands and feet covered in dirt, smears across his olive coloured cheeks from idle grimy fingers rubbing an itch. He was wearing a tunic that came down to his knees, cinched at the waist by a length of cord, he was fingering a small piece of antler that hung from a piece of twine around his neck, it was a talisman he always wore, in reverence of the god of the hunt, Xip.
As he entered Tomas gasped, “Father!” It earned him a rap on the back of his skull from Ki’nam, but their father neither heard nor saw them. As his eyes caught the gaze of their mother a smile grew across his face, starting with a narrowing of his eyes, rising cheeks and crows feet wrinkling in joy as his mouth opened to reveal a grin full of wonky and missing teeth, a smile full of love.
Their father spoke, “Hello Je’lal, my love, that smells delicious. Is it nearly ready? The boys are playing down by the lakeshore, I thought I would check before calling them in.” There was a softness to his voice that Tomas had not remembered his father ever having. He had become a hard, stern man after they lost their mother, quick to scorn and difficult to please. The reminder that he had not always been that way affected Tomas in a manner he had not expected, he felt guilty for he had not once in his life considered how the strife and hardship of losing the mother of his children must have changed him.
“Saqil, how many times must I tell you? Never ask if the tanajim is ready in front of the tanajim. You know it always takes a little bit longer when you do, just to be difficult.” She smiled back at him. Tomas could feel the love flowing between them.
It was a nebulous, ethereal feeling, but it carried with it warmth and comfort, like an embrace but without the need for physical touch. Tomas glanced over at Ki’nam, who had tears welling in his eyes, and shuffled over to clasp his brother’s small hand in his own. As he did he blinked, and when he opened his eyes again he was standing on the lakeshore, still hand in hand with his brother, as two children played in the shallows.
Ki’nam pulled his hand out of Tomas’ grip and wiped the tears from his eyes. “Ahua’s grace I miss her. We never were quite the same after she was gone, were we? I’ve never even been able to dream of her since then. Just to see her face again, I,” he coughed, clearing his throat, “I didn’t realise how much I needed this. But this day of all the days? You do know what day this is, don’t you?” Tomas nodded.
He remembered the way the lake had looked that evening. The majestic plains rising on the opposite shore, Ahua’s dimming light illuminating the distant mountain ranges, oceans and islands curving up and away into the increasing gloom. Today was the last day they spent with their mother. Tonight was the night she had died in her sleep, without any outward signs of sickness or decline. Even the local apothecary their father had sent for after he woke beside her cold body had been unable to ascertain the cause of death.
He gazed at two boys splashing in the shallow water, innocent of the pain and confusion that was about to tear their lives apart. Tomas took a step forward, towards their younger selves, then another. Ki’nam followed, making their way along the pebbled shoreline until they were standing before the splashing children.
Their younger versions stopped splashing in the water and turned around, staring at them, before beginning to approach. Tomas stepped back, afraid, but Ki’nam’s reassuring hand on his shoulder stopped him. They waited as the boys approached and stood opposite them.
“Hello.”
They spoke in unison, in high pitched and soft voices that bore a deep sense of connection within them. “It has been a long time since we have all dreamed together.”
Tomas felt a deep fear stirring in his gut. We have dreamed together before?
“Yes, sibling. We have,” the boys answered his unspoken question. Quickly glancing at Ki’nam for reassurance, Tomas saw shock on his brother’s youthful face.
“A twinsoul?” Ki’nam asked.
“Yes.”
“So, it was you who brought us to this realm of dreams and memories. Why?”
The twinsoul replied, no longer speaking in unity, but unnervingly alternating each word, “We did. Every cycle spent with animosity, hatred, indifference between you is a cycle of pain for us. We need reconciliation, all of us. Or, failing reconciliation, severance.”
“I am not melding,” Tomas said with defiance.
In unison again, “No. We would not ask that of you, nor could it be possible, given Ki’nam’s meld. What we desire is something that must be earned. This reconciliation can only be achieved through experience, through reliving that which you have kept away from one another for so long. You already made some steps towards this earlier.”
“But why here?” Ki’nam asked.
“This is the last time we were fully whole, the three of us. Our mother’s death drove you apart, ever so slightly, a fracture that cracked and spread with time. Slowly to start, growing larger and larger with every passing cycle. Each new crack, a new source of pain for us. The past thirteen cycles have been near unbearable. We need peace, just as you do. Look inside your heart and you will know it to be true.”
Ki’nam grunted. “Best we get this over with then. No point wasting our time just stand--”
“--Wait,” Tomas interjected. “You mentioned severance, what does that entail?”
“The splitting of us. The splitting of your twinsoul. We would be cast adrift, your connection to your spirit broken, you may even lose your channelling, but our pain would be over,” the boys replied.
“That doesn’t really sound like we have much of a choice,” Tomas replied sullenly.
“No, we suppose not.”
“Ok. Enough. Get on with it,” Ki’nam said with determination and finality, and as he spoke Ahua’s light dimmed, bright white giving way to oranges and pinks, then blues and purples. The waves lapping on the lakeshore began to increase in speed until they became a gentle blur. The trees rustling in the wind blurred alike. Ahua’s light began to shine again, purple, blue, pink, orange, white, before receding again, flickering faster and faster as the twinsoul’s feet began to lift off the ground. The boys stretched out their arms to the sides and the world began to expand and close in simultaneously as the landscape began to stretch into strands of colour, interwoven in an unending a pattern that swirled around, faster and faster and faster, glowing lighter and lighter until, with a flash of blinding white light, Tomas found himself standing in front of the hut again. Ki’nam and the twinsoul were nowhere to be seen. He tried to look down, but found himself not able to control his body.
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Is this my body?
Tomas heard a choirlike voice reply to his unspoken question, “No. This is one of Ki’nam’s memories.”
A distant cry caused Ki’nam to turn around and look up. In the distance there was a fast approaching speck, growing larger as it quickly approached from the far side of the lake. It was a pale white okoq, soaring low over the calm waters. The okoq circled once before swooping in to land on a tree stump opposite Ki’nam, who stared at the okoq. On closer inspection it was holding a piece of parchment in its claws. The okoq squawked. Tomas felt the body move as if it was his own without his control. They approached the okoq, which relinquished its grasp on the missive, took a few large flaps and returned to the sky once more. Their eyes followed it as it flew away before glancing down at the furled paper they held in their small hands.
“No, not like this. Please let me tell him.” Ki’nam’s adult voice reverberated through Tomas’ mind, and was answered in kind, by the twinsoul.
“What has begun cannot be stopped.”
Tomas was transfixed as their hands slowly unfurled the parchment, feeling the coarse texture of the paper as it opened. Their eyes focused on the unfolding form, painstakingly slow, as if time was trying to stand still. The seal at the top of the missive was unmistakable. The Great Library in Katal. The missive was written in the honorific script of the scholars, but Tomas could easily understand the message. It was an invitation. An invitation for him to study under the tutelage of the scholars of Katal. An invitation he had never seen.
Their left hand reached into their pocket, grasped soft, cold rock and pulled out a serpentine carving.
“I’m sorry brother”, came Ki’nam’s voice. Their body crouched down, placed the paper on the ground, and grasping the totem with two hands, sparked an ember onto the paper. They sat there, crouched over the smouldering missive until it was no more than ash.
There was a deep sorrow building in Tomas. Not anger. Sorrow.
Why? What had I done to deserve this scorn from you so young Ki’nam?
The reply came, softly now, tinged with regret, “Nothing. You had done nothing, and yet I was jealous none-the-less. I could not believe they had offered you tutelage over me. In that moment I knew only envy and jealousy. The regret came later.”
And why not tell me later?
“Shame, I suppose. The same shame that demanded I burn my own invitation when it arrived a quarter cycle later. Not enough shame to stop me pursuing an education at the Great Library a few cycles later though, I suppose. I’m sorry.”
Tomas said nothing. Their eyes began to blur, smearing and streaking of colours circling faster and brighter until there was naught but blinding white. Blinking once to deep black, he found himself back in his own body. It was a taller lankier body than before, perhaps around his twelfth cycle. He was standing in their room. As his body quickly stepped forward, he realised he still had no control over his movements, even in his own body, his own memories.
Ki’nam’s voice came gently into his mind, “So, brother, it seems it is your turn. Would you care to admit your transgression before it is exposed?” Tomas said nothing in reply. He did not remember what was about to occur. His body was rummaging through a pile of his brother’s belongings in a hurry, tears now beginning to break from the pools that had been welling in each eye to streak down his cheeks.
I’m looking for something. Something of yours Ki’nam.
Tomas felt a feeling of mirth inside his mind as Ki’nam chuckled softly. “Stealing my slingshot is barely a transgression, Tomas.”
No, this is something worse.
His hands pushed away a scrap of cloth to reveal a small figurine. Rudimentarily carved from stone, it was the shape of two figures, the smaller of the two held in the embrace of the larger. He reached out, quickly snatching the figure and stuffed it inside the sleeve of his tunic.
“Oh.” Almost a whisper.
Yes.
Wiping his tears with his other sleeve Tomas scurried out of the hut, hurriedly making his way down to the lakeshore. Plucking the carving from his sleeve, with all his strength Tomas hurled the carving into the lake.
“That was the last thing she gave to me, you know.”
I did, that’s why I threw it.
“I always thought I had simply lost it. At least it lies with her ashes. A good resting place for it.” Ki’nam’s voice held no anger, no disdain. Only understanding and forgiveness, which Tomas could feel embracing him.
I am sorry.
“For this, I forgive you. Easily.”
I fear that will not be so for my other transgressions brother.
“We shall ford that river when we come across it then.”
Some rivers are too deep to ford, but I will try. For you.
The world shifted and changed again, this time his vision expanded to encompass all he could see and then more, warping around until Tomas could see his own youthful body standing before him on the lakeshore, quietly sobbing into his hands, and then a flash, a blink and he was once again in Ki’nam’s body. Older still, perhaps fourteen cycles. They were standing in a field under the sweltering heat of Ahua’s glare, all around lay bundles of reaped triko waiting to be collected and separated from the stalks and chaff. Mid-harvest. They wandered around, strolling through the fields, hands tucked inside their sleeves, rubbing the cool smooth surface of what Tomas could tell was his brother’s totem.
“Oh no.”
A quick, absent minded snap of their fingers and it was over. A stray ember sparked and caught the stubble alight, quickly spreading to the bundles of triko.
So, it was you.
“Yes, it was. I could never bring myself to admit it. Not after the punishment had been delivered.”
Tell me Ki’nam, was it cowardice? Or yet more scorn for me that held your tongue?
A pause, then: “I could not say.”
Tomas could hear their breath quickening, panic setting in. Their legs pounding the ground beneath them as they sprinted to the lakeshore, before turning and making their way towards the hut. Shouting “Fire!” as they grew closer. Their father came surging from the hut, rushing past Ki’nam as he approached. Carrying a rake in his hands, he yelled at them to grab a bucket from the hut as he sprinted past. They jogged to the hut, tucking away their totem before collecting the bucket and rushing to fill it with water at the lake before running back to the field. Tomas saw himself working with his father to quash the fire before it reached the largest stockpiles. Their father raking a break in the stubble, Tomas beating the fire with his tunic, in nought but a loincloth. They threw the water on a breakaway front of fire, quenching it before running back to the lakeshore to collect another. Together they fought the fire for hours in the sweltering heat, until at last it was snuffed out. All three collapsed, exhausted. The largest bundles of triko were saved, but they had lost a full third of their harvest.
Suddenly their father turned to the teenaged Tomas, still in naught but a loincloth, covered in soot, ash and dirt from head to toe.
“How did this happen?”
“I don’t know,” the ashen boy glanced at Ki’nam.
Tomas felt their throat drying up, chest begin to tighten, but no response came from Ki’nam’s body.
Instead it was their father who spoke, “Your brother came rushing to call me from the lakeshore, and when I arrived, you were already here, beating the fire with your tunic. Did you spark this?”
“I was on my way back from collecting tukanberries from across the field when I saw the smoke. I ran straight here, to save the crops. It must have been Ki’nam! He’s always fiddling with his damn totem!” Their father turned to face them.
“Turn out your sleeves, son.”
Tomas couldn’t help but watch as he felt Ki’nam’s hands flip out their sleeves, now empty. Their eyes looked up from their sleeves, glancing at their father, averting their gaze from the accusatorial glare of the soot-stained Tomas. Their father turned back to face young Tomas, his hand suddenly shooting out and grasping him by the wrist, pulling him closer.
“Show me your totem,” their father growled. The now cowering boy reached into his loincloth and pulled out a small black carving, offering it to his glowering father, who snatched it out of his open palm.
“But I--!” A wallop over his ear quieted the protestation from the teenager.
Tomas willed Ki’nam’s body to move, to speak out in defence of his youthful self, but he could do nothing.
He never returned that totem. I carved my own from a chunk of pulux I bought from a peddler at the market a half cycle later. I should have just stolen yours.
Tomas felt the regret and pain of his brother as if it were his own as Ki’nam’s voice softly echoed into his mind, “It would have been more than fair. I am sorry Tomas. For my selfishness.”
As the view began to shift and warp again Tomas replied, No, Ki’nam, your selfishness pales in comparison to mine. He blinked and was gone from the burnt field.
Tomas found himself standing in a white void. Suddenly he lurched forward through the space, rushing towards a speck of black in the distance. As he shot towards it, he knew what was coming. He tried to turn away, fighting back against the invisible force, to no avail. As he grew closer to the speck it exploded outward in a myriad of colours, expanding into a sphere around him that coalesced into the memory of his greatest transgression against his brother.