The Book Gatherer

Chapter Fourteen

Honi showed Firek how to plant each seed before beginning the tale, so he'd have something to do as she spoke. He kept himself so still all the time, but beneath she sensed a burning disquiet. Anger, maybe. It frustrated him that he had failed his mission to get the Holy Book, gotten so badly wounded, was the prisoner of a LAND Company gatherer. Doing something with his hands would help.

"Long, long ago," she murmured, guiding Firek's hands with her own to pile dirt over a hole, "before the three rival companies were formed, books were only just beginning to grow on trees, on clouds, in water." The Found Snake was a story told only in whispers, and only ever when planting seeds. Honi's mother had told it to her on her very first gathering, just after she'd tied Honi's first yearbraid for her.

"In this time, people lived more like wild animals than real humans. They were savage and hard and cruel, harsh with even another. It's said the word 'family' or 'friend' wasn't even known to our early ancestors."

Firek snorted softly, rolling his eyes, but Honi ignored him. All starts of stories were boring. The good stuff was within, just like books.

"One girl, whose name is known only to those worthy to speak it, lived just as her fellows did. She hunted wild beasts, ate the raw meat and organs, drank the blood. She quarreled with those in her tribe, fighting for the sake of fighting. When her tribe went to war with another, she fought and killed and streaked enemy blood on her face like a mask. If her tribe won the battle, she danced around their bonfire with them, the fire's wood replaced with the bones of the defeated tribe. She threw books into the flames to watch them burn and nothing else, just like everyone else.

"But there was something different about her. A confusion, a small concern, inside her. She kept it buried deep of course, for confusions and concerns were not tolerated by the tribes of her time. To live as they did, there could be no hesitation, no doubt, ever. So she kept it hidden, didn't think of it often, ignored it, pretended it didn't exist."

"We get it," Firek muttered, jabbing his finger into the dirt.

Honi again ignored him and dropped a seed into the hole he'd made. Another tradition of gatherers was to plant the seeds together, of course.

"The girl lived her wild, savage life, and grew from the girl to a young woman, even more wild and savage than before. But as her brutality grew, so did the concern inside her. It got harder to contain, grew so large it pressed against her chest and threatened to burst. And one day it did, burst right after a tribal war, right before the bonfires were lit and books thrown onto the bloodstained bones. It burst, and all heard, and all knew it had come from her.

"Furious at her breaking of the Law, but even more angry at the concerns they'd gotten from hearing her's, the girl's tribe oathed to drink the blood of her still-beating heart. She ran before they could hold her down, ran ran ran until her feet bled and head spun with hunger and thirst, before finally collapsing, and slept. She woke just as a viper sank its fangs into her ankle. She crushed its head with a stone, but the venom spread too fast and she slipped into another, deeper sleep.."

Firek recoiled slightly, taken by surprise.

Honi continued.

"Only sleep it was, apparently, for the girl awoke curled in the coils of a massive snake. It was thicker than the trunks of a dozen trees, its scales glowed all the colors of the earth and forest, and its eyes stared right at her.

" 'What are you?' the girl asked the snake. Her first instinct had been to attack, but she'd found that she couldn't. Her body moved normally when she told her arms to flex or legs to stretch, but if she thought to attack or harm, her limbs went slack.