The breeze brushed against his skin. The atmosphere, hot as the sun made it, did nothing to dry the sweat that soaked more than his face. The dry air grated at his nostrils with each intake of air and his lungs expelled them with a labor telling of their hate for it. They were clearly not designed for these parts of Ayla.
Valerik rode through the dry and dusty lands of the southern villages of Umunari, far beyond the borders of the realm. This had been one of the reasons he had chosen the class of evangelist prior to his ordination. Scouring the reaches of Ayla, he met peoples he had not known existed, he doubted any other evangelists had gone as far from the realm as he had without express orders from the church.
Rive picked up dust with each step but Valerik ignored it, knowing his destination lay not too far from where he was. He had passed through the village twice before, but then, he had stayed a full year. Today, however, he would only stay a night.
He had a specific purpose for coming, one that demanded no more than a night.
The people of Umunari were an enigmatic bunch. Here, their purposes in life were determined by their thirteenth summer, though they did not have summers.
The blessed had a propensity for the path of warriors, and the touched, something they called Anibia. Where the villages distinguished the touched with ease, they thought the blessed simply men and women of greater prowess. However, they did not identify them by these names.
The features of the people here were different from the men of the realms and most parts of Ayla Valerik had wandered across. Their skin was black as night, their eyes a fixed brown, never varying. Their lips were considerably fuller than he had seen, and their flesh proved thicker than most. The hair on their head curled repeatedly, looking shorter than it was, whereas the women's lay stretched out almost like those of the realm, but thicker, and harder to manipulate. Regardless of this, they bore more similarity with the wool of a sheep.
The last time he had ventured into the village he had taken his time growing accustomed to their meals that consisted mostly of corn and maize, with soups, thick and colorful. They often pounded their yam, a heavy delicacy that was cultivated and was required to be dug up from the ground in its harvest, or ate it in slices with the oil they pressed from the fruits of tall trees of palm fruits.
Learning their language had not proved too difficult and, at the end of a year with them, he spoke it fluently. He had taught a few of their children the language of the realms, finding the elders did not mind the extra knowledge. But he had not been allowed to teach them his ways. Their tradition bore a great power unlike the realm, and it was their credence.
If the church learned of their existence there would be a crusade to bare.
"Father Sorlan," an elderly man wrapped in clothing unsewn and knotted over one shoulder, keeping it in place, said his name in the Umunari tongue, a language that employed sounds that made the throat rumble on the consonants.
He pulled Rive to a halt, dismounting, and greeted the man. The land bore a lot of ceremonies that depicted respect to all elders, treating them almost as one would treat a lord in the province when they met.
"Good morning, papa," Valerik replied in the man's tongue, bowing his head slightly.
"How long has it been, Father?" the man asked on a laugh. "I see you now have white hair on your head. Your hair grows old too fast. It couldn't be more than twenty years you came to us last."
"Eighteen, papa."
"Eighteen?!" the man's voice rose in surprise. "Oh, my child, I'm not getting any younger. I cannot even remember eighteen years."
Valerik wondered what the man was doing so far from the village. It wasn't rare to find travelers cutting between villages, however, a man old enough to be considered an elder on such a path was a rarity. "Why are you away from the village, papa?"
"Oh, me?" The man showed a set of teeth brown from tobacco with a missing few with a grin. "I'm going to see my daughter in Ugulu. You remember her now. Nioma. She married four years ago."
Valerik didn't remember her, but he nodded. After all, he did not remember the old man either. "Ok, papa. I will tell them I met you on the way when I reach the village."
"Yes, yes, my son. Tell them," the man answered, leaving him. Then he paused in thought, turned back to Valerik, and added: "Dimma has missed you."
Then he continued on his way, grinning like a man with more information than he was supposed to have.
Taking the man's words to memory, Valerik moved faster than the man, mounted Rive and continued his journey. The old man, showing no fear for the horse, walked past without caution, his feet threading sand as he moved.
When Valerik had first come to the village the people had looked upon Rive with awe. It didn't take him much to realize it was a rare sight for them, if not a nonexistent one. Upon his second visit, they had grown accustomed to the animal, relieving themselves of their fears by the first month and becoming dangerously free with it by the third.
Rive had taken to the people easily, leaving Valerik wondering if the horse just didn't like people of the realm. That was eighteen years ago. The truth was, the last time he'd visited the village was five years ago. The old man had his years mixed up, and Valerik had no urge to be specific.
As he rode into the bushes that claimed the boundary of the village he remembered the one problem he had taken a while to adjust to amongst its people. When asked questions, they had a tendency to reply first with a question of their own, the answer to the one initially asked often given.
The first men he came in contact with stood with spears of wood with sharpened stone tips attached at one end. It was a crude weapon but Valerik never spoke of it. If the church or the realm ever came to these lands it was bound to be a one sided massacre.
"Father Sorlan, is that you?" one of the men asked in something with a semblance to surprise, not the kind used at the sight of sudden discomfort, but one of near concealed pleasure. He was a huge man with muscles perhaps too big for his skin and a smile too wide for his face.
Valerik smiled regardless of his discomfort. "Yes, it is I."
The feel of the village was coming back to him, his tongue and ears adjusting to the language very quickly.
"I will inform the elders," the man said, turning to make good on his words.
Valerik urged Rive past the other man as his partner ran into the village, his cloth flailing just below his knees from where it was tied around his waist. It was a blatant display of skin for which the realm would've frowned upon.
Valerik did not understand why the man felt the need to announce his presence. He could probably get to the village before him without having to push Rive beyond a canter. Disregarding the lack of logic, he consoled himself with the fact that he'd at least not had to introduce himself and wait while the news of his presence was broken.
His arrival was welcomed by most of the villagers, numbering not more than a hundred people. It was a small village, and so were the neighboring villages. Unlike the realm, they had no king, only a group of elderly men too old to walk fast even with a stick gathering at specific times in specific places to make decisions and pass out judgement save in times of emergency.
When judgement was to be passed against taboos, they convened in the presence of their Anibia with the culprits, where their gods passed judgement through the Anibia. In his first visit, he had stayed a month with them and had met the Anibia a few times. Then, he had deemed it best not to cross the man. In his second visit, however, he stayed a year, during which he had learned their language and, against his decision, had crossed paths with the man.
The man had sworn fire and brimstone by his gods and Valerik had shown him what fear felt like and—after moments of resistance—the man had succumbed. He could have killed the man easily, but it would have done naught to help the case.
Valerik found himself wondering if the man still ruled the shrine of their gods as the chief priest. He may have to check out of spite.
Among the choruses of greetings and welcomes as he rode into the village Valerik kept his gaze searching for the purpose of his visit. To his fascination some girls discreetly exposed the plumps of their breasts, giving him looks that promised fulfilling nights. Holding back his laugh, his gaze glossed over them in search of his purpose. Most of them were but children the first time he'd been here, and others not having been born yet.
He brought Rive to a tree where he tied the reins and stepped through the crowd, replying their welcomes—the actual words lost to the jumble of voices—with a smile and a nod. At the other side of the crowd the expected elders stood, waiting for him, hunched over their walking sticks, their cloths wrapped around their aging bodies and knotted above a shoulder, a few of them spewing spittle onto the dirt at their feet, a side effect of the tobacco they enjoyed chewing.
In the realms, the lords smoked it.
"Elders, I greet you," he hailed with a slight bow.
"I see you have returned again from your journeys, priest."
When these men spoke, they spoke with a mastery of the language and an intricacy that left Valerik filling in translations that seemed to fit best from the little he understood. Sometimes he wondered if they did it on purpose.
"Yes, elder," he replied. "But I will not be staying long." His words brought a sound of disappointment from the crowd behind him.
One of the elders laughed. "You have just broken the hearts of more than half the women here eligible for marriage."
Valerik found the joke in poor taste but, keeping his mouth shut, kept his opinion to himself, presenting them a smile.
He caught eyes with the youngest of the elders and his smile broadened in recognition. The first time he was in the village the man had not been an elder. The man was a blessed, and Valerik had saved him from four lions, wondering how he had gotten himself in such a situation only to find out he had ventured into the forest to prove his might to a woman. The people called the place the evil forest but Valerik doubted they knew what truly resided within it.
"Father Valerik," the elder greeted him. He was the only man in the village that called him by the name and spoke in the language of the realm. Despite their friendship, he remained an elder, and Valerik favored him with a curt bow.
"May I have a word with elder Okola?" Valerik requested of the elders.
They gave their nods. And as elder Okola took him to the side, the elders ordered the villagers scatter.
"How is Dimma?" he asked when they were free of the crowd, walking together.
"No, no, no," Okola protested in the realm tongue. "You speak to me in your language or you not speak to me at all." The words came with a nostalgia that brought a genuine smile to Valerik's lips.
"How is Dimma?" he asked again, returning to the language of the realm.
"She fine." Elder Okola's mastery of the realm tongue was poor, but the man had always demanded they speak in it ever since he had learned it. "She is good girl since you leave."
"Where is she?"
"She at home," Okola replied. "I take you to her."
As they walked, the man told of his experiences in the five years Valerik had been away. The last Valerik knew, the elder had married the woman that made him meet four lions, but now the elder told him of how the woman had taken a lover while they were still married. Their marriage had been childless and Okola had made no complaints, knowing the village would blame his wife.
It was no one's fault.
Okola's wife had fled with her lover three years ago. A year after, she'd come back showing signs of constant physical violence and Okola could not get to her before the elders, and had stood in silence as the village cast her out. Later, they'd found her dead at the entrance of the evil forest. Her reasons for being there were never discovered.
"It must have been hard," Valerik consoled.
"Yes," Okola's voice bore a union of sadness and regret, "but we pay for our sin. She pay for hers."
The man still loved the woman, apparently.
Valerik, deciding to change the subject, asked, "Is Nwagene still the chief priest?"
Okola barked out a laugh. "Yes, but he's been quiet since you dealt with him." The man was likely unaware he had returned to his native tongue.
"I may pay him a visit before I leave," Valerik said, maintaining the tongue of the realm.
Okola chuckled and, just as easily, shifted back to the realm tongue. "Don't go without me. I will like to see look on his face when he see you."
It was a good walk later when they stopped at a building as the sun went down, and Valerik deeming it the man's house wondered what had happened to his former home.
"Pull it down," Okola told him, understanding what he was thinking. "Too small, Dimma need space."
Valerik nodded. "I see."
The house was more a hut than a house. Built from the combination of clay soil, a bit of mud, and dried palm fronds for a roof. It barely stood taller than Valerik, and was slightly taller than the elder's previous home, but it was definitely wider. The brown walls bore scribbles in colorful chalk, giving it a certain decor, and he noted some parts bore writings most likely the product of a child.
He bent as he passed the door, entering the house. At one corner rested a lantern casting a warm yellow glow over a section of the room. The floor had folded up parchments of paper scattered about it and Valerik needed no closer inspection to know they were just tree barks shaved till they were thin, brown and slightly flexible. A trick he had taught the elder on his last visit.
"Papa, close the door. Or do you want the mosquitoes to eat us?"
It was the voice of a child, and Valerik smiled at it. The words had been spoken in the realm tongue, something he decided was perhaps one of Okola's rules.
"You see," Okola complained, but Valerik heard the love in the elder's voice. "My head ache every day because of child. I grow too old for this."
The owner of the voice came out from one of the smaller rooms as Okola covered the entrance with a bunch of dried palm fronds woven together.
The child stood at the entrance to the room with a skin not as dark as most people in the village taking on a lighter brown complexion, brown eyes watching Valerik, and he watched back. It was a brief moment before anything happened.
Then the child spoke.
"Father!"