THE WISE ONE
Waves surged over the borough walls and splashed across ceramic roof tiles like the gunwales of a giant’s galley. Under the quivering eaves, the old potter and the tinker watched the cobblestone swell with salt water. A violet lightning flash sent the tinker cursing and ducking back into the shadows. Dishonor rose to his cheeks when the old man barely flinched.
“It’s not natural,” he said in his defense.
“Ay,” said the potter. “This is a djinn-storm alright.”
“It’s the end of the world or I’m a fool.”
“You’re no fool, Kalkin. Though neither of us are wise enough to read such signs.”
Another preternatural flash ignited the air, and another wave followed as if spurred on by a crackling whip.
“If there’s someone who is, they’d better show themselves soon,” said Kalkin. His voice shook but he gathered himself enough to return to the window. “These are evil wonders.”
“Ay, the kind not seen in generations. Ilkanai needs a messiah, lest the whole isle capsize.” The old man turned his bristly face toward the young tinker. One eye was white-blind, the other hazel like the sea. “Tell me, you know this miserable rock better than most. You must go its length several time a moon—”
“At least once every nineday,” said Kalkin. “Sometimes more.” He would travel to any hamlet or cove so long as the locals kept buying.
“Ay. You know the poor and rich alike. Have you ever known an islander to be wise?”
“Some said the hierophant was wise,” he deflected.
“Ay, and yesterday he tried to fly from the top of the bell tower. Turns out he had no wings.” The old man coughed to cover something like irreverent laughter. “What that makes him in the end, I don’t know. No messiah.”
“Then you,” said Kalkin. “In your own way.” He had always admired craftsmen and their earthy wisdom.
“You’re a flatterer,” spat the old man, and then shuffled from the sill at the next thunder clap to straighten some pots that had tipped over in the storm. Water was pooling across the threshold. “Is that why you came here then? Wanted to hide from the end of the world in a wise man’s shop?”
“I mean it.”
“Well I’m not going to save the island, am I?” The potter cringed as his back spasmed. The vase he was holding clattered to the floor and rocked on its rim. “Mm, damn the gods. No boy, there’s not a soul on the sea that can save us from sinking.”
“The mainland then,” tried Kalkin. “Sailors say it’s a land of a thousand sages. Every village has a holy man to itself.”
“And who will find this messiah?” He looked at the young man with a glint in his eye, or so the flashing clouds would have it seem. “It needs be someone world-wise, quick-footed, well-traveled.”
Darkness covered the shop, and shadows crossed the tinker’s face, but at the next flash his dawning realization was fully etched in his eyes.
“Yes,” he said. He lifted his chin with pride. “I should go.”
“Ay, you should. If not you, who? After all, word is the last wise man of Ilkanai threw himself from a tower.”
When the storm had passed Kalkin took the first ferry out to Shas with only a pilgrim-hero’s accoutrements: a cloth hat and walking stick, two pairs of good boots, and rations for many roads. He wore threadbare sea-silk armor of the kind once seen in those parts, dug up from the sand amidst seafowl droppings one idle day. From his girdle hung a rare thing for a tinker: a jade dagger.
“That’s a mighteous thing,” said the ferryman. “Jade’s a daemon-feared weapon and carries luck to boot. How came you by it?”
“By luck,” said Kalkin, and in truth it was his most prized possession. “A tinker’s a treasure hunter by trade,” he added.
“You mean a scavenger,” said the ferryman, and the look of wonder vanished from his face.
The sages of the port were wily and dirty men who asked a day’s wage for the paltriest of oracles, so Kalkin tromped westward and followed many a finger south of the Weeping Mountains to the holy metropolis. Belazakarya, priestess of the east, the templar leviathan, the city of lepers and jewels—such an old city had many more names, and no doubt many wise men. At its southern gate he met a limping grave digger tending to the fields of the dead.
“I seek the wisest in the land,” said Kalkin. “Which way to the acropolis?”
“The acropolis is through the gate and straight down the way,” said the grave digger. “But I’ve seen my share of the temple priests and they are none of them wise. If it’s counsel you’re after, take the crooked way to the witches’ corner.”
Kalkin thanked him and took the crooked way under shambling eaves in the shadow of the acropolis. He found himself a coven of young witches, women who took no husband and drank wine in the day as they sewed and prayed. He knew them by the blessings they shouted to passers-by from their shaded porch. He bid them good evening and told them of what strange things were befalling his island: the djinn-storms and dead hierophants, bad luck and pestilent seafowl.
“What would you have us do?” they asked. “We are not fit for such a task, for we are neither falsely nor truly wise.”
“Begging your pardon,” he said, “but how can one know whether one’s wisdom is false or true?”
“A falsely wise one boasts of their wisdom, and so proves they have none. A truly wise one knows they are not wise and so pretend to nothing.”
“Ah, but you yourselves said you are not wise,” he observed, “so you must be truly wise.”
“We only imitate the wise,” they said. “The one who can help you lives in the valley of Puura where the gardens grow.”
Kalkin thanked them a myriadfold and went his way again.
The journey to the valley was so strikingly without incident that Kalkin felt secretly betrayed: for he was on a quest, and a man on a quest is bound to face obstacles. The highwaymen smiled as he passed, the wild reavers commented favorably about the weather, but not one came between him and his destination.
“How am I to prove my worthiness for this task,” he said, “if the way is so easy?”
Indeed the whole valley was like the gardens of the princes on Ilkanai, and even beggars seemed abounding in good spirit. Each passer-by was friendly and directed his way to the one he sought.
“Most travelers ask for the Old Woman of the Valley,” one said. “Here she is called the Dancer.”
They led him down grassy by-ways and lotus ponds to rows of well-loved bushes at the bottom of the valley. A dozen sun-burnt youths went up and down the paths between, watering here and pruning there seemingly at whim. An older woman worked alongside them, her skin dark and well-wrinkled and her arms thin as staves. She wore a colorful shawl and a long many-tiered skirt which brushed the ground when she walked. Taking her for the one he sought, Kalkin approached her.
“Are you the one they call the Dancer?” said he.
She turned from the bush she tended, and it seemed to him as if she recognized him, as if she had been waiting for him. “At last I’ve found a wise one,” he thought. Yet when she wiped dirt from her hands onto the front of her skirt, he thought her a little unrefined.
“Some call me that,” she said. “You look like you have come far. Would you like some tea?” She beckoned him to follow and began to walk to the end of the field where a tent was pitched under broad-leaf trees.
“Actually my business is quite urgent,” he said as he followed. It was difficult to keep up with her.
“Nothing is too urgent for tea,” she said, and she kept walking. So he followed, down the field to the tent under the trees. There she invited him to sit on a mat, and poured sweet herbal water from a jar into a small clay cup. He drank his down quickly while she sipped slow, savoring every flavor. He tried to wait for her to finish, but he couldn’t contain himself and at last let out all that had befallen his island in one windy breath. She sat down her empty cup beside her as he finished.
“Are you quite done?” she said, and he became silent, though he felt poorly treated. She made no move to say more, so he could not help but speak again:
“Please,” he insisted, “my island is in danger of sinking as we speak. I must know what all this means, and if it can be stopped. Have we angered the gods? Can these daemons be fought back to the sea? If so, by what means?”
She remained very still, though she looked at him with what he thought was a wicked grin, like any moment she might laugh at him, or slap him, he could not say which. She nodded for a bit, then cleared her throat:
“What you face is inclement weather,” she said. “The tides come and go, so too do storms and djinn. As for what causes it, who is to say? Do mortals play a part in it? Is it by our hands? Perhaps. Regardless, the way forward is the same.”
“Teach me the way,” he implored, though he felt she raised more questions than she answered.
She rose and led him back into the field. Pointing to a sad, drooping bush, she plunged her hands into the dirt near its roots. She instructed him to do the same. Now almost up to his elbows in loam, he looked up and saw her chuckling herself.
“I don’t understand,” he said.
“This is life,” she replied. “There will be very little you ever understand.”
He pulled his soiled hands from the dirt and wiped them on his tunic without thinking.
“This is a strange teaching,” he said. “I came here on a quest, to find the wisest sage in the east. How will sticking my hands in the dirt fix the problems of my island?”
“Quests are dangerous if you seek an end,” she said. “I never called myself wise, nor a sage, nor can I fix the problems of your island. But if you want a way forward, you may stay here as long as you like and walk mine, until you learn your own.”
He folded his arms. “Then teach me now. What was the meaning of soiling my hands?”
“To feel the soil was its own meaning,” she said.
He frowned. “I had hoped to find one without riddles.”
“I speak plainly.” It was her turn to frown. “But if you are looking for riddles, I can provide you with one. Place your hands in the womb of the earth again. Be her midwife.”
With some hesitation Kalkin got down on his knees and sank his arms elbow-deep in the soil as before. He was certain his face flushed with foolishness.
“What do you feel?” she demanded.
“The soil is moist.”
“Can you feel her labour?”
He closed his eyes and tried to feel as he would if he were listening to waves crash upon the rocks in his favorite cove. It was the place he went to when he didn’t know what to do with his mind.
“There is a movement,” he said, though he was half-certain he lied to both himself and her. “It’s deep beneath and far off.”
“Do you feel the tremor?”
He half-nodded, half-shrugged. “The world is trembling.”
“Why? Is she afraid?”
He shook his head. Can the world be afraid?
“No indeed,” said the old woman. “She’s done this before, many times, but she knows what it will demand of her.” Kalkin looked over his shoulder and saw her green eyes dancing. Her eyebrows arched when he met her gaze:
“Will you take her place? Will you be the one to give birth?”
“Of course not,” he said. “That’s ridiculous!”
“Good. Now we’re back to plain truths.”
He felt let down. “I don’t understand,” he said.
She sighed and set her arms akimbo. “When a queen gives birth, her chamber is filled with nurses, servants, eunuchs, and daughters, yes? Do you have the strength to attend such a thing? Will you be one of the midwives?”
“What good can I do—for this queen?”
“Very little,” she said. “You may provide a cool towel, or a soft, soothing chant, but the mother must give birth alone. This is her travail.”
“Then why am I here?”
“Only you can tell. Perhaps only to witness.”
Kalkin’s stomach lurched with frustration. He felt no closer to anything. At that very moment he decided witches and old woman alike were full of riddles and not fit to teach anyone. He pulled his arms from the soil, thanked her, and went out of the valley.
“I should have never listened to that grave digger,” he said to himself. “I will seek out the wisest temple priest so the gods may be appeased.”
He traveled many miles and many moon tides across barren plains where nomads could be seen galloping in the distance on a clear night. He turned east at the Bila River and traveled its yellow length toward Khur Vatin, the city of ancient priestcraft. The ground was wet and water pooled everywhere. As he came within sight of the city, a mighty rainstorm swept in and fell so thickly that he could not see more than an arm’s length ahead. The ground before the city was flat and sodden, and he could feel how the water swept across in sheets and flooded his boots. It was no time at all before he was wading through water up to his calves. By the time he came to the city steps, he was cold to the bone and shivering. Unnatural cataracts tumbled down from flight to flight so that he could barely climb.
When he reached the elder hilltop where the wind buffeted the rain back and forth like palm curtains, he saw that even in this inclemency hooded denizens—young and old, poor and rich alike—ducked under roofs and tarpaulins so they could make their way uptown. Kalkin rushed after them with squelching boots, and down the wide street he followed until they came in sight of the Temple. Though the hilltop ground no longer rose of its own accord, he saw that a pyramid had been raised in the form of a six-pointed star to crown hilltop. Stairs rose to the zenith at three of the six points, and an obelisk crowned the center. Before the obelisk stood the High Priest.
“This is the very man I have come to meet,” said Kalkin, and he shoved his way through the crowd that was forming to witness the priestly magic first-hand. The High Priest poured forth a libation upon the altar, and as he did so he incanted strange words in a loud voice. He circled the altar and stopped to bow at each of the eight earthly directions, before bringing forth a long copper wand and blessing the altar six times. He stopped his ritual and looked up to the sky, but the waters did not abate. The crowd began to murmur.
“People of the Ancient City,” said the priest, and his voice carried even through the damping rain, “it is clear to me this storm is not of our world. The angels of growth and abatement have not heeded my call, for no doubt as we speak they are engaged in a terrible battle with the dark gods.”
The people groaned and wailed, but the priest quieted them.
“All is not lost,” he assured them. “We may aid the divine hosts with a mightier magic, one which draws our strength of purpose to the daemonic realms, where it will serve as a shield to our protectors and aid them in battle. To accomplish this ceremony, we shall need grain from your stores, many mirrors and implements of reflection—metal, glass, and obsidian—and a difficult ingredient, one which is hard to find.”
“What is this difficult ingredient?” asked Kalkin over the others’ clamor. “Perhaps I may bring it for you.”
“The gods have sent us an adventurer in these dark times,” said the High Priest, and the people began to whisper amongst themselves. “The ingredient I seek is the blood of a goliath toad. Only the humors of a creature so rare and so close to the earth may draw the heavens down to us.”
Kalkin was eager to see this priest-craft in action, so he set off as soon as he could into the storm. The rain quieted a little, which was fortuitous as Kalkin learned that goliath toads live in the bogs to the east, where the ground becomes low for many leagues up to the slopes of the Sunken Mountain itself. He tried to sleep where the ground was raised, but the rain continued into the night and he awoke soaked and shivering. Still, he crept onward until the ground became as soft as a carpet. He hiked across downward-tumbling hills into the misty bog, and every step was watchful lest he tumble into a lair of serpents. When night came he tried to burn peat and sticks, but the peat was not dry and would not catch fire.
He awoke cursing to himself, then held his breath at the sight before him. From under his tarpaulin he could see a hoary old goliath toad squatting and blinking in a shaft of sunlight. It was as large as a war hound and fatter than swine, and on its head were two small horns.
“The Priest’s gods are watching over me,” he said, and crawling carefully behind a parapet of moss, he readied his jade dagger.
He sprung out over the mossy wall and leapt at the toad, but he fell short of the bank and plunged into muddy waters. The toad blinked with fright and began to crawl away as he clambered onto land. The beast was slow and he caught up to it quickly. But just as he was to sink his blade into its backside, it turned and with a great croak bit down on his dagger-hand. With a gulp the monster swallowed his arm up to the elbow. He screamed as it ripped and yanked him around with incredible strength. But even as his head began to grow dim from being tossed around like a plaything, he grasped tighter to the slimy jade dagger inside the beast’s belly. He twisted the knife with all his strength into the toad’s insides, again and again, until he was dropped on the ground beside a vanquished foe.
When his dizziness had subsided, he took an empty wineskin and filled it with the blood which dripped from the corners of the toad’s mouth. His arm was badly bruised and his head ached, but he was alive and restored to hope.
“This was fortuitous,” he said. “Not only have I found the difficult ingredient to cure the lands of these strange happenings, but I have been given a hero’s task. If I had stayed with the old woman of the valley, I might be spinning yarn instead.” He went back to the ancient city full of pride, and delivered the flask to the High Priest in person.
“In times of need the gods send a hero,” proclaimed the High Priest. “Stand with me at the altar, and watch the meeting of heaven and earth.
Once again the people gathered round, once again he incanted before the obelisk as he sprinkled the ground with blood of the beast. Once again he circled the obelisk, bowed eight times, blessed the place of offering and looked to the sky. As his head tilted up, the sky cleared and sunlight appeared through the clouds.
Kalkin blessed the Priest a hundred and forty-four times and begged to be initiated into these secrets. “With such magic,” he said, “I might easily save my home from great danger.”
The Priest agreed wholeheartedly and bestowed upon him a polished silver breastplate:
“This is called Mirror Armor,” he said. “It wards off daemons who wish you harm. Wear it well, for I shall now send you into the wild upon a quest of initiation. Travel along the river to the west. There you will find the holy catacomb of the High Priests who came before. Enter this catacomb and remain there for three nights. On the third sunrise return and tell me what you have seen.”
Kalkin wasted no time and headed west far outside the city to the burial tomb of the priests. But as night began to fall and he came close to its location, the sky darkened again and the rain began to pour even harder than before. Kalkin found the tomb beneath a shelf of rock and hid there, but the entrance was sealed and he could not enter. Defeated, he made a fire and watched the water fall.
“It seems the priest’s magic has done little good,” he said. “I still haven’t found someone to save my island.”
The morning was hidden in fog. Kalkin set out back east, or at least such was his intention—but as he walked the ground became harder and rockier, and the water ran everywhere in rivulets. The fog gave way to a high vista over the Bila river, but it cleared too late, for Kalkin failed to notice a steep drop before him and tumbled like a spinning top down a stony bluff into the river. His water-logged pack was making him sink and he could barely keep his head above water. But as he tumbled down the river he was swept to a shallow weir and caught on the rocks. It was difficult, but he found he could stand and walk one foot in front of the other along the shelf of rock, though the tumbling cataract below made him dizzy. He followed the footholds to the northern riverbank, opposite of where he’d tumbled, and climbed the steep bank onto dry land. Here the rain was only a drizzle, and it soaked into the silty ground so that the earth jiggled when he stepped on it. Beyond the mud flat he could see a scorching sun and wide desert.
“This must be the Rompo Desert,” he said, and he felt relieved that at least there was not much rain in the desert. “Maybe I have been guided here for a reason. It is known that holy men sometimes come to the wasteland to find their soul’s purpose. Maybe the wise one is not to be found among men, but in the wilds.”
So after filling his water flasks, Kalkin set out into the desert. Past the mudflats the ground rose and fell into crevices and ravines; atop the ravines were briars with great thorns and crowns of sharp rock. “So this is why it is called the Rompo Desert,” he said. “Like the rompo, it guards itself with many spines.”
He descended into the ravines and picked his way across the desert floor. The way was not so hard as he had expected, but as he came from the end of a small canyon onto an outcrop which overlooked dunes of sand, he saw that his way was barred by two storm djinn who appeared as screaming dust devils. He drew his jade dagger and stood his ground, but the djinn rushed past him at such a speed that he could hardly manage to swipe at them. They heckled him and flung sand in his face until he was exhausted. Then he remembered the mirror breastplate given to him by the Priest, and he tilted it toward the sun so that it caught a sunbeam and flashed in the eyes of the djinn. They screamed loudly and piteously until a haggard man in tattered robes emerged from the rock and cursed them.
“Get back, fowl daemons,” he shouted, waving a gnarled old hand. “Begone to the briars where you belong, and leave this brave traveler alone.”
Immediately the djinn scattered, and Kalkin looked with wonder at this man who could master daemons.
“So it is true,” he said. “These deserts are home to holy men.”
“Where else would be be?” grumbled the hermit. “We come here to shun men and find ourselves. The djinn flee before us because they know we have unlocked our inner secrets, and so are not subject to their fears and temptations.”
“My island is in danger of such daemons,” said Kalkin: “mighty storm djinn who threaten to sink our land beneath the waves. We need a man such as yourself who can frighten them away with his mastery. Come with me to the sea, and save my people.”
“Hmph,” grumbled the old hermit. “I don’t care for city folk and islands; my home is the desert and my companions are the serpents. I cannot bring them such mastery, but perhaps if you were to seek solitude in the wilderness yourself, you might find your own truth, and bring it to your people.”
Kalkin thought this was a great idea. He tossed his armor into a sandy crevice and found for himself a sequestered cave. His food was the savory pine and his drink was the desert spring, and once a week he would meet with the old hermit for instruction. After many months his mind began to quiet and he found secrets in himself that most never dare to discover. He taught himself to become more still than a stone, so that life moved around him of its own accord whether he attended to it or not. One day, when he was walking in meditation through the canyon where songbirds frequented, three djinn descended and blocked his passage.
“Begone, you nuisance,” he said, and with a wave of his hand they disappeared. Although his mind was quiet, he grew excited in his heart for he knew he had achieved the mastery he sought, and it was time to return to Ilkanai. He bade farewell to the hermit, dug up his armor from the sandy ravine, and trod north-eastward to find the road home. But at the place where the sand turned to grass and the flat desert rose into green hills, a roiling cloud hovered and sent down violet streaks of lightning, toppling a tree here, igniting the grass there. Kalkin trod forward unafraid, but the cloud descended and became a monstrous cacodaemon, with skin of dark iron and arms larger than trees.
“A little pilgrim,” howled the cacodaemon. “He thinks he’s a holy man. What strange delusions.”
The cacodaemon raised a fist to crush Kalkin into the earth, but before he could even draw his jade dagger, a tornado ripped from the clouds and sucked up the daemon like he was a piece of straw. He scrambled away from the cyclone before he could be flung away himself. When he got to safe ground, he looked disbelievingly at where the cacodaemon had stood.
“Neither I nor the evil one were as powerful as this storm, though no doubt he wanted credit for it,” he said. “And I, though I’ve mastered the secrets of the mind, were powerless to both. Though I’m glad for the time I spent in the wilds, it has brought me no closer to finding salvation for Ilkanai. I will search one last time, and if even now, after all the lessons I’ve learned, there is no one to save us, then I will admit defeat.”
Kalkin walked north along ancient paved roads into the valleys and forests of Vanuun. Everywhere he looked there were strange mountains like green pillars which rose precipitously from the lush earth and jabbed toward the clouds. A blanket of fog hung over him like a canopy, and he felt refreshed. “These lands have a beautiful and mysterious power of their own,” he said. “Perhaps they have been spared the ravages of evil weather.”
But soon after nightfall as he tended to a pleasant fire by a lake, he saw upon a wide mountain the crackle of white lightning, which seemed to dance around the peak like friendly will-o’-the-wisps. Then, gathering to themselves like the arms of a squid, they retreated into the cloud and went speeding westward away from the peak. Intrigued, he set out for the mountain at daybreak, and ascended its slope by noon. The way up the mountain was well-paved and well-trodden. In the afternoon he came to a shelf which sat beneath the final peak. There sat a village of only thirty small huts. He asked two village wives about the strange sights he had seen from the valley, and they nodded knowingly.
“At the peak lives a mighty magus,” they said. “He comes from the far north where there are many magi of a mighty order. Each day when a storm comes upon us, he redirects it away so that we do not have to be bothered. It is a great blessing for us.”
Kalkin offered his sea-silk to a worker if he would guide him up the final slope, and so before nightfall he ascended to the peak to meet this mighty magus. The man he encountered was lithe and energetic, with wild hair and prodigious whiskers on his cheeks.
“I saw your magic from the valley,” he told the magus. “I’ve sought far and wide for a man wise enough to do what you have done, for my island is in danger from countless storms, and may sink beneath the waves if it hasn’t done so already.”
“Hmm,” said the magus, “I see there’s much need for a man of my learning in this country. This village is but a laboratory for my experiments. The villagers benefit from my work, and in turn I am given food and peace of mind. But perhaps the time is ripe to make my work more widely known. Perhaps your island could be the first demonstration of my aptitude.”
Kalkin was overjoyed and swore to lead the magus to glory. But as they talked of further arrangements, of grimoires and arcane instruments, a large mob came marching up the mountain path.
“You are not my villagers,” said the magus. “Who are you?”
“We are the people of Vala Vanuun,” they said, “the city to the west. Every day you send us your storms, and every day they come sweeping across the lakes drinking water as they go. By the time they come to our city, they are unnaturally strong and knock over our walls and buildings.”
And though the magus tried to appease the city dwellers, nothing he could say would dissuade them, and they hauled him off beaten and in chains.
“Perhaps there is nothing to be done then,” said Kalkin, and he felt deep heaviness inside. “We do one thing to save ourselves, and elsewhere a city crumbles. The ways of nature cannot be opposed.”
Giving up hope, he headed back east toward the sea.
Kalkin traveled many many miles down the long roads east, through the windy grasslands of Turuul where earthquakes shook the steppe. His food ran low and his clothes became rags, so he traded his mirror breastplate to a merchant so that he would not starve and freeze.
One night in the dark of a moor a band of wild reavers fell upon him with sickle swords, and the jade dagger too was taken. Soon he found himself begging amongst better-faring travelers, though he was abused often. On the darkest day of the year, a band of tinkers fell upon him and beat him within an inch of his life.He cried out that he was one of them, but so changed was he in appearance, none believed him. After stripping him of the last of his belongings, they left him a mere span from death’s door.
He needed safety and rest, or he was certain he would die.
As he came closer to the sacred river which he knew would take him to the sea, he saw the hills and streets had become familiar. He was near to the valley of Puura, where the old woman of the valley lived in her garden. “At least I know she will offer me rest,” he said, and he descended to the valley to ask alms of the gardeners. He could not look up from their feet as he begged, so ashamed was he. But before a row of petunias a pair of dark bare feet approached him and set something smooth and warm in his hands.
“You look like you have come far,” said a voice, seasoned and tempered like driftwood. He knew this voice. He looked up and saw he held a cup of tea in his hands. Over the rim he could see the Old Woman of the Valley, her eyes twinkling.
“Thank you,” he said, and he sat down tired in the soil. She tossed him the shawl from her head, and he caught it only half-aware.
“For sitting,” she said.
“But it’s a beautiful shawl,” he said. “I would ruin it.”
“Don’t be afraid of a little dirt,” she said. “You’ll have to give up many fine things before all is said and done.”
He thanked her uneasily and spread the shawl beneath him as she sat opposite to him, balancing her own steaming cup among the petunias.
“When you came here before, you were on urgent business,” she said, and he was amazed that she remembered.
“It was a hopeless business,” he lamented. “I have learned better by now.”
“You were on a mission to save your people. Very noble. I’d think hope would be of utmost importance in such a quest.”
He smelled the tea. It was lavender and mint. His tongue watered but he held the cup still. It would not be worthwhile to burn his tongue.
“But if hope is misguided or deluded, it is better left at the bottom of a canyon,” he said.
“What were these delusional hopes?” He saw she was smiling.
“I wanted above all else to find a wise man who could save my island.”
“Ah, but why hope for such a thing?”
“Because my island is in danger.”
“And?”
He felt aggravated, though he remembered his desert training and sipped his tea. “Because I want to keep it from danger.”
“Yes,” she said. “There is a true hope. You want your island to be safe, and you will do your part to help it.”
“Yes,” he said. “I suppose that is more correct.”
“So what have you learned as you’ve played your part?”
“I sought out a priest, but his priestcraft did not hold. I sought out a hermit, but his desert training did not change the world. I sought out a magus, but his magic hurt those he tried to help.”
“What have you learned?”
He inhaled deeply, and puzzled thoughts surfaced from the canyons in his mind. “I learned to pursue my quarry across a great distance to retrieve a treasure I sought. I learned to quiet my mind, so that no disturbance will upset me too greatly. I learned that if you prevent a storm at home, you cause a hurricane the next town over.”
She smiled, and there was no mischief in it.
“Are you done yet looking for a teacher?”
His face lit up; his smile matched her own.
“I am.”
“Good,” she said, swaying where she stood. “You have your own way forward now, but you may stay here as long as you like and dance alongside mine.”
“Only for a little while. Storms still rage, and I must help my island.”
“Indeed.” Her eyes glowed with lightning clarity. “For if not you, who?”
On the horizon, a dark thunderhead was fast approaching the valley. She stood up.
“But before you go,” she said, “witness.”
He gazed up into the cloud. “What am I looking for?”
The rain began as a soft drizzle. A thunder crack made the air billow at the head of the valley. The Dancer smiled and rocked on the tips of her toes:
“The rain. The thunder. The wind. Have you ever seen a dance such as this?”
Kalkin spent an autnight among the valley-dwellers, and he worked alongside them making beautiful things grow as the sun shone or the clouds wept alike. Not once did he hear the gardeners call the old woman their sage or mistress. They only used one word to describe her: the Dancer.
When he at last walked his lonely path east to the sea, Kalkin had no spun sea-silk or jade-dagger, and the ferryman who took him across did not notice him. The old potter greeted him as a beggar, then saw who stood at the threshold and embraced him.
“Well,” he said, after brushing the dust off his friend, “have you brought me a sage?”
“Yes,” said Kalkin. “But I have no wisdom. Only these two hands.”
“A potter’s wisdom!” cried the old man. “Two hands and some earth are more than enough.”
Anna Maddalena Patti 