The brown river water slid by the sides of their raft, shadowed on either side by aggressively extending palm or bark-nut trees. In the shadows beneath them grew an assortment of rubber trees and squat oil palms, and the water’s edges were lined with reeds and foliage, as well as water-lilies larger than a man’s face. Aralim rested with his feet up and watched the slow flowing water slide past him. The unending buzz of insects in the rainforest’s canopy was as hypnotic as it was painfully monotonous.
Two men were guiding them with long poles, gradually keeping the raft’s momentum upstream. One of them was Hayan, who was dripping with sweat as he shoved the raft onward with a smooth wooden rod. The other was another passenger named Donbrick.
The raft was owned by a man named Yau, but its crew was entirely passengers. Yau was a skilled hunter and forager, which ensure his importance to the craft; as well, he was the only man aboard who knew the route with confidence. A dozen lagoons, swamps, and fords dotted the length of the Ake’ma River. Aralim knew he would’ve gotten them lost long ago, if not for the potential of Miresh’s guidance. That said, he’d rather trust in captain Yau.
As he relaxed, he considered how different this was from his time aboard other ships. He had never been able to rest like this on a boat before. Of course, his relaxation was because he had already had his shift of gruelling work earlier in the day.
A collection of dead branches in the river rattled against the curved edge of their wooden raft, startling Aralim. He instinctively put his hand on his lantern staff that rested across his knee. Miresh, sitting in front of him, snatched a dark brown bark-nut from a branch, snapping off part of the dead wood with it. He watched her crack it off the side of the raft, and then hold it up to examine it.
“Oh, it’s bad,” she said, her shoulder’s sagging. Then she winced and tossed it into the water with a plunk. “There was a bug inside…”
“Here,” called Yau, and tossed her one he had picked earlier from a live tree. Miresh caught it, cracked it, and ate it.
“Another boat ahead,” called one of the other passengers, a man named Kil’nar. His wife sat up from her own rest and looked where he was pointing.
It was a larger and longer barge than theirs, with a wooden shelter middeck. Commotion aboard it was what caught Aralim’s eye—they had already passed a dozen other river craft without issue, including a town on docks and buoys where Yau purchased some supplies for them.
Two people were fighting, but the dull clack of their blades relieved the fear of an actual conflict. They were only sparring. Aralim started to relax, but saw that Miresh was still intently watching.
They drifted closer to the barge, and members of that crew waved to their little raft. Aralim and nodded back to them.
“It’s a girl,” Miresh realized, with a hint of awe in her voice. Sure enough, one of the people training with wooden swords was a woman. She had a half-shaved head, and tattoos scrawled her torso, only concealed by a tight white wrap. The woman twisted and stabbed at her opponent—their training bout was no holds barred. Neither of them noticed the small raft enough to make eye contact. They just kept fighting as the pull of the river whisked them past.
“I want to be like her someday,” Miresh mumbled.
Aralim chuckled quietly. “What about your gifts?” he asked.
“What about them?” Miresh retorted, defensively. “They’ll just make me even better at beating up anyone who threatens me.”
The Walker just laughed, and then shoved low hanging catkins out of his face as they brushed below another tree. Hayan soon sat down next to him, with Yau taking his turn at the poles.
“They must have good balance,” Hayan said. “I think it’d be hard to fight on a boat.”
Aralim shrugged. “You don’t need that good of balance… maybe on our little raft, I guess.”
“You’ve spent a lot of time on boats, haven’t you?” Miresh asked, turned around. She put her back against the edge of the raft, like Aralim, while Hayan sat cross-legged in front of them. The logs that made up their raft were rough in spots, but still more comfortable than the rocky ground they often slept on in towns.
Aralim bobbed his head. “I was a first mate on a great fishing ship,” he said.
“You were?” Miresh asked, blinking. “For how long?”
“Most of my life, actually,” Aralim said. “It was called Wester Catch. We sailed out on… well, on a sea you’ve never heard of.”
Hayan laughed. “You, a fisher…? Who knew. How did you find the Path you follow?”
“Most people in my land believe in the Path. Even Miresh’s home is full of such,” Aralim explained. Though he did suddenly remember his surprise at Lantern Town’s poor hospitality. He had not found a place that reminded him of home yet, in these northern lands.
“No, I meant: why did you leave?”
“When did you become a Walker?” Miresh asked. She was smiling at him, finally learning the answers to questions he had shushed earlier.
“My past isn’t important. My future is. Our future,” he said. He bowed his head in apology.
“Who cares if it’s important?” Hayan murmured. “I used to dance for rich merchants and governors, in silly stage plays about castles and fiery sea monsters. Now I’m sailing to meet the Eternal Emperor to learn the destiny of an eleven-year-old girl. Now tell your story.”
Aralim smiled at his persuasion. He shrugged. “It’s not a pleasant story,” he said. “We set out on a moon voyage, fishing from wane to wax. Thirty days at sea. We’d done it many times before, to fill Wester Catch’s holds and feed our families. The ship’s marina was in Trell, the jewel of the Ehdburn Coast, but my home was a village north of the city.”
“Sounds pleasant so far,” Hayan commented, jokingly. Miresh said nothing, just listening.
Aralim replied to Hayan’s jest with a brief glare. He still felt the grief in this story, and did not appreciate it being mocked. “After this moon voyage, I spotted plumes of smoke above my village, dark clouds that made me run the last few miles. Winded, I found my home under attack by bandits. They had set fire to all the roofs and were fighting what few of my townsfolk had not fled or died already. As they hauled loot out of the town, I desperately ran into it.”
“Did you have a family?” Hayan asked. Miresh nodded. She had heard Aralim speak of it before, but never in detail.
“I did,” Aralim said. He could remember them still, their faces, their voices. He closed his eyes and remembered. A wife, a son, a daughter. “My home was on fire, and they were trapped inside. I burned my hands on our doors, and the roof caved in blocking them. I burned my leg trying to climb through a window.”
“Did you get in? Could you hear them?” Miresh asked.
“I could,” Aralim said. “But I didn’t make it inside. I was attacked by one of the bandits, and I killed him with the net I had over my shoulder. Choked him with it…. his friend battered me against the fiery walls, set fire to my shirt. I killed him with his own hammer.” The echoing impact of that tool, crunching his skull… Aralim still felt it in his shoulder.
“You killed them?” Miresh asked. He knew she wasn’t appalled by it, only surprised. She had no qualms about violence, unlike him.
“I had to,” Aralim said. “I had to get inside to save my wife, my children. But as I pulled off my burning tunic, I was attacked by a third man. He knocked me out with a club, and I didn’t wake up until the town was nothing but a smoky ruin. Everyone else was dead. My progress on the Path was already such that I survived, by some power, but everyone else perished.”
Hayan blinked. “So why did you leave your job, your friends on the Wester Catch?”
“It was the only thing I could do to honor my family and my neighbours,” Aralim said. “I had survived where they had not because of the Path… to account for their loss and their shortcomings, I will find the greatest enlightenment I can before I leave this world. I must thrive where they did not.”
Miresh’s face was folded with sadness. “How old were your children?” she asked.
Aralim shook his head. “I can’t. It’s too much,” he said. It had been years ago, but was a trauma he still felt. He needed to follow the Path until he could deal with it. He managed to tell Miresh, “One was about your age…” She had darker hair, and freckles, and—
“It’s alright,” Miresh said. “You have us now. And the Path. You’re a good man, and my friend.”
Aralim smiled, and his hand, gripping his lantern staff with white knuckles, gradually relaxed. “And you are mine, Miresh.” She filled his life with daily miracles and new learning.
Hayan nodded stoically, as he pondered Aralim’s story. “You told us you had never been a slave, but you have encountered adversity… much more than I thought when I first met you. I can respect that. I want to know more about the Path.”