Gateways through the Penumbra (Chapter Six)

Chapter Six: Bantuu Islands and the Outsider’s Cove

The old woman sat quietly, working silver wires into fantastical shapes at the back of her market stall. Her long white hair hung in stringy bunches down her arms and pooled into her lap. She wore the blackened robes and the deep cowl of her guild, but I wasn’t sure if she was journey woman or master. I stood hidden in the lee between the fruit stand and the fishmonger watching her as she worked. No one looked my way, they gave the stinking fish a wide berth, walking across the muddy square or else concluding their fish purchases quickly with a kerchief pressed to their nose.

It wasn’t the jewelry or the woman herself that interested me, but rather the pendant that hung on a silver cord from her neck, resting on her chest. I could picture it clearly, despite not being able to see it from my vantage point. It didn’t matter, I’d seen it the morning when I’d first arrived in this strange market and I’d been entranced by the pulsating feelings I felt emanating from it as much as I was captivated by its colors.

Her pendant was made from a beaten silver disk surrounding a clear glass bead. It had scalloped and etched edges worked into the metal. The glass eye shown with iridescent colors in blue and purple with streaks of yellow, followed by streaks running from pink to orange like a sunset against the night sky. Along the edges there were moving pictures of the universe with colored fields of stars spiraling behind giving the illusion of infinity trapped within the small glass bubble. I’d returned to study the pendant each day, but I could feel the old woman growing suspicious since I didn’t buy anything and I didn’t have the money to do so. Yesterday, she’d left her straw stool and shuffled slowly to the front in order to keep her sharp crow’s eyes on me, it was then that it swung free near enough to me that I saw the center of the glass was etched with images of people. There appeared to be a large group clustered around a figure. Men and women, each different, yet with the same size and shape of their face, the repeated angle to their eyes, the shape of the nose, all marking them as related by blood. In the center of the group, shown seated in a wheelchair was a strange figure seemingly out of place. Instead of realistic features like the rest of the family, a man was portrayed more symbolically with two empty ovals joined with a bar for the eyes, a cross for the nose and a small oval for the mouth.

O-O

+

o

It ruined the artistic qualities of the piece, but something about it still drew me to see it and to covet it for myself. I stared, and I knew I’d done something terribly wrong, committed some unknown social faux paux declaring me as the outsider that I was, when I found myself asking the old woman if she would accept a commission to make me a necklace just like that one and she packed up and walked away without a word. I realized my mistake and scuttled away from the stall, eager not to be observed lingering in this place.

Since then, I’d learned more about this part of the Otherlands. In this world, your family declared your caste; your family was your protection, but also for a woman, the biggest risk. I had asked for something that if recreated as a reproduction without the family history to back it up, would declare me an outsider and would also suggest that I might possess an illegal form of magic. Outsiders were subject to be scanned and those whom the soul seekers scanned became little more than animals. This was a dark world, full of suspicion and an intense hate and jealousy of all outsiders who appeared within their borders.

A cart rumbled by, pulled by two old draft horses. Its sides were made from warped and weathered wood; the back was filled with hay. A young girl rode in the back, then I recognized her, it was Harla. I was filled with fury, my hands clenched in anger and I wanted to kill the men surrounding her with my bare hands. I remembered her as I’d seen her earlier in the week, smiling as she walked through the market carrying a basket of fall vegetables home to her family.

This morning I’d seen her again, she’d been led on a rope by her father and her brothers to the soul seekers to be scanned for some unknown infraction. I wanted to help her, but I didn’t know where they had taken her. Now, her bright eyes were vacant, her mouth hung slack with spittle slowly running down her face. I’d stood and watched as her brothers had heaved her into the cart amongst the straw like another bale of hay. Her neat apron from that morning was gone and her homespun dress was rucked up, showing her coltish legs. She had bits of straw in her hair and I could see that loose strands had snagged in the warped boards of the cart. Her head lolled and hit the wood repeatedly as the cart jounced along. One of the men, marked as a farmer by his overalls and haphazard look, glanced my way as they passed. I looked away quickly, praying he wouldn’t later recall my presence. It didn’t matter that she’d been scanned, I didn’t know if I could save her, but I wasn’t going to let her die like that when I’d promised her nothing bad would happen to her.

I had traveled by night to the coast as Harla had suggested, she had saved my life and now that I knew more about the Otherlands, I knew that she’d known the risk she took in even talking to me and she did it anyway, for her mother. The Bantuu Islands lay at the very edge of this world and the next, a part of the land marked by cliffs and caves, jagged gullies sliding into the seas. When I’d arrived on the coast, I’d seen fisherman sitting in small carracks off the shore, but I never saw any of the people who must make this place their home. I’d made my way to every dark opening and cave that I could see from the shoreline, but I hadn’t found any that were inhabited. At least the shadow men seemed to have lost me, for now. I desperately needed to get some sleep. I had no way to make a fire so I ate some corn and some of the vegetables from Harla while sitting perched on a hard grey rock and looking out into the choppy waters. Full dark had come so I curled up on the bare ground of one of the smaller caves set low into the cliff side and slept fitfully, wishing for my soft bed back home or even a blanket to keep of the salty chill.

I was awoken by the noise of tiny rocks and gravel sliding down the cliffs and plopping into the sea. I heard distant voices murmuring quietly to each other as they came closer to the cave. There was nowhere to go and nowhere to hide so I grabbed up a hefty rock and waited, huddling close to the wall, planning on braining the first thing I saw. The wind obscured the noise so I took a risk and peeked out the opening and looked down the steep cliff. I could see two torches winding their way up the same goat path that I had traveled earlier in the day. It appeared to be two couples, with pairs of men and women making their way up to the cave. I leaned back and gripped the rock harder, my plan was to take out the big one with the rock and hope for the best with the others, maybe I could grab one of the torches and threaten them with the fire long enough to escape…

***

Nithe and Sevla had hid me for almost two weeks, but I explained to them about how the girl Harla had helped me and how, knowing what I now know about the Otherlands and the soul seekers, I had to go back for her. I didn’t care how risky it was, I was going to get her out of there before she could be destroyed by the men of her family. I’d take her with me and find a place for her somewhere, somehow. Hopefully we could make our way back to the island, or walk into the next world before anything else could go wrong.

The story continues in "Chapter Seven: Cliff dweller's hideaway." (Will post soon.)