Outlanders

Chapter 2: God willing

CHAPTER TWO

DUVAL

CHERNY FOREST

OLD REPUBLIC

The hit comes again and I'm not ready for it- I lose my balance, catching myself on the ground with my left arm while swinging my staff up with my right, trying to distract Sedar before he can finish his assault. From the look in his eyes, Sedar knows exactly what I am trying to do, and brutally blocks the hit and swings his staff to end just above my windpipe. Instead of triumph, his dark eyes show disappointment.

"You distractid taday," his voice is soft, the consonants of his old tongue rolling from his mouth, a breeze of sound.

"You know I was out extracting yesterday," I point out, switching to the harsher, less personal tones of citizen for emphasis. He reaches down his hand and I take it, rising to a more dignified position.

"No excuses, if they come for us you won't be able to choose the day. Or the night. Or the place. You could be caught over a ditch with your pretty pants around your ankles, god willing." He switches into citizen just as easily, matching me word for word.

"You know I've got only one pair and they're not pretty, they're just cleaner than yours- which I might point out is not even clean by a longshot. Do you even remember what clean is or have you been out extracting so long you forgot?"

At this I receive a small smile that doesn't quite let the worry leave his eyes.

"OK, I'll try harder next time. It's just too much roiling around in my head right now, it's hard to close things down and protect them- the letters are fighting for space, feels like. I can't focus on sparring when there's another match going on in my head, you know?"

Sometimes it seems Sedar forgets that I'm new to this. I wasn't born into it, like he was. He shrugs and starts to leave through the trees, back to the main campsite, away from the clearing.

"Sedar" I call out before he disappears.

"Yeah?"

"You think she's OK?"

"Zola's been extracting since she learn to walk. She always gwine to be OK. It don't hurt that she practice witddem knives every day, neither. You know that someting you could try yuhself, 'stead of worryin."

He's right, of course. This is not Zola's first mission, and she'd laugh at my worries if I voiced them.

I sink to the ground. I've disappointed them again. After years of training and five extractions, I am still unfocused. I close my eyes and imagine the sea of tongues, frozen at the surface. I must become frozen, just as Zola taught me. I must ignore the magewords, letters, worlds of tongues writhing underneath the surface. I must keep them, protect them under the ice until the broadcaster is found, god willing.

ABIDA

LUBDENSTADT

OLD REPUBLIC

I get the new stamp for my visa, just as I knew I would, and thank Miss Schmidt for all of her help. I leave through the hallway, passing all of the distressed, new outlanders without a word, ashamed to hear their broken citizen, to see their shabby clothing.

By the time i get back to my neighborhood the sun has fully risen and the heat has begun to rise, taking the morning chill out of the air. I reach the outlander housing complex and find Hashim sitting on the steps leading to the entryway, sharing a cigarette with Farid.

"Beautiful Abida, care to share a few coins with a poor outlander soul?"

Of course Farid knew today was my rich day. Even if he hadn't added to my funds himself for the Foreign Agency appointment, my brother Hashim would have told him.

"My appointment went well, thanks for asking," I respond, ignoring his compliment. He calls everyone beautiful on their rich day.

"Glad to hear it," says Hashim as he passes the cigarette back to Farid.

"You know that'll kill you someday." It's an old argument between us. I know it's not worth it, but I refuse to give up on principle, if nothing else.

"Something's gonna kill me someday, might as well be this," he responds, unsurprised by my criticism.

"Kathrin has some mending for you if you've got the time," Hashid changes the subject. I wince, remembering I'd meant to find scrap cloth for her while I was in the city. With the stress of my appointment I'd forgotten.

"I'll go right up, then." I pass them up the stairs, making for the fifth floor.

Kathrin came to citizen a grandmother, or at least the age of one, alone. No one knows what outland she came from. She's lived on the fifth floor of our apartment complex for as long as I can remember. Her name, Kathrin, is an adopted one, the Foreign Agency assigning her a citizen name to replace the unknown, the forgotten. She has never spoken a word to me, or to anyone else in living memory. But I have seen the line of scars beginning on the back of her neck, the scars that must slice across her frail body. The same scars many of us bear. There must have been a time before she gave up on language, resigning herself to permanent silence. No one remembers, or they have chosen to forget. It's hard for me to imagine her surviving a whipping with her hands like gnarled roots, her hair the fragile gray of a moth's wings. Red lipstick is the only piece of brightness on her body, traced over thin lips.

When we first got to the Old Republic as children, Kathrin used to give my brother and I a butterscotch sweet whenever we visited her, helping her measure cloth, watching her prepare the design for a new quilt. Often the fabric is made of old clothes, discarded uniforms mixed with other odds and ends, dulled with age. The Cherny forest is just across the river from Lubdenstadt, and when the colors are too faded I collect what we need to dye them, just as Kathrin taught me. Dogwood bark for blue, nettles for green, dandelions for yellow and bloodroot for the burgundy of the Citizen Republic. Once a week Hashim pushes her cart to the market, helping her sell her wares and speaking on her behalf with customers. When her creations don't sell, she takes on repair work as well- patching seams in citizen formal wear, refitting dress uniforms for citizen protection units. I help her with the simpler repairs when I can, especially now that her eyesight is going. Of course she hasn't told me this – but I have seen the way she squints when she threads a needle, succeeding with the grace of hands remembering a much-used motion rather than from sight.

As a child I used to imagine learning her secret language and surprising her one day with it – and then she would tell me all the stories from her beautiful outland far, far away- peopled with gods alongside creatures of legend. Then I grew up and stopped believing in gods and telling stories.