Lovu

  “So, you’re the cocky little lordling,” Helye, their host for the night, said.

  Helye was an oddly proportioned man. His arms and chest were huge and toned enough to see clear definition through his tight-fitting shirt, but his legs were basically just long, flat stakes sticking into the ground. The sight reminded Lovu of a toy top that he had as a child. His face was likely once quite handsome, but it was dark and weathered from years of working the forge which made the shocks of white peppering his long black hair stand out even more.

  “Yup, that’s him,” Topal said, still laying on her bedroll. “Don’t mind the silence. He talks without thinking, so I insisted he keep quiet to avoid getting on your bad side.”

  “Oh, c’mon,” he said with a hearty chuckle. “Loosen up kid, I don’t bite. I know it ain’t Lavote, but I hope you’re comfortable for the night.”

  The tension left Lovu as Helye spoke. He hadn’t known what to expect from a criminal arms dealer, but the man seemed… normal. Nice, even. He carefully stepped out from the corner he had squeezed himself into and approached Helye.

  “Your home is lovely,” he said, extending his hand with a smile. Helye took it enthusiastically.

  “Oh, you don’t gotta lie. This place is hardly fit for someone of your status.”

  “Perhaps not under normal circumstances but having a roof over my head is quite a blessing after so many nights in the wildlands. You have my sincerest gratitude.”

  “Holy shit. They really do talk like that,” Helye said with another laugh, looking over to Topal. “I thought your merchant talk was a good impression, but he’s the real deal.”

  “Hey, I worked quite hard to pick up their register,” Topal said, putting on a stiff, lilting tone. “It is not my fault that I had to learn from listening instead of speaking.”

  “Yeah, well you still got some work to do. Maybe he can give you a few pointers. You guys need anything for the rest of your trip?”

  “Spare boots if you’ve got ‘em,” she said, gesturing to Lovu’s pelt-wrapped feet with her eyes.

  “I’d be willing to part with a pair. Anything else?”

  “The only thing would be food.”

  “Oh yeah, I’ll just dip into my hidden stash and cook you up something good,” he responded, laughing again, although this time it lacked the depth from before. It felt bitter, like someone laughing at their own expense.

  “Are you struggling with food?” Lovu asked innocently, wanting to hear more of Helye’s trouble, but to his surprise the older man just scowled at him.

  “Ah… there’s that dangerous tongue you mentioned,” he said, clearly talking to Topal despite staring Lovu down. He twisted up his mouth and spat down at Lovu’s feet. “The fuck kinda question is that?”

  “Whoa, Helye,” Topal said, standing up to get between the two. “He’s a dumbass, but he’s a good kid. He didn’t mean anything by it.”

  “How could he not?”

  “I dunno, but I’ve been down this road a couple times,” she said. “He’s sheltered and only left the Lords’ Residence a few days ago. I’m sure he just didn’t realize it’s as big an issue as it is.”

  “I’m very sorry for the offense,” Lovu said in a panic, taking a step back again. “I genuinely just wanted to know what was bothering you. There was no hidden meaning. Has something happened to your crops?”

  Both of them turned to look at him in confusion. Topal seemed to register what was happening before Helye, but he wasn’t that far behind.

  “Holy shit,” he said after a moment of stunned silence. “I knew y’all were spoiled, but to completely miss the worst famine in my lifetime is something else.”

  “Famine? What are you talking about? This year had record harvests all across Hangkiti. Did it only affect your village?” He waited for an answer, but all he got was stunned silence as the two stared at him in disbelief.

  “Where the hell did you hear that?” Helye asked.

  “There were agricultural reports,” he said, recalling his meeting with Fitmi and the Voice a few days ago. “I didn’t understand them myself, but my sister said that-”

  “Why the fuck do you think the fields outside of Lavote are empty?” Topal interrupted.

  “I thought that… that they did the harvest early this year,” he said, but even as the words left his lips, he could see the disconnect. It had struck him as odd that they’d be empty a full month before the normal harvest festivals. Without knowing the ins and outs of agriculture, he had just assumed the reason was beyond his understanding.

  “Even if things were going right, the vewa wouldn’t be ready for harvest for another month at least,” Helya said, echoing his own thoughts, but that still didn’t add up.

  “No,” Lovu said as he remembered the ceremony where he was appointed High Advocate. “We just had a feast in celebration of the good harvests. I blessed it myself. Hikim’s writing instructs us to provide support through steady rations in times of need. It couldn’t have been a mistake. There were dozens of Advocates involved and even if I was uninformed, somebody would have said something. I…”

  Has the corruption spread farther than I thought? How many have strayed from the path? If it’s as bad as they’re saying, even if I’m appointed, I don’t even know how to go about fixing something like this. Maybe I can-

  He stopped himself. Those were ideas for the future and like Fam’e taught, an Advocate’s first priority should always be the needy within reach. No matter how dire the situation in Lavote was, he couldn’t ignore the problems in front of him right now.

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  “You said you don’t have food to spare,” he said to Helye. “Does that mean the famine has also affected your village? It wasn’t just Lavote?”

  “We were a bit better off,” he said, although he didn’t sound very happy about it. “The blight only hit vewa and we don’t rely on it to get by as much as the bigger cities. Our gardens have other plants growing just fine and we’re able to hunt and trap in the forest.”

  “That sounds like you should be in a solid position,” Lovu said. “Did something happen to change that?”

  “What do you think?” he spat down at Lovu, but his anger stagnated quickly. “Shit, you were asking a real question. If you didn’t know about the famine, you definitely don’t know what the Lords do when their cities suffer.”

  “I am sorry… could you please tell me?”

  “They impose levies,” he said, bringing Lovu’s meeting with Fitmi to mind again. That had been one of the words he didn’t recognize and had planned to do research on. “They take a portion of everything we harvest to feed themselves.”

  “But aren’t you already struggling because of the famine?”

  “You really like asking the most obvious thing possible, don’t you?” Helye sighed as he rose. “As nice as this conversation has been, I’ve reached my bullshit limit for the night. It was good seeing you Topal. Try not to catch anyone’s attention when you leave in the morning.”

  “Will do,” she said, laying down on her bedroll. “Thanks again.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” he said as he started to climb the ladder, but Lovu couldn’t allow the conversation to end there.

  “I’m sorry to cause you so much stress,” he said, stopping Helye in his tracks, “but if you’d allow it, I’d like to help you.”

  The older man sighed. “Unless you’ve got enough food to keep me alive through the winter hidden somewhere under that cloak, I don’t exactly expect you to be able to do anything.”

  “Well… not under my cloak, but you said you had gardens?”

  “I do…”

  “Then I can-”

  “We don’t need any more of your noble wisdom,” Topal said, cutting him off again. He looked at her, but instead of the annoyance he expected in her eyes, she looked pointedly worried, as if warning him. At first, he assumed she was trying to protect him from upsetting Helye again, but then he remembered the whole reason he had hidden his Wounds.

  Does she know what I want to do? Does she really want me to let these people suffer, just to protect myself?

  He heard her loud and clear, but she was asking the impossible of him. No matter how dangerous it was, he’d be betraying every prayer he ever made to Fam’e if he didn’t step up now. He’d be no better than his brothers and sisters who had strayed from her path.

  Giving her a reassuring nod, he turned back to Helye.

  “I’m an Advocate,” he said, pulling back his hair just enough to show his Wounds. “I’ve studied fertility rituals and although I’ve never done one on a large scale before, I should be able to bless the gardens here in your village if I do them one at a time. It would have been better if I had done it just after your crops were planted, but I want to provide any help I can to ease your burden. Will you allow me to?”

  Instead of looking at Lovu, Helye looked past him, staring at Topal in concern. When Lovu followed his gaze, he found his travelling companion gently massaging her temples.

  “You okay with that?” Helye asked her.

  “Nope. But if he wants to do it, let him,” she said, rising to her feet. “It’s his funeral.”

  “Alright kid, come on then.”

  At some point while they were down there, the sun had set and the village gone quiet. Flickering lights glowed inside a few houses, but the majority were dark. Helye led him to the garden that he kept growing around the side of the forge.

  Getting a clearer look at it than when he ran into town, Lovu finally saw what they meant. The only thing there was a handful of low, crawling vines spread across the ground. Small, pathetic fruit were starting to sprout, but the whole thing looked like it would barely last a week of full meals.

  “Is the coast clear?” he asked Topal, who was sticking close to the building and peeking out at the rest of the village.

  “As clear as it’s gonna get.”

  Lovu knelt beside the raw dirt, pressing his hands into the soil as deep as he could. Tilting his head to the sky, he opened his heart to Fam’e and begged for her attention.

  “Fam’e, Mother of my flame and devotion, hear my words and offer your hand,” he whispered, trying to project his voice as far into the sky as possible without actually making any sound. “Your children hunger and yearn for your love. Sate our withered stomachs and neglected tongues with your bounty. Let your hands touch these fruits of your sister’s hearth and give them the courage to grow beyond their limits. I beg you, let this field flourish so that we may bathe in peace and on your path be absolved.”

  As he prayed, he felt his efforts bear fruit as Fam’e’s familiar warmth embraced him. The wind kicked up, just enough to lick at his cloak and pull at his hair. A faint golden light emanated from the soil around his hands and the farther into the prayer he got, the more intense it became, until orbs of daylight the size of marbles began to float up from the ground.

  By the time he finished, a few dozen hung in place around his head. As the final word left his lips, they slowly shifted from the color of striking daylight into the silky, cool tones of the moon and descended again, melting into the earth like freshly fallen snow.

  Lovu had only ever performed that ritual during the day, so it had never looked quite as marvelous as in that moment. A small surge of pride swelled in his heart as he held onto the final fleeting moments of Fam’e’s embrace, focusing every ounce of gratitude he could toward her heart.

  Pulling his arms from the dirt, he found his companions looking at him in surprise.

  “That was brighter than I expected,” he said, moving over beside Topal and peeking around the corner. During the process, she had abandoned her duties to watch. “It doesn’t look like anyone noticed, but we are out of the way here. I doubt it will be as easy to avoid attention with the others.”

  “It doesn’t look much different,” Helye said, standing over his garden. “You sure it worked?”

  “Fam’e has seen us,” Lovu said confidently. “As I said before, I don’t know how much it will help, but the blessing absolutely worked.”

  “Huh… did it take anything to make that happen?”

  “A bit of energy,” he replied, the sudden exertion weighing on his fatigued body. If he laid down then and there, he likely would have fallen asleep. “You can yield better results and cover more area by using certain ingredients like ferspren sap and lirikal blood in the ritual, but something this small requires nothing but faith.”

  “Then why does it cost so much to get a blessing normally?” Helye asked Topal. She turned toward Lovu and gave him a smug I told you so look. Fertility prayers were some of the most foundational rituals recorded by Hikim. Every Advocate knew them

  “It should not…” he said, bowing toward Helye. “An Advocate’s duty is to provide exactly this type of aide. In Fam’e’s name, I humbly apologize for all of the neglect you have faced until now. I cannot undo that damage, but I can offer what little relief is within my ability.”

  “Alright,” Helye said, without a single change in his demeanor. “Well either way, if you still want to get the rest of the fields, don’t worry about getting seen. I’ll cover that.”

  Lovu nodded dejectedly, upset that his apology received such little response. Helye led them to the next house over and stood at the front door. Once he was in position, Lovu went through the same steps as before. Despite Helye’s words, nobody seemed to notice, so they continued on. At the fifth house, halfway through the ritual, Lovu heard a door clatter open and looked up to see a young woman around Topal’s age rush out with some kind of club in hand. Before she made it more than a few steps out the door, Helye stopped her. They exchanged hushed words, but the woman nodded solemnly before heading back inside with no more than a backward glance at Lovu.

  Three houses from the end, as he finished the ritual and went to stand, his knees gave out from underneath him. He would have fallen face first into a squash-like plant if Topal hadn’t caught him.

  “You want to call it a night?”

  “No,” he said, looking ahead at the last few houses. “We’re almost done.”

  “If you insist,” she said, helping him walk the rest of the way.

  It was midnight by the time they finished the rounds. Topal was practically carrying him by the end, but he was happier than he had been since his last peaceful night in Lavote. He barely remembered descending into the basement and when his head finally hit the ground, he passed out immediately.