The Anything Box

breeze, 'it may be that they will have knowledge for us that we have not.
Never have we taken craft into the clouds and back.'
'Yes, yes!' Deci's eyes embraced Veti, who held his heart. 'They must have
much knowledge, many gifts for us.'
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
'The gift of knowledge is welcome,' said Tefu in his low rumble. 'But gifts
in the hands have fangs and bonds.'
'The old words!' cried Deci. 'The old ways do not hold when new ways
arrive!'
'True,' nodded Dobi. 'If the new is truly a way and not a whirlwind or a
trail that goes no place. But to judge without facts is to judge in error. I
will go to the strangers.'
'And I.' Tefu's voice stirred like soft thunder. 'And I? And I?' Deci's
words tumbled on themselves and the dust stirred with his hurried rising.
'Young—' muttered Tefu.
'Young eyes to notice what old eyes might miss,' said Dobi. 'Our path is
yours.' His crest rippled as he nodded to Deci.
'Deci!' Veti's voice was shaken by the unknown. 'Come not again as Viat
came. The heart you bear with you is not your own.'
'I will come again,' cried Deci, 'to fill your hands with wonders and
delights.' He gave each of her cupped palms a kiss to hold against his return.
Time is not hours and days, or the slanting and shortening of shadows. Time
is a held breath and a listening ear.
Time incredible passed before the ripple through the grass, the rustle
through reeds, the sudden sound of footsteps where it seemed no footsteps
could be. The rocks seemed to part to let them through.
Dobi led, limping, slow of foot, flattened of crest, his eyes hidden in the
shadow of his bent head. Then came Tefu, like one newly blind, groping,
reaching, bumping, reeling until he huddled against the familiar rocks in the
fading sunlight.
'Deci?' cried Veti, parting the crowd with her cry. 'Deci?'
'He came not with us,' said Dobi. 'He watched us go.' 'Willingly?' Veti's
hands clenched over the memory of his mouth. 'Willingly? Or was there force?'
'Willingly?' The eyes that Tefu turned to Veti saw her not. They looked
within at hidden things. 'Force? He stayed. There were no bonds about him.' He
touched a wondering finger to one eye and then the other. 'Open,' he rumbled.
'Where is the light?' 'Tell me,' cried Veti. 'Oh, tell me!' Dobi sat in the
dust, his big hands marking it on either side of him.
'They truly have wonders. They would give us many strange things for our
devi.' His fingers tinkled the fringing of his jacket. 'Fabrics beyond our
dreams. Tools we could use. Weapons that could free the land of every
flesh-hungry kutu.'
'And Deci? And Deci?' Veti voiced her fear again.
'Deci saw all and desired all. His devi were ripped off before the sun slid
an arm's reach. He was like a child in a meadow of flowers, clutching,
grabbing, crumpling and finding always the next flower fairer.'
Wind came in the silence and poured itself around bare shoulders.
'Then he will return,' said Veti, loosening her clenched hand. 'When the
wonder is gone.'
'As Viat returned?' Tefu's voice rumbled. 'As I have returned?' He held his
hand before his eyes and dropped his fingers one by one. 'How many fingers
before you? Six? Four? Two?'
'You saw the Strangers, before we withdrew the coveti. You saw the strange
garments they wore, the shining roundness, the heavy glitter and thickness.
Our air is not air for them. Without the garments, they would die.'
'If they are so well wrapped against the world, how could they hurt?' cried
Veti. 'They cannot hurt Devi. He will return.'
'I returned,' murmured Tefu. 'I did but walk among them and the misting of

their finished breath has done this to me. Only time and the Hidden Ones know
if sight is through for me.
'One was concerned for me. One peered at me when first my steps began to
waver. He hurried me away from the others and sat away from me and watched
with me as the lights went out. He was concerned for me—or was studying me.
But I am blind.'
'And you?' asked Veti of Dobi. 'It harmed you not?'
ABC Amber Palm Converter,http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.html
'I took care,' said Dobi. 'I came not close after the first meeting. And
yet . . .' he turned the length of his thigh. From hip to knee the split flesh
glinted like the raking of a mighty claw. 'I was among the trees when a kutu
screamed on the hill above me. Fire lashed out from the Strangers and it
screamed no more. Startled, I moved the branches about me and—s-s-s-s-st!' His
finger streaked beside his thigh.
'But Deci—'
Dobi scattered his dust handprint with a swirl of his fingers. 'Deci is
like a scavenging mayu. He follows, hand outstretched. 'Wait, wait,' he cried
when we turned to go. 'We can lead the world with these wonders.''
'Why should we lead the world? Now there is no first and no last. Why
should we reach beyond our brothers to grasp things that dust will claim?'
'Wail him dead, Veti,' rumbled Tefu. 'Death a thousand ways surrounds him
now. And if his body comes again, his heart is no longer with us. Wail him
dead.'
'Yes,' nodded Dobi. 'Wail him dead and give thanks that our coveti is so
securely hidden that the Strangers can never come to sow among us the seeds of
more Viats and Tefus.'
'The Strangers are taboo! The coveti path is closed.' So Veti wailed him
dead, crouching in the dust of the coveti path, clutching in her hands the
kiom Deci had given her with his heart. Viat's mother sat with her an
hour—until Veti broke her wail and cried, 'Your grief is not mine. You pinned
Viat's kiom. You folded his hands to rest. You gave him back to earth. Wail
not with me. I wail for an emptiness— for an unknowledge. For a wondering and
a fearing. You know Viat is on the trail to the Hidden Ones. But I know not of
Deci. Is he alive? Is he dying in the wilderness with no pelu to light him
into the darkness? Is he crawling now, blind and maimed up the coveti trail? I