Book of Remembrance: The Forgotten Gods: Book One (2 page)

However, as the strength of my
Navitas increased over months of practising, I noticed that it appeared
increasingly…well, solid, as if it gained more substance. It was a huge animal
with a feline look about it, but so unlike any cat I had ever seen that I did
not know what to call it. It had two huge canine teeth protruding from its
mouth. They curled back and ended in viciously sharp points. Its sleek body was
as black as night, thickly muscled and it moved with a simple grace, like
flowing water.
Its long
forked tail flicked from side to side like a whip
. This creature became my
companion during the long hours of practising Navitas. It seemed to be
observing me, perhaps deciding whether I was friend or foe. I named it Markai.

After one particularly
frustrating afternoon, I gathered up my things and set off back towards town. I
was tempted to go and see Prea to find out how their training was coming along.
Suspecting Moma would be wondering where I had been, though, I decided to go
straight home. She was waiting by the door for me. A stern frown creased her
brow and her mouth pulled into a thin line when I met her gaze. “Kadin, we need
to talk.”

I tried to keep my face blank
and unconcerned, but I was dreading what was coming. “Is all well?”

She took me by the arm and all
but dragged me into the house. “Sit down, Kadin. The council members are
meeting. They know you have been attempting to learn the Navitas and they are in
uproar. They came here looking for you, demanding an explanation.”

My stomach was in a knot. They
knew what I had been doing. They knew and now the consequences I had been
warned of will come to pass. I was certain that they would exile me. The
Tretakai had strict rules governing their ways and it was not unknown for
members of the community to be banished. How much more easily would they throw
me out? Moma was clearly displeased with my deceitfulness, but underneath that,
I could see anxious worry on her face.

“The Cha is supporting you in
this,” she said. “He will try to quell the anger that you have provoked in the
council leaders. I just hope that he succeeds. Otherwise… well, I don’t know
what they will do with you. Why did you take this risk? You knew you are
forbidden to learn the Navitas.”

I was well aware that what I had
been doing was not permitted, yet I also felt that it was one of the most
important things that I had done in my life. Somehow, I was convinced that I
was meant to learn the Navitas or even that the Navitas was meant for me. Even
so, it pained me to see the anguish I had brought on Moma. She had given me
everything and I had always tried to make her proud of her decision to take me
in. “I’m sorry, Moma. It is as you say, but it was as if the Navitas called to
me. I thought that if I managed to master it, the council leaders would accept
it as meant to be.”

As soon as I said this, I knew
it sounded naïve, childish. Moma opened her mouth to reply, but a loud knock
came at the door and I heard her suck air in through her teeth. She opened the
door to the Cha and gave a respectful bow.
“Great Cha!
You honour us. Please come in. Our home is yours.”

The Cha did not come to you. If
he had reason to see you, he would summon you. He walked in and stood before
me, his face a blank mask. I bowed low to him, my heart racing. “You have
caused quite a stir in town, young man,” he said, his voice rasping as though
he had been speaking for a long time.
“Quite a stir.”
He stood staring at me before continuing.
 
“I told them this was inevitable. Destiny does what destiny wills.

“The
council leaders wanted to call for your expulsion.” Even though I had expected
it, hearing the words still felt like a physical blow.

He sighed.
“I have managed to calm the situation down. I’ve been trying to explain to them
that no matter what they or even you did, the Navitas would have found you one
way or another. It was always within you. I would watch you before you could
even speak, I felt the pulse of the Navitas surrounding you. This is unknown.
Even among the Tretakai. The Navitas is elusive; it takes intensive training to
achieve. You have always been different. You seemed to attract it like flowers
attract bees. That is why when they forbade the Navitas to
you,
I knew something like this would happen.”

My head was reeling and an
overwhelming sense of relief flooded through me; they were not banishing me,
yet. “What does all that mean?” I asked. “Why am I different? I would have
thought that because I am not Tretakai, I would have less affinity for the
Navitas, that
I would have to work doubly hard at attaining
it.”

The Cha had a far off look on
his face and he was silent for a long while. “I always knew that there was a
divine purpose for my vision of your birth.
A reason why we
had to save you.
I do not know all of it. I have searched long and far
for answers. I do know some few things. I know you will be of great importance,
Kadin. I know that you will be a powerful man one day and I now know that you
must, no matter the cost or consequences here, learn the Navitas and succeed at
the Seeking.
 
However, your ultimate
purpose still eludes me. I can speculate, but I will keep those thoughts to
myself until I have more substantial proof.”

He sank down in the chair by the
window. Suddenly he looked much more his age. He seemed more than tired, he
seemed exhausted. “They have decided to tolerate you my boy,” he said, peeling
his eyes away from the window to look at me, “but they will not do this gladly.
All this has unsettled them and some are in open defiance of the decision. I
feel I have managed to subdue them sufficiently so that they will not try to do
something impetuous. There will however, be no more wandering off on your own
into the forest to practise. Starting tomorrow, you will be taught by the
masters alongside your brothers.”

I nearly leapt up out of joy,
but propriety would not allow such an exuberant display, so I settled for
grinning from ear to ear. This was what I had wanted from the beginning, a
chance to prove myself. “Thank you Great Cha for speaking for me,” I said. “I
will make sure that your confidence in me is not misplaced.”

The Cha’s face remained grave.
“Before long we will all pray
that
is
true.”

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

After
all that, I poured my heart and soul into each practice session. With the help
of the masters, my progress was swift. I quickly outpaced my brothers. It
turned out that I had been trying to focus my Navitas much too early. I had to
take some steps back to become familiar with the feel and limits of my Navitas
before moving on to the focusing of it.

Once I felt like achieving
Navitas was as natural as breathing, the masters moved me on to attempting to
focus my Navitas on a single point. By this time, Markai was also present more
consistently and becoming ever more substantial. Focusing my Navitas was still
out of my reach, but I could feel I was moving closer to achieving it.

I was attempting it for what
seemed the thousandth time. As was usual now, Markai was there as soon as I
achieved Navitas. I was trying to focus it on a twig; trying to snap it with my
Navitas alone when suddenly it felt like a lightning bolt had struck me. Every
single nerve felt on fire. The twig gave a small creaking sound and shattered!
At the sound of this, Markai whipped her head around and looked me full in the
face. That stare knocked the wind out of me. Her eyes were ice blue like mine;
it was like looking at my reflection. Her gaze locked on me, she stood up and
walked over to me, her eyes never leaving mine. I was surprised to see that her
shoulder came up to my waist. She sat down next to me and looked up.
 
I could see the piercing intelligence in those
eyes.

My hand shook as I reached out
to touch her. The moment my finger brushed against her, it felt like I was
sticking my fingers into a flame. I jerked my hand away and my Navitas
shattered. Every hair on my body stood at attention and I shivered.

I became aware of Wilm and Prea
staring at me. They both had a curious look on their faces. “What exactly are
you doing there?” Prea asked. “Has the strain of training broken your mind?
Must I call the masters, because it kind of looked like you were stroking the
air?”

He had a mischievous smile on
his face and I gave him a withering look. “Maybe if you paid more attention to
your own practising session and less to what I’m doing, you would be half as
good as me by now.”

He chuckled and they turned back
to what they had been doing.

I walked off to avoid any
further questions. It was only then that I realised that I had not told anyone
about Markai. At first, this had been because I was practising illicitly, but
after that, I had been hiding it without realising I was doing it. The masters
had never said anything about your Navitas enabling you to see something that
was not seen otherwise. None of my brothers had mentioned anything of the like
either. The Navitas enhanced all your senses and could let you focus energy,
but it did not allow you to see beyond the normal realm. I was convinced that
Markai was unique to me. Once I started thinking about it, I had always known
that seeing her was not part of the usual experience, but as to what this all
meant, I was oblivious.

∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

When the
Cha announced that my Induction was to begin, I was elated. They allowed
candidates three days to prepare. I was as ready as I would ever be and we set
off the following morning.
    

We had been tracking for what
must have been over an hour. The moment to strike was coming. A trained ear
could probably just have identified that there were more than one of us
stalking…..
maybe
a very well trained ear, for we were
masters at what we did. Each step was a calculated move.
Fluid,
silent and precise.
 
This was what
I lived for. As always, I could feel the tension in my stomach build. It formed
a tight knot of energy waiting to burst. I looked over to my brothers and I
could see the concentration on each face.

Then Jamber held up his hand.
Everyone stopped, waiting for the confirmation. He pressed his thumb and
forefinger together and I crept over to his position. Then I saw it in all its
majesty; both of its
heads
had five fully-grown horns.
This beast had seen a full ten cycles of the season.
 
This was much better than I could have hoped
for.

The Almighty had blessed us for
the wind was in our favour. I slipped an arrow out of my quiver and nocked it.
Taking aim the tension in my stomach built to its climax. I focused my Navitas.

Some distant part of me noticed
that Markai was stalking the Jurpa. I took a deep breath and held it. The tightness
that had built in my stomach flared throughout my body, racing along my nerves.

A faint blue mist rose from my
fingertips, swirling out and around my arrow. My whole body was tingling. Exhaling
smoothly, I let the arrow fly. My Navitas forced the arrow through the air. An
instant after it hit the Jurpa, Markai launched herself onto it, her claws
digging into the hide of the great antelope. She hooked her huge canine teeth
into the
Jurpa’s
back. With one final terrible cry,
the Jurpa collapsed.

It was not the arrow to its
chest that had felled the great
beast,
no mere arrow
could kill a Jurpa. Their hides were as hard as rock. It took a perfectly focused
Navitas to bring one down. That was the real test of the day. That was why we
were out here and that was why when it fell, I let out a triumphant shout. My
brothers joined in my celebration and we ran to where it lay. I furtively
looked over the
Jurpa’s
back and neck for signs of
Markai’s attack. There was not a single scratch on it apart from where my arrow
had struck.

Jench gave me an exuberant punch
on the shoulder. “I knew today was your day. Now we can silence all the
purists. You’re one of us. I’ve always known it and now they won’t be able to
deny it.”

Among jubilant chattering and
congratulations, there was one stark exception. Brant was glaring at me with
ill-concealed hatred in his eyes. Nephew of the Kichwa and with his father a
senior member on the village council, he had the typical Tretakai build. Broad
shouldered and tall, he had deep brown, almost black eyes and dark hair. Of our
group, he was the only other person to have completed the Hunt and was the only
one who had completed his Seeking. He was one of the ‘purists’ that Jench was
referring to.

In fact, the only reason why he
was with us on the Hunt was to act as the Witness. Essentially, to make sure
that it was I, my Navitas, which brought down the Jurpa.

We prepared the antelope to
carry back home to Predaki. Even with six of us carrying the Jurpa on our
litter, the journey back would be hard work, but buoyant from my victory we
started our trek back.

As we approached the town
border, the watcher spotted us and ran off to announce our arrival. Moments
later, Brak, Jamber’s dog was bounding towards us. He looked so excited that it
seemed his tail was propelling him forward. He was an ugly dog; white flecks
sprinkled his brown and grey dappled coat. His ears seemed too small for his
head and his dark purple tongue was always lolling out. In short, a face only
Jamber could think adorable.
 
Jamber was
hardly ever without him and it had taken a stern word from the Cha to convince
him that Brak could not go along on the Hunt.