Chapter Thirty Two - Paetsu Fuhmonhir

"You mentioned him. When I was holding you. Don't you remember?"

Sheeta stared ahead, through the fire, through the wall of the cave beyond, and into some unfocused distance. Her voice came faintly, as though her mouth were speaking but her mind was elsewhere.

"I remember seeing the soldier. I remember stopping and thinking I should shout a warning to you. Then," her brow furrowed, she thought hard, "then I was in a building. A big building, a huge room. You remember Laputa, that big room with the tree in? It felt like that only without the tree, solid walls on the outside but glass on the inside," Sheeta paused, thinking, rubbing her forehead. She took a sip of tea, "There was blue sky outside and lovely flowers, fields full of flowers. The room was full of people, moving around the edge, thousands of them. Only they weren't people, they were misty, like ghosts. They were listening to a conversation. I was in the middle of the room and there were four people there. A man with a dog's head, a maiden all in white, an old weary man in a traveling cloak with a big stick, like a shepherd's crook, and a man who wore a crown. The dog man and the maiden were arguing. The dog-man wanted me to stay but the woman in white said it wasn't time and I should go back. She said he needed me, and she looked at the man in the crown. I don't know who he was either. The dog-man was really angry, he said he wanted me but the maiden won the argument. The next thing I knew, I was here, and you were feeding me. How long was that?"
"Three days. It might have been four. You were conscious after three but you might not remember. You don't recall anything then, when you were shot? Nothing at all? All the things you said?"
"Sorry Paetsu, no, nothing at all. I knew I was shot and I knew it was bad, and I heard your voice I think, but the details won't come."
"You're doing it again."
"Doing what?"
"The way you say my name. You keep saying 'payt-soo' instead of 'paz-oo', you've been doing it more and more the last few days."

She smiled shyly at him.

now is as good a time as any. in fact, now is a very good time. especially in this place

"Paetsu is Prince. Some Gondoan words are spelled differently for different contexts, usually whether its girl or boy or age or whether the spirit in which they are spoken is friendly or hostile. Paztsu or Pazsu is another spelling of prince, one that implies a prince who is away and will return. I suppose Pazu is closer, but I just think of Paetsu, a prince who has come back. If I'm saying Fuhmonhir, it should be Pazsu Fuhmonhir, the Forgotten Prince. I just prefer Paetsu Fuhmonhir. It implies one who was lost and has returned."

She looked at him, her face open, honest, that gentle smile. Something in Pazu came undone, some part of him fell away and he changed.

"My name. Me?"

Her smile broadened, like sunshine. When she smiled like that she was very pretty.

"Yes, taeg-Paetsu. You."

She looked down at the leaves, the mosses, she moved her foot through them.

"There were four Kingdoms. I've told you. Laputa, Lahoromne, Lapendraes and Latormolo. They were the capital cities. The Tree, The Head, The Heart and The Hand."
"Het, is hand."
"You learn well. You're right, het is hand. However het is this hand, my hand," she waved it, "your hand. But tormolo means the workman's hand, the craftsman's hand. The hand of one who works or creates things."
"Me."
"Hm. You again. That's two reasons. First your name, second you're a craftsman. I think I first felt it in your workshop, where you were building that flying machine. I guessed then. The four kingdoms lived in the sky. Each had its capital, its palace island, and there were about a dozen others in each kingdom, about fifty islands in all."
"Fifty? There were once fifty Laputas?"
"Yes, and many of them were huge, like small nations, with fields and farms, forests and lakes. Men would fly between them carrying messages and trading. Lahoromne was where the thinkers lived, the planners, the politicians, the law-makers, philosophers. Lapendraes was the home of artists, writers, painters, musicians, poets, storytellers. And lovers," she smiled and looked into the fire.
"Pendraes is heart?"
"Yes."
"Hm, I wondered that, a while ago."
"Latormolo is where the artisans lived. Engineers, builders, craftsmen. Makers of flying machines. Like you, Paetsu, like you."
"And Laputa?"
"Laputa was the Tree, the centre, the ruler, the root from which all the other kingdoms grew. Laputans would send people to the other kingdoms and they would stay and learn a skill there, would marry, and raise families. Laputa was the source. Like Lucita, you see? Lucita-Laputa, Laputa-Lucita, they are almost interchangeable, they share a similar meaning, although one is a place and the other a spirit."

Pazu sipped his tea and wondered.

"Where does Paetsu Fuhmonhir fit in?"
"Hundreds and hundreds of years ago we left the sky and came to earth. No one knows why, but the thing that gets talked about most in the songs and poems is like a disease."
"An illness?"
"No, not really, a disease of the heart, an atrophy, a failing, a weakness. The sky nations became corrupt, lazy, selfish, inward looking, they quarreled and fought. Remember when I spoke in the yard in Hamar's wagon? I said how horrible a princess' life was in the old days. It had become a mindless ritual, doing things for the sake of doing them, people made up these ceremonies to hold on to the important past but they forgot and only the ceremonies and rituals were left, so they carried on doing those because that's all they had. They did them but didn't know why. The sky nations suffocated under this burden of regulations and fixed ways. Someone decided to end this by making a new start. On the earth. That was seven hundred years ago, and already so much has been forgotten.

"There was one man though, who didn't forget. The eldest son of the King of Latormolo. His name was Phom and he refused to live on the earth. He said the sky was where we should be, it wasn't wrong to live there, it was just us that had lost our way. He said we should change our ways and return to the sky. He argued in the court rooms and throne rooms and was thrown out, disassociated. His father disowned him and sent him away. He never returned. But he became a legend, people wrote songs about his adventures, stories might come back from people who had said they'd met him or heard of him. He became a myth, a part of folklore. People told the stories and sang the songs to their children. Over time he became a symbol, he represented a dream. To not change for the sake of change, to run away from the trials that face us, but to stand up and resist, to change only what's wrong and to hold onto what is right. To press on regardless, against all odds.

"Lots of the stories about him are just made up, silly things. But if you read them all, the poems, the songs, the fairy tales, you can see a thread running through it all. A thread of truth. It seems he traveled far away, to the south. He settled down and married and raised a family. And in his sons he left a seed, a yearning. He passed onto them his dream. He was just one man and couldn't change men's minds. But he taught his sons to hold onto his dream, and told then to teach their sons, and so on. And so, over the centuries men have had this dream of flying, of living in the sky. People say it's where our current flying machines have come from."
"Dad."

Pazu was looking at her, his face filled with something wonderful, a look of love and of hope.

"Dad had a dream of flying, of finding Laputa."

Sheeta smiled at him.

"Yes, your father too. I think the blood of Phom has run down through the centuries and some of it is in you. You have the soil of a hundred nations in you Paetsu, but there is a little trickle of something true there as well. Uncle Pom, you know?"
"Hm."
"Him too. As soon as he began talking about the rocks, I guessed. He has flying blood in him too. When he saw my stone he was overcome, do you remember? He said he couldn't bear to look at it. I think it awoke something in him. He might not even have understood, but it touched him. But you, you're special. The stone knows you."

Pazu sat quietly and turned all these things over in his mind.

"No. Can't be. I can't understand this."
"Why not?"
"Sheeta there is this huge big problem. It's too much of a co-incidence. You floating down to me that night, from the sky. The Princess of Laputa, the last of a royal line, floats down from the sky right slap into the arms of a boy who's bloodline traces back to the royal house of another of the flying kingdoms. No, it wouldn't happen. That only happens in stories."

She pulled the stone from her neck and held it up.

"What is this Paetsu?"
"Your stone. The stone of the royal family of Laputa."
"Yes. It has a lot of power. You've seen what it can do. There is much more it can do that you haven't seen. But only royal blood can control it. I can. Muska could. And you can. You just drew a healing spell from it Paetsu, a very powerful one. If I have been ill for three or four days then I must have been near death."
"You lost a lot of blood."
"That would explain it. The spell of healing can quickly restore wounds, broken bones, damaged organs and so on, but it can't recreate pints of blood. If a body is weak it still has to recover. Do you know what this is?"

She picked up one of the broad oval leaves he'd collected for the broth.

"A leaf."
"That's good. You're learning about nature fast, I'm impressed."

She gave him a small smile. Pazu was falling in love with that smile.

"We call them Moyo leaves, I don't know their proper name. And this?"

She held up a small white fungus.

"A mushroom."
"Not just a mushroom, but a Poki mushroom. Guess what we use them for?"
"Breakfast?"
"Well, you could do, but it would be a waste. Where did you find these?"
"Just down here, in the forest."
"Was it far, were they hard to find?"
"Not really, I just wandered about for a while and saw them. In a clearing."
"You 'just wandered about'?"
"Hm."
"For a while? And you 'just saw them'?"

She shook her head and looked down, disbelieving. She even chuckled.

"Yes, what's so funny?"
"And I suppose you have no idea what a boiled soup of Moyo leaves and Poki makes?"
"After three or four days it makes me sick."

She giggled at his beautiful innocence. She was in love with that child, that stupid clueless wonderful child. Then she stared at him, her eyes wide, sparkling. She wasn't laughing any more.

"Paetsu, my gorgeous clumsy great lump of a boy, you have no idea do you? You saved my life."
"No, the stone did that."
"No, the stone healed my body. The broth saved my life. If you hadn't fed me this, you would have ended up, after a couple of days, sharing a cave with a perfectly healthy dead girl. A girl with almost no blood in her body. We have wise women in our village who have been studying plants and medicine for fifty years who can't make a Moyo broth as good as this. Paetsu, we even have good medicine makers who can't even find Poki, let alone get the best from them."

Pazu sat there, looking dumbfounded.

"You have very old blood in you Paetsu, royal blood. I know you do. You can draw spells from a royal stone, you can make almost perfect Moyo broth without even trying."
"How do you explain the night you fell then?"
"The stone did that. Let me show you."

She leaned over, found a stick, then knelt on the floor of the cave and began to draw with it in the dirt. She drew a big 'V' shape.

"Are you alright, getting up?"
"I think so, I can't think of a better person to be ill with. So, here is the continent we are on."

She drew a horizontal line about one third of the way up the 'V'.

"That's the border between Marinaer and Restormel, Marinaer below, Restormel above. We're in Restormel now, by the way."
"We are?"
"Listen. What do you hear?"
"Nothing."
"Precisely. Marinaer has a war raging in it in case you've not noticed. Wars are pretty loud things, bombs dropping, cannons firing, airships flying over, you know the sort of thing."
"Yes, alright, we are in Restormel, no need to rub it in."
"Rub what in?"
"How dim I am."

She cleared her throat.

"You said it, not me. Anyway,"

He interrupted

"It's good to see you better. Making me smile. I was very worried."
"Paetsu, come here, kneel."

He did so.

"No, no, here, in front of me."

He shuffled closer.

"Mind Marinaer! You'll squash everyone!"

She put her stick down, rested her hands on her knees and moved her face to his. Two inches from him she stopped. She stared into his eyes. Eyes so innocent, so grey-blue, so powerful. For a while they both just looked, enjoying the closeness of the other. Then slowly she touched her mouth to his. She pressed to him briefly and withdrew.

"Thank you. The beauty of you is, you still don't know what you've done. Every minute of my life from now on, you have given me. I am in your debt for ever."

He felt awkward, embarrassed even. He stood up.

"Now, concentrate. Here," she drew a second horizontal line above the first, two thirds of the way up the 'V', "is the border between Restormel and Gondoa. And, down here," she drew an egg shaped island standing up on its point, some way below the 'V', "is where you live, Numenaor. Alright so far?"
"Uh-huh."
"Slag Ravine, your town, is on Numenaor's east coast."

She put a pebble on the right side of the egg.

"Tepis Fortress, which is where Muska and his happy friends were taking me the night I fell, is here, on the west coast."

Another pebble, on the left side of the egg.

"After Muska kidnapped me from my farm we went to a city in Restormel. I don't know where it was but it was on the west coast. The sun rose inland the morning we left, and it was on our left side. We went south. In a passenger airship so as not to arouse suspicion I think."

She put a third pebble on the left hand side of the 'V' in the middle of the centre band.

"Now then, Paetsu, talk to me. Tell me what's wrong here."

He looked at the scratched dirt map. He walked around it.

"Can I have some more broth please?" she asked.

He threw away the last of his tea and spooned a couple of lumps into his mug. It looked like greenish porridge. Leaving the spoon in, he passed it to her. She ate.

"Yes, quite revolting. But you have no idea what good things this is doing to my insides. Have you worked it out yet? Come on, you're an aviator."
"Is this map in proportion?"
"Mostly, I think."

He took her stick and scratched a line between the city on Restormel's west coast and Tepis Fortress, a flight path. He looked at it.

"The passenger airship was nowhere near Slag Ravine was it?"
"Well done. Miner, engineer, pilot, spell caster, medicine man, and now navigator. Each day that goes by you get more and more impressive, you know that don't you?"
"I'm still working towards a landing you can walk away from."

She gave him a warm smile.

"How far would you say it was from that flight path to Slag's Ravine?"
"Not sure. It took Dola and me most of the night to fly to Tepis from there. It must be fifty miles."
"And yet I fell out of that airship. And the stone saved me. I didn't just float down, Paetsu. I floated across. A long way across. To you. The stone was taking me to you. It knew you were there, somehow it knew."

Pazu looked at the map. He looked up at her.

"The airship was at about – oh, I don't know ten thousand feet, fifteen thousand? Yet the stone took me fifty miles to one side. If it could do that then it could have taken me anywhere, to anyone it thought was the safest, the best person for me to be with. Do you see? It chose you. Out of a whole nation of people, it thought you were the one I needed."

Pazu had an odd feeling inside him, as though he was becoming two people, the old part of him was separating from the new part. All this was too much to take in. The old part of him couldn't understand it, the old him staggered and reeled from all this. Like a boxer beaten in a fight, his old self lurched away and leaned exhausted against the cave wall, breathing hard. What remained where he'd been was no longer him, but someone else, someone new. The new him drew in a deep breath and filled new lungs, air had never been here before, the smell of it through his nose was new, the new man stood in a cave and wondered what this new world expected of him. He was a little afraid, his shoulders were no broader than the old him's shoulders, but he looked forward to bearing the load the new him would carry. That was important, that mattered. Because the old him had not really understood her, he had thought he knew her but he hadn't, the old him had wasted time knowing a different girl. Now that Sheeta had shown him everything over these last days, and today told him this, his old self was no longer enough, not strong enough or quick enough, not noble enough. Someone else was needed. He was needed, the new him. It was really important how he behaved now, what he did and how he did it really mattered. To him, yes, but particularly to her. Pazu looked at the old him by the cave wall. He was just a small boy, too young, too ignorant about too many things. Someone who thought princesses lived in palaces and that he was just a delivery boy.

go back to the ravine, pazu. go home to where you belong, to the world you know. you did well to get us this far but I'm needed now. no hard feelings, friend, but you stick to what you know, eh? bye. take care.

Pazu felt a little sad as the old him raised a hand in farewell and walked out the cave. Pazu would miss him, it was fun being brave and strong and ignorant about almost everything, but that couldn't go on, he had to be someone different now.

"And another thing, young man."
"What?"
"Under this poncho, I seem to be completely undressed. Would you happen to know anything about that?"
"I took your clothes off."
"Oh, you did, did you?"
"Do you trust me?"
"Of course, I wouldn't be sitting undressed like this in a cave in a forest with someone I didn't trust now, would I?"
"You are sounding a lot better, Sheeta, I'm pleased."

She lifted up the mug of Moyo broth.

"Thanks to you."
"Anyway, I washed you. I had to check the wounds. And, um…" he went red
"And um, what?"
"You made a bit of a mess, in your bed. A couple of times. I washed you then as well."

Her mouth hung open.

"You did? What did you do?"
"Wipe you, wash you, get clean bedding, clean leaves."

Now it was her turn to go red.

"Oh. No one's done that, not since I was a baby."
"Don't be upset. I enjoyed it."

She looked shocked.

"You enjoyed it?"
"Well, not when you say it like that, not like… oh… kaesu, for example. But it was something that I wanted to do, to help. To make you better…"

Feeling very stupid about this whole conversation, his voice trailed off. She stood up and walked to him. She slipped her arms around his waist and lay her head on his chest.

"Now I know why the stone chose you."
"And now, Sheeta, no excuses. I want to learn. Everything, none of that rubbish about letting this all be lost. Now I know this, and I know it's my history, I want to know."

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23 March 2007

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