"This is all madness," he shook his head and sighed. Though he felt silly, he half-bowed in the Pyu fashion. "I apologize for grabbing you. I won't do it again."
The girl returned the bow.
Kale sighed as he sat in an ornate wooden chair. He had never been a studious man. But then, he supposed, he was dead, and surely with this advantage a man might change his ways. He seized the first book of his murderer's autobiography.
* * *
The reason for the vast number of pages soon became apparent. Every 'book' was more like a journal, written from Bukayag's perspective, sometimes moment by moment, with painful, impossible, exhaustive detail.
As one random exploration of the man's days—always listed by approximate date— Kale found an image of a rabbit drawn so perfectly it looked real, its body ripped apart, the pieces labeled.
The animal's torso had been pinned open, the organs removed, the bones meticulously listed. Kale found it all disturbing and saw little point, though there was several references to other books that seemed a collection of similarly butchered things. The man obsessed over everything. He often listed every sensory detail, every animal and natural force, and took almost none of it as understood.
Like his 'Grove' and the threads that bound it, there was a certain orderly perfection—an irresistible consistency that felt immense, and profound, as if the man considered his subject matter so complex and daunting he didn't expect to ever understand. It didn't seem arrogant, or self-important. Quite the opposite. It seemed Ruka thought little of himself—just less of mankind.
After tolerating all he could, Kale looked up to find the girl staring. He cleared his throat.
"Can you write?" he asked in his strange voice. The girl's brow furrowed. "I mean, you're from the isles, yes? Can you communicate with me by writing?"
She shook her head.
"I would like to see the beginning, please," Kale sighed. "I want to understand. I want to start wherever this starts."
She smiled and nodded happily, and began gathering books.
Kale sat in his chair, wishing he had some kind of distraction but couldn't imagine what. He was never very patient in life. But as he sat waiting for the dead girl to collect him a growing stack of veritable tomes, he considered his complete lack of other options, and thought it might be easier here. There was no purpose to his study save his own curiosity, and perhaps revenge. There were no tutors waiting to test his knowledge, nor any brothers to compare themselves to. Kale took the books as they were offered—a luxury he had—and began to read.
Bukayag's, or rather, Ruka's life, was documented from the womb.
For now Kale chose not to question this. It seemed no more ridiculous than some of the other realities on display, so he moved on without the natural feeling of rejection that rose within like the tide.
The writing was as blunt as the man, utterly without embellishment, far more focused on details than thought or emotion. It was filled with asides—questions about objects or things, often notated to other work that came later. How do birds fly? He noted a brief study on the animal's wings and bones. Are any of the animals of Pyu and the Ascom related? Several notes of further study.
Ruka had apparently created wide-sweeping comparisons of animals, plants—particularly crops—and the many races of men, including their customs and languages. He documented their habits, their sounds, food, age, size, birthing and dying.
Kale learned of Ruka's mother, Beyla, and a childhood of lonely education. Though the foreign giant said little of his own emotion, Kale couldn't help but feel a kind of empathy in that isolation. He learned with amazement of Ruka's part in taming the Kubi, of designing new iron, ships and buildings—things Kale had known all his life and never questioned, a quiet transformation he hadn't perceived.
When he could focus no longer he thanked the girl and wandered the Grove again. He watched the world through Ruka's senses, though he could only stomach this for so long—a painful reminder of what he'd lost.
Seeing 'reality' was also bizarre, and unworldly, as if he'd already grown accustomed to this quiet place of mist and darkness. The real world had become too bright, too chaotic.
Ruka seemed ever-busy. In a single day he met with Tane, oversaw the repair of ships destroyed in the battle, and dealt with island problems through a never-ending line of messengers. As the sun dipped, Kale watched in a growing fear as Ruka walked towards the military district—the place Kale had found the mass grave of children.
He gathered a mixture of tools first—potions, herbs, and a bag much like a physician. Then with a nod to his warriors guarding the doors, he ducked into a shrouded barracks filled with islanders on mats.
"What are you doing to them," Kale couldn't help but whisper. For a moment he wondered if the man would cut them open as he had with rabbits and birds.
Ruka jerked and blinked in the gloom, and Kale winced as he realized he'd given himself away.
"You can see me? Even here?"
"Yes. Now explain yourself."
Ruka snorted, muttering before he spoke again.
"Our people exchange illness. What your people call Breakbone fever, or Spotted Cough, we also have, though sometimes they come in different ways. Others are unique. These effects are worse, especially for your people. I don't know why. One of our sicknesses kills islanders who are already weak. Often the old. But sometimes children."
Kale felt his face growing warm. As with the books he wasn't sure if he believed, exactly. "So you gather them up and, what, rape them, kill them, bury them in the sand? That is your strategy?"
Ruka's nostrils flared. "I help them islander. I have spent many years trying."
"Why. These aren't your people. What's your goal?"
Ruka's voice dripped with contempt. "Farahi knew more than you can imagine, yet feared always he was wrong. The son so different than the father." With this he marched into the barracks, where many islanders lay on army cots attended by priests and monks. Kale snorted.
"Priests? Did you pay them, threaten them? Why should a servant of the enlightened help you in any way?"
"Because they are good spirits made flesh. Some have already died. If justice exists they will soar through the heavens for a lifetime of peace. They are nothing like you and me."
Kale wanted to retort and describe the many corrupt priests his father had dealt with over the years, but one approached Ruka with a pale, drawn face and yellow eyes.
"Ah, shaman. I'm sorry to bother you, I'm sure you're busy, but, there's a girl from the fisheries…very clever for her age, but she…" the man shrugged round shoulders, and looked away.
"I have time, brother. Tell me what you have tried."
Ruka followed the monk to the edges of a room guarded by warriors of ash, who nodded low with respect as he approached.
"We have tried every remedy, shaman. For a child over six without the pustules it should have sufficed. But she…lost her mother, and sister, and her father died years ago. She eats almost nothing, and now she's too weak. I thought you might…" here he shrugged again, and said no more. Ruka put a hand to his shoulder.
"I will look." He paused. "Her name? And will my presence…?"