Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Teru lumbered into the forest. Somov couldn’t see anything else to do except follow. They walked in silence for a few minutes. Somov couldn’t think of a way to break the quiet. Eventually Teru, possibly prompted by his usually solitary experience, broke it for him.

“You don’t know anything, Somov. You’re so far from home and you don’t know how anything works here.” Teru shook his lumpy, bald head.

“You’re right.” that much was obvious.

“I’ll give you a hint, something most creatures understand before they wind up here: Nothing for Nothing, Something for Something, the Word binds all.” Teru pursed his thin lips and gave a curt nod. The phase had something of a mantra about it. Somov puzzled over it before growing exasperated.

“I don’t understand.”

Teru nodded again. “Because you don’t know anything.”

“I know that.” Somov smiled about the paradox, before looking down and seeing his smile reflected in Teru’s face. Teru’s smile was a terrible thing, his mouth was much wider than Somov originally thought splitting his face nearly to the ears, with sharp teeth protruding from the gums.

“Point to you.” said the anathema, still grinning. “Here’s what happens: you say you want a thing from something. That something determines what they want in return. You provide payment, they give you the thing.”

“It’s like bartering.”

“Exactly, except you can’t go back on your word.”

“Why not?”

Teru just looked at him sternly. It was the kind of look Cvita would’ve given him if he’d asked why he couldn’t breath underwater or live on the moon. The kind of How dumb are you? look which young boys everywhere are familiar with. “The Word binds all.” he recited.

It still didn’t make very much sense. What was the Word? Why did it sound like it had a capital letter? Maybe it just meant your word, you couldn’t lie or something. Somov had been honest with Teru so far, but maybe he would think of a lie soon, just to test it. But for now, he had a different idea, hopefully a way to get some answers. “When I first met you, you said: ‘A name for a name.’”

“Yes, but I doubt I was the first thing you made a deal with here.”

“You’re the first person I met.”

“Somov, you’re an idiot. You’ve been surrounded by living things since you got here.”

“You can’t mean the trees!”

“Of course I can. Because I do. Nasty blights the lot of them. Did you climb one?”

“Yes…”

“Yeah, they don’t like that. They must have taken something. he paused and glared at the trees before muttering “Vulgar trees and their vulgar thieving.”

“I’m not sure… I slipped once, hurt my ribs pretty badly.”

“It’ll probably be telling its stupid tree friends that story for the next fifty years.”

“You can’t be serious.” Somov was trying, quite unsuccessfully to suppress a smile.

“What is with you and thinking you can define what’s possible for other people?”

Got him, that wasn’t so hard. “To answer your question, I’m just playing your game.” Teru stopped abruptly. He gave a soft laugh.

“Nicely done.” he admitted, shaking his head. “Now I’m the idiot. Well done, point to you.” he stopped and stood shakily on his legs (hind arms?) and offered a very unstable bow.