The hammering started before sunrise.
Three blows, a pause, then another three. From his bed in the family wagon, Khepri decided whoever held the hammer deserved to have it confiscated.
He pulled the blanket over his head. A cheer rose from outside. Nobody cheered over ordinary repairs. Not unless he had invented something for them to admire. Khepri found his glasses and pushed aside the curtain.
During the night, the settlement had changed. Indigo banners hung beneath the enormous tree. The younger children had made paper ornaments shaped like leaves, each marked with a wish for someone the new treatment might one day help. Ivory cloths connected the wagons in long loops, and bronze bells swung above the paths. Several adults wrestled dining tables into position while children tried to hang ornaments from branches too high for them to reach.
He had known the clan intended to celebrate the approval of his father’s research. He had not expected the preparation to begin before breakfast.
He climbed down and inspected a knot holding a banner between two posts. It was unnecessarily complicated. He raised a hand to improve it.
“Don’t.”
Simi stood behind the post with a bundle of woven ornaments under one arm.
“Good morning to you too,” Khepri said.
“Hands off the banner.”
“I was examining the knot.”
“That’s what worries me.”
He lowered his hand. Simi stepped closer and looked him over.
“Did you comb your hair?”
“I woke up three minutes ago.”
“You haven’t even washed your face.”
She smoothed the back of his tunic while he protested his independence.
“Everyone’s been working for hours,” she said.
“Did they really start before dawn?”
“You promised to help.”
“I don’t recall agreeing to a time.”
“Before the work is finished.”
“How many tables still need moving?”
Simi handed him a coil of rope.
“Carry that to the tables.”
Khepri eyed the decorations. “All this is for Father?”
“For Father, Làmi, Bọ́dé, and everyone who helped with the treatment. Families from the villages nearby are coming too.”
That explained the cooking shelters, where several enormous pots steamed beside an unfinished roasting pit.
“How many people are expected?”
“Enough.”
“Enough for that pit?”
“The hunters are bringing food.”
“What sort?”
“Nobody knows.”
“Something with enormous horns, perhaps?”
Simi regarded him.
“Father is coming home today, Khepri.”
He stopped turning the rope over in his hands.
“Today?”
“The northern station sent word. They started the last part of the journey this morning.”
“Why didn’t you wake me?”
“You finally fell asleep after talking about locking pins all night. I thought you needed the rest.”
He looked down the road, trying to imagine his father’s familiar shape among the travellers. Dàre had been away long enough that Khepri had begun storing questions for him in a separate notebook. Some concerned medicine. Others concerned Accretion. A few were about an idea involving moving platforms which Simi had already banned from the family wagon.
“You could have woken me,” he said more quietly.
Simi nudged his shoulder.
“Then help me finish before he arrives.”
* * *
By midday, Khepri had transported two barrels of water, three baskets of fruit and one wooden ladle from a shelf to the woman standing directly beside it.
He began to suspect the adults were making up tasks to keep him away from their equipment.
At the main table, Simi directed apprentices arranging cups and bowls. Khepri set down a basket.
“You missed one,” he said.
“Where?”
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He pointed. She leaned down to check.
“Made you look.”
Simi straightened with great care.
“That was a mistake.”
“What was?”
She put an empty basket into his arms.
“The fruit sellers need this.”
“I’ve already been there.”
“Then you know the way.”
He considered explaining the injustice of unpaid labour.
A horn sounded from the northern road.
The entire clearing went quiet. A second call came, followed by a third.
Simi dropped the cloth she was holding.
Khepri was already running.
“Not into the road!” she called.
“I know!”
He narrowly avoided a merchant carrying sacks and apologised without slowing. The path curved around a wooded hill. By the time Khepri reached the bend, the lead hunters had appeared. Behind them lumbered four broad pack animals drawing a reinforced wagon.
Something enormous lay across its bed.
Slate-grey hide. Pale markings along its shoulders. A great horned head secured separately, its branching horns rising above the wagon rails.
Khepri forgot to breathe for a moment.
How had the creature carried those horns without damaging its spine? Was the bone unusually light? Did Chi strengthen its tissues? Could the horns be used to build a—
“Careful.”
He turned.
Dàre stood beside the wagon, dusty from the road, a long bow across his back. His indigo cloak had a shallow tear at one sleeve, and the ivory bead at his right ear swung as he stepped forward.
“There you are,” his father said.
Khepri forgot the animal.
“Father!”
He ran straight into Dàre’s arms. The man caught him and staggered half a step, laughing.
“I survived the forest, and now my own son intends to finish me.”
Khepri held him tightly. It was different from holding a memory or reading a letter. His father smelled of travel, leather and the faint medicinal herbs he always carried.
When Khepri stepped back, words came all at once.
“You brought that? Did you shoot it? How many arrows? Did it charge? Can I see your bow?”
Dàre looked at Làmi, who was walking beside the wagon.
“Does he always greet people like this?”
“Only the people he likes,” she said.
“One arrow,” Dàre answered his son.
Khepri stared.
“One?”
“More than enough.”
Bọ́dé made a noise of disapproval.
“He waited until that creature was practically on top of us.”
“He took an unnecessary risk,” Làmi said.
“For accuracy,” Dàre replied.
“Of course.”
Khepri reached for the bow.
“Show me.”
“After I’ve had water and greeted the rest of my family.”
“A short demonstration?”
“Khepri.”
“Fine. Water first.”
His father ruffled his hair.
“Father! Simi already fixed it.”
“Then I’m afraid I’ve ruined her work.”
“You have,” Simi said as she arrived.
She was smiling but stopped when she noticed the tear in his sleeve.
“Are you hurt?”
“Not seriously.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He took her hands.
“I’m well enough to be thoroughly scolded by you this evening.”
Simi embraced him. Dàre held her close for a moment before looking at her properly.
“You’ve grown.”
“You said that last time.”
“And I was right, I’ve heard you’ve been helping patients.”
“Only a little.”
“Your letters suggest otherwise.”
Khepri edged between them.
“Father, about the arrow—”
“We’ll talk about the hunt once that wagon is unloaded.”
Dàre’s mouth twitched when Khepri glanced at the bow again.
Simi caught Khepri by the collar as he tried to examine the horns again.
“Come on. Let them reach the clearing.”
* * *
The entire settlement seemed to have gathered before the wagon reached the great tree.
Bọ́dé tried to direct the unloading while half a dozen people offered conflicting advice. Làmi recruited helpers from the transport team. Dàre barely managed a few steps before somebody stopped him.
An older physician clasped his arm. Apprentices wanted to see the approval document. A family from a nearby village brought a jar of preserved fruit and thanked him for treating their child.
“How is he?” Dàre asked.
“Back to climbing things he shouldn’t,” the mother answered.
“I’m glad,” he said. “I was wondering whether he’d be climbing again.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
Khepri watched the villagers gather around Dàre, bringing stories of people he had helped and questions about the newly approved treatment.
At home, Dàre was the man who complained when somebody borrowed his spectacles and sometimes returned from a journey with unusual stones for his son. Here, strangers thanked him for things Khepri had never witnessed.
He found himself grinning.
Near the main tables, the clan head accepted the sealed document. She held it as carefully as if it were already a family relic.
“Seven seals,” she murmured.
“Seven signatures,” Dàre agreed.
“And eleven years.”
“Longer, if we count the arguments.”
“Eleven years is enough to remember.”
She laughed and passed it to a senior physician for safekeeping.
Sẹ́ni intercepted Dàre before he could move farther.
“You’re late.”
“It’s good to see you too.”
“I told everybody yesterday.”
“I meant to be here yesterday. Then I spotted those horns and made a poor decision.”
Behind him, Bọ́dé gestured at the wagon.
“He decided to bring a small mountain home.”
“A feast,” Dàre corrected.
“A reinforced wagon and four extra animals,” Bọ́dé said. “And he calls it a feast.”
Sẹ́ni looked at the enormous horns, shook her head and embraced her brother.
“Congratulations.”
For once, Dàre had no quick answer.
“Thank you.”
They stood together a moment. Then Sẹ́ni stepped back.
“The senior physicians have already begun planning how to reproduce the treatment safely. We need additional storage cases and training materials.”
“The board insisted on safeguards. I’ll go through the requirements with the team.”
“I remember,” Sẹ́ni said. “Eat first. We can brief the team afterwards.”
He smiled.
“And how are the patients?”
“Meka’s recovering steadily. Tàlé won’t let anybody rush the process.”
Dàre turned to Simi. “You told me about him.”
“I helped with his exercises.”
“And with keeping his spirits up,” Sẹ́ni added.
Simi looked embarrassed.
Her father touched her shoulder.
“I want to hear the whole story tonight.”
Then Sẹ́ni turned to Khepri.
“And there’s a machine you should inspect.”
Khepri looked elsewhere.
Dàre’s eyes narrowed in amusement.
“Should I be worried?”
“Not any more,” Khepri said.
“How many pieces did the first version end in?”
“The first frame collapsed under six sacks. The new one has the weight running through the rails.”
“Mostly,” Simi added.
“It’s still being tested,” Khepri said. “That’s responsible engineering.”
“Since when?” his father asked.
Khepri opened his mouth, but Sẹ́ni spoke first.
“Since Ibara threatened to bar him from the workshop.”
Dàre laughed, a familiar, unguarded sound loud enough to turn a few heads. Khepri had missed that sound more than he’d admitted to himself.
His father had been away often before, and he had never doubted he would come home. Yet this absence had stretched through lessons, the accident at the eastern crossing, Meka’s arrival, and the days Khepri spent building the carrier. Each time something happened, he had stored it up as another story to tell when Dàre returned. Now the stories were so numerous that he hardly knew which should come first.
He wanted to show him the improved joints. He wanted to hear how Accretion had brought down that tremendous creature, and why his father’s arrow could remain effective after the bowstring had gone still. He wanted to know whether the medicine could help people in places the clan had never visited.
Most of all, he wanted to hear Dàre ask the kind of questions that made his inventions feel worth finishing.
Simi had gone quiet beside him. When Khepri glanced at her, she was watching their father speak with Sẹ́ni, her expression softer than it had been all morning. She noticed him looking.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing.”
“Then why are you staring?”
“Your hair is sticking up. Should I fix it?”
She caught the back of his tunic before he could escape.
“Don’t you dare.”
Dàre turned at the sound of their argument, and his laughter returned.
The bells above the tree stirred. From the cooking lane came an argument about where to put the horns, followed by a crash and a chorus of accusations. Simi flinched. Khepri tried to see what had fallen.
Dàre began to speak, but Khepri tugged one sleeve and Simi caught the other. Their father looked down at their hands, then at their faces.
“I’ve been gone too long,” Dàre said.