Page 11 of Tiger's Trek
“Yes.” Nik rose, dusting his hands together. “Magic. How much did you eat? Let me see your eyes. Stick out your tongue.”
Zakhar complied. “Thome,” he mumbled while Nik squeezed his jaw and stared into his mouth, looking for who-knew-what.
“Huh? What did you say?” Nik asked, releasing Zakhar’s face.
“I said I ate some.”
Nikolai didn’t notice the blush that colored Zakhar’s cheeks. “Some” was a bit of an understatement. In truth, he’d eaten more than enough to fill his belly. In fact, the young priest-in-training was feeling slightly queasy from having eaten too much. Zakhar decided to come clean and thus avoid the confession box upon his return.
“Actually, I ate quite a bit. Is it going to kill me?”
Letting out a disappointed sigh, Nikolai replied, “Well, I doubt it. If it was magic meant to kill, you’d already be dead.”
“That’s good at least,” Zakhar said, trying to offer a positive note to temper his sour choice.
“Not really. Sometimes dead is the better option.”
“Oh.”
Now Zakhar felt utterly useless. “I beg your forgiveness. I’m a simpleminded cretin.”
Nik put his hand on his friend’s shoulder. “There’s nothing to forgive. Wisdom comes with experience. That’s all.”
As for Nikolai, he was now desperate to find Veru. If she was lost like Danik and had forgotten who she was, there was no telling what might happen to her, especially if she was back in her human form like Stacia. He squeezed Zakhar’s shoulder. “Look, Stacia and Iriko will be here soon. They can track you on their own, thanks to the tiger thing. But think now. Tell me where you saw Danik. I’m going to look for him. There’s only a bit of daylight left. I’ve got to find him and then hope that Veru is with him. If she isn’t, well... we’ll cross that bridge when we have to. But if Danik isn’t far, I should be able to find him quickly enough, and we’ll regroup. When they arrive, tell them where I’ve gone. Do you understand?”
Zakhar nodded and then pointed in the vague direction from which he’d arrived at the clearing. Nik again instructed him to wait by the fire for Stacia and Iriko to appear, then departed with a whoosh of his magic boots.
Now that Zakhar knew about the possibility that he’d eaten magic-laced meat, he was extremely nervous. He wrung his hands and could no longer concentrate on his work. He constantly wondered what he might be forgetting and if his lack of focus could be blamed on a new diminution of knowledge. Deciding the best thing to do was recite the things he knew and record them so he wouldn’t forget, he set about making a list of everything he could remember, starting with the most important details—those things pertaining to himself.
He wrote about his family—his very, very large family—and how there was always a lack of food. Then Zakhar dipped his quill and recorded the day he’d decided to join the priesthood. That day, a traveling priest had come to their small village to perform various baptisms, marriages, visits to the sick and elderly, and other rites.
Such a thing happened around once a year, as their village wasn’t large enough to fund a church. When the cleric was finished with his various engagements, he conducted a service in their small schoolhouse, and all the townspeople crowded in to take part. His family had a very lean harvest that year, and the older children were going without some things so the younger kids could eat.
That day, their mother had made them scrub and wash up to look their best for Sunday services. Zakhar knew she was embarrassed to have her family seen in worn clothing with unpolished shoes, but she’d seen to it that their faces were scrubbed until they were shiny and red, and their fingernails were clean. His sisters’ hair was brushed and braided in various crowns and tied with little bits of twine and ribbon his mother had saved or traded eggs to acquire.
Then they’d crowded into a pew together, twitching and pinching one another until the service was finally over. Afterward, Zakhar watched his quiet father press a precious coin into the collection box while the fat priest watched intently, his eyes fixed on the meager coin that probably meant so very little to the clergyman but was so very important to Zakhar’s family. Even as a young man, Zakhar could see the priest’s smug shrewdness hidden just below the surface.
The man took the offering, jiggling the box slightly, as if to show all in the schoolhouse how little his large family had contributed, then smiled at his family piously and extended a trite blessing before moving on. It was that day that Zakhar told his family he wasn’t going to be a farmer. He was leaving them to study to be a priest.
It wasn’t that he was impressed with the man or his calling. No. Zakhar was simply determined to never be hungry again. The idea that he could enter any town and expect the people to hand over food and money to earn his nod of approval was almost intoxicating to him. Then there was also the fact that he couldn’t get the image of his parents out of his mind. He knew he could never be the type of man who would take money from poor families and withhold blessings from them if they refused to pay.
Why should money feed fat priests while children went hungry? It didn’t make sense to Zakhar then, and now that he’d read the Scriptures for himself, it still didn’t. Gluttony was a sin. But there was a tiny voice in Zakhar’s mind that said leaving his family was a sin too. Sometimes his heart burned over the shame of it.
He’d tried to justify his decision over the years by telling himself he’d left them to protect others, but the truth was, he never went back to visit them. Not once did he return to his little town to see if his younger brothers and sisters were still alive. Never did he try to rescue any of his siblings or his mother or father. There were some days when the guilt of his actions overwhelmed him.
Other times he had sat in the warm church by the fire, studying, and then ate a full plate of food, and asked himself,Why weren’t they smart enough to do what I did?Then he’d go back to his little cot in the church and cry until he fell asleep. He’d wake up the next morning and fast, determined to be a better man, a better servant of the Lord.
Round and round it went. He never seemed to find absolution.How can I ever hope to guide others when I feel so lost myself?
Zakhar was writing about the adventures of meeting the tigers, when Iriko and Stacia appeared. He was grateful for their arrival, not only because it served to lift him from his doldrums, but because it was a relief for him to realize he still remembered who they were. The meat had not made him forget.
What was even more surprising was to find Stacia and Iriko had switched places. Now the young man was in tiger form, and the young lady was... well,a young lady—and she wasstriking. Zakhar rose immediately, his quill dropping carelessly from his fingers to the page and the papers spilling across his lap to the dirt. Ink smeared and left a large well on the page he’d been writing.
“Oh no!” Stacia said, bending to help him gather his writing. “We’re so sorry, Zakhar. We didn’t mean to startle you.”
Zakhar blinked. His mouth suddenly went dry. He tried to wet his lips, but nothing happened. Hewasa cretin.
When she pressed the papers into his hands, he swallowed, and to his shame, his voice squeaked. “Sp-sp-pasibo, Tsarevna,” he mumbled and then quickly clicked his heels together as if he were a soldier on the battlefield and bowed, but the effect was lost, considering he wasn’t wearing the polished boots of a royal soldier.
