I looked up at the sky through the forest canopy and thought about that. My magic was gone. The fat that had housed the magic was gone. I was no longer a fat man. Was I dead? Was I a ghost now? Orandula had said he would take my death from me, and apparently he had, but what sort of a life had he exiled me to?
I wished I were more comfortable, but the sleepiness that was welling up through my body insisted that I was absolutely fine. As it sank its hooks into me and dragged me under, I had a fleeting moment to wonder who and what I was now. Would a ghost have been hungry and cold? Could a ghost possibly be this sleepy? I toyed with the idea that I was asleep already and that all of this was a dream. I think I fell asleep wondering exactly at what point my real life had ended and this dream begun.
I woke with the dawn to the sound of people stirring in the camp. I rolled over, pulled my cover more tightly around me, and went back to sleep.
I awoke the second time to stronger light and the sensation of being too warm, very hungry, and badly needing to empty my bladder. I flung back the cloak from my face and stretched. Then, as my life came rushing back to fill my mind, I sat up, thinking that today I was better, stronger, and that life would resume making sense to me.
All around me, people were living their lives. Two women were crouched down as a toddler negotiated her first steps from one to the other. An older woman was grinding some dried roots into flour. A boy was working a rabbit skin between his fingers to soften it. As I walked through the camp, it was as it had been in the twilight. No one acknowledged me.
I found the waste pit beyond the edge of the camp, relieved myself, and walked back, feeling even more self-assured. Surely ghosts did not piss. And my body had begun to look more normal. My skin, so close to being transparent the day before, had begun to appear more opaque. My hands and feet were still unnaturally sensitive, and the entire surface of my body was still generally painful, as if I’d been sunburned. But it didn’t hurt as much as it had the day before, and from that I took heart. I noted with interest that the skin on my arms was a uniform color; my specks were gone. That seemed as great a change to me as my greatly reduced girth. For a moment, I pictured myself as torn from my old body, leaving behind a casing of fat and skin, emerging naked from behind a wall of fat. I shuddered at the image and pushed it away.
I had been fat and now I wasn’t. I thought of how I had once longed for that change and how important it had seemed. Now it seemed a foolish thing for me to care about. What did it matter, what did it change? I was still myself. So what did I care about, if not the shape of my body? Where was my life? I prodded at my emotions. Amzil came to mind immediately. I cared about her. I wanted her to be safe and well. And Epiny and Spink. And their baby.
It was so strange. As I thought of them, they suddenly gained importance in my mind, as if I’d forgotten about them completely and only now their significance was coming back to me. What else, I wondered, had I lost? What had been left behind in that old body? What of it would I recover?
I wandered through the camp, watching people who would not acknowledge me. I helped myself to breakfast from various cooking pots in the camp. One woman looked straight at me as I ate from her pot. I was pleased when I found Kilikurra. Olikea and Firada’s father sat by his fire, braiding sinew into a fine line, probably for a snare. He had been the first Speck I’d ever spoken to; we had not had many dealings together, but he had treated me well. I touched him gently on the shoulder. He turned his head, but his mismatched eyes looked right through me. “Please, Kilikurra. You were the first to befriend me. I desperately need a friend now.” Even when I spoke to him, he gave no indication of hearing me.
I sat down next to him by his fire. “I don’t understand,” I told him. “Was I so terrible as a Great Man? I know I led the warriors to defeat. But I thought I paid for that when I went to Kinrove and gave myself over to him. I danced his dance, and the magic now flows free. Everyone has told me that. So why am I an outcast here? What do you want from me?”
He gripped one end of the braided line in his teeth as he wove the sinew together into a tight cord. His black lips were pulled back from his white teeth in a grimace. He abruptly finished the length of cord, knotted it off, and set it down.
“Kilikurra. Please. Speak to me.”
He tossed another stick of wood on his fire, waking sparks and smoke. He ran his sinew cord through his fingers and nodded, well pleased with his own work.
I rubbed my eyes, winced at the touch of my hands on my thin skin, and then pressed my temples gently. My head had not stopped throbbing since I had left my tree. I pushed my hair back from my face, mildly surprised to find I still had hair, and then flinched as my fingers encountered the scabbed-over wound. My heart leapt in terror and then began thumping wildly. With both hands, I carefully explored the injury on the top of my head. It was almost perfectly circular. I recalled how Lisana had gripped me by the hair and held on so tightly while Orandula peeled my flesh away.