Saturday, October 10. 200911
We stopped early that day, setting up our camp near the place where the road curves around the feet of Mount Arian. Lena busied herself starting a fire and preparing dinner. At Gannon’s request, I unloaded the cages that had been damaged when my predecessor dropped them. While I rearranged the wagon in my quest for the damaged cages, Gannon wandered over to the banks of the Fangos. He returned bearing an armful of willow switches, and piled them near the stacks of damaged cages. Pointing to a roll of hairy twine, he called out to me, “Grab that cage twine, and come help me.”
I’m not sure why I looked for Lena before I asked my question, but I didn’t want her to hear me ask it. “I don’t understand. How can you be a Mask when you don’t believe in Mora? Why would you even want to be?” He looked at me for a moment, and then responded, “Watch.” A small box crafted from a dark colored wood sat on the ground by his side. From that box, he took a short knife with a curved blade. With quick, practiced strokes, he cut the twine that bound the broken withes on one of the cages. He pulled sharply at the broken twigs, gradually working them out of the loose weave that made up the cage. When they were gone, he carefully wove the new ones into their places, re-shaping the cage as he went. “What do you think? How does it look?” “Good, I guess.” “Good,” he smiled. Handing me a cage, and another knife from his box, he said, “This one’s yours.”
My hands felt clumsy and awkward. The knife was razor-sharp; I was sure that I was going to cut myself. Nothing seemed to work as well as it had when he had been working. Still, I kept trying. Every now and then, Gannon would look over and correct me, or give me a tip on how I could do something better. He finished four cages in the time that it took me to repair one. I held the finished product out for him to inspect it. He looked it over, examining my knots, making sure that my weave was sound, and checking to make sure that I hadn’t splintered any of the withes when I was weaving them. “It looks good,” he said. “It looks very good.” In spite of myself, I grinned. He noticed my grin, and smiled back. “It feels good, doesn’t it? Knowing that you’re good at something that’s difficult is a very satisfying feeling. That’s part of the reason why I’m a Mask. No, I don’t do this because I want to serve Mora, but I am very good at what I do, and the work brings a great satisfaction to me. Does that make sense?” I nodded. His choice still seemed strange, but it made more sense. He handed me another cage, and continued talking as I cut out the damaged wickerwork. “Did you ever listen at doors when you were a little boy?” I felt myself reddening as I nodded yes. “Why did you do it?” “I don’t know.” “Yes you do. It was because there’s a certain thrill to knowing something that you shouldn’t, wasn’t it?” “I guess so.” “That’s another thing that I really like about being a Mask. I’m constantly finding out things that no one else knows. That little thrill seems like an insignificant thing, but really, little thrills like that are what drive us.” I thought about his answer as I tugged at the broken twigs. “Like what?” He looked at me, puzzled. “What do you mean?” “Well, you said that you know things that no one else knows. What?” Trackbacks
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