The First Life of Tanan by Andrew Riley Read Free Book Online

Jelak’s retirement spread through the small village like wildfire.  There was no question whether there would be a retirement party, only when it would take place.  The people of the village asked Kirkik to give a speech and he flatly refused.
    It wasn’t that Kirkik had any kind of aversion to public speaking.  As the King’s younger, and only, brother, he had been groomed from childhood for public service. He refused to speak at Jelak’s retirement party because he considered the old man incompetent, and wouldn’t stand before a crowd of people and say otherwise.
    Kirkik wasn’t here to give speeches.  He was here to investigate Tanan.  Kirkik didn’t yet have proof that the boy was Lataki, but his gut told him that was the case.  Once he had proof, Jelak would be punished for treason against the Komisani people.
    No, his job was not to give speeches, his job was to watch and listen.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN
    Tanan was tired of pulling weeds. There were just so many of them, and every day there were more. The worst part was that his back was aching from spending hours on hands and knees in the dirt pulling, pulling, pulling.
    “My back is sore,” he complained.
    “Three things,” replied Soama. “First, I’m sorry to hear that your back is sore. Second, complaining about your back being sore won’t make it hurt any less.”
    Tanan rolled his eyes at that one.
    “And third, when you’ve finished complaining, maybe I can try to teach you a bit of healing magic that will help the soreness in your back.”
    Finally!  In two weeks, all Soama had taught him, other than how to pull weeds, was the cold trick that he already knew, and the warm hands trick, which was so easy he had figured it out in an hour.
    Tanan took a deep breath. “I would like to try to learn it.”
    Soama very slowly and precisely enunciated a long string of words.  “Repeat that back,” he instructed.
    Tanan had caught about four syllables before it started sounding like gibberish. “I didn’t get it all,” he said sheepishly.
    “Listen very carefully this time,” said Soama. “These are the words to the song that you will need to chant in your head if you want to try to ease the pain in your back.”
    Soama said the words, slowly and precisely.  “Gering luvea cestoreth surven celtane hehinke apendrowde.”  And then he repeated them a second time.
    “Say them along with me,” he said before repeating them again.
    “Can’t you just write it down for me?” asked Tanan.
    “No, I cannot. Now say them along with me. Pay attention to the exact sound of each word.”
    They repeated the words together for almost an hour as they continued to pull weeds.  When Soama was confident that Tanan had it memorized, he instructed Tanan to begin repeating the words silently in his head, but to maintain the precise sounds as he imagined saying them.”
    They pulled weeds.
    After another half hour, Tanan told Soama, “I think I feel something.”
    “Tell me what you feel,” said Soama.
    “It feels like kind of a warm tingle, but also numb at the same time.  Is that right?”
    “That is exactly right,” said Soama, suppressing his astonishment.  He had not expected Tanan to be able to get results.  “Tomorrow I will teach you the melody that goes along with the words.”

CHAPTER FIFTEEN
    Kirkik had been in Port Billen for two weeks and hadn’t seen the boy Tanan once.  He stopped by the school to speak with the boy’s teacher, and in addition to learning about Tanan’s unorthodox attendance arrangement, he ended up being convinced to spend an hour in front of a classroom full of children answering questions about what it was like to be a Constable.
    When he questioned the boy’s father directly, he was told that the boy was on a trip to a friend’s farm learning about agriculture. Follow up questions were deftly avoided, and no real information was actually gleaned from the conversation.
    The boy’s grandfather was even less