Spirit Walker by David Farland

pull away, but his mother clung to him and she fell forward a step. Wisteria could tell from the woman’s voice that she was sincerely ignorant, that she didn’t understand why Tull was mad at her. Yet Wisteria recalled how Tull had always come out of the house in the morning with cracked lips and a bloody nose, recalled how a man named Feron Howse had once pulled Jenks off Tull when Jenks was drowning Tull in a watering trough. Jenks had vehemently denied that he wanted to hurt the boy, but the furor in town had not died down for months. The white scars from the shackles still marked Tull’s ankles for all to see. Wisteria wondered how the old woman could have forgotten the abuse.
    “Jenks is evil,” Tull said. “He hurt me when I was small. Now he hurts Wayan, while you just sit and watch.”
    Tull’s mother bit her lip and studied him from under deep-set brows. She had no chin, and it made her face look like a sheet twisted into a knot. Tull waited for her to deny the accusation, to say something.
    “You’re right,” she finally said. “But I don't know what to do. When you were a baby, I tried to give you to my sister. But Jenks got so mad, I thought he’d beat me to death, and he kept you. I think he loves you, as best he can.” She looked down to the ground helplessly.
    “When did you try to give me away?” Tull asked in astonishment.
    “When you were small enough so I could cradle you on my forearm. And Jenks scared me so bad!”
    She put her hands up to hide her eyes and wept, but the tears came only from the kwea caused by the memory of her fear. There was regret in her voice, but no recognition of guilt. Tull touched her shoulder, a Pwi caress, but given only from a stranger to a stranger.
    It was his way of saying, “I hurt for you, but I do not know you.”
    Wisteria couldn’t understand how the woman could weep for herself when Tull had taken all the beatings. How could she have been so weak? Wisteria imagined she’d have handled things differently.
    “You are not dead to me,” Tull told his mother, as if to apologize. “Only Jenks. Jenks is dead to me.”
    Tull’s mother wiped her eyes and looked up into his face. “Jenks and I are one,” she said. “He is my beloved. So we must both be dead to you.” She turned and walked down the street, shaking like an aspen leaf that trembles in the smallest wind.
    Tull cursed under his breath.
    Wisteria glanced at others on the hill, realized that she was still standing next to Tull, and though she’d hoped for a private conversation, everyone was staring at them. The humans had watched Tull and his mother in amusement. Here and there people reported the gist of the conversation to those who did not understand Pwi. Ayaah, they came for a show, she thought, and by God’s lolling tongue, they got one.
    She felt that she needed to talk to Tull, try to explain away what had happened five years ago in the alley. At the same time, she wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to push him away, or pull him closer. She squeezed his hand.
    A shout from downhill interrupted her plans. “Phylomon!” someone shouted. “Phylomon of the Starfarers has come to our town!”
    The name of Phylomon was a legend.
    Several people began pointing to the south, and Wisteria peered toward the bend in the road by the redwood bridge. From here she could see the warehouse district and Pwi Town across the river, but she couldn’t spot the renowned blue man. Children ran toward Pwi Town.
    Everyone knew of the blue man—the last living child of the refugee Starfarers who had terraformed Anee. Phylomon had wandered the planet for well over a thousand years, outliving his brethren by centuries, kept alive by ancient technologies. Everyone had heard the legends of how he’d led the attack that decimated the holds of the Pirate Lords at Bashevgo. Phylomon’s wisdom was famous. Every adage that sounded as if it had a ring of truth to it was attributed to him.
    A man stepped from the