Branu awakened under the Aro tree suddenly, with a snort, and the image of his wife stuck in his mind.

Aima, you old hag, he remembered fondly, you always had to have things your way didn’t you? You left me behind to deal with all the hard parts.

She had passed away a year ago, peacefully in her sleep.

Don’t worry, I’m not going to let you be at peace for too long, he thought with a wry smile, I’ll be joining you soon enough.

He squinted and looked for the sun through the leaves. Its position told him he’d dozed off for a little more than an hour. The Aro leaves were slowly beginning to fold back into their pockets. His welcome was running out, he supposed.

Branu dusted off his clothes, put his turban on, and reached for the leather skin at his side and sipped the bland, tasteless water in it. Touch-water never tasted as good as the real thing. But somewhat replenished, he set off up the path once again.

He brooded as he walked. He knew fully that this quest was an act of desperation, and in all honesty he didn’t know if it was going to work. But he couldn’t think of any other way to save his only child, and somewhat redeem himself for his shortcomings.

It was his own stubbornness that had brought this about. If only he had seen it coming years ago, he might have corrected things; set Vinthan on the right path. But no. Branu had been too set in his ways, too unyielding, and in retrospect it didn’t surprise him that he had himself pushed the boy away.

Ghonta they called him in the village, Mule Head. He was considered contrarian, constantly at loggerheads with people, and doing things that defied all common sense. They taunted that he wouldn’t even learn a simple Strength that benefited him in his manual work climbing the mountain. But his stubbornness was one born not out of willfulness; it was out of shame. It wasn’t that he wouldn’t learn more, as much as he couldn’t. He just didn’t have the aptitude that seemed to come so naturally to Aima or Vinthan.

As a child, Branu hadn’t discovered his Heat until he was almost seven. His parents had begun to think he was Untouched: one of those born without a binding to the Omnexus, the Divine Web, through which all things were inextricably bound. Touch was said to be the means by which a human soul was tethered to the Web, and through it, to all the universe. There was certainly evidence for it - the footprints of a person’s Touch, their traces, could indeed be detected by Touch-Tellers even long after they had passed on - a unique marker of their being, forever imprinted upon the world.

To be born, then, without that connection was to be truly cursed. The Untouched were pitied and shunned - even feared in some places, by those who believed that to be Touchless was to be soulless.Branu shuddered to think of what his life would have been as one of them: disabled, outcast, like the runt of the litter.

When his own son had turned out to be a prodigy, learning several minor Touches before he turned thirteen, he had been the proudest father in the world. The young teen had even picked up a little Touch-Telling from Panota, the local policeman. He abused the skill freely in games of hide-and-seek, tracking his hapless friends down using traces of their own Touches.

Branu was awed by the fact that such a savant had been born to him. He was proud, yes, but that pride was always accompanied by another nagging feeling - the fear of his own inadequacy as a father and guide. The marked disparities in their skills dogged him with a single question: when the boy would realise his father was an idiot and abandon him?

Branu fought his insecurities by sparing no effort to put himself in the boy’s good graces. As pig-headed as he was with others, when it came to his son, he was a person entirely the opposite. He gave Vinthan a free hand, plying him with endless sweets and toys, and glossing over any faults he made.

When the other parents complained that his son was bullying their children, he brushed it off: some horseplay was, after all, “in the nature of young children”. When he saw for himself Vinthan pushing his friends around, he laughed and appreciated how strong his son had grown. Secretly, he revelled not a little in how life had come full circle: the son of the young lad who had been constantly bullied was now dishing it out.

It was left to Aima to knock some sense into Vinthan from time to time.

“You’re going to spoil the brat, you dolt!” she would scream at Branu, in between giving the boy some resounding whacks and lecturing him on using his intelligence for kindness and generosity.

“Those people don’t deserve help,” Branu would retort, “If things were the other way around, do you think anyone would stick up for him? He is just learning to watch out for himself!”

Above all, Branu made sure to keep the boy close to him, and watch over him constantly. To protect him, he always told himself. But that self deceit was a thin mask over the real reason - the apprehension that his masterful child would one day forget him.

Only many years later did he realise the irony of it. Vinthan grew ever more headstrong and brash, and soon nobody could stop him from doing what he wanted to - including Branu. It was bound to happen that he would one day run into his father’s stubbornness, and that was the breaking point in their relationship.

“Ava, I’m going to the city.” Vinthan declared, with a tone of finality. He was a young man now, nineteen years of age, tall, dark-skinned and heavyset, like his father.

Branu’s forehead tightened, and he clicked his tongue in exasperation. Over the last few years, Vinthan had been increasingly insistent in his requests that he be allowed to go to the far away metropolis to discover life there. In return, Branu had grown increasingly adamant that this not happen, leading to several arguments that had grown increasingly louder. This time it was different.

“We’ve talked about this son. Your place is here with us.” he said gruffly.

“And as I’ve told you every time, this life is not for me. I can’t stay here in these backwaters any longer.”

Branu’s nostrils flared, and his cheeks felt warm.

“Is there something wrong with the village you grew up in? The place that has taught you all you know? You have no idea how lucky you are, to grow up in a peaceful and prosperous home like this!”

Vinthan laughed scornfully.

“Peaceful? Prosperous? Your peace is the mere bliss of cattle, ignorant and unknowing! Your prosperity is the failure of desire, ambition! Our village doesn’t even have the simple Light-plants and Time-trees every other town uses - we resort to fire torches in the night, and gawking at the sun for time, like primitives!

“And our fields? Every other farm in the land uses Touch-beasts for labour; massive Lugbeasts to plow and sow, vast flocks of Wardhens dominated by our Touches to protect the crops! Our people, instead, toil in the mud with their own hands like animals!”

Branu was speechless at the boy’s outbursts. He felt his shame at himself bloom and expand to include the entire village. He might have argued that there is pride in self-sufficiency, in simplicity, but he had suddenly forgotten the words to speak them.

Vinthan continued his rant.

“All this place has taught me is how a cage feels,” he vented, “I’ve learnt all I can from the old man with a few books that passes for a school and a library here. I’m tired of being kept in the dark while the whole world marches ahead of us!”

“And what of your duties here, to us?” cried Branu, gathering an argument at last, “Have you no care for your old parents? Without you, how will we carry on? Who will look after the farm?”

Vinthan looked puzzled.

“What do you have all those farmhands for? And do you really expect me to spend my life toiling on a field like you? It might have sufficed for you, but my talents beg to be put to a use other than simply subsisting on a few plants and rodents!”

Branu’s temper rose along with his old insecurities.

“It might have sufficed for me, eh?” he growled, “So you think you are better than your old man simply because you’ve learnt a few tricks?”

Vinthan was quiet for a while. When he spoke, his words came softly, but icily.

“I’ve realised something Ava. It’s not just this village that was holding me back. It was you. Your attitude towards knowledge and learning is what has you stuck in prehistory. I need to be away from your influence to discover who I can really be.”

The accusation struck Branu like a sledgehammer to the chest. After all those years spent supporting him, encouraging his abilities, buying him the most expensive books from travelling vendors, cheering him on when he was at his lowest, only to see his nightmares now springing to life.

Suddenly, his anger and his temper were washed out, replaced simply by disbelief. He slumped into a chair.

Aima sprung to her husband’s defence for a change. “Worthless scoundrel! How dare you talk to your own father this way? Everything, everything you have learnt is thanks to that man!”

Her chivalry didn’t last long, and she turned to her husband to continue venting her frustration on him.

“And you! It’s your constant pandering to his whims that has turned him into this. The boy thinks he is Marrada the Breaker himself!”

Vinthan stood up with force and his chair rocked backwards, creaking alarmingly.

“I’m sorry Ama. This is what I have to do. And you Ava - if you really care about me, you will not hold me back from my dreams.”

He walked to the door and picked up the bag he had packed. He briefly turned around as if to say something, but shook his head and walked out into the sunlight.