Asakiyume mita

In the Empire, both in its home territories, centered on the Eternal City, and in its far-flung colonies, such as Aquacolonia, the port city across wide Oceanus on the continent to the west, some animals are Knowledgeable—meaning they can speak as humans do—and some are not.

Quintus Shu’al is a Knowledgeable fox. In fact, he is the only Knowledgeable fox. Knowledgeable animals are made, not born, and Quintus was awakened on the Silver Roads, special routes like ley lines that allow for non-Euclidean travel and which he has a unique gift for navigating.

Quintus wants nothing more than to know his origin story. The high priest of the God of the Hinge, Scipio Aemilanus, purports to have answers that he’ll supply if Quintus does his bidding. So far Quintus has, and the result was the loss of an entire expedition that Quintus had been leading along the Silver Roads to the gates of Hell. And now Scipio Aemilanus has managed to manipulate Quintus into leading a second expedition to Hell. Only this time Scipio Aemilanus is coming along. So too is the grief-stricken and angry Octavia Delfina, whose sister Cynthia was the head of the last expedition. And so is Walks Along Woman, a bison ambassador from the Great Northern Membership, a polity on this continent.

That’s the set-up for The Navigating Fox--it’s a *lot* of information, and although it takes several chapters to get there, it’s not slow and relaxed; it’s fast and full. That could be a detraction, but for me it had a rich-strangeness that was absorbing (Zootopia-like explanations for how things are set up to accommodate Knowledgeable animals of different sizes, for example), so it was a feature, not a bug.

From here on, a double story unfolds: the story of the first journey—the one where all the explorers were lost—and the second one. By the time Quintus reaches Hell for the second time, the truth about what happened to the first expedition has been revealed and people’s hidden motives have been made clear.

But the real interest, for me, was not in those plot happenings, but in the conversations people have on the journeys, how Quintus’s (and others’) expectations and views of reality are contradicted, or maybe it would be better to say, exposed and viewed from completely other angles.

Here’s one about time, from the first journey:

“How are things going down there?” Cynthia asked him.

“I do not know,” he said.

“Which side is winning?” I asked him.

“I do not know that, either, for sure,” he said. “Probably not yours, though.”

“I don’t have a side,” I said.


Blue shot a curious look at Cynthia Benedictus. “How long have you known this fox?” he asked.

“I can’t say I know him at all,” she said. “I hired him about two months ago.”

“I like that word,” Blue said. “Month. I like counting time like you do.”

I think my favorites, though, were the ones about the nature of Knowledgeable animals. I love, love, love that the story raised this question, turned it around it its hands, held it up to the sun and saw how it caught the light:

“Ah,” said Walks Along Woman. “The herd I was born into was not made up of knowledgeable bison.”

My ears pricked up.

“You lived among voiceless kin of yours?” Octavia asked, startled.

“We do not use that word,” said Walks Along Woman. “But yes. When I turned the herd, I was what you call voiceless myself.”

[…]

“You … you remember being voiceless. I’m sorry, I did not know that was possible. And I do not know the word you use,” said Octavia.

“I do remember,” said Walks Along Woman. “And the word we use is young.”

And this passage electrified me:

“In the Empire,” said Octavia, “creatures are made knowledgeable not long after they are born.”

“We know this,” said Walks Along Woman.

“The alchemists say the process is less traumatic that way. In fact, it is illegal to give voice to an animal old enough to live independently, or at least old enough to father or birth children. It depends upon the creature. There are different rules for different species in the Empire.”

“Thus, no knowledgeable fish,” said Walks Along Woman. “Nor snakes nor insects, nor any other of a hundred thousand types of creatures who would never be given voice under your laws.”

“Would be?” I couldn’t help myself. “They can’t be. The process does not work on such creatures.”

“I know you believe that,” said Walks Along Woman.

“He believes it because it is true,” said Scipio Aemilanus. “It’s the law of the Empire and the law of nature.” He sounded just this side of anger.

“Did you know catfish can grow as large as an aurochs bull?” asked Walks Along Woman. This was clearly not meant to be a non sequitur. The mood suddenly felt dangerous.

That conversation holds so much in so few words. I really lingered on how Walks Along Woman meets assumptions and challenges them.

The Navigating Fox has lyrically beautiful moments, too, like when Quintus encounters a voiceless vixen, or when he describes how he perceives the stars:

My eyes do not see the stars the same way those of humans are said to. I did not know whether bison could see the stars. For me, they are not pinpoints of light but pricking sensations on my nose and tongue. I smell the stars. I taste them. This is how I navigate off the road, by feeling stars.

And there are humorous moments, too:

Left alone, [mastodons] are placid herbivores, living in small herds making slow, circular migrations from grazing ground to grazing ground. No one ever seems to leave them alone.

I think you can enjoy The Navigating Fox for many things, but I do think if you go in expecting something definitive about Hell or even about Quintus’s origins, you will end up disoriented. I think that’s part of the point. Scipio tells Quintus at one point that Quintus has been asking the wrong question. I think this story is about the possibility of other questions. The story is making other observations.

One final, beautiful quote, from when the party’s raccoon cartographers have made a portrait of a voiceless bison named Fondness:

“What do you have there, mapmakers?” asked Walks Along Woman.

Loci held up the sheet. It was a likeness of Fondness. It was one of the most beautiful drawings I had ever seen.

“She does not interpret images the way you do,” Walks Along Woman said gently.

“We know this,” the twins said, speaking atop one another. Their manner was an echo of the gnomic pronouncements of the Membership.

“Then why did you show it to her?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“Because we do not convey images the way you do,” said Loci.
Or Foci. Their scents were obscured by the mass of creatures around us.