Selene didn’t grace us with her silver on the night of the full moon, and no Ouna-Ma sang the Story of Genesis. Without lore and auguries, the men turned to wine and crazygrass, and some even tried belladonna when they could find it. We were running out of the witches’ herbs. Soon the camp split into isolated, unruly mobs and scattered Packs. There were no more ceremonies to unite us all. Each man searched for his own truth and glanced suspiciously at all the others. I was the last symbol of Sirol, but a symbol that no one cared to embrace.
My wish to rule over a world of crystal statues became true. The winter opened its brutal mouth, and Sirol froze into a standstill. My mind rested. I gained a few days to think in peace.
I used to be the bravest back in Varazam and Apelo, away from her, but now that I could smell her so close I had become the biggest coward.
Either you free her, or you leave them.
Or both.
There was never going to be any other way. It suddenly became obvious that I shouldn’t wait. Winter was a great gift, the best time to disappear. Winter would bury the evil; it wouldn’t let it boil and spread.
I gathered Leke, Rhee-Lor, and, to everybody’s surprise, Sani.
“I will leave for the Forest, Sani, for the winter moons. And will not return until I find the passages to the West. You will be taking care of the farms with the few Blades that I’ll leave behind. Rhee-Lor and his Archers will be ruling Sirol in my absence.”
Rhee-Lor made a piss-poor effort to dissuade me just to mask his roaring excitement. “I’ll wait for you to return, Firstblade, but I can take care of things until spring. If we get word from Malan, I’ll send for you,” he said.
Sani spoke, once again refusing to look at me. “This frost has burned the fields, and I’ll have everyone sowing again when the snow melts,” he added with a calmness that chilled my spine.
Were Noki alive, he would have insisted we got rid of Sani.
We loaded carts with supplies and building tools and took strong packhorses that would brave the winter. I freed all the Dasal slaves that were still alive, and they followed on foot, the men carrying supplies, the women their children tied on their backs. Twenty of the Blades joined us. Every one of them had sailed with me across the Thousand Islands. It wasn’t loyalty or duty.
“I’ve seen the whole world. Sirol seems like a rat hole now,” Leke said to me. “I’ll follow you west, Firstblade.”
It was the same with all the others. Sirol was a rotting skeleton of our departed youth. Not one of those who ventured to the ends of the world could stand it any longer. It reminded us only of those we lost forever. We forced ourselves into exile, without ceremonies or noisy farewells. They all took women with them. We paced at the speed of those walking until we reached the gray wall of the dead trees. In there we would find shelter, and no man or Witch would ever be able to harm us. Except for the Reekaal, maybe. But I was not afraid of them. I had so many Stories to sing to the mythical monsters if I ever came across them. They would be the ones to run away in fear if they’d heard them.
Zeria was uneasy as we mounted the horses and rode north out of Sirol. She would ask me in my own tongue, then run over to the Dasal to give orders or guidance, translating to the tongue of the West. When we turned west, and she saw where we were heading, the life sparkled in her eyes again. Under the gnarled trunks and the snow-heavy branches, she lifted her gaze high and looked taller than ever before atop her horse, like a Queen of the Exiled. She was wearing a fox skin coat, one of a kind that I had asked the Tanners to make, and underneath that a dark blue dress with red embroidery. I had brought the fabric as a gift from the bazaars of the East. It didn’t belong to the dead mothers of Varazam. I had paid handsomely for it at the port of Antia before we sailed off with Agathon.
“Are you going to abandon us here, Da-Ren?’ she asked me.
“No, I am staying with you.”
“For how long?”
“You? Forever. Me? I don’t know, but even one is enough.”
“One winter?”
“One day where I won’t have to look over my shoulder. One night to sleep in peace.”
“The sun rises and sets unseen under the oaks. You may sleep for ten winters in there, waking up only to love and eat, sing and drink. And you’d think that not even one moon has passed.”
“Then let’s head for those oaks. To forget.”
“I never forgot you, Da-Ren. You were with me every night. I owe you my life many times.”
“I don’t care about gratitude, Zeria.”
Zeria knew the way.
“We’ll continue farther north of Kar-Tioo, where the bat caves are, at the foot of the mountains. No one ever goes there, not even from the West. We’ll probably find the Dasal who escaped there,” she said.
We made it to the Forest’s edge, where I could finally hide my treasure. Zeria had chosen a shady grove where the trunks were broad, and their evergreen branches reached back at the ground.
“Not all oaks lose their leaves in winter. Some have the immortal spirit inside and never die.”
My men unpacked the tools and built their huts underneath the canopy. The Dasal helped them build wooden huts to brave the sunless winter. And many winters to come. To dig deep and take root. Some had taken women of the Tribe with them, others had taken Dasal women, and one had a blue-eyed slave of the North by his side. More than one had tried to claim her.
“You bring only one woman each, we can’t feed more mouths,” I said. “You lie down with the same woman each night. I won’t have fights here.”
I kept making rules to protect myself and Zeria.
Baagh, who had joined us, approved, crossing his body in prayer; his eyes wide with excitement.
“Those are blest truths you spoke, Da-Ren,” he said. “God’s first commandments that separate the devout from the heathen. It is time for you to accept the One and True God. You and the exiled of the Tribe will be the chosen few.”
I sent him straight to the demons; the last thing I wanted was more gods over our heads.
“We came here to hide from your true gods. We worship only silence here. If you cannot live with this, you should move on.”
He lowered his head and said: “As you wish, Da-Ren. You are right; this place is a hideaway for a broken warrior to rest, not for a man of God to pray. I’ll leave right away. Come spring we might meet again.”
“Go wherever you wish. I’ve seen your gods, and I do not seek them.”
He left on the same night, and it would be a few moons before I saw him again. I wanted to live away from sorcerers, witches, goddess, and the open sky who screamed my secrets to everyone. Anyone who also had secrets and lies to bury had followed me to the Forest. Warriors who had lost the strength of youth, or carried some rotten ache that wouldn’t go away, a dulled arm or a hobbling leg. Others had seen too much death and just wanted to bury the memory of it under the live oaks. The time had come for all of us to rest. We deserved it. Even for just one moment from the night that they dragged us away by the hair to the Sieve on our twelfth winter.
I gathered sheets of dead leaves, covered them with goatskins and made my bed. I took the dry twigs and the logs and built myself a Drakon’s cave. I weaved the roof reeds and the straw. For six days and nights I worked with my comrades and came out on the seventh dawn when I had built my hut.
“I’ll go hunt, alone,” I said to her.
I nocked only one arrow that morning and shot a young deer as it turned to welcome me to its forest. It breathed away fast, crimson on brown skin, upon the snowy glade. I carried it back at once before the mountain lions descended to claim it. The Dasal had built a hut for Zeria and her child next to mine, and she had slept there the previous night. I had burned logs and branches in the dirt to dry my hut, to harden the mud. I pounded the soil under my roof with the boots and with the shoulder blades of an ox. Sheep and goat skins covered the four corners from one timber wall to the opposite. I had to hunt some more, neede
d more skins. A hearth burned in the middle and the smoke smelled of wood. Not dung.
I skinned the deer and cut it up with ax and blade. I shared the rear haunches with the other huts and gave everyone a wineskin of the last red wine we carried with us. I washed away the blood from my hands in the icy creek. I saved for Zeria and myself the tenderest meat, shoulder and neck, all that was close to the animal’s heart. It boiled from noon till early evening on the cauldron of the wood-burning fire. Zeria had gathered the ripe golden apples of winter from the foot of the mountain. The north hillsides had protected them from the frost. Their fruit was yellow, big, and tart. She had boiled them all night together with sweet honeycomb and brought them to my hut.
“Bite, then kiss,” she said with a soft smile.
I kept my tears behind heavy lids and saved them for later. Why had it taken me twenty-four winters to reach this place? I had been so close for so long. I held her hands close to the fire. They were small, with delicate bones, like those of the dead deer. Her skin was still smooth and soft except for the wrinkled hands.
And then I kissed you.
A kiss on your lips for every breath I held, waiting to see you again.
A kiss on your ear for every time I whispered your name in solitude.
A kiss on your neck, above the collarbone, for every time I feared that I’d never make it back again.
A kiss on the black shine of your hair for every starless night before a battle.
A kiss on your brow for that day you saved me from the poisoned arrow.
A kiss with my eyes closed, a kiss with eyes open.
A kiss on your breast for every time you spoke my name, on your nipple for every time you held my hand.
A kiss on your navel for the two children who once embraced in Kar-Tioo’s pond.
A kiss on your rose petals for every sin I must forget.
A kiss on the soft inside of your thigh for your scent that I never forgot.
A kiss on your feet for all the gods and the kingdoms who proved weaker than your memory.
I continued slowly and softly, I was in no hurry, there was no rush or animal hunger inside of me. My fire wasn’t the angry flame that devours dry pines in the summer. It was a winter hearth of old oak, trunks wide as boulders burning to coals that had been smoldering since the first light of day.
She kissed me softly again and again behind my neck and on my lips and her scent erased all my desire for stupid stories and conquests.
I opened her legs with fingers slow and strong and lay naked on her. Her skin was smooth like a lush silken fabric next to the heat of the fire. I entwined the fingers of one hand with hers and with the other I raised her hips and entered her. Burning fire blazed between our legs. I wouldn’t take her like a dog as I had done with the slaves. She wouldn’t ride me hard or triumphantly as the witches had done. Those first two breaths that I was inside of her, her blue eyes reached down to the bottom of my heart, and I carry them there with me still, whenever darkness falls.
She was where she wanted to be. I could feel it in the strength of her fingers, the repeating moans and the dancing beat of her heart. I could see it in her eyes, which were still watery from the smoke, and shone crystal-clear. We moved very patiently for the first breaths until we were one. Then we began to slide back and forth, one body against the other as if we wanted to melt the entire world between our two bodies. The spirits of the wolf, the mountain lion, and the snake, the dead of our past, and the young of our future, surrounded us in the hut. We moved in a wild, undulating rhythm, faster, stronger, growling and moaning for as many breaths as we could steal from the prophecies. Until the end that erupted like a volcano of rage against those who have ruled over us and gushed like a waterfall of joy that washed away two thousand, four hundred and ninety-one cold nights since the evening I first saw her. I kissed her one more time on the lips, and their smiling corners reflected my one day of bliss.
Only once we finished together, did the raging black sea within me finally calmed to blue, after so many winters. If I could become water, wine, blood, if she could swallow all of me so I’d become one with her forever. What a sweet and desirable death for a man.
I would never leave her again. We’d be together till death and beyond. But I had defeated death forever that day, there at the snowy edge of the Forest, as the evening bid farewell to the softest sun of winter.
She wrapped herself in a hazel hide, looking as beautiful and innocent as the deer. She ladled the boiled golden apples into a wooden bowl. Each mouthful was sweet to the tongue and tart to the bite. She came up behind me as I was eating and knelt, wrapping her arms around me.
Enaka, Darhul, and all you bloodthirsty gods, you have finally been defeated.
The Witch had not died, in time she’d come to seek her revenge, but this day was mine and would stay as an eternal carving on her shriveled heart. She could weave her spells and dip the arrowheads in poison, order around the Reghen, utter prophecies and demand sacrifices, but my cry of victory had escaped the Forest and made her writhe under her veil somewhere in the frigid desert night.
I lay down next to Zeria and my blood filled with warm rivulets of peaceful sleep.
One day of bliss.
A treasure worth losing my soul over.
In my sleep, I saw chrysalides shining gold, green and silver, awaiting their metamorphosis. Honey was dripping from their cocoons. I woke up when night had fallen. The hearth and my fingers on her skin, reminded me where I was. I ran my hand through her hair. There was a smile painted on my face, calm and sure. It was a day stolen from the gods, not one meant for a mortal man, warrior, and barbarian.
And the next afternoon and the one that followed it. Every afternoon for two full moons. I ran, hunted, cooked, forgot, buried the dead, embraced the living, and lay with Zeria.
“You see now, Da-Ren? This bliss, this freedom could only be true here, not back at the camp,” said Zeria, mirroring my smile.
In Sirol, I had lain with the Ouna-Mas and the slaves, in Kapoukia I had refused the orphaned and the widowed. I could only love Zeria at the Forest’s edge. Where the horse hooves rest and their dust never covers her eyes.
“Here the roots grow deep, and the leaves never fall, the trunks endure wind and winter. Only here man and woman can be truly together forever.”
I had become immortal underneath the eternal oaks. The only thing I worshipped was this complete silence every afternoon, the kind that was torn only by her moans and the last birdsong that had braved the snow.
I lived. I loved. I escaped. We did.
Sophia was Baagh’s word for wisdom, the greatest church of his faith in Thalassopolis. My Sophia was finally here, next to me, embracing me.
And whatever was destined to happen from this moment on would only be the price of my wisdom.
If you want a piece of that wisdom, I’d advise you to shut this book here. Because this is where my Story ends, and the testimony begins.
I never addressed you, the one reading my Story, the one who made it this far. I don’t know who you are or how you came upon this manuscript. But now, I have to warn you. It wasn’t meant to entertain kings and fools around the hearth, as they gulp down sweet wine merrily. Beware, your children should never read it, until they are children no more.
I’ve heard of scribes who make up such tales, and tribes that devour them for pleasure, tales of their triumphant heroes and kings, their chosen-ones and their princes. This is not such a tale. It would be if I stopped here. A hearth, a man, a woman, boiled venison. The end. If someone fooled you and told you to expect this, listen to me and stop here. Because I come from a tribe that dwells on the borders where monster meets man and necessity sows tragedy. In my tribe, we don’t sing Stories for fools and kings but for the Goddess to pass judgment. And, beware for the last time, this Story goes on.
Zeria told me during one night of love: “Saim had given me a prophecy long ago. But I don’t want to think of it.”
&nbs
p; “The shamans don’t scare me anymore. Tell me.”
“He said that all stories of true love have a bitter end, Da-Ren. But most women and men cannot endure the pain, so they stop in the middle.”
The mortals rest in the middle of the Story. They have their fill of meat and horror, wine and justice, and then stop. Only the gods listen to our testimony until the very end so that they can condemn us or grant absolution. Only the gods may dare to read from this point on.
My comrades had settled in the huts next to mine, seeking their own day of bliss. No one had broken the silence. No one had asked for anything, no one questioned. We had lost only one man. The tracks of a wolf pack surrounded his ravaged body when we found him. He went out alone to hunt after dark each night; he had no peace. He brought it on to himself I thought. The wolf pack was the only embrace he sought.
I named this refuge of ours Kar-Tioo, keeping the old name.
But Selene races with maddening speed when she sees that we mortals surpass her in brilliance. The winter lasted forever, and yet it felt like a single breath.
“You know that I have to return to Sirol, Zeria. We will not be safe if I stay here forever. They will come to look for us.”
“Must you?”
“I will come and go every moon. But I have to know what happens back there or else they will come to search for us. I must keep them away, and they must fear me.”
“I cannot come with you, Da-Ren. Your sun burns me out there. It tears at my flesh.”
“I won’t let you come with me.”
One morning, before the third and last moon of winter, the two of us had reached the edge of the woods and kept climbing the first foothill. She wanted to show me the trees with the golden apples. They were bare in the dead of winter. Only a few white and yellow daffodils had sprouted up around them, nourished by the drops of the fruit’s blood.
Drakon Omnibus Page 91
