I kept looking around me for anyone who might overhear us, trying to keep a safe distance from the busy campfires outside Malan’s palace.
“War is not good for any side. And definitely not for you. I know you don’t want to go back there.”
“What can I do?”
“Tell him that Thalassopolis cannot be conquered. And when it comes to your fate, make sure you don’t ask him for what you want. Do the opposite. You have many enemies in there.”
A cloud of darkness had covered Sirol all afternoon, and as the sun set hidden, the scant daylight quickly died into gray. I was the first to arrive at the war council.
“Here, come and see, Da-Ren,” Malan guided me to a large table. “See what the Reghen are good for.”
They had constructed a small replica of the entire world from the ices of the North to the desert of the far South. A Reghen was instructing two slaves with shaved heads. They were kneeling over the table, brushing the dust off carefully. He showed me the territories over which each new Khun ruled. The emblem of the three spheres rose over the Southeast, the Steppe and North. A dark slithering line was painted among green fields, and I guessed that was Blackvein. Our King had conquered the whole world except for the last three enemies. Three black drakons, each one the size of my thumb, were perched atop the territory, one over Thalassopolis, one in the far North, and the last one in the West, beyond the Endless Forest. The unconquered lands.
“Each foot of this table is a thousand times a thousand feet of the world. Sirol is just this tiny spot. My kingdom is all this. What do you think of that?”
“I want to become Khun of Sirol,” I said to him.
Malan burst out into laughter.
“You’ve wanted that since you were a child, but now that’s something everyone wants. There is no such title. Sirol is my reigning palace and the center of my empire. We’ll be returning here before starting any new campaign to regroup. There is only one king in Sirol, and that’s me.”
“Think of something else,” added the Reghen who hadn’t missed a word exchanged.
I was thinking of smashing his head with my boot and roasting his cheeks over the hot wooden planks, but I turned to Malan again.
“I want to lead the Blades in the campaign,” I said, hoping that they still hated me enough to refuse again. “Where are we going, king?”
“Let’s wait for all to arrive,” said Malan looking down the hall. “They are gathering slowly. Too much wine and women. That is the enemy now!”
They were already gathering the Leaders of the Banners, Archers, Blades, Craftsmen, and Trackers. Three of the othertriber warlords, one a Crosser, came as well, and so did Sani. Sah-Ouna came last, but the rest of the Ouna-Mas were sent out.
The Reghen announced.
“This you must all know. The Emperor of Sapul died, and his son is a disloyal dog without honor. He has not delivered the gold of the truce. We sent envoys twice, and the last ones came back with their tongues cut.”
A pandemonium filled the hall as all men assembled around the war table. When silence finally fell, the Reghen continued: “He does not respect our king.”
Malan did not speak. He stood tight-lipped, perfectly still with his head down, supporting himself with both palms on the table. Everyone around him waited for his orders.
“Let’s take Sapul!” shouted a young man, who called himself Khun of the Steppe.
At least they don’t want to go west.
Malan raised his eyes to look at him but did not answer. Sah-Ouna came closer to the table, her face hiding mostly under the black veil. She whispered in Malan’s ear, but he immediately signaled her to stop, without even turning to look at her.
I broke the silence.
“Siege on Thalassopolis? You might as well stick your tongue out to a mountain lion. Those walls won’t fall.”
“Won’t they?” asked Malan.
“Sapul, Da-Ren. We call it Sapul,” the Reghen reminded me. He was the same Reghen who had come with me to Thalassopolis.
“You have seen those walls, Da-Ren,” said Malan.
“Yes, the Reghen here, has too, and it was not long ago. They were building them even higher when we were there.”
“But I have decided. The auguries are good. We start right away before the Flower Moon becomes full,” said Malan. “All of us.”
That was only a few days away. The warlords raised their wine cups, cheering the king’s words.
“King Malan, those walls won’t fall, Sapul is not Varazam,” I repeated, raising my voice.
“I heard you the first time, Da-Ren,” he said. His eyes followed the other men and didn’t come back to me. “In the beginning, I called this council, to plan our march to the West. Though we still haven’t found the paths…”
Every face turned to me.
“But the Goddess has her own wishes, and they were revealed to us,” he said extending his arm to his right toward Sah-Ouna, but not turning to look at her. “The news arrived just yesterday,” said Malan.
Irhan, the First Tracker, made one step forward, and the cressets’ flames illuminated his face as he spoke: “Great Leaders, this happened a bit after the Long Night Moon. A curse befell Thalassopolis. The land shook and trembled, an earthshake so fierce like never before. The walls of Sapul have crumbled. A great opportunity!”
“Did you see the fallen walls?” I asked. I shouldn’t be speaking at all. I had the least power among all those warlords who now commanded thousands, and I was the only one who didn’t want to raid Sapul.
“Yes, not me, my men saw the cracks in the walls.”
“So did they crack or crumble?” I repeated and at the same time knew I had to shut up.
“By Enaka, young man! If you were not the hero of Apelo…” shouted the Reghen annoyed.
“We’ll know more soon, but the Trackers who arrived yesterday said that they have already hundreds of builders working there, trying to repair the walls. This is fresh news, my king. If we make haste—“
“They will learn who the one and true king in this world is,” added the Reghen.
The slavegirls filled the cups with wine, and the men roared and patted each other on the back, celebrating their victory already.
“Enaka shakes the land of the Crossers!”
“Now, to glory!”
“In Sapul by summer!”
Ignorant dogs with golden chains around their fat necks who hadn’t ever killed an othertriber in Apelo celebrated around me. Malan had become a king, a god on earth for useless worshippers and flatterers. They had nothing to say; they wouldn’t challenge even one of his words. They just jumped like hungry maulers around him when their bellies rumbled for meat. They had never seen either the soldiers or the walls of Sapul.
The silver trays in front of us had filled with young spring lamb, and as they emptied, I could see mirrored in there a failed campaign that Malan would pay for dearly. But I cared nothing for that; it was only my fate that concerned me.
“You all leave now. Prepare your men to head south. The Craftsmen to the bridges by dawn. We cross Blackvein before the next moon!” ordered Malan. “Except for you two,” he pointed to Sani and me.
“You still haven’t found those Forest paths, have you?” asked Malan.
“No, but we will,” I said.
“I don’t have much use for you at the campaign. The Reghen and Sah-Ouna insist on punishment. They don’t believe that everything was his fault,” he said, gesturing toward to Sani.
I shut up and lowered my head. Could it be?
“The punishment for both of you is to stay here. Sani will farm the lands and oversee Sirol. You, take the Forest. Find the paths to the West. And stay away from each other’s lands except for what you must trade.”
I stood frozen, without a wrinkle or a muscle twitching, trying to hide my silent screams of joy. I bowed so that they wouldn’t see a smirk escaping and when I raised my eyes again I looked solemnly at a corner of the hall, trying t
o be sad.
“Be gone, now!” Malan said.
I was ready to scream with joy as I walked out the palace hall and into the starry night. The clouds had disappeared. A thousand thousand winter stars.
Be gone with you, my king, to Sapul and beyond! May you never return!
For once, Enaka had blessed me, exiling me to the Forest.
Sah-Ouna and her Ouna-Mas sacrificed all thirteen aurochs in the next ceremony at Wolfhowl, signaling the great march to the South. So much blood came out of those animals’ throats, that it cursed Sirol forever, turning its soil a dark black. The horns of the aurochs were given to the warlords as worthy gifts from Malan. I wasn’t worthy of a pair, but that was the last thing to trouble my mind.
And then one by one the tribes, triumphantly as they had come, rode off to the sound of war hymns to fulfill the Witch’s prophecies. Most of the warriors followed Malan and crossed the Blackvein heading south, straight for Sapul. Others left for the old lands, to claim their new realms and bring Kapoukia, Varazam, and Apelo under the blade again. The first kingdom of the Tribe was alive; we were no longer a band of raiders stranded in Sirol.
I was already riding back to New Kar-Tioo, a free man.
Only one thing worried me. Malan was heading straight for Thalassopolis, this time taking the fast road south. He wasn’t trying to bypass the Reigning City like the previous time. Once he’d smash his head and our army on Sapul’s impenetrable walls, he had no other option but to return. And now he was so close. It would take only one moon for him to ride back with all of his men. Not more.
Death was closer than ever, but it had hidden in shame because I had defeated it so many times. It played a new trick on me. It disappeared slyly and for a long, long time. So that I would forget and not suspect.
LXXIX.
This Was Not our Fate
Twenty-Sixth to Thirty-Second Spring. Father
This was not our fate. A kiss unforced. Touching her cheek, at that same moment when the nightingale and the redbreast bring the daylight. Sun rays streaming on the green of the leaves, ice water running down, singing the rocks patiently into eternal smoothness. The long trunk shadows at dusk, fallen spears defeated by the Sun’s dying crimson fury, the smell of the smoke intoxicating the head, bringing an urge to the belly and the loins, welcoming the flesh that awaits to be eaten, kissed. The meat of the deer in the cauldron, the touch of the warm skin between her legs. The last moans of another careless day escape the smokehole and rush to paint the silver stars. A sleep naked of clothes and nightmares. Naked of dreams. Nothing more to dream of.
This was not our fate. Watching the fire-yellow and black wings of the butterfly, sliding back slowly away from their cocoon, unfolding like the velvety mantle of a dark prince reborn for revenge, his only act of vengeance the stealing of one more kiss. A second that was not meant to be. A third. A hundredth.
“Look at those children,” Zeria whispers. “They have grown so much.”
One of them, a girl, is mine.
A seven-winter-old girl in the Forest, watching the birth of the butterfly next to her mother and father, moving her sparkling brown eyes left and right. Feeling loss for the first time, sadness as the butterfly flies away, as her father rides once more for Sirol. Her only sorrowful moment under the bending evergreen branches.
She joins the rest of the children by the rivulet—all seven run around like a bunch of happy puppies—her fingers playing in the water, unable to stop its flow, water, life is an arrow running forward, it won’t stop for anything, not even the most unjust death; children laughing aloud and the forest birds falling silent to listen to them. Children. How many breaths until we say they lived a happy life? How many laughs? Does remembrance prevail over pain at some distant tomorrow? At eternity? A thousand springs until the same lost laughter is heard again from another child? All children seem so alike to the one who doesn’t father any. Could it be the same for the one who does? At eternity? Is that the only salvation? Eternal. Life. A girl named Aneria.
Only I know her by that name. I chose it to rhyme with that of her mother. She never calls me “father,” I never call her “daughter.” Yet I know. Brown hair, brown eyes, she looks more like me, reminds me more of young Elbia than Zeria. This very thought sends a shiver down my spine. It is springtime again, and the earth under the children’s feet pulsates with birthing rage; bees, gadflies, and butterflies buzzing everywhere. She is chasing two butterflies, same color and size, like twins, all three of them entwined in a jubilant dance.
I approach, the girl stops, then smiles and asks.
“Are you Da-Ren?”
“Yes. Do you know me?”
“My mother speaks of you.”
“And what does she say?”
She doesn’t answer; she goes back to chasing the butterflies. When she gets tired, she walks up to me.
“What is their name?”
“The butterflies’ name?” I ask.
“Yes, they’re beautiful.”
“That one is called…” I think hard to make up a worthy name “…the black-veined king with the golden mantle.”
“Ha! My mother calls them Tiger Skins. I’ve never seen a tiger.”
Neither has your mother…has she?
“Maybe she knows better,” I answer.
“Are they…boys?”
“No, they’re both girls, twins, same colors. Boys have brighter colors.”
“Why?”
“Because they—” I freeze, staring at her. A child not even up to my waist talks and smiles the same way I do. “Boys try to dazzle the girls. To steal a kiss.”
She won’t kiss me. She doesn’t know me as father. She never will.
“Have you ever seen a real king?” She keeps her eyes fixed on me; she wants the answers.
“Seen one, seen them all.”
“Is that true? Have you seen more than one?”
“Where there is a king, there is always a second one.”
“Why?”
“So they can fight. King of the desert, king of Sirol, king of the Forest.”
“But you said the butterflies are girls. They’re queens then, can’t be kings.”
“You got me there. Queens they were. But a girl can be king, queen, first of her Pack, Archer, whatever she wants to be.”
“Is it true about the butterflies, Da-Ren?”
“What?”
“That they only live for half a moon.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mother.”
“She knows best; she is of the Forest.”
“Mother says it doesn’t matter because there will always be butterflies here. Their souls hop from one pair of wings to another.”
She ends her every word with a gesture. She spins around, flaps her arms like the wings of a butterfly. Never stops smiling.
“That’s beautiful, Aneria. Remember that.”
“What did you call me?”
Forget it. Forget me.
That was the first time I ever spoke to Aneria for so long. I managed one more time.
This was not our fate. We stole it. I cannot say more about my Story with Zeria and Aneria. It lasted for seventy-five moons, hiding like thieves who stole magic from the gods. The gods are searching; they’ll send their demons, so I cannot say more, Eusebius, forgive me. It is sacrilege to fill the papyrus with such happiness.
Why do we write? We write for those who suffer; our pain streams to their veins to numb theirs, to whisper: “I know. I hear you, I echo you, hush now, hush.” Why smear this boastful ink on their faces? Six springs of love, of Forest, away from the Tribe, Malan, the Witch; the blood of the deer on my arrow and blade being my only sin. I cannot tell you more about it. Why would anyone scribe the Story of Bliss? Why would anyone gloat about this other than to welcome his own doom? To awaken the witches.
They’d lost my trail.
Aneria fell sick on my sixth spring as king of the Forest, a couple of days before the sta
rt of the Poppy Flower Moon, the bloodiest of them all.
LXXX.
Killed a She-Wolf
Thirty-Second Spring. Eleven days before the Poppy Flower Moon
The gray wolf was circling our huts for three nights, fearless, howling, scaring both the living and the sleeping demons. I tried to seal my ears and ignore it, but on the third night I ventured out alone to hunt. I brought its hide back at dawn. The wolf howls became stronger after that night as the rest of the pack came to mourn their mother.
“You killed a she-wolf, Da-Ren. A sacred one. You shouldn’t have. This is bad luck,” said Vani.
He was one of the old Blades who had followed me to the campaign. Later, he had stayed in Sirol with Sani and had decided to join us in the Forest only that last winter. I kept him close as he knew a lot about what was going on back at the camp, but he was still a man of the Tribe, not of the Forest.
“Only an Uncarved boy can wear wolf,” added Lebas, another of my old comrades.
I could kill all the deer but no wolf. If one lives long enough in freedom, he’ll see all the prophecies come true. I tried to change the talk away from the stupid superstitions of the men.
“Has Leke returned from Sirol?” I asked.
“Yes, just this morning. He said he’ll come see you.”
“Where is he now?”
“He headed for the outpost up the hill,” said Lebas. “He was not well. He said these are our last days of peace. Malan’s war has ended. He is riding to Sirol, Leke said.”
“And what about Sani?”
“Sani is strong; he has gathered men. The Ouna-Mas favor him. He is heading north too.”
“North where? Won’t he wait for Malan?”
Lebas shrugged his shoulders.
“I must find Leke,” I said.
We had built a hut on top of the most accessible mountain crest. It was more hill than mountain with the west hidden from a taller crest on its back, but it gave a great view to east, north, and south, warning us of all dangers that might come from afar. As I was climbing the slope among the firs, I saw smoke rising from the north. It was as far away as could still be visible on a clear spring morning, but I couldn’t explain it. There had been no storm or thunder the previous night, and it was not dry enough for summer fires.
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