Beasts of Burden

by Sylvan Scott

  Beasts of Burden

  ©2012 by Sylvan Scott

  “Kan... Motahatsu Kan...”

  Kan started. The voice rumbled like the pronouncement of God. It was slow and ponderous but definitely the young lord’s name. The shadow of the beast fell over him. He’d seen the tahn-chen up close before, but never outside the workman’s courtyard.

  Built like a cross between a bear and a wolf, the blunt-muzzled creature stood upright on thick legs but stooped to address the much smaller man. Its dull-witted eyes gazed down at the young lord from their twenty-foot height. Despite the tahn-chen’s placid reputation, Kan felt a pang of fear. A simple stray movement, an accident by one of those monstrous paws, and he’d be injured or worse. He panicked and stammered a sharp rebuke; it was all he could think to do.

  “Stand your ground, beast; I order you—”

  It moved closer, out from the alley in which it stood. The creature supported itself against the enclosing walls of the nahn-jin’tae—the paper mill—and the stables. Its lumbering, inarticulate movements cast their shadows into the street as it lumbered forth.

  “Kan,” it repeated. Its muzzle worked slowly as if wrestling with poorly understood ideas. It paused, childlike, as if taking the time to form its phrases.

  “Get back! Hosun’ke! Get back!”

  One of the house guard—Masunme, if Kan didn’t miss his guess—had come along the alley from behind the beast. He held his sword in one hand and small, round shield in the other.

  The monster turned its head back to look at the guard.

  Masunme stood his ground. “Sir!” he shouted, “you must leave here at once! It is not safe!”

  The sharpness of the order shook Kan out of his stunned state. He backed several steps away—slowly at first—as the tahn-chen swung its head to gaze first at one man and then the other. Its brow furrowed, an almost human expression, as if confusion was giving way to frustration or anger.

  “Kan...” It rumbled the name once more. Its muzzle worked roughly, inarticulately dropping into a growl.

  Shouts reverberated through the late afternoon air. More household guards appeared. Armed with swords, spears, and nets, they swiftly surrounded the beast. Masunme repeated, “Sir: go back to the palace! Now!”

  Kan swallowed but did not wait to see how the confrontation resolved. Within ten minutes he was past the jade columns, through the towering mahogany doors, down the ancestors’ hall, and passing into the royal reception room. He brought himself up short as he saw his father—Lord Pohl, the niahn’si of Haulu Province—glance up sharply from his maps and papers. The towering man looked out from beneath black, bushy eyebrows with a falcon’s eye. While not in the same league as the beasts who worked on the Komasaru Plains in the royal fields, he stood twice as tall as the tallest man. The mark of royalty, the height and muscle and power, practically radiated from his countenance.

  Kan quickly composed himself and slowed his gait to a more gentlemanly stride. His long robes swished around his ankles and sandaled feet. He swept a hand through his short, black hair, straightening it. He approached his lord, stopping ten paces away to lower his eyes. With a graceful bow, he descended to one knee and waited for permission to rise.

  “Father,” he said.

  “My son,” Pohl replied, “stand and tell me the meaning behind this … interruption.” The voice was as big as the man and echoed in the lofty room. The niahn’si was formal but not disapproving. Father was always formal.

  Kan rose. He straightened the twin folds of his rose-embroidered vest and gracefully nodded. “You do me great honor,” he said with practiced formality.

  Niahn’si Pohl half-smiled. “I do no such thing,” he said. “To see my son, so distressed as to forget protocol; clearly, something is amiss.” He approached Kan, slowly, taking long, five-foot strides to cross the space between them. He loomed over his son and placed a large hand on the young man’s shoulder.

  Kan took a breath.

  Slowly at first, he proceeded to tell his father about the encounter within the walls of the household compound beyond the bounds of the palace. As he spoke, his father’s expression cooled, growing displeased. It was what Kan had overheard the servants call “the face of the on-coming storm”.

  “But the strangest thing was, father, that the beast—the tahn-chen, itself—spoke my name! How could a beast, not even the largest amongst them, know my name, let alone speak it?”

  His father scowled. “I’m sure you misheard,” he said at last. “The tahn-chen make many sounds; grunts and snarls. You must have mistaken such a noise for something approximating rational speech.”

  Kan shook his head. “No, father. It was slow but clear; it was my name.”

  Pohl lowered his gaze to meet Kan’s and Kan immediately silenced his dissent.

  Kan was tall. For all his eighteen years he stood a foot taller than most of the palace staff and guards. Only his father, a few of the niahn’si’s personal guard, and the other blood relations of their royal family were taller. The transformation, the growth into the leader who would one day tower over the people of Haulu Province, had yet to instill itself, fully, within Kan’s body.

  “It did not speak your name and that is final,” his father declared. “You have been to the temple; you have studied the writings of the imperial priests. You know what all men know: the tahn-chen are beasts given to mortal men by God to serve. To suggest one could speak, could possess a soul, is heresy and unbecoming a young lord.”

  He knew his father’s tone sufficiently to know when a word was final. Still, his father seemed to want to drive the point home.

  “Follow me,” he said.

  His father led Kan back through the towering doors and into the ancestors’ hall. Rather than go back to the main entrance, he turned down a side corridor and led his son to a broad, spiral staircase. It wound its way upwards to the west tower. Following it, they emerged at the top; Niahn’si Pohl strode to the balcony and rested his hands upon its rail. Kan, as he always did when trying to keep up with his father, concealed his panting breaths.

  Below the palace wall and beyond the buildings of the household, past the royal dwelling wall and the wall of the city itself, were the plains. The cliffs began as the ground fell away past the edge of Inishan City to rolling fields dotted with patches of yellow. All across this expanse toiled the tahn-chen.

  The massive beasts loped slowly through the fields. Most of them were thirty to forty feet tall with some reaching an impressive sixty feet in height. Despite their size and power, the creatures were occupied in careful patrols, each stopping, bending low, and inspecting the small, yellow flowers that grew in patches between the broad, winding paths. Each of the creatures had been outfitted with simple clothes for modesty’s sake but, otherwise, bore no resemblance to civilized men. They went about their work inspecting the tiny flowers and, periodically, carefully harvesting them in their giant, clawed hands.

  “The beasts,” his father said, “do the work that God has decreed they do. Why else would beasts so mighty—so powerful and strong—labor to care for things so delicate and tiny?”

  Kan bowed his head to hide his scowl. He and his friend, Bailar, had come to this tower many times over the years to watch the tahn-chen in the fields below. Bailar had been fascinated by the creatures as all young boys were but carried that fascination well into his teen years. He would speculate on what the mindless brutes thought about when tending the vast fields; what they experienced when armored and sent into battle. Kan had humored him partly because of their friendship but also partly because he, too, was curious about the towering beasts. To have his father bring him to this place, the last place he and Bailar had enjoyed their freedom before his friend was sent off t
o school in Paillar Province, rankled him.

  “I … do not know, father.”

  “It is the will of God that the tahn-chen serve those of royalty and honor. Whether a land-owning molokai or one of the kohmanasi in the imperial court, all those of station are given an herd of tahn-chen in direct proportion to their greatness.” He paused and looked down at his son, face stern. “Those with authority and honor task the tahn-chen to such menial tasks to remind themselves of humility. Do you think that all the great people, the land-owners and high-born families, would restrain themselves if not for the example of the tahn-chen?”

  To Kan it seemed only natural that one would show restraint. Like all royals, he was bigger and stronger than common folk. He could easily best any of them in a fight. But more than that, at a word he could have them cast into slavery or expelled from the city. He had seen his father do exactly that to the “chattle” whose indolence and dishonor offended him. To a high-born, it was dangerous to not embrace restraint.

  “But, father, the flowers; the perfume that the ladies of the court wear comes from them … why pick those? Why not task the tahn-chen to other humble tasks?”

  “It is tradition,” the giant man rumbled. “My father oversaw the tahn-chen in their work as did his father and his father before him. Back forty generations to the first emperor, it has been this way. To question such traditions is to question the very foundation of society.”

  The finality of his father’s tone would brook no objection. Kan bowed graciously, indicating acquiescence.

  “Put this matter out of your mind, my son. The beast you encountered will be returned to the fields. You should focus on your studies. Only if you are worthy, after all, will God grant you the body and stature of a true leader. If you do not, you’ll be no better than the mindless, commoner chattel of this world. Is that what you want?”

  Kan shook his head and, humbly, took his leave.