by Tanith Lee
What is he doing here? said all the house, meaning, why ever had he got himself born there, to annoy them.
“You must mend your ways,” said pedants to Chavir, as he lay along the dappled boughs above them.
“I have no ways,” answered Chavir, diving into a rock pool.
“Conceivably he is infected by a devil. Or a multiplicity of devils,” muttered some. “Does he perhaps change into a were-creature at the ripeness of the moon?”
But Chavir did not do so, save in those dreams of his.
“Eat with me, get drunk with me, plot with me, quarrel with me, lie with me,” said the court.
“Go elsewhere,” said Chavir.
More than thrice, enemies—rejected suitors, incensed others—sent agents. The fleet-footed assassins tripped and fell from roofs. The cobras were found nestled in the bosom of unbitten Chavir.
“Who is that boy?” said the king, when Chavir stalked by him, unbowing, unnoticing, as the crowd fell loyally prostrate.
“The thirty-third son, majesty.”
“Award him,” said the king, “thirty-three lashes.”
“That must undoubtedly kill him,” said the king’s steward, with optimism.
Having been given the slip, they did not find the boy again before dawn, for he was in a spot they had not thought of—his own bedchamber. There he lay as the sun stared in on him, tossing in a golden nightmare. He sang in his sleep, in the grip of the dream. He sang he was a mantis balanced on a lake. He sang he was a lord and lay in a bag of dice. He sang he loved the girl child of a magician or a wagon master or a prince whose eyes were night. He sang of one he called Night’s Daughter.
His voice was so musical they paused to listen. Then they shook themselves and woke him up.
“Come to the yards, Chavir.”
“Come and be whipped, Chavir.”
“Thirty-three strokes. You have outshone yourself before the king.”
“Thirty-three?” said Chavir. “Madness. I did not get myself born to die. I have better things to do.”
And leaping from them, like poreless lightning searing through their hands, he broke the metal lattice of the window, sprang from its sill, entered a tree—blazed there, outshining the sun, this time—and was gone.
At the king’s command, Chavir was hunted for some months about the hill country. And not found.
• • •
A bunch of days after Ezail’s seventeenth birthday, as her guardian sat contemplating that lock of her unwithering hair, a stranger came seeking him.
“Wagon master, I will be frank with you. I and mine desire to make a pilgrimage to the holy city Jhardamorjh. It is a long way off, and no other will take our custom. We mean to arrive during the festival month of the Exaltation, whose obscure rites we would study. Here is gold. We shall pay generously. What do you say?”
“I have heard of Jhardamorjh, but thought it a legend. Are you precise that it exists?” The pilgrim protested that it did. “Then it has great wonders, does it not? Animals of stone that speak, a mystical fountain that cures all ills?”
“So it is said.”
After some further exchanges, the wagon master agreed to the enterprise. In his heart he had beheld Ezail, rising from a magic basin in that unknown city, straight and fair. He rebuked himself for the fantasy, for miracles were nowadays in short supply. “Nevertheless, she shall ride with me. For if it is true the statues talk or chant, as I remember being told when a brat, we had better witness it before I am too old. Besides the road lies northward, this fellow says, a trek of nearly half a year. I would not be parted from her so long.”
• • •
The road north passed among high plains and tunneled through vast forests. Winter met them on the way. Pillars of rain stood from earth to heaven where the trees did not. They came to a yellow river, storming in the wet. A bridge of black granite went over it that it took an hour to cross. But four months had gone already.
Then they rode into a country of valleys, a land of spring. Other caravans were on the paths. As men hailed one another, all spoke now of going to Jhardamorjh. And in the encampments there came to be dancings and fairs, barter and selling and unbridled tales. Many lovely girls were traveling in carts, or in litters borne by strong slaves, chariots pulled by snowy asses.
“It is for the Festival,” said the pilgrims, who gossiped with all and sundry. “The month of the Exaltation falls once only in every seven years.”
But the rites were merely alluded to, not discussed openly. The glamorous girls looked proudly between their beaded curtains and under their pearly veils.
The pilgrims gleaned this much: One maiden would be chosen for a nameless honor. All wanted it, and glared upon the rest with daggers for eyes. The same with their families and kin who accompanied them. And as they drew nearer the city there were sometimes hot words or blows, and once a poisoning, it was said. And once, as they traveled, the wagon master espied a girl seated at the wayside sobbing. Drawing rein, he called to her, but she would not answer, hid her face.
Now Ezail’s nurse had grown elderly and had not come on the trek, but the girl companion of Ezail, who had bright sharp eyes and neat sharp ears, she announced to the wagonmaster, “Last night I saw that one standing by her father’s cart and weeping. She said, ‘I will not.’ and he said, ‘Then go home on your own.’ And there she is, about to do it.”
“But what would she not do?”
“It is something concerning the choosing, the Exaltation. You know I have been about, looking, at the fairs among the caravans, and I have taken note. She is not as pretty as others I have seen, and doubtless dreaded to be publicly dismissed.”
• • •
They came down to Jhardamorjh, the holy city, in the morning. The sun rose on its left hand. They flashed with rainbows and gold, the tops of Jhardamorjh, and around it there passed three rings of mighty walls, the innermost wall the highest, and the outermost the lowest of the three, being, that one, just the height of seventy tall men, sixty-nine of them standing on another’s shoulders. The lowest wall had towers plated with copper, the middle wall had towers plated with bronze. The topmost wall had no towers, but a wide walk where gardens grew. At sunrise every day during the Festival, a thousand blue birds were released into the sky. At sunset a thousand red birds were sent after them. The highway which led to the city was lined by icons and obelisks of crimson and black basalt, and beyond lay flowering fields watered by countless canals.
The lowest of the three walls was pierced, where the road came against it, by a gateway having three doors. Separating the doors, and on either side of them, were four huge beasts of coal-black basalt. As each hour of the day gave place to another, these beasts would, by clockwork or magic or both, lift one foot after another, turn their heads as if to look about, and finally emit a long, bell-like note, which could be heard all over the city, and also over all the surrounding country for miles.
It happened that the wagon master’s caravan was drawing near the gateway, in company with many others, when there occurred the displacement of the first morning hour.
Stiffly the black beasts unlocked their limbs, rotated their necks, parted their beaked heads, and vented the peerless note.
Several horses, asses and mules began to buck and rear, the wagon master’s among them. From the carts men and women cried aloud, or, sinking on their knees, made esoteric genuflections.
But, imperturbable stone as they were, the great creatures of the gate, their duty finished, only resettled their feet, returned southward their heads (which had the visages of eagles), and were still.
On reaching the gatemouth, every traveler stared upon these wonders. They were, all four, each as big as an elephant. Their carven bodies were those of horses, but their legs were the legs of giant fowl. They had collars of gold, gold on their claws and beaks, and in their eye
s black mirrors.
Ezail’s guardian had, in the event, been troubled that the girl might be distressed; her companion had screamed with honest fright. But Ezail showed no fear, nor any amazement. She gazed interestedly on the beasts of basalt, as she had gazed on more ordinary things.
“Clearly,” said the leader of the pilgrims, “it is for those creatures the city is named. For in the ritual tongue of the Festival, which is the antique language of this land, that is the meaning of jhardamorjh—a hybrid prodigy, a horse having an eagle’s feet and head.”
A while it took to get through the gate, so full with pilgrims and other visitors it was. And now and then, as they waited, they heard a sound like breaking pots.
Presently the way was open, and there came a man to the wagon master.
“Prosper in our home, stranger. Are any women with you?”
“As you see, there are,” replied the wagon master, for though Ezail had withdrawn herself from view, the companion was peeking forth.
“And this, or these, being maidens, unwed?”
“To my knowledge.”
“Do you accept for them, then, tablets of the Exaltation?”
The wagon master felt a compunction.
“Is it the tradition?”
“At this time, no unmarried girl between fifteen and twenty-three years may be within or enter into the city, but that she accepts a clay tablet, broken, one half of it being given her and the other half marked for her name and origins, and cast in with the general lot. By that means, when the hour of choosing arrives, no unfairness is likely.”
“I have heard of a choosing,” said the wagon master, “and seen how the beauties of all regions flock to it. But before I accept any token for my girls, who are of a more homely sort, I would have further information. If it is a choosing among women, why is the choice to be made?”
“We do not speak of it,” said the officer of the gate with a face of adamant. “It is nevertheless understood.”
“I am an alien in your land, and do not understand it.”
“Regardless, I may say nothing more. Either accept the tablets, or leave your women outside the gate.”
“I will not accept. They, and I, will remain outside. These pilgrims I and my servants have escorted, let them go in, for it is they who wish to do so.”
Then he drew his wagon aside, and his men gathered around it. With expressions of flummox, the pilgrim band parted from them and hastened into the city. The rest of the crowd went after, several girls and young women of unusual attraction hurrying with them.
• • •
Since he spurned the city, it happened the wagon master, after coming such a distance, never saw it. But, as he had contracted to conduct the pilgrims homeward, when the Festival was done, he made a camp for his own wagons and people close to a village in the flowering fields. The village itself was almost deserted, its inhabitants having gone into Jhardamorjh.
There stood the city then, about three miles off, its towered walls gleaming under the sun and under the moon. At dawn a blue cloud of birds winged up from them, at dusk a feathered scarlet thunder. All day the note of the gate beasts sounded out the hours, though between sunset and sunrise they were silent.
The wagon master kicked his heels, waiting on the pilgrims. He began to wish he might see inside the walls of Jhardamorjh. Yet also he did not wish it. Besides, the disappointment of the companion of Ezail weighed on him. “Could I not disguise myself as a boy and so slink into their city of sights?” The wagon master would not comply. “Something in this rite of theirs is unsavory. They will not tell it. You must not risk yourself, must not enter. Nor shall I.”
But for his men, he saw no reason to forbid them any more.
“Go in,” said he, “and when you have had your fill, come back to me and tell me what you have seen and learned.”
Therefore the wagoners went off into Jhardamorjh that evening, and stayed there some while. But after two or three days and nights had passed, the oldest man returned.
“Sir,” he said to Ezail’s guardian, “never in all my born years did I behold such a place. I have heard a story that once a goddess ruled on earth, and her vast metropolis cannot have been more grand than this.
“The main streets are paved with colored stones, and the buildings are of milk-white marble and black marble, trimmed with gold, and with dragon-green tiles or rose-red tiles to crown them. Everywhere are fountains which pour from spouts of bronze into basins of porphyry. All of these are said to be magical, and I have drunk from nearly all, so no doubt I have had benefit! Besides there are parks and gardens of diverse plants, and design peculiar, some making patterns that are to be seen only when looking down from the upper windows and walks round about, or having only a single series of shapes, or one color, such as a garden of white magnolias and hyacinths, the grass of which was also white as the purest sugar, and even a white palm grew there with a trunk like a bone and fronds of vellum, but some green butterflies played about it that the gardener tried without success to chase away.
“Near the center of the city there are many towers of basalt, on whose high roofs, gold-railed, gardens also grow, and enormous prisms stand there to entrance the sun.
“During the Festival, a visitor has only to proclaim himself to be given food and drink of the best quality, though they do not invite him into their homes, for it is a sacred time and that, it seems, would be a profanity. As for taverns, and houses of delight, I did not chance upon any, although yet again there are many beautiful women in the city, of twenty-four years or a little more, who, having missed being chosen when of age in previous Exaltations, now live only for sensual sport. And to lie out in the sumptuous parks is no hardship in spring weather.
“At the very midst of the city there is a sort of hill, and if it is man-fashioned or a natural thing I could not tell, nor would any of them enlighten me. For if you say to a native of Jhardamorjh, ‘Explain the rites to me,’ she will say, ‘Pray have another apple.’ Or if you say, ‘What is that hill?’ she will say, ‘Oh, kiss me again! Here is a rise more appealing.’ But the hill is there, and it ascends in vast steps or terraces, and a wood seems to clothe it, in which golden columns catch the sun or moon, and out of which sprinkling waters go glittering. It ends above in a bright something. But if you say to her, ‘What is that which shines there?’ she replies, ‘Are you feeble that you cannot embrace me three times?’
“But there is this: In the intervals of the night I have heard tabors beating and the sistrum clinking, and like phantoms the lovely virgins of Jhardamorjh dance through the avenues and under the white and blue and the rosy and the dragon-green palms. They dance with ribbons in their hair, and their eyes are wide and wild, like the eyes of mad dreamers. There is surely something they drink or eat here, the women, from the age of fourteen or fifteen upward, and in the outer lands they take it, too, I suppose, and the female visitors get to have it. Or maybe it is only what they are taught to believe rather than what they are trained to swallow.
“In the event, I have had enough. Tomorrow is that choosing they mention—and then will not speak of again—but which fills the air like dust. And I did not want to see it.
“Yet, I can tell you one thing. There is a girl I saw dancing at midnight by a magical fountain, and she wore a dress of gold fringed with scintillant marigold fringes, the hair of your ward, sir. Your ward’s companion, it must be admitted, has been braiding and gumming, and selling the product on the sly, at the camp markets along our way, and for this girl who danced some Ethereal Threads must have been purchased, to adorn her garment. And as she danced, on her white feet under the fountain, beating the tabor with her narrow hands, I heard her murmur over and over: I have put witchcraft on my tablet, they will pick it out. I shall be among the chosen. And am I not fair enough that of those chosen I shall be chosen again, shall be chosen over all, shall become the Exa
lted?’ Exactly then the woman I had been with, some twenty-five years old (she thinking I slept as I pretended), crept up to the dancing girl and perused her with envious hatred. ‘Hear me,’ she said, “even if they choose you, they may break the rule like the tablet, if they can discover one fairer than you that they did not take from the lot. It is so. For, seven years back, my tablet was among those plucked, and of the damsels thus assembled they judged me the best. But then my sister, whose tablet had been missed, she stood forth before them with her skin and hair and breasts and face, and those who were to judge found her more beautiful than I. And so they broke the rule, and took her in my stead. Since when I languish here and lie with foreign men to ease me of my memory.’ And at that,” said the wagon master’s man, “I pretended to wake up, and both of them ran away, but I had learned all I might, and now I teach it to you.”
“In the name of life, what is it, what is it that they do?” exclaimed the wagon master, Ezail’s guardian.
“They have in their city neither a king nor a priest that I noticed, nor any king’s palace, nor any temple,” declared this man. “I believe their wealth and ways spring from some powerful being or idea, which is evidenced upon that central hill. And for this the women are chosen, to go to it. And the honor and blessing is frantically coveted. To be just whoever judges must first choose at hazard from a tub of broken tablets, and then choose again from the certain number of maidens so drawn. And this chosen Exalted One, she goes to the hill, and never returns from the hill. And seven years later, it is done again. And so it has been for some two hundred years or longer. And I will add only these words. That if I were a man here with sisters or daughters between fifteen and twenty-three summers, though it is a fine city, I would take those girls by night, however much they lamented, and be gone with them to another distant country.”
