by Dyrk Ashton
Now that she hears it, Fi isn’t sure she likes the sound of that after all.
CHAPTER SEVEN
Order of the Bull 2
Tanuki and his caravan of monks, pack animals and wagons pass through a gate in a wall of white stone. Ten feet high and three feet thick, it was originally built by The Bull himself. The monks maintain it fastidiously to this day.
The wall circumnavigates the entire prefecture owned and controlled by the monastery, known locally as Taurus Minor. It is officially termed protected land and a nature preserve where hunting and trespassing are strictly forbidden by Turkish law. When the flying machines became prevalent, the Order made claims they scared the wild leopards and the area was declared a no fly zone. To this day it’s monitored by radar operated by the government but funded by the monastery.
One doesn’t live as long as most Firstborn without obtaining significant wealth and pervasive tendrils of influence. It happens almost naturally. Aside from the Order’s longstanding sway in Turkey, Tanuki himself has powerful contacts in Japan, having financed through anonymous holding companies much of the key technological growth that has made that country an industrial power since what the watoto refer to as World War II. His personal fortune is significant, but the Order of The Bull, easily the oldest of its kind in this world, has a net worth equal to the Vatican. The only reason they don’t have more is they don’t need more, and decided long ago that to seek affluence for the sake of affluence is counter to the Ways of The Bull.
The Turkish people and authorities never venture into Taurus Minor without permission, out of a mixture of obedience to the law, respect, and superstition. There are rumors of the place, fables and old wives tales claiming an ageless power dwells in these mountains—and they’re right. The monks don’t proliferate such stories, but they don’t quell them either.
Recent technological advances are proving particularly troublesome, however. Anyone can access satellite photos of anyplace from anywhere. Reality TV of the cryptid and supernatural-investigation persuasion is ubiquitous—and a thorn in the side of anyone who might have ancient secrets they’d like to keep.
Tanuki and his troop climb higher into the steppes, marching through pastures, meadows, and harvested fields, waving to shepherds tending their flocks along the way. Squat stone homes crop up here and there, with youngsters playing near streams or feeding chickens that scratch about in stony yards. At the edge of a serene lake a group of young men wrestle, all wearing bright green pants with cuffs rolled up below their knees. They break from their grappling and hail merrily. All the while the land continues to rise toward the base of the mighty Kaçkar Dağları, the Kaçkar Mountains, sometimes called the Turkish or Pontic Alps, severely contoured with peaks and crags of jagged limestone. The highest, at almost 13,000 feet, are frosted in snow year round. How that mtoto general from Athens, Xenophon, or any of his 10,000 soldiers, survived their forced retreat from Mesopotamia over these mountains is still a mystery to me, Tanuki reflects, even though he’d seen them do it, and even helped in a small way by pointing out the safest paths.
The outskirts of the village proper appears and the muffled thuds of the animal’s hooves become clip-clops on cobblestone. There are none of the shining painted domes and spires of Byzantine, Seljuk, or Ottoman influence here, like those seen on the Mediterranean side of the country. Simple homes and shops jut along inclines to right and left like crooked teeth, squares and rectangles of white stone with flat roofs, arched windows and doors, though a few of the public buildings are roofed in red tile.
The sun is setting across the plains to the west, the last of the diffused daylight receding as a thin cloud cover moves in. Light snow begins to fall, white confetti floating gently from the sky, celebrating the return of Tanuki and his company of monks. Villagers grin and wave as they scurry about preparing for night. These are the Oblates, faithful watoto affiliated with the Order of The Bull, as their families have been for generations, but not monks themselves.
One last steep rise to a final plateau at the base of the mountain and they reach the monastery walls. Thirty feet high, ten feet thick, the stones each the size of a delivery truck. Tall gates of hardwood timber from far away forests open without so much as a creak, and are parted completely by the time they reach the entrance.
Inside the monastery they’re greeted by joyful monks who hasten to help with the ponies and mules. As the doors of the gate swing closed, Tanuki’s mtoto cloak, including his fur coat and hat, fade away. He’s now simply Tanuki, in Trueface.
Here, the disorder of the village layout is left behind. The monastery grounds were designed by The Bull, an architect, stone mason and master builder himself, according to a strict and logical plan, and are perfectly kept. The paths are paved with white stone, lined with lamps fueled by natural gas piped from wells on the monastery property, the buildings an eclectic mix of exotic architectural designs: circular structures with flat roofs, Nagara-style buildings shaped like beehives, mound-like stupas, stepped ziggurats, tall towers with spires, high-windowed halls with columns and domes, an open ampitheatrum, even a modest pyramid. The Bull constructed these buildings in part to honor the various heritages of the monks, but also because he likes to try his hand at all manner of stone-craft.
The monks with the wagons and pack animals head for the Cellarium, the monastery storehouse. Tanuki follows. He isn’t expected to help, but they’re always delighted when he lends a hand. Besides, he has items he wants to make sure get repacked for direct delivery to The Bull and The Rhino, and a couple of very special gifts he’d rather handle personally.
* * *
Tanuki adjusts his backpack and purse as he steps from the Cellarium walkway to the wide central path leading straight through the monastery grounds. Snowflakes melt on smooth paving stones lit golden by the lamps. Tanuki looks up to let the flakes tickle his furry face. Dark narrow clouds scoot across the backdrop of night. A break reveals a clear moon, still nearly full, its craters sharply defined. The snow glitters in its silver light. Another cloud bank draws over it like a curtain and it’s gone.
On his way up the path, Tanuki strides past the Armory. All that is kept there are wooden staffs, with which the monks train vigorously and are quite adept, and some light armor from ages past. On the roof of the armory stands the Gong Pagoda, a two story open structure housing a round bronze gong, eight feet in diameter, and a twenty-foot long tubular gong made of steel that hangs vertically from the rafters of the second floor, down through a hole to the first.
The path dead-ends into the largest and most impressive building in the monastery—the Temple of The Bull. Rectangular, the far end flush with the sheer rock face of the mountain, it’s built in the Greek Doric peripteral style and looks much like the Parthenon of Athens did before it fell into ruin. There are no windows, and unlike Grecian and Roman temples, no decorative friezes depicting mythological battles on its exterior. Those are displayed inside the temple, and there’s nothing mythical about them.
An iron portcullis rises with a clinking of chains and the massive doors swing inward. Two Sentinel Brothers hasten to opposite sides of the entrance and take their places, facing each other. They tap long staffs on the floor and bow in unison as Tanuki enters, snow swirling around him.
The youngest of the two monks greets him with cheer, speaking in Japanese, “Master Tanuki-san, welcome home.”
Tanuki takes the monk’s hand in both of his. “Greetings, Ebo. I hear congratulations are in order.” He speaks in English with a Japanese accent. “You have a new young one, I understand. A boy, and a namesake. Is he well?”
“Little Ebo is very well,” replies Ebo appreciatively. “Thank you for asking, Master. We are truly blessed by Apis.”
Tanuki is suddenly serious. “He doesn’t have...” he pulls the man close, “you know... horns?” The older monk laughs.
Ebo blushes and gawps, “Oh, no Master, no horns.”
“Hooves? A tail, perhaps?”
Ebo shakes his head, embarrassed.
Tanuki pats Ebo’s hand. “That’s good to hear. You just never know.” He grins and bows to each of them, then continues into the expanse of the hall.
The older monk delivers a teasing punch to Ebo’s shoulder. Ebo blushes again. They close the doors and push linen towels over the snow-wet floor with their feet.
Inside the hall, rows of columns march along the length of the room on the right and left. Attached to each is a glowing gas lamp. This is the naos, the main hall where assemblies and prayers take place, large enough for all the ordained monks to gather. The only furnishings are a few stone benches along the outer walls, but in the center stands a larger than life bronze casting of Asterion, 20 feet in height, smooth and shining in the lamplight, seated on an unpretentious, squarish throne of white marble. Tanuki grins every time he sees it. Asterion has always been skeptical of idols or monuments. On the rare occasions that he allowed representations of him to be displayed, he insisted they not depict him in his true form, only as a natural bull, such as in the Hindu representation of Nandi, or as the head of a bull, as in the ancient Egyptian depictions of Apis. The monks were very persistent, however. Year after year, generation after generation, they petitioned him, respectfully, to allow just one. Something modest, perhaps, but something. Finally, Asterion acquiesced—and they commissioned this. When it was unveiled with great ceremony and rejoicing, Asterion just shook his big head and retreated to his lair.
So, there he sits, the big Bull, staring down at me with his ears forward beneath gilded horns, his eyes seeming to follow my every move. Tanuki walks toward the statue in a zigzag, as he’s done a thousand times, just to see if the eyes really do follow him. Of course they don’t, but still...
After they freshen up and don their best monkly garb, three of the monks will be bringing goods from the bazaar to be taken up to Tanuki’s Brothers. To pass the time, he peruses the frieze relief sculptures on the walls that would normally be seen on the outside of such a temple. Asterion sculpted them millennia ago, with a little help from monk apprentices. Arges and Tanuki worked on a couple of them. The Bull put those in the darkest corner in the back. Tanuki can’t blame him. They aren’t very good. Though Arges still likes to grumble about it.
Tanuki wanders in the gaslight and shadows to the shuffle of his bare feet, click of his toenail claws on slick stone, soft hiss of burning lamps and huffing flicker of flame. The friezes are wrought in the Greek style, but if an outsider were to consider them to be based on myth, they would observe there are figures represented from stories around the world. There is Zeus of the Greeks, but also the Roman god Jupiter. Then Romulus and Remus, but Abel and Cain as well. Odin and Thor, Shiva and Ganesh, Anubis and Sekhmet, captured forever in all their immortal glory. Titans, Giants, Aesir, Vanir, angels, demons, Deva, Asura, bhutas and ganas. A veritable who's who of the panoply of gods and demigods, and hundreds of lesser creatures of lore. Thunderbirds, spiders, snakes, bears, bats, dragons, centaurs and ape-men, in addition to trolls and dwarves, gremlins, goblins, ghouls, flying fiends of the sky and monsters of the deep blue sea reflect in Tanuki's gaze. Most prevalent are half-men/half-beasts of a staggering variety, including a dozen configurations of human/canine and human/feline.
But these images aren’t taken from ancient mtoto imaginings or far-stretched truths. They are genuine reminders of the First and Second Holocausts, the loss of friends and family, the cost paid by the Deva Firstborn for mtoto survival and their triumph over the Asura—the “unfriendly” Firstborn who twice attempted to exterminate or enslave all watoto on this earth.
The friezes depict natural human men and women as well, the watoto, from the primitive to the modern, homo habilis to homo sapiens, and all those in between, fighting alongside some of the Firstborn and against others. Fighting for their very existence.
“Watoto.” Tanuki rolls the word around on his tongue. It’s the term the Deva Firstborn have used for the humans, for all the homo species, since they first came into being. It still exists in Swahili and means the same thing it’s always meant: “babies.” The singular form is mtoto, for “baby.” When Tanuki was young, he asked his father why they called the humans watoto. Father told him it’s because the homo genus evolved so recently, they live such short lives, and are so very fragile. Then he added with a wry smile, “And because it’s fun to say.”
The Asura Firstborn call the humans parvuli (plural) and parvulus (singular), which are words that remain in Latin. Most of the meanings aren't nearly as nice as “babies.” “Young,” “small,” “slight” and “child” aren’t so bad, but as an adjective, parvulus has the connotations of “tiny,” “mean” “petty,” “cheap,” “brief, “unimportant,” “trivial,” “less than,” “insignificant,” and “unequal.” Ugly and cruel, like the hurtful names many watoto call each other today. Tanuki sighs. If they’d only realize they’re all the same—and just how lucky any of them are to be alive.
Tanuki comes to the friezes he and Arges crafted of themselves. He shakes his head, making little “tsk tsk” sounds with his tongue. Nope, not very good at all. Then, in the farthest corner of the hall, are the two that always affect him the most. The first is one of the few representations of Asterion seen in the monastery other than the statue. It is of him grappling with his arch enemy (other than Baphomet, The Goat), The White Giant, Mithras, whom The Bull slew in hand-to-hand combat during the Second Holocaust. The next portrays a fearsome horned “dragon” on its knees, reaching up with a clawed hand, trying to dislodge what looks like a natural mtoto male clinging to its back with his arms locked around its neck. A breeze wafts through the hall. The lamps flicker, causing shadows to dance across the dragon and man, making them quiver, pulse, come alive...
“Master Tanuki?” Ebo doesn’t shout, the acoustics of the hall carry his voice clearly enough to Tanuki’s dark corner of the temple. Tanuki tugs his eyes from the frieze and strides toward the door where three young monks with snow melting on shoulders and hair are waiting. A young woman, an Infirmarer Novice who assists in the monastery’s medical facilities, stands behind a pushcart stacked with wooden boxes and bagged goods. The other are a Lay Brother who tends the monastery gardens, and the Cellarer Novice who had been at the bazaar this morning. Each wields a hand truck piled high with goods.
“Shall we?,” Tanuki asks. They’ve all been in the naos, but these three have never seen the Lair of The Bull, high in the mountain where Asterion, Arges and Tanuki reside. Tanuki grins. This should be most interesting.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Flowers & Figs 3
Fi’s ponytail slaps at her backpack as she speeds down the stairs (heedless of the countless times she’s tripped on them and fallen), wearing black stretch pants and a white quilted jacket over a long-sleeve blouse with tank top underneath. She ignores the taped-up “artwork” covering the walls. She isn’t a bad artist, maybe even talented, and though she hasn’t spent much time painting or drawing in the last couple years, her uncle has made the stairway walls a makeshift exhibit of her work since she was seven. She liked it when she was a kid. Now it’s just embarrassing.
She makes her way down the wide, wainscoted hall, breathing in the ever-present scents of hearth, old varnish and candle wax, then stops short, realizing she didn’t do the dishes, didn’t even bring them down from her room. But it’s already almost 10 AM. She has to be at work at eleven and she needs to make a stop on the way. The dishes will have to wait. One more thing she’ll have to make amends to her uncle for.
She comes through the oversized front door onto the porch to quite a surprise. It’s warm out, and bright and sunny. She checks the thermometer on the window. 72 degrees. Rare for late September in northwest Ohio, but it happens. Good, it’ll make for a nice walk to work. She removes her jacket, skips down the front steps and strides up the patchy gravel driveway.
Adjusting the straps on her backpack, she glances back at the old house. A smile blooms on h
er face. Even with its peeling paint and sagging shutters, right now the sun is shining and it feels like home.
* * *
As she approaches the sidewalk at the end of the drive, Zeke steps out from behind a large oak tree. Fi’s initial reaction is that her heart jumps, though not from fear. Then she hides a frown. Here comes the “talk.” She does have to ask him a favor, though... and she might as well get this whole “relationship” thing settled.
“Good morning!” Zeke grins.
How can he do that? What about the little fact that he jilted her last night, and she had a freakin’ fit right in his arms? “Hey,” she replies.
“Sorry about just showing up. I tried to call.”
She pulls her phone from her pocket. Oops. “I forgot to turn it on.” She wonders if she left it off subconsciously because she was afraid he’d call, and wanted to avoid the inevitable. She holds the button until it powers up. “So, that’s twice in two days. You stalking me now?”
“Yup. You look like you could use a little stalking.”
Fi raises an eyebrow, “I look that desperate?”
“No. Maybe just a little sad.”
“So much for my poker face.”
“Look, I’m sorry about last night, really.”
“Yeah? Me too. Did I flop around like a fish?”
“What? No! Look, don’t worry about that, okay?”
“Oh, I’ll worry about it alright.”
“Hey Mol!”
Fi looks over her shoulder to see Mol sitting casually at the corner of the porch, tongue flopping out of his mouth. “Mol! Dammit!”
“He isn’t supposed to be out?”
“Not really. I mean, he’s got a doggie door.”
“Must be big enough for a horse.”
“It’s in the back, an old cellar door behind some bushes.” She shrugs her backpack and hands it to Zeke. “Do you mind? I don’t want him to follow us.”
