“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.
“What do you call them?” I asked.
“Quince trees. They bear the golden apples. They sleep now naked, but they’ll awaken in the spring.”
I had found gold without opening graves, without slaying women and children.
As my gaze traveled up the hill, another sight caught my attention.
“And the other one, farther back with the red leaves?”
“Those are not leaves; they are berries. Frozen.”
I remember you, tree. You are the tree of my death.
“The blood of the eagles,” I whispered.
“What?”
“A legend, from long ago. I remember the legend but not the tree’s name.”
“It’s a rowan.”
The prophecies. Always true. Even I could read them by now.
Before we made it back to the huts of Kar-Tioo, I knew that bad news was coming. It always accompanied a full Selene and Leke was the only one who dared to bring them. A storm-bringing wind came down from the northern slopes and followed us back into the wood. It made the leaves rustle, and the branches creak, made the dusk seethe with anger. The beasts around us ran to find shelter before the Reekaal awoke. I had sent Leke to Sirol for the Feast of Spring, and he had just returned, three nights earlier than I expected him.
He was already holding the reins of my saddled horse. It was time to head back.
“Firstblade. Trackers made it back from the steppe. They are descending. Countless,” he said.
“Malan.”
“And all the others. They’ll be back in three moons.”
Apocrypha X.
My Name Is Asimea
As the One Mother heard the Legends, Chapter X
“Come in, come in, Asimea, sit next to me.”
Sah-Ouna made the faintest hand gesture to dismiss the two Rods from her tent, and once again we were all alone. It has been almost a whole moon fading and rising since I had last seen her and her entourage, near the hills of Kapoukia traveling north. The Tribe was coming home, to Sirol, a home I’d never seen or wished to see in my life. I still had hopes of escaping, hopes that had been shattered suddenly by the fact that my belly had swollen. I rode farther back, with the Khun and his entourage of Rods, Reghen, and warlords of other tribes, enslaved or defeated. The winter had been bitter and bone cracking, a constant wind from the north whipping the life out of our skin, killing the pack animals one by one. We were making slow progress, and I was relieved that I hadn’t seen the First Witch for so long. She was the keeper of my secrets, and worse; I was the keeper of hers.
“It has been what now? Almost a month?” Sah-Ouna asked me, not expecting an answer.
A month? An unwise use of words.
“We must be more careful, First One. Those hides are tightly woven, but the wind steals our words—”
“The Rods can’t understand the words of our tongue. But you’re right. Always careful, always careful, you must be, child. Is it the son you are carrying in your belly that makes you more so? How is he?”
“The Khun’s seed is strong.”
You will not get any other answer from me.
“It is; he is.”
“As it should be, for he is the grandson of Khun-Taa, the son of your son, Malan.”
“Shhh, shhh, remember your words. The hides will grow ears and hear us. Never repeat those words, child. My secret story—”
“Should we find a name for it? The Apocryphal Words?”
“The Apocrypha! That’s a good name. It will remind you never to speak of it but in a distant future.”
“I have never uttered a word of all that was revealed to me.”
“You mustn’t. The Apocrypha, must remain buried in the crypt of your mind and there alone until my very end. Only after I am long gone and the son of Malan, your son, is grown up and strong, should you reveal the truth to him. Not even to Malan. You are the only one that will carry my truth, where I came from, who I am, and I will move earth, stars, and armies to make you the First Witch before I am gone. But not anytime soon. Not anytime soon.”
“Your Story is safe with me. One thing I learned when I was a Bride of the Savior is to remain silent.”
I said the words in the Tribe’s tongue, yet Sah-Ouna frowned. I would never be able to speak the barbaric tongue as if I were born one of them.
“Are you trying hard, Asimea? You don’t have time, you must learn.”
“I don’t have many chances to speak next to the Khun. I listen, and I repeat. I ask.”
“Always ask. Always ask. Once it is time for me to ascend, it will be your turn. Ten thousand bows will wait for your song to guide them. You will become the One Mother, the First Witch of our Tribe. You don’t believe me now.”
Roasted goat and crystal-clear water. No belladonna, not even the slightest smell of boiling crazygrass within the tent. Sah-Ouna was careful not to poison the son of her son. She had traveled ahead of Malan and me until we caught up with her that morning of our great return. We had not reached the northern borders of the Holy Empire yet. I knew now that this would be a long journey back, to the birthplace of the infidels and the murderers, to Sirol, the Satan’s lair I had never laid eyes upon. But she had made sure that Rods faithful to her, men bribed by the favors of the flesh of the younger Ouna-Mas, would keep an eye on me. I was under their watchful eye every day and night. Except for that one night she’d know nothing about.
“How could I become the One Mother? I am not even born of this tribe.”
“Oh, but neither was I. And they consider this a good omen. They believe you were sent from Enaka. I have been waiting for you long before I saw you, since the first night I dreamed of my death, long-long ago. It was on that first moon after Malan became Khun. As if the earth stopped shaking and wailing under my feet for the first time, after all those years. The screams died out, and I heard Enaka whispering that I must rest now, nothing more to do to help him. And my Malan heard the earth as well, the boy became a man, the man became a Khun in one night, his father and the blood of his Tribe overtook and consumed him. He shut me out of his thoughts; he did not need for me. It pained me; it still does, more so now. He keeps me close
to his throne, but only as an ornamental figure, a silent ancient statue that his men fear and respect. He listens less and less to my advice. He thinks he carves his fate. All men do. All men do until they meet the fate I prepared for them.”
The campaign had taken its toll on Sah-Ouna’s strength. Her scrawny neck couldn’t support her head or her back anymore. Even the most powerful witch cannot sustain herself on belladonna and potent poisons, or feed solely on promises of revenge and unforgiven blood. Her eyes peered away from me almost shut, toward the embers. And then she turned and looked at me hard with dark bead, wide-open, sparkling with a tear or unfulfilled hatred. She took my hand in hers. Bony, cold hands. Her nails dug deep into my flesh, enough to make the unborn in my womb flutter like a thousand butterflies.
“Won’t they all see through me?” I asked.
“Not the men. The women might. But you are one of us now, you sleep, chant, dance, wash, and eat with the other Ouna-Mas every night. You have cut your hair; painted your head and your back with glistening silver. This magical silver river instead of hair. And this long-shaped head of yours; I knew when I first saw you. That night.”
That night.
Our convent of the Brides of the Savior was hidden well inside the stony hills—so we thought—about two days ride south of Zatra. Nobody ever cared to bring good or harm to the convent, I had been abandoned as a babe, and raised there by the older sisters, worshipping only the One God, waiting for the Day of Salvation.
Apocalypse first. That night. An endless horde of riders, storming the yard with torch and iron, pulling my sisters out of their brief sleep before the Six Psalms service.
“O Lord, why are they who afflict me multiplied?”
They didn’t rape and kill, not in the beginning. Once the torches lit our faces, their bellows silenced, and only our screams could be heard. They froze, as if we had some magic, gathered us in a circle, and were just staring at us, whispering among them.
“Longskulls. That was great luck. Your sisters, you, all longskulls,” whispered Sah-Ouna.
“Yes, I am, they were. It was the practice of the Brides of Our Savior. Band the head of the newborn—”
“Great luck for both of us!”
Great luck, for me. The bloodhounds, man and animal, waited for Sah-Ouna to arrive, awestruck at the sight of our uncovered heads.
“We found the longskull witches of the Deadwalkers. What is to be done?”
“Kill’em all.”
Except for those two. Sah-Ouna pulled young sister Anna and me out. The men kept looking at us as if they were not approving of Sah-Ouna’s choice, yet too frightened to say more. Under our cloth, we were the fairest-looking, the ones who would scream longer. But we were the ones chosen to live, at least I was—Anna emptied her wrists the first chance she got. The Rods had us follow the First Witch, and we walked away. Away from the screams that rose again. We walked slowly, so that I could hear my sisters for a long time. I turned my head only once, tears burning down my cheeks. The men were ripping them apart, raping, ripping. Naked and nailed to the cross.
Lord, have mercy. Lord, have mercy.
The only Psalm of that bloody starless night.
When the nightmares return and burn my mind, I become cold as a stone, frozen. Sah-Ouna brought me back with her words.
“The men will not see through you. Ever. You, as I before you, came from the other side, but you have the signs of Enaka. The long skull, those eyes so black and round, the breasts of youth and life. The men worship and dream. They’ll fight and bleed at your feet. You will be the one to lead after me. But not anytime soon. Your son, my grandson is unborn. It will be eighteen full winters before he rises to become Khun.”
“I will raise him with—”
“We will, we will. We will keep him here with the newborn Ssons. He will be raised a Sson and a longskull himself. A Sson will become Khun, and all will bow to him. But tell me, first. Back in Apelo.”
She knew. Of course, she knew. She has the eyes of the Rods, the Ssons, and the Reghen follow everyone.
“Yes, the Khun sent me over to Da-Ren that night before the battle.”
Her eyes were piercing me silently.
I felt a persistent taste of copper and iron on my tongue. It had started after my belly grew and had not gone away. The smoke of the tent blocked my breath and made the taste even worse as if I were chewing bloody blades. It could be fear.
“Did you, Asimea? Him?”
“First Witch! How could I? No, I didn’t touch him. I brought the Khun’s orders, the night before the battle, I brought your prophecy to Da-Ren’s men, at dawn. And left.”
“He shouldn’t have sent you. There were others that could deliver the words.”
“The Khun wanted me to go. But I returned to his tent that morning the day before the battle.”
But the Khun never touched me. Not once. He doesn’t care about the pleasures of the flesh. Da-Ren was the one inside me.
“Enough of that. Nothing can be hidden. I will know once I see. Once I see.”
She still repeats the words twice, an old habit from when she was a young girl. She will know once she sees the child. But her eyesight is failing her more and more, and the belladonna will undo her sooner or later. Sometimes I think she wouldn’t even recognize me if it was not for the silver stream painted on my bald head and down my back. She liked to follow the stream with her fingers down when she first took me by her side. Every night. That’s all she did. As if I were a little dog, a snow rabbit she kept by her side. It was the others that taught me the pleasures of the flesh. How to satisfy the men, the Khun. But Malan never touches me; the lessons are wasted.
“You will be my eternal memory, Asimea. You are the bearer of the Apocrypha, the Storykeeper. Only you know where I came from, of Jak-Ur, the man who killed my brother and gave me a daughter, only you know how I fooled Khun-Taa. You will let your son know when it is time; you will let him know that our bloodline is above all tribes, he is meant to rule this world. He is one born of the Tribe and the Empire, of the east and the west. He is the son of a Khun, the grandson of a Khun.”
How do you know that it is even a boy? A son?
She knows. I know. It is those dreams that come to me at night, wild horses galloping, a gold-beaked hawk flying above the mountaintops. I don’t dream of the Savior anymore; I lost him that night when he was crucified along with my sisters at the convent. I only dream of my son. Da-Ren’s son.
“I will carry your secrets, First Witch. I will carry them forever, bury them deep in my soul, for no one else to know.”
But I will carry my secrets too, and you will never know.
“I know you will. You are the blessing of Enaka. Asimea, the one who came to illuminate my silver winters. But I worry about him. How is he?”
“The Khun?”
“Who else?”
What do I know about him? He never talks, he never cares, never rests. He only drinks the wine. He carries the weight of a hundred tribes, the blood of their children, the curses of their beheaded mothers. Their bodies rot, and the worms of their revenge crawl into his mind.
“How is he, Asimea? Why is he traveling so slowly? I’ve been waiting for almost a moon for you to catch up.”
“He doesn’t wish to return to Sirol. I can sense that.”
“He must, he must. You don’t know this, you haven’t felt it yet, never been there, but it is in Sirol where we, the Ouna-Mas, have the most power. Blackvein, the Iron Valley, even the fear of the Forest, everything feeds Enaka’s Stories there. Out here, our magic weakens. This Empire is a land of many gods. Not just your One Savior. Many more, ancient ones, with cunning powers. They sleep in the ashen caves, the olive trees, the salt lakes.”
“Your son, our Khun, bows to no one. Not your Goddess and not the One God of the Empire. He won’t rest until they all kneel before him, under one godless empire. It will be some time before we are back in Sirol if we ever make it.”
�
�You rip my chest apart, you, knowing more than I do. He has forsaken me. Tell me more.”
“I wish I knew more. Forgive me.”
“Forgive. Those kind words of our mother tongue, are lost to me. How long since I’ve heard that word. It was my twin brother who said it to me, when we were young, a few days before they murdered him. Haven’t heard the word since then, it is not a word of the Tribe. I am glad we can talk in my birth tongue. Makes it safer too. I…forgive you. But let me know, everything you saw.”
“The Khun is recruiting all tribes, men and women, to follow him to Sirol. But he doesn’t have Sirol in his mind. He talks of Thalassopolis, and then crossing the Endless Forest. The Western Empire. The defeated will join the new Tribe he says. Unite as one.”
“Foolish, foolish, man! How many have tried and died before him. We need to find a way to change all this.”
“But is it for us to stop him, First Witch?”
“We can’t fight the men with blades. We are to listen, to be there, to plant the seed, and say the right words when the time is right. We must enter the men, just as they enter us. Once they open up, and they are ready to listen we penetrate with sacred words and dark curses. This is our way, how we win. Plant the seed and let it grow. Your seed.”
“It is not going to be long now.”
“No, it is not. This belly of yours has swollen. Drink the water, eat the meat, my child. Any day now, you’ll give birth to him, the next one. Is the Khun asking?”
“No.”
Malan doesn’t care. My swollen belly, how it came about, that’s the last thing on his mind.
“Better that way. Better. We must keep the baby away from him now. Close to me, to raise with the Ssons. Malan should never know. A king doesn’t want to see the face of the next one; it is the face of his death. You will stay here next to me until you give birth. I want to see him first, see him first.”
She didn’t have more words. She had told me everything, her burden, her Apocryphal Story from when she was a little girl. My name is Asimea, and I will be the One Mother. I am the Storykeeper of Sah-Ouna, yet I cannot write words down, not until she is long gone. More so because I don’t know how to write, I must remember every word and sigh, every silent stare hiding more words unspoken. She was weary, dead silent, both eyes staring at the embers.
Drakon Book IV: Butterfly Page 10
