The Infinity Sign That Takes Longer to Draw 2

by Zohar Neiger

  "Shaman Fang! You're back!" She jumped, a giant smile on her face.

  "Need help with breakfast?" I patted Janet for thanks and walked up to Alioth.

  "I hoped Akhet could… well, magic us some fire," she said, "but maybe on second thought, she can't do that."

  "Where'd she go?" I asked.

  "I think… shooting stars." Alioth tapped her fingers on the pan. "I upset her yesterday, and during our argument she said she wants to look for them. Where did you go?" Alioth’s nostrils flared subtly at the small inhales of her sniffing. Her eyelids crept into a squint.

  “Shaman Fang,” she whispered. “Do you smell like Shaman Diana?”

  I grinned sheepishly. I was responsible for her recognition of this scent, which made me regret giving her the moonstone. “I, uh…” I began to explain but held my tongue tight when I realized that, when telling her I thought she’d have information for Akhet, I’d also have to reveal I saw the symbol of Oceania on her chest.

  Alioth bolted around to face Janet. “What do you mean?” she addressed the camel.

  Janet inclined her head.

  Alioth steadily rotated back to me. “That’s far-fetched, Janet, they only met yesterday. Right, Shaman Fang?”

  “We did,” I said.

  Janet grunted.

  Alioth gasped, “Janet! Take that back!”

  I looked at the camel, wishing beyond ability to know what they said.

  What a snitch.

  I scowled at Janet, and she returned the gesture.

  "Well, anyways, I got some information for Akhet, so I hope she comes back soon. Let's try to set up a fire ourselves," I said.

  Luckily, I bought a few lighters back in the bazaar, so we set up some kindling and had a fire going steady to cook some beans for breakfast. The heavy, burnt smoke smothered us, making the world around me waggle. Alioth milked Janet and she offered the milk to me.

  Once the beans were cooked enough, I wanted to scoop an equal ration for her, but she jumped. "Oh, Shaman Fang, I'm fasting for Ramadan! I wanted to set up a fire and get milk to make you breakfast."

  "Oh," I muttered, "but surely, if you're travelling, you can eat?"

  She smiled, looking at the fire. "I'll try my best not to."

  I shrugged, sitting down and picking at the food.

  "I wonder if we'll run into any cacti," Alioth mused, "They can make some great green paint for when we come across the Northern Lights. And yellow Tulips can make yellow."

  I hummed. "I never asked you why you want to see them so badly."

  She took a pause. "I thought it'd be beautiful. You don't want to anymore?"

  "Oh, no, no, I do, it's just – can we stop by China? I need to return something for someone."

  "Don't see why not," she replied. "We're in no real rush. And, by the way…" She grinned wide. "Shaman Diana is pretty. I understand you."

  I felt a smidge of a blush creep up my cheeks. "Wh-what?"

  "Sudden change of plans because you were at Diana's? You're so whipped."

  "Wh-'whipped'? What's 'whipped'? I'm not a horse," I piped.

  Alioth burst out laughing, her shoulders jumping up and down. Her laughter was husky, and raucous, the kind that fades into silence after a while though she kept laughing silently for what felt like forever. Her stomach was quivering. "You are SO whipped. I'll go feed Sahar."

  I frowned, finishing my own plate alone in front of the fire.

  Part II

  Akhet was carrying 3 log-sized sleds. "I got us Holuas!!"

  Alioth and I already packed up camp, Janet's hump cushioned with the tent and the sleeping bag. "Holuas, huh?" I said.

  "Authentic Hawaiian, the newest model, made to the highest standards. Created specifically to 'whee' down steep slopes. Who's ready to shred a mountain?!"

  "I am!" Alioth squealed, running up to take her "Holua" sled.

  Like a few seconds cut from one film and pasted onto another, the exchange between them felt like a forbidden moment in reality. They both paused in sync, actively avoiding each other's hands and eyes in silence.

  "Well, Houyi? Don't you want yours? Your name is carved on the side." Akhet looked away from Alioth and lifted mine in the air, the muscle on her arm defining as she did.

  I went to examine the sled. It had a few Latin letters written on the edge, and I was resigned to believe that it was my name. It was made of four pieces of wood, one pair of long, spear-shaped boards stuck together, and two rods placed on the boards and each individually tightly wrapped in rope. Little wooden teeth stuck out where the boards and the rods met.

  "Where did you get these? We're in Iraq," I marvelled, testing the wooden teeth's sharpness with my finger.

  "Mist mail," Akhet drawled, "oh, I sent a letter to my friend Lilinoe last evening."

  "Your friend… in…" I said, expecting Akhet to finish my sentence for me, but they didn't. So, I took a leap into guessing myself. "Hawaii?"

  "Yep! I send letters through the wind, and they arrive fast. Then, she turns her letters into mist, and sends the mist back, then it materializes when it reaches me."

  "She's… a ku'pua?"

  "Bingo. Right on. She lives on Mt. Mauna Kea. How'd you know?"

  Akhet smiled innocently and I had to hold in a bout of laughter. "A ku'pua of the mist who teleports her letters to you through said mist," I said.

  "You got it."

  Makes perfect sense.

  "Did you know there's another ku'pua in the Bedouin city?"

  Akhet froze. "Wait, huh? Another – you didn't tell me!"

  "I only learned that yesterday!"

  Akhet stammered for another few moments, speechless. "It's the one I sensed, probably. I'll go check now."

  "But we were going to go sledding," Alioth said.

  "Soon. You guys just wait up for me."

  Akhet set off again as soon as they landed, and we were left to wait. Janet provided us with snacks from the bags, and Alioth picked up a stick to sketch something in the sand.

  I sat down with a little block of wood that was laying around in my bag and I forgot to take out, peeling pieces off its edges to carve something.

  I got quite far into carving a jaguar, and some considerable time passed, when a bone-chilling wolf's howl echoed in our ears.

  28

  "Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying." Isaiah 6:2

  I jumped to my feet, sprinting to envelop Alioth's sleeved arm in my hand, making her drop her stick in her drawing. From afar a huge dog was trotting in our direction, pounding the ground behind its hind legs, sharp teeth snarling out of its upper lip.

  I couldn't see what kind of dog it was, only that it had messy, dark grey fur. "Shaman Fang, move!" Alioth yelled, pushing me to the ground.

  "We need to run, Alioth!" I swallowed all sound into my chest when I saw Janet standing very still, legs relaxed at their side.

  I took Alioth and my feet and sprinted away, breaths quickening and lungs bloating then shrivelling.

  I witnessed how almost instantly Janet's legs twisted like liquid, a spiral of a gust turning opaquer until it was a fur-white whirlwind. Their large body dusted to the wind, joining the ever-growing swirl turning round and round. All the items on their hump plunged to the ground and were abandoned.

  With that, the wind blew sand our way and I had to bury my face in my shirt to protect my eyes. Janet burned through the ground toward the hound, gushing toward it and making the earth rumble.

  I couldn't support my knees, crashing painfully into the hot sand. Alioth was cuddled in my chest, and I risked a peek to Janet, far from us now. The hound was nowhere to be seen. The whirlwind sucked clouds into itself, seeming to summon more into its ravenous spiral.

  Then the raindrops started.

  The sand on my clothes and hair became wet, the crackling of the pattering raindrops growing louder and more frequent.


  Janet's whirlwind shrunk little by little, wrapping itself around the shape of a camel, until every dust piece and sweep of wind turned back into fluffy hair.

  "A wolf in broad daylight!" Alioth spat, "what the hell?!"

  The tingle of the wolf howl lingered like electricity in my muscles, but the beast itself ran away.

  "I need to get to safety," I said, "I need to— gah!"

  I broke free from the huddle I made with Alioth, my eyes looking around frantically at the horizon, the rain jabbing me deeply like acid.

  Trapped!

  I started running. Where to and why, I wasn't asking. The wet sand slicked back at my feet, and I was so small, so small, compared to this giant expanse of nothing. It crunched as I desperately sprinted away. Did my friend call back for me? Hah, no one did – I'm alone and surrounded, not by trees, but perhaps this way the beast can see me better. When did I take out my dagger?

  The moment I realized it was out, my buzzing mind forced me to stab it into the ground and fall to my knees.

  You laugh, but don't you remember how small you feel when terrible lightning shakes the sky? At the mercy of whatever's bigger than us.

  The rain stopped very quickly. I looked backwards.

  "Houyi, hey…" Akhet flapped her wings briskly, landing en pointe beside me and then crouching to wrap me up in her arms. She hugged me, her arms submerging me into a roll and her touch spreading through my nerves like the numb jitters of static when your leg falls asleep.

  She petted my hair gently. "Hey, hey… it's just a dog and some rain."

  Just a dog and some rain.

  "Let's convert your energy to something positive, okay? Now that it rained, the mountain slope should be extra fun to sled on. Extra fast! You know?"

  I ran my fingers over her arm like it was a tree root on the ground, wet with the storm. My fingers were shaking. Her wings shrouded my shoulders and they were coarse like leather armour. However, one of her back wings was missing some feathers, the skin pink and raw. I reached to touch the area, but Akhet withdrew.

  "What happened?" I said softly.

  "An old injury from the whirlwinds in the monastery's area," they replied, "the whirlwind just now tore a few feathers. The roots were weak from before. 's 'kay."

  I found her face, her rounded eyes warm despite still being a little scary. It was strange she ran into whirlwinds by the monastery, when I never did. The curse clearly worked in a programmed way, like it was still being controlled by a puppet master.

  "Did you find Diana?" I asked, not letting her withdraw from the hug.

  "Well, yes, but she's not exactly who I'm looking for." Akhet smirked before easing me to my feet. "I don't know why you got so upset, but sometimes human's survival instincts just go crazy and overcome their brain. Maybe you should be more like me."

  She ushered Alioth, myself and Janet with the supplies to the edge of Mt. Cheekha Dar. There, the soil drenched with the smell of rain like bubbles of scented air was trampled under our feet.

  The snow melted to a considerable distance up the mountain.

  "I found this area while searching for your flute, Houyi. Remember that?" Akhet pointed at a long slide on the side of the mountain. "It only needed brief landscaping to be perfect, so I took the liberty to clear some heavy rocks, don't thank me."

  "Won't you have an unfair advantage?" Alioth frowned, her wide nose curling. "I mean, you have 3 sets of wings."

  "Ooh," Akhet's grin widened to the fang, their eyes twinkling and their wet hair brushed behind their ear. "It's a competition, is it?"

  "Well, if anything," I heaved, trying to smile despite my sudden exhaustion, "I have the worst odds. Alioth has Jinni agility."

  "What!" Alioth put her hands to her hips, her long black dress jumping – "how can I use that when I'm wobbling on a sled?"

  "Wobble?" Akhet gasped. "Wobbling is for death-defying experts who ride it like a surfboard. No, you just lay on your stomach and glide. Here, I'll demonstrate."

  Whilst Akhet did indeed use their wings to fly to the top of the track, from that point forward they were only a nuisance for them.

  They held their Holua sled and situated it nose down and flat on the ground. Then, they got on their stomach and bended their knees, folding their wings together as tightly as they could with visible effort.

  Their path was one of wet stone and soil but looked clear enough to zoom on.

  They kicked off with their arms.

  Hollering, they slid at a quickening pace down the slope, stumbling only a little at a few small pebbles, and overall sliding as if they flew on a banana peel.

  Stopping a few meters from us, they giggled and got off the sled, striking a pose at our eager onlooking.

  "It's fun! Houyi, you go now."

  "What? Hey!" Alioth protested.

  "Wouldn’t you rather know your opponent before you strive to beat them, o demon?" Akhet winked and Alioth seemed to concede enough.

  Akhet grabbed my Holua from Janet.

  "Here," Akhet spread their wings, revealing their back to me. "Hop on."

  I eyed down her dress from the back.

  "Is this… two pieces of a dress slipped on your arms individually?" I asked.

  Akhet groaned. "You know, like humans used to slip pant legs on separately? I have wings, the chafing with clothing touching it is just… God awful. Hop on, I'll carry you to the top of the track, just stand back-to-back with me."

  "I thought you weren't supposed to use the lord's name in vain," I teased, getting a little laugh as a reaction. "But… Akhet. Will flying with your neck and ankle wings be enough to lift us both up?"

  Akhet nodded enthusiastically. "Hey, it was enough for Hermes."

  Hesitant, I stuck my back on her's, feeling the bump of the root of her wings on my spine.

  She covered me with her back wings, then took off with the two sets on her ankles and neck. I couldn't look, so closed my eyes, my heart jolting, but before I knew it I was vertical again, on the top of the track, and breathed a little easier.

  "Alright, keep your limbs tucked in and have a good time, Houyi."

  "Uh, Akhet? Before I go."

  "Yep?"

  "What does… being 'whipped', mean?"

  Akhet hummed. "Well, being so devoted to something that you'd blindly follow it and do its bidding. Like me, I'm whipped for God. Amen."

  I tried not to betray how horrified that sentence made me.

  "Go on, Houyi, time to sled. No hesitation or you'll chicken out." She slapped my back.

  I took my Holua and straddled the board like Akhet did. It felt a little vulnerable, and the view back down made Alioth seem the size of a pinhead.

  Still, I've done more reckless things years and years ago.

  Okay.

  I felt the sticky ground on my fingers for a moment only before I was rocketing head-first into the ground, holding so tightly to my sled I could barely focus on anything but the way it whirred like a motor as it hit tiny obstacles on the way.

  The wind was blowing in my hair, like a friend would pull it back when you're about to be sick.

  Alioth and Janet grew closer and bigger. My heart swelled with striking, hollow dull panic, that was also thrilling, and I felt shivers everywhere, until I eventually slid to a halt and my hair relaxed on my face.

  Then, I grew embarrassed at Alioth and Janet watching me.

  "Whoo! Shaman Fang! Well done!" Alioth cheered.

  I blushed deeply, finding Akhet had somehow made their way back down again already. "I'm a grown man," I muttered, "I shouldn't have… sorry."

  "Houyi! Don't be ridiculous. Live a little, Heaven knows you don't have much time for that."

  I smiled, huffing and standing back up, running my hands through my hair to tidy the stray strands.

  It was Alioth's turn, and she had to hike up the whole way, given Akhet couldn't touch her. It didn't bother her enthusiasm, though, and she did it multiple times without hesitation.

  Soon
after, I was nominated to be the judge in a speed competition between Alioth and Akhet, and I suspect Akhet let Alioth win.

  29

  Prologue to the Fairytale Book

  Another one of Akhet's ideas made Alioth too curious to resist, and so the first destination on our journey became Namak Lake, Iran.