by Zohar Neiger
They waddled to the edge of the stairs and dove off into the sky.
I shook my head, rubbing my forehead and buttoning up my shirt where I still could. Air caressed my skin.
I walked up to Alioth, who stood quite still.
"You scared the innkeeper," she murmured. "she saw Akhet's true form."
"I'll go apologize," I said.
I moved past her, only shifting a sideways glance before pushing open the tent's curtain.
35
Sun's Circlet
I am a fifty-year-old immortal, not a mortal of fifty.
You live differently when you know your life won’t end unless you end it yourself. An immortal life till 50 years old is not the same as a mortal life of someone who is 50.
There’s a different form of dread: rather than wondering what's the purpose of your existence if you’re bound to die, you wonder if you’re alone, forced to watch generations live and die and eventually live through the end of the world.
Yes, eventually the sun will explode, or the planet will collapse, and I will be there to see it. I think I'd rather just be bound to die, honestly.
I wanted to hide my immortality from Akhet and Alioth because I didn't want them to know my incident was connected to the fall of the empire. I didn't want to say anything about Kaguya's Potion, like Lan'er told me all those years ago. It was a force of habit - I stayed loyal to the empire even after it fell, and perhaps that was foolish of me.
Old commands die hard, and I got it into my head and never questioned it. Perhaps there really was some soldier left in me.
If I were a mortal man, I wouldn’t have been so patient in trying to find Kaguya’s Potion’s recipe. Not even three months of waiting. I would have been far more reckless, like before I drank the potion.
If I were a mortal man I wouldn't have waited until Posuo died before I decided to tell Huapaya.
I would have been freer, I suppose. Which is strange, because you'd think the recklessness would come with knowing you won't die.
When you're young you're between being immortal and mortal, like a young person feeling like they’ll live forever. I wonder how these years would have been like for me if I was bound to die. Would I have felt vigor for life despite knowing it will end?
I am a young immortal. I still feel like I'm 30, the age in which I drank the potion. I might as well be 49, or 204. It doesn't make a difference; I will always feel the same.
I didn't even get to enjoy it before I was struck by lightning.
Some of the immortals of the empire are hundreds of years old by now, and I wonder how they’re doing, and if they even survived the fall of the empire.
Inevitably I will meet one someday.
The empire fell, I'm guessing, among other reasons, because new officials refused to drink the potion, thus making a severe shortage of staff. After all, it was part of the government's foundation by that point. More immortal officials, many more years between the election of new ones, less people privy to state secrets, more solidarity between the government employees, better establishment of hierarchy… endless benefits to a large empire's government.
That is, except for the elitism. Elitist officials believing their lives are worth more than the average citizens', not realizing that it is the exact opposite. Something temporary is far more precious.
Those new officials were smart not to drink the potion, more than they realize. In reality, they didn't drink it because they thought they might end up like my sister. They didn't know surviving it was worse.
They didn't think that they might get tired of life someday. They didn't even consider it.
I didn't sleep the entire night, if you're wondering why I got sentimental. I blamed that nap I took. Only the sound of my endless breaths was present in the moonlight-tinted room as I lay down on the stiff mattress. I hoped Akhet would come back at some point during the night, but maybe she won't come back at all anymore.
I was staring down my watch's hands, both pointing to the number 50. 50 years old, 5 a.m.
I think I finally understand what the empire's watches were trying to tell me by having no minute hand. They were telling me to perceive my years as my hours, and my hours as my minutes.
Alioth was sleeping, a bunch of her pigment-making supplies lying around next to the bags. Sahar was in the corner, bundled up like a coil of rope.
I rose to my feet and stretched, realizing rays of sun started creeping in through the cracks on the side of the thick tent wall. How can I give up perceiving minutes, when time goes by so slowly?
It was nice to finally be bathed again, but I couldn't stop staring at my tattoos. Posuo was right all those years ago, I should have never gotten a tattoo, because the sound of Diana's harp playing the melody on my wrist stuck in my head.
What were the words to that song? I think the first word was 'Wispy'.
The curtain of the tent was moved aside.
"Mornin'."
"Akhet!" I blurted, but at the sight of their eyes, lined with black sacks and their mouth straight and solemn, I shrunk into my shell.
I should have known they'd come back, after all, I still have their halo around my finger. In a way, I have trapped them.
They walked up to the bags, getting a band aid and patting it down on their nose where the cut was.
Alioth grumbled, unraveled her blanket and slowly opened her eyes.
The sky was grey, and the ground was still wet when we finished packing up and left the room, not a word spoken between us.
Janet was awake, and Alioth ran up to her. "Hi, Janet. What?"
A long pause.
"W-… Janet, we still have a long way to go. Already?"
Another pause.
"Can't you at least help us cross the border?"
After a long while, Alioth's expression grew more and more miserable. We used the key the innkeeper gave us to the stall, and Janet walked out. "What…?" I asked Alioth.
"Janet decided they want to return home."
"Why?"
"They want to."
Janet growled at this.
"Have to. They can't get too far away from the oasis they protect."
"Why didn't you tell us earlier, Janet? What will we do with the supplies now?"
Akhet didn't speak, but hauled the two heaviest bags, one slipped on each back wing.
"Akhet's got them," Alioth shrugged, her own large bag on her back, Sahar on her shoulders. That must be hell to lift. I offered to carry her bag, but she flinched when I got near her.
I had my own loads to carry: Diana's drum and the sleeping bags.
"We'll have to leave the waterproof blanket behind," I said.
We went down the stairs and out the city, the buildings a little faded in the horizon as we stood on an expanse of brimming sand and rocks. Janet walked us to the oasis that was nearest, so we could set up camp for the next night.
It was a small lake, ferns on its edges like a fence.
"Janet," I said, "thank you."
Janet bowed their head. Alioth touched the knot around their neck. After a bit of thought, she lifted Sahar from her shoulders and lowered her into the hammock. "Soon, it'll get too cold for Sahar to slither around…"
"Are you sure about this, Alioth?" I asked.
She sniffled, giving Janet a long hug, wrapping her arms around the dip in their neck. "I'll miss you, Jan. I hope Sahar lets my parents know I'm okay."
"Is there no way you could stay?" I pleaded, touching Janet's fur. They looked at me, lowering their head and leaning it on mine gently.
"Janet says that they have a purpose they need to fulfil and really can't stay." Alioth leaned into the camel. "I'll see you again sometime, Jan. Bye, Sahar. Love you."
We three turned to Akhet, who had their empty eyes turned to the ground.
"What? Oh. Uh, nice knowing you, camel."
"Hey, Janet?" I looked up at them, smiling. "If you happen to see the princess, tell her…"
I felt
Alioth's eyes flick to me.
"Tell her I said hi."
Janet's eyes twinkled.
"What?" Alioth asked. "Oh. Shaman Fang, a message for you. Before Janet goes, they say they want to tell you. You reminded them, and they think you should know."
My eyebrows knitted.
"Janet says… the… Jinn Princess brought the ku'pua."
I looked at Janet, shaking my head. "Not now."
Janet set out on a gallop into the desert from whence we came.
I patted Alioth's shoulder in consolation as we watched them disappear, turning to the lake. Akhet was with their back to us and farther away, never looking up.
I then had a moment to assess Janet's message. The Jinn princess is Lan'er, and the ku'pua is Diana. Could it be Janet meant Lan'er brought Diana to the city, and they came together?
That must be it.
We set up camp in silence. None of us initiated conversation, like the calm between storms. At first I liked it, then I grew terribly bored.
Akhet didn't seem to be affected by the silence or boredom at all, sitting mute, not even whistling or humming. Alioth took out her notebook every once in a while, jotting down words and pacing, and I had to stop her from tripping over a rock on more than one occasion.
I was going a little mad. Yes, it is my fault that this happened. If I hadn't had the outburst last night, no one would have gotten hurt. Even so, somehow, the silence we built, like an ever-growing castle, every second ticking by within it a brick lain, grew into a fortress or a temple – too holy to disturb.
I took the figurine of a jaguar, which I made with the stray piece of wood I found in my bag a few days ago, and started scratching a fur texture into it with my knife. It kept my head busy, instead of thinking about my guilt and formulating a long apology which I'll just stammer and make a fool of myself.
When I was done, I cooked lunch, and the meal went in silence. Alioth didn't eat, as it was still Ramadan, but sat with me mute and with a blank face. Akhet didn't join us, still sitting like a wax statue far away.
36
Emeralds.
Alioth gripped the emerald walking stick in her hand. She was walking away from camp, and it was not fear or wanderlust.
The stick drew polka dots on the sand when she walked further and further, out of the oasis, away from it all.
Her mind wandered to Houyi and Akhet – how their argument made her heart shrink. Standing at the door watching them, she was a child again, holding a drawing she made and was about to show her father. Her parents were there, fighting, screaming, grabbing their heads like a hand grips the top of a cane.
The next moment guards seized the squirming hands of her mother, who suddenly went limp, fightless, flightless, and it was farewell.
So indeed, Akhet and Houyi, farewell.
Whatever secrets Houyi hid were held by Janet too, she deduced. The cryptic conversation about a princess and the whirlwinds. Perhaps a real friend like Janet could make this journey less lonely and terrifying.
Janet. Alioth was walking in the direction they went after they said goodbye. Janet would surely come at Alioth's call, like a real friend would. Sahar and Janet, her real friends.
Her hand began to shake, just as the cane did, and the ground.
The ground was quaking, causing her toes to turn numb and her nose to rise from the ground to gaze at the hopeful horizon.
A swirling whirlwind flew faster, faster toward her, blowing shards of burning sand, like glass, in her face, and whipped her head until she was dizzy.
"Janet!" she yelled, not overcoming the rumbling. "It's me…"
Nothing stopped. The sand flew grander, a thousand pixie arrows grazing her cheeks.
"Janet, stop!"
Sand got in her mouth and she couldn't scream nor breathe. So, she ran.
It was swifter, louder, the ground shivering and clattering like teeth in the snow. She only heard it from behind for a split second before her legs were stolen, yanked and swallowed. She slammed on the ground before spinning and spinning.
Her head was pounding with a headache that came with the booming whistle of within the whirlwind, and trying to speak was only pain to the vocal chords, making no sound.
Help, help, stop, it might as well have been a thought.
Then she was hit by a blunt object.
But it had fingers, and it covered her sight with red.
Burning coursed through her heart at this thing's touch, and she coughed and breathed up sand when it removed her from the storm and lay her down gently on the ground.
Everything hurt and her nerves pulsed at every heartbeat. A familiar set of legs stood before her eyes, though she could barely open them.
"Hey demon, that was a close call."
The fugitive Seraph had saved her. Why?
Despite this Seraph running away from Heaven's clutches, they were still holy enough to burn through the skin of a demon. It hurt. It hurt so much.
She crawled closer to them, all thought, or words, clogged by sand in her throat. She coughed and coughed and hacked out her tongue, dryness swelling in her mouth.
"What did you go into a whirlwind for?" the Seraph asked, unable to touch her or examine her wounds.
They watched her squirm on the ground in pity, more and more white flower-like burns appearing on her skin, before turning their head back to camp. "I'll… go get Houyi."
"That –" Alioth croaked.
"Huh?" Akhet paused.
"That… wasn't… Janet. How is that possible?"
37
Dandelion Puffs
"Well, here we are again," I chuckled.
Alioth didn't laugh. I carried her back to camp where I set up a bed, piling my sleeping bag on top of her's to cushion the ground.
She was silent, almost out of tune completely, only responding to my actions with little gestures, and sniffed sharply if I touched an area that hurt with my cloth soaked in water. Almost every wipe produced a pound of sand.
She wasn't wearing her headscarf, but every time I tried to cover up her hair with something, she slipped it away. Her forehead was bigger than I remembered, and her hair lighter. More like the color of her skin.
"Oh, my god," I murmured. Her arms and shoulders were all permanently branded by the swirling, blurry flowers which Akhet's touch produced. Two sleeves of tattoos, it was like those areas were completely drained from melanin, then bleached. They looked like dandelion puffs. My eyes flickered in worry to her resigned face.
Akhet woke me up earlier. Well, not exactly, they didn't do anything – but somehow, I woke up anyway, and they were standing at the threshold of the tent, glaring me down. Without a word, they pointed deep to the horizon, lips pursed in a straight, unforgiving line. Only one word they spoke to me before flying off: "Alioth."
Thinking about it now, the band aid on their nose was off. Somehow it fell off.
I don't expect them to forgive me, not without me apologizing, but I wish they understood me more. No one understood what triggered me better than Huapaya, and he's dead.
Apologizing…
"Hey, Alioth," I said. "I can only guess what happened to you, before you tell me."
Her black eyes were looking at me, sure, but it felt like they weren't there at all. The static energy of someone's stare disappeared from her. I could have been looking at any plain object that didn't have a brain behind its exterior, getting the same feeling.
"I know I fought with Akhet, and I was wrong." I took a break from cleaning her burns, leaning on the tent's back. "I have these things which make me uncontrollably… well, uncontrollable. But, Alioth, I never meant to hurt you enough for you to try and leave us."
I wish she'd say something.
"I mean, you can see how much we—"
I held my tongue. If she spoke to me, I could make sense of her actions. That is, why Akhet touched her, why she was full of sand, and why she refused to cover her head.
The usual trick, of taking a wild
guess at what she means, will work fine for now. Just to keep the silence at bay.
"You can see how much Akhet and I love you," I whispered.
I don't know how it works, but I know you're allowed to take off your headscarf around family. I hope that is what she means.
