Tears of the Dead

by Brian Braden

  “I want to see the Library, Quexil. Let us pass.”

  “Beware these Scholars, Lord Fu Xi. They are deceivers.”

  “Let us pass,” I repeated.

  Quexil’s face screwed into a grimace. I knew it took all his self-control not to fall upon the Scholar.

  “Great Paqua will hear of this upon his return, sorcerer.”

  “Of course,” Amiran replied.

  “Quexil...” My tone carried a warning.

  Quexil bowed low and stepped aside. “As you command, Lord Fu Xi.”

  We stepped by, Amiran not looking back.

  “That patch of burnt flesh can’t protect you forever, slave,” Quexil called from behind.

  “Obviously, he wants to kill you.”

  “He wants to kill everything.”

  We climbed a flight of stairs into the tower which I’d only glimpsed from the gardens. A two story, gray protrusion from the outside, it always struck me as a wart, an ugly afterthought to the otherwise glorious structure. Until now, I thought it a granary, not worthy of a second glance.

  Amiran produced a jingling set of keys from somewhere in his toga, dangling them close to the lantern hanging beside the door.

  “Ancient edict dictates all colonies possess suitable accommodations for the Scholar’s Library. Lord Leviathan insisted this one be built as far from the throne room as possible.

  “Mind you, my predecessor, the Scholar Aric, built this one during the colony’s founding over twenty years ago. It suited his tastes, not mine.”

  “You mean to tell me this grand palace and the city were constructed that recently?”

  I remember supporting myself against the cool, damp stone wall as I grappled with the thought of the sprawling city and enormous palace being built in such a short time.

  “Yes,” Amiran said casually as he squinted at the keys. “Forgive me, lord. My eyes are not what they used to be. Ah! This is the one.”

  He fumbled with the lock, bronze scraping against iron, until I heard a click. I wanted to further examine the lock, as such things were also unknown to me.

  It is difficult to admit, but I grew uncomfortable in Amiran’s presence. It is one thing to be humbled in the presence of another god; it is quite another to realize one’s ignorance compared to a mortal. Every corner brought a new discovery and a fresh reminder I knew nothing.

  The door swung open, flooding the corridor with sunlight. I entered the Scholar’s Library and left behind everything I thought I knew, or could even imagine.

  I stepped into a honeycomb of mysteries and wonders. Thousands of cubbyholes covered the walls from floor to ceiling, each stuffed with tightly rolled tubes bound with a ribbon. Wooden ladders with wheels rested against these shelves. High above, a rickety scaffold led to a circular platform circling a domed ceiling. There, a large slit opened to the sky, allowing sunlight to pour into the great chamber.

  Strange objects, like birds fashioned from wood and cloth, hung suspended from the dome. Mysterious trinkets and devices, incomprehensible in purpose, rested on several long tables.

  I stood spellbound as he shut the heavy door behind me with a heavy boom. Several pigeons leapt into flight from hidden crannies and flapped around the dome.

  Amiran stood next to me and swept his arm over the chamber. “Each of these scrolls is a map, but not of distant lands or seas. They are maps of men’s thoughts...ideas captured for eternity and transferred across time and distance. The symbols imprinted upon them we call ‘writing’.”

  Amiran stepped around me into the ray of sunlight pouring from above and held his hands high.

  “Welcome, Lord Fu Xi, to my realm, the Kingdom of the Mind!”

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  As if in a dream, Fu Xi closed his hand around the apple. Fat, firm, and heavy in his grip, it felt as if just picked. His stomach contracted and cramped, both frightened and excited in anticipation. He put it to his mouth and bit down, teeth aching against the smooth, tight skin.

  Sweet, luscious juice squirted over his tongue, only to be instantly absorbed. After only a few chews, he tried to swallow but couldn’t. He kept chewing and chewing, fighting the overpowering urge to inhale the food, knowing he would only vomit it back up. He could not let a drop of this precious gift go to waste. Too weak to eat, he suckled the apple, drawing juice and new life like a newborn. Tingling surged throughout his body, awakening nearly dead tissues. His vision suddenly sharpened, colors springing to vivid...

  ...Life!

  His stomach heaved, and then relaxed. He took a bite. And then another, until nothing of the apple remained.

  Supporting himself against Heise, Fu Xi rose on shaky legs. He patted the horsed flanks as large teardrops rolled down sunken cheeks.

  “I searched the roof of the world trying to save you. Instead, it was you who you saved me.” Fu Xi embraced the horse’s neck.

  He didn’t know why he wept, only that he must. Perhaps he wept in gratitude for his own salvation, or his beloved horse’s deliverance. Maybe he mourned for a dying world beyond the mountains, where distant thunder announced the continuing Deluge.

  ***

  We leaned over a scroll as he attempted to explain the little marks and pictures covering the parchment. From somewhere in his toga’s folds, he produced an odd device and placed it on his nose. A golden wire frame suspended two clear circles, like discs of ice, which rested on Amiran’s nose just below his eyes.

  He noticed my curiosity and handed them to me.

  I placed them on my face as I’d seen him do and looked at the scroll. The symbols appeared twice as large. I took them off, and they returned to their normal size.

  “Amazing!” I tapped the circles, partly expecting them to be cold.

  “They are called spectacles. These,” he tapped a clear circle, “are made of glass. Many years ago, a great Scholar noticed how his staff seemed to bend when he dipped it underwater. Light has physical properties that can be manipulated, bent by transparent material like water or glass.”

  I handed the spectacles back. “The Sons of Poseidon taught you this?”

  Amiran smiled, the lenses magnifying his twinkling eyes.

  “Gods are perfect, and have no use for such trinkets. Nor did the gods teach us writing, though all things born from the mind of man serve the gods’ purposes.”

  He returned his attention to the scroll.

  “A symbol can preserve a sound, a concept or an idea. A group of symbols, strung together in the proper way, can transport one to a different time, make you experience love like a swooning maiden, or step into the mind of a man dead a thousand years.”

  “I must learn this!” I could not wait for Amiran to teach me and wondered why Mother hadn’t given me such an art to teach the Tall Men.

  “I would be honored to teach you.” As he spoke, Amiran removed a small cup, perhaps twice as big as his thumb, its opening blackened with soot. He pulled forth a long, hollow stem and inserted it into a hole at the bowl’s base. From the within the toga’s folds he withdrew a small pouch, opened it, and pulled out a pinch of dark, shredded leaves. This leaf was the source of the sweet, musky aroma I’d associated with Amiran.

  Amiran he held it up. “Tobacco...the only damn thing the Olmecs are good for. I am overly fond of it.” He frowned and looked up at the ceiling, as if considering something. “They are also good at growing coffee. Have you tried coffee yet, my Lord?”

  I shook my head.

  He snapped his fingers and grinned. “Tea! The people of Cin are fond of something they call tea. I have some, would you like a cup?”

  “Yes! I haven’t had any since I’ve been here. You are most gracious.”

  “I procured some during some of our tentative forays along the coast. I’m afraid I don’t know how to properly prepare and serve it. Would you be so kind as to teach me?”

  He didn’t wait for my answer and hurried off. “We shall have tea, and I shall introduce you to
coffee!”

  Coffee. It sounded magical, but I quickly learned I would rather have a horse defecate in my mouth than drink another cup. Bitter mud is perhaps the best way I can describe the vile fluid.

  “It’s an acquired taste,” he said apologetically, and despite my polite protestations, replaced my cup with a properly prepared serving of tea.I held a much different opinion of tobacco, however.

  He passed me the pipe and instructed how I should breathe the vapor. After a few coughs, the silky smoke caressed my lungs.

  We lounged with our feet up on the table, he with his coffee and I with my tea, passing the pipe between us in comfortable silence.

  “I take it you approve of the tobacco?” he asked.

  “I do. I do.”

  “Then perhaps you will approve of this blend,” he winked and tapped out the pipe. From a different pouch he produced a pinch of a lighter colored weed.

  “This herb grows at the edge of our Olma Minor territories where we mine copper near the Icelands. It’s one of my favorites; I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.” He lit it with a candle and took one long puff, holding it until his face darkened more than I thought possible. He exhaled in a long burst and then slumped deeper into his chair with a mellow grin.

  He handed me the pipe, and I mimicked the way he inhaled. Instead of the rosy, sweet aroma, this tobacco possessed a sharp, acrid tang. I didn’t think it as foul as coffee, but could not fathom its appeal.

  “I am not sure I approve,” I admitted to my host.

  I remember staring up at the odd slit in the domed roof, watching doves flutter through sunlight shafts. Before I realized, a delightful numbness spread though my body. I found myself staring at Amiran, a broad grin glued to my face.

  “On second thought, I approve.”

  “I thought so.” He laughed.

  I remember suddenly being hungry...

  …and happy.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  27. The Lost

  The sea must be respected, for Sethagasi quickly claims those who don’t. Sometimes the lost leave clues, like an empty boat washed into the reeds. More often, a fisherman never returns, and those who search find no trace.

  Sethagasi, the Great Sea, whispers in the surf, “Remember your dead”, and I will keep them safe, deep in Heli-dar. Woe to those who forget the lost, for at the end of all things I will disgorge them upon you, and the waters will be filled with the tears of the dead.” – Lore of the Lo

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  He rarely leaves that spot, even to come to bed.

  Recessed in the shadows of the adjoining Supply Barge, Atamoda watched Aizarg and Ba-lok take private council through the curtain of rain. Aizarg hadn’t moved in what felt like an eternity; cross legged, chin resting on his fist, staring at the staff. It rested upright in a small hole carved out of the center log by the mast.

  The black-iron brazier, the largest in the arun-ki, blazed on the other side of the mast, its three iron legs securely lashed to the deck. Several other braziers survived the opening days of the Deluge, and were dispersed equally across the arun-ki’s core. Wood wasn’t a concern. Sticks and logs scooped from the sea lay everywhere in piles to dry. But they never fully dried out.

  Nothing ever really dried out.

  The canopies dripped incessantly, but the Köy-lo-hely and Supply Barge were the driest. Their tall masts gave the canopies the best angle to shed water, which fell in sheets in the gaps between the adjacent rafts. Throughout the arun-ki, the drainage gaps created rain curtains between rafts. One could not move about without receiving a wet reminder of the continuing Deluge. They also provided welcomed privacy, a semi-transparent illusion of separation between families and clans.

  Atamoda looked back at the Supply Barge’s dark center. There, Kol-ok and Bat-or slept curled up under a rough blanket. The orphans also slept here amongst piles of salvaged reeds, sections of damaged boats, masts and rigging.

  As Master of Boats, Okta directed that anything the Lo needed for keeping their world together would be stored here, only to be issued by Ghalen. The Uros and his family called it home.

  Ghalen slept on a boat near the lagoon on the Crane side of the Spine, with Sana sleeping on the adjacent raft with Levidi and Alaya.

  Atamoda wondered if Okta ever really slept. She assumed he would have been content with his victory over the sea, but since the deployment of the new sea anchor, he restlessly walked the decks, a scowl on his face, usually with Ezra in tow. When not fretting over something needing his attention, or chastising a man for not keeping his vessel in a manner Okta deemed seaworthy, he slept on the raft he’d constructed during the quest.

  By some miracle, it survived with only minor damage. Okta spent many hours reinforcing the meek little craft of driftwood logs. Instead of placing it near the flotilla’s center, Okta positioned it on the Minnow side periphery.

  “I want it always touching the sea, open to the horizon,” he told Atamoda. He never spoke it, but she knew he wanted a place to keep a lookout for his people, silently praying for a glimpse of them emerging from the unending storm.

  Ezra rarely left Okta’s side, but he never slept on the little raft. Atamoda suspected the Hur boy feared being so close to the open sea, terrified a rogue wave would sweep him to his death. All but two of Virag’s party had already been swept away.

  With dawn approaching, Okta and Ezra were aboard their raft, preparing for the impending ceremony.

  Atamoda’s gaze fell on the mast and the twenty-one gouges scarring its surface - one for each day since the rains came. Twenty-one days of scraping silt off of decks and out of boats, of mending rafts and patching hulls, of moving vessels and stretching canopies. Twenty-one days of rain, deadly waves, thunder and lightning. After three weeks of survival, the Uros deemed that this morning they would mourn their dead.

  Face grim, Aizarg nodded. Without another word, Ba-lok rose and departed to the Minnow side of the Spine.

  She wondered what matter demanded Aizarg’s full attention outside a meeting of the inner council.

  Atamoda hefted a small bag filled with wood ashes she’d collected from the braziers, and stepped through the watery curtain onto the Köy-lo-hely.

  The heat from the brazier carved a warm, dry bubble from the clammy air. She curled up next to her husband and laid her head in his lap. For what seemed like forever, he didn’t move. And then, slowly, she felt his presence slip back into this world. Aizarg tenderly began to stroke her hair, the firelight to lull her into a trance.

  As her hand glided over his thigh, the rain took on a comforting thrum. A fresh, cool breeze occasionally penetrated below the canopy. Staring at Aizarg’s staff, her eyelids grew heavy.

  The blood red metal orb seemed to shimmer in the firelight. She tried to focus on the fluid-like metal spiraling down the wooden shaft, but her weary eyes refused to focus. Maybe the firelight or the rocking deck played tricks, but the spiral seemed to coil and uncoil like a snake. She wanted to shake her head to clear her vision, but numbing weariness chained her to Aizarg’s lap. Atamoda wanted to close her eyes, but they would not obey. A first, she thought the other coil only a shadow. But in both light and darkness it wrapped around the staff, slipped down the rod, and merged with the staff’s long shadow.

  The blackness slithered and undulated toward her. She tried to stir herself to action, to scream and warn Aizarg, but her voice would not obey.

  With a mighty crash, the darkness pounced on her.

  ***

  To a clap of thunder, Atamoda awoke with a gasp. Sea spray covered her as the brazier sizzled in defiance. Aizarg stared at her with a mix of concern and interest.

  She sat up and rubbed her eyes. The staff stood unchanged in its hole by the mast.

  “I slept hard,” she said as the dream’s memory washed away, leaving only unease.

  He gazed up at the tarp, where rain gave testimony to a dozen holes. “Dawn is here, and a fresh storm.�
��

  Melancholy washed over Atamoda as she straightened her hair and steeled herself for what the day’s grim duties would surely bring. Lightning flashes illuminated people making their way across the adjoining decks toward Okta’s raft.

  “Come, it is time.” Aizarg stood to go.

  Atamoda picked up the bag of ashes and followed her husband. Before Aizarg slipped into the rain curtain onto the Supply Barge, he turned to her.

  “You spoke a strange word in your sleep.”

  Atamoda shrugged. “I cannot remember having a dream. Have I spoken in my sleep before?”

  “No,” Aizarg said.

  “What did I say?”

  “Rantaian.”

  RAN-tay-ahn?

  Atamoda shook her head at the nonsense word. “It was only a dream.”

  Without another word, the Uros and patesi-le slipped under the rain curtain to join their people.

  ***

  The rain fell straight and heavy on a flat sea. The lightning and thunder remained at a distance, to what Okta swore was south, where the sky loomed darker. The Lo had come to understand these periods of calm were only gaps between the heavier storms. The wind may abate, the waves come and go, but the rain poured unrelenting.

  “We need to get on with it,” Atamoda heard Ghalen whisper to Aizarg. “The lightning is coming closer. We still have repairs to make from the last storm.”

  “Where are Ba-lok and Kus-ge?” Aizarg said.

  Aizarg and Atamoda stood at the edge of Okta’s raft, the tarp pulled way, exposing them to the downpour. The Lo gathered just under the canopies in the adjacent boats and rafts, waiting for the ceremony to begin. To their left, the Minnow. To their right, the Crane. In the middle waited Okta, Ghalen, Ezra and Sana.

  “I commanded all to attend, even the a’gan. Where are they?”

  “I will fetch them,” Ghalen turned to storm off when the crowd parted behind them. Kus-ge stepped forward, followed closely by Ba-lok. In the dim shadows beyond, behind the crowd, she saw the giant warrior, the one called Spako.