Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi

by Braden, Brian

  Black Sea Gods

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi Book I

  Brian L. Braden

  Copyright © 2013 Brian L. Braden

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 978-0-9890083-0-3

  For Ryan.

  Table of Contents

  Black Sea Gods

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Prologue

  1. Aizarg Of The Lo

  2. The Black Tide

  3. Fear

  4. The Tender Curse

  5. The Council of Boats

  6. Uros

  7. The Reed And The Wood

  8. Virag The Slaver

  9. Sarah

  10. Death Slaves

  11. Fu Xi, The God Of Names

  12. The Beast And The Black River

  13. The Children Of Fu Xi

  14. The Scythian

  15. The Two Dragons

  16. Heart Of The Dragon

  17. The Last Quest Of Fu Xi The Wanderer

  18. The Gray Death

  19. To Dance With Madness

  20. In The Land of Giants

  21. Hur-Ar

  22. The Fisherman’s Farewell

  23. The Black Fortress

  24. The Great Hall Of The Narim

  25. Conversations With A Narim

  26. The Raft

  27. Dawn’s Bitter Duty

  Epilogue

  TEARS OF THE DEAD Sneak Peak

  Glossary of Terms & Characters

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  My thanks to Amy Biddle and Katie French, my friends at Underground Book Reviews, as well as Kimberly Shursen for all your support from the beginning. Also, thanks to John Colarusso for his book Nart Sagas From the Caucasus, which partially inspired this story.

  Prologue

  “The only way back home is forward.” – Aizarg of the Lo

  ***

  Over a thousand lifetimes had passed since her forehead touched the earth. Her knees, which had long ago forgotten how to bend, ached on cold marble. Terror, shame and grief reacquainted themselves with the goddess’s ancient spirit.

  He emerged from the fountain in the guise of human flesh, but even still, the goddess couldn’t behold his radiance without bursting into flame. She heard the water drip off his body and splash onto the glass-like floor. He lorded over her, bearing a terrible judgment.

  “Nine have forgotten my name. Their temples are corrupted and their bastard children despoil what is mine. They are lost to me.” His voice, stern but without malice, did not echo off the alabaster pillars of the Inner Temple like a mortal voice. “Are you lost to me, too, daughter?”

  “No, Father.” She gasped, trying to control her terror. “Forgive me!” Trembling, she reached out to touch his feet. He stepped back.

  In the village far below they screamed her name, begging the Goddess of Tortoise Mountain to save them. Her beloved people were being slaughtered and devoured where they fell. She could save them with a thought.

  “I beg you, let me protect my children!”

  “They were my children before they were yours. If you truly loved them, you would have remembered that.”

  She pulled into a ball and moaned under the crushing truth. “Punish me instead. They are innocent.”

  “Punishment? Innocence?” He seemed to ponder the words. “You can save them, but only for a few days. That choice is yours. Save Nushen for but a short time and you condemn Fu Xi to share their doom. My heart is hardened, my judgment set.”

  She sensed her son drawing near.

  If I had not sent Fu Xi away, the village would be safe.

  The goddess tried to collect herself. “These strange people you ask Fu Xi to save, these Lo, are they more deserving of mercy than my people...of Fu Xi’s people?”

  “The righteousness of Nushen only thrives in the shadow of Tortoise Mountain.”

  The weight of her sins came crushing down upon her. “Do not make me choose. Take this burden from me,” she moaned. “Everything I did, I did for love!”

  “Everything I do, I also do for love.” He gently touched her head and kissed her gray hair. She shuddered under the power of his touch. “Love is a tender curse, beloved daughter.”

  Fresh screams floated up the mountainside as the monsters began to feast on the women and children.

  “Choose.”

  1. Aizarg Of The Lo

  What shall I say of Aizarg of the Lo? I can say he was a fisherman, a father, a husband. Shall I say he was a good man? The wellspring of his goodness flowed from his people. No man loved more than Aizarg of the Lo, and in so doing, he earned the terrible favor of Heaven.

  During those fateful days, Aizarg’s worst nightmares took form. A humble fisherman witnessed the downfall of gods and men and, sustained by love, defied both to save his people.

  In this mortal I found all I wanted to be. Shall I say Aizarg was my friend? I will forever call him my brother.

  Aizarg of the Lo, you shall not be forgotten.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Aizarg lay on his warm sleeping mat, reluctant to rise, unable to go back to sleep. His eyes and ears told him all was as it should be, but his heart remained uneasy.

  Something is missing, something is gone.

  He reached over and caressed Atamoda’s hip, savoring the way her curves rose and fell under his hand. He listened to his sons’ gentle breathing across the hut. His hut’s tranquility comforted him.

  All is well. Aizarg pushed the unease from his mind.

  Everything is fine, he reassured himself. Get out of bed or Levidi will begin shouting for you and wake everyone.

  The Sammujad nomads eagerly traded skins and furs for dried fish. Aizarg covered his thatched floor with fox furs, preventing drafts from seeping up into the hut. He wondered if his father’s spirit thought him decadent for such luxuries. Aizarg possessed a thankful heart and hoped Psatina, the Earth Mother, would see his humility and smile on him.

  The Goddess Psatina didn’t smile upon the lazy man though, as he summoned the courage to slip out from between the furs, careful not to wake Atamoda. His two boys slept soundly on their mat on the other side of the hut. A brass brazier sat in the center of the round room. Cool, moist air warmed over the smoldering brazier and then drifted up the hole in the center of the roof.

  Aizarg grabbed his tunic and sandals, then wrapped enough dried fish for the day’s journey into a wide leaf. He looked down at his wife’s sleeping form, her round breast emerging from under the furs. Aizarg briefly entertained the idea of ravishing her before the boys woke. Then the thought of Levidi shouting from outside while he made love changed his mind.

  Get up! There are fish begging to be caught! Levidi would yell until Aizarg poked his head out the door to shut him up.

  Aizarg stooped through the low, skin-covered doorway to meet the day. The late fall sun remained only a promise in the southeast. Aizarg let the pre-dawn air fill his lungs and cool his skin, cleansing the fear from his soul. Fog and darkness covered everything. He couldn’t hear water lapping against the stilts or the dock. Sethagasi, the sea goddess, slept this morning.

  His people, the Lo, considered such mornings sacred, when the sky and the water became one and the sea goddess assured an abundant catch.

  Aizarg’s home, constructed of branches and logs from the surrounding marshes, was a typical Lo hut. A small wooden platform, wide enough for one person to walk, encircled the hut with an eight foot drop to the water. A ladder extended from the platform to a small dock, just large enough to tie his boat and dry his nets.

  The Lo lived in villages dotting the northern shore of the Great Sea, sometimes called the Dark Sea by t
he savages of the steppe. Ten to fifteen stilted huts, constructed in the shallow waters just off shore, composed each village, or arun-ki. How far off shore depended on the old Lo saying: Farther than the fleetest arrow, deeper than the tallest Scythian.

  Aizarg climbed down the ladder onto the dock.

  He loved the familiar, fishy scent where the sea met the shore. His mother said places where worlds met, like the shore, were the most dangerous and sweetest places of all.

  The boundaries between worlds are always magical, Aizarg, she once said. These are the places you know you’re alive!

  Perhaps that was why Aizarg enjoyed fishing close to shore the best, where the vibrant odor always filled his nostrils.

  “Daddy!” Kol-ok’s voice descended from the hut. His long black hair dangled as he hung upside down from the platform above. His face looked fuller as the blood rushed to his head, making his pouting lips more pleading. “Daddy, take me fishing!”

  “Not today, little man. If I take you, there will be no room for all the fish I’ll catch.”

  Disappointed but not dissuaded, Kol-ok pressed his father, “I’ll sit on top of the fish!”

  Aizarg feigned serious consideration of the boy’s idea. “Yes...yes, that is a good idea. But who will go swimming with Bat-or today? And who will help his little brother guard the village? You are the son of the sco-lo-ti, with that comes great responsibility.”

  The boy withdrew, sulking, into the hut.

  Aizarg smiled, remembering his youth and how badly he wanted to go fishing with his father. If he were just fishing the nearby shoreline, he would take his oldest. Today, however, he also hunted the marsh with Levidi. In the course of the day they would likely discuss things best only heard by men.

  Next summer he’d teach Kol-ok how to build a boat, and then the boy’s education would begin in earnest.

  He will be a man before I know it. A pang of pride and sadness washed over him.

  Tomorrow, he convinced himself. Tomorrow I will take him fishing.

  Aizarg carefully folded his nets into the front of the boat as the horizon lightened to the southeast, ensuring each properly rigged to throw at the first sign of fish feeding near the surface.

  Hopping back onto the dock, he reached underneath the hut and loosened several cords. From a storage cubby, he withdrew two long shafts. His light fishing spear, about three cubits in length, had an eyelet at one end for tying a rope, a wide leaf-shaped stone tip mounted at the other. He and Levidi planned to float up the mouths of a few of his favorite streams in search of big sturgeon and carp.

  A thick bronze blade tipped the other, much longer and heavier, shaft. Too long to carry in the boat, he lashed his boar spear to the outside of the boat. Fresh pig would be a welcome addition to their stores of dried fish.

  After securing the spears, he lifted a long, straight pole off the dock. He dropped it like a peg into a wooden block secured to the bottom of the boat. Next, he grabbed a large square reed mat and several ropes, his sail and rigging. The winds would come with the full sun, until then he’d use a small oar or the mast as a push pole.

  The sun just breeched the horizon as he paddled away. His wake moved gracefully outward across the mirrored surface. Soon Levidi’s boat pulled alongside him on the fresh water sea, the dawn a bloody smear across misty water.

  2. The Black Tide

  The Lo only needed two things to survive: fish and reeds. The reeds were the stuff from which they built their lives. It gave them fiber for their huts, boats, mats, clothes, and even subsistence when times were hard. If their villages were attacked, they fled to the vast reed beds to hide and survive.

  The Lo believed the goddess Psatina made the world from reeds.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Aizarg’s and Levidi’s boats floated next to each other a stone’s throw from shore. They faced opposite directions, casting their nets every few minutes. They let the nets settle, and then pulled them up with a drawstring rope. Each time, the nets came up empty. Using their masts as push poles, they moved a few yards up the shore, and then threw their nets again.

  Unusually hazy and hot for late fall, sunlight reflected off the flat sea in lazy globs.

  A calm sea invited insects to settle on the surface, which brought fish into the shallows. Today the insects were almost unbearable, but fish were nowhere to be found.

  Between throws, Aizarg and Levidi quietly talked.

  “Ood-i and his wife are arguing again,” Levidi said.

  “We hear them across the water,” Aizarg said. “I don’t think it’s bad enough yet to send Atamoda to their hut, but we’ve discussed the possibility. Atamoda knows these things, so I leave it up to her.”

  “Good,” Levidi said.

  “Good? ‘Good’ as in I made a good decision? Or ‘good’ as in I defer to Atamoda in these matters?”

  Levidi smiled. “Yes.”

  Aizarg huffed and sent his net spinning. Stone weights tied to the edges expanded the net to its full diameter just before it hit the water. Ripples spread across the surface. Aizarg waited patiently for the net to sink. His draw line didn’t flinch, a sure sign of an empty net.

  “We should fish in deeper water,” Levidi commented.

  Aizarg turned to Levidi with a grin. “Or shallower water.”

  Levidi smiled eagerly. “Of course!”

  They pulled in their nets and unlashed the fishing spears from the sides of their boats. Aizarg knew this stretch of shore well. A marshland stream emptied into the sea around the next bend. The time for the giant sturgeon to spawn approached and this stream provided a perfect place to find them.

  The tall reeds were a wall of lush green along the shore. They drifted closer to the spot where the thick grasses and water blended and became one.

  They came within a spear’s throw of the grasses, then turned parallel to the shore. Dragonflies and bees buzzed around them. An occasional horsefly landed on an arm or a leg then quickly departed, repelled by a thin layer of animal fat spread across their skins.

  Aizarg led the way. He picked up his spear, tied a rope to the eyelet, and secured the other end to the boat’s mast block. He gave the boat a big push with the pole, laid it down in the bottom, and coasted, looking for fish.

  Levidi did the same.

  “Why are Ood-i and his woman fighting?” Aizarg whispered.

  “I don’t know,” Levidi replied. “But my sweet Alaya thinks Ood-i is sneaking into the Sammujad camps for drink and women.”

  Aizarg grunted. Atamoda told him something similar. It made sense to Aizarg. A distracted man, Ood-i’s catches were small and his gear ill-kept. He didn’t fish till the sun climbed high and often came home well before sunset.

  The Lo were marked with a certain physical grace, a trait acknowledged even by the g’an dwellers. Ood-i didn’t reflect those traits. As a boy, he was awkward and often the butt of jokes. This didn’t improve as he grew to manhood. While tall like most Lo men, Ood-i was also wider and thicker than his kin. His shaggy beard and deep brow framed a meaty face and fleshy lips. Ood-i kept to himself, a solitary man even by Lo standards. His stutter didn’t help matters. His father searched distant arun-ki for a bride, as none of the local girls wanted to be Ood-i’s wife.

  Aizarg made up his mind. Atamoda would have to pay a visit to Ood-i’s hut. Discord in one hut often spread to the whole arun-ki, something a good sco-lo-ti could not abide.

  “Alaya believes the source of the strife is Su-gár,” Levidi added.

  Once again Aizarg nodded. Ood-i and Ula’s daughter, Su-gár, should have been married two summers ago. Ood-i approached several men, even some in other arun-ki, looking for a suitor but Ula, her mother, kept her home out of loneliness. A headstrong and stubborn woman like her mother, most acknowledged Su-gár as the most beautiful maiden in the arun-ki. He didn’t blame Ood-i for seeking peace elsewhere. One hut is too small for two strong women.

  “You know, Aizarg, if our peopl
e took more than one wife, like the Sammujad, our lives would be much easier. I’m sure Su-gár would make me an excellent second wife,” Levidi said with a straight face.

  “Yes, I’m sure you would like that. One woman beating you is not enough, eh?”

  “Watch it!” Levidi growled.

  Aizarg winked. “Any man who wants more than one wife admits he can’t handle the first one. Have you ever wondered why the g’an dwellers are always making war? It’s because they find no peace within their own tents; they’re full of bickering women.”

  Levidi paused for a moment. “True...but we can always go fishing when our wives nag too much. They can only go look at their sheep.”

  “Their sheep look better than their women,” Aizarg said.

  Their laughter carried across the water.

  Aizarg, leader of his people, often took counsel like this; in quiet moments, one man at a time.

  A black shape slipped under the oily water. Aizarg squinted, trying to see below the sun’s reflection.

  Sturgeon!

  A big fish, almost as long as the boat, moved parallel and just ahead of Aizarg’s boat. Its long snout and armored body were clearly visible below the surface. Refraction and his angle made his throw problematic. He pointed to the fish, then signaled his friend to move to his right.

  They approached the sandbar at the mouth of the stream. Aizarg slowly pressed the sturgeon forward as Levidi gave one big push with his pole, then laid it down. Once he skimmed past Aizarg, he’d be in the perfect position to attack the sturgeon’s broadside. The fish would be forced to turn right toward open water or be trapped against the sandbar. Either way, Levidi would have a good throw.

  Perched in the center of his boat, Levidi gracefully passed Aizarg and brought his arm back, spear at the ready.

  The sturgeon continued its lazy swim toward the sand bar, unaware or uncaring of the two boats. Levidi hurled the spear. It sliced the water with barely a splash and completely penetrated the sturgeon’s flank. Levidi yanked hard, snagging the fish.