The Legend of El Shashi

by Marc Secchia

  When I was done, he sank weakly to the floor, cradled in his son’s arms. Father and sons, they stared at me as though I were a two-headed snake.

  “You’ll need to rest,” I told him. “Be grateful to Mata you live.”

  “By the Gods, who are you?”

  Turning, I read the same question in Rubiny’s eyes. “We’ll be leaving now,” I muttered. “Do not attempt to follow us. I’ll explain it all, beloved …”

  I took up my pack and reached out to clasp Rubiny’s hand in mine. How little of each other we truly knew. Yet it was a beginning.

  Together, we stepped though the doorway and into the night.

  Chapter 12: Happiness and Discontent

  Beware the honeypot of pleasure, and be content in every trial. For pleasure is fleeting, but trials strengthen the quoph.

  Phari al’Mahi kin Saymik, My Father the Yammarik

  Lorami Fountain, on the east side of Hakooi near the Roymere and Elbarath borders, is the kind of town that many pass through, but only those who linger get to know each other well. One or two thousands dwelt within the thick sandstone walls, built to keep out the marauding Faloxx. The houses were typically Hakooi in design–blocky stone units, with sloped slate roofs to shed the snows of Alldark Week, and the ubiquitous music chamber-come-reception area that marked them apart from Roymerian designs. How the Hakooi adore their music!

  This was where Rubiny and I settled as the Glooming season turned to Rains. She was pregnant with our first child. I refused to stay on the road.

  With the proceeds of my work we purchased a tiny but cosy house behind an athocarium, not far from the gate called ‘Love Gate’ by the locals. We chuckled at this. Every time we passed through the archway, we paused for a kiss–oftentimes long enough to make some trader chuckle at us, or a matron whisper to her friend about ‘shameless youngsters’. Here we lacked for nought but real wealth. Rubiny never questioned why I charged a standard rate no matter the ailment or the labour to cure it–but I understood, deep within, the seductive power of my greed and selfishness. I mistrusted my quoph. How I wished I could have given the daughter Telmak more, much more, but she declared her contentment.

  Indeed, we were more than content. I took to fatherhood with baffling ease. Sherya, our first daughter, was the very image and temperament of Rubiny.

  At the time the Wurm returned, Sherya was four anna old. Rubiny and I had been together for five anna. My wanderings might have belonged to another lifetime.

  “I can’t believe I won,” said my wife, beaming at me.

  “I’ll have to behave myself now,” I teased. “Local justice! If only they knew you as I do.”

  Rubiny pressed her side. “Ooh.”

  “Kicking you in the ribs again?”

  “This child of yours is all knees and elbows,” she grimaced, and paused to mop her brow. The season was unbearably hot and humid. Step outside, and the noontide heat had us bathed in sweat before we had turned a corner. “Must be a boy. Are you hoping for a boy this time, Arlak?”

  “Truly told, I would be grateful for either,” I said, fondly watching her rolling walk. Rubiny had miscarried twice since Sherya was born. Tough on us both, but on her especially. To resist the temptation to meddle–unbearable! But Rubiny was adamant about her beliefs and wanted no intervention. Now she had a nine-months waddle. “I couldn’t imagine having a boy as well. Sherya’s such a handful …”

  Sherya skipped ahead of us, a mop of red curls and endless energy. We watched her for a span, darting between the sparse holitaph holiday crowds. All the women wore canary-yellow headscarves and long sardi-dresses, with their wide fluffed and flounced skirts, trimmed with tiny silver bells that tinkled merrily as they walked. The men wore their best kabari tunics, a veritable riot of colours. Ay, the town would liven up later, in the cool of eventide, I thought–the street vendors would appear, selling their brith buns and spicy jatha-meat kebabs, and hordes of musicians and entertainers would arrive from the surrounding villages, and there would be dancing and merriment late into the night. I did love this holiday.

  “Odd thing about that carbuncle on her nose, wasn’t it?” said Rubiny, referring to her opponent in the election. “Wasn’t there when we saw her Sayth last.”

  “Nasty,” I agreed.

  “The kind you could heal in a snap, couldn’t you, love?”

  Or create with equal facility, I thought guiltily. A harmless bit of foolery. After all, I wanted Rubiny to win, didn’t I? Mister Dutiful Husband. The title fit like a yammarik’s hair shirt. Mark my words, I was jealous of Rubiny’s successes even as I cheered from the sidelines. Why begrudge her this trifle? I could not understand myself sometimes.

  What would Jyla have made of my happy state? Did she even know where I was? Did she care that I had a family now? The Wurm had been dormant these five anna. I hoped she could not touch my family here. ‘Oh please … Mata protect us, protect our children …’

  “Where are your thoughts, my husband?”

  “Drifting,” I admitted. “Deep in the past.”

  “You should let those things go.”

  “My heart, what I wouldn’t give for the power to forget.”

  “You’re too melancholy–”

  “I’m afraid,” I said, pulling out my honesty to wave it as a peace-offering. “Sometimes I suspect I’m too happy. I’m terrified Jyla will tear it all away.”

  Rubiny linked her elbow with mine. “I know. That isn’t Mata’s way, but … I know. I wonder sometimes that my parents will not find a way to spoil it for us too. Have they not looked for us? Do they not worry about me?”

  “Maybe you’d want to show them their grandchildren?”

  “I’m afraid they’d disapprove.”

  “Sherya is beautiful.” I squinted against Doublesun’s glare. “Belion is blazing today. Feels like a thunderstorm brewing, doesn’t it? Where is–”

  “There, beside the bragazzar tree.”

  “Ah. I wish she wouldn’t run off like that.”

  “Her father’s daughter, truly told.”

  “Huh!” I snorted, and then stiffened. “See that?”

  “What?”

  My voice rose an octave. “That!”

  The bragazzar tree, which stood in the centre of a small square, quivered noticeably, as though the warm sifadoon buffeted it with a vengeance–only, there was not a breath of wind this noontide. I narrowed my eyes. Felt a horrible sensation beneath my skin as if ten shadworms had laid their eggs there.

  Oh, Larathi!

  “How odd …”

  But my sandals were already pounding the flagstones, full gallop. Of all these people, I alone knew what was coming. I shouted, “Clear the square! Get back! Everyone get back!”

  Sherya was turning to look at me, her apple-green eyes full of innocent questions, when the stones beneath her feet began to rise.

  I took the last five paces at a headlong dive. The rough-cut granite flagstones shredded my thin burnoose and the skin beneath. I snatched Sherya up one handed, cradling my little girl to my bosom as the ground rocked and pitched violently. As toys are cast aside by an artless child, so were we tossed off the side of the mountain that was the Wurm rising.

  I crashed to my knees. Rocky soil showered my bowed head. Dust danced crazy patterns upon the flagstones as I curled my body over Sherya’s, feeling the terrified drumbeat of her heart against my breastbone, wincing at the sharp crack! of rocks split asunder by the Wurm’s vertical ascent. The ancient bragazzar gave vent to a great, dying groan as it toppled sideways, crushing a nearby house. Later, the sound of its untimely-terminated life would plague my dreams.

  Please let her be unhurt … I peered past my shielding arm.

  Larathi! This beast was a chest-high mole-run-maker no more! How could I have forgotten? It tore the earth’s fabric rudely, emerging segment after smooth segment as though squeezed forth by Mata’s own hand.

  When it towered to twice the height of the nearest house, the Wur
m’s ascent slowed, and its long, jointed feelers began to scent the air. I smelled burnt cinnamon, mingled with smoke from a fire hungrily sniffing around the stricken bragazzar. It would seek me out. Me alone. Nothing could stand in the Wurm’s way–not walls, nor houses, nor even the very foundation stone of Mata’s creation. It came to me in a flash what I must do.

  I staggered to my feet. My left arm, broken without my knowing it in the fall, flopped at my side as though pinned to my shoulder by ribbons. I deposited Sherya at my feet. “Wait here for mommy.”

  She was too petrified even to wail.

  Go! The gate! I sprinted across the square, deliberately closing with the Wurm, daring it to scent and follow me. I would head for the countryside. Just one hundred and fifty paces and I could be through Love Gate. Lead the Wurm into the fields where no-one lived … lead it away from my family. Dear Mata protect!

  A backward glance. I saw the sightless Wurm withdrawing into its giant pit. Grey smoke curled into an almost translucent Doublesun sky. My forehead tried to make a dent in the back of a cart.

  Spitting dirt. Shaking my head to clear it. The Wurm … gone. Looking this way, that–people were starting to gather, to gawk. My legs would not obey. I saw a large crack appear in the middle of the road. It snaked toward my feet.

  “Clear the road! Clear the road!” I cried, waving my good arm. I must have looked like a madman. Somebody’s grandfather thwacked me with his cane. I dodged a fat dog, picked up my knees, and hared for the gate. The rows of neat houses either side of the road were shaking. Roof tiles slid down, shattering amongst the milling crowd in a deadly hailstorm of flying shards.

  Quick! I healed my arm.

  A waggoner with a whole train of jatha was just passing through the gate when I arrived in a pressing haste to escape. No mind. I sprang for the traces, swung onto his seat, and from there scrambled headlong across the load and jumped down again. Just as he turned to curse me, the ground shifted beneath his cart. The terrified jatha surged forward, pulling him to safety as a substantial section of the town wall crumpled dramatically.

  I put my head down, and dashed out into the fields.

  The Wurm rumbled after me like a faithful hound; only, a hound would have spent eventide napping by a warm fireplace at my feet. This creature wanted Arlak for evensup. The trees to either side of the track juddered visibly. I sensed the vibration of the Wurm’s progress even through my pounding feet. There was a pressure in my mind–the Wurm’s presence, churning up the hideous darkness in my quoph.

  I increased my pace up the long incline out of town, surprised at how out of breath I became. Arlak had enjoyed too much of the quiet life. Dear Gods, what would Rubiny say? She had never seen the Wurm before. But I could explain. Ay, it was simple. Silly. She would understand … surely? We were too long Matabound for this to come between us. No-one had been hurt. Despite the Wurm’s taste for flesh, this time, I had cheated it. No need for people to die. With luck no-one would even notice my absence.

  How many makh? I tried to calculate in my head. Every chase was longer than the last. Last I recalled, I had summoned the Wurm in the early makh of dawn, run it through the Lymarian encampment, and kept fleeing the beast until eventide. That meant–larathi! I could expect almost a day and a half’s terror. My muscles burned already. I slowed to a walk, glancing several times over my shoulder for signs of the Wurm. Did it already rest in the earth’s bowels?

  ‘Hush, Arlak! Play not the fool!’ I rebuked my errant thoughts.

  As I paused to look back over Lorami Fountain, basking in the golden rays of first sundown, the town appeared serene, untouched by the day’s events. Cooking smoke clung to the tall square chimneys, unmoving on a wind-still eventide. A few hands trudged home from a day’s labour in the thorrick-fields. But my heart hammered in my throat as I completed a slow survey of my surroundings. It was quiet. Ay, too quiet. Doublesun’s heat made my head pound. Walking on briskly, I pulled off my outer burnoose. Maybe once Suthauk set in the late eventide makh the day would cool down, but right now I was wearing far too much for any serious running.

  Best keep moving. I broke into a trot again.

  I had to rub my arm. How many thousands of breaks had I set, only to botch my own? I pressed in with my senses, trying to establish the point of failure. Janos would have tut-tutted, ‘Haste is the enemy of excellence, Arlak!’ I smiled at the memory. Animals, dealt with in haste, become fearful and fretful. Indeed, I remembered my father’s gentle way with animals … when last had I remembered him?

  My nostrils twitched. What an odd smell–something burning out here? Umber? Cinnamon?

  “Oh Larathi!” I howled as the ground gave way beneath my feet.

  I threw myself backward, twisting my body so violently that every vertebra in my back popped. The soil crumbled to nothingness beneath my frantic, flailing hands. I slipped deeper into the hole, already down to my chest, when my fingers suddenly closed about a sturdy tree-root. For less than a heartbeat, I was breathless with sweet relief.

  Then a vast snort boomed through the caverns beneath me. SHWWEEEESH!

  To this makh I know not with what manner of strength I hoisted my body free, but it was as though I had sprouted an eagle’s wings and taken to the great thermals of my native Roymere. I next remember collapsing at the bole of a spreading lurmint tree. But before my astonished eyes the tree’s roots, gnarled anchors as thick as my waist, began to ping loose of soil they had held firm for five hundred anna and more. The whole tree shuddered. It began to sag. And the Wurm, thundering upward from the black depths, attempted to swallow the lurmint whole–root, branch, and leaf.

  In a trice I was inside its throat.

  I own it must have lain in wait. The monster was showing signs of intelligence–circling ahead, delaying an attack, and not merely thrashing along blindly as before. Hunting me? Perhaps I had stumbled into its trap. Given the leisure of retrospection, I would conclude that before this makh, I had still felt somewhat in control. I could lead the Wurm. Make it travel where I wished. Keep running until it returned to ground. This in turn had fed an illusion of security and comfort. Now the jatha had turned jerlak, an altogether more cunning, dangerous, and ruthless creature.

  A second, wholly more inexplicable surprise was sprung upon me the instant the Wurm’s jaws closed about that lurmint. For a candle’s flicker of time, I witnessed a waking dream of Janos. I sat at the jalkwood table in Janos’ kitchen. My head had sunk upon my chest as though I were sleeping. Janos stood directly behind me, his hands resting upon my head in the pose of a yammarik imparting the keya blessing of manhood upon a young man. Yet I recognised something sinister in the way he gripped my head, in the fierce set of his jaw. I sensed I wished to flee, but was held immobile by an unseen compulsion.

  He chanted, ‘Solûm tï mik, in the name and by the power of Mata I charge you to seal this trust until–’

  But his voice faded, as though this leaf of memory scurried along on the wings of a blustering Glooming storm, and I realised that the wind’s strident music had turned into Jyla’s laughter blasting through the hallways of my mind, shredding the memory, blowing its wisps to Nethe. A presence stirred around the foundation-stones of my embittered quoph.

  The darkness was chittering back to her …

  A magical creature which burrows with ease through the earthy ores should not have been troubled by a mere tree, I imagined. But the lurmint was ancient. As the Wurm’s muscular maw ground shut, the tree resisted with a fearful din of splintering, snapping branches, and deep groans. Its thickset trunk twisted and became lodged crosswise in the beast’s throat. The Wurm roared! It convulsed like the huge river pike the Hakooi hunt with harpoons from their flat-bottomed riverboats, when a weapon is mistakenly thrust through the belly.

  I was hugging a root or branch–I cannot rightly recall–with both arms and legs wrapped about it. But my perch began to bow under the immense pressure. I saw mauve fields. Now sky, the clouds tinged a weird, wine-pur
ple colour. Magic? Ay, great magic, prickling my neck in the same way Jyla’s first conjuration of the Wurm had all those anna ago. The realisation struck me forcibly. Stuck in the Wurm’s throat, my senses assaulted and abused by the beast’s unique magical essence, I sensed now the connection pulsing between us–a connection as intimate and necessary as some ghastly umbilical cord. Arlak and the beast; Arlak feeding the beast? The beast, feeding off of my healings? By what sorcery had she achieved this? The Sorceress needed power? She was … collecting magic? Unbelievable!

  Then I tipped upside-down as the Wurm’s bulk rolled sideways.

  Again, a sliver of a vision entranced me:

  I see Janos. Hiding in a flowerbed. Fragrant flowers, small and delicate, their petals the colour of eventide and their hearts, candle-bright. He is peering through the foliage. Hiding.

  Voices. Two women. Nay, a woman and two young girls. The lady is speaking to someone, a man. He cannot see the woman’s features, but at eye level, he can see the girls. Perhaps three or four anna of age, they hold hands with the woman, one to either side. Their mother? One is part-hidden behind her skirts. The other, who is close enough to touch, turns to look at Janos.

  He freezes in palpable shock. Yet the girl cannot see him. Impossible. Her eyes, set in a face of elfin, ethereal beauty, are disquietingly milky. She must be blind. But surely … for as she twirls her tumbling, white-blonde ringlets in her fingers, it is clear that she is regarding him directly, that his presence has been revealed.

  Janos raises a trembling digit to his lips.

  Voices: ‘I cannot abide it any longer, father!’

  ‘But you must, Aulynni. You must. You must understand my position, the position of the Council! This is a great thing we’ll accomplish, for the greater good of our people …’

  ‘Father, don’t patronise me!’ the woman hisses. Her desperation rises as she continues, ‘I’ve read the scrolls. Surely, you who are foremost of the Sorcerers; you of all people, have the power to deny this vile … this thing … this abomination! How will these new exiles be chosen? Who writes the accursed lists? Who will decree their fate? Is all life not equally sacred? Have you not taught me this?’