The Legend of El Shashi

by Marc Secchia

  ‘Oh Aulynni, be not distressed. Within the moon–’

  ‘Father, Talan-son-of-Lucan, I beg you, must I fall upon my knees? Must I grasp your cloak and weep for these who are already doomed? What Lucan did was monstrous enough! Now this! Have you no pity?’

  The man sighs. ‘There, now you’ve upset Amal. Come here, child.’

  He must be bending towards her. A pair of arms can be seen through the leaves, outstretched, and the child is trapped in a no-man’s land between the two adults. The man is still moving forward.

  ‘Don’t you dare touch her!’ The woman yanks the child back to her skirts. As she whirls, the child’s countenance turns from a profile hidden by her long, dark hair, to face us briefly.

  I was staring into a mirror, deeply shocked. That little girl was the very image of me! But the vision rushed on without regard for my thoughts:

  Something breaks in the woman’s voice. A hint of hysteria, perhaps even madness, as she whispers, ‘I’m sick of your lies. You pervert and poison everything you touch.’

  I see him now. Talan. He has turned as pale as his silvery shock of hair; his dignity, a trembling mess. ‘No, no …’

  ‘I will fight you to the end, Father. Mark my words. From this day, you may count me your deadliest foe.’

  Talan’s eyes dart toward Janos. No! He’ll be exposed! But the little blind girl is smiling as she wriggles her fingers. ‘Nothing but pretty flowers,’ she chirps.

  And the dream dissolved into nothingness.

  The Wurm reared upwards to the sky, taking such great breaths that the wind whipped through my hair. A rumbling earthquake began in its belly. The immense muscles of its throat flexed and surged as ocean billows. The lurmint tree bent further. Roots and branches snapped with sharp retorts. The trunk itself began to tear down the middle with a sound akin to cloth rent at the seams. And as the Wurm bore down with all of its hugely augmented power, there came a thunderous crack and I was suddenly and helplessly catapulted out of the Wurm’s craw like a stone whizzing from a slingshot.

  A patch of springy lurganberry bushes broke the worst of my fall. In my dazed state, I tried to swim out of them. I bled from a hundred scratches, but nothing mattered to me save to find my feet and flee from the beast. On torn hands and knees I scrabbled my way loose of the clinging brush. Kicking. Fulminating. Down a narrow gully I stumbled on failing legs, along an animal track, until I found my way choked by a rambling thicket of gold-petal tearaway briar.

  A kind of madness gripped me. Like a looming black thunderhead, full of unspent malice, it puffed Ulim’s breath into my being until I shuddered limb to limb and could barely summon the will to plant one foot before the next. I was running from it. Running into it. Fleeing from my own shadows.

  I found myself screaming, “Mata! Mata! Mata!” over and over. As if She would care. It was part curse, part cry for help.

  This day the heavens were mute.

  Every face under the suns was set against me. Each time I stopped to catch my breath, I sensed the Wurm closing in and I would press weakly on. Though I wanted to salve my wounds, my thoughts were the contents of a swine-trough and the power, usually so responsive, a well run dry. I ran blindly. I neither cared for nor counted the bruises I gained. I ran, and ran, and ran, until the night was old, my feet bled freely through my flapping boot-soles, and my ill-fitting trousers chafed my inner thighs raw.

  I ran through the following day, through the burning, debilitating heat, into the eventide following. I stumbled, I crawled, I stole a jatha from a farmer’s paddock and slept a couple of makh upon its back before the terror of the Wurm awakened me and I had to sprint away once more.

  A long time after that, when the stars rode high and bright, I realised I was running from nothing at all.

  I slunk into our kitchen, weeping.

  Rubiny was curled up in the rocking-chair close to hearth’s warmth, with a babe suckling at her breast. Tiny, dark curls, fingers curled around her mother’s thumb. Precious. Too bad the selfish father had been out in the fields discovering how five anna out of the militia makes one unfit. My wife’s eyes looked puffy and bloodshot from crying, but she was dry-eyed now. And white with rage and exhaustion.

  “The midwife left three makh ago,” said Rubiny, her every word etched in tiredness. “We’ve another daughter. Congratulations.”

  It would have been better had she called me all the names under the suns. Instead, she was being excruciatingly civil. And the distance between us felt a hundred leagues wide.

  “How is–”

  “Sherya? Sleeping.”

  As she should be, considering it was the makh before dawn. It had taken from noontide to noontide, and most of the eventide following, before the Wurm had finally disappeared to wherever it spent the times between. My legs resembled pork jelly. By then I found myself three leagues from town, and had ploughed more fields in more circles and cut-backs than I could remember. But no-one had died.

  This time.

  “And how are–”

  “Fine. Thank you for asking.”

  “Can I–”

  “I don’t need anything right now.”

  I could not stand it any longer. “Look, I’m sorry, Rubiny! It was meant to be a joke. A stupid, practical joke.”

  She nodded slowly. “Ah, the carbuncle.”

  “I had no idea. How was I to guess it would summon the Wurm?” I sounded like a peevish old man, even to my own ears. “Had I but known!”

  “I did wonder what selfish thing you’d done.” Rubiny scowled at my ruined boots and bleeding feet. “Didn’t you heal yourself?”

  “Several times.”

  “A pretty shoddy job then, don’t you think?” She wiped her brow. I longed to help her, to strengthen her, but did not dare. “I thought you must’ve taken a bribe, or stolen something, or bedded another woman. Done something … noteworthy. Another woman might even be easier, Arlak. I could just leave you. I would, you know. Prove my mother right.”

  I hung my head. “Ay.”

  “You know what she said? The day I ran away from home, you know what she said?” I spread my hands. “She said you were a wastrel. A good-for-nothing cockerel who would amount to nothing in life. She said I’d end up leaving you.”

  Rubiny tucked our tiny newborn closer to her breast. “Father was more direct. He ordered me not to enter the Matabond of love with you. He said you weren’t the right man for me, and never could be.”

  Her words cut so deep. I slumped into the nearest chair and just stared at her, unwilling, unable even, to believe my ears. Had I not a rapport with the Master of Telmak Lodge? Why then … why encourage me? Had he not spoken kindly about my healing touch?

  Dear Mata, I had taken sword cuts in battle that hurt less. Where was She in the makh of my greatest need? Where was She now?

  “Arlak, I didn’t tell you before because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “No?”

  “Maybe I was wrong, leaving those things unsaid. But now you have hurt me, and endangered the people I love most in the world. I need you to really understand how I feel. For the first time ever, I thought my father might be right about you.”

  Rubiny clamped her jaw, chopping a laugh short as she were a butcher hacking a chunk of meat with his cleaver. “A pimple. A stupid, Nethespawn pimple! Hush, little one.” She stroked the baby tenderly. “Husband, there are nice fools and there are fools. Tonight, you are a fool. Did you not think? How many deaths does it take?”

  I was still smarting about the Master Telmak. How could he? Why had he not hunted us across the breadth of the lands? I made to get up, wanting to put my arms around her, but her words halted me mid-rise.

  “I’m not done with you yet.”

  I plopped back down on the bench. Rubbed my hand absently on my thexik trousers. Somewhere within, I searched for the courage to tell her what had happened within the Wurm.

  “Arlak,” she whispered. “My husband, when you told me about the Wu
rm before, I … truly told, I didn’t believe you. Mayhap I didn’t want to–but now I do. I’m sorry.” I ignored the tear trickling down my nose, fixated by the tenderness writ on her face. “I’ve been thinking … your actions saved a lot of people. That creature could have crushed the town, but you drew it away from us. From everyone.”

  “Ay. I’ve run enough times.”

  “You were especially quick to save Sherya. I’ve never seen a man move as lightning from the heavens.”

  “That lightning would be a father’s love for his daughter. Nought else.”

  Her hand touched mine. “You’re a good man.” Truly told, my heart leaped into my throat in the same way as the first day we eloped–it set me afire with emotion. After a long pause, she whispered, “Arlak, will we be in danger now? From Jyla?”

  “Should we leave Lorami Fountain, do you mean?” I tried to force some levity into my tone, but it came out as dry as dust. “I did wonder what we’d tell the neighbours.”

  “Quite.”

  “Rubiny, I dread to think what would happen if Jyla ever found you or the children.”

  “Oh, Arlak.”

  “I have placed our family in the most terrible danger.” My voice cracked. All I could see was Jyla driving nails into Janos’ body. Her ambition would stop at nothing, least of all murder, to achieve her goals. “No,” I thought aloud, “I am central to her plans. I am … I’m her gatherer. She will be watching.”

  “Is she that powerful?”

  “Truly told, she must be a supreme Sorceress. I’ve never heard of such deeds–even granted an ulule’s delight in embellishment. Whether it’s in her means to keep track of me … of us … but no doubt now that the Wurm has risen, she will know it.”

  Ah! My deepest fears, at last given voice! How much greater, in the light of a profound, aching love in my breast for my wife and my little ones, did this threat loom? How could I ever keep them safe from Jyla? She would think nought of stooping to use them against me. But Rubiny’s thoughts were already moving on.

  “Is she an Eldrik Warlock?”

  “I’ve always assumed so. The ulules claim only the Eldrik know how to raise a Wurm. Jyla has not forgotten her creation.”

  “Roymere’s an awfully long way from Eldoria, husband. Six hundred leagues if a trin.”

  “And yet–”

  We sighed in unison.

  Chapter 13: Tomira

  Ride a black stallion born of Nethe,

  Plague-Rider ride to me,

  My boils are dark as the fabled Lethe,

  Plague-Rider ride to me.

  Here on my pallet death is no dream,

  Plague-Rider ride to me,

  Touch me quick ere I scream,

  Plague-Rider ride to me.

  Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds,

  Ay, Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds,

  Black pus vomits from my chest,

  Plague-Rider ride to me.

  Immortal quoph will find no rest,

  Plague-Rider ride to me,

  Ulim light my funeral pyre,

  Plague-Rider ride to me.

  Brighter burn the cleansing fire,

  Plague-Rider ride to me,

  Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds,

  Ay, Plague-Rider ride with the Hounds!

  “Hail, El Shashi!”

  I circled my hand briefly in the buskal of Mata’s greeting. “Hail, Tomira.”

  She batted her eyelashes at me and tossed her dark curls. “Ah, the famous El Shashi deigns to speak to this humble girl.”

  I cast my eyes downward, and adjusted my mokir, the man’s headscarf so necessary in ultra-conservative Brephat. “I speak to all.”

  “You greet, but do not truly speak.”

  Insightful! I thought: ‘Because people might talk if I spent more than a cursory greeting upon an alluring young woman.’ In Brephat, careless talk could result in a public flogging. Men here guarded their tongues and their eyes. Women, as everywhere, did as they pleased without censure. And it pleased Tomira to make regular flirtation with one Arlak, gazing into his windows whenever passing by on the street, and making unabashed eyes at him if their paths happened to cross. Should I broach the matter with Rubiny?

  No. One silly girl was no match for me. I had known her family almost since we moved to Brephat, some nine anna past, and had seen her grow from an inquisitive girl into a tall, slender sixteen anna-old, with the excellent deportment and self-confidence I have often noted in wealthy young women of the merchant class. I had often imagined disporting myself with Tomira. Are a man’s thoughts not his private domain? A freedom in token, at least?

  She was beautiful. And a girl no longer. Be not a fool, Arlak!

  “Hold, El Shashi. I beg a question.”

  Rubiny had no need to know. Had I not kept my honour steadfast, all these anna? That was no mean feat! Tomira would soon find herself a husband. She had no need of a man of my age and station. Even such a toothsome catch, as Rubiny had teased me just last week.

  I pressed my lips straight as I whirled upon my heel, and addressed the hem of her ankle-length velveteen gown. “How may I serve you, Honoria?”

  “How silly and formal your words! I am no Honoria, as you well know. A Brephathian would address me as Mahira. Mahira Tomira. A pretty rhyme … wouldn’t you agree?”

  “Indeed. I had thought Mahira a more northerly term, common to Elbarath and Chazurn.”

  Her laughter sounded over-loud and brash to my ear. “Do they teach you nothing of the world in faraway Roymere?” My back stiffened. “Fear not, I shan’t hold it against you. Though I had thought athocaries better educated in the Fiefdoms.”

  I faked a laugh. “As you say, Mahira. We are educated in the ways of the whole person.” And I had travelled more of the Fiefdoms than she would see in a dozen lifetimes–precocious brat!

  “So mark me this,” began Tomira, and began to describe her problem. Quicker than a candle-flame’s flicker, I wished I had never stopped.

  Scanning down the list of appointments Sakal, my servant, had prepared for the day, I groaned inwardly. Tomira!

  With a vindictive pleasure, I thought, ‘I hope it’s not an itch from another brothel.’ Although, truly told, that was unfair. Tomira had been practicing for her Matabond with a holok, or mentor, who had evidently not been clean or careful enough and passed on a nasty little infection. It was the graphic detail in which she chose to describe it–so out of place on that sun-drenched main road–that so shocked me, followed by an appointment with El Shashi the following afternoon to relieve her of the decidedly unsavoury consequences. How I envied that holok!

  I flicked briskly through the scrolleaves cluttering my mahogany lectern. These Brephathians. To have to examine a patient, male and female alike, by touch, beneath a thin sheet intended to preserve modesty? Absurd! Mark my words, it is said that among the mysterious Tora, who are desert nomads of the far north, that no man of an age to Matabond is allowed to set foot outside his tent without an honour-escort. Practising athocaries there would probably have their fingers hacked off at the first knuckle …

  “You seem troubled, master?” inquired Sakal, breaking in on my thoughts.

  He was often intuitive. “Just an ill grephe,” I said, smiling. “Were you to inspect the accounts this morn?”

  “Indeed, master,” said he, bowing with arthritic care. Even I, the greatest healer in the Fiefdoms, could not heal all ills. I had relieved the pain, but the course of his disease had frustrated me for the four anna he had spent in my service.

  Sakal limped outside with the leather-bound tome tucked beneath his arm. If I knew him, a warm place would be found for the work with a goblet of ale to wet his throat. Sakal did love his ale, though it was brewed pitifully weak in these parts. A creeping sense of failure attended his stiff departure.

  I was a weak vessel. Jyla exposed my flaws, and nought since had I wrought to disprove her charge. Greatest healer–fie, a pox on that falsehood! Who was I d
eceiving?

  Mark my words, it stuck in my craw like a wedge of bitter fruit.

  My eyes fell upon my fingers, rippling across the scrolleaf like miniature Wurms, the articulated joints its segments, a roaming, flexing, furtive sort of movement. Perhaps I was the Wurm. Divine avenger of wrongs. Slowly, I raised my hands before my eyes. Were these not hands of awesome capability, ready to unleash a world-changing storm? My head tilted in silent introspection. With my left forefinger, I stroked the fingertips of my right hand. To and fro. Crenulations, tiny whorls of sensation. My hands, my life, my destiny–to be suffused with the immense magical energies of Jyla’s Web. Cursed and bounden to my fate. A tool for a task. Yet latent in each digit lay this marvellous facility to transform lives, stem cankers, clean livers, unblock arteries, dissolve cataracts …

  Once upon an anna, I would have examined the cracked, dirt-encrusted fingernails of a vegetable farmer. Calluses from the hoe, the pail, and the master-prod for my head of jatha. Skin roughened by daily handling of barrels of argan oil, hanks of flaxen cord, and splitting logs for firewood. The mountains life weathered a man inside and out. Gone now, the simple pleasures of planting and reaping, weeding and tending. Making vegetables grow. Gone, the hard physical labour. The sweat of satisfying toil.

  And now I, a happily Matabound man, could not stop seeing Tomira’s flashing dark gaze in my daydreams?

  “Good orison to you!” I greeted my first customer. “How may I serve you?”

  Twenty-nine times I repeated those words before the honeyed tones of the Mahira Tomira returned my greeting. With that, my quim splattered across the scrolleaf, ruining my entry in the lengthy records of the unquestionably hypochondriac Widow Makana, whose various aches and pains consumed a double appointment every other Rimday. A steady source of ukals to put bread on my table. I clucked unhappily.

  “Old quim?” Tomira said, resting her fingertips upon my lectern.

  “Must be.” I blotted the ink.