The Legend of El Shashi

by Marc Secchia

  Yes, all Eldrik share in the gyael-irfa. For good or for ill … Mata forbid an Inquisitor should read those words! What ill, you ask? Simply put, that there remains neither privacy nor individuality, for we become a community of identical, invariant people. A small price to pay for such a momentous result, you argue. We enjoy peace and harmony. Each member of society contributes to the whole. The hyngreal of Mata-worship is untainted, glorious, star-reaching.

  For are we not the elevated ones? Is this priceless treasure not a sign of Mata’s special favour conferred upon the Eldrik nation? Is it not said that these three have no access to the gyael-irfa: Umarites, animals, and the Banished?

  Ay, such hubris was the mother’s milk of Lucanism.

  And truth unadulterated? By no means!

  I believe Lucan balked at creating the Banishment. He was forced into it. Duped, deluded, and outmanoeuvred in the Council. Perhaps he tried to convince himself it would lead to good. Perhaps … perhaps he committed suicide when he realised what he had wrought by the power of Staff and Word. But how could he not have created some way to undo that monstrosity? Why did he perish, and his secrets with him? This I cannot fathom.

  Slowly, I shuffled over to my favourite chair. Lucan’s chair, so the legend said. The windows before me stood at the very apex of the Warlock’s Roost, commanding a view over the delicate spires and archways of Eldoran, which at a Doublesun sunset are enwrapped in such an ethereal Mata’s-glory of radiant sunbeams that to behold this vision a Hakooi poetess would declaim the great mysteries and make her prophecies, before expiring in a heavenly ecstasy.

  Each time I sit, must surely be my last. My knees protest, my bones creak, my ribs feel like a songbird’s cage rattling on the back of a cart. That was how I felt in the seasons spent recovering from my torture at the hand of the Sorcerers and their fiendish Inquisitors.

  I still have nightmares birthed in those tortures.

  Truly told, the Banished must have wondered exactly as Eliyan wrote, what ghastly stroke of fate or design led to an act of high magic that could not be unravelled? Why not commit the spells to quim for all to read? Or brief a trusted aide? With all those anna to do nothing but scheme and hate–indeed, to hate constructively, and to plot the destruction of their brethren who still enjoyed the gyael-irfa …

  Did you know, friend, that Jyla was once an Interrogator?

  Chapter 20: Eldoran

  1st Glimday of Springtide, Anna Nox 1382

  I found the Eldrik capital as my father had described it, and more. Unimaginably more. As words fail to encompass a fine work of art, so had my imagination of Eldoran and its inhabitants fallen short of the mark.

  Form, rather than function. A harmonious fusion of beauty and utility. Exquisite gardens designed for long, leisurely walks. Buildings flowing around luninol trees which bent like lithe dancers in the slightest breeze, jade-traced arches that soared over roads of palisk-quartz and amaranth marble, or grey and black granite in the poorer quarters, gutters devoid of the slightest hint of filth, houses in different parts built in a variety of complimentary styles or around a particular theme. Added to this, around the time of the daimi and dioni orisons there was a marvellous, luminous quality to the suns’ light–particularly in the Doublesun season–that lent all Eldoran an atmosphere of enchantment and wonder.

  The city itself meandered around three charming lakes called Immuri-aloohaili or ‘Immuri’s Bracelets’ in the Umarik tongue, and like herbs scattered upon a tasty dish were the two hundred and twenty-seven tiny, wooded islets upon the lakes. Many of Eldoran’s luminaries lived in this area, whilst its lesser citizens occupied the distant slopes of the low hills, clustering as if for comfort around the powerful Guilds that commanded so many aspects of city life. Down near the quiet harbour, situated in the wide mouth of the Elbeth River where it flowed westward into the Gulf of Erbon, were the Guilds of the artisans, workers and trades. As the eye travelled the otherwise gently-forested landscapes of Eldoran, it would pause in the eastern quarter at the Pentacle, the five-towered stronghold of the Interrogators. Standing atop a hunchbacked basalt massif, the Pentacle accorded it fierce eyes and a frowning brow, casting a long shadow even in the brightest sunshine.

  Far from that grim omen, the Sorcerers and Warlocks claimed Cherholn Grove as their own. It occupied a curious location upon the city’s southernmost fringe, where the eye might rise beyond verdant hills to a pike-toothed mountain range called the Ammilese March, which spanned the entire southern horizon. Cherholn was a picturesque, wooded valley with two unique and unusual features–firstly, the myriad exposed deposits of palisk-quartz that lined the sheer valley walls, which glittered brilliantly during the daylight makh, and secondly, the stands of towering shurmal trees, purple-blossomed giants that to the best scholarly knowledge grew only in this valley in all the world. At the valley’s head stood the only visible man-made object, the impossibly tall and slender rose-quartz tower known as the Warlock’s Roost.

  The Eldrik despised harsh corners. Angles were subtle, balconies rounded, and doorways arched. Somehow the idea of closed or locked doors, Mata forbid, had passed Eldoran by. Even during Darkenseason many houses stubbornly continued to be kept open to the elements, though I noticed the wealthy used wizard-screens, which magically excluded the cold and snows. It took me seasons to notice that even artistic expression, free as it appeared to the bedazzled first-time visitor, was permitted only within particular predetermined boundaries.

  And their obsession with cleanliness! It seemed hardly a leaf could fall from the ubiquitous rooftop gardens than a worker was carefully sweeping it up, to be re-used in the gardens or farms outside the city. Men and women bathed once a day, if not twice, and perfume for both men and women was in lavish supply. Mark my words, First Councillor Eliyan delegated a professional perfumer to visit me to determine my optimal fragrances, which duly arrived several days later in an imaginative array of bottles packed in an ornamental hand basket, complete with ribbons, flowers, and detailed instructions: ‘For use every morning, one small daub on each wrist …’ or ‘for an informal evening meal, one capful after shaving applied to the neck and cheeks, which will accord the skin a beautiful glow …’

  Rubiny would have split her sides laughing.

  Every morning in the cool makh before dioni orison, I ran through the hills beyond the borders of Eldoran. Every morning, two dark shadows flitted along behind me. My guards. ‘In case you become lost,’ Eliyan claimed, with a wry smirk. More than three anna later, still no joke. What began in an ill-tempered fit of boredom soon became a pleasurable habit–even if I could imagine the Wurm swimming wraithlike through rock and sod somewhere beneath my feet, and taste the vinegary tang of fear in my throat as I remembered it rising … did it stalk me as I hurled my body through the gentle hills and vales? Or did it sleep, awaiting the clarion trump of El Shashi’s woe? Did the monster dream?

  I dreamed every night from the instant my head touched the bedroll. Truly told, even I, who loved a deep, down-soft bed as much as the next man, learned to sleep upon an Eldrik futon. At first I owned it a torture most foul. I woke feeling as though my hips had been dislocated during the night. My neck and shoulders ached. Though I was used to sleeping rough on the road–in ditches, beneath hedges and bushes, in lyomhouses and pastures and snowy vales–the slatted gaps beneath a too-thin mattress drove me to despair. And repeated nightmares featuring Jyla, the Wurm, inventive Eldrik tortures, and my betrayal of Janos, did naught to contribute to a peaceful night’s rest.

  At times, I felt I was running from the nightmares. I would dream of summoning the Wurm. Being eaten alive was another favourite. Ulim sent demons to torture my flesh; they turned into Eldrik Sorcerers in my mind. I relived the Lymarian border war a hundred times over, seeing again and again the faces of all the men I murdered there. My own children I sacrificed to the beast. I have heard it said people do not dream of their own death. Not I. One dioni orison, dreaming of fleeing headlong from the Wurm,
I ran indeed–straight into the wall of my holia, my simple apartment.

  “Unhh … larathi!” Clutching my forehead, I fumbled my way to the bath chamber.

  Do people run in their sleep?

  “Larathi!” I must have run over my changing-screen on my way to meet the wall. My backward glance took in the cracked frame and torn fabric.

  I stubbed my toe on the water barrel. “Larathi!” More pain!

  In the beautiful mirror, I saw crimson runnels streaking my face from a cut on my forehead. “Triple larathi, served swimming in vinegar and crab-guts!”

  Muttering to myself about how the smallest head wounds always generated rivers of blood, I dipped a small bucket into the refreshingly cool water and doused my head and shoulders. With a growl, I kicked off my sodden sleep-shorts. It helps to undress before one’s ablutions.

  In my ignorance, I had once imagined the Eldrik people to hold a common standing; a classless, harmonious society. Holy Mata, what a fool I was. As Eliyan’s guest, I was assigned a manservant of the lower class, who took care of my cooking, cleaning, shopping, tidying, washing, and such matters. A most pleasing custom! Most households employed such help–indeed, I was undertaking a most frugal living having just one servant. Sorcerers such as Eliyan, who was indeed the First Councillor, had a small troop of eager servants at finger-snap command.

  My holia stood within the grounds of his city dwelling. An estate, the Eldrik call these mansions. Grounds fit for ten villages, every last dyndigit manicured to perfection–a dyndigit being the Eldrik measure that is one hundredth of the familiar Umarik digit. And a digit, of course, is the standard measure of the top digit of a woman’s thumb–originally the Hassutla of Hakooi’s thumb, legend owns it.

  Much of my scholarship in Eldoran majored on such gaps in my education. Eliyan saw fit to provide me, daily, with a tutor. But he had delegated the task of finding tutors to a subordinate, who, I learned, quickly delegated the valued task still further down the chain of authority. Tutoring the ‘Umarite barbarian’, truly told, was little esteemed. How to ignore the snide remarks and supercilious sneers? My daily trial.

  Having bathed and dressed my wound, I was freshly irritated to discover I had forgotten my drycloth in the bedchamber. So out I marched. And was greeted thus, in High Eldrik, in a woman’s tones:

  “Good morrow, El Shashi!”

  Caught mid-stride and minded of my nakedness, I made an instinctive leap for the changing-screen. Unfortunately it still sagged crookedly, and so for a second time that morn, with a yelp and a howl, I measured my length over the piece of furniture. Several sharp wooden snaps announced the demise of the twice-misfortunate screen. I thrashed about in the ruins with all the grace of a sholfish cast into the bottom of a fisherman’s boat.

  The woman called, “Is ought amiss?”

  Fumbling with the drycloth, I covered myself with trembling hands. I began to blurt out a red-faced apology.

  “No mind,” said she, sounding perplexed. “I saw nothing.”

  Absurd! I fumed. These Eldrik and their Hajik-be-blasted lack of doors! Of course she saw everything–did I not wander stark-naked into her presence? Did this woman take me for a fool?

  Glancing up I saw: Her eyes, set in a face of elfin, almost ethereal beauty, are disquietingly milky. She must be blind. But surely … for as she twirls her tumbling, white-blonde ringlets in her fingers …

  “Do not feel foolish, El Shashi. I am merely blind.”

  “Dear sweet Mata!” I gasped. The image before me shimmered from woman to child and back, and at once I knew where I had seen this woman before–in that vision within the Wurm!

  Mata forgive me, I am a stubborn man and slow to believe. Had I thought that vision nought but a daydream? Despite its clarity, power, and truth? I am afraid I stared. Like a peasant who stumbles slack-jawed upon some indescribable treasure, so stared I at my vision clothed in flesh, miraculously transformed from child into exotic womanhood.

  Truly told, her hair was a halo of the finest spun cloth-of-gold, framing a dainty face with high cheekbones, and her features among the most captivating I have ever beheld–true beauty only the greater to shock, for it was so deeply flawed. Her eyes were an opaque, milky hue that marked her blindness all too manifestly. Her skin had the paleness of an albino, but albino she was not. She must come from another people, I imagined. Though the Eldrik are of a lighter cast than the Umarik, she was degrees again paler still. The hairnet which held that mass of hair was itself a wonder, a dew-studded spiderweb sparkling in the sunlight slanting through the slits in my still-shuttered windows. If she let out her tresses they would tumble down her back in a golden river … this no-more child of my vision. She was tall, yet slight of build, and garbed in the sea-green robes of the Physicians Guild. A scarf of patently foreign design lightly entwined her neck and shoulders, and its tasselled ends swept down to the floor. Her fingers in elegant repose brought a slim birch cane to my notice.

  Of course she could not see me … was I a jatha-born numbwit? Mata-cursed blindness cast her days into darkness. Eyes to ruin her loveliness, disfiguring … she needed healing!

  But as swiftly as these thoughts formed in my mind, shame overtook me the faster. Despite her condition, this woman surely functioned better than I in Eldoran, and must do, judging by her air of tranquil confidence and lack of a companion to escort her hence.

  In her richly accented alto the woman inquired, “Have I offended you?”

  “No, no … sorry.” I felt quite breathless. “I’m only … embarrassed.” I glanced at the sundial, visible outside my window. “It’s already the third makh and I … I, um … well, I overslept. And I feared I must have offended you, I mean–”

  “No offence did I–”

  I stepped upon a large splinter and, hopping about on one leg, howled again, “Oh, oh! Oh you stupid–!”

  To my chagrin, the woman began laugh. She had a wonderful laugh, infectious and almost wild in its surging-forth freedom. Even in my befuddled state, I could not help laughing too. And there is a mysterious bond in shared hilarity. I found myself warming to her immediately.

  At length she said, “I am the slave called P’dáronï of Armittal, and I would be your tutor–if you are not offended by having a blind instructor, and indeed one of the very lowest class. And do trust my word, El Shashi, that I take no offence in your nakedness. You make me laugh. There’s precious little laughter here in Eldoran.”

  Now she sounded melancholy. I wished she would laugh again.

  “I would gladly provide entertainment–”

  “Well then you may wear ought or nought as pleases you best–”

  “And instigate more scandal than I have already? I will ought and not nought!”

  P’dáronï chuckled, “You cannot surely be Matabound, that the notion of being seen by a mere woman should ignite such mayhem in your being.”

  “You are not some mere woman, P’daroni of Armittal,” I said, so stung by the injustice of her words that my tongue wagged before I could withhold, “you’re a beautiful woman. Truly beautiful. And I am–I was–a Matabound man.”

  I gulped. Never had I said it before.

  Had Arlak Sorlakson taken leave of his last drop of prudence? I berated myself furiously. Now she thought me a reckless philanderer without the good sense Mata gave a common sparrow!

  Into the awkward silence she inserted lightly, “Please pronounce my name ‘P’dáronï’, not ‘P’daroni’. I’m not of the Eldrik race. So tell me, what became of your wife? And how came you to Eldoran? For you speak High Eldrik with a wonderful fluency. I marvel at your command of the language. Even so, your accent cannot disguise the pain my thoughtless comment has evoked in your mind.”

  I, liking her forthrightness, replied boldly, “I will tell you this and more, but upon one condition.”

  “Which is?”

  “You tell me your story. Where are you from? How came you to Eldoran?”

  And so, thinking how clev
erly I had covered up the memory of my vision within the Wurm–thinking her fate must somehow entwine with mine in Mata’s great Purpose–I began to speak to this most engaging woman of my past.

  I spoke more earnestly than I had intended.

  P’dáronï was available two mornings a week. As I recall, to my shame, I initially approached her proposal of tutoring me in the medical disciplines with no small measure of arrogance. What tutoring did El Shashi require? But she was such refreshing company after the stuffy, supercilious old men I had suffered for a season beyond two anna, after my recovery from the Inquisitors’ torture, that I acquiesced readily to accompanying her when she did not have other duties.

  Ay, my old self-interest. What did I assume but that a comely countenance could not possess intellect to match? Fie and double-shame upon me. Arlak and his Hajik-be-cursed prejudices! For what I learned of P’dáronï during the ample makh we worked and learned together, astounded me. Truly told, I felt at times an uninformed child before the depth and breadth of her knowledge and insight.

  The Eldrik made a science of the athocary’s art. They studied it in ways, and with tools, that I had never employed or even imagined. Take for example the practice of dissection, forbidden in the Fiefdoms as a favourite pastime of Ulim’s ghoulish disciples. Or that one of her friends was developing a series of powerful lenses called a dynilens, the better to see the smallest parts that make up bodily structures. Ay, and their belief in tiny organisms that spread disease! Though as yet unseen, they had detected these organisms by employing sophisticated magical techniques, and sought to discover new ways of curing diseases through this study. Suddenly, I had a new vehicle to help me understand the history of the major plagues–blood-fever, which has a fatality rate of six persons in ten and has thrice devastated wide swathes of the Fiefdoms, and black-boil plague, which is less infectious but even more virulent, and according to Eldrik studies arose from contaminated water supplies.