by Awert, Wolf
He rubbed his shoulder, which still hurt a little.
Esara looked pensive. “Demons are creatures of the Other World. They only come when they are called or when someone sends them. Then they can exist in this world and are unstoppable.”
“But you stopped the demon. You, by yourself. You told me what to do and your voice was stronger than the demon’s roar.” Nill suddenly saw Esara through different eyes.
“I can’t remember that,” Esara said quietly. “But that wasn’t me. No, to stop a demon you have to be a powerful warlock or mage, and even then success is uncertain. Demons are companions to feelings and memories. It must have followed your chagrin, your anger or your disappointment. I should have known that the dancing runes were presaging something... but a demon! I had not expected that. Whatever you felt, the only way to banish the demon was to replace your feelings with a different memory.”
“But I wasn’t angry. Just confused. Does that mean that whenever I don’t understand something that demon is going to come?” Nill sounded uncertain.
“No, only if the feelings are very strong and have been lying dormant for a long time. And if the person is accessible for the powers of the Other World.”
Nill tried to understand what Esara was telling him. “So I’m one of the people who are...” Nill hesitated over the strange word. “Accessible?”
“I don’t know. You did not meet in this or the Other World, but somewhere betwixt. I could not see the demon, so he wasn’t here. I could not see you clearly either, a part of you had already gone. There is an old song about Mortar the Seeker. He went to the mid-realm. That’s all I know.”
“So you don’t know what it looked like? It was a beast made up of many different animals.” Nill eagerly described the demon in all detail and Esara drew defensive runes in the air, shocked.
“If I could not feel his presence here, I would agree and say it was all a dream, for the demon you just described is called Bucyngaphos. And he is no ordinary demon; he is one of their three lords. The legends say that Bucyngaphos looks different for every person. Only two things remain the same in all accounts. For one, he is always made up of different animals, for another, he always stands on the legs of a bird of prey. But you must be mistaken.”
“Why? I just told you what I saw.”
“Only the old ones in myths from the early time of this world, when here and there were still the same, have ever stood face to face with the Archdemons. Since then the worlds of humans and the Archdemons have been separated, far apart. The mightiest demons a person can still call or summon are the demons of pure emotion. There is Odioras, the Demon of Cold Hate, Irasemion, Demon of Wild Rage, and Avarangan, Lord of Blind Greed. The demons of false love, powerless fear and lust for success are terrible creatures too, but I know little of them. The Archdemons are the keepers for these beings. They are from a world that existed even before ours. No mortal may call them, no warlock summon them.”
“But he came to me. Isn’t that right?” Nill asked, feeling something akin to pride in his chest at being one of the chosen few.
“He came to take you. But why? Why?” Esara hid her head in her arms and Nill’s pride deflated as he saw his mother’s desperation.
The encounter with the demon lay over Grovehall like a shadow. On the outside, one day followed another. Esara attended to her duties and Nill wandered around in the hills. Only the evenings were awful, when they discussed the day or stared at the Stone of Prophecy, thinking of nothing but that terrible night. And when they finally went to sleep, even slumber did not grant them rest.
Esara knew that it was not good for Nill to wander around on his own all day. Thus, she often took him with her when she had to fill up her stock of fruits, roots and herbs. Nill aided her while they gathered plants and sometimes his sharp eyes found rare roots Esara had been seeking for ages. But this was no adequate activity for a boy who grew stronger and bigger by the day. He still was smaller and lighter than the other children of his age but his face had begun to lose its soft, round shapes, and the first lines were starting to dig in around his mouth.
The boy needs work, Esara thought.
The opportunity came when by chance the Reeve obtained a herd of sheep as payment for an open debt. He would sell them to the next best buyer who offered a decent price, but until then someone had to take care of them. The Reeve could have entrusted them to a shepherd, but then the animals would have been separated every evening, and so the Reeve was quite relieved when Esara made a suggestion. From that day forth Nill led the animals into the hills every day, returning before the sun had set every evening. It was one of fate’s many vagaries that Nill was to take care of the herd belonging to the very man whose son had hurt him so profoundly. But the adults tended to know little about their children.
Buyers came and went. Either they named a price too low, or they could not pay on the spot, or they offered to barter with wares the Reeve was not interested in. Four more harvests passed and nothing happened apart from the herd growing and Nill getting older. The memory of the demon faded under the sun’s glaring rays, and the nights lost their terror.
Nill sat with the animals in the hills and waited. Esara waited in Grovehall. In the evenings the villagers stood outside their houses and cottages and waited. Everyone waited. But nobody knew what they were waiting for.
Only a fool confuses waiting with faineance. The villagers went about their daily business, the hunters ranged through the bushes in the hopes of finding a few animals and the shepherds stood with a watchful eye by their herds. Nill, surrounded by his herd, looked up to the sky, as if he hoped to find something there. He studied the movement and the shape of the clouds, learned to interpret the birds’ flight, and discovered the taste with which the wind changed direction, and even its speech. The wind spoke differently to the animals, who told their stories with their ears, tails and bodies when they came to him or even argued with him. “He who looks for friends should look to the animals,” an old proverb went. But was that true for all animals?
It was a day like any other, but Nill suddenly had the feeling that he was not alone. On a flat hilltop stood an old ram. He had come from nowhere, and with the glaring sun behind him he was nothing more than a pitch-black shadow to Nill’s blinded eyes. He turned his massive neck with his great horns slowly towards Nill, eyeing him curiously. The old ram was large, defensive and tough, and he came closer with a few hesitant steps. His withers were as high as Nill’s waist and the horns reached his chest. The hind legs were bony and skinny, as with all rams, but this ram’s ribs were also visible under the half-torn spring coat. It was a mystery to Nill how an animal could be so thin despite the good spring grass everywhere. But any tidings of pity died down as soon as he looked the animal in the eye. Nill had never seen eyes like that in a ram. They were slanted like a wildcat’s, large as those of a duskflyer’s and golden-yellow like the wings of a God moth.
The ram circled around the herd, stared over to Nill, checked every single sheep and took a watching post close to the herd. This strange ram was much to Nill’s liking. It amused him to watch the ram, so he decided to let him be. It’ll be an animal that lost its herd and is looking for a new home, he thought in his youthful carelessness. But when Nill got up to take his herd to the other side of the hill to get them out of the direct sun, the ram stepped up. He was not having some stranger take over his newly-found herd. He lowered his great head, pointed his horn in his enemy’s direction and charged.
A ram is not a wild beast that lusts for man-flesh. In a hustle in the herd a few sharp blows with a stick are usually enough to restore order. As such, Nill was surprised by the sudden attack, but not concerned. He let the ram approach him, side-stepped him and gave him a mighty kick that caused him to fall over. The ram stood back up again, shook his fleece, went a few steps backwards, scratched the ground with his hooves, lowered his head and charged again. The pounding of his hooves against the hard earth beneath gave Nill enough war
ning to turn about, the new attack merely passing his waist. Nevertheless, Nill fell over, rolled and got up, quite disconcerted.
That was close, he thought. A blow from those horns would easily break his bones. Nill had barely stood up and the ram was ready to attack again. Nill dodged the attack with ease and kicked again, but the ram was not ready to give up and Nill began to find the whole matter tiring.
His herding staff was no great help in a fight against a ram who seemed to be determined to fight it out until the victor was irrevocably decided. Nill knew that blows from the stick would be even less effective than his kicks. He was reluctant to use it as a lance or to use his dagger instead, for the ram was not after his life. He merely saw Nill as a rival to the new herd he had found.
“I must find a way to fight that this ram understands,” Nill muttered to himself. “I must defeat him without killing him. This isn’t war, it’s just a duel.”
That was all very well, but the only victor a ram will acknowledge is one with a stronger skull and a mightier charge than himself.
His next few dodges brought Nill to the top of the hill where the grass was sparse, the ground meager and the thin earthy crust could no longer hide the white, broken stones. Nill had to search for a few moments, but then he found a rock between the cracked white stones which was large enough to serve as a weapon. He lifted it and threw it at the ram’s brow with all his might. The ram stopped, lowered his head and wanted to retreat to start a new charge, but Nill gave him no pause. He picked the stone back up and dealt another blow to the ram’s brow. Nill drove him back with every shot. The ram had no manner of opposing this tactic, but he understood it. After a series of assaults that lasted for what Nill felt to be an eternity the ram finally turned away, shaking. Nill had won, though he could barely lift his arms any more.
When Nill guided his herd back to the valley that evening the old ram followed, behind all the others, as though he had not yet given up hope. As Nill looked back at the fringe of the village the ram had disappeared into the early night. He was avoiding the village and its people. But next morning he was there. He watched the village from a hilltop calmly, waiting. From that day forth the herd had two guards, until the inevitable happened. The herd had reached a goodly size and a buyer had come who agreed with the Reeve on a price for which the herd was sold. The ram stayed and joined Nill quite naturally.
Nill was wandering again. He wandered across the meadows with his ram, practiced combat with his dagger as well as he could, collected all sorts of food he brought home to Esara. He was wandering and suddenly stopped, astonished. He sat down, leaning against the old ram who stood guard.
“I’m trapped here,” he said to himself. “I’m trapped here for my whole life. I’m the son of a truth-teller, that’s my only belonging and my only obligation. Esara can handle things without me, she doesn’t need me. I have nothing to multiply or protect, I have nothing that’s keeping me here. I have not learned much, and what I have learned is of little use. I don’t know my skills, and if I can do something that others can’t or if I’m different than others, Esara is afraid of it. What is it with me, where do I belong?”
He had no answer to any of his questions. All he knew was that the small village down there was not where he belonged.
Chapter 2
“I don’t want to go.” Everything in her contracted. She bent her back, fastened her long, still rather bony arms around her knees and stared at the floor. As everything contracted in her, the world around her shrank too until it was no more than a dot, a spot of clay stuck in a small gap between two woven twigs. The clay was crumbling at the outsides and was darker in the middle, as though it were still moist.
“Tiriwi!”
Whenever Grimala said her name it sounded as though a bird was calling for her.
“Tiriwi, you aren’t listening.”
Tiriwi freed her gaze from the clay-smeared weaving and looked up into Grimala’s good-natured, smiling face, Chiwita’s mischievous face and Kamana’s serious but friendly face.
Tiriwi had heard enough. More words would change nothing.
“I’m an Oa like you,” she said quietly. “I know every tree-trunk and every leaf. The sun caresses me by day and the moon guards me in the night. You must know that my place isn’t anywhere in the world, but right here. Did you not teach me to be content with what I can find where I live? That in humility we have wealth? And that it is the Oa’s task to preserve the world, not change it?”
Though Tiriwi could no longer remember every single Tree-blossoming she had ever celebrated, she knew that it was far more than she had fingers. Only the last Tree-blossoming did she keep in her memory like a sacred treasure, for shortly after it her entire life fell into disarray.
One evening, when everything was still as it should be, she had ended the day with the other girls by the large fire. It must have been a special evening as Grimala, Keeper of the Village, had stood by her and laid a hand on her shoulder. When Grimala stepped into the circle she always stood until someone invited her. She never had to wait for long.
“Grimala, can you tell us a story?”
“Yes, tell us the story of Osir and Atak and how they made the land and the sky.”
But wise women like Grimala never simply told stories. They were the keepers of myth and legend. They preserved the eternal truths of their people which they told over and over again, until they had become a part of the memories in every Oa’s minds and hearts.
Grimala never let them wait for long. She sat down, crossed her legs, stretched her back, and looked around the circle. The small ones sat right by the fire, the older ones behind them, and the mothers were barely visible in the semi-darkness behind them. Girls rarely sat beside their mothers. They preferred to sit close to their best friends or play under the watch of their older sisters.
Grimala always waited until everyone was still, and all had fallen silent save for the crackling of the fire. Into this silence she would speak her first words. And so it was on this eve: “Today I will not be telling the story of Osir and Atak, for their tale was made for children. Today I will tell you the truth about the beginning of the world, the birth of the sun, moon and all stars.”
The children looked crestfallen, the mothers looked around anxiously, and little furry creatures with cold paws ran down Tiriwi’s back. Osir and Atak, no more than a children’s tale? Grimala waited until all whispering voices had become silent once more and the mothers had taken their children to bed. She seemed not to notice the fire in the middle losing its warmth, the stars blinking threateningly and the moon retreating behind a cloud.
“In the beginning, there was a great empty bubble where the pulse of life pounded. The Void heard the pounding, surrounded it, took it as a part of itself and followed its rhythm. It expanded, contracted and expanded again, until it went too far and tore into an uncountable number of bubbles, meandering in the void. So had it been foretold, so had it happened, for the mother of all being is the Nothing.”
Grimala took such a deep breath that it sounded like a sigh.
“Some of the bubbles stayed silent, in others the pulse of life continued aimlessly for a while before it stopped. But one bubble did not allow the pulse to become silent. It kept pulsing, so full of joy and strength that its outsides connected when it contracted and became stuck there. So it came that there were now two instead of one.
“The Void now saw its counterpart, recognized itself, startled and fled from itself. What it left was its magic.
“Thus the wise ones say, in the beginning there was magic. There was and still is only this one magic. It has no form and no shape, no past and no future, no place and no destination. It is the mother of all things, of the beginning and the end. It is enough for itself, and whosoever controls it is a God, for who else could understand such magic? It is the magic of the Nothing. If summoned, it takes shape and stops being in the same instant.”
The mothers nodded thoughtfully. They had learned
of this tale when they had grown from girls into women. Tiriwi felt the mothers’ agitation, felt Grimala’s hand on her shoulder, strong and secure, and suddenly she understood that Grimala was telling the story just for her.
“The Nothing bore Fate, which wished for Time to serve it. But Time refused to serve Fate, and created Space to trap Fate in. From then on Fate and Time have been fighting an eternal battle as disparate sisters. Fate decided on which things happened, but Time decided when.
“The Nothing recognized the wisdom of Space and Time and bore a Light that did not shine. Time, Fate and Light are the three children of Nothing. Time and Fate are never-ending mysteries to humans, whereas Light was different to its sisters.
“The Light exploded and cooled down. It became so cold that it could finally shine, and by shining it became colder still. The places that were particularly cold contracted and took shape. Hot gas fumes raced through Space and gave it forms. And the Light became colder yet until even the gases shone. And when these gases contracted they became solid and kept their shape. In the once empty and frightened bubble the first dust particles began to wander about.”
Tiriwi knew all too much about dust. The wind blew dust in her eyes or carried it out of blossoms. The very earth beneath her feet was made up of fine and coarse dust. But dust in a bubble? Tiriwi had forgotten all about Osir and Atak.
“All of you know this one last bubble. It is the sky above us. Sun, moon and stars are the last shimmer of the Light, and where there is none the darkness reigns. Light and dark made shapes and forms, and shapes and forms are the other side of the Nothing. So began the world.”
Grimala rose to her feet.
“And so, also, the magic of the Oas came into being. The sky above us, the earth below and all around us. And we are in the middle. We are the bridge between the world we live in and the sky we were made in. But only we Oas have kept this knowledge.”
