The Heirs of History: A Nation From Nothing
Page 23
Falhadn had never seen such vivid colors and expressions. Foreign pirates had raided Old Coast port towns, but their skins were as olive as a Hrashmaadite’s. She turned her head and found even more extraordinary curiosities: a very old, very short man with two heads, a fruit vendor with feathers protruding from his shoulders, a giant in heavy plate armor wielding the most massive greatsword Falhadn had ever seen — even bigger than the Twisted Prince’s famous blade.
“The tallest man in Thuvaeing,” her guide told her. Salyryd had learned much of the Hillite tongue in her short time travelling with Ganjinhill. She seemed to be the leader of the Segchyhah, though she wore no crown. “Sir Leonol Caliquin, an honorable prince, brother to a former queen, and uncle to the future queen of the Thuvaeir Isles.”
Teacher Zannahill and his apprentice followed as well. “He’s bigger than Admiral Uandem.”
Salyryd continued her tour of the camps — Falhadn, Zannahill, and Apprentice Rudglednhall in tow. She took them through countless residential and market tents, then hurried past the armory tents. Salyryd stopped at a small gathering of four quiet tents. “No Hillite may enter these tents, under any circumstance,” she demanded. “None outside of the Segchyhah. There are some mysteries which must remain mysteries.”
“What is in them?” Falhadn asked.
“Nothing to concern yourself with,” she answered, completely calm, “but if the Hillites join the Segchyhah, your Representative will learn the secrets of our magic.”
“Quite a lot of secrets. For someone is trying to earn our trust.”
“But where will you find this degree of honesty?” Salyryd replied with a cheeky smile. “We are not here for conquest.” They arrived at a tall tent, adorned in a thousand gold pendants and draped in silks of violet and emerald. The tent looked like no other tent they had passed. “Please.” Salyryd gestured for her three guests to enter the tent.
Inside, more gold and violet and emerald. Two dozen bear pelts lined the muddy ground. A large bed, a larger wardrobe, a small but ornate table with four armed chairs, and a mahogany desk speckled with half-finished parchment filled the tent to capacity. At the desk sat a gorgeous woman in her late thirties. Her long blonde hair bobbled when she looked up with her small gold eyes.
From behind them, Salyryd said, “This is Jenneseille.”
Zannahill attempted, “Shan-uh-say?”
The blonde woman stood. “Very close.” She held the back of her index and middle finger to the center of her forehead. Falhadn returned the gesture at once, though the two men were slower to respond. She introduced herself in the smooth Segchyhah tongue but with a nasal accent, “I am Representative Jenneseille, daughter of the famous scribe Jeanfil and the most beautiful woman of her generation Sifone.”
Zannahill went to shake her hand, but Jenneseille did not understand the gesture. “I am Teacher Zanna Zannahill, son of Miner Zanna and — would she have lived till after I was married — Sailor Gray.” He withdrew his hand as his apprentice bowed his head.
“I am Apprentice Fen Rudglednhall, son of Hunter Fen Fenhall and Servant Glednhedeen.” Servant, Falhadn thought, funny word for whore.
“And I am Teacher Fal Falhadn, daughter of two fools I’ll never have to see again. Are you a Segchyhah Representative?”
“I am Fauvre,” Jenneseille answered. “My people no longer have a homeland, but Fauvril was once a prosperous civilization.”
Salyryd sighed, her face waxed nostalgic. “I wanted Jenneseille to tell you the tale of how the Segchyhah saved the Fauvre people.”
Jenneseille whispered, “Always remember.” And she kissed at the sky.
Falhadn looked up. Nothing but the purple and green cloths draped from the tent roof.
The Fauvre Representative gestured towards the table at the center of her tent. “Please, sit.” The three Hillites sat, as well as Jenneseille. With no more chairs at the table, Salyryd sat at Jenneseille’s desk. She breathed in to tell her tale.
“Three hundred and twenty years ago, the Segchyhah annexed the Fauvre people into their society. We were nomadic. The year before, half of the Fauvre were slaughtered, the other half enslaved. Mountain clans, vile brutes. Vogagh, they called themselves. Only about eight hundred of the Fauvre escaped, headed southwest. At the time, the Segchyhah were still farmers, not nomadic like we are now. When the last of the royal bloodline, my namesake Jenneseille, led her eight hundred into Segchyhah lands, the farmers welcomed us with cautious optimism. But when the leader of the Segchyhah heard of the wandering Fauvre, he rode north. When he arrived, he decreed the Fauvre refugees to be citizens of Segchyhahl.”
Salyryd added. “The Segchyhah leader’s name was Rynyr Crownkiller, the first Representative. He is the most famous Segchyhah in all of history. I named my own son after him, Rynyl.”
Jenneseille continued, “But the princess Jenneseille wanted to maintain the Fauvre heritage and culture. Rynyr agreed. It’s important to know that Rynyr had given up his royal crown thirty-two years before this, to establish the Representatives. At first, it was him and his family members. But Rynyr promptly realized that he needed to spread the rule. A rich merchant and a poor farmer had joined him in the Representatives, but Rynyr’s greatest deed was when he made Jenneseille a Representative — a leader of the Segchyhah, but able to perfectly preserve her people’s culture.”
Smiling ear to ear, Salyryd again interrupted, “It was another sixty years before another people were annexed, but the greatest idea in human history had been planted.”
“Rynyr Crownkiller passed away of old age, five years after Jenneseille became a Representative. But his legacy continued. Jenneseille only lived ten years as a Representative. Inspired by Rynyr’s generosity and forward thinking, Jenneseille passed up her pig-headed bastard daughter as the next Representative and chose a humble shepherd, who had survived a Vogagh labor camp when he was twelve. Twenty-three when he became the second Fauvre Representative, young Grafot served longer than any Fauvre since — forty-four years.”
Salyryd chuckled and rose from the desk. “So you see, the Segchyhah are in the business of preserving cultures and uniting all peoples.”
Falhadn realized she was beaming and tried to hide her wonder. “What did you do about the Vogagh?”
Jenneseille nodded, almost ashamed. “The Fauvre did not write down anything about the Vogagh after they joined the Segchyhah. They left that life behind. All we know is that these clans occupied the mountains to the northeast, but the mountains are vast, innumerable. And the northeast is blocked by mostly impenetrable swampland and jungle. Hundreds have perished trying to reach the mountains by land, dozens more have perished trying to reach the north by sea. Krakens and leviathans may not inhabit the Great Sea, but the Devil’s Sea is another matter.”
Salyryd approached the table, and the group stood to meet her. “And the Shrih are sensitive about non-Shrih sailing their waters nowadays.”
Jenneseille held two fingers to her forehead. “It was nice to meet you. I’m sure we’ll speak again.” More pleasantries were exchanged, and they left the Fauvre Representative to her work.
A score of men surrounded Salyryd, Falhadn, Zannahill, and his apprentice. Their skin was fog gray, their eyes onyx black. A young gray-skinned boy clad only in ruby red nipple rings began to beat a giant drum nailed to the ground, and the twenty men started to perform. Dancing, Falhadn guessed. Falhadn envied the dancing men; her wound from that night with Sailor Henhall had given way to a scar which prevented her from dancing as freely as before.
Ten men shouted foreign hymns, then the other ten chanted in reply. A few gave Falhadn and her companions some grinning attention. Falhadn giggled, but Zannahill’s apprentice laid his hand on his sheathed shortsword. Zannahill slapped his hand away.
Salyryd smiled at the dancers, then at Falhadn. The gray-skinned dancers dressed in feathers of colors yet undiscovered. Bouncing up and down, Falhadn caught several glimpses of their bare backsides. Different cultures,
she reminded herself. They lifted one another as high as possible. They bent backwards, flipped forward. The dancers stepped to the beat of the boy’s drum, then stood on their heads. Only one walked on two feet. He approached Falhadn, holding a fresh-plucked lily in his open palm. She accepted it and placed it amidst her chestnut locks. The dancer’s olive green lips stretched across his face to reveal black teeth, smiling as though he had never seen a woman with flowers in her hair. He rejoined the rest of the dancers.
Another man offered Salyryd a dandelion, and she placed it over her ear. But when another man offered Rudglednhall a sunflower, Zannahill had to stop him from drawing his sword.
But Rudglednhall did not offend the dancers. They continued. Falhadn found it beautiful, strange, familiar yet foreign. Like a primal instinct. Something inside of her could have composed this bizarre dance but simply never thought to. The gray-skinned men tossed one another overhead, and they concluded. A small crowd had gathered, and they applauded. When Falhadn went to applaud, she found she had been holding Zannahill’s hand. Their eyes met. We’re both married, Falhadn remembered, and I’m trying with Falhill.
The Quoxil dancers ran and skipped and rolled away, but Salyryd the Roamer led the path to her own personal tent.
“Pyegel and his assistants care for most of the dovelings. But I keep a dozen or so.” Salyryd ran her long finger along the open-faced perches, where rested fourteen small white birds. Their yellow legs sported a tiny black device. “For holding the messages.”
Falhadn examined the painted wooden claw device. “And they know exactly where to take the message?”
“It’s a piece of that Segchyhah magic you can’t know about just yet.”
Zannahill fingered at an empty perch. “Sending messages already? To whom?”
“Representatives Violor and Bassun await us in Pereadoc. I informed them of our new friends.”
“Didn’t you say that other Representative Pyegel manages most of the dovelings? I’d think you would save these personal birds for personal messages.”
“Clever, aren’t you?” Salyryd chuckled. She gestured to a quiet, youngish girl, who, in turn, ran into an unseen recess of the prodigious tent. “Nahyra, one of my assistants. They don’t often fetch tea for guests, but she understands the importance of our friendship.”
Zannahill smiled as he persisted; “So, was this a personal message?”
“Why are you so interested?”
“I feel I have a duty to my people to ensure their safety.”
“Do you feel unsafe?”
Rudglednhall answered for his master, “Not as unsafe as when you wouldn’t allow us in your ‘magical tents’.”
“It was a hopeful message, a note to my son Rynyl, who lives in Sardin. My only child. He and I are close. I was overcome with enthusiasm when we encountered you Hillites. I couldn’t wait for the information to get to him organically. Pereadoc and Sardin are half a month’s ride from one another.”
The assistant Nahyra returned with a strange urn filled with hot tea, surrounded on a silver platter with tiny wooden cups. Nahyra’s bones pressed against her taut skin. The girl was skinny and meek, but her chestnut hair hung past her waist. And following the girl was Ambassador Ganjinhill. “Zannahill! Falhadn!” He hugged them both, then the bastard. Falhadn felt refreshed to hear her native tongue. “I’ve been studying their scrolls — it’s what they give six-year-olds to read, but I’m getting a hang of their language.”
Falhadn put on a bashful smile. “Salyryd has lent me some histories.”
“And the Representative Mihivy has lent us some legal documents to interpret,” Zannahill said, arm around his apprentice’s shoulder.
But Falhadn had caught Salyryd’s kind gaze. The Segchyhah woman had almost fifteen years on her, but Salyryd had remained attractive.
When Falhadn first saw Salyryd two days past, a peculiar sense of déjà vu washed over her. These Segchyhah come from halfway across the world, she had thought, but there is something eerily familiar about her.
The painting, she had remembered.
Denhall had shown her the painting he and Falhill found in the strange structure in the Northwood. The oils had faded slightly, the dust caked on, but those unnaturally bright blue eyes and black eyebrows fashioned into thin waves had penetrated her memory.
After the initial meeting in the Cavern of Congress between the Hillites and the Segchyhah, Falhadn stopped Salyryd to ask her about the painting — bringing Ganjinhill as interpreter.
Without summoning guardsmen to accompany them, Falhadn, Ganjinhill, Salyryd, and her assistant Nahyra ambled into the Northwood — what the Segchyhah called the Swampfoot — and into the two-story structure ringed with hieroglyphs, still pulsating a magical dull blue. Salyryd confirmed the Segchyhah had built the round edifice, but the hieroglyphs were ancient Segchyhah, a ceremonial blessing imbued with magic since lost to the Segchyhah. Salyryd guessed that the glyphs shone sapphire blue due to the Segchyhah’s approach, and Falhadn remembered her husband’s naked blue skin surrounded with leaves.
“We built this outpost about a hundred years ago, but we abandoned it sixteen years past — when I was still assistant to Representative Frunead.” Salyryd stroked the painting, ginger as a mother with her babe. “An old friend painted this. I was pregnant at the time. My only child. The painter was the father.” She swallowed. “We haven’t spoken in over a decade.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“But this is a good memory. He must have left it here when… I sent him a doveling, telling him never to try and contact me or baby Rynyl. He must have been among the last Segchyhah posted here.”
“If it is a good memory,” Falhadn said in broken Segchyhah, “then take the painting.” Salyryd had smiled at that.
Now, the painting hung over Salyryd’s writing desk, framed in carved birch. “We’ve gotten through the fiscal responsibilities,” Zannahill continued, “of Segchyhah’s member nations and each Representative’s duties and perquisites. We just started on the quinquennial meeting of all member nations.”
Salyryd stepped forward. “I think it is time we discussed the possibility of Hrashhill becoming a member nation. And who will be Representative.” And her thin lips stretched into a sunburn warm smile. Though she didn’t know why, Falhadn’s skin began to tingle.
“It could be a congresser, but each congresser either dislikes the Segchyhah’s presence or needs to remain on the congress so they may lend their support to the Segchyhah,” Falhadn reasoned. “My husband Falhill, though — perhaps he would want to leave the congress to travel with a group of people who are actively working together towards a greater future.” Her hands trembled at the thought of leaving Hrashhill and journeying with the Segchyhah. If she had to cajole Salyryd into making Falhill the Hillite Representative, she would swallow that reality.
Ganjinhill pursed his lips. “It should be someone who can speak the Segchyhah tongue.”
Zannahill shrugged his shoulders. “It should be someone well liked by the Segchyhah and by us Hillites.”
Salyryd simply sighed. “The Representative should be someone who already has a diplomatic head on their shoulders, preferably some background in government.”
Falhadn blurted out, “My father is governor in Jevilk.” Her cheeks burned red. “I mean… I don’t know why I said that.”
Ganjinhill nodded. “Well, my wedmother is a congresser, and I am already an ambassador. Would that be a good example of a qualified candidate?”
Zannahill’s bastard apprentice added, “My mother’s mother served as a royal congresser for two years.” Zannahill shot him a disapproving look.
But Salyryd looked to Falhadn. “Your father is a ‘governor’. What does this mean?”
“Well, Old Coast is split up into seventy-two tribes. Each sends about two congressers to the capital to debate legislation, but the local law is set by one governor, elected by all the landowners of that tribe, every five years.”
“He’s been governor of Jevilk for twenty-five years and counting, if he hasn’t died of a black soul. I actually haven’t spoken with either of my parents for four years. But if his old heart is still beating, he should be up for reelection this year.”
Zannahill interrupted, “You know, I do teach some politics to my older students.”
Salyryd waved her hand. “We can discuss the Hillite Representative when the time comes. Before all that, we need to show your congress that membership in the Segchyhah Collective is advantageous. Ganjinhill, the more I think on your houseguest idea, the more I like it. But we need more than just housing Segchyhah with congressers.” She gestured to Falhadn. “Your husband respects you.” Then to Ganjinhill. “Your wedmother listens to you.” Then to Zannahill’s apprentice. “Your father’s friend Denhall — both hunters and atheists, correct?”
Salyryd rendered Rudglednhall speechless. “How could she know all that?” he must have thought. I told her, Falhadn wanted to reveal, but what did it matter?
“You really should be talking to Kraek and Theral’s kin,” Falhadn suggested. “Those are the two congressers you need to convince.”
“Has Kraek not stepped down as congresser?”
“Oh, yes. You’re right. And in prison.” Falhadn sighed. “Well, the congress should have a new member in the coming days. Perhaps we could try to steer the nomination process?”
Salyryd laughed. “That is not a conversation I want to be having.” She walked to the exit of her tent. “I do not scheme. But I do—” A scream from without interrupted her. Salyryd darted outside, and the others followed.