by James Derry
Jamal shrugged. “I’m ready.”
“Aren’t you nervous at least?”
“What’s there to be nervous about? My belly is full of butterflies—bright and airy and ready to burst free of their cocoons.” Jamal patted the ‘v’ of satiny skin that showed through the gap of his unbuttoned vest. Sygne wondered if he had visited the palace harem to slather scented oils on his rippling abs. “I’m ready to unleash!” he said. “What’s that?”
“Hmm?” Sygne followed Jamal’s pointing finger to the leather-bound contraption propped open at her feet. “Oh. That’s my pocketbook. Do you know what a book is?”
Jamal stared hard at her. “Of course.”
“Sorry! I mean… Most city-states still use scrolls—or cuneiform tablets. I wasn’t sure…”
“I know of books.”
Sygne picked up her pocketbook. It was a heavy tome, weighing twenty pounds. “In truth, this is more than a book. It is my own invention. It’s a travel journal.” She leafed through a few pages. “But also I sewed folios between some of the signatures.” She flipped to a thin leather satchel sewn into the spine. The folio was stitched with pockets, Sygne pointed to each of them. “On this page I have tweezers, a scalpel, a flint, a knotted measuring string, a protractor, and a pouch filled with various seeds. My whole life is tucked within the pages of this book.”
“That’s just sad.”
“What?”
“That joyless old toad.” Jamal nodded to the General, who was glowering through the final gyrations of Ramyya’s dance. The dancing girl fell to her knees and flung her body backward so that she was splayed out before him. The audience erupted into applause, but Yur sat very still, like a lion watching a lamb. The noise of the crowd quickly died down, as they awkwardly adjusted to match the conqueror’s mood.
Yur tossed a dozen gold coins onto the planks between Ramyya’s thighs. Ramyya looked almost pitiful now that she’d stopped swaying and twirling seductively. The bones of her ribs and spine stuck out of her back as she hunched to swipe her veils from the floor.
“Girl,” Yur called to her. “I like your pretty silks.”
“Thank you, General Yur.”
Yur’s face seemed to sink farther down his egg-shaped head. He croaked, “I like your silks. Very much.” His fat-fingered hand protruded from the folds of his embroidered robe. His fingers were tensed. Grasping.
Ramyya’s eyes flickered to Sessuk, who stood behind Yur’s chair. Sygne knew that Ramyya’s dancing clothes were family heirlooms. Her veils were priceless. Sessuk knew that as well. But the vizier nodded indifferently at the dancing girl, and Ramyya silently conceded to the combined authority of the two finely robed men. These were wicked times. Many legacies had been disassembled over the last ten days. Royal lineages. Religious icons. What were a few scraps of fabric to all of that?
Ramyya stepped close to the conqueror and stuffed her wadded veils into his hand. Then she fled from the dais before Yur could ask for more. She disappeared to the far side of the stage, where Sygne couldn’t see her, couldn’t console her. But the sounds of weeping drifted on the night air. A few members of the audience glanced around and shifted restlessly on their feet.
Sessuk strode forward. He looked particularly theatrical in a robe that shimmered between shades of purple and black, and he carried a wizard’s staff with him. His staff was capped with a tumorous bulge, and two branches extended like goat’s horns from the gnarled wood. Sessuk tapped the pole loudly against the stage. “Let us not stop the show! Who is ready for a song?”
The vizier beckoned to Jamal.
Jamal winked at Sygne. “Shouldn’t be too hard to keep the festive mood…”
***
Jamal swaggered to the center of the stage; then he did a spin, arms outstretched, to take in onlookers from every direction. He darted a sidelong look at Sessuk. If Sygne had recognized him straight away, then the Embhran who had hired Hadat might also recognize Jamal as an impostor. Jamal decided his best strategy was to take the stage as boldly as possible and not offer Sessuk a chance to challenge his right to be there.
Jamal asked the audience, “Why so somber? It’s not as if anyone died…” He paused for effect. “Oh right. Those hundreds of Kritans.” A few people chuckled nervously. Jamal plowed ahead, “But truly, the Kritans had it coming, didn’t they? Our gracious host offered them a chance at mercy,” Jamal gestured to Yur, who was still sniffing Ramyya’s silks, “and they rejected him. Perhaps if they had heard this song they would have made a better decision.”
Jamal cradled his tortoise-shell lyre and caressed its strings. He closed his eyes and began to croon.
“Oh golden prince, tremble now,
Before you stands your doom.
Yur the fearsome, your fears come true.
He stands a great warrior whom,
“Would end your world, trod you down.
He has buried many a foe.
For he raises his gods higher,
While bringing kingdoms low…”
Jamal was sure he had the crowd enraptured. He opened his eyes now to see how the General was responding.
“Yes, Yur is fearsome, your—”
General Yur croaked, “Enough.”
Jamal jumped, and his tribute abruptly ended. In an instant the courtyard fell silent. Jamal didn’t dare look to any other faces; he quickly recovered and bowed briskly to Yur. “Yes, Your Bellicosity? I hope I haven’t offended…”
Yur flitted his stubby fingers. “No. You could not offend me, black man. But you do bore me. Do you know how many songs of praise I have heard in the last three years? Too many to count.”
“I see. But—”
“I want to hear something different,” Yur said. “A song about…” He dangled a veil out in front of him so that the firelight shone through it. “…beauty.” Yur’s head dipped, and he stared at Jamal from beneath furrowed brows. He did not seem to be in the mood for appreciating beauty. Was this a test? Or some sort of trick?
Jamal glanced to the redheaded scientician. She stared back with eyes wide. He cleared his throat. “Do you want me to sing of a beautiful victory?”
“No, foolish poet. Sing me a song about a beautiful woman. Someone you’ve loved… Or lusted after.”
Some men in the crowd cheered at that, and Jamal smiled ruefully. “I must tell you, great General… Long ago, I lost that part of me that could ever love another woman. But before that there was one woman I loved. I can sing to you about her.”
“Then do it. And do not bore me again.”
Jamal closed his eyes and tried to clear his head. His fingers tapped a beat against the rim of his lyre, and he swayed to the rhythm. He took in a deep breath through his nose. The smell of wood smoke. Of roasted meat. The cool smell of night air in a garden near the sea. Finally Jamal’s hand found the center strings of his lyre, and he wove together a melancholy tune.
“She was a golden star in the west,
A rival to the setting sun,
Who’s light in the day kept us away,
But we joined when the day was done.
Yes, we joined when the day was done.
“She was a beauty most-splendid, a lady well-attended.
With hair that was gilded and fine.
In the dark of night we sparked our own light,
In shadows where her fair skin matched mine.
Ohh, where her fair skin matched mine.
“Those moments we shared, our souls both bared,
Did glow like a beacon in the night.
And others did see, and decreed we could not be,
So my lady begged I take flight.
Ohh, she begged I take flight.
“I had bowed as a slave for most of my days
For her, I would die as a man.
I bared my teeth and readied for death,
But the gods had a different plan.
Lo, the gods had a d
ifferent plan.
“They spared my life on that hideous night,
A small mercy that turned to great pain,
For I lost the light guiding my soul,
And I shall love now never again.
I shall love now never again.
“Now I live forlorn, my heart is torn
From a love that was utterly flawless.
My days are long dark, a scar on my heart,
And my nights have all gone starless.
“We were not meant to be, my lady and me,
And all of us know what the cause is.
Now days are long dark, I wander apart,
And my nights have all gone starless.”
Jamal closed his song with a sorrowful hum, holding the note until his lyre fell quiet. He opened his eyes and let the silence linger for two beats. Three. Four. He smiled and bowed. The silence continued. Was it possible that the General and his guests had been rendered speechless by the naked emotion of his song?
Yur clapped. Slowly. One other person eagerly joined in—Jamal realized that applause was coming from Sygne’s direction. But elsewhere a grumble moved through the crowd. A woman cackled. On the dais, a soldier snorted and spat out a wad of phlegm. Yur continued clapping in that same lethargic beat. He was clapping sarcastically.
Jamal started, “I…”
Yur said, “That was truly awful. Trite and overwrought. And your rhyme schemes were quite weak.”
The crowd muttered in agreement. They began jeering and booing. A woman wailed dramatically, “Ow! Your sappy music hurt my ears!” The people around her chortled. Jamal dodged as a half-eaten pomegranate flew toward his head. Other audience-members lobbed insults.
“Idiot!”
“Your musical skills are substandard!”
“So full of yourself…”
“‘Pain’ doesn’t rhyme with ‘again!’”
One of Yur’s lieutenants stood from his chair. “My name is Dij the Disemboweler. I am famed for disemboweling people. And even I am sickened by your song!” Dij the Disemboweler pushed a finger down his throat and gagged up his dinner onto the planks of the dais. The entire courtyard exploded with laughter. Even Yur seemed amused.
Yur shouted, “What’s your name, poet-singer? So that I can spread a warning of your talents to the next people I conquer.”
Over the roar of the crowd, Jamal called as clearly as he could, “I am Hadat the Harmonious.”
Then he backed toward the edge of the stage. As he eased into the shadows, Sygne touched his arm.
“I didn’t think it was that bad.”
“Everyone’s a critic,” he muttered.
Jamal swept past Sygne. He didn’t want to hear anything from anyone. He was beginning to shake. He couldn’t decide if he wanted to pummel every face he could reach, or throw back his head and bawl like a baby. A young Issulthraqi soldier wheeled backward as Jamal stormed past him; it was as if the boy was afraid that Jamal’s horribleness was contagious.
3 – The Gatecrasher
Sygne watched Jamal disappear into the crowd. She felt bad for him. Despite the questionable way in which they had met, Jamal seemed like a good man, and he had made a noble choice in changing his profession. But that didn’t change the fact that his songs had been fairly bad. ‘I live forlorn, my heart is torn?’ Those lines were the work of a novice or a hack. Or both.
The crowd quieted down, and Yur spoke loudly to Sessuk. “Is this what passes for entertainment in Krit? Perhaps the dung-people of Djunga will offer me finer songs?”
Sygne knelt and leafed through supplies in her pocketbook. Did she have everything she needed for her show? She was on next, and she knew Sessuk would be counting on her to lighten the mood after two performances in a row that had ended on a sour note. (In Jamal’s case, that ‘sour note’ had been literal.)
She chanted to herself, “I can do this. I can do this.”
Sessuk nodded to the General and stepped to the center of the stage. He raised his arms over his head and bellowed, “Enough of the opening acts! Gather your courage, Issulthraqis and distinguished guests. Brace yourself for a monstrous wonder!”
Murmurs shivered through the crowd. The great bronze bell seemed to sway ominously over the glowing pool, as if the crowd’s excitement had stirred up a breeze.
Sygne stood straight and glanced around. Was Sessuk skipping her performance? She knew that some sort of tall tale would eventually be presented about the mythical creature that supposedly lived in the caverns beneath the Kritan palace, but she hadn’t expected to hear the story so soon.
Sessuk shouted, “Bring in the oblations!”
The crowd groaned ecstatically. A nearby woman clapped. “It’s the Dweller! He’s going to show us the Dweller Under Dreams.”
“Quiet! Everyone!” Yur demanded. He pushed his bulk closer to the edge of his seat. “Are you saying that I finally get to see your city’s great mystery?”
Sessuk bowed. “Yes, General. But I know that, as part of your Issulthraqi religion, it is considered blasphemy to speak openly of the Ancient Ones. I do not wish to overstep and offend.”
“I am not afraid to see anything that the Kritans have seen. And I am not afraid of the priests of Issulthraq.”
“If you are certain.” Sessuk nodded with theatrical humility. “Then let me tell you a story… A story that many faiths across Embhra hold to be the One Truth.
“Long, long ago, in the First Times, the Slumbering Sea covered all of Embhra.” Sessuk swept his arm out to the Slumbering Sea, which waited beyond the cliffs on the southern edge of the Kritan courtyard. “The world was very wide—even in those days—and the sea had to stretch itself thin to cover all of it. In many places the Slumbering Sea was barely knee-deep, and the rays of the sun could shine down straight to the sands underneath. The seven Ancient Ones lived in these shallow, sun-drenched waters. They were the Firstspawn, and they existed before both men and gods.”
An Issulthraqi woman turned her head to the recently expropriated statue of Bliss and whispered a mantra, “Everywhere and everlasting.” Sygne knew that the Issulthraqis summarily rejected the notion of anything existing before their Fabled Pantheon. But most people fervently believed in the Ancient Ones. As far as Sygne was concerned, all of it was mostly nonsense. Every myth was a distortion of truth, meant to benefit those in power. Yes, monsters were real. Yes, sorcery was real. But that didn’t mean that magic-wielders didn’t gather more power to themselves by weaving together a web of obfuscations and lies.
Sessuk continued, “The seven Ancient Ones were mighty, and their terrible powers were beyond anything we could ever imagine. But for many millennia, they were happy enough to doze in those lazy waters, coiled in the silt. And in that time they dreamed. They dreamed, and mountains rose from the ocean. They dreamed, and stars were scattered across the darkness. The sun ignited as a ball of flame in the sky. Even the gods started as daydreams of the Firstspawn.”
Sessuk had noticed the pious Issulthraqi woman in the crowd. He nodded calmly to her. “Some believe that this is where all of our gods derive their power. Because they were born of the dreams of the Ancient Ones—where anything was possible.
“For a long time the world was this way, with the Ancient Ones existing and dreaming of our gods. But slowly new creatures rose up out of the muck. First, tiny iotas of growing things, so simple you could not tell if they were plant or animal. Then spineless bottom-dwellers. Then fish. Then frogs that rose onto land. Then rats. Then monkeys. And finally humans. And this is why humans are so meek and crude; because we rose from simple creatures crawling out of the muck. The only thing special about humans is that—unlike all the creatures that came before us—we can dream.
“Over time, the gods realized that we could be useful. They came to us and showed us their wonders and captured our imaginations. And we dreamed of them and we worshipped them. Like shepherds gathering and protecting their flocks, th
e gods eventually chose their favorite peoples and kept them in their favorite places. Those deities who became the Fabled Pantheon chose to live in the East, where the peoples are brave and bold and as tough as granite.” With that, the Issulthraqis erupted in hoots of self-praise. “The gods who became the Specularity of Gjuir-Khib were drawn to the fragrant hills overlooking the Sanguine Sea.” No one responded to this mention. If there were Gjuirans in the courtyard (besides Sessuk and Jamal), they chose to stay silent.
“The gods learned to live in the minds of the mortals who worshipped them. They separated themselves from the dreams and whims of the Ancient Ones. And this became the Ancient Ones’ downfall. Since then, the Ancient Ones have been largely forgotten. They sleep more deeply now. But they are still monstrously powerful, and they can foment the very essence of reality when they are roused into dreaming.”
Sessuk had been monologing for a long while. Sygne could understand how he had survived the palace purge. He was quite eloquent—and almost charismatic, in a smarmy sort of way. He paused now, and the audience remained enraptured.
Yur broke the silence. “That was a pretty story, Sessuk. But rather farfetched. How could it be that men are descended from monkeys?” The Issulthraqis laughed. “But if you continue blabbering like this, it isn’t just an Ancient One you will have to rouse. I will fall asleep as well.”
“Very well, my liege,” Sessuk said. “Let us witness the power of the Dweller Under Dreams. Bring forth the oblations!”
Sessuk beckoned to the right side of the stage, where three prisoners were lined up, each dressed in simple tunics of thin, white wool. Their wrists and ankles were bound in chains.
“No,” Sygne murmured. “No. It can’t be.”
Blood sacrifices. Of men and women. When Sygne had left the cloistered squares of the Academy, her mentors had warned her that she might run into some atrocities like this, but she hadn’t expected to see something so brutish in a supposedly sophisticated city-state. Or was it possible she was misunderstanding what she was seeing? After all, the prisoners’ shackles appeared to be made of gold, which should have made them fairly easy to bend. Was this some sort of symbolic ceremony?
