The Creed

by Perla Giannotti

  “Why is it so urgent to act? Why will two days make such a difference?” Marrhit did not reply. He looked like he was going over every possible alternative.

  “We’ll wait for them to come out during the inspection,” he resolved finally. “We’ll move to the north, towards the front line, and intercept their expedition.” The brothers would have to remain hidden in the woods, and there was no possibility of using their horses. They set off on foot. It was a slow and tiring advance, through untouched vegetation. They did not light fires in the night. They stopped under a layer of rock that formed a natural roof, sheltered by enormous boulders to the sides. Marrhit darkened mood had worsened during the day. He curled up under the rock without saying a word, as if he had to let his rage subside. Selot went out on patrol. He collected tasty berries and several mushrooms which, when sliced very thinly and mixed with a few herbs, were very good to eat raw. He laid the food prepared thus, onto a giant leaf. Marrhit hadn’t left his hunched up position. Selot approached him and offered him the food. It was everything he had collected and he offered it all to him. Marrhit analyzed him with his most penetrating stare, but couldn’t get through Selot’s defenses which he’d put up with great force. He kept holding the leaf out to him, with two hands so that the food wouldn’t fall.

  Marrhit clenched his jaws, jumped to his feet and then hit Selot’s face with a very hard backhand. The berries and mushrooms flew to the ground, and Selot just managed to keep his balance after wheeling around on the spot.

  “I want nothing from you!” he screamed fiercely, as if they were fighting over something. Selot had been preparing food and medicine for Marrhit for days now. His reaction was incomprehensible. There had to be a reason.

  Observe, listen, do not judge. Asheeba’s teachings came to his rescue.

  He closed his eyes and tried. He let the pain from the blow slide away. He let the insult subside, the anger for the ingratitude and the knowledge Marrhit kept to himself, too. His judgments came from his memories. He made himself get rid of those too. If he thought about that first day they met, behind the pain, behind the insults, behind the days of training, behind the mushrooms and the berries thrown to the ground, he saw a young man who was suffering and anguished by something that seemed so much bigger than him. He saw a boy who had an illness which rendered him as defenseless as a child. He saw the warrior who was a clown and who had made him collect the offers of money without looking at what had been dropped into the bowl. He saw the anger that burnt his skin and wouldn’t leave him alone. That hate had something to do with his birth. A scar that pained him enormously.

  “I want to understand,” he told him determinedly, knowing that Marrhit would know what he meant.

  “You have no right, no right at all to know!” he screamed like a madman. “You are nothing more than refuse. You and your mother have ruined my life forever! Damn you! Damned whore and damned bastard!” He began beating his fist terribly against the rock that sheltered them, trying in vain to find some peace in all of his torment. Then he turned furiously on Selot, and released himself of a flurry of blows. Selot jumped back and prepared to defend himself, but Marrhit’s vehemence seemed to die down. Then it stopped altogether. He looked at Selot, upset and gasping for air, as if he were suddenly thinking of something very important. Selot guessed what he wanted to do.

  “Go on Marrhit. Do it.” He lowered his gaze, opened his arms out wide, away from his body and he went up close to his brother. Marrhit wavered with indecision for a few more moments.

  “Go on,” Selot encouraged him, gritting his teeth.

  He let Marrhit take his head with his hands in a forceful grip. He let him evoke the most painful memory of his life and install it into Selot’s mind. He readied himself to live that experience with the same intensity of a real life moment. He’d done it for Nora. He knew what it was about.

  He and his father were leaving the valley of the Uicics, for a reason the fourteen year old Marrhit did not know. They had, up to that point, lived in the Valley. His father was the most powerful Xàmvetem of his generation and he had fought in faraway lands for many years. After his birth, he had settled in the Valley to train the new bloods, his son, the first of all, whose birth had been ordered by the Council of the Uicics to fight a group of Xàmvetem rebels.

  Father…thought Selot in a small corner of his heart. Marrhit fully commanded his memories and would not let him see the face and figure, nor comprehend his voice or name. He kept it hidden. He only conceded Selot to feel the affection that they had, one for the other. Father remained an unfocused figure. Selot felt the tears rise up in his eyes. Marrhit adored his father. He was his example, his teacher, his constant reference point. Mother had died a few years earlier. One day, father said in a hurried manner they had to leave, without a single word of explanation. The very young Marrhit hardly needed one. His lighthouse, his light, said they had to leave, there was nothing more to know. They traveled over the lands outside the Valley, covering the world far and wide. They visited cities, took very long roads, from the mountains of the north to the sea that bordered the south. They were two of the happiest years in Marrhit’s life. Full of discovery and wonder. Father continued to train him every day, and Marrhit grew up a Xàmvetem, acquiring the most sophisticated techniques from his father. Humans were his training ground, his test against which the young Xàmvetem practiced his skills, under the guidance of his strict, but affectionate father. A perfect father. A harsh but smiling father. Selot sensed the spurring and the harsh reprimands, but also the hugs and the care. That frank but careful worry he had for his son. Selot felt the sense of security, pride, happiness without a shadow of doubt cast; the strength and satisfaction, the taste for exploration, the adventurous hunger for other lands, the exultation of certainty in being superior and unique; all under the guiding hand of the strongest warrior in the world. One day, just like any other, at the beginning of summer, father seemed nervous. Marrhit kept quiet, staying behind him as always, but catching his sadness like a disease. They had just arrived in a distant city, in a zone to the far east where they had never been before. There was a circus just outside the doors of the city. Father pointed in its direction. Marrhit, who by now was sixteen, found it all so strange. They weren’t the type of people they usually approached. The circus performers were resting beside their carriages then, waiting for the show to start in the evening when all the townspeople would gather. The memory lingered on their strange, made-up faces, and on their stares which were not joyous like one would imagine for circus folk. The children were training as an inflexible woman screamed and hit them with a stick for each mistake made. Father went over to the man who was in charge of these nomadic people with sureness of step. They knew each other and greeted one another without any fuss. The man had an untamed, prickly black beard. He had skin that was burnt by the sun and a stare that was mean. Marrhit tried to gain access to his eyes to understand what type of people they were, but for the first time he met humans who were able to defend themselves against Vetem ways. He was afraid. Father had too much familiarity with these men; Marrhit’s instincts screamed out to not trust them. Father told him to stay back, as he spoke to the leader. The man cast a glance at Marrhit, looking him over. They were talking about him. Father pointed to him. Yes, they were definitely talking about him. A feeling of fear came suddenly upon him. But worse than that was the fact that the unease came not from the feeling of fear but that his father was the cause of it and fed it too. His father was generating that feeling of fear, undermining all of the certainties and affection for the boy. He tried to approach them. He wanted to understand, he wanted to see things clearly, but his father told him to stay where he was, with an evil command that hardly seemed to belong to him. It couldn’t be. There had to be an explanation. They had to go away from there and then all would be fine.

  Father, let’s go.

  Be silent!

  That which followed opened a wound to his heart that could never be h
ealed. There was an exchange of money from the hands of the owner to those of his father. It was followed by a smile which was the Marrhit’s worst nightmare for years. Still today, for many nights, that smile came to torment him. His father had sold him to a circus. It couldn’t be true. It wasn’t real. There had to be another explanation. Finally, father turned towards him. Now he would explain what was happening, and they would set off again on their journey, and everything would be just like it was supposed to be.

  You’ll stay here with these people. I must go now.

  Father, what are you talking about? Who are these men? When are you coming back?

  I’m not coming back. You will stay with them.

  The boy felt panic rising.

  What are you saying, father? We must go back to the Valley. Let’s go back together, shall we?

  No.

  I can’t stay with these people.

  Do not go against my orders.

  Father, no, please. Make me understand why this test is necessary.

  It’s not a test. This is a farewell. Our lives separate here.

  What? I don’t understand…

  It’s not necessary you do.

  Are you abandoning me?

  Look at it that way if you like.

  Marrhit threw himself at his father, to shake him, to make him come back to his senses.

  You are my father!! What are you saying? What the devil are you doing?

  The father was remarkably stronger than him. He grabbed his arm and threw him to the ground violently, as he’d never done before, not even during their hardest training sessions.

  You are my father, you cannot leave me here, you cannot give me over to these strangers!

  I must go to your brother and his mother.

  That sentence echoed in the minds of Marrhit and Selot many times, amplifying the pain.

  Marrhit knew of that bastard child. Born to the woman who had broken his own mother’s heart until she’d died of affliction, out of heartbreak.

  “NOOOOO,” he yelled with all his might, using all of his voice, lungs, heart, and belly too.

  You’re going back to that damn woman who made mother die! She has tricked you, father, can’t you see it? It’s not possible. You cannot do it! How can you do this? How can you?

  The father turned around and left. Marrhit screamed and screamed again, while the owner of the circus together with five other men, managed to stop him and chain him up with great effort. The adult Vetem capabilities had not yet been activated and it was sufficient for them to blindfold him to render him completely innocuous. Marrhit called for his father. He pleaded. He begged him. He asked forgiveness if he had done something wrong. Then he cursed him. Then he pleaded with him once more to come back to him, to not leave him here with the enemy. He screamed until the sunset on that horrible day, continually calling for him, because he couldn’t believe he had really gone away.

  Marrhit and Selot yelled to the heavens. They screamed that endless pain, that desperation that annulled not only the future, but also the very sweet sun of the past; it destroyed affection and certainty; it incinerated everything that existed and created a parched desert without salvation on the horizon.

  The worst days of his life were to follow. Those people belonged to a population of the south called Urd, nomads known for their closed and ironclad life, with absolutely no contact with people who were not of their kind. The owner of the circus kept him chained up, without food and with very little to drink for days, exposed to the ridicule and disrespect of all components of that mixed, incomprehensible tribe of men. He only showed up when he wanted to tell him he had paid a weight of gold, little more than an exotic beast, and so he expected Marrhit to learn the circus routines and give him blind obedience. Marrhit reacted furiously, rebelling as he could, threatening he would kill them all one day. He kept the hope his father would return one day, that it was simply a horrible test he had to overcome. Numerous days went by though. Finally, beaten by hunger, thirst, stillness, the blindfold over his eyes, he stopped talking and reacting. His father had abandoned him, leaving him slave to a tribe of nomads. Selot relived those insults and ill-treatment that followed, when Marrhit had given up. By now a month had gone by. One day, a woman came; she had willingly joined in the taunting and ferocious insults the previous days. She bent over him and gave him water to drink.

  “Forget your father,” she told him. “It starts here. Where you are now. Everything can start for you now.” Those were the first words of his new life. The woman took off his blindfold. Marrhit lifted his defeated eyes and made a sign of yes with his head. From a distance, the circus owner smiled and claimed a coin he had bet with another man. The boy had done it. He had accepted his destiny and he could start over. After an incredible life spent where he believed he was the son of the greatest warrior, a privileged one, the elect of something bigger, he had finally tasted the bitter meal of being last. Within a few weeks, the nomads made him feel like one of them, with the ruthless rules that held their community together.

  Marrhit evoked the sentence that had closed his heart up with chains once more.

  I must go to your brother and his mother.

  “Now you know why I hate you,” he said angrily. He was tired. He detached himself from Selot pushing him away disparagingly, and went back over to the layer of rock under which he only wanted to sleep and forget.

  Selot took a long while to come back to himself, to get rid of the pain that Marrhit had endured for years. Once his own emotional strength came back to an acceptable level, he went to his brother. They had to talk about this. He had to tell him.

  Marrhit heard him from behind, and slowly turned his head. Selot watched him warily, ready for another violent reaction. Marrhit stayed where he was though, with his face half turned towards him, as if he almost wanted to hear what he had to say. Selot searched for the most suitable, and fastest words.

  “This man who is supposed to be my father too…I’ve never seen him. I don’t know where he went after he left you there. He never made it to me. I was in that Abbey from the time I was born to about a year ago. I never knew my mother or my father.” He took a breath to maintain his voice on an even keel, according to Lya’s teachings. “I’ve never known what it’s like to have a parent; I do not know what it means to be somebody’s child. I do know what it means to be abandoned, but not in this horrendous way…not until now.”

  Marrhit evaluated Selot’s words. He had never been able to penetrate his mind. He couldn’t be sure of those statements, but the energy of Selot’s words were flavored with truth. He didn’t answer. He was far too tired. He rolled up into a ball under the rock, and fell asleep shortly afterwards. Selot distanced himself by a few steps. There was no other shelter. He did his best to sleep on some moss near the trunk of an enormous elm a little distance away.

  Marrhit awoke a little before sunrise, and his nostrils were hit with a familiar smell. Selot had prepared a type of concoction, using the root for the tonic. He couldn’t light a fire for fear of alerting the sentinels from the military camps set just beyond the edge of the woods where they were hiding. He had therefore, chopped a piece of the tuber finely on a rock, and then, by means of a piece of fabric, he put the powder mixture into water. During the night, he had collected enough liquid to give his brother extra strength. When he heard him stir, he approached him, offering the cold tonic.

  “Leave it there,” Marrhit told him pointing to a nearby rock. Selot went over and placed the bowl on it, holding it with both hands because it was full to the brim. In a lightening quick move, Marrhit had taken a split rock, typical here in the mountains. He had struck it forcefully against another stone to render it as thin as a leaf, a very sharp stone blade. He traced an arc just under the base of Selot’s neck, where the sternum was connected, where his shirt and tunic were undone. A line of blood traced the skin. Selot risked dropping the bowl of liquid out of surprise, but he fumbled it so not a drop of the precious liquid would
spill, and he checked that his blood had not polluted the tonic too. Then he warily set it down where Marrhit had indicated. It was only after that, that he put a hand to his wound. Everything in that gesture was irrational. The weapon he had used, considering all the weapons he had at hand; the lack of motivation; the fact that it was more like a demonstration than a proper wound; after all, he had only suffered a scalded hand, but not very profound. Selot stayed still after placing the mixture on the ground, with Marrhit curled up nearby, too surprised to ask. Marrhit did not even give him a worthwhile look.

  “I wanted to see if it was true, as they say, that the skin of bastards is tougher than those of a normal person.”

  It was only an insult. A little different to the others. Selot closed his eyes to push it away like all the others and went back to sitting at the base of the elm tree. He kept the demon calm, and putting his hand on his forehead went back to praying. After a few minutes, Marrhit drank the mixture, making his usual grimaces of disgust. He got up.

  “Let’s go,” he decreed. “We must make the first objective by tonight and then immediately leave for the successive one.”

  “You mean they’re not all here, the Xàmvetems we have to fight?” Selot asked disoriented.

  “No. There’s only one here. They are each separate, with different roles. They are suspicious. They have become extremely wary and that will make it incredibly difficult for us. In any case, you must follow my orders without a word.”