The Legend of El Shashi (28 page)

This time I did not cast my eyes down, as was customary, but met her gaze with all the honesty I could muster. I was not sure what she saw in me, but it was after a good half-span the woman suddenly jerked away the cloth covering her infant’s face
and upper body and gave me the first sight of her affliction.

I caught my breath in shock. I have treated mild cases of the pox. But this poor babe! Every last dyndigit of this child’s skin was covered in a layer of raised, straw-coloured blisters that had a slight indent in their centre, as though a sadistic athocary had stuffed raisins beneath her skin. They were thickest on her torso
and face, and more spaced out on her limbs. Many of the sores had broken open or scabbed over to create lumpy, rust-coloured masses, particularly on her face where the affliction was densest.

The infant mewled weakly. She looked scarcely
human.

“Oh
… Mata,” I bleated.

The woman smiled grimly. “Still have the stomach to do your word, stranger?”

“They are all like this?”

“
Some bleed from the skin, too,” she nodded. “We’re all but a step from the afterlife.”

I let my pack slip to the ground and stepped closer,
reaching out for the babe. “Let’s see to the truth of that, shall we?”

*  *  *  *

“There are six more, El Shashi,” said the woman. “Wake up. Please.”

Groaning, I opened my eyes. Rush roof. Warm fireplace. She must have dragged me here and covered me with a blanket after I collapsed from exhaustion.

“My sister, from the next village.”

“Bring them,” I ordered, “and do not delay.”

The faces the desperate always haunt me, much more so than the faces of hope and joy. This family was no different, only, I knew more now of this terrible pox than before, so it consumed less of my strength to turn these people back from Ulim’s doorpost. Ay, their youngest was but three weeks of age. When I held him in my arms I wept.

“I am sorry,” said the man, Serdan by name, handing me a rag to dab my eyes. “We would have been lost, had Ciliz not sent word.”

I wiped my eyes. “Peace to you. I once had children of my own to hold, but they are lost to me forever. That is why I weep.”

Serdan held my shoulder gently. “Mata turn Her face to you and light your ways, friend.” And he pressed his forefinger to my forehead in the brother-blessing. “Half our village has already crossed over. Will you come succour the rest?”

*  *  *  *

In the days that followed, I would remember that gesture of Serdan’s most especially, for in the face of torrents of death, it is the small acts of love one clings to
as a drowning man clings to a branch. The pox was devastating. It struck down eight in ten persons, most often the elderly and the children. In many places it swept away entire families and communities. I could not attend all of the sick. Over and over again, as I rushed from place to place, I caught myself wishing that Mata could somehow have multiplied my gifts into another thousand people, rather than overfilling one weak, failing vessel. The only thankfulness I had was for the terrible ice-storm, for it had stopped the movement of people and thus stopped the pox in its tracks, too.

And so, after nigh upon a season of gruelling
labour, I came full circle back to the same village–through no plan of my own, Mata’s truth. When I recognised the place I smiled for the first time in more days than I could remember.

“You will pass Alldark with us
, won’t you, El Shashi?” asked Surina, Chiliz’s oldest daughter. At thirteen, she was approaching that age when childhood innocence gives way to teenage skittishness.

“
That depends on your mother,” said I.

“What gift will you bring?” she asked formally, cleaning her hands on her apron. This was custom
ary, the gift of a stranger to the Alldark host. Then, perhaps thinking upon the life I had already redeemed to her family, she blushed rosily to the roots of her hair.

“
I’ve nought but the skills of my hands,” I replied, smiling, “but I see that your roof is in sore need of repair. May this be my gift to you?”

The children cheered so loudly that the babe in its sling let out a healthy wail. We all laughed. And so I entered into the Alldark Week that anna, which was one of the strangest I recall.

Chiliz prepared for us Darkenseason pies, made from lyom meat swimming in a delicious gravy. “The last storm froze three of our lyoms,” she explained. Clearly, this was to save me the guilt of thinking I was eating the family’s livelihood. I helped the children set Alldark candles in the four corners of the croft. “My husband was killed by a tygar just around Youngsun–well, the hunters think so. They followed the tracks to where he had been dragged off, but did not find any remains. He never came back.”

So he must be dead, I thought, hearing her unspoken words. Why else might a good husband not return? “Mata’s good hand upon you,” said I, feelingly, signing the full buskal of mercy at the time of grieving.

Later, after a delicious meal, we sat cross-legged on the furs next to the cheerful fire, and sang Mata’s Canticle, which tells of Ulim’s Hunt and how Mata’s Light always followed Darkenseason in the eternal Balance.

“What kind of scrolleaf do you have in your pack?” inquired Tanisha, the inquisitive six anna-old. Surina immediately set about chastising her sibling. In a moment a play
-fight developed in the middle of the floor, with Tage, the three anna-old boy, right in there wrestling with his sisters.

“Hold, you rascals,” I laughed. But there was a secret part of my quoph in which the
Hassutl of Sorrows held court. Truly told, I feared to present the book to them. “I will show you. This is called a book. It works much like a scrolleaf, only you page through it rather than furling and unfurling … like so … and it was written by the scribe to P’dáronï of Armittal. She is a poetess and an athocary, like me. Let me read you a–”

“Is she beautiful? Do you love her?”

“Surina!” cried her mother.

I rubbed my chin, freshly shaven and twice nicked that afternoon with Chiliz’s late husband’s blade. “Mahira Surina, P’dáronï is cleverer than a
n ulule, more beautiful than a Hassutla, gentle and true of heart, and a slave in a faraway country. Ay, she is the very breath of my quoph.”

Surina clasped her hands and sighed
, “Oh!”

Exactly the effect I had aimed for, with my words borrowed from a ulule’s repertoire.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Take no notice of her dreaming, El Shashi.”

I leafed towards the back of the book, and read:

Dreaming I slumber, dreaming I wake
,

Dreaming of worlds I never forsake
,

Dreaming of newness, redemption and home
,

Dreaming of love sweet and true
,

For dreaming is my life
.

Dreaming is ecstasy, dreaming is pain,

Dreaming is nought but tears in the rain
.

Dreaming is heart, sprung into motion
,

Dreaming is heart-pictures of rue
,

For dreaming is my life
.

“What has this Poetess to rue,” asked Surina, “if she has love true?”

Right on the mark, I thought. I answered slowly, “P’dáronï is blind, child. I suppose if I were blind, dreaming of the real world I touch, hear
, and sense, would figure greatly in my thoughts.” Janos had always been much enamoured of dreams. And portents. A surprisingly mystical fellow, for a blacksmith.

“But you are all-powerful, El Shashi! Why could you not heal her?”

I forced a short laugh. “Because she bade me not to. She said that such healing is Mata’s place only …” Ah, P’dáronï! Bewitcher of my heart! I yearn … “And she was afraid. I myself don’t understand what is Mata’s province and what is mine, any more–I don’t understand why I was granted this great power, nor how best to use it.”

Chiliz put in, “But you used it well here.”

“In the Umarite demesnes, good woman, there may be a dozen such plagues raging right this makh. Could I heal them all? I’m not Mata. I have but two hands and two feet. I can be in but one place at a time. I grow weary. You have seen me heal with a touch, but not all ills can I heal.”

My voice must have revealed more disappointment and bitterness than I had intended, for Chiliz took my hand and said, “Have you considered becoming a yammarik, El Shashi?
You have the mien of a man much afflicted by your elevated position in this life. Who has not heard of your great deeds? Who envies not your power? And yet, such a mantle must bear a most weary weight. You are much wearied, are you not? And yoked to your power more surely than any team of jatha?”

“By my quoph, that is a true word.”

I sighed deeply, gazing into the leaping flames as if wishing an answer would spark into my consciousness. What should I do with my life now? Forget P’dáronï? Bury the gift as Eliyan had commanded me, disappear into the Fiefdoms, and become just an ordinary man? Tried it before. Ended in tragedy. Where was Rubiny this Alldark? What if this plague struck down my children and I was …

I could not complete the thought.

“Surina, please take Tage to the privy before he bursts.”

Surina took her little brother by the hand. “Here, wrap this burnoose around you.”

I watched them absently. Surina was superb with her younger siblings–uncomplaining, helpful–perhaps the more so, because she had no father now. This must have been Rubiny’s lot, to bring up our children, alone. Fatherless. Though it pained me deeply, I did hope she was Matabound once more. My half-sister! She deserved better than a life of loneliness, even if she left me because of Jyla. That evil, life-stealing,
narkik!

Surina screamed.

I found my feet in a flash, dashing to the doorway ahead of Chiliz. Outside the night was clear–for earlier snow had fallen afresh, but now the clouds had blown away, leaving the brilliant, brittle starlight to dust the snowbound fields and forest–and the children shrunk back, clinging to my legs. I, too, felt my bowels become as water. Jerlak! Thousands strong. Everywhere … surrounding the small crofthold, some as close as five paces from us, dark, hulking jerlak were standing stock-still, as one beast facing inward and staring.

A
t me.

Dear Mata preserve! At my elbow
, Chiliz made a soft exclamation of distress.

My eyes
leaped to and fro as a bird might panic when trapped indoors. We were an island in a dark ocean. I had never seen; never heard of such numbers, not even in an ulule’s drunken boast. Truly told, Hakooi’s demesne has much dense and trackless wilderness, particularly toward the Nugar River, which borders Hakooi and Lorimere to their southern aspect, and cuts their rich plains off from the southern deserts … but this! The night was thick with their musky odour. I could hear them huffing. Puffs of condensation rose from a thousand muzzles, rising above the thicket of horn-points, but as the span marched on they stood eerily still. Watching. There was no need for such a concentration. Twenty would have sufficed to raze this village. Two or three could have made short work of any crofthold.

“What is this?” breathed Chiliz.

“Mata save us, I’ve no idea,” I whispered back. Chiliz began to whisper prayers without pause to draw breath.

The herd began to stir, to drift. I, frowning, saw a path develop and lengthen before me. The animals were turning inward. Those alongside the path lower
ed themselves ponderously upon their forelegs and dipped their heads, until each animal’s foremost set of horns touched the churned-up, muddy snow. Behind them others bowed their necks too. My heart hammered in my chest like Janos’ forge at its peak blast. The night was infused with an eerie, breathless magic. In Mata’s name, what was happening?

Suddenly there appeared, advancing with stately step and noble
mien through the ranks of the obeisant throng, a giant bull jerlak, fully a head taller than a man standing upright, red of eye, and with pelt of such a pure white that it rivalled the very starlight for beauty. Hooves soundless upon the snow. Horns wider than my outstretched arms. Shoulders stuffed with rolling boulders, so massive was his musculature. The dewlap depending from his barrel-chest swept nearly to the ground. In every respect of splendour, this beast surpassed an ulule’s wildest tale. I fought an urge to bend my knee. I knew I stood in the presence of royalty.

About halfway along that path, the albino bull stopped and turned, presenting me his left flank.

“Ah!” I breathed. Now I knew my part.

Weak-kneed, I pressed my shrinking flesh forward. I tried not
remind myself that by all wisdom common to men, I was like as not committing suicide. I tried not to dwell upon the forest of horns arrayed about my person, nor consider how jerlak are regarded the cruellest and most temperamental of animals. Truly told, I set my eyes upon the darts embedded in the great jerlak’s flank and shoulder, and the scabbed blood that crusted his hide, and prayed I would not faint. I clenched my jaw lest I chip a tooth from the violent spasms racking my body.