Dreams of the Compass Rose (12 page)

She stood looking at the last moments of sunset, while tiny specks of remote humanity, the army of mortals, ran like ants upon the hillside.

They ran from her, leaving her all alone.

But she was not yet alone. Not quite.

Ailsan turned around, and for the first time felt an immense burden of shadow leave her shoulders, ease her back. Something cold and eternal left her, stepped away.

Something.

Ailsan stood and faced the form of gaunt silver darkness, clad in a cloak of night. Death stood before her, tall and insolent, and yet locked in a paradox of simultaneous remoteness and tangibility.

Ailsan knew this entity at last, knew it in a physical sense, because now she could reach out with her hand and touch the cold folds of death’s eternal cloak.

And, as she did this, death was the one who recoiled.

“
You,” Ailsan said, her inner vision opening to the truth. “I know you. You damned bitch!”

And with a scream of divine thunder, Ailsan swung her hand and landed a blow at the side of the skeleton’s right cheek, a blow that sent the shadow form reeling, thrown to the ground with a violence that held in it all the pent-up agony of cumulative human loss belonging to a whole people.

Death lay for a span of timeless moments on the cold earth, made oddly corporeal by its proximity to ethereal immortality, by comparison.

At the feet of death, a little away upon the cold rock, lay a curved scythe blade of strange nameless metal shimmering with its own eerie light in the twilight.

“
Receive the Blow for all that you have taken from me,” Risei-Ailsan said. “Receive it, and remember.”

And then the new goddess nodded in the direction of the shimmering blade and said, “Pick it up. Take your scythe, and hold onto it well. And yet I promise you, you will lose it again, Hag. That, as a reminder—for I damn you to remember always what you do and who you are.”

And the manifestation of death reached forward with its silver finger-claws, slowly took hold of the scythe, and then crawled away, leaving the goddess this time unto eternity.

Risei-Ailsan was alone at last.

And as she too started to fade into the dusk of the night air, the goddess softly wept.

L
irheas, Prince of silence, observed with awed awakening, from a distance, the coming into being of the goddess Risei-Ailsan. And suddenly it all burst through his skull, and he could hear and see and sense all the earth and sky, all at once.

And thus as he watched the Gheir and his father run in madness, he
heard
her immortal voice thunder in the plain, rioting the army, and he also heard her voice whisper to him, yes, a soft private voice.

I am a jackal torn away from her cubs. I am the mother you recognized in me, the mother you never had. Lirheas, Prince of Gheir, you will remember me always. Not because of what I am now, not because of pity, although that too you’ve felt. No . . . Remember me only as that which your father loved, hated, and feared. For I revealed to him the truth of himself. And he will bear the burden of the truth now, unto madness.

Know that loyalty is the most precious thing. To be gifted in trust, not taken by force.

Know that a mother’s desperation is the strongest force, and a mother’s forsaking is the greatest loss. I now bear one secret guilt within me always, a guilt of pride. My son might have lived, if only—

And yet my spirit cries! I could not do otherwise! For now I am paradox. I am pride unfurled, coexisting with humility. I am Risei. I am Ailsan. I am the vast desert and the deep ocean. Remember me, for a goddess speaks within you now. And forget.
 . . .

Thus the young son of the
taqavor
was for one instant only inside the soul of Her who was from then on worshiped under the name of Risei-Ailsan, Bringer of Stillness and Water, the Bright-Eyed Liberator, the Mad Sovereign of Wisdom, and then simply Ris. He knew her and then knew not, only remembered in hazy musings a shadow, understanding for the first time an old legend among his own people.

The gods, it said, are all the
souls
of different peoples. When a people dies, the last woman or man among them is always something more, always sacrosanct. It is the last that bears all the responsibility for a people, and is never to be dishonored.

Or else, the gods hear. And they elevate the
one
in misery, so that a new deity joins the pantheon, forged, like all the others, from the collective spirit of a people.

That is the secret of deity.

And he knew it. Lirheas the Prince of revelation knew the lore as he witnessed the Change taking place, and he too was elevated. Later it was he who would look upon the rising and the setting sun, observe its burning face, its scalding back, its left hand and its right—from all directions.

And in the wide expanses of the wind, the ocean, the desert sand, and the glimmer of daylight, he would observe the Compass Rose.

T
he boy came out of the desert, leading a pack-beast and carrying a cup of water.

His skin was dark like the rich soil underneath the sand; his hair midnight-black and wiry, short against his scalp; his features rounded, flat and soft, malleable like sweet brown clay and belonging to a darker race of humankind.

His eyes were startling. They were like an ocean at night, without a horizon line and without bottom. Lurking inside were experience and sorrow.

No one would question the boy’s facial expression, nor his solo emergence from out of the desert, nor the fact that his pack-beast did not look nearly as parched and weary as was customary after a long crossing of uninterrupted sands.

However, one thing unexplainable was the cup filled with fresh water, seemingly boundless, that the young one carried in his dirty palms.

The water was clear and stood so very near the brim. It sparkled in the sun with an added brilliance of a peach sunset, or maybe a hue deeper than gold and rosy with persimmon. Whence did this color come? For the cup itself was faded brown, old polished wood without a hint of embellishment.

The boy came to the outskirts of the sands, to a place where sparse growing shrubs crested the dunes, and rock formations hid occasional spots of oasis. Here, nomad tribes would stop and set up their tents, and here caravans often met to exchange wares and transfer news of the greater world to all the corners of the Compass Rose.

At one such spot of oasis a dozen caravans had come together—a horse trader, several gemstone merchants, a wood importer, and other lesser vendors. The temporary market was erected for a matter of days only, after which all would proceed their own ways, having acquired and sold new property.

The boy paused before the clearing, hidden by an outcrop of rock. His heart started to beat loudly in his temples, and internal waters went coursing wildly through his flesh. There was fear, uncertainty, hopeless despair. Dared he enter this camp?

He considered for a moment, standing in the midday sun, while the liquid at the rim of the cup that he held trembled in the wind. Eventually he pulled the pack-beast gently closer to him and absentmindedly lifted the wooden bowl to its muzzle.

While the mangy old creature drank, he watched the scene before him, the moving people, braying mules and loaded camels, the mayhem near the watering hole, and the fine expensive tents. This was no ordinary market scene, for he could tell there was old noble money here, in the very manner of cloth draping the tents, and the rich woven blankets of the beasts.

And then he looked to the side, to the edge of the tallest tent, and saw a wonder.

A horse with skin of mother-of-pearl.

To say this is no exaggeration. The colors moved and rippled in the sun from the palest cream pearl to sudden flows of lavender, then tints of lapis, and a wash of metallic green, and then sudden rose. And then, the next second one blinked, the pearly hue returned, like a scene prior to a dispelled mirage. The beast moved gently, milling from one foot to the other, and its flanks and back glittered in the light as though oiled with the thick flammable material that is sometimes found seeping through the earth in certain faraway Western places, and creates filmy rings of rainbow upon its liquid surface.

The horse was tied with at least three long ropes to different poles that had been driven into the sandy ground, and was guarded by two well armed soldiers.

It was not particularly unusual in equine size, neither large nor small, but rather of a more refined and aristocratic shape, with a quick wiry frame and nervous delicate features. The mane of the horse and its finely groomed tail were as pristine white as the sun upon the sands of the desert. The whiteness stood out in a shock of perfection against the skin with its mere hint of rippling rainbow of mother-of-pearl.

The boy knew then that he had to come forth. He had to be near that creature out of an unbelievable dream.

And so with a gulp he stepped away from the safety of the outcropping, and said distinctly, “Come,” to the pack-beast. The boy wanted to announce himself to the world at large. He wanted to announce his emergence out of the dream that was the desert into the reality that was the world of men and caravans, and—the creature of mother-of-pearl.

It
was obviously there among them, and
it
had to be divine, so of course he could find himself a place among mortals once again.

The boy walked forward upon the sand and rock, barely moving his gaze from the beautiful horse, until he was in the clearing and someone nearly ran into him.

“
Watch yourself, boy!” The man spoke harshly and was on his way past him, pale cotton robes moving in the strong wind, features obscured by his head wrap, except for a dark flash of beard.

As the man went by, the boy smelled a whiff of camels and spice and humanity. It smote him with the power of the present reality, of the here and now, and dispelled the last vestiges of his desert dream of solitude.

He was back among mortal men. And he was completely ignored.

The boy stood holding the reins with one hand and the cup in the other, while around him passers by moved quickly, emerging from tents and carrying wares.

He was an island.

And less than thirty feet from him stood the fabulous beast.

“
What are you gawking at?” said one guard, noticing him standing so near. “Even staring at Tazzia for the likes of you is forbidden. Scram, dark boy! Before the Lord sees you despoiling his greatest prize with the lust of your unworthy eyes.”

“
Ah, let him be, Grego,” said the other guard. “Tazzia is on display for all, and lust is but in our mortal nature.”

The boy looked directly into the warm eyes of the man who had spoken last, and was emboldened to ask, “What manner of horse beast is this Tazzia?”

The guard laughed. He was handsome and confident. He had olive skin, and his infectious grin revealed strong healthy white teeth. But on second glance his eyes were not warm, but pale azure like the water of the sky or the air of the wind—things cool in themselves that only reflected the heat of the sands below or the sun’s fire. Warm only by association.

And the dissonance made the boy confused.

“
Tazzia is like no horse you have ever seen, little man,” the guard said. “And you will never see one such again, for as long as you live. That I can promise you. Tazzia is rumored to be a god.”

“
What kind of god?” said the boy, continuing to stare. “I have seen a god in the flesh, and it wasn’t a strange thing at all. Not like you’d think. Gods can appear to be exactly like us. But I believe that this here is a marvelous creature.”

“
Well, what have we here, a little wise man who knows gods in person? Tell me, little man, what is your name?”

The boy grew still for a moment, remembering in odd silence. “The god,” he said, “named me Nadir.”

At that, both the guards guffawed. “The god! The god, he says! He’s been named by no less than a god! Does it make him a proper priest of that blessed god? Well, are you a priest, boy who has been named Nadir?”

But in that moment there came a rather sharp snort from the direction of the fabulous horse.

The creature of iridescent cream and rainbows stomped on the ground angrily and tossed its head, white mane flying in the wind. And immediately the guards dropped their mockery and the cynical expressions, and turned their full attention to their equine charge, forgetting altogether the boy named Nadir.

Nadir stood thus, and watched a maddened rolling eye of Tazzia follow him sideways, like a malevolent violet gem. If this was a god, then it was surely not a pleased one. And it had seen him, the boy, as surely as the boy had seen it.

“
Stand clear!” exclaimed Grego, “Woah! Hold that other rope, Zuaren, damn this beast . . .”

And in the instant that he spoke thus, Tazzia stood up on its hind legs, looming suddenly fully twelve feet tall, throwing its mane back, shaking his beautiful head madly, and kicking with its front legs in a flurry of sand dust.

The pale-eyed guard named Zuaren moved faster than anyone Nadir had ever seen and snatched the torn piece of thick coarse rope still attached to Tazzia, while the other end fell limply on the ground near one of the wooden posts.