Dreams of the Compass Rose (26 page)

“
My finest soldiers have gone in all directions to find the End of the World,” the
taqavor
was saying. “When they return, they will describe to us what is the nature of the End, and from their description I want you to create the one symbol.”

The woman stood before the high seat, which was elevated five steps above ground, so that the feet of the seated
taqavor
were at the level of her eyes. She still wore simple servant clothing, and her eyes were downcast. But now, her back remained straight.

“
There is no need to wait for their return,” she said, “for the symbol is as simple as the directions of the wind. It is the wind rose. A shape of four rays to represent the four greater winds, and, between them, four lesser winds. Then behind these eight, like petals of a rose, a layer of eight half-winds, and behind those in turn, the rest of the quarter-winds, in sixteenths—if you choose to make it into a true blossom.”

The
taqavor
listened in interest. “Go on, woman. . . . Tell me more of this wind rose. How do you know of it?”

“
All those who sail know of it, my Lord,” she replied, “for to navigate the expanses of the seas one has only the sky and the wind. And one learns to give the wind many names and fathom its true nature.”

“
Why is it that I don’t know this?” said the
taqavor,
his brow furrowing. “I have been on many ships that crossed oceans, and yet no one has ever told me of this wind rose. And why should you—?” and then the
taqavor
laughed. “I see,” he said. “That is why your name is ‘you with the knowing eyes.’”

In reply, she laughed also. It was a startling sound, to hear a woman laugh in the
taqavor’s
presence. The timbre of her laugh was rich and comforting, like energy in the air.

“
The wind rose is a simple seafarers' thing, not for those higher up to be concerned about. People have not told you of it, because they cannot speak freely to one as lofty as you. You are as distant from them as the sun is from the sand, observing the world from remote great heights. And they do not dare tell you things unless you directly ask,” she said. “As for me—since my position is on the very bottom, many things fall my way. My eyes have learned to take in much of the world, my Lord. And, having observed much, I can tell you in truth that only the wind sees all of the world at once, from all directions. Only the wind can fathom its true End.”

“
Yes. . . . The wind is everywhere,” suddenly spoke up the Prince Lirheas. “The wind is what can span the world, and thus all of your
empirastan,
father!”

The
taqavor
stared ahead of him with inflamed living eyes. For the first time, the flame was not anger but exultation.

“
It is true, yes!” he whispered passionately. “The wind will be my symbol.”

And then he turned to the woman standing straight before him. “Your wisdom is great, ‘you with the knowing eyes.’ For that, I will reward you greatly. Create for me the physical shape of this wind rose, capture the wind and give it solid shape, and animate it so that it serves a true function. And, after you are done, you can have your desire. Thus there is no need to wait for my men to return, for the world’s shape is surely the wind rose!”

The woman bowed before him, saying, “My Lord, it will be as you say. I will proceed immediately. But I must inform you, it will not be a quick task. For to compress the essence of the wind into one lesser shape may be as easy as creating a rose blossom, but to create a shape that actually performs a function may be as arduous as finding the End of the World.”

And the
taqavor
nodded. “Then do what must be done, for as long as it takes. This symbol must be made true.”

T
he woman with the knowing eyes was removed from her daily servitude and given her own living quarters, not in the House of Wives but in the Palace itself.

Prince Lirheas would observe from a distance as she walked the halls and the garden galleries, conversing with the best artisans of the
taqavor.

It was odd to observe that they did not resent her presence or think of her as infringing upon their duties. Rather, they embraced her like a peculiar living and breathing gift of the gods, sent out of the blue sky and the thin air to assist them in an impossible task.

The woman consulted with sculptors, painters, and carvers of fine wood reliefs. She even spent time with the arrangers of flowers, and Lirheas watched her bending over great royal vases and counting the number of petals in flowers of different species that had been collected from the
taqavor’s
own gardens.

Then for days she would draw. Again, the Prince would come upon her everywhere, this time seated on garden benches, with rolls of parchment spread about on the marble tiles, sketching with sticks of charcoal and dried rolls of thick cotton soaked in ink.

She drew shapes of flowers and stars with many rays. She drew roses and lilies and the blossoms of lotus. She formed repeating patterns of flowers, and covered sheet upon sheet with impossible lines of intricacy.

Once, Lirheas made himself pause before her as she drew a symmetrical star with eight rays, and he asked her, although his heart was beating much too fast in his chest and his temples rang with the coursing of internal waters, “What manner of star flower is this, woman? I have never seen such before.”

And for the first time she looked up at him, meeting his gaze.

She replied, telling him something, but all he could see was the gentle color of her eyes, violet as amethysts and warm as the soothing wind currents of night—the kind of night that comes once in a million in the desert, when the air itself is strong with the sun, and pungent sweet richness lingers for hours in the darkness. . . .

The moment was past, and Lirheas nodded, then was on his way again. Only this time a smile came secretly to him, a smile that no one would see.

The seasons passed, and two winters swept the world, putting the desert into starkness, and the palace and the world around it weathered the cold as it usually did.

The
taqavor
brooded, but seemed to do so less than usual, and often came to observe the workshops of his artisans, where he would see the woman without a name and his master artists hunched over pieces of precious metal and stone, over wood and over silken fabric, forming delicate shapes of flowers and stars. . . .

And then, one day, everything changed. For the first of the four expeditions sent to find the End of the Word returned.

They had returned from the direction
opposite
that in which they had been sent.

And the
taqavor
was given unbelievable news.

“
M
y Lord,” spoke Jimor, a wizened soldier with a face turned into leather hide by the sun and wind and exhaustion, “I followed the face of the rising sun, just as you had instructed me. Every dawn, I would wait for it, and would find the precise place where it rose, and would mark the land around it, the very shape of the horizon, indelibly into my memory. Then we would follow it until the sun set at our backs. This went on for an endless cycle of days as we crossed the deserts, then came to a place of sparse forests and, eventually, thick green growth, where we hacked our way with swords and long knives.

“
We traveled forever, it seemed, and the days turned cold, then warmed again. At last, we came out of the rich wilderness into an open place, and before us lay a great ocean. Here we paused for a number of days as my men built a vessel of the sea out of the wood of the great forest at our backs. We tested the wood for buoyancy, rigged sails from caravan tents, and carved long oars, at the same time gathering a good store of food supplies and sweet water. And, when the vessel floated properly, we cast off.

“
We sailed for so many days without seeing land that many of us began to think we would reach our deaths before we reached the End of the World—for our supplies were nearly entirely depleted. I, meanwhile, cast my gaze upon the horizon, where the sun rose every dawn, and adjusted our course accordingly. Once or twice we saw sea birds flying overhead, and this was a good sign, for it indicated a shore was not so far away. And yet we never found it, for I could not deviate from our single-minded course toward the rising sun.”

“
Go on,” said the
taqavor.
“What happened then?”

“
Well, my Lord,” said the old soldier, “to tell you the truth, there was so much of the same thing, such a long expanse of terrible monotonous ocean, that some of us nearly went mad. I had to hold off a mutiny more than once, when my poor crazed men wanted me to turn off course to reach the nearest shore.

“
But luck was on our side. The weather was incredibly fair, and the wind blowing in the direction we followed never let up or turned into an uncontrollable gale. In some ways, we could have been sped along by benevolent gods.

“
Eventually, as we reached the last of our strength, we saw shapes of land on the horizon, silhouetted against the rising sun, and we knew we were saved. Within a day we reached a shoreline covered by odd black sand, like ashes or coal. Beyond it was another forested expanse, this one cooler, and the wind here blew sharply among peculiar trees that had rich sharp needles instead of leaves. We did not spend long marveling at them, however, because we desperately needed water and food.

“
After unloading what few things we had with us on the vessel and beaching it properly, we ventured deep into the forest of needle-trees. Again, to our luck, we found a small fast brook and, yes, we found game.

“
After regaining our trust of land, and resting for a few days, we continued ahead, hunting the game meanwhile, eating the flesh and collecting the skins of the various creatures for various uses. There seemed no end to this forest, and the weather started to get colder again, and there was less game, and fewer running streams on our way. Many of us put on the animal skins for warmth, and used some of the fur to wrap ourselves in at nights.

“
After some time our breath became visible in the air. And the land itself seemed to rise, so that we saw mountains in the distance. The mountains were great pale shapes, covered with a whiteness that only some of us recognized properly to be a thing called snow. Surely, we had reached the End of the World.”

“
And was it? Was it the End?” said the
taqavor,
his eyes glittering with excitement.

“
I am afraid not, my Lord. We gathered supplies, and made our way slowly into the cold rising lands, where there was almost nothing growing in the earth, and only bare freezing rock—a horrible dying place. At several times, terrifying white storms caught us, and we hid in caves or behind outcroppings of stone. The whiteness called snow is frozen cold water. We learned this eventually, and we learned to drink this snow when there was no other liquid.

“
At this point, some of us died. This was truly the dark time. And there were many mornings that resembled night—the world was so opaque and obscured with snow that I could not see the place where the sun rose, so we had to wait out days.

“
I don’t know how long it was, the ice agony, but eventually the land started to descend again, and somehow we had come out of the mountains into sparse flatland, and, yes, there was once again a source of food.”

The soldier sighed, then continued, “And thus, my Lord, we went on and on, and there was no End. Nothing that would resemble an endless abyss or a burning uncrossable inferno. Eventually, we came into warmer lands again, and then, suddenly, after many moons waxed and waned, we were before another desert. And here we found some human towns and settlements. The people here had paler yellowish skin and oddly slanted narrow eyes. At one of the settlements, although we could not speak their tongue, and I do not particularly remember conquering them in your campaigns—there have been too many peoples who have fallen before your armies to recall their distinctions—we managed to obtain pack beasts in exchange for our animal skins, and then embarked upon a trip through the sands.

“
As we moved, this time burning under the fire of the sun, I continued to watch its pattern, to make sure that we always followed the direction of its rising. We found a number of places that were oases, and then suddenly we encountered one familiar city, the one they call ‘No-Sleep.’ For, surely, there could be only one place where the puny kings are madmen, and magic changes the fabric of the city every night.”

“
I remember passing it in our campaign,” said the
taqavor.
“Indeed, I did not choose to stop within its insane walls, for I wanted nothing to do with such madness, and so I let the city be. This is possibly the only place in my
empirastan
which I do not care to claim. I let it be, an island. But—go on.”

“
Well, my Lord, we passed this place and kept going, onward and onward. The desert seemed to become more familiar with each breath, even the wind was that of home. I knew something was not quite right. And then, my Lord . . . we came upon your great city.”

“
What?” said the
taqavor.
“That cannot be! Surely you had strayed off course and were lost, and wandered back the way you came!”

The old soldier Jimor lowered his gaze. “I know not, my Lord . . .” he whispered. “But we came from the road that leads in the other direction, on the opposite side of your city from the one along which we started our journey. I know not. I did what you told me, and followed the rising sun. . . .”