Dreams of the Compass Rose (36 page)

Nonsense. The navigator in the living story is a player as much as the others. The gods merely draw the symbol lights upon the sky, to be read. The navigator is the one who makes use of them. The navigator follows the road formed by celestial symbols toward a destination at the other end of the Compass Rose, always moving toward the distant horizon which comprises the wondrous opposite side.

The navigator fathoms and then forms the road always from the elements of the world . . . The navigator, and the captain, and the ship, and the ocean, and the journey, and the destination—all of them are you.

Behind you, before you, and beyond you. Such is the living story.

And then the man spoke out loud. “End the Tale now, Annaelit. For if you cannot, no one can. Neither death, nor time, not even all the gods combined.”

For none of us are you.

“
And so it was,” replied Annaelit, “that Pokreh, god of Things Left Over, came to bring wisdom to a foolish woman whose name was Annaelit, Teller of Tales. And in that moment of wisdom, the divine plague left the others around her, and the Illusion of fleas was now in the past, in back of them all, while ahead lay something else—the rest of their living journey.”

And as the last word fell from her lips, like a blossom of light, peace indeed settled upon all those present and the agony left them.

Lord Dava and Lord Ostavi stood still, breathing heavily from their ordeal.

“
Your lesson, but not this Tale, is now concluded,” said the god with the obscured face. And, as he faded from their sight, there came soft laughter, to echo and dance between the walls, like a million tiny insects receding. . . .

“
O
nce upon a time,” spoke Annaelit, the Teller of Tales, in a hovel filled with children, “there were young clever children listening to the words of a certain Teller of Tales.”

“
That’s you, Annaelit!” A little girl giggled.

“
Why yes, and so it was.” Annaelit smiled. “Now then, the children’s homes were comfortable, and there was always food on the table, for their city had prospered from a healthy trade between two lands. And yet something made them come repeatedly to a poor little old hovel where she lived, that Teller of Tales whose name was Annaelit. Do you know what it was?”

“
What?” cried a little boy. And then he scratched himself, for a tiny little thing had just bitten him behind the ear.

“
Why, surely you know, children!” retorted the storyteller, smiling. “Just think what it could be that caused the children to return to a poor hovel! Surely not the fleas?”

“
The stories!” cried a very tiny girl. “The children liked the stories!”

“
Very good, Leti!” said Annaelit. “Now, can any of you tell me what it is about the stories that made them come back?”

“
Is it the words?” said Leti, staring back at Annaelit with intense eyes.

“
Sometimes,” replied Annaelit. “Sometimes it is the words. And at other times it is the people and the things and the places that come alive in the stories. But most often it is that thing that neither the people nor the places, nor the stories themselves, could describe to you, but can only hint at from a great distance on the opposite side of the horizon.”

“
What is it? What’s on the horizon?” whispered another child.

And Annaelit smiled again.

“
Oh, it is a delicate precious thing,” she said. “Some of the storytellers call it wonder. And I promise to tell you more of this extraordinary marvelous thing another day. But for now, my children, at last, this particular Tale is concluded.”

L
egend has it that once in a thousand years comes a night in the deepest Midsummer when a thousand moons fill the sky. In that moment, terrible wonders take place. Also, strange trickeries are wrought, as the Lord of Illusion takes advantage of mortals.

Whether you go South, North, West, or East of the Compass Rose, you will find everywhere, from the lowest town to the greatest city, there is Carnival held every year on that night. All work ceases from sundown till the next dawn, and the whole world is mad with revelry, superstition and Illusions of light.

On such a Carnival night, you may dance and drink and lose all sense in the pleasures of the moment. . . . But above all else you must don a mask to cover your face from things unspoken. For it is said that if you do not, and the moons come, you will be lost forever. . . .

* * *

“
M
asks for sale!” cried the street peddler, pushing forward a gaudy cart on three wheels. It was a contraption piled high with masterpieces and travesties of porcelain and clay, feathers and ribbons, golden braid and purple sequins, and other bits and pieces of stuff like the rainbow.

Yaro stood with the heavy basket of potatoes balanced on her bony hip, and watched the peddler roll by with his merchandise. She was returning from the market with goods for the table of her mistress and had little time for idle gawking. But the shiny colorful mass caught her nearsighted eyes with its undulating sprinkles of reflected rhinestone mini-lights from the sun-glare, the smooth blots of bright colors.

Yaro blinked, then turned, rearranging the basket and her faded shawl, and was once again on her way through the narrow twisting city streets. Her head was kept perpetually lowered, and her gaze directed to the ground, as was proper for a lowly servant and as irked her considerably, since Yaro had a willful streak. Somehow she managed to avoid running into the increasingly raucous passersby and keep the contents of her basket intact. Soon she would reach the higher ground where the gardens began, and where the finer houses stood, including that of the Princess Egiras, whom she served.

Tonight was Carnival night. Early afternoon, and already stores were closing for the revelries ahead, while joy-establishments were getting ready for the crowds and mask sellers were everywhere, flaunting the most extravagant of their wares.

Masks must be worn on the Night of a Thousand Moons. From the lowliest beggar to the richest lord, all would put on the shield of safety over their faces, with the eyeholes covered by lenses of amber crystal. It was the only thing that could offer protection from the occult terror that would come if this Carnival night were to be the fateful one in a thousand.

In her pocket Yaro had a simple mask sewn of goatskin, with tiny thin amber lenses, the cheapest thing she could buy off a higher servant who had used this mask last year. It was customary to have a new mask for every Carnival, but Yaro was too poor to worry about hand-me-downs.

At the great house of the Princess Egiras, Yaro came through the back servant entrance, stumbling under the weight of the basket, and nearly ran into the wide chest of a tall silent man, with skin dark as the desert night, who stood lounging at the doors.

“
Oh! Sorry, my Lord Nadir!” she mumbled, and felt warmth come rushing invisibly to her dark cheeks.

He had reached out a hand in reflex, and gently straightened her basket which had been threatening to spill over.

“
You carry a heavy load,” he said softly. His eyes were darker than black, pupil-less, and somewhere deep was a richness of wisdom, like the earth.

“
Thank, you, m’Lord,” she said, and then moved past him into the hallway and then into the kitchens. As she disappeared from his sight she experienced vertigo at the sense of a trail of his gaze upon her back.

Nadir was a mysterious warrior from a strange faraway land, the personal bodyguard of Egiras. He stood higher-ranking than any servant, and yet was always kind to her. It always puzzled Yaro why his name meant “the lowest of the low.”

Yaro hurried through her chores, through the bustle of other servants all preparing the Princess’s feast. When the afternoon sun started to incline to the West, she took a small moment of rest, filled her old wooden bowl with soup, and carried it to the tiny room in the servants' quarters where her old mother lay in their shared pallet-bed.

“
Yaro, child of dust,” chided her mother, frail as a stick, as she turned her sunken face to the slit of light that came through the doorway.

“
Here, I have brought you dinner,” said Yaro, and she propped her mother up with a second pillow and proceeded to spoon-feed the old woman.

“
Will you go to the Carnival tonight?” said her mother between swallows.

“
I might,” replied Yaro. “If the mistress wants me to be at her side, I might. But if there are more chores. . . .”

“
Do not go!” said the old woman. “The Lord of Illusion stirs the air. I have a bad feeling about this night. The moons might come.”

“
Ah, the moons never come, mother,” said Yaro.

“
And so they say. . . .”

Yaro laughed. She then wiped her mother’s lips with a bit of rag, wiped her own tired brow, picked up the empty old wooden bowl, and headed back to the kitchens.

“
If you go, be sure to wear the mask, you hear?” came her mother’s faint cry in her wake.

“
W
hat is this ridiculous thing?” said Princess Egiras, a beauty with delicate yellow porcelain skin, slanted eyes, and floor-length raven hair. With hands like swan-necks bound in collar-bracelets of gold, she picked up an ornate mask from a silver tray offered to her. “The sun is setting, the Carnival lights are being ignited, and I have nothing to wear outside. Do you expect me to put on this monstrosity?”

“
Your Brightness,” said the blanching servant, “this was the best mask that the merchant Riho had to offer. . . . Behold, it has three layers of braided pearls on a rim of lapis, and the gold surface is polished to shine brighter than the Thousand Moons! The eyepieces are the finest amber stones—”

“
No need to describe to me what is obvious,” said Egiras. “It is nevertheless ugly in all its glory, and I will not have it. Take it back. And then bring me another mask. Something to match this lavender silk.”

“
But Your Brightness! The stores are closing! Where are we to find this other mask for you, when the best mask seller’s most expensive work does not please you?”

In reply, Egiras turned her back on him, and moved coldly to stand by the window and watch the sunset.

The servant fled in terror, knowing without being told, her answer.

“
Y
aro! Yaro, you are quick, you can run faster than anyone,” commanded the head servant breathlessly, wiping a sweating brow. “The Princess must have another mask for the festivities, and you must run to Riho’s or to the jeweler Vael and see if they can make you something fast! Tell them the price is not an issue, the Princess will pay them handsomely—”

“
This is madness,” said Yaro tartly, unable to hold back. “Surely,
time
is an issue. Who can make a mask worthy of Egiras in half an hour?”

“
Don’t be smart, girl,” said the head servant. “Do what you are told, or I will personally throw your sickly hag of a mother out onto the street. Go and do this thing now, and be quick about it! Remember, you will not be allowed back into the house without the mask!”

Yaro bit her lips, and then bowed her head.

“
Hurry now! There is no time!”

In reply, Yaro fled.

* * *

A thousand moons will come tonight

Their radiance will be cold and bright

They say it is a frightful sight

Come, silver fire!

T
he evening sky was rich ebony with a fringe of fading rust at the horizon, and the Night of a Thousand Moons stood over the bowl of the city. A million fiery eyes opened that were Carnival lights, and they winked endlessly.

Yaro snaked her way through the crowds of faceless revelers, though streets hung in gaudy paper lanterns showing all phases of the crescent, and moon-orbs like bunches of grapes. She was returning from the stores of Vael the jeweler and other establishments famous for extravagant masks. At last, she carried a mask wrapped in silk.

A foreign craftsman had provided her with this mask for a great sum that the Princess would have to pay the next day. He had been gone in the back room for some time, so that Yaro was breathless with fear of being late, but finally he had come forward and laid a thing of utter whiteness upon the silken countertop.

It was a block of candle wax. As white and luminous it was as Yaro’s skin was black and dull.

Yaro stared at it, then back at the man.

“
I can make your Princess Egiras a mask that has no rival, a mask that she will fall in love with.” he said in his foreign accent. “However, I will need your face for the mold.”

“
But—” said Yaro.

But he had already brought out the tools of his trade and begun a fire in the work-bowl.

Yaro stared in superstitious awe, seeing the man’s hands move like magic over the flames, and possibly seeing the surface of his palms grow luminescent.

“
You are a sorcerer . . .” she whispered.