Tales of Toulaban

CHAPTER FOURTEEN The bed was a sea of down-filled pillows and linen heets, faintly scented with cinnamon and bayberry elixers, bordered by four cedar posts on which were carved many strange manlike figures with wings and forking tongues, laughing, killing, copulating.  At the head, six white candles burned on a golden candelabra; at the foot, a marble fountain shaped like a Kabard woman copulating with a dolphin bubbled warm lavender-scented water.  It was afternoon; warm sunlight flowed into the tent through six arched plastic windows, each bearing an inscription in a strange flowering script.  The walls were a diorama of Humans and Kabards and Human, dozens of individual portraits, kneeling in worship before a giant Godking on a golden dais.  The ceiling was embroidered with Kensor, a swirling golden sun with half-closed eyes and a forking tongue.  The tent had no furnishings for the enormous bed and two-waist-high basins of steaming water.  Domojon was certain he was dead, and in

CHAPTER THIRTEEN North of Nuisomein was a vast, grassy plain --elaku, the flatness, said to be the Kabards' first homeland on Tulë, the infinity that had spawned Kensoraj's infinity of gods -- for who could look on the endless steppes and not feel the prodding touches of other souls, gods and spirits and demigods and demons?  Kabards had marched from this plain more than once, to war against Runoe or Hizorán or Pachala (in the days when it was Human).  When once they marched, they defeated Runoe in a single day -- an engraved stone at Yranmeí commemorated the victory. They camped out each night under the stars, or when it rained in a canvass tent, while raindrops hissed against their heating-coil.  Etlzonat caught rabbits and birds to cook, and Hzergai found wild mushrooms and horsehair and fat tubular roots, and moss to brew into tea, so they ate well.  There were snakes, and poisonous toads, and sharp grass that could cut through doeskin sandals.  Domojon missed most of

CHAPTER TWELVE With spring, the month Humans called Chufenath and Kabards called Melting of Packed Snow in the Mountains, Gorban began massing troops in Chiokërang and Elaku, along the spine of mountains that separated devout Kabard from heretic and Human.  Armed with as much as they could learn about Elusivhir, bound copies of the Way of Exceeding Joy, new pearl-like kolïndons, and, most important of all, two small grey bombs, they were ready for their journey.  In the northern reaches of Pelun, the fields were green with new rice and haricots; there were orchards of newly-budding apricot trees, and persimmons, and waterberries.  Swans flew overhead toward their summer nesting-ground, and along the banks of the Salt Sea crawled slow-moving sjatriluür lizards, which Etlzonat often caught and roasted over the heating-coil for their dinner.  From Pelun they passed into the Kabard nation of Pachala, to the fortress-city Sardiúd with its twin blinking sentinels, and Retur the city of th

CHAPTER ELEVEN They ate at a small low table at a Pelun restaurant: saffron-flavored rice with minced flamefish from Sardiud, egret eggs boiled in tumeric and parsley, and fried rice-bread dripping with sweet sauce.  They spoke of Pelun, and of Elusivhir, and of the customs of the Val, and Akrava told many humorous anecdotes of growing up in his nurture-tower; but after drinking three goblets of a thick brown raisin wine and feeling very warm and happy inside, Domojon decided to tell them that he was, after all, considering Nok Dragon's request. "Come, you're trying to kid me!" Akrava exclaimed.  "You can't seriously be proposing to go off on a journey across a Human-infested wilderness in the blaze of autumn. . .through trees, not to mention worse dangers that I can't imagine. . .just to please a Godking who isn't even a Godking anymore?" "A wilderness voyage?" said Etlzonat.  "What for?" "To grab a prize away f