Kabardan Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
They walked for fifteen days through Pelun, rising long before dawn but retiring while the sun was still high, following the course of the Tong Dau River, the Shimmering Eastern Lake, through the Seven Bright Cities of the Red Earth: Dzoráng, Mithonaí, fabled Storao "of the Ten Thousand Pleasures," the twin cities Truhin-Madiro, Markad on a lazy bend in the river, the stern fortress Taishryá, and finally Rikáng. The fields of millet and beans were brown, bare with coming winter, but there were fields of white winter rice, patches of violet gorse and dry orange lovesbalm, thickets of larch and elm and lin with yellow branches. The roads were broad, and loaded with travelers, a few steamcars but mostly carts and horses and hearty mountain camels.
Akrava had seen only a few Humans during his life, and none in such profusion, so he stared.
"It's as if they own the world," he exclaimed.
"They are owning the world. This world, anyhow," said Etlzonat. "The Seven Bright Cities of the Red Earth were being settled by Humans soon after the Moghar brought them from beyond the Solitude, a long time before you Kabards were coming galloping down from the hoarfrost mountains of Harchi."
"Was there no one before the Humans?" asked Akrava.
"Chenorans," Domojon said in a dull matter-of-fact tone. Then, seeing how Akrava stared, "I've made several studies of oppressed peoples. The Chenorans may have been Human -- some of their ruined villages resemble Human cavern-cities. Or they may have been another tribe altogether. They died out long ago."
"Nor can there have been seven tribes in the wide world," said Etlzonat. "It says right in the Seudár that holy Kamavál was to be creating six tribes, so never will we discover more than the six."
"Myth!" cried Akrava. "Myth and superstition!"
"Six or seven, it doesn't matter," said Domojon, "They will always be ruled by the Kabards."
Etlzonat laughed. "For a little while, pale-headed one. For a little while."
"For a long time. Did you know that Kabard godkings once held court here, in mighty Pelun?"
The Valak said nothing. "I did," said Akrava. "When was that. . .during the Era of Empires?"
"That's right."
"And the flowering of both Kabard and Human cultures resulted. No doubt, Etlzonat, you have heard of the Golden Age of Tomheron?"
Her nostrils flared. "I'm not ignorant. He belonged to the Elusivhir faith, and he was to be having a Human soulparent."
"Nonetheless, he was Kabard, and his empire spread from Elaku to Pachala."
"Hmf. You ignore, I think, that in the next century Pelun establihed its own empire, and it was extended even farther, to the dun hills of Moreveq, and west almost nearly to Runoe.
"An empire of twenty-six years duration," said Akrava. "See, Val Who Loves the Humans, I have read the Human Book of Truth, and not in a Tilach translation, either. The superstitious lords of Pelun turned back from Runoe and conquest of the whole world when they saw the Black Lion of Nuísomein rising from the mists."
"And who wouldn't?" Etlzonat snorted. "Nuísomein is a place to frighten of even those who brave Emekhtal, where Mozhäu sleeps at his bed of human skulls."
At dawn on the sixteenth day, they saw the lights of Rikáng flickered before them like fallen stars through slim rods of elm trees. A huge marble statue of Eluse in his aspect of Divine Lover supported the arching River Gate, and on the other side his consort Nuloniú was hewn, as usual, with a baby lamb in his arms. The Humans of Pelun did not follow the Kabard custom of labyrinthine interlocking courts; instead, they built long, straight streets intersecting with avenues at right angles, lawns of yellow grass and jonquils girding the curious three-story clan-houses. Oddly, no pathways crossed the grass to the houses; perhaps a Pelun clan's popularity could be gauged by how well-trodden the grass to their doorway was.
"Let's go to the corner of Jaúren and Tar," Etlzonat said. "They have public message booths there, and I want to see if a vat of holy water I ordered has arrived yet. Red-gout, you know."
Domojon was surprised to see headbands on every Human forehead, and statues of Eluse or an Elusivhir saint at every square street intersection. He knew that Pelun was primarily Elusivhir, of course, but it still seemed odd that the Human religion would have strayed this far east, surrounded on all sides by the Kabard devotion to Kensor and its relations. Etlzonat told his that at such a distance the Pelun were more zealous in their faith, more fanatical, than the Elusivhir of Utëd Markum or even Keftulun. Similarly the Kabards of Elaku and Moreveq were perhaps more devout to the Godking than those of Tregonëv, who looked on his face everyday.
Wallscreens set up on pillars on each corner gave them their first news in many days, but unfortunately it was in the Pelun language, which only Etlzonat could read. Elusan, the language created by devotees of Eluse and the unofficial lingua franca of the Human world, was practically unknown: "They feel that praises of Mother Eluse sound best when uttered in their glorious Thirty-Five Syllables," Etlzonat said. "And, of course, they could not deign to learn the Tilach of the Kabard world.
Domojon thought this exceptionally narrow-minded until he chanced to hear a chant in the Pelun language from the door of a coppery storefront temple, still dim with pale dawn light.
Ji shin rya wu ben pera
Pera dau yi lyu yi nao dlao
Dzora kya ben yura kwa
Ma two jraura yan shwaira
Ko ji yeu ta ta rya mau
Mau ji chya shau dji yi tyong
Ma ji dlao ben He Lyu Shu.
He stopped dead and instinctively reached for the recorder-button on his datarod, before remembering that he lost crossing that icy river at the top of the world.
"Akrava, do you hear that?" he whispered. "The language of the gods!"
"Not the gods entirely," Etlzonat said with a wide smile. "It is a Pelun hymn, a famous one I memorized long ago. Shall I to translate for you?"
"Please do."
The Valak turned his head so that only a single brown eye was visible, and recited in a low solemn voice.
My heart loves the fog on the mountains,
The green eastern mountains where cattle low,
Where horses pant at small rain falling,
And ghosts never haunt our pathways.
But a far greater love will I enjoy
When one day I ascend to the golden city of heaven
And speak with Queen Eluse face to face.
"It's about home!" Domojon exclaimed. He had never had a home, not in Tregonëv of the Kabards, not even among the Human where he was never far from erëktilit, from heresy and despair. He hadn't realized how much he wanted to belong somewhere, to be accepted without talents and connections, just for being Domojon.
"Etlzonat -- do you think you could teach me the Pelun language?" He was more determined than ever to stay in Rikáng, not only to avoid the hardships of travel, but to make it into a home.
The Valak smiled again. "The language Mother Eluse loved best is not lost on tiny Human ears, I take it?"
At the corner of Jauren and Tau, a small, yawning Pelun Human in a strawberry-colored robe approached them.
"Human and Kabard traveling together," he said, smiling, in a flawless Tilach. "Are you, by any chance, Domojon Erëktilit and Akrava Bear?"
"My friends you are discussing?" said Etlzonat, touching his falchion with a menacing glare. "Perhaps they are the two you seek, and perhaps, conversely, they are not. What is your business in them?"
"A Valak, too?" he asked with wide eyes. "You are with them?" He seemed surprised but inexplicably pleased. "By all that is licit, you have nearly formed the Transcendent Ktil of Mother Eluse!"
Neither Akrava nor Domojon understood the reference, but Etlzonat burst into laughter and slurred something like "Don't bite at my hook before I put on the bait, young Pelun!"
The Pelun faced Domojon and jerked his head forward in the traditional Kabard greeting; it looked rather bizarre in a Human. "I bear a message to the Human and Kabard traveling together. It is from Nok Dragon, former Godking and former Abbot of the Monastery of the Tumbling Moon."
"Former abbot?" Domojon asked.
He nodded. "Though he holds titles no longer, Nok Dragon is a respected and well-honored guest of the Plenary Council, and currently makes his residence at Ruéboram House."
"How did he happen to come to Rikáng?"
The Human raised open palms. "His Holiness left Tregonëv when his opposition to many of the Godking's policies made his future seem less than accident-free. And where could he go? Not to Chiokërang, where Jerei Bear is preparing for war."
"You know the Godking of the Kabards?" Etlzonat asked in a small, stunned voice. "You are his friends?"
"How long has he been here?" Akrava asked. "And how did he get here before us? We've just finihed a two month-long mountain hike!"
"Nok Dragon flew in an airship, and so he was here in a few hours. But do not think that he abandoned his friends -- he has sent messengers to Chiokërang, across the major trade roads, searching for you. And now he will be very happy to find you, alive and whole. Oh, and this he has brought to keep you from becoming suspicious." He brought from his waistsack a handful of disks -- Domojon's reference disks, abandoned long ago in his cloud-house in the Court of the Dispossessed in Tregonëv!
"Where did you get these?" he exclaimed, joy surging up in him. Now he didn't have to start over with nothing, as he had when he became erëktilit.
"Many more disks await you at Ruéboram House. As does Lord Nok." He bowed deeply in the Human manner. "My steamcar awaits you at your leisure."
Ruéboram House had been home to visiting kings and dignitaries for centuries, and so it was designed to satisfy the needs of every tribe: there were slim towers of Kabard cloud-houses, barnlike Human clan-houses of pink marble with white and red brick facades, beehive Val compounds, even a giant ersatz oak tree for Ceraine visitors. Little rooms draped in red silk with bubbling vats of hyacinth awaited prayers to the sun-god Kensor; next door was a huge sanctuary displaying golden images of Eluse and Nuloniu, and beyond six dank pools of mud for half-submerged meditations on the Val goddess Bzan.
Etlzonat took a mud-bath and watched a wallscreen film about Eluse's Five Imperial Elevations, and ate live fish still squirming in a bowl, while Domojon and Akrava nodded their way past two guards to an elevator, and then past another to the highest of the Kabard cloud-houses, a sky-paneled chamber with many red-sink pillows and silver pitchers of moss tea. Amber candlesticks flickered in cut glass vases. Books in Tilach and other Kabard languages looked inviting and homelike in oak bookcases. And at a low ebony desk sat Nok Dragon, reading from a datarod. After nearly two months, Domojon could hardly keep herself from running up and embracing him.
"You may approach, Domojon," he said with laughing eyes. He touched his nose, then kissed him on both cheeks. "You who were lost, and now are found."
"We weren't exactly lost, Lord Nok," said Akrava. "Domojon tried to telephone you."
"Yes. . .I found out, much too late, that you had tried to get through to the Temple. Already I had been forced to relinquish my post and seek refuge in Pelun. Then I heard that you might be crossing the mountains, or in Pelun already."
"So you sent for us to talk over old times?" Akrava asked sardonically.
Nok Dragon frowned. "No. I am delighted to see you, of course, and I offer you freely any assistance you need to settle here. Your disk library, Domojon, and your incense and tinctures, Akrava, I have transported to Rikáng for your pleasure."
"Wait, wait," said Akrava. "I have no intention of settling here, and I don't think Domojon does, either -- not seriously, anyway. Could we borrow your airship and a pilot? I want to be in Tregonëv for the Jubilant Unveiling of the Slattern Gods next month."
"Not next month, nor even perhaps next year, will you see Tregonëv again, foolhardy one." Nok Dragon shook his head slowly back and forth. "It would be too dangerous for Domojon, and for you as his companion. But sit down now, sit down and eat." He motioned toward two blue-embroidered cushions. A servant appeared with a platter of round deep-fried breads sprinkled with sugar, two bowls of hot raspberry soup, and a silver pitcher of birchbud tea. "The first eating of the day -- Humans call it breakfast. Quite exotic, is it not?" But he spoke bitterly, and the light was gone from his eyes.
"If you didn't send for us just out of kindness, then why
. . . ." Domojon began.
"I trust you, Domojon, as all Kabards must trust their dream-seer, but what I am to tell you is not a dream." He drank deeply from his porcelain mug. "I fear Gorban."
"That is certainly understandable."
"Do not think that I am bitter -- I am sworn to accept things as they are. Gorban may well be the true Godking -- through his many incarnations, Kensor sometimes tires, sometimes grows mad. And if I am the true Godking, if Gorban is a pretender, that too is acceptable to the Divine Essence. Perhaps I have work to do elsewhere in this lifetime. Even a pretender-Godking, a rampaging sea demon, cannot change the balance of fire and water, of good and evil, in the universe. But whether Gorban is Godking or usurper, I must fight against his madness."
The room was very quiet.
Nok Dragon waited, stared at them with sad lemon-yellow eyes. "I have always considered myself enlightened, even radical in my theories, but now I am convinced that the ancients were true: Mozhäu walks among us. He is Gorban, or else he controls Gorban's actions from his dire-cauldron in Emekhtal."
"I have known for a long time," Domojon said softly. "I didn't want to admit it."
"There is a matter of more immediate concern," Nok Dragon said solemnly. He poured himself another mug of birchbud tea. "Do you know much about Aramkai Roham?"
Domojon laughed in spite of herself. "Well, I suppose I've heard the name once or twice in my life."
"I don't," said Akrava. "What's Aramkai Roham?"
"It is the city which Human call Morningstar, but which really means Star of the Darkness before Dawn, for only a single star was visible from the entrance to that city."
"You know where it is?" Domojon asked. Aramkai Roham was the key -- if he knew that much, perhaps he knew more, and Human would be no longer be scattered across the world!
"More even than that." He chuckled softly. "Not everything which Godkings know is passed down from our previous incarnations. I have learned much over the years available to any mortal. On state occasions I have asked not for golden trinkets but for books. Instead of touring factories and hospitals, I tour libraries. And long ago I found an ancient map which tells the location of Aramkai Roham, and even hints at the location therein of Aramkai's Colindon."
"The Colindon!" He flamed with anger. "Why haven't you told the Human? It means our freedom."
"Not your freedom, Domojon, but your bondage."
"Hey, this is all Elusan to me," Akrava exclaimed. "What colindon? What city?"
"Human lived in Aramkai Roham in the morning of years," Domojon told him. "And the Human were united, as one flesh, for Aramkai lived among them as Queen. Then one day he became displeased and departed to the Third Heaven, and Human were scattered. He hid his Colindon in the Aramkai Roham, and we pray for the coming of Aramkáz, the male avatar of Aramkai, who will find the Colindon and make us a nation again." He swung about to face Nok Dragon. "And this. . .this Kabard comes across a map to that very Colindon, but keeps it a secret, as one might keep medicine from a dying child!"
"Domojon," Nok Dragon said in a low soft voice. "You are wrong. The Colindon would only serve to enslave your people, as they have been enslaved before."
"Nonsense! What are you talking about?"
He leaned closely to Domojon, so that he could smell the lavender soap still clinging to his skin, and pressed two gnarled hands tightly against his shoulders. "The Human religion is largely a product of Kabard and Human theologians, who, I think, want to cover up their own guilt. The Colindon you revere is not like the empty boxes you wear today out of custom or superstition -- it is a mechanical device, very ancient, which binds Queen to Queen."
"Of course," Domojon said sharply. "Thus the Human were united." He couldn't believe that Nok Dragon had kept that secret hidden, as if he supported. . .believed in Human oppression! Perhaps he wasn't such a great friend and benefactor after all.
"Listen to me, nurseling," Nok Dragon said in a strange urgent voice. "Listen to your history: the mind-call is natural, a means whereby ancient Human communicated in the darkness of their caverns. Gradually it grew so strong that each Human must obey his Queen in every command, or become erëktilit."
"Sounds silly to me," said Akrava. "What happens if the Queen is cruel, or mad?"
"There were so many Queens, so many clans, that a few corrupt ones did not make a difference. But then the Colindon was devised, not by a goddess as you claim, but by a demon. Mozhäu, a Kabard sorcerer, a Human scientist, it matters little. Whoever puts the Colindon upon his head becomes to the Queens as they are to the Human, controlling them absolutely. Do you understand how dangerous that could be?"
Domojon didn't speak. his mind was reeling. It seemed logical, indeed, that such a -- a Colindon that brought not unity, understanding, peace, but bondage.
"How did Moghar of distant Tzatr control his armies of Human. . .thousands of them? He -- or one of his thralls -- wore the Colindon, thus controlling the Human Queens, and through them millions of individual Human. What ordinary army could stand against such an entity?"
"Are you saying," said Akrava, "That anyone could just walk into this city Aramkai Roham, tie on a colindon, and zap! every Human Queen in the world pays him homage?"
Nok Dragon laughed nervously. "Not anyone, perhaps. To wear the Colindon requires a very strong mind-call, a very strong sense of identity. . .else the wearer would risk losing his soul in the tide of disparate voices. And there were other requirements. It was a difficult burden to bear, leading millions of Human, privy to their thoughts and fears and pain. It required sacrifice."
"Still, many must have tried," Domojon said in a dull voice. He stared at the eastern stained glass window as if the figures of Tema the Prophet bending over a desk and a celestial Eluse instructing him were real people, alive and moving in their world of colored glass.
"Ruéboram, for whom this House is named. A few others. But none for thousands of years, not since the Colindon was hidden in Aramkai Roham, and that city itself hidden from sight of Human and Kabard and Human."
"And now know how to find them both?"
"I found that information by accident, one summer when I delved into one of the cavern-cities near Moisubra in Moreveq. It seems that a Human privy to the secret could not bear for it to be lost forever, so he scribbled notes in an ancient, obscure tongue into the margins of a treatise on metallurgy. Anyone who finds the book will know." He raised his arms toward heaven. "The Five Owl-Eyed Gods of Contrition know that I trusted Gorban then. No longer. Now, as Godking, with an army of scholars and more spies at him disposal, sooner or later he will find that same information. And then you know what will happen!"
"He will use the Human," Domojon said in a dull voice, "To war against Human lands."
"The Final Battle will begin," Akrava said softly.
"Yes, that," said Nok Dragon. "Death and destruction on a scale we have not dared to imagine. Neither Human nor Kabard nor Human will be spared."
"Wait -- why are you telling me this?" Domojon asked, a horror so deep that it seemed beyond comprehension chilling his blood.
"Have you not guessed?"
Suddenly the room seemed very hot; he felt disoriented, dizzy. He wondered if Akrava would think less of his if he fainted. He wrapped his arm around his waist, kissed his lightly on the neck. "Do you want to lie down?"
"No, I don't want to lie down." He stood and faced Nok Dragon. "You want me to go to Humanan, on the border of Moreveq, find the ruined city of Aramkai, find the Colindon, and destroy it. Sounds like the plot of a fairy tale!"
"Why didn't the others destroy the Colindon," asked Akrava, "If it was so dangerous?"
"They did not as yet have the luxury of Terran grey bombs," Nok Dragon said, smiling. "Fire wouldn't sear it, swords wouldn't pierce it. Also, I believe the Human were loathe to see the greatest. . .talisman, as Domojon says, of their religion destroyed."
"And they still are!" Domojon cried. "I will not destroy the destiny of my people!"
Akrava rose, his eyes contracted in anger. He must care deeply, Domojon thought, and for a moment he felt less cold inside. "Why don't you go on this little errand yourself?" he cried. "Or do you need little Human to do all of your dangerous jobs?"
"No, not at all," Nok Dragon said in a hurt tone. "But only a Human can open the cache where the Colindon lies hidden -- scientists could tell you why. And Domojon is the only Human who, in these dark days, I count among my friends."
"Perhaps we are not friends any longer," Domojon exclaimed. And, without any gesture of cordiality or respect, he stomped into the elevator. "Are you coming, Akrava?"
"Wait! At least accept my hospitality. . .stay with me in the Ruéboram House for a few days. Then, perhaps, you can help me think of another way to avoid this danger."
Domojon turned his head slightly.
"I value your opinion more than any, dream-seer."
And he was convinced.
Nok Dragon had arranged for Akrava and Domojon to have their own cloud-houses in the hotel (when he found out about Etlzonat, he received a Valak beehive-room). Domojon didn't want to wait for evening: he took a long, hot bath with scented soap, and dried carefully, and lay down in a felt bed for the first time in weeks, and although Akrava and Etlzonat promised to pick his up for dinner later, he fell asleep before he could get dressed.
He dreamed that someone rapped on the door, and he murmured "Come in." A man entered his room. Human, with a round Pelun face, but also Kabard, with a slender coal-black mane and eyes grey like slits of ice, but h. He wore a antlered crown, and a sacrificial knife in his hand dripped rust-colored Human blood.
"You will come to me," he said, in a language that was not Tilach and not Humanish, but something older, old before the worlds began. Eranach, he thought, that only monks in deep cavern-temples learn. "You will know me, even as Charalth Aighht knows my touch in the night, even as the Godking of the Kabards hears my voice in the dawn-cries of the nations. But you will be dearer still to me, for it is your birthright to wear Aramkai's Colindon."
He awoke screaming, and Akrava burst into the room, and Etlzonat with him.
"It was just a dream," Akrava whispered, "Like the dream you had in Chiokërang."
"Human do not suffer nightmares," Etlzonat said in a suspicious voice. In the dull space after sleeping, it all made sense. Human were scattered, serfs and vagabonds, homeless in a vast burning world. But not for long. Domojon rose out of bed and embraced Akrava.
They walked for fifteen days through Pelun, rising long before dawn but retiring while the sun was still high, following the course of the Tong Dau River, the Shimmering Eastern Lake, through the Seven Bright Cities of the Red Earth: Dzoráng, Mithonaí, fabled Storao "of the Ten Thousand Pleasures," the twin cities Truhin-Madiro, Markad on a lazy bend in the river, the stern fortress Taishryá, and finally Rikáng. The fields of millet and beans were brown, bare with coming winter, but there were fields of white winter rice, patches of violet gorse and dry orange lovesbalm, thickets of larch and elm and lin with yellow branches. The roads were broad, and loaded with travelers, a few steamcars but mostly carts and horses and hearty mountain camels.
Akrava had seen only a few Humans during his life, and none in such profusion, so he stared.
"It's as if they own the world," he exclaimed.
"They are owning the world. This world, anyhow," said Etlzonat. "The Seven Bright Cities of the Red Earth were being settled by Humans soon after the Moghar brought them from beyond the Solitude, a long time before you Kabards were coming galloping down from the hoarfrost mountains of Harchi."
"Was there no one before the Humans?" asked Akrava.
"Chenorans," Domojon said in a dull matter-of-fact tone. Then, seeing how Akrava stared, "I've made several studies of oppressed peoples. The Chenorans may have been Human -- some of their ruined villages resemble Human cavern-cities. Or they may have been another tribe altogether. They died out long ago."
"Nor can there have been seven tribes in the wide world," said Etlzonat. "It says right in the Seudár that holy Kamavál was to be creating six tribes, so never will we discover more than the six."
"Myth!" cried Akrava. "Myth and superstition!"
"Six or seven, it doesn't matter," said Domojon, "They will always be ruled by the Kabards."
Etlzonat laughed. "For a little while, pale-headed one. For a little while."
"For a long time. Did you know that Kabard godkings once held court here, in mighty Pelun?"
The Valak said nothing. "I did," said Akrava. "When was that. . .during the Era of Empires?"
"That's right."
"And the flowering of both Kabard and Human cultures resulted. No doubt, Etlzonat, you have heard of the Golden Age of Tomheron?"
Her nostrils flared. "I'm not ignorant. He belonged to the Elusivhir faith, and he was to be having a Human soulparent."
"Nonetheless, he was Kabard, and his empire spread from Elaku to Pachala."
"Hmf. You ignore, I think, that in the next century Pelun establihed its own empire, and it was extended even farther, to the dun hills of Moreveq, and west almost nearly to Runoe.
"An empire of twenty-six years duration," said Akrava. "See, Val Who Loves the Humans, I have read the Human Book of Truth, and not in a Tilach translation, either. The superstitious lords of Pelun turned back from Runoe and conquest of the whole world when they saw the Black Lion of Nuísomein rising from the mists."
"And who wouldn't?" Etlzonat snorted. "Nuísomein is a place to frighten of even those who brave Emekhtal, where Mozhäu sleeps at his bed of human skulls."
At dawn on the sixteenth day, they saw the lights of Rikáng flickered before them like fallen stars through slim rods of elm trees. A huge marble statue of Eluse in his aspect of Divine Lover supported the arching River Gate, and on the other side his consort Nuloniú was hewn, as usual, with a baby lamb in his arms. The Humans of Pelun did not follow the Kabard custom of labyrinthine interlocking courts; instead, they built long, straight streets intersecting with avenues at right angles, lawns of yellow grass and jonquils girding the curious three-story clan-houses. Oddly, no pathways crossed the grass to the houses; perhaps a Pelun clan's popularity could be gauged by how well-trodden the grass to their doorway was.
"Let's go to the corner of Jaúren and Tar," Etlzonat said. "They have public message booths there, and I want to see if a vat of holy water I ordered has arrived yet. Red-gout, you know."
Domojon was surprised to see headbands on every Human forehead, and statues of Eluse or an Elusivhir saint at every square street intersection. He knew that Pelun was primarily Elusivhir, of course, but it still seemed odd that the Human religion would have strayed this far east, surrounded on all sides by the Kabard devotion to Kensor and its relations. Etlzonat told his that at such a distance the Pelun were more zealous in their faith, more fanatical, than the Elusivhir of Utëd Markum or even Keftulun. Similarly the Kabards of Elaku and Moreveq were perhaps more devout to the Godking than those of Tregonëv, who looked on his face everyday.
Wallscreens set up on pillars on each corner gave them their first news in many days, but unfortunately it was in the Pelun language, which only Etlzonat could read. Elusan, the language created by devotees of Eluse and the unofficial lingua franca of the Human world, was practically unknown: "They feel that praises of Mother Eluse sound best when uttered in their glorious Thirty-Five Syllables," Etlzonat said. "And, of course, they could not deign to learn the Tilach of the Kabard world.
Domojon thought this exceptionally narrow-minded until he chanced to hear a chant in the Pelun language from the door of a coppery storefront temple, still dim with pale dawn light.
Ji shin rya wu ben pera
Pera dau yi lyu yi nao dlao
Dzora kya ben yura kwa
Ma two jraura yan shwaira
Ko ji yeu ta ta rya mau
Mau ji chya shau dji yi tyong
Ma ji dlao ben He Lyu Shu.
He stopped dead and instinctively reached for the recorder-button on his datarod, before remembering that he lost crossing that icy river at the top of the world.
"Akrava, do you hear that?" he whispered. "The language of the gods!"
"Not the gods entirely," Etlzonat said with a wide smile. "It is a Pelun hymn, a famous one I memorized long ago. Shall I to translate for you?"
"Please do."
The Valak turned his head so that only a single brown eye was visible, and recited in a low solemn voice.
My heart loves the fog on the mountains,
The green eastern mountains where cattle low,
Where horses pant at small rain falling,
And ghosts never haunt our pathways.
But a far greater love will I enjoy
When one day I ascend to the golden city of heaven
And speak with Queen Eluse face to face.
"It's about home!" Domojon exclaimed. He had never had a home, not in Tregonëv of the Kabards, not even among the Human where he was never far from erëktilit, from heresy and despair. He hadn't realized how much he wanted to belong somewhere, to be accepted without talents and connections, just for being Domojon.
"Etlzonat -- do you think you could teach me the Pelun language?" He was more determined than ever to stay in Rikáng, not only to avoid the hardships of travel, but to make it into a home.
The Valak smiled again. "The language Mother Eluse loved best is not lost on tiny Human ears, I take it?"
At the corner of Jauren and Tau, a small, yawning Pelun Human in a strawberry-colored robe approached them.
"Human and Kabard traveling together," he said, smiling, in a flawless Tilach. "Are you, by any chance, Domojon Erëktilit and Akrava Bear?"
"My friends you are discussing?" said Etlzonat, touching his falchion with a menacing glare. "Perhaps they are the two you seek, and perhaps, conversely, they are not. What is your business in them?"
"A Valak, too?" he asked with wide eyes. "You are with them?" He seemed surprised but inexplicably pleased. "By all that is licit, you have nearly formed the Transcendent Ktil of Mother Eluse!"
Neither Akrava nor Domojon understood the reference, but Etlzonat burst into laughter and slurred something like "Don't bite at my hook before I put on the bait, young Pelun!"
The Pelun faced Domojon and jerked his head forward in the traditional Kabard greeting; it looked rather bizarre in a Human. "I bear a message to the Human and Kabard traveling together. It is from Nok Dragon, former Godking and former Abbot of the Monastery of the Tumbling Moon."
"Former abbot?" Domojon asked.
He nodded. "Though he holds titles no longer, Nok Dragon is a respected and well-honored guest of the Plenary Council, and currently makes his residence at Ruéboram House."
"How did he happen to come to Rikáng?"
The Human raised open palms. "His Holiness left Tregonëv when his opposition to many of the Godking's policies made his future seem less than accident-free. And where could he go? Not to Chiokërang, where Jerei Bear is preparing for war."
"You know the Godking of the Kabards?" Etlzonat asked in a small, stunned voice. "You are his friends?"
"How long has he been here?" Akrava asked. "And how did he get here before us? We've just finihed a two month-long mountain hike!"
"Nok Dragon flew in an airship, and so he was here in a few hours. But do not think that he abandoned his friends -- he has sent messengers to Chiokërang, across the major trade roads, searching for you. And now he will be very happy to find you, alive and whole. Oh, and this he has brought to keep you from becoming suspicious." He brought from his waistsack a handful of disks -- Domojon's reference disks, abandoned long ago in his cloud-house in the Court of the Dispossessed in Tregonëv!
"Where did you get these?" he exclaimed, joy surging up in him. Now he didn't have to start over with nothing, as he had when he became erëktilit.
"Many more disks await you at Ruéboram House. As does Lord Nok." He bowed deeply in the Human manner. "My steamcar awaits you at your leisure."
Ruéboram House had been home to visiting kings and dignitaries for centuries, and so it was designed to satisfy the needs of every tribe: there were slim towers of Kabard cloud-houses, barnlike Human clan-houses of pink marble with white and red brick facades, beehive Val compounds, even a giant ersatz oak tree for Ceraine visitors. Little rooms draped in red silk with bubbling vats of hyacinth awaited prayers to the sun-god Kensor; next door was a huge sanctuary displaying golden images of Eluse and Nuloniu, and beyond six dank pools of mud for half-submerged meditations on the Val goddess Bzan.
Etlzonat took a mud-bath and watched a wallscreen film about Eluse's Five Imperial Elevations, and ate live fish still squirming in a bowl, while Domojon and Akrava nodded their way past two guards to an elevator, and then past another to the highest of the Kabard cloud-houses, a sky-paneled chamber with many red-sink pillows and silver pitchers of moss tea. Amber candlesticks flickered in cut glass vases. Books in Tilach and other Kabard languages looked inviting and homelike in oak bookcases. And at a low ebony desk sat Nok Dragon, reading from a datarod. After nearly two months, Domojon could hardly keep herself from running up and embracing him.
"You may approach, Domojon," he said with laughing eyes. He touched his nose, then kissed him on both cheeks. "You who were lost, and now are found."
"We weren't exactly lost, Lord Nok," said Akrava. "Domojon tried to telephone you."
"Yes. . .I found out, much too late, that you had tried to get through to the Temple. Already I had been forced to relinquish my post and seek refuge in Pelun. Then I heard that you might be crossing the mountains, or in Pelun already."
"So you sent for us to talk over old times?" Akrava asked sardonically.
Nok Dragon frowned. "No. I am delighted to see you, of course, and I offer you freely any assistance you need to settle here. Your disk library, Domojon, and your incense and tinctures, Akrava, I have transported to Rikáng for your pleasure."
"Wait, wait," said Akrava. "I have no intention of settling here, and I don't think Domojon does, either -- not seriously, anyway. Could we borrow your airship and a pilot? I want to be in Tregonëv for the Jubilant Unveiling of the Slattern Gods next month."
"Not next month, nor even perhaps next year, will you see Tregonëv again, foolhardy one." Nok Dragon shook his head slowly back and forth. "It would be too dangerous for Domojon, and for you as his companion. But sit down now, sit down and eat." He motioned toward two blue-embroidered cushions. A servant appeared with a platter of round deep-fried breads sprinkled with sugar, two bowls of hot raspberry soup, and a silver pitcher of birchbud tea. "The first eating of the day -- Humans call it breakfast. Quite exotic, is it not?" But he spoke bitterly, and the light was gone from his eyes.
"If you didn't send for us just out of kindness, then why
. . . ." Domojon began.
"I trust you, Domojon, as all Kabards must trust their dream-seer, but what I am to tell you is not a dream." He drank deeply from his porcelain mug. "I fear Gorban."
"That is certainly understandable."
"Do not think that I am bitter -- I am sworn to accept things as they are. Gorban may well be the true Godking -- through his many incarnations, Kensor sometimes tires, sometimes grows mad. And if I am the true Godking, if Gorban is a pretender, that too is acceptable to the Divine Essence. Perhaps I have work to do elsewhere in this lifetime. Even a pretender-Godking, a rampaging sea demon, cannot change the balance of fire and water, of good and evil, in the universe. But whether Gorban is Godking or usurper, I must fight against his madness."
The room was very quiet.
Nok Dragon waited, stared at them with sad lemon-yellow eyes. "I have always considered myself enlightened, even radical in my theories, but now I am convinced that the ancients were true: Mozhäu walks among us. He is Gorban, or else he controls Gorban's actions from his dire-cauldron in Emekhtal."
"I have known for a long time," Domojon said softly. "I didn't want to admit it."
"There is a matter of more immediate concern," Nok Dragon said solemnly. He poured himself another mug of birchbud tea. "Do you know much about Aramkai Roham?"
Domojon laughed in spite of herself. "Well, I suppose I've heard the name once or twice in my life."
"I don't," said Akrava. "What's Aramkai Roham?"
"It is the city which Human call Morningstar, but which really means Star of the Darkness before Dawn, for only a single star was visible from the entrance to that city."
"You know where it is?" Domojon asked. Aramkai Roham was the key -- if he knew that much, perhaps he knew more, and Human would be no longer be scattered across the world!
"More even than that." He chuckled softly. "Not everything which Godkings know is passed down from our previous incarnations. I have learned much over the years available to any mortal. On state occasions I have asked not for golden trinkets but for books. Instead of touring factories and hospitals, I tour libraries. And long ago I found an ancient map which tells the location of Aramkai Roham, and even hints at the location therein of Aramkai's Colindon."
"The Colindon!" He flamed with anger. "Why haven't you told the Human? It means our freedom."
"Not your freedom, Domojon, but your bondage."
"Hey, this is all Elusan to me," Akrava exclaimed. "What colindon? What city?"
"Human lived in Aramkai Roham in the morning of years," Domojon told him. "And the Human were united, as one flesh, for Aramkai lived among them as Queen. Then one day he became displeased and departed to the Third Heaven, and Human were scattered. He hid his Colindon in the Aramkai Roham, and we pray for the coming of Aramkáz, the male avatar of Aramkai, who will find the Colindon and make us a nation again." He swung about to face Nok Dragon. "And this. . .this Kabard comes across a map to that very Colindon, but keeps it a secret, as one might keep medicine from a dying child!"
"Domojon," Nok Dragon said in a low soft voice. "You are wrong. The Colindon would only serve to enslave your people, as they have been enslaved before."
"Nonsense! What are you talking about?"
He leaned closely to Domojon, so that he could smell the lavender soap still clinging to his skin, and pressed two gnarled hands tightly against his shoulders. "The Human religion is largely a product of Kabard and Human theologians, who, I think, want to cover up their own guilt. The Colindon you revere is not like the empty boxes you wear today out of custom or superstition -- it is a mechanical device, very ancient, which binds Queen to Queen."
"Of course," Domojon said sharply. "Thus the Human were united." He couldn't believe that Nok Dragon had kept that secret hidden, as if he supported. . .believed in Human oppression! Perhaps he wasn't such a great friend and benefactor after all.
"Listen to me, nurseling," Nok Dragon said in a strange urgent voice. "Listen to your history: the mind-call is natural, a means whereby ancient Human communicated in the darkness of their caverns. Gradually it grew so strong that each Human must obey his Queen in every command, or become erëktilit."
"Sounds silly to me," said Akrava. "What happens if the Queen is cruel, or mad?"
"There were so many Queens, so many clans, that a few corrupt ones did not make a difference. But then the Colindon was devised, not by a goddess as you claim, but by a demon. Mozhäu, a Kabard sorcerer, a Human scientist, it matters little. Whoever puts the Colindon upon his head becomes to the Queens as they are to the Human, controlling them absolutely. Do you understand how dangerous that could be?"
Domojon didn't speak. his mind was reeling. It seemed logical, indeed, that such a -- a Colindon that brought not unity, understanding, peace, but bondage.
"How did Moghar of distant Tzatr control his armies of Human. . .thousands of them? He -- or one of his thralls -- wore the Colindon, thus controlling the Human Queens, and through them millions of individual Human. What ordinary army could stand against such an entity?"
"Are you saying," said Akrava, "That anyone could just walk into this city Aramkai Roham, tie on a colindon, and zap! every Human Queen in the world pays him homage?"
Nok Dragon laughed nervously. "Not anyone, perhaps. To wear the Colindon requires a very strong mind-call, a very strong sense of identity. . .else the wearer would risk losing his soul in the tide of disparate voices. And there were other requirements. It was a difficult burden to bear, leading millions of Human, privy to their thoughts and fears and pain. It required sacrifice."
"Still, many must have tried," Domojon said in a dull voice. He stared at the eastern stained glass window as if the figures of Tema the Prophet bending over a desk and a celestial Eluse instructing him were real people, alive and moving in their world of colored glass.
"Ruéboram, for whom this House is named. A few others. But none for thousands of years, not since the Colindon was hidden in Aramkai Roham, and that city itself hidden from sight of Human and Kabard and Human."
"And now know how to find them both?"
"I found that information by accident, one summer when I delved into one of the cavern-cities near Moisubra in Moreveq. It seems that a Human privy to the secret could not bear for it to be lost forever, so he scribbled notes in an ancient, obscure tongue into the margins of a treatise on metallurgy. Anyone who finds the book will know." He raised his arms toward heaven. "The Five Owl-Eyed Gods of Contrition know that I trusted Gorban then. No longer. Now, as Godking, with an army of scholars and more spies at him disposal, sooner or later he will find that same information. And then you know what will happen!"
"He will use the Human," Domojon said in a dull voice, "To war against Human lands."
"The Final Battle will begin," Akrava said softly.
"Yes, that," said Nok Dragon. "Death and destruction on a scale we have not dared to imagine. Neither Human nor Kabard nor Human will be spared."
"Wait -- why are you telling me this?" Domojon asked, a horror so deep that it seemed beyond comprehension chilling his blood.
"Have you not guessed?"
Suddenly the room seemed very hot; he felt disoriented, dizzy. He wondered if Akrava would think less of his if he fainted. He wrapped his arm around his waist, kissed his lightly on the neck. "Do you want to lie down?"
"No, I don't want to lie down." He stood and faced Nok Dragon. "You want me to go to Humanan, on the border of Moreveq, find the ruined city of Aramkai, find the Colindon, and destroy it. Sounds like the plot of a fairy tale!"
"Why didn't the others destroy the Colindon," asked Akrava, "If it was so dangerous?"
"They did not as yet have the luxury of Terran grey bombs," Nok Dragon said, smiling. "Fire wouldn't sear it, swords wouldn't pierce it. Also, I believe the Human were loathe to see the greatest. . .talisman, as Domojon says, of their religion destroyed."
"And they still are!" Domojon cried. "I will not destroy the destiny of my people!"
Akrava rose, his eyes contracted in anger. He must care deeply, Domojon thought, and for a moment he felt less cold inside. "Why don't you go on this little errand yourself?" he cried. "Or do you need little Human to do all of your dangerous jobs?"
"No, not at all," Nok Dragon said in a hurt tone. "But only a Human can open the cache where the Colindon lies hidden -- scientists could tell you why. And Domojon is the only Human who, in these dark days, I count among my friends."
"Perhaps we are not friends any longer," Domojon exclaimed. And, without any gesture of cordiality or respect, he stomped into the elevator. "Are you coming, Akrava?"
"Wait! At least accept my hospitality. . .stay with me in the Ruéboram House for a few days. Then, perhaps, you can help me think of another way to avoid this danger."
Domojon turned his head slightly.
"I value your opinion more than any, dream-seer."
And he was convinced.
Nok Dragon had arranged for Akrava and Domojon to have their own cloud-houses in the hotel (when he found out about Etlzonat, he received a Valak beehive-room). Domojon didn't want to wait for evening: he took a long, hot bath with scented soap, and dried carefully, and lay down in a felt bed for the first time in weeks, and although Akrava and Etlzonat promised to pick his up for dinner later, he fell asleep before he could get dressed.
He dreamed that someone rapped on the door, and he murmured "Come in." A man entered his room. Human, with a round Pelun face, but also Kabard, with a slender coal-black mane and eyes grey like slits of ice, but h. He wore a antlered crown, and a sacrificial knife in his hand dripped rust-colored Human blood.
"You will come to me," he said, in a language that was not Tilach and not Humanish, but something older, old before the worlds began. Eranach, he thought, that only monks in deep cavern-temples learn. "You will know me, even as Charalth Aighht knows my touch in the night, even as the Godking of the Kabards hears my voice in the dawn-cries of the nations. But you will be dearer still to me, for it is your birthright to wear Aramkai's Colindon."
He awoke screaming, and Akrava burst into the room, and Etlzonat with him.
"It was just a dream," Akrava whispered, "Like the dream you had in Chiokërang."
"Human do not suffer nightmares," Etlzonat said in a suspicious voice. In the dull space after sleeping, it all made sense. Human were scattered, serfs and vagabonds, homeless in a vast burning world. But not for long. Domojon rose out of bed and embraced Akrava.
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