Kabardan Chapter 2

Chapter Two

As Domojon flew south from the hermitage of mad Gorban, across the great ice and wastelands of Moreveq, and then the wheatfields and mountains and dusty brown plains of the Kabards to Tregonëv, his clan's mindcall seemed as loud and as joyful as the song of the gold-winged drévnavar.  When he entered the Court of the Humanqueen, all of the Human stood ready to greet him, touching pale foreheads and palms together, chittering of the events he'd missed in his absence, prodding his almost unwilling into the long, slow Dance of Love's Return.  But he was tired and troubled, so he could not concentrate on the complex shifting movements.  There were messages in his work niche, three flashing red silhouettes, and he felt it his duty to listen to them; yet he was apprehensive.  What if they were messages of tragedy?  What if Gorban in his madness had ejected the Terran ambassadors to Moreveq?  Or even invaded one of the Terran nations?
The Human gradually shifted their caresses from shoulder to the small of the back, from chest to thigh, moving from the Dance of Love's Return to the equally intricate Dance of Love's Fulfillment; but Domojon was too heartweary for such a wise and splendid dance.  When it was seemly, he broke from the group, ignoring the Queen's disapproving stare, and left the Human Court.  He was anxious to discuss his fears with his friend Akrava.  He was Kabard. . . he would understand.
As he crossed the Court of Everlasting Mercy, the Court of the Persimmon Tree, and the Court of the Emerald Sword, past milling crowds of Kabards and Human and the occasional Human, Domojon felt uncomfortably confined.  After the vast plains of Moreveq, Chiokërang seemed all spindly towers of rust-red brick (where the Kabards sought the bright love of their gods) crammed between the great rectangular cloud-houses stacked eight or ten high (where they led their ordinary lives).  He longed for the forests of Pelún in the west, for tall sweet-smelling grass and trees with yellow bark.  Human were supposed to dote on dark caverns and the cramped domes that substituted for them in cities, supposed to go mad in the open, and yet he was definitely feeling claustrophobic.  Perhaps, Domojon thought dismally, he was on his way to becoming erektilit, clanless.
Akrava lived in a tiny, red-walled cloud-house on the third level of the Court of the Red Tiger, above a maker of sweetbread sausages and an itinerant dealer in old books.  The higher levels were preferred, but they could only be accessed when an old, rich Kabard retired to the mountains or died.  Still, it wasn't a bad location, for Akrava's court abutted the Court of the Five Billion Gods, which abutted the Godking's own Court of the Divine Wind.  He had an elevator instead of an old-fashioned wine-colored ramp, and a shower-room of chrome and glass, and a wallscreen imported at great expense from the Terran city of Seoul.
Akrava was working.  The air in his cloud-house was sweet and musky with boiling butter, a tincture of sweet gladiolus, the rising scents of oleander and hyssop.  Dampness tinged the framed portraits of demigods, dribbled off the many golden statuettes, made the Kabard's smooth golden skin slick with sweat.  Hidden recorders played the dull, throbbing music of gongs and rattles which lion-headed gods enjoyed, and the wallscreen displayed an aerial view of red burning mountains.  Akrava was sitting naked on a red mat before six chalices of steaming clear liquid (the ether of the gods, Domojon knew); he dipped a willow rod in first one bowl, then another, chanting in the guttural Tilach language of the Kabards, attempting to gain the approval of some arcane deity for one of his clients.
If Akrava had been devout, Domojon never would have thought of disturbing him.  But he was not devout.
"Heyo, great bird!" Domojon called, pushing aside the red curtain and walking a few steps toward him, careful not to knock over any of the chalices.
"Well, mushroom!" Akrava cried, returning his willow rod to its stone holder and raising his right hand in greeting.  Then, more affectionately, he leaned his great gold-maned head forward to touch his nose to hers.  "I didn't expect you home so soon, mushroom.  Come in and take off your wig.  No need to pretend with me -- I know Human are hairless.  How did you like Moreveq?"
"It was bleak."  He sat cross-legged on the cool floor across from him, while he returned the chalices to their silver tabernacle.
"They probably haven't recovered from the Global War yet.  I know it's been thirty years, but rebuilding takes time.  And living so close to Emekhtal. . . ."
"No. . .it isn't that."  He hesitated, wondering for a moment how much he could tell Akrava.  Clients deserved confidentiality. . .especially clients who could sway the fate of the world.  "Some of the Kabards I counseled in Moreveq were very sick in the mind, what we used to call mad.  It becomes discouraging."
The Kabard nodded.  "Look at your client list: kings, ambassadors, abbots of great monasteries.  Madness is a common ailment in those who rise too near to the gods."
"That's a funny thing for you to say, you who live within shouting distance of the Godking."
Akrava laughed.  "I may live next to the Godking, but I don't exactly fall into a stupor every time his caparison passes."
"I suppose there are many levels of devotion."  He lay flat on the floor so he could unbind a leaf from Akrava's palm leaf bed and use it to fan herself.  "Couldn't we open a window, or turn on the airfan?  I'm dying of heat exhaustion."
He nodded his head -- a gesture much more forceful and abrupt in a Kabard with a full mane than it would be in a hairless Human.  "If you like.  But the humidity is worse outdoors, with the thunderstorm coming.  I'm surprised you didn't notice on your way over."  He opened the square glass window that opened out onto the Court of the Five Billion Gods.
He looked out at the sky.  Of course he hadn't noticed -- Human just weren't used to looking up; but a Kabard, with his thirty words for various types of rain, would certainly notice the dark clouds streaked with heat lightning, and the far off rumbling of thunder.  A few Humans were clustered dismally under the awning of a souvenir shop, and a soaked dog was padded his way across the square, but otherwise the Court of the Five Billion Gods was quite deserted.  The long rows of statues, icons, obelisks, and reliquaries seemed desolate and forlorn as the first huge drops (the Kabards had a separate word for them, too) splattered to the earth.  
Suddenly Domojon noticed an old weatherbeaten wisp of a Kabard matriarch, so old and sick that he had abandoned customary Kabard nudity for a heavy foxfur coat, genuflecting before a statue of Ymaktóv the Refuge: he held herself rigidly erect, oblivious to the wind and dark clouds and pellets of rain, his knees bobbing up and down in rhythm to traditional Kabard prayers.
"Hey, that woman's still down there!" Akrava said, instinctively raising his voice. "He's crazier than a dockbird, out in the rain like that.  Not even trying to find helter
. . .and look at his legs flutter!"
"It's not polite to spy on people."
"But he's not just an ordinary citizen -- he's crazy.  He hasn't moved from the statue of Ymaktóv all afternoon."
"Which one is Ymaktóv?"  Domojon was embarrassed to admit that he knew little more about the Kénsoraj religion of the Kabards than the insufferable Terran tourists who bought An E-Z Guide to the Kabards or The ABC's of Kénsoraj in the bookstalls.
Akrava feigned amazement.  "Do you mean one of our gods has escaped your notice?"  He paused, perhaps considering how best to explain.  "Ymaktov is pretty important.  He represents Clarity of Thought.  At the end of time he's supposed to come down from his home beyond the greatdoors and run his sword through Mozhäu, who represents Confusion, and then we'll all live together in happiness and mutual respect like a worldwide Human clan forever after."
  Instead of smiling at Akrava's irreverence, Domojon swallowed hard.  Again a reference to Mozhäu awakening, living and moving in the modern world.  "Does Ymaktov receive much devotion?"
Akrava touched his shoulder, and did not removed his hand.  Since the blood of the gods was no longer simmering in pale chalices on the floor, the cloud-house was becoming cool enough to allow for touching.  "Not much -- he's not much good for everyday problems.  Of course, fanatics who expect the end of the world any moment come running to Ymaktov.  And there are more fanatics than usual these days, with the Terrans.  Seems like every streetcorner-prophet is spouting the same line from the Oration of Rising Wisdom: `not a generation after the greatdoors open, Mozhäu will awaken.'"
"That same text was quoted to me in Moreveq," Domojon said, trying to smile.  Why was his mind churning with such irrational fear?  "I didn't think the Kabards feared prophecies and omens anymore."
"This Kabard doesn't,"  Akrava said. "Ask the gods to heal your disease, or bring rain, or find you a red-maned paramour.  But to save you from Mozhäu!  The nurses in the nurture-tower used to scare us with stories about him when we wouldn't go to bed on time!"
"Well, that woman's no nurseling, and he's very frightened.  I think we should call the Guard.  At least they'll force his to seek helter."
The rain was falling harder now, violent heets from the blueblack clouds.  The Kabard woman clung to the horns rising from the smug, grinning head of the god Ymaktov.  He continued to sway, continued to chant, as if he couldn't hear the wind or feel the wet pounding of the rain.
"He's got woodmites-in-the-mane," Akrava said, but neither of them laughed.  "Lunatics are drawn to religion like flies to the honey-pot."
"Call the Guard, then," Domojon repeated. "Or we could go down and fetch his ourselves, before he dies of pneumonia right in the Court of the Five Billion Gods."
Akrava nodded.  "Yeah, let's do that.  No point in getting the Guard all agitated."  He went to his closet and rummaged about for a moment, then brought out a clear rubber raincloak.  "Need one?"
"No. . .my cloak is waterproof.  I could use a hat, though."
He obligingly brought out a broad-rimmed felt hat.  Then they took the elevator down from Akrava's cloud-house, crossed the Court of the Red Tiger, and made their way cautiously down the slick creamstone ramp that led to the Court of the Five Billion Gods.  Domojon found herself slipping, continually clutching at the wet rough sides of buildings.  Then Akrava took his arm.
"Not in public," he murmured.
"It's an emergency."  He put his arm around his shoulders.  "Anyway, who's going to see?
Rain was pouring down now, matting the woman's mane and trickling in a little fountain down the mane of his coat, moistening his face as if with tears.  And still he chanted, his eyes tightly closed, his bloodless lips moving, his hands white from the effort of clutching Ymaktov's horns.  Domojon and Akrava mounted the stone platform and stood beside him, but he failed to greet them.
"Uh, good afternoon, Pilgrim," Akrava began.
"Ymaktov," he said in a hoarse gasping voice.  "How often I have begged for your coming!  How often!  And now it is the end of years, and still you have not come!"
"Good pilgrim," Domojon began in the Tilach language of the Kabards, "Prayer is a most righteous thing. . . ."
"But like all righteous things, it must be taken in temperance," Akrava continued.  "Perhaps you would accompany us to the nearby Court of the Six Earthly Delights to dry yourself, and to rest until this latesummer storm passes."
The Kabard woman turned to peer at them in the dimming light.  "I cannot!" he whispered.  "Prayer and supplication must not cease until the dissolution of the world!"
"Surely the gods would not have you jeopardize your health," Domojon said.
He laughed.  "My health?  Of what importance is that?  Shall I hope to linger on in this life, only to face His wrath at the end of my days?"  He reached out and touched Domojon's forehead before he had time to back away.  "That little stone you wear, Human, it will not help you.  Nor will our five billion gods, stacked like woodpiles to the sky!"  He raised his head to the grey rain, and his lips curled back into a toothy grin.  "Summon the Guard, if you like!  Summon the Godking himself!  Summon the twelve great armies of Terra!  There is no haven from the flood!"
Then, while Domojon and Akrava looked on in horror, he fell lifeless to the ground, lifeless before the horned statue of Ymaktov the Refuge.