Kabardan Chapter 4
CHAPTER FOUR
Domojon thought no more about Mozhäu for several months. Each day Kabard clients passed beneath the dark hewn lintel of the Court of the Humanqueen, crossed the great open court, and turned left into his office-niche. Some wore the brown, stubby overalls of farmers and factory workers, some bureaucratic cloaks of foam and red silk, some nothing at all, as befit those who walked nearest the Divine. They sat on red cushions while the wallscreen displayed mountain waterfalls and low round speakers played Kered Ytala's Concerto for Violin and Three-Stringed Lute; they drank juniper wine and ate seedcakes, and cried and moaned or pretended dogged stoicism. Many were dreaming of Emekhtal, the ruined fortress-city on a plain of ice, and of the cauldron formed of intertwined Kabards and serpents where Mozhäu brewed a poison more deadly than the death-black juice of the nightdread plant.
"Your dream-cauldron is formed of serpents and Kabards," Domojon would tell them. "Serpents traditionally represent the spiritual, and Kabards the carnal. Thus, your dream symbolizes the tension that every civilized being faces in attempting to reconcile two very different natures."
This interpretation was fatuous and sloppy, the sort of overgeneralization one might expect of wallscreen astrologers, or in books like The True Key to Your Dreams sold in kiosks at highway guesthouses. But Domojon dared not delve through his dim cerulean-blue datarod files, or farther, into the archive of ancient books in Tilach and older languages in the Court of Infinite Shadow, or farther still, into the deep places of his own mind, to discover the hidden meaning. There was no hidden meaning: no childhood traumas or career dilemmas or fears of Kabard-Human wars could create such similar images in so many people. Kabards were simply becoming clairvoyant: however much the mind rebelled against such thoughts, Domojon had to conclude that Emekhtal, Mozhäu, and the terrifying cauldron of living flesh all were real.
In the late fall he was summoned again to Moreveq, to the southern mountains where Gorban kept his winter home. The Kabards of Moreveq disdained the ice plains, preferring to build their cloud-houses in the sharp valleys and ravines of the south instead; their mines of iron and tin, their farms, their factories producing datarods and steamcars all clung like moss to the hillsides. Human lived in their cities, selling magic books or consulting the branches of the elder tree to reveal the futures of rich fat Kabards; but the Morevs lived scattered in the north, growing stone-moss and fishing on the ice seas, a village life unchanged since the days of Moghar the Serpent.
As the airship began its descent from the moist banks of clouds, Domojon looked out the window, expecting the cloud-houses and spiring red brick towers of Moisubra, Gorban's capital. Instead he saw the brown grass of a valley he didn't recognize, and a cluster of white oval shapes, scattered at random like a casting of dice. As they dropped lower he recognized the shapes as tents of alpaca hair, bleached and braided to stand out stark against the earth. It was nearly night, a dim rose-colored twilight, and fires were beginning to flair up from grease-black firepits beyond each tent. And nearby, on the still waters of a small lake, so round that it must have been manmade, another fire was glowing hot and greasy in the gathering shadows.
"This is not right," Domojon said softly, to herself.
"What do you mean?" asked his pilot, a brown-maned Kabard named Ker.
"The tents."
"From time immemorial Kabard kings have lived in tents."
"What happened to Moisubra, Gorban's capital?"
"Hmph! Moisubra was won from the Morevs, and too many Morevs still called it home! Now we have a true Kabard capital, Mulkhár, Justice, on the banks of round Lake Herion." Grinning widely, he puhed back on the steering-level. He seemed pleased to be explaining Kabard customs to someone as famous as Domojon. "Our tents must move a few feet every morning, so that the city called Justice will circle the lake within the course of a year. Thus we remember that Kabards began as nomads on the wheat plains of Elaku."
"Yes, yes. . .it is a very rare custom, but one condoned by the Godking. I believe the king of Dhusaig still lives in a tent. But something else is wrong. . .I can't remember." He thought for a moment, and then it came to his suddenly, like the red-hot bursting of a mountaintop. "That fire burning on the lake. Këhë-ir: fire and water, a very potent symbol in your religion."
"Oh, the funeral pyre?" Ker asked, waving his aside with a toss of his mane. "It is nothing -- we Kabards often send our dead to heaven through fire on the water."
"No, no longer." Domojon felt cold and very afraid. "Not for hundreds of years."
Ker still dismissed him. "Perhaps not in Chiokërang where the Godking dwells, but in modern, progressive Moreveq, yes."
"Progressive! I think Gorban has decided to march backward in time!" Six landing lights glowed yellow and red on the earth, like the souls of the drowned with their search-lamps. "Long ago, during the time of the Second Empire, Kabard war parties carried with them large cooking-pots, to make stew of their Human captives. Did you know that?"
The Kabard pilot was trying very hard to concentrate on his landing. "I can't say that I did. But then again, it's none of my business."
"It's history. You should know about your own past, to prevent further atrocities." Domojon stopped herself from saying anything more. . .he was beginning to sound like Charalth Aigght!
At the end of the airstrip, black horses waited to carry them down a street of packed mud to Gorban's cloud-house (rather a strange name for a tent, Domojon thought). He was uhered into a narrow white-linen cubicle, where he performed his ritual ablutions -- rather unsuccessfully, the water was too cold -- in an old-fashioned birchwood basin. Then he lit a red votive candle to Kensor the sun-god of the Kabards, and a cinnamon-smelling candle of burnt umber to his own goddess Aramkai. Something was certainly missing -- he realized suddenly that there was no music! Most Kabard cloudhouses were infused day and night by the twanging three-stringed lutes and cymbals and wooden flutes; here there was only the silence rush of the wind, and a few voices dim, far-off, murmuring in Tilach.
"Your clothes," said Ker from behind him.
Domojon turned around. The Kabard pilot, evidentally a valet as well, was standing before his naked. "My what?"
"You must not wear Human-skins here, or you'll offend Lord Gorban," said Ker. "No Human customs are allowed in Moreveq. We wear clothing only outdoors, and then only in the winter."
"Gorban mandates that rule even for those of us who belong to other tribes?" Domojon asked, astonihed. If a Human or a Human was forced to follow that particular Kabard custom, he'd likely freeze to death.
The Kabard nodded. "In Moreveq there is no difference between Kabard and Human, between male and female, between the fire and the sea, between clear thought and confusion." He spoke without feeling, as if he were reciting a sacred text, and Domojon was too surprised by this sudden devotion to get angry about Human and females being associated with "the sea" and "confusion."
The king held court beneath a dome of white linen lit only by red votive candles flickering in oval jars, and smelling quite strongly of the tincture of hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley that bubbled at a little wood-burning altar. The only other furniture was the white foam dais where Gorban sat, crosslegged against a silver-braided backrest. At his side he kept not a datarod but a pad of yellow paper and a jar of pens, and an old-fashioned electronic telephone.
"Lord Gorban, it is always a pleasure," Domojon said, thrusting out his head to be touched.
"The pleasure is mine, I assure you," said the king in a hearty enthusiastic voice. He had changed since Domojon had last seen him: he seemed much healthier, tall and goodlooking, with grey hawk-eyes and a long golden mane which he wrapped around massive shoulders like a goldleaf cloak.
"You look. . .different," Domojon began tactfully. "Younger. Have you done something new with your mane?"
"No, no -- with my life." Gorban laughed, a low rumbling laugh from deep within his chest. "Tell me, how young do you think I am. Remember, I was a third-level monk in the Temple of the Red Grave in Eortum, barely out of the nurture-tower, when after the Great War the Godking first noticed me and appointed me ruler of Moreveq?"
"Fifty?" Domojon guessed. "Sixty?"
"Fifty three! Yet until recently I felt ninety. Never before did I realize that this crown is not a Crown of Spikes, it does not kill the one who wears it."
"Then you have had quite a revelation."
"Quite a revelation," Gorban repeated. "There is so much to learn in this life, so much to do. I have began a study of history, the most massive seen for generations, in or out of the monasteries. You see the first fruits of my labor before you." He gestured widely toward the white-linen outer walls, to huge icon-like portraits of the ancient Kabard warlords Satrilur and Erezi.
"The very young are entranced by the past," said Domojon, quoting Erezi's own Recollections of a Busy Life, "As if they are the first to realize that Kabards have a history."
"Are they?" Gorban grinned broadly, and it seemed to Domojon a bit emptily. "Then I am newborn, called just this moment out of the void beyond the worlds! We must celebrate my birthday, Domojon!" He rang for refreshments.
"I couldn't help noticing," Domojon said, accepting a plate of redwheat crepes and a cup of warm milk flavored with allspice, "That some of your people have revived the Këhë-ir, the flame on the water burial."
"Not some, Domojon Dreamseer," said the high king, grinning proudly as if he had finally figured out the answer to a riddle. "All. From the Court of the Twelve Pavilions in Narassubra to the northern wastes and Emekhtal, from the high king's chamber to the miner's hovel, all of Moreveq has returned to the ways of the ancestors."
"And for this reason you have banihed steamcars and datarods from your nation? Your economy must be seriously jeopardized."
Gorban smiled, very serene, very sure of herself. Why had he requested a dream reading in the first place, Domojon wondered -- he didn't seem troubled. Perhaps he suffered from jherásh-sakhú, the form of hysteria that masked itself as serenity. "These devices are not forbidden, and some still use them. We still produce them in large numbers, to sell to the Humans. Runoe just signed a large datarod contract, I believe. But they must be absent from the cloudhouses of kings. One must set an example."
"But the Godking declared them perfectly wholesome and untainted. . . ."
He stared at him. "They are gifts from the Master of Confusion, the one called Peacemaker who walks in Emekhtal." Only now did his voice seem to rise a bit in timbre. "Did you know, Dreamseer, that the Kabard Empire once stretched over 2500 miles, from your Elaku in the utter south to Firuun in the utter west, where wizards crafted greatdoors? There was one throne then, one faith in one burning sun, one Godking."
Domojon remembered the servant Ker's litany, just moments before. "But Nok Dragon is the Godking still, the ruler of all Kabard nations," he protested. "The ones we call kings, thivai-li, are merely his assistants."
"Do you really believe that?" Gorban said, smiling broadly and savagely. "Perhaps it is so on a datarod screen, perhaps in the lecture halls of dull temples in Chiokërang. . .but not in cloudhouses across the world from the Court of the Divine Wind. The Humans revere their Queen Eluse, the Human Aramkai, and the Terrans. . .who knows what! Even among the Kabards there is confusion -- Kénsoraj, Khamvárivhir, a dozen sects and heresies."
"This is not confusion, Lord Gorban -- it is diversity."
"It is desecration," the high king said, fingering a fountain pen. "They take the unity taught by the Oration of Rising Wisdom, and transform it into. . .into sectarianism."
"But at least there is peace among the nations, Gorban. In the years before the Global War, over ninety kingdoms fought each other. Now there are only nine Kabard nations in all the world, at peace with each other and with the Humans. Surely this is an improvement."
"It is a temporary surcease," Gorban said with a breezy wave of his hand. "As long as there is no true Godking, no Godking recognized by every Kabard and every Human and every Human and every strange pale Terran from across the stars, there will be confusion. For this reason Mozhäu must awaken from his slumber in Emekhtal."
Again Mozhäu! "Tell me, Gorban," Domojon began, trying to keep his voice businesslike, "When we last spoke, you were terrified by dreams of Emekhtal, and Mozhäu." He hesitated, looked upon what he now recognized as a cool, calm madness, turned away. "And other things. Are your dreams more pleasant these days?"
"Yes, thank you very much," he said in a deliberate, overly-courteous tone. "Yet there is one dream that still troubles me a little, and so I summoned you. Would you care for a bit more dawns-milk?" The king turned to pull a red leather cord that would ring a bell in the kitchen area behind his tent.
"No, thank you."
"Then I will begin."
Domojon instinctively reached down to access the recording device on his datarod. . .then he realized that he had left it behind with his clothes and traveling-belt.
"I was sitting in the shade of a rowan tree on a latesummer evening," Gorban began, his voice low and modulated in the traditional storyteller's manner -- as if he wanted entertain Domojon -- "I was reading an ancient book whose name you would recognize if I told you, delighted that the old words were finally making sense. All around me the sky grew fat with Kensor the Sun's blood, and the Night Serpent rose from the western sea, baring its six sharp teeth. Suddenly my son approached, stealthily, like a cat, and lay his curly head in my lap." His summer-blue eyes gleamed, and Domojon realized for the first time that he was wearing contact lenses.
"'Is it an interesting book, Master?' he asked.
"'Quite. It's very like The Journey of Artai Bear, which you will read someday, when you go to school at the Temple of the Red Grave.'
"Kered's voice was clear, guileless. 'Master?' he began, as if a sudden whim had caught him.
"'What is it, Kered?'
"'Have you ever killed anyone?' he asked, and his voice was somehow changed. Mocking. I stared down at the boy, still innocent at nine summers, still so far from being a man. His lips were curled into a smile, and his eyes were cold, as blue as bits of turquoise, as blue as your eyes, Domojon, seductive and maddening."
"A very frightening dream, Lord Gorban. You did well to summon me."
The king stared at Domojon as if he were the one insane. "The strangest is yet to come, Human: for suddenly, while still I dreamed, I realized that I have no son named Kered. The demon laughed, he laughed incessantly, like a lunatic, and shuddering I awoke. I had fallen asleep at the book. At least, I think it was sleep."
"And this son. . .this changeling son. . .has he appeared to you again?" Domojon asked.
Now, at last, with a trembling brow and restless eyes, Gorban demonstrated natural emotion. "Yes. Perhaps a week later. I was working in one of the great cave-hoards near Moisubra where Human stored their stolen treasures. No offense, of course, Domojon. Far from the noise and confusion of my cloudhouse, I felt secured by the stacks of books bound in red and gold. I had found what no one had ever found before, not even the Humans with their universal Book. I had in my hands the conclusion of the Tale of Lisuu and the Three Fallow Deer, the oldest text in Tilach literature. It was on a bit of parchment folded in half and stuck as a bookmark into a treatise on metallurgy."
"Such a discovery would cause a furor in the literary world!" Domojon exclaimed. All Kabard nurselings were required to read the fragmentary Tale during their first lessons in Tilach grammar, and it was required reading for all foreigners who hoped to understand the language and culture of the Kabards.
"But my joy was soon forgotten," the king said, reaching out to clasp his small hand as he would a paramour's. "As I turned to my notescreen, I saw Kered again standing beside me. And again, it seemed perfectly natural that I should have a son.
"'Master, you haven't answered my question,' he said.
"'What question is that, child?' I asked, absorbed in my work.
"'Have you ever killed anyone?' Again the innocent-sounding words thundered through my mind, and I saw suddenly a vision of the Global War, when Human and Kabard armies trapped the One called Naum Bmë in his fortress Emekhtal. I saw the minarets cruhed like glass, the toppling pillars of marble and diorite and jade, the broken houses -- and that unholy child, Kered my son, standing in the ruins, laughing, laughing, laughing."
"We have all seen films of the fall of Emekhtal," said Domojon. "But Naum Bmë was alone there -- even his advisors had deserted him. Certainly there were no children. Perhaps this Kered is a symbol of innocent, mindless evil, such as compels children to throw stones at birds.
"Perhaps. I thought instead that the child may be Mozhäu reborn."
"And you have seen him a third time?" he asked, quickly, to keep the king's mind from dwelling on Mozhäu.
"Yes." Now Gorban was visibly nervous. He mopped his brow and smooth golden cheeks with a handkerchief. "The third time was the night before I summoned you. I had already been awakened twice by nightmares -- visitations that, though frightening, did not try to convince me of their reality -- and now as I awoke, Kered lay against my chest, breathing softly as if in sleep. I reached over to turn on my reading lamp, I recall, and then Kered stirred.
"'Master, are you awake?' he asked suddenly.
"'Yes, child.'
"'Master, I must ask you something.' His voice was not ominous in the least, not threatening but soothing.
"'Then ask,' I said.
"As swiftly as the cicada-buzz of sunrise, Kered lifted his head. His serene, maddening eyes flahed in the darkness. 'Have you ever killed anyone?'"
Gorban closed his eyes. "Have you ever killed anyone?" he repeated in a low whisper. "Must I be haunted by this question forever? When will I find peace, dream-seer?"
Domojon considered his response for a long time. "I must ask a question of you," he said finally, "And I hope you will not be offended. Have you ever killed anyone?"
Gorban expressed no surprise, no anger at his question, merely resolution. "This will be in confidence?"
"Of course. I am a dream-seer."
He took up a book, the Oration of Rising Wisdom, from the white dais beside him and leafed through it, decisively but without thought, as one might finger the links of a prayer chain. "Yes. It happened long ago, before the Global War, when I was still in the nurturing-tower -- perhaps even Kered's age. One of my schoolmates was a Morev, an ambassador's child from Aleoran, I think -- a snively, priggish boy, grey as the ahes of a burnt-out hearth, unable to speak Tilach without stuttering -- and, of course, for the young the slightest difference is abomination. We all hated him. My companions and I read of how the Kabards once killed and roasted those of other tribes, thinking them animals -- and one day we lured him out into the woods, killed and ate him and burned his bones, all the while chanting praises to Kensor the Savage Sun."
Domojon was shocked -- how many other atrocities lay hidden behind the Five Billion Gods and five hundred feast days and quiet smiling Godkings of the Kénsoraj faith? But he was a dream-seer, he had probed greater crimes than this, and he displayed no emotion. "Your dreams are easily interpreted. You feel guilt over that long-ago murder. Kered can represent no one but yourself as a youth."
"Myself? Have I seen myself, then?" Trembling, Gorban pulled the leather cord again, and when a servant appeared, called for green pear wine. His voice was high, cracking with fear and pain. He pretended to read his book. "But why now do these dreams arise now, Domojon, after. . .after more years than I care to count?"
Strange, Domojon thought. Just a moment ago Gorban had not hesitated to tell his age. He was even proud of it. "Are the Morevs treated well in your nation, Lord Gorban?" Domojon asked.
"Certainly. Of course" The king seemed insulted by the question. "I am a child no longer, to run screaming to my nurse at the sight of hairless flesh. Morevs build their own cloudhouses, manage their own farms and mines. They may worship their own gods, or not, in perfect freedom."
"Are they taxed?"
"If you mean for being Morevs, no. But it is completely licit to tax all those who do not bow down to the Godking, is it not? Even Kabards who convert to Khamvárivhir or other faiths are similarly taxed."
"Perhaps the dissenters' tax is licit," Domojon said. "But your guilt would be lessened all the same, Lord Gorban, if it were revoked."
He stared at him as if he had spoke in a foreign tongue. His thin fingers flew through the pages of the book like those of a blind man reading something familiar and dull. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he muttered.
"This tax could symbolize your guilt over the Morev boy's death. We say that taxes bleed the people. It's only a metaphor, of course, for excessive or unfair taxation, but perhaps in your dream-mind it has become literal."
"It is not a punitive tax, Domojon. . .Human. It ensures that everyone in the nation will support the upkeep of nurturing-towers and healing courts and roadways, which most of us pay for through temple tithes."
"Nevertheless, it could be lessened."
"I suppose, I suppose." Gorban glanced about him. "Do you think Kered might appear to me while I am awake?" he whispered. "I have heard of such marvels." A servant appeared with an ivory goblet of green pear wine on a salver. Gorban threw his book aside and snatched up the goblet, spilling some dark, sea-green wine on his divan. He gulped it down greedily, and then asked, "Did you put aralth powder in it?"
The servant nodded.
"You require a sedative, Gorban?" Domojon asked, blinking in surprise.
"Sometimes," he snarled. "Why? Are you writing an article about me for the Morning Teaser?" The transformation was complete: he was the old, mad king Gorban again.
When Domojon left Moreveq, Gorban was writing up a proposal to decrease the unbelievers' tax from 10% to 3%. A good thing, in itself -- Human nations exacted no such tax, nor did Elaku where the Godking lived. Yet he felt guilty, for he had misread Gorban's dream. It was most unlikely for a fifty-year old murder to reappear suddenly, without warning, in a dream. Kered was obviously -- even Gorban had nearly guessed -- none other than the long-dead Naum Bmë, the incarnation of Mozhäu who began the Global War and now slept in Emekhtal. In life he was famed for his ability to appear in any shape, now Kabard, now Human, now paramour or trusted friend whom you have known always.
The greatdoors were open; Mozhäu was awake. Domojon looked out the round airship window at a new land, stark, bare, and threatening.
"Your dream-cauldron is formed of serpents and Kabards," Domojon would tell them. "Serpents traditionally represent the spiritual, and Kabards the carnal. Thus, your dream symbolizes the tension that every civilized being faces in attempting to reconcile two very different natures."
This interpretation was fatuous and sloppy, the sort of overgeneralization one might expect of wallscreen astrologers, or in books like The True Key to Your Dreams sold in kiosks at highway guesthouses. But Domojon dared not delve through his dim cerulean-blue datarod files, or farther, into the archive of ancient books in Tilach and older languages in the Court of Infinite Shadow, or farther still, into the deep places of his own mind, to discover the hidden meaning. There was no hidden meaning: no childhood traumas or career dilemmas or fears of Kabard-Human wars could create such similar images in so many people. Kabards were simply becoming clairvoyant: however much the mind rebelled against such thoughts, Domojon had to conclude that Emekhtal, Mozhäu, and the terrifying cauldron of living flesh all were real.
In the late fall he was summoned again to Moreveq, to the southern mountains where Gorban kept his winter home. The Kabards of Moreveq disdained the ice plains, preferring to build their cloud-houses in the sharp valleys and ravines of the south instead; their mines of iron and tin, their farms, their factories producing datarods and steamcars all clung like moss to the hillsides. Human lived in their cities, selling magic books or consulting the branches of the elder tree to reveal the futures of rich fat Kabards; but the Morevs lived scattered in the north, growing stone-moss and fishing on the ice seas, a village life unchanged since the days of Moghar the Serpent.
As the airship began its descent from the moist banks of clouds, Domojon looked out the window, expecting the cloud-houses and spiring red brick towers of Moisubra, Gorban's capital. Instead he saw the brown grass of a valley he didn't recognize, and a cluster of white oval shapes, scattered at random like a casting of dice. As they dropped lower he recognized the shapes as tents of alpaca hair, bleached and braided to stand out stark against the earth. It was nearly night, a dim rose-colored twilight, and fires were beginning to flair up from grease-black firepits beyond each tent. And nearby, on the still waters of a small lake, so round that it must have been manmade, another fire was glowing hot and greasy in the gathering shadows.
"This is not right," Domojon said softly, to herself.
"What do you mean?" asked his pilot, a brown-maned Kabard named Ker.
"The tents."
"From time immemorial Kabard kings have lived in tents."
"What happened to Moisubra, Gorban's capital?"
"Hmph! Moisubra was won from the Morevs, and too many Morevs still called it home! Now we have a true Kabard capital, Mulkhár, Justice, on the banks of round Lake Herion." Grinning widely, he puhed back on the steering-level. He seemed pleased to be explaining Kabard customs to someone as famous as Domojon. "Our tents must move a few feet every morning, so that the city called Justice will circle the lake within the course of a year. Thus we remember that Kabards began as nomads on the wheat plains of Elaku."
"Yes, yes. . .it is a very rare custom, but one condoned by the Godking. I believe the king of Dhusaig still lives in a tent. But something else is wrong. . .I can't remember." He thought for a moment, and then it came to his suddenly, like the red-hot bursting of a mountaintop. "That fire burning on the lake. Këhë-ir: fire and water, a very potent symbol in your religion."
"Oh, the funeral pyre?" Ker asked, waving his aside with a toss of his mane. "It is nothing -- we Kabards often send our dead to heaven through fire on the water."
"No, no longer." Domojon felt cold and very afraid. "Not for hundreds of years."
Ker still dismissed him. "Perhaps not in Chiokërang where the Godking dwells, but in modern, progressive Moreveq, yes."
"Progressive! I think Gorban has decided to march backward in time!" Six landing lights glowed yellow and red on the earth, like the souls of the drowned with their search-lamps. "Long ago, during the time of the Second Empire, Kabard war parties carried with them large cooking-pots, to make stew of their Human captives. Did you know that?"
The Kabard pilot was trying very hard to concentrate on his landing. "I can't say that I did. But then again, it's none of my business."
"It's history. You should know about your own past, to prevent further atrocities." Domojon stopped herself from saying anything more. . .he was beginning to sound like Charalth Aigght!
At the end of the airstrip, black horses waited to carry them down a street of packed mud to Gorban's cloud-house (rather a strange name for a tent, Domojon thought). He was uhered into a narrow white-linen cubicle, where he performed his ritual ablutions -- rather unsuccessfully, the water was too cold -- in an old-fashioned birchwood basin. Then he lit a red votive candle to Kensor the sun-god of the Kabards, and a cinnamon-smelling candle of burnt umber to his own goddess Aramkai. Something was certainly missing -- he realized suddenly that there was no music! Most Kabard cloudhouses were infused day and night by the twanging three-stringed lutes and cymbals and wooden flutes; here there was only the silence rush of the wind, and a few voices dim, far-off, murmuring in Tilach.
"Your clothes," said Ker from behind him.
Domojon turned around. The Kabard pilot, evidentally a valet as well, was standing before his naked. "My what?"
"You must not wear Human-skins here, or you'll offend Lord Gorban," said Ker. "No Human customs are allowed in Moreveq. We wear clothing only outdoors, and then only in the winter."
"Gorban mandates that rule even for those of us who belong to other tribes?" Domojon asked, astonihed. If a Human or a Human was forced to follow that particular Kabard custom, he'd likely freeze to death.
The Kabard nodded. "In Moreveq there is no difference between Kabard and Human, between male and female, between the fire and the sea, between clear thought and confusion." He spoke without feeling, as if he were reciting a sacred text, and Domojon was too surprised by this sudden devotion to get angry about Human and females being associated with "the sea" and "confusion."
The king held court beneath a dome of white linen lit only by red votive candles flickering in oval jars, and smelling quite strongly of the tincture of hyacinth and lily-of-the-valley that bubbled at a little wood-burning altar. The only other furniture was the white foam dais where Gorban sat, crosslegged against a silver-braided backrest. At his side he kept not a datarod but a pad of yellow paper and a jar of pens, and an old-fashioned electronic telephone.
"Lord Gorban, it is always a pleasure," Domojon said, thrusting out his head to be touched.
"The pleasure is mine, I assure you," said the king in a hearty enthusiastic voice. He had changed since Domojon had last seen him: he seemed much healthier, tall and goodlooking, with grey hawk-eyes and a long golden mane which he wrapped around massive shoulders like a goldleaf cloak.
"You look. . .different," Domojon began tactfully. "Younger. Have you done something new with your mane?"
"No, no -- with my life." Gorban laughed, a low rumbling laugh from deep within his chest. "Tell me, how young do you think I am. Remember, I was a third-level monk in the Temple of the Red Grave in Eortum, barely out of the nurture-tower, when after the Great War the Godking first noticed me and appointed me ruler of Moreveq?"
"Fifty?" Domojon guessed. "Sixty?"
"Fifty three! Yet until recently I felt ninety. Never before did I realize that this crown is not a Crown of Spikes, it does not kill the one who wears it."
"Then you have had quite a revelation."
"Quite a revelation," Gorban repeated. "There is so much to learn in this life, so much to do. I have began a study of history, the most massive seen for generations, in or out of the monasteries. You see the first fruits of my labor before you." He gestured widely toward the white-linen outer walls, to huge icon-like portraits of the ancient Kabard warlords Satrilur and Erezi.
"The very young are entranced by the past," said Domojon, quoting Erezi's own Recollections of a Busy Life, "As if they are the first to realize that Kabards have a history."
"Are they?" Gorban grinned broadly, and it seemed to Domojon a bit emptily. "Then I am newborn, called just this moment out of the void beyond the worlds! We must celebrate my birthday, Domojon!" He rang for refreshments.
"I couldn't help noticing," Domojon said, accepting a plate of redwheat crepes and a cup of warm milk flavored with allspice, "That some of your people have revived the Këhë-ir, the flame on the water burial."
"Not some, Domojon Dreamseer," said the high king, grinning proudly as if he had finally figured out the answer to a riddle. "All. From the Court of the Twelve Pavilions in Narassubra to the northern wastes and Emekhtal, from the high king's chamber to the miner's hovel, all of Moreveq has returned to the ways of the ancestors."
"And for this reason you have banihed steamcars and datarods from your nation? Your economy must be seriously jeopardized."
Gorban smiled, very serene, very sure of herself. Why had he requested a dream reading in the first place, Domojon wondered -- he didn't seem troubled. Perhaps he suffered from jherásh-sakhú, the form of hysteria that masked itself as serenity. "These devices are not forbidden, and some still use them. We still produce them in large numbers, to sell to the Humans. Runoe just signed a large datarod contract, I believe. But they must be absent from the cloudhouses of kings. One must set an example."
"But the Godking declared them perfectly wholesome and untainted. . . ."
He stared at him. "They are gifts from the Master of Confusion, the one called Peacemaker who walks in Emekhtal." Only now did his voice seem to rise a bit in timbre. "Did you know, Dreamseer, that the Kabard Empire once stretched over 2500 miles, from your Elaku in the utter south to Firuun in the utter west, where wizards crafted greatdoors? There was one throne then, one faith in one burning sun, one Godking."
Domojon remembered the servant Ker's litany, just moments before. "But Nok Dragon is the Godking still, the ruler of all Kabard nations," he protested. "The ones we call kings, thivai-li, are merely his assistants."
"Do you really believe that?" Gorban said, smiling broadly and savagely. "Perhaps it is so on a datarod screen, perhaps in the lecture halls of dull temples in Chiokërang. . .but not in cloudhouses across the world from the Court of the Divine Wind. The Humans revere their Queen Eluse, the Human Aramkai, and the Terrans. . .who knows what! Even among the Kabards there is confusion -- Kénsoraj, Khamvárivhir, a dozen sects and heresies."
"This is not confusion, Lord Gorban -- it is diversity."
"It is desecration," the high king said, fingering a fountain pen. "They take the unity taught by the Oration of Rising Wisdom, and transform it into. . .into sectarianism."
"But at least there is peace among the nations, Gorban. In the years before the Global War, over ninety kingdoms fought each other. Now there are only nine Kabard nations in all the world, at peace with each other and with the Humans. Surely this is an improvement."
"It is a temporary surcease," Gorban said with a breezy wave of his hand. "As long as there is no true Godking, no Godking recognized by every Kabard and every Human and every Human and every strange pale Terran from across the stars, there will be confusion. For this reason Mozhäu must awaken from his slumber in Emekhtal."
Again Mozhäu! "Tell me, Gorban," Domojon began, trying to keep his voice businesslike, "When we last spoke, you were terrified by dreams of Emekhtal, and Mozhäu." He hesitated, looked upon what he now recognized as a cool, calm madness, turned away. "And other things. Are your dreams more pleasant these days?"
"Yes, thank you very much," he said in a deliberate, overly-courteous tone. "Yet there is one dream that still troubles me a little, and so I summoned you. Would you care for a bit more dawns-milk?" The king turned to pull a red leather cord that would ring a bell in the kitchen area behind his tent.
"No, thank you."
"Then I will begin."
Domojon instinctively reached down to access the recording device on his datarod. . .then he realized that he had left it behind with his clothes and traveling-belt.
"I was sitting in the shade of a rowan tree on a latesummer evening," Gorban began, his voice low and modulated in the traditional storyteller's manner -- as if he wanted entertain Domojon -- "I was reading an ancient book whose name you would recognize if I told you, delighted that the old words were finally making sense. All around me the sky grew fat with Kensor the Sun's blood, and the Night Serpent rose from the western sea, baring its six sharp teeth. Suddenly my son approached, stealthily, like a cat, and lay his curly head in my lap." His summer-blue eyes gleamed, and Domojon realized for the first time that he was wearing contact lenses.
"'Is it an interesting book, Master?' he asked.
"'Quite. It's very like The Journey of Artai Bear, which you will read someday, when you go to school at the Temple of the Red Grave.'
"Kered's voice was clear, guileless. 'Master?' he began, as if a sudden whim had caught him.
"'What is it, Kered?'
"'Have you ever killed anyone?' he asked, and his voice was somehow changed. Mocking. I stared down at the boy, still innocent at nine summers, still so far from being a man. His lips were curled into a smile, and his eyes were cold, as blue as bits of turquoise, as blue as your eyes, Domojon, seductive and maddening."
"A very frightening dream, Lord Gorban. You did well to summon me."
The king stared at Domojon as if he were the one insane. "The strangest is yet to come, Human: for suddenly, while still I dreamed, I realized that I have no son named Kered. The demon laughed, he laughed incessantly, like a lunatic, and shuddering I awoke. I had fallen asleep at the book. At least, I think it was sleep."
"And this son. . .this changeling son. . .has he appeared to you again?" Domojon asked.
Now, at last, with a trembling brow and restless eyes, Gorban demonstrated natural emotion. "Yes. Perhaps a week later. I was working in one of the great cave-hoards near Moisubra where Human stored their stolen treasures. No offense, of course, Domojon. Far from the noise and confusion of my cloudhouse, I felt secured by the stacks of books bound in red and gold. I had found what no one had ever found before, not even the Humans with their universal Book. I had in my hands the conclusion of the Tale of Lisuu and the Three Fallow Deer, the oldest text in Tilach literature. It was on a bit of parchment folded in half and stuck as a bookmark into a treatise on metallurgy."
"Such a discovery would cause a furor in the literary world!" Domojon exclaimed. All Kabard nurselings were required to read the fragmentary Tale during their first lessons in Tilach grammar, and it was required reading for all foreigners who hoped to understand the language and culture of the Kabards.
"But my joy was soon forgotten," the king said, reaching out to clasp his small hand as he would a paramour's. "As I turned to my notescreen, I saw Kered again standing beside me. And again, it seemed perfectly natural that I should have a son.
"'Master, you haven't answered my question,' he said.
"'What question is that, child?' I asked, absorbed in my work.
"'Have you ever killed anyone?' Again the innocent-sounding words thundered through my mind, and I saw suddenly a vision of the Global War, when Human and Kabard armies trapped the One called Naum Bmë in his fortress Emekhtal. I saw the minarets cruhed like glass, the toppling pillars of marble and diorite and jade, the broken houses -- and that unholy child, Kered my son, standing in the ruins, laughing, laughing, laughing."
"We have all seen films of the fall of Emekhtal," said Domojon. "But Naum Bmë was alone there -- even his advisors had deserted him. Certainly there were no children. Perhaps this Kered is a symbol of innocent, mindless evil, such as compels children to throw stones at birds.
"Perhaps. I thought instead that the child may be Mozhäu reborn."
"And you have seen him a third time?" he asked, quickly, to keep the king's mind from dwelling on Mozhäu.
"Yes." Now Gorban was visibly nervous. He mopped his brow and smooth golden cheeks with a handkerchief. "The third time was the night before I summoned you. I had already been awakened twice by nightmares -- visitations that, though frightening, did not try to convince me of their reality -- and now as I awoke, Kered lay against my chest, breathing softly as if in sleep. I reached over to turn on my reading lamp, I recall, and then Kered stirred.
"'Master, are you awake?' he asked suddenly.
"'Yes, child.'
"'Master, I must ask you something.' His voice was not ominous in the least, not threatening but soothing.
"'Then ask,' I said.
"As swiftly as the cicada-buzz of sunrise, Kered lifted his head. His serene, maddening eyes flahed in the darkness. 'Have you ever killed anyone?'"
Gorban closed his eyes. "Have you ever killed anyone?" he repeated in a low whisper. "Must I be haunted by this question forever? When will I find peace, dream-seer?"
Domojon considered his response for a long time. "I must ask a question of you," he said finally, "And I hope you will not be offended. Have you ever killed anyone?"
Gorban expressed no surprise, no anger at his question, merely resolution. "This will be in confidence?"
"Of course. I am a dream-seer."
He took up a book, the Oration of Rising Wisdom, from the white dais beside him and leafed through it, decisively but without thought, as one might finger the links of a prayer chain. "Yes. It happened long ago, before the Global War, when I was still in the nurturing-tower -- perhaps even Kered's age. One of my schoolmates was a Morev, an ambassador's child from Aleoran, I think -- a snively, priggish boy, grey as the ahes of a burnt-out hearth, unable to speak Tilach without stuttering -- and, of course, for the young the slightest difference is abomination. We all hated him. My companions and I read of how the Kabards once killed and roasted those of other tribes, thinking them animals -- and one day we lured him out into the woods, killed and ate him and burned his bones, all the while chanting praises to Kensor the Savage Sun."
Domojon was shocked -- how many other atrocities lay hidden behind the Five Billion Gods and five hundred feast days and quiet smiling Godkings of the Kénsoraj faith? But he was a dream-seer, he had probed greater crimes than this, and he displayed no emotion. "Your dreams are easily interpreted. You feel guilt over that long-ago murder. Kered can represent no one but yourself as a youth."
"Myself? Have I seen myself, then?" Trembling, Gorban pulled the leather cord again, and when a servant appeared, called for green pear wine. His voice was high, cracking with fear and pain. He pretended to read his book. "But why now do these dreams arise now, Domojon, after. . .after more years than I care to count?"
Strange, Domojon thought. Just a moment ago Gorban had not hesitated to tell his age. He was even proud of it. "Are the Morevs treated well in your nation, Lord Gorban?" Domojon asked.
"Certainly. Of course" The king seemed insulted by the question. "I am a child no longer, to run screaming to my nurse at the sight of hairless flesh. Morevs build their own cloudhouses, manage their own farms and mines. They may worship their own gods, or not, in perfect freedom."
"Are they taxed?"
"If you mean for being Morevs, no. But it is completely licit to tax all those who do not bow down to the Godking, is it not? Even Kabards who convert to Khamvárivhir or other faiths are similarly taxed."
"Perhaps the dissenters' tax is licit," Domojon said. "But your guilt would be lessened all the same, Lord Gorban, if it were revoked."
He stared at him as if he had spoke in a foreign tongue. His thin fingers flew through the pages of the book like those of a blind man reading something familiar and dull. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he muttered.
"This tax could symbolize your guilt over the Morev boy's death. We say that taxes bleed the people. It's only a metaphor, of course, for excessive or unfair taxation, but perhaps in your dream-mind it has become literal."
"It is not a punitive tax, Domojon. . .Human. It ensures that everyone in the nation will support the upkeep of nurturing-towers and healing courts and roadways, which most of us pay for through temple tithes."
"Nevertheless, it could be lessened."
"I suppose, I suppose." Gorban glanced about him. "Do you think Kered might appear to me while I am awake?" he whispered. "I have heard of such marvels." A servant appeared with an ivory goblet of green pear wine on a salver. Gorban threw his book aside and snatched up the goblet, spilling some dark, sea-green wine on his divan. He gulped it down greedily, and then asked, "Did you put aralth powder in it?"
The servant nodded.
"You require a sedative, Gorban?" Domojon asked, blinking in surprise.
"Sometimes," he snarled. "Why? Are you writing an article about me for the Morning Teaser?" The transformation was complete: he was the old, mad king Gorban again.
When Domojon left Moreveq, Gorban was writing up a proposal to decrease the unbelievers' tax from 10% to 3%. A good thing, in itself -- Human nations exacted no such tax, nor did Elaku where the Godking lived. Yet he felt guilty, for he had misread Gorban's dream. It was most unlikely for a fifty-year old murder to reappear suddenly, without warning, in a dream. Kered was obviously -- even Gorban had nearly guessed -- none other than the long-dead Naum Bmë, the incarnation of Mozhäu who began the Global War and now slept in Emekhtal. In life he was famed for his ability to appear in any shape, now Kabard, now Human, now paramour or trusted friend whom you have known always.
The greatdoors were open; Mozhäu was awake. Domojon looked out the round airship window at a new land, stark, bare, and threatening.
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