Kabardan Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Afterwards Domojon slept under blue-embroidered quilts in the Court of Immanent Mercy, while healers burned loosestrife and acrid-smelling camphor pellets under his nose, and Kabard priests waved gourd-rattles toward the four corners of the earth to ward off the spirits of the dead who had not yet been reborn. Domojon slept on and on, a strange comatose sleep, while Kabard women poured tea down his propped-open mouth. He suffered no wounds
-- none that could be seen. Yet he could not be awakened, not through foxflame or ammonia or the pricking of pins into his flaccid shoulder.
After three days he awakened, but he would only stare at the ceiling and moan "Aramkai! Aramkai!" Each dawn heavy blankets were taped to his room's clear-glass windows and skylights of cruhed seagreen mica, but at dusk the blankets were thrown off so that Domojon might see the daily birth and dissolution of the goddess Aramkaí, with the red and green glimmering stars and planets and the dim streaking trails of his garments.
After eight days Domojon called for oxtongue soup and black bread, and wallscreen access to the news. Akrava, who sat by his bedside, took his hand often, and they talked in low voices deep into the night..
"The loneliness. . .the emptiness," he said. "It is incredible. Is this how Kabards always live?"
"I suppose so -- but we never really think about it. Kabard are built for solitude; we couldn't bear to set up housekeeping even with our lovers. We always thought that the Human group mind was a myth devised to explain your adaption of the Human clan system." He chuckled. "Your sexual habits grated on the early researchers' prudishness. But perhaps there is something more to your group, something physiological. Like an addiction."
"More than an addiction, Akrava. . .becoming erëktilit is like losing a hand or a foot. You still feel it there, aching, but it is gone." He turned his back to him and buried his face in the pillows. "Leave me now, please. I must mourn my death."
After twelve days he was moved to Akrava's cloud-house. He kept out of his way while he was working, reading his Tilach books or dozing in the warm summer sun. In the afternoons they took short walks in the Court of the Five Billion Gods; he leaned heavily on Akrava's arm and made humorous comments about gods and tourists and phlegmatic Kabard priests. Once Charalth Aigght passed them; Domojon leapt back as if he had seen a bird, but the Queen walked on, oblivious.
"Did I do the right thing, Akrava?" Domojon whispered. "I have lost my clan, my tribe, my heritage. I am forbidden even to use the Humanish language."
"What else could you have done?" Akrava asked. "Sit back, and let Charalth put a muzzle on your dreamseeing talent? Watch his transform his Human into killers?"
"I could have delivered Charalth personally into the Caverns of the Night," Domojon said darkly. "I could have taken his place."
"That's murder!"
"Nevertheless it is licit. The Queen can never be deposed, for the spirit of Aramkai resides in his until the moment of his last heartbeat. But when he dies, the spirit of Aramkai departs from him, and takes up residence in the Human closest. For this reason, Queens usually plan their deaths far in advance."
"It sounds like a crazy doctrine to me," Akrava said, shaking his head. "Any evil Human, any lunatic could simply murder the Queen and take his place."
"That does not happen very often," said Domojon. "The mind- call is very strong, stronger than I realized. It provides the Queen with more protection against Human than a dozen bodyguards."
After twenty days Domojon was ready to move into his own cloud-house in the Court of the Dispossessed. Akrava loaned his money for the initial payment, and more for some castoff furniture and a wallscreen. Anxious to get back to work, he began haunting the Court of the Infinite Shadow, copying those documents that he had failed to salvage from the Court of the Humanqueen, delving through the back rooms of Kabard bookdealers to replace those texts not yet on disk, calling his clients to set up new appointments, trying to re-organize his notefiles.
One afternoon as he was screening through the program of the Tregonëv Music Collective, trying to decide whether to program his new secondhand speakers with Kered Ytala or "Contemplations from the Agate Monastery of Abatiú" or something exotic, like Terran drive-rock, the door buzzed.
"Come in," he called in Tilach, glancing up and over his shoulder to see who was there.
To his surprise, it was another Human, a rather pudgy male wearing a silver cloak and a ludicrous wig, shaggy and lemon-yellow, even smelling of lemons. He took a few steps toward him, grinning apologetically, and held out a darkwood decanter.
"I am erëktilit," he announced, "Besides, I do not interpret the dreams of Human."
"That's all very well," the Human male said, his mousy-brown eyes twinkling. "I didn't come here for a dream reading, and I am also erëktilit. My name's Hajat Donlüun, Hajat Dormouse."
"That's a Kabard name," he said suspiciously, returning his eyes to his notescreen.
"So it is, so it is. Do you mind if I sit?" Without waiting for an answer, he sat down on one of his new scarlet cushions, crosslegged in the Kabard manner. "The name Hajat Dormouse was given me when I first left my clan thirty years ago. I'm your downramp neighbor. Care for some tea?"
Domojon looked up and returned his smile. "That's very kind of you. You must excuse my impoliteness, but I've only just become erëktilit. Let me get some cups." He was surprised and pleased to meet another erëktil -- he had assumed that they all vanihed like smoke or became criminals, joined mercenary bands and abducted Terran slaves. He found two djak-bone cups in a box of Akrava's cast-offs marked "Eating," and sat them on the floor. "It's nice to be near a Human again, even if we are forbidden to speak the Humanish tongue."
He wrinkled his eyes at him and chuckled. "Banihed from the clan, but still you let your ex-Queen control your thoughts? I can speak Humanish whenever I wish, and I do, often, among my erëktilit friends -- those who have been away for a long time, anyway. I simply thought that you might be offended by the practice so soon after your fall into. . .ordinary life, shall we say?"
"You knew that I was erëktilit before I told you?" Domojon asked. He fluffed up another cushion and sat across from Hajat, using a box marked "Books" as a backrest.
"Oh, yes," he said, pouring a cup of green, muddy-looking moss tea from the decanter. "We in the erëktilit community have been gossipping for weeks about the banishment of Domojon Aigght, who appears, it seems, as frequently as Human ambassadors on wallscreen interviews, and enters the planning-rooms of Gorban's high kings as easily as a pet mouse." He held out the cup. "Or do you like it with honey? I have a little jar downstairs -- I could fetch it."
"Not in moss tea, thanks."
He took a long sip, his eyes a pleasant and amiable summer-blue.
"Have you been erëktilit long?" Domojon asked.
"Most of my life," he said. "You'll find that being erëktilit is not all that bad. "Some of us have entered into clans of eight adults, like the Humans, and some have chosen Kabard paramours, and some have even coupled with each other in the Dance of Love's Solitude. And some --" He smiled a wry, painful smile. "Some live alone in bottom-level cloud-houses and slowly grow old, and slowly accumulate books and music and porcelain jars from Pelún in great piles, so that the Guard must dig them out when they finally enter the Caverns of Eternity."
He obviously needed counseling for depression and bitterness; perhaps he was even hinting for it, but Domojon did not feel comfortable reading Human dreams. He hoped that just talking to him would help. "And you meet together. . .you have an organization? I always imagined erëktilit as solitary figures wandering the roads beyond town, like Oinëis the Traitor."
"Not an organization. . .organizations," Hajat corrected him. "We have groups devoted to singing, or making pottery, or petitioning the kings of our various nations to establish separate erëktilit courts. Programs of helpers and healers -- even dream-seers. You can busy yourself with meetings every day of the week, if you wish, and live quite happ. . . ." He stopped himself and stared at him, his eyes no longer twinkling. "Well, you can live."
Strangely, Hajat had not suffered the same severe reaction to breaking with the clan that Domojon had -- there was loneliness, certainly, and the nagging sense of something not being right, for months after he fled from his court and refused to participate in the dance. There was shame, as his clanmates, even his nurselings refused to speak to him. But there was no burning, no hint of oblivion. "Perhaps," he said, "The mind-call is stronger for someone of your high station."
"Perhaps."
"Then, of course, there's the fact that you belonged to the Court of the Humanqueen, beneath Charalth Aigght."
"Each queen is an incarnation of Aramkai," Domojon said. "Just as there are innumerable stars, there are innumerable voices of the Divine. Why was mine in particular important?"
"My dear Domojon," Hajat said, chuckling. "Your modesty does not become you. Charalth Aigght has been an intimate of our ex-godking Nok Dragon, and perhaps our current godking Gorban. A paramour, even.
"Really?" This news startled him. He had never known Charalth to express an interest in friendships beyond the Human, let alone loves. Perhaps Hajat was merely relaying erëktilit gossip.
"Our court -- I mean his court -- is closer to the Godking than any other," Domojon said carefully. "But. . . ."
"Because of that, if nothing else," said Hajat, "Can he ask his anything that he will not do? And now that the Godking is mad, the Queens he rules are also mad. . ." He shook his head heartily from side to side.
Domojon was astonihed. "You knew that Gorban. . ."
"Who does not wonder about the sanity of our new Godking?"
"The people," he continued, "The Kabards and Human. . .do they consider Gorban mad as well?"
The Human stared at him with pale half-jesting eyes. "All of us are mad in this, the last burning day of the world," he said, and it didn't seem a jest.
Domojon attended a few meetings of Hajat's erëktilit group, but he found it depressing, like a group dream-interpretation session in which each dream is about decapitation or castration. He sought out clients, old and new, with the aggressiveness of a street hawker, so that two or three Kabards were always waiting for appointments on scarlet cushions in his cloud-house; thus he avoided solitude. his spare moments he spent with Akrava -- especially the nights, when he ached for the comfort of warm, softly-breathing Human bodies. On Sixthdays he and Akrava often drove up the coast a bit to the Temple of the Tumbling Moons, to walk among the gold-tipped hibiscus and pale morén, the little brooks and fountains, the many unexpected chapels or study-rooms or green-shaded altars. The ex-godking Nok Dragon, who as abbot of a rather out-of-the-way temple had more free time and few guards now, was delighted to drink a cup of tea with them and chat about the latest Terran film or the new exhibit of Pachalan art.
In midsummer he was unexpectedly summoned by the king of Chiokërang, the largest and most powerful of the Kabard nations. He was flattered, thinking that Nok Dragon, still an influential force in Kabard political circles, or even Gorban may have recommended him, but the thought of counseling so august a personage so soon after becoming erëktilit disquieted him. He asked Akrava to come along as his companion.
"Me -- go to Chiokërang? But aren't they all heretics in Chiokërang?" He thumped open an atlas. "See -- the Godking used to live in Tregón, in the Court of Ten Thousand Virtues, but during the Khavmárivhir Reformation he was booted out. Had to leave most of his manuscripts and icons behind and move down to Tregonëv -- New Tregón, get it?"
"I know my history well enough, thank you," said Domojon. "But that was centuries ago, and the Khavmárivhir get along as well with the Kénsoraj as the gold and pearl in Kensor's crown. I've counseled several people in Chiokërang, and they've all treated me perfectly cordially."
"Sure, you're a Human."
"You don't even believe in the Godking," he reminded him. "So what's chewing your nose?"
"Better to be a non-believer than a heretic," he muttered. But, of course, he consented to go.
As they boarded the Chiokërang airship, a choir of Domojon's erëktilit acquaintances seranaded them in the Humanish language, perhaps to simply prove that they could still speak it:
We're waiting for the world to end;
For the morning stars all to falter,
And the moons to flicker and die;
For the sun to burn out, and the standing stones
All to crack, and all of the nations to perish.
Then you and I, on the shore of that last empty ocean
Will walk hand in hand and, wordlessly,
Wait for the new world's beginning.
"What are they singing about?" asked Akrava, prone and rather nervous against the cushioned seat. Domojon wondered if he had ever been in an airship before. Probably not -- now he would have to spend the entire trip making him feel more comfortable.
"It's a song about the end of the world," he said. "Symbolic of love enduring beyond the Caverns of Eternity, I suppose."
"I hope so -- I've about had it with talk of the real end of the world." He took his hand and held it tightly. "Have you heard the latest pronouncement from the Court of the Divine Wind?"
"No. . .I've been too busy to watch the newscasts." his heart sank. "What now?"
The airship bumped once, and the ground sprang away from them. Akrava turned his head away from the window. "You know I haven't stepped inside a temple since I graduated with my Speaker to the Gods degree."
"Sure."
"No longer! Temple services every Sixthday -- and they take attendance!" He shook his head. "What will Gorban think of next -- forced conversions?"
The airship landed on the grounds of a small temple outside Tregón. A fat red-maned Kabard with bright eager eyes strode out to the field to meet them. The king! -- Domojon recognized him from photographs. Strange that he should come by himself, without guards or attendants. But then, the heretics -- the Khamvárivhir, he chided herself -- had always been eager to abandon the courtesies other Kabards doted on.
"Domojon Aigght!" he cried, reaching out a very large, wet hand to his shoulder and brushing against his nose.
"That's right. I'm pleased to meet you, Jerei." He didn't feel it appropriate to mention that his last name was now "Erëktilit." Perhaps the king didn't know about his new status. If he told him, he could become embarrassed -- or worse.
"And you've brought. . .you've brought a friend, hah hah!" He pressed his nose firmly against Akrava's.
"My companion, Lord Jerei, is named Akrava Bear."
"Bear! Bear!" He laughed uproariously, and pressed Akrava's nose again. "I'm Jerei Bear! We could be related, do you think?"
"It's. . .it's a possibility, lord," Akrava said weakly, trying to smile. He shot an angry glance at Domojon, as if to say You didn't tell me the king was obnoxious! Of course, with only twelve last names for fifty million Kabards. . . ."
"Well, still." He put flabby arms around both Akrava and Domojon and uhered them toward the temple courts. "They say it's all bunk, you know, but I still say I like men of my own name best. And Leopards and Dragons, and Red Owls some of the time. But those Turtles! As dull-witted as tree-sloths! And Foxes -- they're as busy as Humans!"
While they dropped by their guest cloud-house to wash up, Jerei Bear completed the questionnaires and forms -- too quickly, Domojon thought, much too carelessly. But he seemed anxious to show off his flying ability, and piloted the airship himself to give them a tour of Tregón, the largest Kabard city in the world. There were broad roadways paved with concrete, on which moved not only pedestrians and alpacas and horses, but Terran steamcars like great steel-blue eggs. The courts were tall, extending not four or five stories into the air, but fifty, sixty, seventy stories; their pettos were all enclosed, for at that height even Kabards were in danger of falling off. The towers were even taller. While the children of Tregonëv were taught mostly by private Human tutors, and many never saw the inside of a temple library, in Tregón every child attended steel-grey temple schools for fifteen years, learning Tilach and Pelún and Elusan, as well as history and geography and the natural sciences. If adult Kabards wihed to mate, they could patronize sleek copper-colored cloud-houses with specially-appointed beds and vats of scented oils (in Tregonëv, they merely plopped down on someone's palm leaf-bed); and when they died, their bodies were cremated in great stone mausoleums. Human lived in their own section of the city, cavern-courts, mostly underground with portals of smoked glass; and there were sections as well for Humans, Val, and even Ceraine from the vast eastern forests.
"Aren't you a bit nervous, living so close to Humans and those other tribes?" Akrava asked, shuddering in spite of himself at the sight of a huge temple adorned with red-gold statues of Eluse.
"Not at all," said Jerei Bear, chuckling in a way that Domojon was beginning to regard as more sinister than jolly. "You must remember, Akrava, that we of Chiokërang have a long tradition of peace with the lowlanders. You may remember that we declared peace with the Humans thousands of years ago, at the Council of Harchi."
There was no Chiokërang then, Domojon said to herself. Nor any Khamvárivhir religion. For all his education in sleek learning-towers, is Jerei Bear so ignorant of his own history?
"I thought it was. . . ." Akrava began, biting his knuckle nervously. But Jerei cut him off with a toss of the mane.
"We were peaceful for generations," he said, a little forcefully. "It took the evil machinations of Oinëis the Traitor, not Kabard for all that but a Human, to finally, in later years, compel the weak and bitter Godking Khrenor to invade Human-lands."
"All of us are weak and bitter, sometimes," said Domojon.
"Is this so?" He turned upon his with laughter-brighened eyes. "The non-Kabard sections of Tregon are secured by iron gates. Should there be violence. . .or a famine. . .or any ill
. . .I will be ready."
Now his ravenous cheery smile made Domojon shudder.
When they arrived at Jerei Bear's cloud-house, it was nearly dusk, so they sat at a low round table removed from the dying sunlight and talked of inconsequential things for a long time, and Jerei Bear told them many jokes, some quite long and some off-color. Kabards did not eat regular meals: they kept no dining tables, no rooms set aside for eating, no professional chefs; but food was plentiful everywhere, and it was quite pleasant. Almost every Kabard fancied himself a cook, and he would try to outdo his brothers at any opportunity. Jerei Bear first served split heads of cabbage with a hot yam sauce, and tomatoes fried with cumin and speckles of fresh garlic; later servants brought in vats of cold peach soup, fat storks stuffed with rice and millet, fried yellow squash, minced tangerine-fried duckling, crane and fish pies, dumplings stuffed with spiced meat, and a plum-cinnamon pastry with swirls of lemon icing, with crab apple brandy and goat milk to drink.
They ate until they were full and drowsy, and talked and joked (or listened to jokes) until well into the night, and then Domojon pulled back the heavy shade and saw that the stars, though pale, dim flecks above Tregon's artificial lights, still divulged that Aramkai had but a few hours to whisper his dreams. "It's time to get to business," he said. "We've spent more than enough time already in camaraderie."
He moved to sit next to the king on his gold-embroidered ottoman, though his thick brandy-breath repelled him. "The dream you spoke of, Jerei Bear -- does it trouble you as much as do the dreams of other Kabard king? You seem perfectly content."
"Trouble? No, it does not trouble -- not at all." He laughed a rich, hearty laugh. Was there anything this king didn't find amusing? "We can talk about it briefly now, if Akrava does not object. And then you may perform your analysis."
"I don't mind," said Akrava. "I'd be interested in watching Domojon at his craft."
"Well, then." He stooped to pour himself more brandly from a silver decanter, then diluted it with foaming water. "I sent for you to interpret a dream of astounding beauty, of rare joy such as one never experiences upon waking. So joyful was I afterwards that for nearly a tenth of the day I couldn't stop laughing."
"There are no dreams so good," Domojon said, "Not even those that portend heaven."
"And this dream is definitely of earth." The king crammed a handful of chocolate mints into his mouth. "I dreamed that I had conquered Kensor, and the great golden vats in the Court of the Bleeding God were boiling for me, not him, and your Godking Gorban was standing with six thousand of his red-robed priests to pay me homage." He glanced through the window at the dark bosom of Aramkai, and shook his mane in exultation, as if he had already sent Kensor to his death in the underworld. "And all of the nations of the world lauded me -- not only the Kabards, but all of the Humans as well, even the Terrans. The American king I remember well: he wore a suit of red for blood, white for death, and blue for the endless sea, and he offered me a flaming sword. A voice told me that it signified the firestorms that Americans devise."
"But. . .regent, you are not a worshipper of Kensor the sun," Domojon said in a low puzzled tone. "Neither do you revere the Godking. Am I correct?"
"You are correct. I, as most of my people, follow the Khamvárivhir faith. We pay attention to your Godking as a powerful and wise ruler, of course, and some few do worship him, for we have religious freedom in Chiokërang." He smiled. "Can you interpret this dream, Dreamseer?"
"Have you ever seen a Kénsoraj ritual, such as the Adoration of the Burning God? In person, I mean, not on the wallscreens or at the cinema."
"Yes, many times. Once the Abbot of the Red Steel Monastery asked me to light the first flame at the Burning of the Grass. Never had a non-believer been given such a privilege, and I was quite honored. Perhaps that is the root of my dream. . .yet I didn't seem that I was worshipping Kensor. I was greater than Kensor, and all the nations worshipped me."
"That never occurs in any of our rituals," Akrava said softly.
Domojon placed his hands together and gazed at the regent. "You desire power, Jerei Bear. That is obvious, of course. And it seems that you aspire to the Godking's position. That is curious, since you do not believe he is God. And your mention of America is most disturbing."
"Yes. America offers me a smoking sword. Silly, isn't it?" He chuckled. "If they were going offer up their secrets to anyone, it would be a Human nation, Runoe or Pelún. Probably Pelún -- its greatdoor leads to a nation called China, with more Human souls than the entire population of our world."
"No one is going to be offering up any secrets, Jerei Bear. Dreams indicate your own hopes and fears, not what will be."
His eyes glazed for a moment, and his smile faded -- but only for a moment. "Did I mention that in the dream I rose not from Kensor's east but from the north, from Emekhtal?
"No, you didn't," said Domojon, his eyes paling. This detail changed matters a bit.
The king seemed perplexed. ""Oh, didn't I? Well, no matter. Perhaps the American sword is the same as the gahed, ruined sword of Mozhäu. We often combine fantasy and reality in dreams, do we not?" He winked.
"I shall require several days of research and contemplation to read this dream, Lord Jerei."
"Of course, of course. Well, it's very late, and Kabards don't like to be puttering through the darkness like demons and Human -- you know what I mean, Akrava! Tell me, shall you and Domojon require a single cloud-house?"
Like demons and Human! Domojon bristled a bit, but didn't mention the slight. If he took offense at every insult imbedded in proverbs and old clichés, he'd spend half of his life with hurt feelings.
"I don't know. . . ." Akrava began.
"Separate cloud-houses, please," said Domojon. "I'll be working much longer into the night, and I don't want to keep my companion awake."
"Hm. I suppose that the charms of the Kabards are sometimes lost on the Human." And he laughed again, a rough laugh that chilled Domojon's blood.
Afterwards Domojon slept under blue-embroidered quilts in the Court of Immanent Mercy, while healers burned loosestrife and acrid-smelling camphor pellets under his nose, and Kabard priests waved gourd-rattles toward the four corners of the earth to ward off the spirits of the dead who had not yet been reborn. Domojon slept on and on, a strange comatose sleep, while Kabard women poured tea down his propped-open mouth. He suffered no wounds
-- none that could be seen. Yet he could not be awakened, not through foxflame or ammonia or the pricking of pins into his flaccid shoulder.
After three days he awakened, but he would only stare at the ceiling and moan "Aramkai! Aramkai!" Each dawn heavy blankets were taped to his room's clear-glass windows and skylights of cruhed seagreen mica, but at dusk the blankets were thrown off so that Domojon might see the daily birth and dissolution of the goddess Aramkaí, with the red and green glimmering stars and planets and the dim streaking trails of his garments.
After eight days Domojon called for oxtongue soup and black bread, and wallscreen access to the news. Akrava, who sat by his bedside, took his hand often, and they talked in low voices deep into the night..
"The loneliness. . .the emptiness," he said. "It is incredible. Is this how Kabards always live?"
"I suppose so -- but we never really think about it. Kabard are built for solitude; we couldn't bear to set up housekeeping even with our lovers. We always thought that the Human group mind was a myth devised to explain your adaption of the Human clan system." He chuckled. "Your sexual habits grated on the early researchers' prudishness. But perhaps there is something more to your group, something physiological. Like an addiction."
"More than an addiction, Akrava. . .becoming erëktilit is like losing a hand or a foot. You still feel it there, aching, but it is gone." He turned his back to him and buried his face in the pillows. "Leave me now, please. I must mourn my death."
After twelve days he was moved to Akrava's cloud-house. He kept out of his way while he was working, reading his Tilach books or dozing in the warm summer sun. In the afternoons they took short walks in the Court of the Five Billion Gods; he leaned heavily on Akrava's arm and made humorous comments about gods and tourists and phlegmatic Kabard priests. Once Charalth Aigght passed them; Domojon leapt back as if he had seen a bird, but the Queen walked on, oblivious.
"Did I do the right thing, Akrava?" Domojon whispered. "I have lost my clan, my tribe, my heritage. I am forbidden even to use the Humanish language."
"What else could you have done?" Akrava asked. "Sit back, and let Charalth put a muzzle on your dreamseeing talent? Watch his transform his Human into killers?"
"I could have delivered Charalth personally into the Caverns of the Night," Domojon said darkly. "I could have taken his place."
"That's murder!"
"Nevertheless it is licit. The Queen can never be deposed, for the spirit of Aramkai resides in his until the moment of his last heartbeat. But when he dies, the spirit of Aramkai departs from him, and takes up residence in the Human closest. For this reason, Queens usually plan their deaths far in advance."
"It sounds like a crazy doctrine to me," Akrava said, shaking his head. "Any evil Human, any lunatic could simply murder the Queen and take his place."
"That does not happen very often," said Domojon. "The mind- call is very strong, stronger than I realized. It provides the Queen with more protection against Human than a dozen bodyguards."
After twenty days Domojon was ready to move into his own cloud-house in the Court of the Dispossessed. Akrava loaned his money for the initial payment, and more for some castoff furniture and a wallscreen. Anxious to get back to work, he began haunting the Court of the Infinite Shadow, copying those documents that he had failed to salvage from the Court of the Humanqueen, delving through the back rooms of Kabard bookdealers to replace those texts not yet on disk, calling his clients to set up new appointments, trying to re-organize his notefiles.
One afternoon as he was screening through the program of the Tregonëv Music Collective, trying to decide whether to program his new secondhand speakers with Kered Ytala or "Contemplations from the Agate Monastery of Abatiú" or something exotic, like Terran drive-rock, the door buzzed.
"Come in," he called in Tilach, glancing up and over his shoulder to see who was there.
To his surprise, it was another Human, a rather pudgy male wearing a silver cloak and a ludicrous wig, shaggy and lemon-yellow, even smelling of lemons. He took a few steps toward him, grinning apologetically, and held out a darkwood decanter.
"I am erëktilit," he announced, "Besides, I do not interpret the dreams of Human."
"That's all very well," the Human male said, his mousy-brown eyes twinkling. "I didn't come here for a dream reading, and I am also erëktilit. My name's Hajat Donlüun, Hajat Dormouse."
"That's a Kabard name," he said suspiciously, returning his eyes to his notescreen.
"So it is, so it is. Do you mind if I sit?" Without waiting for an answer, he sat down on one of his new scarlet cushions, crosslegged in the Kabard manner. "The name Hajat Dormouse was given me when I first left my clan thirty years ago. I'm your downramp neighbor. Care for some tea?"
Domojon looked up and returned his smile. "That's very kind of you. You must excuse my impoliteness, but I've only just become erëktilit. Let me get some cups." He was surprised and pleased to meet another erëktil -- he had assumed that they all vanihed like smoke or became criminals, joined mercenary bands and abducted Terran slaves. He found two djak-bone cups in a box of Akrava's cast-offs marked "Eating," and sat them on the floor. "It's nice to be near a Human again, even if we are forbidden to speak the Humanish tongue."
He wrinkled his eyes at him and chuckled. "Banihed from the clan, but still you let your ex-Queen control your thoughts? I can speak Humanish whenever I wish, and I do, often, among my erëktilit friends -- those who have been away for a long time, anyway. I simply thought that you might be offended by the practice so soon after your fall into. . .ordinary life, shall we say?"
"You knew that I was erëktilit before I told you?" Domojon asked. He fluffed up another cushion and sat across from Hajat, using a box marked "Books" as a backrest.
"Oh, yes," he said, pouring a cup of green, muddy-looking moss tea from the decanter. "We in the erëktilit community have been gossipping for weeks about the banishment of Domojon Aigght, who appears, it seems, as frequently as Human ambassadors on wallscreen interviews, and enters the planning-rooms of Gorban's high kings as easily as a pet mouse." He held out the cup. "Or do you like it with honey? I have a little jar downstairs -- I could fetch it."
"Not in moss tea, thanks."
He took a long sip, his eyes a pleasant and amiable summer-blue.
"Have you been erëktilit long?" Domojon asked.
"Most of my life," he said. "You'll find that being erëktilit is not all that bad. "Some of us have entered into clans of eight adults, like the Humans, and some have chosen Kabard paramours, and some have even coupled with each other in the Dance of Love's Solitude. And some --" He smiled a wry, painful smile. "Some live alone in bottom-level cloud-houses and slowly grow old, and slowly accumulate books and music and porcelain jars from Pelún in great piles, so that the Guard must dig them out when they finally enter the Caverns of Eternity."
He obviously needed counseling for depression and bitterness; perhaps he was even hinting for it, but Domojon did not feel comfortable reading Human dreams. He hoped that just talking to him would help. "And you meet together. . .you have an organization? I always imagined erëktilit as solitary figures wandering the roads beyond town, like Oinëis the Traitor."
"Not an organization. . .organizations," Hajat corrected him. "We have groups devoted to singing, or making pottery, or petitioning the kings of our various nations to establish separate erëktilit courts. Programs of helpers and healers -- even dream-seers. You can busy yourself with meetings every day of the week, if you wish, and live quite happ. . . ." He stopped himself and stared at him, his eyes no longer twinkling. "Well, you can live."
Strangely, Hajat had not suffered the same severe reaction to breaking with the clan that Domojon had -- there was loneliness, certainly, and the nagging sense of something not being right, for months after he fled from his court and refused to participate in the dance. There was shame, as his clanmates, even his nurselings refused to speak to him. But there was no burning, no hint of oblivion. "Perhaps," he said, "The mind-call is stronger for someone of your high station."
"Perhaps."
"Then, of course, there's the fact that you belonged to the Court of the Humanqueen, beneath Charalth Aigght."
"Each queen is an incarnation of Aramkai," Domojon said. "Just as there are innumerable stars, there are innumerable voices of the Divine. Why was mine in particular important?"
"My dear Domojon," Hajat said, chuckling. "Your modesty does not become you. Charalth Aigght has been an intimate of our ex-godking Nok Dragon, and perhaps our current godking Gorban. A paramour, even.
"Really?" This news startled him. He had never known Charalth to express an interest in friendships beyond the Human, let alone loves. Perhaps Hajat was merely relaying erëktilit gossip.
"Our court -- I mean his court -- is closer to the Godking than any other," Domojon said carefully. "But. . . ."
"Because of that, if nothing else," said Hajat, "Can he ask his anything that he will not do? And now that the Godking is mad, the Queens he rules are also mad. . ." He shook his head heartily from side to side.
Domojon was astonihed. "You knew that Gorban. . ."
"Who does not wonder about the sanity of our new Godking?"
"The people," he continued, "The Kabards and Human. . .do they consider Gorban mad as well?"
The Human stared at him with pale half-jesting eyes. "All of us are mad in this, the last burning day of the world," he said, and it didn't seem a jest.
Domojon attended a few meetings of Hajat's erëktilit group, but he found it depressing, like a group dream-interpretation session in which each dream is about decapitation or castration. He sought out clients, old and new, with the aggressiveness of a street hawker, so that two or three Kabards were always waiting for appointments on scarlet cushions in his cloud-house; thus he avoided solitude. his spare moments he spent with Akrava -- especially the nights, when he ached for the comfort of warm, softly-breathing Human bodies. On Sixthdays he and Akrava often drove up the coast a bit to the Temple of the Tumbling Moons, to walk among the gold-tipped hibiscus and pale morén, the little brooks and fountains, the many unexpected chapels or study-rooms or green-shaded altars. The ex-godking Nok Dragon, who as abbot of a rather out-of-the-way temple had more free time and few guards now, was delighted to drink a cup of tea with them and chat about the latest Terran film or the new exhibit of Pachalan art.
In midsummer he was unexpectedly summoned by the king of Chiokërang, the largest and most powerful of the Kabard nations. He was flattered, thinking that Nok Dragon, still an influential force in Kabard political circles, or even Gorban may have recommended him, but the thought of counseling so august a personage so soon after becoming erëktilit disquieted him. He asked Akrava to come along as his companion.
"Me -- go to Chiokërang? But aren't they all heretics in Chiokërang?" He thumped open an atlas. "See -- the Godking used to live in Tregón, in the Court of Ten Thousand Virtues, but during the Khavmárivhir Reformation he was booted out. Had to leave most of his manuscripts and icons behind and move down to Tregonëv -- New Tregón, get it?"
"I know my history well enough, thank you," said Domojon. "But that was centuries ago, and the Khavmárivhir get along as well with the Kénsoraj as the gold and pearl in Kensor's crown. I've counseled several people in Chiokërang, and they've all treated me perfectly cordially."
"Sure, you're a Human."
"You don't even believe in the Godking," he reminded him. "So what's chewing your nose?"
"Better to be a non-believer than a heretic," he muttered. But, of course, he consented to go.
As they boarded the Chiokërang airship, a choir of Domojon's erëktilit acquaintances seranaded them in the Humanish language, perhaps to simply prove that they could still speak it:
We're waiting for the world to end;
For the morning stars all to falter,
And the moons to flicker and die;
For the sun to burn out, and the standing stones
All to crack, and all of the nations to perish.
Then you and I, on the shore of that last empty ocean
Will walk hand in hand and, wordlessly,
Wait for the new world's beginning.
"What are they singing about?" asked Akrava, prone and rather nervous against the cushioned seat. Domojon wondered if he had ever been in an airship before. Probably not -- now he would have to spend the entire trip making him feel more comfortable.
"It's a song about the end of the world," he said. "Symbolic of love enduring beyond the Caverns of Eternity, I suppose."
"I hope so -- I've about had it with talk of the real end of the world." He took his hand and held it tightly. "Have you heard the latest pronouncement from the Court of the Divine Wind?"
"No. . .I've been too busy to watch the newscasts." his heart sank. "What now?"
The airship bumped once, and the ground sprang away from them. Akrava turned his head away from the window. "You know I haven't stepped inside a temple since I graduated with my Speaker to the Gods degree."
"Sure."
"No longer! Temple services every Sixthday -- and they take attendance!" He shook his head. "What will Gorban think of next -- forced conversions?"
The airship landed on the grounds of a small temple outside Tregón. A fat red-maned Kabard with bright eager eyes strode out to the field to meet them. The king! -- Domojon recognized him from photographs. Strange that he should come by himself, without guards or attendants. But then, the heretics -- the Khamvárivhir, he chided herself -- had always been eager to abandon the courtesies other Kabards doted on.
"Domojon Aigght!" he cried, reaching out a very large, wet hand to his shoulder and brushing against his nose.
"That's right. I'm pleased to meet you, Jerei." He didn't feel it appropriate to mention that his last name was now "Erëktilit." Perhaps the king didn't know about his new status. If he told him, he could become embarrassed -- or worse.
"And you've brought. . .you've brought a friend, hah hah!" He pressed his nose firmly against Akrava's.
"My companion, Lord Jerei, is named Akrava Bear."
"Bear! Bear!" He laughed uproariously, and pressed Akrava's nose again. "I'm Jerei Bear! We could be related, do you think?"
"It's. . .it's a possibility, lord," Akrava said weakly, trying to smile. He shot an angry glance at Domojon, as if to say You didn't tell me the king was obnoxious! Of course, with only twelve last names for fifty million Kabards. . . ."
"Well, still." He put flabby arms around both Akrava and Domojon and uhered them toward the temple courts. "They say it's all bunk, you know, but I still say I like men of my own name best. And Leopards and Dragons, and Red Owls some of the time. But those Turtles! As dull-witted as tree-sloths! And Foxes -- they're as busy as Humans!"
While they dropped by their guest cloud-house to wash up, Jerei Bear completed the questionnaires and forms -- too quickly, Domojon thought, much too carelessly. But he seemed anxious to show off his flying ability, and piloted the airship himself to give them a tour of Tregón, the largest Kabard city in the world. There were broad roadways paved with concrete, on which moved not only pedestrians and alpacas and horses, but Terran steamcars like great steel-blue eggs. The courts were tall, extending not four or five stories into the air, but fifty, sixty, seventy stories; their pettos were all enclosed, for at that height even Kabards were in danger of falling off. The towers were even taller. While the children of Tregonëv were taught mostly by private Human tutors, and many never saw the inside of a temple library, in Tregón every child attended steel-grey temple schools for fifteen years, learning Tilach and Pelún and Elusan, as well as history and geography and the natural sciences. If adult Kabards wihed to mate, they could patronize sleek copper-colored cloud-houses with specially-appointed beds and vats of scented oils (in Tregonëv, they merely plopped down on someone's palm leaf-bed); and when they died, their bodies were cremated in great stone mausoleums. Human lived in their own section of the city, cavern-courts, mostly underground with portals of smoked glass; and there were sections as well for Humans, Val, and even Ceraine from the vast eastern forests.
"Aren't you a bit nervous, living so close to Humans and those other tribes?" Akrava asked, shuddering in spite of himself at the sight of a huge temple adorned with red-gold statues of Eluse.
"Not at all," said Jerei Bear, chuckling in a way that Domojon was beginning to regard as more sinister than jolly. "You must remember, Akrava, that we of Chiokërang have a long tradition of peace with the lowlanders. You may remember that we declared peace with the Humans thousands of years ago, at the Council of Harchi."
There was no Chiokërang then, Domojon said to herself. Nor any Khamvárivhir religion. For all his education in sleek learning-towers, is Jerei Bear so ignorant of his own history?
"I thought it was. . . ." Akrava began, biting his knuckle nervously. But Jerei cut him off with a toss of the mane.
"We were peaceful for generations," he said, a little forcefully. "It took the evil machinations of Oinëis the Traitor, not Kabard for all that but a Human, to finally, in later years, compel the weak and bitter Godking Khrenor to invade Human-lands."
"All of us are weak and bitter, sometimes," said Domojon.
"Is this so?" He turned upon his with laughter-brighened eyes. "The non-Kabard sections of Tregon are secured by iron gates. Should there be violence. . .or a famine. . .or any ill
. . .I will be ready."
Now his ravenous cheery smile made Domojon shudder.
When they arrived at Jerei Bear's cloud-house, it was nearly dusk, so they sat at a low round table removed from the dying sunlight and talked of inconsequential things for a long time, and Jerei Bear told them many jokes, some quite long and some off-color. Kabards did not eat regular meals: they kept no dining tables, no rooms set aside for eating, no professional chefs; but food was plentiful everywhere, and it was quite pleasant. Almost every Kabard fancied himself a cook, and he would try to outdo his brothers at any opportunity. Jerei Bear first served split heads of cabbage with a hot yam sauce, and tomatoes fried with cumin and speckles of fresh garlic; later servants brought in vats of cold peach soup, fat storks stuffed with rice and millet, fried yellow squash, minced tangerine-fried duckling, crane and fish pies, dumplings stuffed with spiced meat, and a plum-cinnamon pastry with swirls of lemon icing, with crab apple brandy and goat milk to drink.
They ate until they were full and drowsy, and talked and joked (or listened to jokes) until well into the night, and then Domojon pulled back the heavy shade and saw that the stars, though pale, dim flecks above Tregon's artificial lights, still divulged that Aramkai had but a few hours to whisper his dreams. "It's time to get to business," he said. "We've spent more than enough time already in camaraderie."
He moved to sit next to the king on his gold-embroidered ottoman, though his thick brandy-breath repelled him. "The dream you spoke of, Jerei Bear -- does it trouble you as much as do the dreams of other Kabard king? You seem perfectly content."
"Trouble? No, it does not trouble -- not at all." He laughed a rich, hearty laugh. Was there anything this king didn't find amusing? "We can talk about it briefly now, if Akrava does not object. And then you may perform your analysis."
"I don't mind," said Akrava. "I'd be interested in watching Domojon at his craft."
"Well, then." He stooped to pour himself more brandly from a silver decanter, then diluted it with foaming water. "I sent for you to interpret a dream of astounding beauty, of rare joy such as one never experiences upon waking. So joyful was I afterwards that for nearly a tenth of the day I couldn't stop laughing."
"There are no dreams so good," Domojon said, "Not even those that portend heaven."
"And this dream is definitely of earth." The king crammed a handful of chocolate mints into his mouth. "I dreamed that I had conquered Kensor, and the great golden vats in the Court of the Bleeding God were boiling for me, not him, and your Godking Gorban was standing with six thousand of his red-robed priests to pay me homage." He glanced through the window at the dark bosom of Aramkai, and shook his mane in exultation, as if he had already sent Kensor to his death in the underworld. "And all of the nations of the world lauded me -- not only the Kabards, but all of the Humans as well, even the Terrans. The American king I remember well: he wore a suit of red for blood, white for death, and blue for the endless sea, and he offered me a flaming sword. A voice told me that it signified the firestorms that Americans devise."
"But. . .regent, you are not a worshipper of Kensor the sun," Domojon said in a low puzzled tone. "Neither do you revere the Godking. Am I correct?"
"You are correct. I, as most of my people, follow the Khamvárivhir faith. We pay attention to your Godking as a powerful and wise ruler, of course, and some few do worship him, for we have religious freedom in Chiokërang." He smiled. "Can you interpret this dream, Dreamseer?"
"Have you ever seen a Kénsoraj ritual, such as the Adoration of the Burning God? In person, I mean, not on the wallscreens or at the cinema."
"Yes, many times. Once the Abbot of the Red Steel Monastery asked me to light the first flame at the Burning of the Grass. Never had a non-believer been given such a privilege, and I was quite honored. Perhaps that is the root of my dream. . .yet I didn't seem that I was worshipping Kensor. I was greater than Kensor, and all the nations worshipped me."
"That never occurs in any of our rituals," Akrava said softly.
Domojon placed his hands together and gazed at the regent. "You desire power, Jerei Bear. That is obvious, of course. And it seems that you aspire to the Godking's position. That is curious, since you do not believe he is God. And your mention of America is most disturbing."
"Yes. America offers me a smoking sword. Silly, isn't it?" He chuckled. "If they were going offer up their secrets to anyone, it would be a Human nation, Runoe or Pelún. Probably Pelún -- its greatdoor leads to a nation called China, with more Human souls than the entire population of our world."
"No one is going to be offering up any secrets, Jerei Bear. Dreams indicate your own hopes and fears, not what will be."
His eyes glazed for a moment, and his smile faded -- but only for a moment. "Did I mention that in the dream I rose not from Kensor's east but from the north, from Emekhtal?
"No, you didn't," said Domojon, his eyes paling. This detail changed matters a bit.
The king seemed perplexed. ""Oh, didn't I? Well, no matter. Perhaps the American sword is the same as the gahed, ruined sword of Mozhäu. We often combine fantasy and reality in dreams, do we not?" He winked.
"I shall require several days of research and contemplation to read this dream, Lord Jerei."
"Of course, of course. Well, it's very late, and Kabards don't like to be puttering through the darkness like demons and Human -- you know what I mean, Akrava! Tell me, shall you and Domojon require a single cloud-house?"
Like demons and Human! Domojon bristled a bit, but didn't mention the slight. If he took offense at every insult imbedded in proverbs and old clichés, he'd spend half of his life with hurt feelings.
"I don't know. . . ." Akrava began.
"Separate cloud-houses, please," said Domojon. "I'll be working much longer into the night, and I don't want to keep my companion awake."
"Hm. I suppose that the charms of the Kabards are sometimes lost on the Human." And he laughed again, a rough laugh that chilled Domojon's blood.
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