Authors: Brian Braden
Back and forth, back and forth...
Alaya elbowed Levidi in the ribs. “What are you staring at?”
He shrugged innocently. “What? I’m still hungry.”
“Keep staring at her, and you’ll go hungry tonight!”
Levidi sighed.
Ghalen gazed at her with a guarded expression. He leaned over to Levidi. “See, she only needs a firm hand.”
“If you say so.” Levidi wasn’t sure who manipulated whom at the present moment.
Sana withdrew the fish from the fire, steaming with a blush of golden brown. Sana brought the stick only inches from her pursed lips, softly blowing on the tip, steam dancing around smoky eyes locked on Ghalen.
She nibbled on the tip. “I think it’s ready, my lord.”
Ghalen looked downright smug as he signaled her forward with two fingers extended downward.
Levidi couldn’t even hear the rain as Sana stepped around the children, sliding left and right, hips swaying. Before she exited the ring of children, only a few paces from Ghalen, she knelt down before the two little Minnow orphans, Toma and E’laa. She pulled off the fish and handed them each half.
“Thank you, Sana!” they said in unison. Beaming, the children began to eat.
Ghalen shot up. “What are you doing?”
“Feeding the children, of course” Sana said innocently. “I’m sorry, do you want it back?
“Children, Lord Ghalen wants his food back.” She held out her hands. “Hurry up, we can’t let it cool. He likes it hot, you know.”
The twins raised pitiful, soulful eyes to Ghalen, lower lips trembling.
Alaya stifled a laugh. Several other giggles rippled among the women.
Ghalen turned red as the coals in the brazier. He shook his head and grimaced. “No...I mean they can keep it,” he stuttered.
“Tell Lord Ghalen thank you, children,” Sana said, grin dripping with contempt.
“Thank you, Lord Ghalen,” the twins said in perfect harmony.
“And quit calling me ‘lord’!” Ghalen huffed.
Levidi bit his inner lip to keep from laughing.
Sana returned to the brazier, breaking the green stick in several places with a slow series of agonizing
pops
, but keeping bark attached. She held up the limp branch and playfully wiggled it, letting it flop lifelessly above the fire.
Ghalen folded his arms, eyes like flame.
“This one isn’t good anymore, is it? No worry, plenty of sticks around here.”
Kirabol cackled, slapping her thigh.
Too bad we don’t have any of Virag’s wine; Ghalen needs it.
With a look of complete control and satisfaction, Sana turned her back to Ghalen and strutted away.
What happened next, Levidi didn’t see coming.
In a blur, Ghalen leapt over the children, dodged around the brazier, and swept Sana over his shoulder. The Scythian girl didn’t even have time to shriek before he catapulted her into the Lagoon.
“I like my flesh
wet
, and freshly caught from the sea!” he shouted down at her.
Sana thrashed in the water, unable to keep her terrified face above water.
Alaya gasped. “Levidi, do something!”
“What? I think it’s best they work it out themselves.”
She struck him in the arm and leapt up, springing to Ghalen’s side. “She can’t swim. Jump in and save her!”
Ghalen didn’t budge. “She needs to learn.”
“Oow! You damn men are all the same!” Alaya hit him in the shoulder too, and then dove in after Sana.
Alaya dragged the coughing Scythian onto the deck as Ghalen stormed off past Levidi.
“I tried to warn you,” Levidi said as he passed.
“Shut up,” Ghalen hopped onto the adjoining raft and vanished into the arun-ki.”
***
Thick, sticky air suffocated the slaver, sending him into a panic. The rain thundering against the leaky canopy did nothing to ease his nerves. Virag wanted to be back on the raft, tied to the mast in the open air. If he didn’t escape this coffin, he would die; of that he was certain. He tried to crawl from under the canopy to the adjacent raft, but the violent rocking kept knocking him into the bottom of the boat. His panic began to transform to madness as he briefly contemplated throwing himself into the sea.
And then, he felt the boat lurch forward and quickly cease its violent side-to-side motions. In only a few moments, it settled into a slow, relatively gentle, vertical shuffle.
Virag slumped into the bottom of the boat, his grip on the side relaxed.
Mysteriously, the boat transformed from stifling prison to sanctuary.
Okta must have done that anchor thing he kept babbling about.
Spako’s continuous stream of snores seemed louder, the rain less threatening. Virag kicked Spako to make himself feel better, but the bodyguard didn’t stir.
He gazed up at the water dripping between the tightly packed reeds, wondering why Aizarg spared his life.
To the sound of distant thunder, sleep eventually stole over the slaver.
Except for the captain, only red men crewed the ship. While they walked in fear of Leviathan, the captain did not.
A thick, grim fellow, he wore black wool from head to toe, and carried a whip the way other men carry a sword. Buried deep underneath a bushy brow, he possessed the same strange round eyes as Leviathan and the red men. While the men of Cin sometimes sported thin, wispy beards, this man’s black whiskers were like a bristle broom. I fought the urge to touch it the entire journey.
Perhaps their round eyes fascinated me the most. I’d seen eyes like this before, though it took me a day to make the connection. These Tall Men shared the same round eyes as the Ice Men. I pushed this fact aside, determined not to let the physical similarity prejudice my opinion.
We sailed east across what I had once assumed an endless ocean, but two days later we sighted a lush, mountainous land replete with cool mists and dense forests. The ship steered south along its western coast for several more days until we rounded a peninsula and turned north.
I felt I had nothing to fear from Leviathan or his men. I spent those days wandering about the floating village, this glorious blend of timber, rope and canvas, woven into a magical sculpture gliding across the waves. Mother never hinted that such a wonder was even possible. Something new! Oh, how can I convey to the g
entle reader how powerful a spell discovering something new can cast on an ancient heart.
On the morning of the third day, Leviathan took me by the arm and escorted me to the bow. The ship paralleled a massive sea wall of boulders, each as large as the ship. It originated from basalt cliffs and protruded a mile into the sea.
How could even gods fashion such a wonder? I made no attempt to hide my unabashed awe from Leviathan. He tapped me on the shoulder and pointed ahead to a wide opening in the sea wall. We turned west and entered the Harbor of Wu.
Nothing could have prepared me for what I beheld.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Fu Xi awoke with a startle and snatched up his sword.
Dragon!
He crouched naked beside the dead fire, Red Sword at the ready.
The odd brush pile, the abnormally smooth ledge... evening’s slumber cleared the mist from his mind, revealing morning’s truth.
Breathe.
Relax.
Fu Xi’s heart pounded as he forced himself to admit that if a bull dragon still dwelt in these mountains, the Donkey Men would not have camped here...
…at least not for long.
Fu Xi donned the lion skin, slid the Red Sword over his back, and walked to the edge of the cliff and into the rain. Turning and taking in the cave’s grand sweep in the gray daylight, it all made sense.
Almost.
It isn’t deep enough.
He returned beneath the ledge’s shelter. His feet slid over the granite floor, sanded smooth by armored scales over a span of centuries.
Fu Xi approached the brush pile, seeing it in a new light. The stack of dry rotted timber, possibly here for hundreds of years, didn’t arrive on this ledge naturally. Judging by the size of the vegetation pile, the bull dragon couldn’t have been more than adolescent, perhaps two centuries old, when it last hibernated upon this ledge.
He craned his neck back, scanning the cave wall until he saw another cavern recessed high above, almost hidden in the shadows near the ceiling. The ledge only served as the dragon’s porch, above lurked the beast’s true lair.
After a few minutes of digging in the brush pile, Fu Xi found a stick that didn’t crumble in his hands. Scrounging a few scraps of cloth from the Donkey Men’s loot pile, he fashioned a makeshift torch. He stirred the fire’s ashes, rekindling enough dormant sparks to light the torch.
Fu Xi placed the torch between his teeth, found a handhold, and began to climb the cliff.
***
The scale of the city overwhelmed me, the details lost in the overall impression washing over me like a wave. My first thought became my lasting thought - nature bent and subdued in ways I’d never witnessed before. The city, vast and overwhelming, dominated the hill rising from the harbor, smothering whatever natural features the Emperor of Heaven once placed there.
The cities in Cin were walled and in constant danger of being reclaimed by the surrounding wilderness or attacked by neighboring settlements. This city existed boldly, without fear, open and bright. At the tall hill’s base, a long stone jetty protruded far into the harbor. Wooden buildings, storehouses, and moorings packed its half-mile length. More people crowded onto that jetty than existed in Cin’s largest settlement. Thousands of buildings blanketed the hill and lorded over the harbor. Squat wooden and mud structures crammed along the harbor, while ever more glorious structures adorned the hill as it climbed away from the waterfront.
The ship anchored in the harbor for several hours as small boats came and went. I didn’t understand the nature of the delay, but I surmised they were preparing for Leviathan’s arrival.
Eventually, we docked, and Leviathan escorted me into the bustling city. His warriors formed columns on either side of us, clearing a path through the throng of humanity. People threw flower petals and dropped to their knees as Leviathan passed. His lieutenant, the foul-looking red man from the beach, marched ahead of the procession shouting and wielding a whip with cruel indifference to the people’s adoration.
We marched up an avenue composed of stone blocks joined so tightly a knife blade could not slide between them and so wide ten men could walk abreast Yet, for all its width, the crowd pressed in so relentlessly I thought they would sweep the bodyguards aside.
Even I, a god, found it overwhelming. Wu wasn’t a city so much as a hive, engorged with breeds of humanity I did not know existed. Red, black, and olive faces strained around, over and between the guards to catch a glimpse of Leviathan. A few even possessed skin pale as moonlight and hair like fire.
With the exception of red men, who wore either white armor or finely adorned red robes, the mortals of Wu dressed in simple linen robes with varying degrees of color, quality, and cleanliness.
We marched higher up the hillside until we left the frantic bustle of the wharves behind us. The columned marble buildings grew in size and stature as did the spaces between them. Now, only red men and women of various color and garb (or lack of it) strolled among isolated structures of stone and marble. These magnificent palaces ascended above the trees and dotted the mountainside high above the city.
In the distance, I saw thousands of men disemboweling the mountainside above the sea. Now I knew where the stone came from for the sea wall and the city. Wooden scaffolding stretched hundreds of feet up terraced cliffs. From several miles away I heard the clink of thousands of hammers and picks. The quarry cast a pall of yellow dust over the city.
Leviathan’s palace dominated the hilltop. It possessed an uncanny similarity to Nuwa’s Second Realm, but its scope far exceeded Mother’s temple. A hundred columns supported a structure of astonishing dimensions, a man-made mountain of polished limestone, granite, and marble. Frescos and carvings lined the entablature above the main colonnade. Scenes of ships, porpoises, dolphins, and the creatures I would soon come to know as horses, stretched over my head. Leviathan waved off the bodyguards, and together we entered the palace.
While I let the wonders of Wu sweep me away, Leviathan studied me. I try to imagine what Leviathan thought of me, this strange god who gawked in unabashed wonder at his city.
He led me to a sunken rotunda as grand as the Place of Perfect Sorrows. Instead of a view of the sky, I looked high above at a dome decorated in exquisite, lifelike murals depicting battles and great feats. I will never forget my shock as I beheld a painting of a sky full of dragons.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Fu Xu held the torch high as he stepped into the dragon’s lair. Except for water dripping somewhere deep in the cave’s pitch black bowels, absolute silence permeated the cavern. A thick, unbroken layer of dust covered the perfectly smooth, wavy glass, coating the entire cavern. The black glass removed all doubts that Fu Xi stood in the former lair of the mountains’ lord.
He knelt down, wiped away the thick dust and caressed the glass. It felt as smooth as ice yet almost warm to the touch, as if retaining the memory of the fire that birthed it.
Holding the torch high, Fu Xi craned his head back and peered up at the roof. Glass coated stalactites extended from the darkness.
No guano, no bats.
Nor did he smell the characteristic mustiness associated with the dark, deep places in the earth. Once a bull dragon staked claim to a cave, he sterilized it with fire, converting rock to obsidian glass. The glaze sealed every crack and crevice, and rendered the cave inhospitable to vermin. Bull dragon’s kept their lairs immaculately clean, not even dragging prey into their sanctuaries.
Fu Xi felt like an intruder in a sacred place. No less holy than his mother’s inner sanctum, this cavern still held power long after its lord had vanished.
Fu Xi wrapped another rag around the torch and made his way deeper into the cave. He ran his hand along the wall, feeling for the tell-tale ridges and bumps he hoped to find. It did not take long.
He stepped back and held the torch toward the wall. Elegant wiggles, curves and dots covered the wall, each melted into the glass by what must have been incredible heat. They formed intricate patterns from just above his head until they disappeared into the blackness above.
The Dragon’s Mark.
These mysterious designs adorned every dragon’s lair he’d ever explored. Their purpose remained a mystery, one his mother never would discuss.
How did he die?
Fu Xi couldn’t imagine a great bull dragon dying. But die they did, slowly vanishing over the course of the centuries. Yet, in all his travels, never did Fu Xi find one bone, a single tooth, or even a scale.
Perhaps they faded so men could rise.
The torch flickered, signaling to the God of Names the time had come to leave. Fu Xi turned toward the entrance’s dim beacon as terrible sadness enveloped him. Dragons were already rare when his mother brought him into the world so long ago. Now, all that remained to testify of their existence were these wondrous caves.
Must I fade, too?
***
Four tall, narrow windows in the upper dome focused beams of sunlight down upon an enormous marble statue dominating the rotunda’s center. A strange god stood in lifelike splendor atop a device I would come to learn they called a chariot. Hurtled forward by two powerful horses, his beard and hair flowed back over perfect shoulders. Boldly naked, face stern and fierce, the god gripped a strange three-pronged spear in his right hand, as if ready to strike.
Leviathan halted a few paced before the statue and bowed slightly in deference. He turned to me and pointed to the statue.
“Poseidon.”
He touched his chest. “Leviathan.”
I nodded, understanding Leviathan had sprung from this god called Poseidon as I had from Nuwa.
I, the God of Names, Son of The Goddess of the West, felt suddenly small. A much greater world, ruled by a powerful god, and his offspring lurked at Cin’s very doorstep.
And, until this moment, I knew nothing of them.
I wanted to examine more closely the colored, inlaid tiles decorating the polished black granite floor, but Leviathan gestured I should follow him. As we walked deeper into the palace I glanced back at the tiles radiating from under the chariot’s wheels. They spread across the entire floor in unusual patterns and shapes that, at the time, appeared random and meaningless to me.
Nothing about this Son of Poseidon could be random or meaningless.
He escorted me to a spacious chamber near the main entrance. A luxurious wooden bed rested in the chamber’s center, painted bright red and raised on a spotless white marble floor by four bronze posts. Dark wood cabinets, carved with fish and unfamiliar birds, lined the opposite wall. Each held dozens of silk and cotton robes, blouses and tunics. A spacious marble tub sat atop a ceramic tile platform. Beyond, a gracefully arched window on the southern wall opened to a breathtaking view of the harbor city. Murals and frescos adorned the other walls, depicting everyday life in places far more glorious than the city out the window.
As I strolled around the chamber, a parade of serving women bustled in carrying pots of steaming water. They filled the tub, then surrounded me and attempted to strip off my clothes. At first I resisted, but eventually I surrendered to their gentle persistence and delightful giggles. Without too much effort, they pushed me into the tub.
Leviathan departed, his hearty laughter lingering in the corridors beyond.
After my bath, breads, tasty cheeses, and exotic fruits were brought to me. I spent the rest of the evening alone, sitting in the window and gazing at the city below.
Upon the ledge, admiring the tens of thousands of lanterns which rivaled the stars above, I decided patience would be the best course of action.
Even after nightfall, I heard the distant pounding from the quarry.