“Who is that?” I asked the infant.
“Minister Oris,” she said. I could not tell his age, but the mask he had chosen for himself spoke volumes about his personality: he must have been a powerful chrome and not only because of his proximity to the king.
Then, as quickly as they had come, the king, the princess, and the minister completed their procession and retreated again behind their walls. No words were spoken; no further hails were made.
Afterwards, several wagons rolled out of the left passageway to be greeted by cheers of much greater excitement, acclaim and sincerity by the crowd. They were stacked high with food. The guards on top of them began to offload it, throwing it out to the beggars. The mob closed in, with the cavalry fighting to keep them in line.
In my hunger, I also scrambled and fought for food. I saw a piece of bread flying towards me and grabbed it out of the air.
“Hey! That’s mine!” cried an older chrome.
“No, it’s mine,” I replied, giving him a good glimpse of my dagger. It worked well to underscore the message, sending the chrome bolting off to look for other scraps.
I then made my way well behind the first lines of beggars still grasping for food. I had never seen anything like this before. I was shocked to have encountered such a desperate, shabby siege in the place I least expected to find such poverty and harsh rule; Chtomio’s beloved Red kingdom.
“We don’t want your food! We want the land to grow it on! Give us the salt to preserve it!” shouted a young chrome who stood not far from where I was. He was dressed like the others, with patches of different red cloth stitched together, but unlike the others, who wore the straw masks, his was made of red cloth with holes for eyes and mouth. He carried a net over his shoulders and judging from his voice, he must have had around my age. Another youngster, also with a mask of cloth yelled at the horsed guards: “Keep your charity!”
Then they saw me.
“What are you staring at?” growled the one with the net.
“Would you look at that,” added the other. “A young Ashi eating from the same plate of misery of us Janis!”
He had his back to the walls of the city, so didn’t notice that an archer was aiming at him from the top of a statue.
“Hey, watch out!” I cried at him, pointing up to the archer.
He turned to see where I was pointing. If he had waited a moment longer it would have been too late. He leapt back, avoiding the arrow which tore in to the ground by his feet. With the archer already knocking another arrow into his bow, the two Janis fled. I barged past several beggars, putting as much distance between myself and the spot I had stood, just in case the archer wanted a trophy of consolation.
I concentrated on the piece of bread in my hands. I raised my mask slightly, but I couldn’t eat.
The infant was next to me, her mask was staring right at me and her tiny finger pointing at the bread. I sighed, split the bread in two and gave her half. She raised her mask slightly and almost chewed my hand as well. Around us, I could see fights breaking out as hungry chromes tried to steal food from one another.
“Come on,” I said to the young infant. “You’re not safe here.”
She nodded. “It’s okay. I’ll go back to my mother.”
“Where is she?”
She looked away from me, not replying. “She may be worried about you,” I said.
Which is when she punched me, taking me by surprise. “Don’t you talk about my mother! You know nothing about her!”
With that, she turned and ran in the same direction of the two protesters the archer had tried to kill. I needed to find out how to get in to the city. But there was no one around me here who seemed likely to be able to show me. So I set off along the secondary road that twisted its way around the mountain, making sure no archers were pointing at me from above the statues. Many of the other beggars began to do the same.
After a while, the harmony of the red houses and towers that I had seen on the promontory of Samaris gave way to a scene of desolation which opened up below me. Here, a multitude of small, dilapidated shacks and ragged, worn-out huts hugged the coastline as far as the eye could see. There were pitiful few fishing boats scattered on the beach that could be used to feed a village of this size, and their torn red sails gave the impression of a land that been totally forsaken by the gods.
I walked for several rods until the paved road turned into a goat path of puddles and mud. The stench I had first smelled amongst the beggars clung to the marshland. Before I realized it, I was inside a labyrinth of muddy alleyways. The chromes who lived here were also dressed in rags and wore masks made of straws. Some sat on the ground, staring at me with deadened eyes as I passed by. Others stumbled about drunk, while others still lay like corpses on the mud. A few were huddled near a bench playing dice and shouting obscenities at their gods after every lost round, paying no mind to the forlorn piles of dead felines and rodents which had been left out to rot.
By now, my feet were really hurting and my bones ached with tiredness. I limped my way amongst the huts, the bodies and the smell until I found the little infant with the pink mask once again, standing in front of a small hut of dry mud. A large chrome blocked her entrance to it.
“This is my mother’s house!” the child screamed at him, from the top of her lungs.
“Move before I cut you in to pieces, you little rat!” snarled the chrome, before grabbing her by the arm and throwing her to one side, sending her light, small frame hurtling to the ground. As he moved in to put his boot in to her, I came behind him and kicked away at his legs with all my strength, sending him crashing to the ground. I kicked him again, this time in his face. His straw mask offered him no protection and he yelped in pain, offering no resistance as I grabbed his robe and dragged him away from the hut.
Nobody seemed to care, but just in case, I made ready with my dagger. Sticking it under the felled chrome’s mask, I hissed loud enough for all to hear “If you don’t want me to carve your throat from ear to ear for you, you will get to your feet and run and never come back.” He scrambled up and took to his heels, stumbling fast away from me.
The infant, in the meantime, had run away again. I went inside her hut, hoping to find her mother or father, but it was empty. There was no sign of anyone even living in it. I decided to stay. I had no other place to go to and at least while I thought of what to do next, I could rest up. The fight with the chrome had drained the last drop of strength in me. I did my best to keep my eyes open, fearing that another chrome might barge in, but my mind and body craved rest and I was soon sound asleep.
A noise woke me. When I opened my eyes, I saw the infant playing with a bunch of shells. She glanced up at me and said: “I watched over you. In case that chrome came back while you slept.”
“Thank you, little one,” I said.
“My name is not little one,” she said, looking up from her shells. “My name is Tiara.”
“And I am Asheva,” I told her. I decided to use my real name here in the Red kingdom, in the hope that it might reach Chtomio’s ears.
“Where are your mother and father?”
“I can’t tell you, for the Ichtiis could come and take them away.”
“Who are the Ichtiis?” I asked.
She kept her voice low: “They are creatures of death; half chromes, half marine. They come out from the water at night and roam the land, searching for those who should be punished. They take them back into the water. That’s how they would’ve punished my mother and father if they had found them, but they can’t because they are in a secret place.”
“What did your parents do that is so terrible?” I asked.
“They committed a sin,” she said. “Something that should never be done; something that I can’t tell you.”
I tried to work out what part of this, if any could be true. After all, she was a small chrome and if she was anything like the ones in Axyum, she probably believed anything her elders told her.
“Why don’t the older chromes fight these creatures, these Ichtiis?” I asked.
“They’re too scared. They say that when the Ichtiis come out, it is because Adio is angry with us Janis and wants a sacrifice.” She shuddered.
“Who is Adio?”
Tiara pouted and explained that there were three castes in the kingdom: the ruling caste of Ashis which consisted of nobles; the Sayis, who were the tradesmen, soldiers and artisans of the kingdom; and then finally, there were the Janis, the lowest beggar caste.
“Adio, the God of the Sea, offered water to Adia, the Goddess of the Land, who offered earth to him. They mixed their gifts together and molded several chromes. Then they each added a drop of blood so that these chromes became Red,” she recited. “But the chromes were very ugly and nothing at all like the gods intended them to be. That’s how the Janis were created. So Adio and Adia decided to try again. This time, the chromes they made were closer to the gods’ image and that’s how the Sayis were born. The Sayis came out better than the Janis, but the gods still weren’t satisfied. So they made one last attempt and created the Ashis. Adio compared their reflection with his in the water and this time he was pleased with the result. The Ashis were perfect! He and Adia then crowned one of the Ashis king of all the Reds.”
“Adio and Adia?” I said.
She nodded. “Their statues guard the entrance of Samaris. Besides us, they created the entire Red kingdom and all the other gods as well.”
The infant explained that each of the statues on the walls of Samaris was a god or a goddess favored by the Reds. She recited their names one by one, along with their powers.
If I had not met Chtomio, I am sure I would have taken the myths at face value, like Tiara. But now, the more god histories I heard in the territories, the more they seemed to be a pack of lies. The Mother Goddess of the Green, Adio and Adia of the Red, the Shepherd God of the Black, the Blue’s Goddess of Chance – each color seemed to be the ‘chosen’ one amongst all the chromes. And each color’s deities were more powerful than any other gods. Had I remained in Axyum, I would have trembled at such blasphemous thoughts, but now I’d experienced the freedom to decide for myself. My father had told me the Red kingdom was a place of humble, yet powerful warriors, but my personal encounters were revealing yet another territory where injustice reigned supreme. Maybe, even my father did not know as much about the territories as I thought. Perhaps he only chose to repeat to me what others had told him because he didn’t want to seem ignorant in my eyes.
“Finally,” continued Tiara, “there are Ium, god protector of the Ashis and Eris, god protector of the Sayis.”
“And what about the Janis?” I asked. “Don’t you have a god that protects you?”
“No,” she said. “We are the untouchables, the ugly ones.”
“I am sure you are not ugly,” I told her.
“Oh yes I am,” she assured me.
“Where I come from, no one is made ugly by the gods,” I told her. “All of us, no matter what color we belong to, are beautiful to them, because we are their reflection. That means you are beautiful too.”
She turned her mask up towards me and squealed: “Really? Like Princess Cestia?”
“Oh, far more than Princess Cestia, of that I am sure.”
Tiara then placed her hands near her mask and began to giggle. “You’re funny! My mother always tells me I am a princess too!”
She quickly got up on her feet and said, “It’s time for me to go now.”
“Where?” I asked.
“To my secret place,” she whispered.
With that, she scampered out of the hut before I could follow her, disappearing amongst the maze of huts and alleys. Only then did I realize that I had not asked her about Chtomio. The conversation about the gods and the castes had distracted me.
I kept watch in the vague hope that my old friend would journey to this strange encampment and greet me joyfully. But there was no sign of him anywhere. I questioned several chromes to see if they knew him, but they clearly didn’t trust me and pleaded ignorance.
When the night finally arrived, it brought an eerie calm to the Janis village. The crowded alleys and the screams of the day faded away. Sleep would not come to me so I stepped outside Tiara’s hut for a breath of fresh air. No fires had been lit and it was so quiet I could hear the ocean’s waves whispering as they hit the shore. I looked up towards the city of Samaris. Unlike the encampment, the city boasted home fires burning everywhere. Even from where I stood, I could see giant torches ranged throughout the mountain, illuminating every street and dwelling, as well as all the monolithic statues.
I studied the great horned tower of the King’s castle, perched on the highest part of the city. I wondered whether it was where he stayed and I debated what kind of chrome he was. Was there a legitimate reason behind the disparity in his treatment of his subjects? It didn’t seem likely. Even the Black nation, with all its faults, would never allow its sons or daughters to live in such poverty and despair.
But then my mind drifted back to the time when my mother and I had gone to the Palace of the Elders in Axyum, only to be treated like the lowest of worms. Was there any difference between the elders and these Ashis? I had to admit that there wasn’t. Power has a strange allure, I was now aware; it unites chromes of different colors in abusing the privilege the gods granted them.
Chtomio had probably realized this as well. But why didn’t he tell me about the Reds’ inequality? And if he was a high ranking noble, why didn’t he do something about it? The more I thought about my friend, the more I knew I had to see him again.
Suddenly, I heard shouting coming from the beach. Part of me wanted to go inside the hut again, yet another part of me wanted to see what was up.
“They come out from the water at night and roam the land, searching for those who should be punished.” The infant’s warning about the Ichtiis now sounded like a premonition.
15. Merchromes
One of the weaknesses that the gods have infringed upon me is curiosity. An ancient Black proverb said that to show curiosity is like tickling the god of fate; it takes little for him to notice you and even less for him to change your destiny.
I made my way to the shore, where I saw a blazing fire. The shouting that I had heard had not come from infernal creatures but from several chromes who seemed intent in pushing a boat into the water. But the strong waves thwarted their efforts. One of the chromes turned around and saw me watching them. “Are you going to stand there or are you going to help?” he said.
I remembered him. Reflected in the light of the flames, I recognized his mask made of soft cloth. He was one of the two that had baited the guards during the Ferya ceremony.
“What should I do?” I asked. They all stiffened.
“He’s not Verio!” said another one. They were all wearing clothed masks.
“No, but he’s helped us before, and his arms are just as good as Verio’s, maybe even better,” the other chrome said, looking at me. “What is your name?”
“Asheva,” I said.
“Tell me Asheva,” he said, amused, “have you grown tired of playing with the Sayis and Ashis inside the walls? Now you want to see how real chromes live, is that it?”
Everyone else laughed.
“I’m neither a Sayi nor an Ashi. I come from outside the kingdom,”
That killed the laughter immediately.
“Are you not a Red then?” someone else asked.
Now I was regretting opening my mouth. “No. I’m a Violet,” I replied. I concocted a good solid story about my origins using what I’d learned from the weeks I’d spent with Jhute and Zimdie. I spoke confidently of the lavender plains and regaled them with exciting tales about traveling with my parents in our rolling house. I told how we were attacked by Blacks in the Eastern forest, who burned my home and left me orphaned. I felt bad about lying, but I couldn’t take any chances.
“Ah,” said one. “I knew you were a Vio
let, from your way of speaking.”
I nodded, smiling inside my mask at the unlikely thought of a Black speaking like a Violet.
“But you wear a Red mask,” said another, “and Red clothes.”
“In honor of the Red kingdom,” I said, making up yet another story. “To mark the victory over the Blacks.”
“Well, in that case, you are welcome aboard. My name is Daerec,” said the chrome that I had seen at the Ferya.
It was obvious that their knowledge of the territories was limited, just like mine had been before leaving Axyum. Perhaps the rulers of Samaris wouldn’t want it any other way, I thought. Just like the elders.
I soon made friends with all of Daerec’s mates. There was his brother Enyac, the chrome who had been standing near him at the Ferya. There was Oghale, a large and muscular chrome with the voice of an infant, Yanetz, a tall but skinny chrome and Xai, the youngest of the crew. He told me he had fifteen solstices, but I suspected them to be less.
“Come here to the stern, Asheva. Help us push this beast in the waters,” said Daerec after I had made acquaintance with everyone.
The beast was a clunky wooden boat, shaped like a walnut shell and big enough to hold about five chromes. I later learned it was called a tartan. As I placed my hands at the stern end I could feel that the boat was made from different types of wood all patched together, the same way the Janis patched their clothes. At the count of three I pressed my shoulder against it, along with the others. “Push! Push!” cried one of the chromes. Before I knew it, I was in the cold water up to my waist. The others scrambled aboard.
“Come, Asheva! You shall eat tonight, too!” said Daerec lending his arm. I hesitated for a moment.
“Where are you going?” I asked him, fearing a journey for which I was not prepared.
“Where do you think? Fishing!” he replied, laughing.
The lightheartedness and spontaneity of Daerec surprised me. He didn’t seem to care where I came from or why I was there. Judging from his voice, he couldn’t have been much older than I was; maybe sixteen solstices. I clasped his arm and climbed on board.
Kingdom of Deceit Page 4