Drakon Omnibus

by C. A. Caskabel

  Baagh wanted me to stretch the documentation of the story as long as possible, make it as long and detailed as I could, and I tried to do it without exhausting the patience of the barbarian. It wasn’t hard, as we haven’t even started getting into the heart of his tale.

  We always met in his bare cell; he sat on the stone floor or the straw mat, I on the stool behind the writing desk. It was never hot in there, not even in summer, the stone walls remained chilly as his story, the small window open to the sea winds and the salty rain. Winter was torture even for a monk, the bone-piercing dampness punished me for every stroke of ink.

  “Da-Ren, for a year now you have been pleading for your wife and daughter’s life, but you have yet to speak even a single word of them.”

  “I did not fall in love with my wife at thirteen, Eusebius. I could never—”

  “But I thought that Elbia—”

  “That was impossible. You don’t understand.”

  “That which I fail to understand is how the powerful of your tribe could accept exposing their noble-born children to the same trials as the orphaned and the poor. How could any mother tolerate this atrocity against the more privileged—”

  “The what born? You have indeed grasped very little.”

  “I too have never known my parents, but all the scriptures say family is sacred and parents should never abandon their—”

  “No child knew their parents, Eusebius. There was no marriage in the Tribe.”

  “How can that be? You said that Elbia’s mother—”

  “The women and children stayed together until the child’s twelfth winter. That could have been Elbia’s mother raising her, then again it may not have been. Whoever she was, she was raising many other children from the same tent at the same time together with other mothers, whether they were hers or not. Any woman with a childless belly and on her feet, would do. If you were lucky enough to have the same woman as a mother for a long time, it simply meant that she was not getting pregnant. And then, barren and useless, she could end up floating face up in the Blackvein along the slave corpses, kissing the vultures.”

  “Godless words.”

  “Only few could be sure of their true mothers. And no one ever knew who fathered them. Each child had to make up a Legend about his father, a Legend that lifted our blades when our hands could not. No child, from any tent, ever knew who his father was. No woman belonged to one man. A man could have a child with any woman. He would fuck anyone, always from behind to give birth to boys.”

  I made the sign of the cross.

  Behind our monastery on the western side of the island lay the few mud huts of the villagers who coexisted peacefully with us on this salt-ravaged rock. They would provide us with food and other necessary supplies, and in turn we offered them God’s blessings, their only protection from pirate raids. The First Elder charged me with the task of collecting supplies from the villagers, so I had seen many women. Some were filthy and miserable, looking like the daughters of Satan, but others kept my gaze engaged longer than it should have been.

  The First Elder cautioned me early, when the first hair of manhood appeared on my upper lip, “Resist the temptation of the flesh, go to your cell, and pray. The cell will be your teacher and your only guide.”

  But my cell would soon become the altar of impiety, as Da-Ren’s savage and licentious tales crawled down dark, lowly paths.

  “Let me tell you about my mother, Eusebius. My mother was the horse dung fire of the tent. The fire nurtured me. And my father was a Legend. I will tell you his Legend someday, the Legend I made up for him. And that was the same for all of us, orphan or not.”

  “That’s unspeakable cruelty.”

  “No, it was very easy. This age-old agreement made my Tribe as hard as iron and as invincible as the wind.”

  “To struggle in vain.”

  “To struggle only for the glory of the Tribe. We had brothers. Thousands of brothers. All equal. What is cruel and difficult is having a family.”

  “No mother waits for her child to return from the Sieve,” I answered.

  “And no mother bade her child farewell. Even if it was of her blood when the child left for the Sieve, never to be seen again.”

  I never had, nor ever believed it my fate to have, my own family. But this barbarism made me rise from my stool and stop writing.

  “Now do you understand, Eusebius, why…I never…”

  Da-Ren faltered. Was it possible for one of these barbarians to weep?

  He lifted himself from the cold stone floor where he had remained cross-legged for quite some time. With his forehead and left palm, he supported himself on the decaying wall next to the window. His right fist pounded the wall seven times. He had done it before, and every time he hit the wall seven times. The white lime cracks were splattered with red spots as Da-Ren found his words again. “Do you understand now why I cannot speak to you of my wife and daughter before you learn that no one in our Tribe was permitted to even have a wife and daughter? You have to understand that, Eusebius, or else you are going to write shit for a story.”

  And with that, he bade me to leave him with a flip of his hand, without even raising his head to look at me. For the entire night during prayer and matins at the break of dawn, I could not concentrate on my invocations. I feared that I may have locked him into his other cell, the one of his darkest mind, and he would abandon the telling altogether. The next morning after the service, I went to him and asked him to continue as he saw fit.

  “Tell me, Da-Ren. What did the Guides mean when they said that you were a ninestar? What curse was this?”

  “At last, a good question, monk.”

  Apocrypha IV.

  Come Back, Come Back

  As the One Mother heard the Legends, Chapter IV

  No spiders, flies, or worms. None of them come near the well anymore. It may be the cold; it may be that Jak-Ur is lying down there like a sick dog that has accepted his fate. He will rot and die if he doesn’t move.

  He heard the priest’s mule whinny so I had to do something. I harnessed the ropes to the mule, and it pulled and pulled. It pulled Jak-Ur up ten feet, and he could climb higher. I had to cut the rope; he didn’t see me doing that. He can’t come out, but I don’t want him to die either.

  We started to draw together. Whenever the hand gestures fail us, we use wood and charcoal, and we try to draw. We put the wooden tablet in the bucket and pass it up and down to each other. He tries mostly.

  He drew a horse. I shook my head “no.”

  He drew a wheel and an axle. Every well should have one. I was surprised at that; I didn’t think those barbarous dogs could build machines. I shook my head “no.”

  He drew a deer, but how could I ever yoke a deer and a mule together to pull his weight? Maybe what he meant was he was hungry. He seems to have shriveled to half his size, parsnips and turnips, turnips and parsnips his only punishment.

  He drew something that looked like a priest with a hat and robe—or a long-haired woman wearing a dress—pushing him down the well. I am not sure what he drew. I know he didn’t see me that first day, it all happened so fast. Does he know? I shook my head “no.”

  He drew an ox. I have one, though he doesn’t know it. I shook my head.

  I made a drawing of wolves and trees. I am going into the wood to find the witch’s hut. Sooner not later I’ll have to make a decision. He drew a hide, and I sent down a woolen cape and a hide; the clothes of the dead will keep him warm but not for long. Every year, the cold gets unbearable after the night of All The Dead, as if they exhale it from their graves to our huts.

  He will die by the next moon, freeze to death at night, dreaming of horse, deer, and woman. Is he dreaming of me? It is not a satisfying end, not the revenge I crave.

  There is a basket filled with round gourds in the witch’s hut; they have the color of a man’s skin. I thought they were skulls when I first saw them.

  She hasn’t looked much at me since she let m
e in her abode. She knows I need help.

  “Atropos, Atropos to witness your fate,” she mumbles.

  If you could learn your fate from eating these black berries, you wouldn’t be here, witch. I think it, but I don’t say it.

  “Lolum, lolum, boil it to make a man your slave,” she whispers.

  If you could make men your slaves with this weed, they wouldn’t have banished you here, poor woman.

  She is not even twice my age, yet she is scrawny, white-haired and wrinkled. A tuft of black hair grows on her left forearm. I remembered her different. There is a smaller hut next to hers, much smaller. Maybe it can fit a child lying down, or a rag doll standing up. It is made of stone and mud and is surrounded by bleeding heather shrubs. It seems much sturdier than hers, meant to keep a secret inside, something that shouldn’t come out. It doesn’t have doors or windows.

  She should hate me; I am one of them, I am the daughter of the one who exiled her here, the one who wouldn’t acknowledge her bastard baby.

  And yet she is the only one who ever saved me, other than myself. I was thirteen years old, it was an autumn eve, and I wandered in the wood. Most of the daylight was gone when I came upon the rivulet. Under the oak tree, the wolves were tearing the young deer apart. Their hides were gray, white, and black, their muzzles scarlet, crimson, and amaranth. The largest, a black one, turned his yellow eyes on me. He crossed the rivulet, growling.

  The witch almost jumped out of the trunks, stepped in front of me and started to shout at the beast. I shut my eyes, I heard the wolves fighting, and when I opened them again, the black wolf lay there bleeding next to the dead deer. The deer had munched the last green leaves of the tree. The wolf had torn apart the deer. The tree’s roots were already feeding on the wolf’s carcass, awaiting spring. It was autumn, just like now, a tree, a wolf, a deer. All three of them so beautiful and carmine, one embrace.

  She had said the same thing back then.

  “Come back, come back.”

  “What do I do? What do I do?” I ask the witch.

  I always repeat things twice as she does, it makes the answers come faster. We are out of time. I have left Jak-Ur alone for two days and nights—he has water, but no meat or bread. I want to bring tears to his eyes when he sees me; I am close, I will make the savage cry.

  The witch gives me the belladonna’s poison in the wooden cup to sip. My mother said that whoever eats the black berries will go blind. I wish I could be blind only when I chose, but not forever. The witch speaks, staring into the cauldron where she stirs and boils:

  You do not take the life from this wolf;

  You bring the light to the well.

  You do not push fear down the hole;

  You face fear with eyes open.

  You do not kill a man with iron and fire;

  You kill him with wine and song.

  You do not take revenge by murdering the weakest;

  You take revenge by bleeding them all.

  “Was that you? Did you guide those murderers all the way to our hamlet from the river?”

  She just looks out her one window. All she can see from there is the small stone tomb, her only view. Not even the heather shrubs. But I have good reason to ask. You see, I walked up the path that the barbarians descended from the other day, reached half way to the hill from which I can see the Northern River. I wanted to see if they left anyone behind. Mother. I found the clothes of our men and children, and the bones of a pig ripped apart and cut into pieces. Like someone created a two-days’ ride scent trail for the dogs to find our settlement.

  “Was that you, witch? Look at my eyes; not out there.”

  “Lola, lola to make a man your slave,” she whispers.

  “You don’t have magic. Couldn’t save yourself or my brother,” I scream and run away. “Die in here, that’s what you deserve.”

  “Come back, come back,” she says.

  I run out the door and don’t look back.

  Much later I’ll realize that she doesn’t order or beg me. She knows I’ll come back. She is a fortune-teller, it is a prophecy.

  I sleep alone in the longhouse; the sheep bleat in fright every time I scream in my sleep. They wake me up; the sheep, the screams, the dreams. She comes back, comes back in my dreams.

  You do not have any magic, and yet they all fear you.

  You could not save anyone, and yet you saved me.

  You have never seen Jak-Ur, and yet you know what I must do.

  You do not have a knife, yet you slaughtered them all.

  That is power. Not my father with his swords, not Jak-Ur and his bow and quiver. Not the priest and his God. Not Crispus and his chestnut hairlocks. The Witch is power.

  I envy you; I must become you, I will become you.

  I will come back. You knew that already.

  You will teach me everything, and I’ll believe nothing.

  I am standing above the well again, and the moon is full. But it will change soon; angry clouds are coming from the forest. They were already there, but I ran faster than them.

  It will snow tomorrow.

  The moonlight pours a cauldron of liquid hope down the well.

  I take the wood and the charcoal. I press the coal hard, to show in the scant moonlight.

  I draw an ox.

  I lower the bucket with the drawing.

  He kneels.

  Maybe he cries, maybe it’s the moonlight in his eyes.

  VIII.

  Even When the Stars

  Thirteenth Winter. The Sieve. Third Day.

  I collapsed like a sack of bones in the mud on that third morning. Rouba and Keko’s night whispers were dripping in my head like poison. They followed me from the moment I stood in the field till the mud embraced me.

  “Ninestar. I have never seen one in the Sieve…marked by the Ouna-Mas. Da-Ren is sure to have the curse of Enaka. It is the third night today. They will finish him on the twenty-first day. Why do we keep him and feed him meat?”

  For the first time, I got inside the head of every child who had fallen and lived their nightmares. I was cold, but I didn’t fall from the cold. I was hungry, but I didn’t fall from hunger. My knees hurt, but they didn’t bring me down.

  Defeat crawled up from the dark well of my mind, where the tongues of the two Guides were stirring the curses and the ninestar marks. Defeat found me.

  “Why do the weak fall?” Rouba came and asked again, as he had the day before.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Speak, you rats.”

  Their legs burn out, the hunger pierces their bowels, the cold cracks their bones. That’s what they would tell him.

  “You? Orphan?” Again, he asked me.

  They didn’t fall because of tiredness, hunger, or cold. They fell because they didn’t believe in victory anymore. Defeat had taken hold of their minds. Their hearts burned out way before their legs.

  I didn’t answer.

  “Will you fall? Are you Wolf or Sheep?”

  I didn’t answer. I just wanted to sit for a while, to rest. Just for one breath.

  I made the same rounds with my eyes under the first rays of sunlight, but more carefully this time. Sooner or later, I would have to find an escape before the twenty-first day. On each side were sheds that stored the hay bushels, but there were also some for the Guides and their horses to take cover. The Reghen and the Ouna-Mas were not there. Afterward, I learned how to smell death creeping up on us, whenever I saw an Ouna-Ma.

  The Wolves’ and the Sheep’s tents were on the south side of the field. Those of the Guides were on the west. A wall of naked oaks stood along the western and northern edges. Before dawn, we could still hear the monsters of the Forest howling. On the other two sides of the camp, stood adjacent sheds that protected bushels of hay and, behind them rose a thick prickly hedge bush, barren of green, a fence of thorns. Once or twice we’d heard children’s screams, dogs barking behind the wall of thorns.

  We were trapped in a cage surrounded
by Guides and maulers. The dogs would catch my scent in an instant. They would find me before I even had the chance to run out of Sirol. And go where? I had never left Sirol before.

  I started fighting my own mind. Defeat had taken control of it.

  It’s early. The day has just broken, I thought.

  I’m tired, my mind answered back.

  Not even three have fallen yet. We have to hold on.

  Ninestar, it mumbled.

  One boot stepped into my mind, another on my heart, and they were thrusting me downward. I took two steps behind the line as if that would be enough to hide from them. I fell, and my knees sank into the shit-colored mud. I pressed hard with my hands and let out a nervous giggle as my foot slipped back. I got on one knee and pushed again in vain. I was face down on the brown mud. It was daybreak when I fell. I remember that, nothing else.

  I didn’t dream of anything. A cauldron pouring darkness.

  Two small hands wrapped themselves tightly around me, and the sound of children’s coughing woke me. A little girl with curly hair had cuddled behind me. She was a twelve-wintered but half my size. I was in a small tent with many other children packed like sheep who smelled of puke and piss all together under the same hides. Packed like Sheep. I could make out Urak and Matsa, but not Malan or Elbia. Unlike me, those two had remained Wolves for the third straight day. Three of the children were coughing and wouldn’t stop even to take a breath. Their days were ending. I had seen many orphans withering away every winter.

  We walked out of the tent. A large pot was standing there, its fire long gone. Before I even got close to it, countless small hands were dipping inside. I was the last to reach it, so only fresh rain and a bit of gruel remained at the bottom. I dipped both my hands to take as much as I could, to scrape the dregs from the bottom of the pot, and I licked my fingers clean. No one had eaten meat here. I could smell the stinking hands of the other children in my gruel.