Drakon Omnibus

by C. A. Caskabel

  “The hearts of those he loved?”

  “Forgive me. My words were inappropriate. Listen to me. If we obtained an account from manifold sources we would be able to spread the widest cloak and cover all that transpired, we would claim to know what was inside Sah-Ouna’s mind, and our generals at Apelo and Varazam, and Malan’s mind, and Zeria’s and Sani’s and paint in the hues of our transient mood, their perspectives, and desires; but as I said, that would be a cloak. A cloak is soft, it covers everything but pierces nothing. No, we must not act as omniscient prophets, for even our Savior who is ever-present chose to narrate parables of individual men. No, we must opt for a spear of a story, the tale of one man, acicular and sharp, so that it will penetrate anything and reach the bleeding heart, carve the mind of those who read it, lest we ever again suffer such calamities.”

  It was a great relief to have Evagus validate my mission which had tortured me for more than a thousand days, and had suffused my nights with doubt over my actions and my faith.

  Come next dawn, menacing waves surrounded our island. The winds blew so fiercely that they could lift a heavy chair and even a frail man walking unprotected outside the walls.

  Along with the First Elder, we were summoned to the library upon Evagus’ request. The wool-haired Elder was visibly annoyed as he didn’t know the reason for the meeting, and he probably realized that I knew more than him. He was dressed in an ashen gray cassock, the cowl over his head and a shoulder cape embroidered with a line of many crosses.

  We entered the library only to see Evagus conferring with the two monks that he had brought with him. They were leaning over the long cedar table, studying the ancient scrolls of the Faith.

  Zeev, a monk of the south deserts, was stocky and broad-shouldered, although I never saw him eat, during his time among us. Thick eyebrows and eyelashes defined his face and his probing stare seemed to pass judgment every time he looked at me. He dressed in blinding white and blue-stripped robes that made his face and hands look even darker.

  The second monk was the one everyone talked about, though he was very quiet himself. His name was Nagpaal. One could spot him as far as possible as he wore a fire-yellow bright robe. He had a childish face with oriental eyes, and a smile which expressed either serenity or mockery. There was not a single hair on his head, jaw or body and he was scrawny as a sick slave. His floppy ears completed a figure that reminded me of drawings of ancient wind-ghosts. But he spoke about God—not sure which god—and humility, peace and eternal life, and that was enough for the monks to accept him. All of the monks doubted his faith from the very first moment, and when they didn’t see him during prayers, they were convinced. Yet no one complained.

  Except for the First Elder.

  “Did you know those two men would be here?” he said to me loudly. “Evagus, might I remind you that priests of other faiths are not welcome to study the Holy Scrolls.”

  “You are correct, First Elder. Priests are not welcome, but monks should be.”

  “Not if they believe in falsehoods.”

  “They are humble, men on a bond with God alone, accustomed to privation and indifferent to all the evil desires of men. And moreover, they understand our tongue, so I would urge you to refrain from insulting them further.”

  “What is the purpose of this summoning?” asked the First Elder, his eyes darting between the three monks.

  “I’ll be quick with my words. As I promised Da-Ren years ago, we came here to listen to his story before we embark for Thalassopolis. I request that you join us,” he said to the First Elder. “And of course you, Eusebius, should be the one who reads it out loud. All four of us should be judges of its worthiness.”

  “So, is it true? Can they truly understand our tongue?” I asked.

  “And many others much harder than yours,” Zeev gave me the answer.

  “Seems that you finished with the Holy Scrolls, and you are eager to subject us to the studying of the book of the Satan’s servants,” said the First Elder.

  “And I must request once more that you join us, First Elder.”

  The First Elder opened his mouth and spat on his white beard before he found the words to speak.

  “I find no purpose in this, Evagus. Eusebius spent four years here with that barbarian who still believes that he’ll redeem the life of his wife and daughter. What kind of redemption does he seek? Are we to lie one more time?”

  Baagh walked over to the window and looked out beyond the courtyard towards the walls where the small cell of Da-Ren was attached like a cocoon.

  “God has many ways of appeasing those who repent. Even after death.”

  “But God doesn’t care about him.”

  “On the contrary. God and the faithful owe a great deal to Da-Ren, thousands of lives. The lives of the pious and faithful. Children’s lives. I suggest you hear his story before you pass judgment. We must start tomorrow. This is a daunting task, and we don’t have many days left.”

  “It will take a month to read the story aloud,” the First Elder said.

  “No, it will take seven hours every day for seven days. We must depart on the eighth day. The naval trireme that brought us here has sailed north for Thalassopolis. When we were in Antia, we made arrangements with a merchant boat to harbor at Hieros on the eighth morning from today. He will be paid handsomely if he is not late; the captain is an old friend of Da-Ren’s and mine.”

  “Agathon?”

  “You heard the story, I assume. That’s him. I think when Da-Ren sees Agathon, he might be convinced to follow me to Thalassopolis.”

  “It will make a nice addition to the codices. To have the actual barbarian specimen to showcase. An iron collar around his neck.”

  Evagus just nodded as if he agreed with my ironic statement, or simply didn’t care to address it. “I don’t have much time, you see. We will embark first thing once Agathon moors. Let’s pray that these winds subside. If he fails me, we may end up stranded here for months.”

  “A most unworthy use of our time,” said the First Elder. “I will have novice monk Nathan join us. He can be of service in many ways if we are to be stranded for the best part of the day in here. And he can even read if Eusebius here loses his voice, which he might.”

  “Da-Ren will be present, so I must read the prototypon manuscript,” I said, “the one that doesn’t contain my conversations with you and him or the epistles.”

  “The shorter, the better,” said the First Elder.

  “Yes, we are only interested in his story in Sirol, not the one here,” said Evagus. The story that ends with his words “I believe in God.”

  I believe in God.

  “Is it true that you demanded from Da-Ren that he end his story with those words?” asked the First Elder. “Because that man is no servant of God. He never accepted the Faith, after four years here.”

  Once more, we were volunteering more information than Evagus desired to digest.

  “Doesn’t matter. The codices will live eternally but the narrator will not. The story must have a suitable ending. Inked in red. The pious prevail, the sinners repent or get destroyed. His testimony should end in repentance and acknowledgment of the One God. Otherwise, it will be banned from Thalassopolis. I presented it to him as a requirement long ago; else we could not provide the redemption he seeks.”

  Repentance?

  “It will be quite an interesting read, Elders, I assure you,” I said.

  To my right, Nagpaal’s lips and cheeks were fixed in a smirk of mockery or apathy.

  Evagus kept going, stentorian and quite adamant about what was a suitable ending to the story. His words descended upon me strong and clear, like the commandments of our Savior. But I couldn’t hear him anymore.

  For the north wind howled outside the library windows, and it brought to my ears the screams of ten thousand barbarians in the stands of Wolfhowl. For I knew that Da-Ren’s final words were not those of repentance, but defiance.

  I chose my words very ca
refully.

  “I understand now, Evagus,” I said.

  The next day we isolated ourselves in the library. It was a long dark hall; gray stone walls, gray stone paved floor. The walls were built in consecutive ten-foot high arches and in the hollow of each arch were shelves filled with scrolls and codices. The fourth side looked out toward the sea, and instead of shelves, it had three door-size arched windows, one under each stone arch. Wooden shutters, each painted as the wing of an angel, would seal all light when nobody used the room to protect the parchments and the sensitive papyri. The narrow open space next to the windows was the only one that could be of use for writing, copying, or even reading the codices. There were candles for those brave enough to toil after the passing of the sun, candles on cressets and the bookstands. There were three chest-high size bookstands, made of oak wood. Their upper parts, where the parchment was placed, had shutters of their own that would seal the work from other eyes, and also from damp and heat. The shutters opened out like the wings of a butterfly, and when shut were locked with a chain. The bottom part of the bookstand, opposite from the scribe’s bench, was hollow and used as storage for additional parchment, ink, and bowls, and protected by a series of vertical chains.

  I preferred to use the easternmost bookstand; it was the one that was better protected from the breeze and the cold wind that always crept in the library. It was excruciating to work more than a few hours in that room or even to read in there. Monk Rufinus, who served as the armanian, or bibliothecarious as he preferred to call himself in the old tongue, and binder of the codices was living proof of that. His body had hunched permanently from shoulders to belly as if it were under the weight of an iron turtle shell, his eyes had lost any brightness before the age of forty, and he suffered from unexplained anxiety. Every little detail, every object moved even a tenth of a foot, would make him react and complain ceaselessly, making one’s stay in that unfriendly room a most painful ordeal. At times I wondered if the library had a soul of its own, made up of the written words and the ghosts who lived in the papyri, a tortured soul that was sustained by slowly consuming every sap of life and energy from anyone who dared read those cursed tales. We tried to keep the bibliothecarious Rufinus out of the library when I started reading, or he would have made it impossible for all of us. His attachment to that room was so strong that he managed to sneak in whenever we weren’t paying attention, and he became the uninvited eighth member of our company.

  During the previous years, I preferred to use the table and the chair in my own cell for all writing, yet I had to copy the crypton manuscript from the prototypon in that library. The story had affected me in unexpected ways. I’d copy certain chapters only to end my night crying like a small child, and for days and nights I’d suffer from pains and ailments, most of the time inflicted by my own mind, yet similar to the ones described by Da-Ren or Evagus in their stories. Whenever I copied or rewrote the Varazam chapters or those of the Poppy Moon, I would be constipated and convulsing with pain for nights.

  It was in this unforgiving library that Evagus had ordered us to live for seven days and nights. More of a storage room and less of a scriptorium or an area suitable for reading. It was only when I finally ended the first day of reading aloud that I realized the importance of my thousand-day efforts in rewriting the story and improving it to the point of exhaustion. Da-Ren’s tale, spoken aloud in that bleak, gray-stone room, all three hundred thousand words of it, was a tribulation that even an anchorite monk would find taxing. It consumed the listener, draining the life out of his soul, each word another needle drawing blood. The least I could do was try to embellish the writing so that it became bearable in the ears of the innocent.

  For seven days, seven hours every day, seven men, seven hearts, we remained in there. Da-Ren, Evagus, Zeev, Nagpaal, First Elder, Nathan, and myself. To listen for the first and last time to the seven deaths of Da-Ren.

  The first day I waited for what seemed like an eternity for the monks to assemble, the candle resting on top of the bookstand, my finger on that first line. Once they finally settled in the chairs and the benches around the center table, I started reading from the very beginning:

  “Chapter I, titled Puppy—”

  “Puppy? Did you say ‘Puppy?’” I was immediately interrupted by the First Elder.

  “Forgive me; I did not choose these titles, Elders. Each title is a fragment of that chapter’s verbatim script. I beseech you not to interrupt me in every word if we are to complete this task before your scheduled departure. No matter what you hear.

  “So, one more time: Chapter I: Puppy. I am Da-Ren, the First Blade of the Devil.”

  It was about there, in that first sentence, that they should have guessed.

  Do you understand now, Evagus? Believe me when I say that this story and its “suitable” ending will disappoint you in the most unexpected of ways.

  Apocrypha XI.

  Still Have a Son

  As the One Mother heard the Legends, Chapter XI

  Two oxen black as coal except for the whitest horns pulled a carriage covered in black and red-painted drapes. The First Witch was getting too old to ride a horse. Sah-Ouna separated the curtains, showed her face, and gestured to the Rod. He was one of her guards and deaf as a wood trunk.

  “Come in, come in, my daughter,” she invited me inside.

  I clambered into the carriage and squatted opposite of her. There was no candle or other light in there—that would be stupid. The carriage was rocking and wobbling from rut to pothole for days now. The fabrics were shredded in places, allowing some light to get in, like liquid fire dancing around us and on our skin and robes.

  Sah-Ouna jutted her head out and whistled to the driver. He got her signal and had the oxen swerve right. The First Witch lifted a trembling finger, guiding my eyes toward the narrow strip of crimson waters.

  “Blackvein,” she said.

  “After six winters, Mother. You can see what you yearned for all this time.”

  The Sun lulled Blackvein to sleep, but the night was restless. Across the north bank, we could hear Sirol roaring like an awakened Drakon. Countless boats and rafts slashed the calm waters with their northbound trails. The Tribe was crossing the river, twelve thousand warriors, twice as many helpers, women, children, and slaves.

  “Why so long?” Sah-Ouna mumbled. “We should have come home long ago. We lost, we paid; so much.”

  “Why so long?” I repeated trying to imitate the melancholy of her voice. “We could have returned, Mother, if you wished it. Long ago. Even on these oxen carriages, it doesn’t take two moons from Sapul to Blackvein. Why didn’t we?”

  “Return here alone? A First Witch abandoning the Khun? In the middle of war? That would be admitting that we don’t matter anymore, that he has become deaf to our Truths. Deaf as those Rods who guard us.”

  “You are right. Forgive me.”

  “Don’t talk of forgiveness, Asimea. This word doesn’t suit you; you’ll soon become the One Mother, and there will be no one you can ask forgiveness from. Not even Enaka, for she is proud and bloodthirsty and she doesn’t understand forgiveness. She lost her six sons, the six brother Suns of the one who shines over Blackvein. She lost them defending her Tribe. What is forgiveness to her?”

  “It is a word from another god. The one we grew up with.”

  “A word from the God of the Crossers. We were born among the Crossers, we were raised with the priests, but all that is past. You know, I was born only two couple days’ ride from here.”

  “I know.”

  You told me your Apocryphal Story a long time ago. Many times.

  “You do. You are the only one who does. I used to love this land; the one Khun-Malan ravaged once more. You know I tried. I thought I’d become the First Witch and then I’d lead this Tribe to doom. Take them back to the steppe, away from our land. Avenge my mother, my brother. As you want to avenge your sisters. But I failed. I became one of them. One with them. There is a power stron
ger than us.”

  Does she mean Enaka?

  “She is the One,” I replied.

  Sah-Ouna continued:

  “Goddesses, Gods. The men believe blindly. They are born somewhere, and they just follow a Goddess, a banner, a cross, a witch, a priest. But we, women, know the truth. Goddesses, Gods. They are real because the men blindly believe them. Each word, each prophecy, and command of a Goddess will be served and worshipped by ten thousand bows. The hooves crush the earth, the Ouna-Mas sing, the arrows swish across the dark iron sky. All together they search for a purpose, a common Truth to bind them. All those sounds are Enaka’s Voice, clear and commanding. A Witch hears her and guides them. Ignore the Witch, ignore Enaka’s Voice and all those men turn to helpless beasts; the sands of time devour them.”

  “You.”

  “Us. The Ouna-Mas. That’s how it always was. That power consumed me. I first crossed the Blackvein with Khun-Taa thirty winters ago, even more. I crossed to have my revenge. But Enaka gave me the power, and that power changed me. I had to guide them. Sirol became home. Do you know what home is, Asimea?”

  “I never had one. No mother or father. I was raised in the convent.”

  The driver had stopped the oxen, and we didn’t suffer the nauseating discomfort of the rocking anymore.

  “No. Home is not a mother and a father. Home is where you are safe, where you are respected and listened to. No matter if those who listen are of the same blood or not. Sirol is my home. I speak from the platform of Wolfhowl, and ten thousand Archers shiver. Tomorrow I’ll be home again.”