“You killed a man. An innocent. You enjoyed it. I can’t write that. I will not. Do you repent, Da-Ren?”
I had set a rule that now proved foolish: that whenever he referred to the death of another human being, we would fast for one full day, without even water.
“If you don’t change that rule very soon, you will die of thirst in the sunless cell, Eusebius,” he told me with a sorrowful chuckle.
And it was the truth. Even if I had all the strength of the saints, my emaciated body would never be able to finish this story. I changed the rule to require our isolation in the cell for one whole day, but that hurt Da-Ren even more. Especially when death rained down on our story, and we had to remain within the four stone walls of the cell for many days.
“Let’s get outside of this tomb that you have stuck me in, Eusebius. Did you find an innocent victim and go green with fear? You have only just brushed against the first branch of the forest. Prepare to swim in the red sea of guiltless blood. You will be searching for air in vain, as I do in this hole. If you cannot endure it, then leave. I have no pleasant stories to tell you.”
Da-Ren could have killed men without remorse in his previous life, but for me everything had to be deciphered as an ancient symbol on papyrus: symbols that I had to read, to find the way toward God and forgiveness somewhere within all this barbarism.
“What did you feel? How did you sleep at night?”
“What are you asking me?”
“Do you repent?”
“Oh yes, every night, but not for that night.”
“Did you hear them at night, the screams of the innocent Dasal? That was not your enemy that came to harm you. You killed him for fun. That other boy with the rain of arrows before. How many unspeakable horrors?”
“Too many to count. That was only the first day. Then every day. Can we go outside, Eusebius? I can’t breathe in here with all this candle smoke. Let’s go fishing today.”
When he began to talk that way, we had to get out into the light and go to the sea. He had undertaken the task of fishing for the needs of the monastery. For many days, there were no supplies or stones for him to carry up the endless steps. He desperately searched for something to do during the times I was away at my prayers. Something other than punching his fists into his cell wall waiting for the Sorcerers of the Cross who would come to save his wife and daughter. After a while, I realized that what he really wanted was to slice the sea with the oars and to rest his eyes into the blue.
I did him the favor and climbed down the steps to reach the rocks next to the harbor where Da-Ren liked to fish. We stayed in the small boat for a long time, and he would dive into the sea and come up for air. He managed to catch a few small fish with his spear. Nothing like the experienced fishermen of the island, who dove deep and disappeared for a long time beneath the water.
When the day grew hotter, he lay down in the boat with his eyes closed, as if waiting for the sun to devour his whole body and leave only his bones. The heat brought to my mind the funeral pyres at Sirol. The story of his tribe was written all over his body, with knife wounds, lashing scars that still whispered the name “Elbia,” from the right side of his forehead to the soft part of his neck on the left. He also had large scars, one under the lowest rib on his right and one on his left arm, but he hadn’t told me the stories of those two yet. He touched the scar under his right rib with his fingers.
“What do you ask of me, Eusebius? To tell you what I felt? What do you want to hear?”
I had to find the Demon. If I knew the name of the Evil one and removed it from inside of him, then my mission would end in victory. Only the humility and patience of a monk could uproot the beast.
“Yes, what happened inside of you? Did you feel guilt, fear? Joy, perhaps? That is what I must know, Da-Ren, or else how can I bring your story in front of the elder monks?”
A ship appeared on the horizon. It was too far away for us to distinguish what trade it was. Da-Ren locked my head in his arm with one hand, grabbed my jaw with the other, and forced me to look in the ship’s direction.
“It’s coming. You see it. At dawn, it will be here. What do you feel, Eusebius?”
“Let me be!” He had almost taken off my head.
“What do you feel? The pirate’s knife on your throat? Is the blade cold? The wheat that the merchant brings us? Is the wood-baked bread tasty? The princess of Thalassopolis who sailed to come and burn only you with her lips. Is her skin warm? Is her tongue wet? Now. Now tell me. What do you feel? Or does the sun blind you so you cannot see?”
What did I feel? Her tongue.
“Twenty years later, Eusebius? If I ask you after twenty years, what will you tell me about what you felt just now?”
Da-Ren rowed the boat closer to shore and jumped back into the water. It was only up to his waist. After a while, he saw some movement around the rocks on the seabed and started poking around with his spear. He put his left arm deep into the water as if to grab something. I laughed afterward. A reddish-colored octopus was wrapped around his arm, leaving a trail of dark ink in the water behind it. Da-Ren jumped back, startled by the creature. It was perhaps the only time I saw him frightened by something so funny when the slimy tentacles wouldn’t release his arm. The beast was no bigger than the palms of two hands. Its eyes opened wide to meet Da-Ren in the final battle.
“You have to bite it behind the eyes, and then it will die,” I told him.
The octopus refused to let go.
He didn’t believe me. I shook my head back and forth with mocking eyes and raised brows as if explaining to him that he already had the answer. After some more hesitation, he did bite it, and the slimy thing lost its strength. It would die before I counted to eight.
“Haaaaaaa! Do you believe this?” he shouted, looking at the tentacles and the head of the octopus, which had opened wide for its last dance under the sun.
Fishing was over for the day.
In the one thousand and more days that he remained with me, that was perhaps the only real smile and the only cry of enthusiasm that left his lips.
“You have to beat it forty times against the rock to soften the meat,” I told him. “Otherwise, you can’t eat it.”
“I would never eat that, Eusebius. I am no barbarian.”
We both laughed. This time, he believed me. He grabbed the octopus, raised it high above his head, and slammed it down on a rock over and over again. In between each hit, he would stop for a breath and give me an answer, a different one each time.
“I’ll tell you what I felt, Eusebius.”
The octopus crashed onto the slippery rock.
“I felt satisfaction. I had killed an othertriber with ease.
“Pride. Ten thousand warriors cheered for me.
“Joy. I wouldn’t die like the others.
“Fear. The black forest had frozen me dead.”
The tentacles slowly started to soften. Cut into square pieces, boiled, and served with olive oil and wild greens. And a cup of watered wine. That was my desire. If only that could be our greatest sin.
“Love. Zeria.
“Compassion. Akrani had helped me very much with the bow that first spring.
“Guilt. I had betrayed my Tribe.
“Is that correct, Eusebius? Have I learned your words? These feelings that you have?”
“These words are the powerful shields of God and Satan in their never-ending battle, Da-Ren. Choose them wisely.”
“Sorrow. Lebo rode better than any of us. I did not expect him to fall so young.”
That was a very ill-fated octopus indeed.
“I felt merciful. That word I learned much later.
“I felt unstoppable. Uncarved. Immortal. Wolf. Shit. Snake. Cursed. In love. Frightened. Fearless. Brave. Rabbit. All in one day.”
“Tell me.”
We were getting close to the truth.
“Do you understand?”
I think I did understand.
“There w
as a storm of confusion in your head.”
“You understood shit, Eusebius. Don’t ask me again what I felt. No matter what I tell you from now on, don’t ask me again. I felt everything in one day, and now that time has melted all of it away, I feel the same things differently.”
“You talk like a madman without thinking.”
“I will tell you what I sensed with the eyes, the hands, and the nose. The blood of the Dasal was red like ours; her eyes, blue. The meat that night was tender and juicy; it rained iron needles, and water seeped into the tent. I felt the rain, the knife, the smooth skin of my horse, Bera’s slap. That’s what I felt.”
I picked up the basket with the few small fish. Da-Ren was still holding the badly beaten octopus, as if he didn’t know what to do with it anymore.
I had to explain to him. For his own salvation.
“For your own good, Da-Ren. God will not understand. We are not animals.” I moved away from him as soon as I said the words, afraid that he might hit me. “People have two paths to follow: that of God or that of the Devil. And throughout every moment, they are being judged by God and tempted by Satan. None of our Sorcerers of the Cross, as you call them, will ever sit to hear this story if you do not repent first. If they ask me how you served your penance, what can I tell them?”
An old fisherman with a child tied their boat in the hidden harbor. Da-Ren answered me before we began climbing the thirty-eight and a thousand steps for yet another time. He turned and looked at the sea. It expanded endless like the steppe, bottomless and untrodden, and diminished every hope of escape.
“I hate this island, Eusebius. I know the games gods play. I know I already died years ago and Enaka abandoned me here. I feel it, since you want to know what I feel now. My slow persecution after death. I feel it deeply. I know.”
“Don’t lose hope, Da-Ren. Believe in God, and he will redeem and cleanse your soul, leaving it white as snow and carded wool.”
It was from one of the psalms of Matins, the ones we sang to raise the soul to the heavens step by step. He softly snorted a short, ironic laugh.
“I hate this dry sun and the salt waves, the northwest skiron wind that shaves the black stones and bleaches them, the warm livas wind that has razed all the slopes. What do you feel, Eusebius? You tell me.”
I had come to this arid island from the mainland many years before along with other refugees in a wave-ravaged boat. I was not even eight years old. There was no tent for the orphans here as in Da-Ren’s Sirol. The refugees sent me to the monastery as an inexpensive offering to God so that He would help them on this parched land.
I hadn’t lived even for a moment as a common man. I didn’t know what I could feel.
“We have died, Eusebius. That is what I feel inside of me every night when you leave me in my cell, away from Sirol. They have brought our bones here. You are the skeleton of my life, and I am its demon. Both orphaned of flesh. You stand there in your cell across from me, motionless, speechless, expressionless, fleshless, white as old bones. You bring me closer to death with every slight move you make.”
We could indeed be dead. Perhaps the punishment of Hell was to believe that we were still alive, could still hope for salvation—and never achieve it. That would be the worst persecution. I had not lived joy, sin, love of the flesh, but neither had I experienced any great sadness since I was eight. Was this the life of a man or of a wingless Cherubim? Could Da-Ren be right?
“In the Blackvein where I grew up next to the Forest, the land whispered, sang, and bellowed. You could hear the horses, the women, the wolves, the wild boars. The swallows and the robins chirped; the birches, the willows, and the oaks grew leaves, hard like papyrus, brown like leather. The wood awoke, died, and bled. The men, the wolves, the eagles hunted. We drank water, snow, we hid in the fog; I could hear the frogs and the lightning bolts. Here, there is nothing. Only this sun, its blinding light eating the papyrus and my skin, and questions—how did you say it—for madmen.”
He was going to break; I could smell it. I had to keep quiet now instead of persisting with my own preaching. I did the opposite.
“You killed an innocent man, Da-Ren.”
“I never managed to kill the guilty ones, Eusebius. Never!”
Unlike the two of us, who were still very much alive, the tentacles of the octopus were dead for sure after the beating. Before we began our ascent for the cells, Da-Ren threw the mashed sea creature to the barefoot boy who was helping the fisherman next to us. We were fasting anyway before the summer feast of the Blessed Virgin Mother.
“Never. For that alone, I regret and I repent.”
XXV.
The Final Battle
Eighteenth spring. Uncarved—Wolf.
O Goddess, sweet and beautiful,
come listen to your children.
The Sun has hidden from the Sky,
the black star shocks the darkland.
The red-eyed eagle flies blind,
his blood rains on the gold steppe.
The man bewails for his horse,
the woman mourns her offspring.
O Goddess, bright and powerful,
now stay with us this night.
The darkness cries the sorrow’s song,
the fear rips our loins.
Bring back Selene’s gift to us,
we beg you to reveal her.
And I will bring as sacrifice,
a young heart of my own blood.
The Song of Sah-Ouna at the Feast of Spring
The world was full of signs of the Demon’s darkness and the Goddess’s light. But only those longskull Witches could read them. We had visited most of the small camps of each Banner by that time. Even the Khun himself had summoned us to his tent, though it was only to shout his fury at us. But when it came to the tents of the Ouna-Mas and the Reghen, we had taken a peek only from far away. Some signs should remain hidden from the common folk.
But there were other signs that everyone knew about. The most horrible of all was the Springdarken, the hiding of Selene by the clouds on the night of her full glorious brightness. And if that occurred on the full moon of the Great Feast of Spring, then sorrow and fear fell like heavy sheets of gray rain across Sirol. The Springdarken had happened only once before as far as Rouba could recall.
“It was the last spring of Khun-Mervak’s reign, our Leader before Khun-Taa. And Enaka sent him to his death soon after that.”
The Feast was cut short on the second night when the Sky unleashed waterfalls, crying for my great victory, Zeria’s mourning, her father Veker who had escaped death, Lebo’s blood, Akrani’s death, my terror in the Forest, and Malan’s shame. The prisoner he was responsible for had escaped, and Malan had become the laughingstock of the Uncarved in the camp, all in one morning. No one blamed me. I had won my fight, killed the man. It was Malan’s fight.
The third and most important night of the Feast, that of the full moon, dawned. The night when the Voice of the Goddess came through Sah-Ouna down to Sirol. The Unending Sky was angry and black as a raven’s eye. It didn’t shed a single tear of rain. It didn’t clear blue for even a breath. Men, women, and Witches stopped every few steps to see if the Sky would open up. But the whole day passed under a Springdarken cloak of clouds.
It was only after the setting of the sun that the Goddess finally triumphed, and her beloved daughter Selene came out upon her chariot in all her brilliance, fighting Darhul’s cloudbreaths. As she was riding glorious in the Sky, the clouds changed to white and then to black again and finally became a copper mist until they ran away frightened.
It would be a Great Feast again, and everyone walked lighthearted once more. Everyone except me. I would have preferred a Springdarken like the one long ago, the omen that had brought the death of the Khun.
Malan had been shamed. Soon, I would be First. If Khun-Taa died. If Enaka willed it. I was so close.
The First Witch had offered our sacrifices on the first day, and the fights in the battle rin
g of Wolfhowl had finished on the second. The third night was going to be brief. We all waited for one thing: to hear Enaka’s commandments.
Sah-Ouna filled her chest, and sixteen Ouna-Mas circled close around her, repeating her words so all could hear. Few things were more beautiful than the voices of the Ouna-Mas.
Listen, men, to the truth Enaka sends us.
Weak is the Sun of this spring!
The firstborn demons of the Forest, the Reekaal, have achieved great power.
Their souls have entered and now command the will of every tree. They have possessed the bodies of the Dasal and have covered the Forest with blood and terror, where Selene cannot see. Stay away from there. Stay away from the West. This spring is green and black and does not favor battle against the Reekaal.
The heads turned and twenty thousand warrior eyes fell upon the four of us Uncarved Wolves.
“They are looking at you, kid,” said Rouba.
“Me?”
“You killed a Dasal just last night.”
“Gunna and Balam killed one too.”
“Nobody remembers that. Not bloody enough.”
And the Dasal was possessed by a Reekaal she said.
“You are a hero now.” Half of the old man’s face was smiling.
The hairs on my arms had become iron needles, my balls heavy as battle hammers. “Da-Ren, the one who killed a Reekaal,” that would be the Story around the fires.
Chaka needed no ceremony. Sah-Ouna was still singing when he unwrapped the red cloth from Malan’s right arm and tied it on mine. And there it was. I had reached the fifth spring of training without bleeding to death, and I was the First in the Uncarved. Five winters after the Sieve, I had finally beaten Malan. If Khun-Taa died within the next thirteen moons, before the next Great Feast of Spring, I would become the Khun of the entire Tribe.
Drakon Book II: Uncarved Page 9