“Yes!” came the voices of the guests, as many in the room began to shiver with delicious anticipation and others came alive from their torpid complacency. The warm lamplight cast a persimmon radiance upon their glittering forms, the smooth jewels winking in the women’s hair and the great chains of expensive metal in the robes of the men, earlobes hung with fine rings. Annaelit took several steps away, and stood in the center of the room, looking from one face to another, finally meeting the haughty, slanted gaze of the Princess Egiras.
“This is a tale, my Lady, that unfolds even now, and has no ending,” she said gently, folding her hands at her waist. “It is a tale of you. For here you sit, Princess Egiras, in your finery, in a beautiful hall that stands within a fine House, in a city that has been built in the heart of the desert. Around you unfolds the rest of the world. Behind you is the past of your life. And before you your next breath indeed lies. And with each breath, yes, even now as you draw it in, lies beckoning wonder. Or Illusion.”
“What . . .?” whispered Egiras, her pupils dilating like those of a serpent in the primeval night.
But Annaelit continued speaking, ignoring her. “I tell your tale,” she said, “and you live it. Whether you choose wonder or Illusion is for you decide. And for that reason I cannot end your tale. For, the tale has not yet played itself out. . . .”
“This is complete nonsense!” Egiras interrupted suddenly.
“What in the world are you saying, girl? What—?”
“It is a strange night,” said Nadir, interrupting her in turn. He arose from his seat, his shape of awe-inspiring stature.
“I’ve had enough of tales,” he said gently, and then walked across the chamber, past the seated guests, and stepped out onto the balcony. Lamplight faintly illuminated the simple cotton of the robe clothing his back and drowned in the tight curls of his jet-black hair. The curls grew so close to his scalp as to define the shape of his skull.
The man stood with his back to them all, watching the night.
“Nadir has the right of it,” said Egiras with a blank expression, also rising from her soft chair. “I too grow restless with your strange stories tonight, Annaelit. You no longer please me. . . . Go and collect the payment at the doors for your dubious services. I will not be calling you back again.”
Annaelit cast down her gaze politely and then bowed. “As you wish, my Lady. I humbly beg pardon for your displeasure. I did not mean to frighten you or your guests. . . .”
“Frighten?” The voice of Egiras rose like a sudden gust of scalding wind. “You do not frighten with your idiot blathering. You merely bore! How dare you suggest that your foolish nonsense stories would have an effect on me? Out!”
And the Princess lifted a slim pale hand encased in bands of spun gold and encrusted with pearls, delicate and deadly as the neck of a swan that culminates in a sharp beak. With one finger she pointed to the door.
Annaelit, knowing that the best recourse was silence, wordlessly complied. As she humbly left the hall she could feel a gaze of sympathy upon her back. Its power was almost physical. She knew it could be none other than Lord Nadir.
I am ruined, thought Annaelit, holding a meager purse of coins in a very cold hand as she walked back to her poor hovel in the dark silence of the night city. With the dismissal from the House of Egiras, no Lord or Lady will ever invite me to a noble gathering to tell a tale. Reputation is a precarious thing, hinging not so much on what is real but on what is perceived to be in style. I am now known as a bore, and my stories are likened to nonsense. All because I chose to listen to the advice of a puny, wicked god and speak unadorned truth. There was a lump in her throat. And as she walked, stumbling with her fine embroidered slippers upon decidedly wicked cobblestones, Annaelit’s vision blurred suddenly. Salty water gathered in the corners of her eyes, and lamplight and torches became smears of dislocated light. In that very moment, a flea bit Annaelit on her rear end.
But she ignored it, furiously allowing the itch to sear her with unrelieved irritation. Her steps grew more and more hurried, so that she practically flew along the city streets like a bird of night, ignoring the ground before her.
You cannot run away from yourself, mortal, spoke a familiar voice in her head.
“Maybe not,” replied Annaelit, gasping for breath. “But maybe I can just run. . . .”
Do that, and you ruin your only good pair of shoes. And then what will you wear to Princess Makeia’s intimate gathering tomorrow night?
Annaelit came to a complete sudden stop.
“What?” she whispered. “Stop tormenting me, Pokreh!”
“You give me too much credit,” said a tall man, stepping out of the shadows of the street that abruptly curved before her. “Mostly, you torment yourself.”
Thus it was that once again Annaelit ran head-first into the chest of the god.
“Aieee!”
Electricity stood in the air.
“You!” Annaelit gasped. “What more do you want of me, now that you’ve caused me to make a muddle of my profession before the most important aristocrats of this city?”
The god took her hand and laughed. “Was it not a good feeling to speak the truth? You’ve made Egiras secretly shiver with the words you laid before her.”
It was Annaelit who shivered now at the touch of the divine against her cold fingers. But the young woman was wise even then—for, even in their lightest moments, all storytellers ultimately are. And she met the gaze of the god from within the concealment of night.
“Enough! What is the lesson you would have me learn, Pokreh?” she said suddenly, and her direct words reached out like a keening cry for mercy. “Tell me once and for all, for even now I am living out my own story, and whoever observes my story from the outside, is, right this instant, curious to know—is in fact exasperated in waiting to see what unfolding of events my own next breath holds. . . .”
The darkness resounded with joyous laughter.
Ah, Annaelit, at last. Only you would be aware enough to ask the truest question of all. And, thus, I grant you the answer.
“The lesson I would have you learn, and carve indelibly into your soul, is this,” spoke the semblance of a man before her. “In all stories there are those who appear to be the principal players, and those who seem like the chorus of background voices, insignificant and selfeffacing. The truth, however, is that all of these distinctions are relative. One observer looking upon the living story would see one set of main characters, while another observer—a god if you must—will look upon the same set of players and see the merits of others as primary. And yet take enough observers or take no observers at all and it becomes clear as sunlight that the story of life is played out by a cast of mortals who are all equal in importance and stature. None are secondary, none are useless, and none are ever left over.”
“How can that be?” whispered Annaelit.
“For one thing,” replied the one before her, “at the time of final reckoning, death comes to all of you equally, and takes you into her loving embrace. Death has no favorite players. Death, the Hag that you mortals so fear, loves all of you best.”
The god put his hand on the woman’s forehead, sensing her begin to tremble greatly. His touch was electric, and it convulsed her—but only for an instant.
And another one is time, whispered the god in her mind. Time treats you all as it treats grains of sand. In truth, it treats all of us equally, whether we are gods or fleas. Time leaves nothing behind as it sweeps us along in its relentless river.
“Then why are some of us born to privilege, power, joy, while others languish all their sorry lives in poverty, darkness and silence?” said Annaelit.
“Because,” said the god, “like the opposite directions of the Compass Rose, all things have two sides. You, being mortal and anchored to a specific point of life’s continuum, can see only one side at a time, while its opposite side seems to stretch beyond the farthest horizon, and thus be out of reach. But I tell you now—a
s I, an outside observer, look at your world from all sides at once with my divine eyes—that very same privilege hides limitations, power hides vulnerability, joy obscures suffering, while poverty disguises fulfillment, darkness is but a shadow of light, and silence is the loudest voice of all.”
“You speak deliberate words of paradox, my Lord,” said Annaelit.
“I merely juxtapose the opposite sides in order to show you that they come from a single source. You know this already, deep within the fundamental core of you, yet often you refuse to face it, choosing easy Illusion over intricate wonder. All things are equal for the very reason that all things are relative, and your world is a wondrous moving puzzle that you mortals will one day grasp in its entirety. Remember this when you are tempted by the intense cravings of Illusion.
“For Illusion pretends to be wonder. It insinuates itself, then fixes you by the very force of your obsession into a single narrow perspective, and stunts your spirit’s natural flexibility. Let me tell you now a secret truth: flexibility of perspective is necessary for the divine movement along the continuum of life, encompassing time and space. Being stationary in a moving universe results in a peculiar blindness of spirit—since all the glorious universe hurtles past you unobserved while you concentrate on the one false thing that seems to you of greater importance than all others, and the final stage is a spiraling downfall into the unknown.
“Wonder, on the other hand, enhances mutability. Wonder is the natural urge of mortals toward that which is greater than themselves, that which is divine. And, in the process of striving to observe true wonder, your spirit’s movement is reaffirmed. Then at last you learn the other great secret—there is no better place to be, nor is there a better time to exist, than the time and place that defines you.”
And saying that the god in the shape of a man disappeared in front of her, dissolved into the recesses of night.
Annaelit blinked, and felt prickling and ridiculous fleabite on her elbow, and another on her side.
Even the flea knows and enjoys its place, mortal . . . sounded a faint echo, and then there was nothing but the hiss of the wind.
“Annaelit! Annaelit, Teller of Tales! Are you within?”
The well-dressed servant of a noble house knocked relentlessly at the door of her hovel.
“You are required to attend the Princess Makeia this evening, and to complete a tale that you started.”
“Is that so? Do you mind pounding on this wood with a bit more force so that my dead ancestors can hear you also?”
Annaelit held the old door barely ajar to let in the bright daylight and the overwhelming sight of the messenger. After the soothing twilight inside, it was agony to her squinting eyes. It was late morning and her temples rang. Not to mention there was a sense that phantom fleas had been biting her for hours on end. Indeed, this sleepless torment had prevailed all through the night.
“The Princess expects you promptly,” said the servant pompously, ignoring her words. He offered her a very clean and uncalloused hand which held a satin purse. And, as Annaelit’s fingers came in brief contact with his, quite unintentionally, he seemed to pull them away in a hurry, as though a flea had bitten him in that instant also.
Surely I am growing mad from all this—this—whatever it is, she thought tiredly. Annaelit took the purse through the slit in the doorway, and asked, “Who else will be there of the noble lords? Tell me now so that I can prepare my Tale accordingly.”
“Such information is not at my disposal,” he replied, starting to turn away from her and her poor dwelling in distaste.
Annaelit thought for a moment. The purse of gold coins weighed sizably in her palm. Its contents would surely be more than enough to drive away that distaste, and also to imbue the servant with sudden extreme affability and willingness to accommodate her.
“Wait! If I were of a mind to give this purse to you, friend,” she said in his wake, “would you be willing to do a tiny little thing for me?”
And as the haughty servant immediately reversed his motion and directed himself back to the door of the hovel the storyteller said, “I want you to make sure that a certain pair of noble lords are invited and will show up at Princess Makeia’s gathering tonight.”
Princess Makeia’s villa was as fine as that of Egiras, and suffocated in a lush excess of gardens. Red-headed Makeia herself received the noble guests one by one with an eager childish smile which belied her formal outfit.
“Oh, Annaelit, you’re here!” she exclaimed, nearly jumping up from the perfect seat where she had been so skillfully arranged and draped by her handmaidens. And then, remembering herself, Makeia sat back once again, and whispered to the storyteller in a conspiratorial tone, “Sit there until I call you! And be sure to try those grapes, they are utterly sweet.”
In that instant the servant at the doors announced the arrival of Lord Ostavi. The voices of the guests in the room faded, and everyone turned to stare. Princess Makeia’s eyes grew very bright and sparkly, for Lord Ostavi was hardly the sort to attend random evening entertainments, especially not the kind that would be arranged by a silly young Princess. “Oh my, do show my Lord in, please! I am impossibly honored!”
Lord Ostavi was a large heavyset man of middle age and imposing stature, with expensive jewels gleaming along the rim of his satin headdress and scattered like stars in his groomed dark beard. Many chains of precious metals adorned his intricate robe and caftan, for he was obviously dressed for negotiations.
“Peace and prosperity to this house, my dear Princess Makeia,” he said in a warm baritone, coming right down to business. “I am here just as you requested, having come to receive the apology owed me. Where is he?”
“Apology?” Makeia breathed. “Where is who?”
In that very instant the servant at the door cleared his throat loudly and announced the arrival of Lord Dava.
“Oh!” Makeia said, while her cheeks and forehead flushed delicate pink. Lord Dava came into the room wearing brilliant orange and purple, his fair hair swept back with a circlet of braided silver and gold, and his handsome face brimming with intensity. Like a ship navigating the night toward a beacon of light, he turned directly to Makeia’s beautifully arranged high seat.
And then, seeing her, his eyes widened, and he quickly looked to the floor in childish confusion. Sinking almost in a faint, he knelt before her, saying in a barely audible whisper—
mumbling, in fact—“Oh most beautiful one . . . . I never dreamed it possible, that you would call me to your side . . . .”
“Lord Dava . . . .” Makeia said breathlessly, also mumbling. “I am graced by your presence in my house . . .”
At that point Lord Ostavi loudly cleared his throat.
Lord Dava, still on his knees, turned around at the sound. “You!” he said, and immediately scrambled to get up, his hand going to his belt, where there would normally have been a sword. Annaelit chose that moment to get up also, even faster than Lord Dava, and then moved to the center of the room, where everyone could see her.
“My Lords!” she said loudly. And her storyteller’s voice, trained to project forward and ring, seemed in that instant to have a particularly unusual resonance, so that it filled the walls with a living energy, like electricity.
“There is a short, but very special Tale that all of you must hear,” she said, “and for that reason you must contain your natural impulses for just a little bit.”
“Wait,” Lord Ostavi said. “What are you saying, girl? What Tale? I am here on a serious matter of honor—”
“And I am here because the Princess Makeia asked me to be here!” exclaimed Lord Dava.
“I did? Oh!” muttered the Princess, frozen in anxious and decorous beauty in her skillfully arranged seat, and really really wanting to be able to fidget in her place without upsetting the dramatic picture she presented.
“You are?” exclaimed Lord Ostavi, staring at Lord Dava, and beginning to roar like a bear.
“Then
you are not here to apologize to me?”
“May this whole city be stricken before I apologize to an old baboon like you! I would rather—”
“Once upon a time,” Annaelit said in a hypnotic voice, “a wicked minor god—nay, a benevolent god with a wicked sense of humor and a tendency to disguise the extent of his love in the form of sarcastic laughter—decided that humankind in and of itself contained very little to amuse the divine Pantheon.”
“Oh!” Princess Makeia said again, this time suddenly twitching her cheek. She pretended to move an impeccably coiffed lock of hair behind her ear, which unfortunately threw her carefully draped veils into disarray.
“And so,” continued Annaelit, “one godlike morning, this deity gathered a fistful of his beard shavings, and shook it out profusely over the universe.”
Lord Ostavi attained a very intense look on his face, somewhat between a frown and a sneeze, and then he vigorously scratched behind his right ear, and then the side of his nose.
“The god shook the beard shavings over the universe, to all the four corners of the Compass Rose. And wherever his stubble fell, little annoying creatures called fleas appeared.”
“What? Argh!” exclaimed Lord Dava and clenched his fists, at the same time clenching other parts of himself unknown to all in order not to scratch himself in unseemly places. And in that moment all around the hall guests began to shift in place. Suddenly everyone’s hands moved involuntarily to scratch—some overtly, others in stealth—and then rearrange clothing as politely as possible.
“What in the world is going on?” someone asked, slapping himself in reflex, and no longer bothering to hide it.
“Fleas!” Annaelit said loudly and cheerfully. “Now then, the fleas were put on this earth for a very good reason. Does anyone know what it is?”
“This is an abomination!” growled Lord Ostavi, scratching himself with both hands now, and rotating his shoulder blades because there was a place at the small of his back that he just couldn’t reach.
Dreams of the Compass Rose Page 24