Kalpa Imperial

by LAngelica Gorodischer, Ursula K. Le Guin

  “Oh, things.” The boy made a vague gesture as if brushing the subject aside. “And now, as part of my duties, since I have the best memory of anybody in the caravan, now I remind you that you promised to tell a story.”

  “The animals have to be fed,” the twentier said, “and we need to eat too if we want to get on. After that, we’ll see.”

  When the animals had been fed, the people sat around the fire and Nonne served meat and rice in broth in their bowls, and The Cat made coffee and asked softly, “Will you tell us a story, daddy?”

  “An old story,” said Z’Ydagg, “very old, from when the world was young and nobody suspected that it would someday contain the greatest and most powerful empire known to man. I’ll tell you the story of Yeimsbón, who was the younger brother of Yeimsdín, who married that woman who was so beautiful that they said her face had launched a thousand ships into the air, you remember? Well, then, Yeimsbón got married too, when he was old enough, to a woman who was also very beautiful but bossy and ambitious, named Magareta’Acher, and they lived in the city of Erinn, where after a short time Yeimsbón was made king, on account of his valor and goodness. They had a son called Yanpolsar and a daughter called Bernadetdevlin. The two children grew up adoring their father, who was gentle and loving to them, and learned to hate their mother, who was hard and harsh and punished them often, sending the boy to work in the fields and the girl to peel potatoes in the palace kitchen. So it went on till one day Yeimsbón received a request for help from his brother Yeimsdín, who was setting off to make war on a sinister person who had been a hatmaker and now called himself Prince Chiklgruber and was trying to conquer the whole world. So Yeimsbón rode away at the head of his army, not without tender farewells to his children and his sharp-tongued wife, and leaving his cousin Yeimscañi to watch over his home, his palace, and his city. The good, brave, ingenuous king was gone for many years, and when he and the kings he was allied with had at last defeated Prince Chiklgruber, he returned to find his children grown but unhappy, his people oppressed, and his wife in the arms of the man he had trusted. The king, who had come back home full of hopes and illusions, thought to kill the adulterers; but he had brought back from the war so much sadness and weariness that he persuaded himself that something might yet be saved, and having resolved on nothing, retired to his apartment to meditate. There, creeping silently, his evil wife followed him, with Yeimscañi, the traitor. And as the king lay in his bath with his eyes closed thinking of what must be done, there they cut his throat and left him lying in the water red with his blood. But the queen had forgotten about her children, had forgotten them because she never thought about them except to make sure they were far from the palace, busy with menial work. Yanpolsar and Bernadetdevlin, who hoped their father would punish those who had abused his trust, learned of his death with pain and horror. They wept for him, of course, wept long and bitterly. But then they dried their tears and swore to avenge their father. And one night they entered the royal bedroom and pitilessly slew their mother and their uncle. Then they set free the people of Erinn from the cruel yoke that had been laid upon them when the good king left, and reigned together in peace, protected and counselled by the Erinnies, the good spirits of the city of Erinn. Yanpolsar married Emabovarí and his sister married Yonlenon, an adventurer from far away who claimed descent from the fabled ringostars who had deceived the wily Clargueibl. From the two marriages came many children who peopled the wide world, and the brother and sister slowly forgot the tragedy that had darkened their lives. Except that Yanpolsar ordered a scribe to write down the facts and keep the records, which were found many centuries later. People read this writing and told it to others, and those others told it to others, and so down through the years, and it is thus that I came to know this sad tale.”

  “It’s not all that sad, daddy, don’t exaggerate,” said The Cat. “It’s sad-happy. Haven’t you got a sad-sad story? Or a happy-happy one?”

  “It’s no good, kids aren’t satisfied with anything. You give them this, they want that, you give them that, they want this, and if you give them this and that, then they manage to want the other!” said the elderly Pfalbuss.

  “Things aren’t either sad or happy, Cat,” Bolbaumis said. “They’re a bit of both. The only happy-happy thing is the chink of coins, and so much the happier if they’re gold.”

  “And why are we men and women here in the world,” said Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül, “if not to try to turn sad things into happy ones?”

  “Ah,” said the old twentier, “a sound observation, I do believe.”

  “More coffee, boy, get on with it, get moving, people need more coffee,” said Nonne.

  The next day The Cat came to old Z’Ydagg and asked him what other stories he knew.

  “Aha,” said the old man, “now we can’t even wait till night-time to ask for stories, eh?”

  “I’m not asking you for a story, daddy, I’m asking about what others you know.”

  “Storytellers know many stories. All you have to do is find one in a street or a square or a tent and sit down and listen to what they tell.”

  “No, you don’t understand,” The Cat said. “I want stories about what happened long long ago, when there were no emperors or Golden Throne or regents or heiresses.”

  “And what does an alley cat know about emperors and their heirs?”

  It was the one time the old man saw the boy hesitate. Not for long; but The Cat was silent, as if he didn’t know what to say.

  “Nothing, of course,” he said at last. “Just what everybody knows, that’s all.”

  And then he turned round and went back to stay close to the woman who dealt in silks.

  Now I know, the old twentier thought, now I know what’s going on. And I don’t like it. Oh, how I wish we’d just get to Oadassim quickly, how I wish everybody would just go off their own way and Bolbaumis would pay me and I could go have a rest till some other caravan hunts me up to lead them back across the desert to the capital. Oh, how I wish the good Emperor Louwantes hadn’t died, how I wish it . . .

  The old man told no more stories of the incredible days when the Empire did not exist. That night The Cat sang and sang, and when he stopped he said, “Now for an old story, eh, daddy?”

  Z’Ydagg answered crossly, “No stories. We need to save our strength for the arrival.”

  The desert was beginning to change. The color of the earth, for example, now wasn’t so blinding in the daylight nor so bright at night; it was taking on a greyish hue, day and night; and the fine pale dust that covered it changed and no longer rose up at the least breath of wind. There was no need to store water because the wells came close one after the other. The day came when they saw plants, green plants struggling up among the stones. And the next day they were not awakened by the twentier’s voice, nor by the light, but by the singing of birds.

  “We’ll camp here,” said the old man on the last day, at nightfall.

  The people looked at one another wondering, but they obeyed. The Cat went here and there doing this and that and mostly making noise, like a tiltill bird building its nest in the eaves. Nayidemoub came up to Bolbaumis. “Why are we making camp?” he asked.

  “Didn’t you hear?” said the fat man. “Z’Ydagg said to make camp.”

  “I know, I know, I’m not deaf, that’s not what I’m asking. Why are we making camp when we could go on and be in the city before nightfall?”

  “Don’t rush it, Mr. Nayidemoub,” said Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül. “What’s the hurry?”

  “The old man knows what he’s doing,” Bolbaumis said.

  “What if we went and asked him?” Nayidemoub insisted.

  Pfalbuss laughed. “Did you ever do that in a caravan? Ask the twentier why he’s doing what he does?”

  “No.”

  “Could be that daddy saw the eye,” said The Cat.

  “What eye?”

  “The eye the world came out of. Like he told.”

  “Could be
,” said the woman.

  The men laughed. Nonne was cooking, and the soldier was tuning the serel.

  “I’m not going to sing today,” The Cat said while they were drinking their coffee. “I’ll sing tomorrow early when we come into the city. But can I ask you something, daddy? I want to know if when the world came out of the eye, the twenty directions came out of it too, that you twentiers know about.”

  “Yes,” the old man said. “But they came out a lot later, when the eye was already hidden from the sight of mankind, and only mad folk and dying people could see it. And thus people knew nothing of the twenty directions, and thus they were divided into little kingdoms each with its own language, each with its laws and money and ambitions and madnesses, and nobody thought of the Empire, and the Empire didn’t exist. And so it was that one night out of the eye came not a speck of dust but a fine thread, finer even than the hair of a newborn child, and the thread flew through the air, and flew on and on, and flew in through the window of a little hut in which a man was lying down with his eyes open. He was a humble man who worked hard to make a living, and didn’t wear fine clothes, or eat delicate food; a man who didn’t know how to read or write and hadn’t learned chemistry or astronomy, but who thought a lot about his family, the men and women who worked and suffered as he did. And since the man lay with his eyes open trying to understand how the world was ordered, the thread that came flying through the air entered into his right eye and there split into twenty even finer threads, and the man lying in the hut saw the twenty directions, and understood.”

  “What are the twenty directions, daddy?” asked The Cat.

  The old man couldn’t help smiling at the boy’s shameless boldness.

  “Those aren’t matters for a child to know,” he said.

  Next day the birds were singing when the caravan set off. The Cat walked along singing.

  “We aren’t in the city yet, Cat,” Pfalbuss told him.

  “But I feel like singing, Mr. Pfalbuss,” the boy said, and went on singing.

  It was a handsome city. Not very big, but handsome. Around it were green fields and woods; it rose up very bright and clear, almost white, against the morning sky.

  “We have arrived,” said old Z’Ydagg, looking behind him for Bolbaumis, to hand over the command of the caravan to him.

  “Good, good,” said the fat man.

  Undoubtedly Bolbaumis meant to say more, to remark on how much he’d spent to get across the desert and how little he was going to make out of it, while he got off his mount and went forward to take the twentier’s place. But he couldn’t go on talking. The ruddy color the sun and wind had given him faded, leaving his face white as wax. He opened his mouth and couldn’t shut it. With a shaking hand he pointed ahead of them.

  “What’s that?” Nayidemoub shouted.

  The old twentier turned and looked at the city.

  “We’re being attacked!” cried the serel-player, seizing his weapons.

  The five armed guards ran forward together to defend the others. For as if out of nowhere a group of horsemen came galloping towards the caravan. Old Z’Ydagg cupped his hands to his mouth and gave the warning shout. The loaders stirred up the animals to use them as a shield between the people of the caravan and the attackers. But somebody had shouted at the same time as the twentier, a powerful voice, used to giving orders. Who shouted, who was that? the old man asked himself, while he tried to impose some order on the confusion. Somebody had cut out Pfalbuss’s fine, fast horse, was mounting it, galloping against the attackers. Who was it, who could it be? Whose were those woman’s clothes, fluttering uselessly, while the rider galloped in the lead of Bolbaumis’s guardsmen? But then, the old man told himself while he helped pile up packloads near the animals who were kicking and struggling to get loose, but then, I was wrong, dead wrong. I didn’t understand. And The Cat?

  “Where’s the boy?” Z’Ydagg shouted.

  Bolbaumis’s men were fighting on the road, and with them was the man who’d disguised himself as an old woman, a silk dealer.

  “I’m here, daddy,” said The Cat, “but not for long. I know how to fight too!” And he ran off towards the road.

  “Back, Cat, come back! Don’t go!” the old man cried.

  And the man who’d traveled with them dressed as a woman and now was fighting like a demon, covered with sweat and blood, echoed him: “Back, Highness! Go back!” he shouted.

  “Twenty are the world’s directions,” murmured Z’Ydagg, the old man who knew the desert, “twenty, and the twenty lead to good and to evil, to emptiness and fullness, to movement and to stillness, to white and to black, and I’m nothing but an old man who was just about to lose his way.”

  One of Bolbaumis’s men fell dead. Two of the attackers detached themselves from the group and spurred their horses towards the merchants. Fat Bolbaumis whipped out a weapon and prepared to defend his money. Somebody, that man, cut off a head that rolled on the road, bloody, muddy, the eyes still open, and turned to pursue the riders that were coming closer and closer to the caravan. Where was The Cat? The pack animals snorted and tugged at the ropes holding them, and a wagon tipped over, one wheel spinning in air. The old man raised his gun, found firm footing and waited, and without haste, calm, tranquil, shot the man who was coming at him through the heart. Bolbaumis took care of the other one, neatly, with a swiftness surprising in a man of his girth. Here and there, when he could, Z’Ydagg managed to catch sight of a little figure that darted in and out of his field of vision, fired a gun, dodged, hopped back, fired again. The blood-covered demon who had been Mistress Assyi’Duzmaül drew back, sprang forward and rushed with a yell into the fray once more, killing and killing. The old man ran to join him and the guards, and standing beside Bolbaumis aimed and fired and hit, time and again.

  “They’re going, they’re going! Reinforcements are coming! Look, look there, we’re saved!” cried the merchants and the loaders.

  The man they’d all thought was a woman galloped after the fugitives and would have caught and no doubt killed them if his horse hadn’t stumbled, worn out or wounded. The man leaped up and came running back to the caravan: “Where is she?” he was shouting. “Where is she, you fools?”

  “Here,” The Cat said. “Don’t worry, I’m not hurt. I know how to fight too.”

  Strange events, strange people were to be seen on the day Princess Nargennendia was crowned Empress. Everything was done according to protocol and tradition, but the regent, sister of the dead Emperor Louwantes IV, did not come out of her apartments in the palace to go to the throne room: she was brought under guard from the dungeons to place the crown on the girl’s head and the scepter in her hands, and then was taken back to the prison in which she would spend the rest of her life, condemned for attempted regicide. And as for the strange people, they were all around the empress, elbowing ministers, dignitaries, and judges: three soldiers, one with a sack unmistakably containing a serel hung from his left shoulder, all of them uncomfortable in new uniforms; various men who were not nobles and looked a lot more like merchants or working men; another who wore on his chest the distinctive blue and gold of the Imperial Cooks; the Captain of the Empress’s Imperial Guard, whose presence in the throne room was proper, but not in such privileged proximity to the newly crowned sovereign; a smiling, self-satisfied, overdressed fat man; and an old fellow in a grey tunic, wearing the soft boots of a traveler or a guide, a lean, calm old man who stood very straight at the right hand of the Empress Nargennendia I, she who passed into history with the strange appellation of The Cat, she who the tellers of tales say was nearly as wise as the Great Empress Abderjhalda but much happier; nearly as valiant as Ysadallma but much more beautiful; nearly as strong as Eynisdia the Red but much more compassionate; she who inaugurated her reign with a question to the old man who stood at the right of the Golden Throne:

  “What are the twenty directions of the world, daddy?”

  The storytellers say that the old man smiled slight
ly, like one unaccustomed to smiling in palaces, and replied, “I’ll tell you what they are, my lady, but you must promise me to forget them at once.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I promise. Cat’s honor.”

  Then, they say, old Z’Ydagg told the twenty directions of the world, and the empress listened, and when he was done she tried to forget them. And they say that she succeeded, but not wholly: there was one, they say, that she could not forget; but nobody, neither the tellers nor their tales, can tell us what it was.

  About the Author

  Angélica Gorodischer, daughter of the writer Angélica de Arcal, was born in 1929 in Buenos Aires and has lived most of her life in Rosario, Argentina. From her first book of stories, she has displayed a mastery of science-fiction themes, handled with her own personal slant, and exemplary of the South American fantasy tradition. Oral narrative techniques are a strong influence in her work, most notably in Kalpa Imperial, which since its publication has been considered a major work of modern fantasy narrative.

  Ursula Kroeber was born in 1929 in Berkeley, California. Her parents were the anthropologist Alfred Kroeber and the writer Theodora Kroeber, author of Ishi. She went to Radcliffe College, and did graduate work at Columbia University. She married Charles A. Le Guin, a historian, in Paris in 1953; they have lived in Portland, Oregon, since 1958, and have three children and three grandchildren.

  Ursula K. Le Guin has written poetry and fiction all her life. Her first publications were poems, and in the 1960s she began to publish short stories and novels. She writes both poetry and prose, and in various modes including realistic fiction, science fiction, fantasy, young children’s books, books for young adults, screenplays, essays, verbal texts for musicians, and voice texts for performance or recording. As of 2003, when her translation of Kalpa Imperial was first published, she had published over a hundred short stories (collected in nine volumes), two collections of essays, twelve books for children, five volumes of poetry, two of translation, and nineteen novels. Among the honors her writing has received are a National Book Award, the PEN/Malamud Award, five Hugo Awards, and five Nebula Awards.