“You believe something else?” This wasn’t the question I wanted to ask, but it led there. An unobtrusive thread that I could pull and twist to discover what I wanted.
“I believe in the oldest of the tales,” Taa mused. A half-smile said she had spent a long while thinking about this. She tasted her stew one last time, then, happy with everything but its temperature, walked over to the other side of my room and propped herself against the ledge of the windows there. She rested her hands on the knot of her staff and straightened her back against the sill. On most days, the night snatched away your view of the woods. Eio was too pale, and Glacies was too far. The shadows of the oaks chased their light away, and the darkness underneath the copses clutched at everything, even the wind. The only light came from the glint of the ghosts that had lived there since before the first men came to the new continent—and perhaps the occasional blooming of an alchemical flower.
Tonight, it was different. You could see the woods for as far as the horizon went. Beyond that, even the light of the blue moon did not venture. The darkness in the Dwah Forest was a Shaed of its own kind. Not shaped by gods and daemons, but by ghosts and trees. They had their own kind of darkness and silence. The kind that did not assault the senses. It hid in plain view, and then, when you finally came to a rest and stood still, it edged into your vision through the corner of your eyes and crept into your hearing through the bleeding of your ears.
Taa faced the ceiling as she began to speak again, letting it carry her voice across the room. “Ask one of the Serpentine tribes, the older tribes, the ones that have lasted like the Rho or the Shapta, and you’ll hear an answer that has stayed consistent through the centuries. The Empress of the Skies goes to Shai’tan to seduce him, to distract him while the final battle in the Eternal War is waged—and ends up falling in love.”
“Falls in love with Satan?” Yephi offered a disgusted look.
Taa walked back to her stew, dipping a finger in to check the temperature. “The most beautiful and powerful of all the gods had never failed to bend anyone to her will. There was no reason for her to think she would fail here. She convinced the winds to obey her. The skies to carry her. Not even the cities and tribes of man and Serpentine, and all the new gods could refuse her when she came down from the heavens and asked us to fight with her against the old gods.” Taa held her flesh-ridden palm up. Her eyes shaped the warning in her next words. “But these things… they are not the same as trying to deceive the Father of All Lies. Raya travels to the deepest regions of the nether to distract the devil for a hundred years while the new gods exile away the old gods. The plan succeeds, except for a catch. She returns to the world bearing the Dream Weaver.”
Taa crossed her arms, pulling her shawl in tighter. She gestured to Yephi and Iris to take their bowls of stew. “In Dh’hpur’s recollections of her dreams, she says he has the darkness of his father in his heart, and the beauty of his mother on his face. The presence of a daemon, but the voice of an angel. There are only a few accounts of him, scattered throughout the centuries and the world, but the Church says they can trace the plague, Enek’Senehet, the Immortal King’s fall, and even Narkissa all back to him. They say the vampire queen was once a human who traded her soul to Saythana to rule over Rhauk.
Taa’s eyes went distant.
“How is Saythana summoned?” As soon as I asked the question, I knew it had left me too early. I looked down into the telescope to show my disinterest. I hadn’t meant to phrase it so directly, but the question had shaped itself as soon as the first syllable was out.
“That’s quite enough, Dina,” Mother said. She tucked Iris’s head into her shoulder, as though to shield her from the question.
Yephi clenched the chutrang piece in her hand, her mind engaged. “He can be summoned? You just said—”
“Yephi, bring your sister a bowl of stew,” Mother said. “Look at the smoke. It looks hot enough to burn off a tongue right now. We might get lucky.”
Yephi and Iris both giggled. Not impolitely, but their reaction had given me an idea.
“I hope you live until my reign ends, Mother, so you can always be there to shelter me from the world. I can return to my life’s work of poetry and trust that if I don’t make any eye contact with daemons, they’ll leave me alone. ”
“Heh… heh… heh.” Three distinct snickers from the other side of the room.
Taa’s sardonic laugh was the stuff of legends. The timing, the stuttering breaths, the way she guarded herself from any subsequent glares that might be pointed in her direction by setting her attention to something else—hers was no amateur grandmotherly laugh, but a practiced and sharpened one that could convey four dozen messages in three mocking titters.
“Mother, don’t encourage her,” my mother said.
When Mother called Taa “Mother,” it was different from when you heard it from other daughters by marriage. Mother was Taa’s daughter, in all but birth. She was raised by Taa, she was taught by Taa, she was trained by Taa. Mother had spent more time with Taa in her life than Father had. Whether she used the word in affection or irritation, it sounded as genuine as when Father said it, and you could even gather something about her mood and wits if you paid attention to whether she was calling Taa by mother or ahjur.
Yephi walked over, cradling a bowl of stew against her waist. She set it down next to the telescope, careful not to place it near the legs. I had scolded her and Iris about that enough times already. She climbed on a stool nearby to look through the other telescope. Hers was already focused on the market square in Center Chaya. I had just gotten mine to show Lower Chaya clearly. I steadied the mount, then glimpsed through the eyepiece, covering my other eye with a palm.
“She has a point, you know.” Taa’s voice in the background. “And in our line, the reigning king or queen tends to give up their throne earlier than most.” A lingering pause. “Whether by choice or not.”
Through the telescope, my eyes focused on a man in a frayed guild uniform. His body was sprawled out across the floor of a narrow alley next to a tavern. He was leaning against a cracked wooden crate, one leg raised atop a stone brick with blue and pink moss growing at its sides. The man kissed the lip of a charcoal tinted bottle, swaying to the right to lace his gums with brandy.
He wasn’t only drunk. His eyes had the milky blackness of whisper. These were always the first to go during a blue moon. People who had surrendered to the night and lost themselves in the harmonizing voices of the stilldeath flower. This man was well past the stage of just hearing the voices. His eyes were lost in the neon hallucinations and the coveted visions that came with a high enough dose. His right hand moved on its own, suggesting more brandy to his lips. His left hand helped him drain the bottle.
“There are ghouls,” Yephi remarked.
“I know. I saw them earlier.”
“How does the witch bring back the dead like that?”
“It’s not really bringing back the dead,” I said. “They’re just empty corpses.”
“It means she’s returned to the forest? We haven’t seen ghouls for weeks now.”
“I think so. She must have come back in the blue moon.”
Yephi shuddered, fastening her hands around her elbows. “Good thing we returned earlier.”
“I’m not trying to shelter her forever,” Mother intoned, “but she’s too young to be learning about this now. All of them are.”
“Didn’t you say they send girls Dina’s age to war?” Iris asked. She swung her legs above Mother’s knees, then gave her a partial look.
“Did hear that!” Yephi shouted without lifting her head from the neck of the telescope.
“That’s not that I meant,” Mother grumbled, though the conviction in her expression had softened. “Matters like these… they are for her father or for the Church to worry about. She needs to focus her studies on more practical subjects. She needs to learn history, and politics, and at least gain a technical understanding of alchemy. Unless she’s planning
to replace Narkissa and rule at Rhauk, this growing interest she has with the dark is fruitless. At least her poetry obsession works her mind. The arts are a noble pursuit.”
“You’re not doing them any favors, protecting them from the world,” Taa said, her back still turned. She put one book away, then grabbed another, then another, reading through both of their back covers at the same time.
Mother humphed. “Ahjur, do you remember that time when Dina helped the King’s Guard find those women selling fake vampire teeth to the townspeople?”
“Ahhh,” Taa said, setting her staff against one of the wooden shelves.
“Dina helped the King’s Guard?” Iris asked.
Mother cautioned with her hands. “This was two years ago. The King’s Guard was looking for a group of fake merchants swindling the most gullible of folk in Center Chaya’s marketplace. They were pedaling fake vampire teeth to the townspeople. Dina happened to be there with Cecily. She tracked down the four old ladies involved in less than twenty minutes.”
“Incredible!” Yephi yelled.
“Yes, it would have been,” Mother said. She paused for a moment.
“Except that seven hours later the King’s Guard found four old ladies and a young Chayan princess pedaling fake vampire teeth to the townspeople.”
Iris giggled. Yephi howled.
“This is why I want to be like Dina,” Yephi said, pointing with a finger. “Because she can pull off something like that.”
I stifled a laugh, deciding I would probably make it worse if I tried to defend myself.
Taa turned around. “Sheika, do you remember when you were your daughter’s age? The truths you had already understood about the world? The things you had already seen?”
Mother went quiet. She traded a serious look with Taa, then her eyes went downcast.
I sat on the table next to the telescope, placed my own bowl on top of a book, then began eating. Yephi joined a few seconds later, sharing the top half of the book.
There was silence as everyone ate, save for the occasional chewing and gulping. The goat was soft and supple, the beef tender and peppered with spice. The bones were crunchy and brittle, and tasted like solid fat. Rich, pulpy, and lined with beads of lentils. The salt, erakah, added the most flavor—a pink crystalline seasoning you had to keep in large chunks or it wouldn’t release its heat. This was a Panbin stew recipe except for the salt. Erakah came from the Goldsnow Caverns underneath the Castle Plains, where more than a dozen man and Serpentine tribes made their homes. There was a similar recipe in Chaya, but made with fish instead of meat and dry beans instead of spiced lentil. This was one of the few things that Panbin had over us. Their spices and foods could burn the pockets of your mouth and keep your nasal cavities numb for days.
Mother was the first to finish, and the first to break the silence.
“The stories that talk about how people find Saythana are more varied and wild than the ones that try to explain his origins.” Her tone had a measure of resignation in it. She held a hand out. “You have to offer him the heart of a daemon.” She held her other hand out. “You have to offer him a thousand pounds of gold.” She cupped both hands together. “You have to say a spell. Command the old magic. Summon a storm.”
“Most of those are old wives’ tales,” Taa said. She pinched the air, like she was picking a detail out of Mother’s words. “Though one of the things you mention might have a semblance of truth in it.”
“Everything related to him is an old wives’ tale,” Mother scoffed. “The archives of each kingdom know nothing. The histories of the guilds know nothing. Even the Church knows nothing. Less than the Sisterhood.”
Taa drew a careful breath. “Perhaps.”
I set my bowl of stew down, half-eaten. I chewed the sides of my cheeks, hoping Yephi and Iris wouldn’t notice that I had stopped because of the spice. I could go on later, but I needed a break. A few minutes at the very least.
I wanted to prod for more details in a direct manner, but sensing that I was walking a fine line, I settled for trying to coax Mother and Taa to continue on their own.
“The semblance of a truth?” I looked away and wiped at my eye as casually as I could—partly because of the shame in not being able to keep up with my sisters, and partly to keep Mother from warning Taa about cooking foods this spicy. Yephi was snarling as she swallowed mouthfuls of meat and bones without bothering to chew. Iris, despite her delicate manners and self-conscious style of eating, had her head so close to her bowl she could have done away with her spoon entirely. I kept my spoon in my hands, ready to dig back in, in case Mother glanced this way. As unbearable as the stew was, my tongue would demand more of it in a few minutes. That’s how it always went. I needed this spice. This feeling of pain and suffering. I thrived in it, and I would not let Mother take it away. This was the kind of spice you cooked if you were a sadist, and that you ate if you were a masochist.
Taa pulled out a sheaf of tobacco from her shawl. She took the smoking bowl she always left in my room, a makeshift tool she had fashioned from a coconut, and settled back by the window’s ledge. She had one of these placed in every other chamber in the palace, sometimes in questionable locations. She had used the head of one of Iris’s dolls once. Cecily had to spend three days sewing it back together. Taa snuffed out the sunlamps near her and lit a candle, carrying the ember at the tip of her fingers. She didn’t like to be near alchemical lights when she smoked. She began to spread packets of sweet tobacco along the top of the bowl, pulling apart the melon-colored leaves with careful hands. Tiny splotches of her stew stained the top of her shawl, but they were already fading. In a few more minutes, they would be gone entirely. Not even a trace of their scent would remain. The mist outside, now gathering around the fringes of the palace, cloaked her reflection in the window.
“Do you know where poetry comes from, ayetha?” Taa asked. A chunk of her tobacco spilled over the top of the bowl into the pool of water inside. Her head twitched left and right as she glared at the wasted leaves.
“From the old magic,” I answered. “Before alchemy existed. Witches would try to put the rhythmic way the old magic beat across their bodies into words. The thoughts that ran though them, the things they’d see and feel. People thought these were spells, but really, the words themselves had no power. They were just a form of expression. The Church started the study of poetry as a means to try and understand the old magic. To see if they could use it for alchemy.”
“And naturally, they learned nothing.” Taa finished packing the top of her bowl, then cupped her hand over it to smooth out the edges. She cracked the window open with her other hand. The wind whistled through the tiny gap and ropes of mist trailed inside my room. “But poetry, or a song, a hymn, something of that sort… that is the common thread in all the stories of Saythana.”
“Poetry?” I asked.
“Serpentine tales speak of a spell to summon Saythana. An old and powerful one. A song or a poem of sorts. But people have looked for evidence of this for centuries, and we’ve found nothing.” She flicked her hand to the window. “The Sisterhood has several accounts of children in different parts of history who have seen Saythana in their childhood. Always girls. And in more than half the cases, there is a note of talent in music or poetry or something of that sort.” She flicked her hand to the window again. Her shoulders were tense. Restless eyes flashed across the room. She lit her bowl.
Sit. Smoke. Stand. Stretch. Breathe. She’d repeat that routine every ten minutes now, until the tobacco finished.
Taa exhaled a cloud of orange smoke. “But if skill in words or crafting poetry or songs or singing or music were the key, then all the great musicians and poets in the world should have seen the Dream Weaver one time or another. But that’s not the case, is it? Despite having all the evidence of a common thread running through most of our accounts of Saythana, we still don’t really have a convincing explanation for how he comes about. Nothing that we can say with more than the
certainty of an educated guess.”
“What does the Church say?” I asked.
Taa exhaled another cloud, then stood. She crossed her right arm over her chest and pulled on a joint until a loud snap cracked through the air. The lines of her face softened. She laughed. The deliberate and delayed kind of laugh that gave you the impression she was several steps ahead of you in a conversation.
“The Church says that it is the devil himself who comes to children in the dead of the night and whispers to them the words and rhymes that bring Saythana back to this world. The words that wake him and draw him out from the nether.” She looked away and pulled her arms around her neck, like she was confessing a secret to herself as she spoke. Mist and orange smoke boiled around her shape.
Taa sat back down, leaning once more against the windowsill comfortably. She lowered her voice, speaking between puffs of her sweet tobacco. “These words, the words that the devil whispers, that witches sing, that poets write—the Church refers to them as The Satanic Verses.”
“Ahjur, you’re scaring me,” Mother said. “I had never thought about that.” She turned to me, holding her thumb and pinky together in a warding sign. “Dina, I’ve changed my mind. No more poetry for you. You’ll find new hobbies. Become the world champion in chutrang or something.”
“Yuweh knows she could do it, too,” Taa remarked airily.
“Dina is too in love with words to do anything else,” Iris said. “Even if she is good at everything.” She set her spoon down on her empty bowl with a clang, then wiped her face using Mother’s sleeve. Mother gave her a revolted look but didn’t stop her. Within the confines of her own family, Iris could sometimes stray toward Yephi-esque habits.
“Except alchemy,” Yephi noted. She raised her head and suddenly stiffened, quickly turning to me. Her lips were brown and red. Flakes of pepper and beef clung to her cheeks. She was sitting with her back facing the lamps. Moonlight granted an animal cast to her expression. “Uhhh… I mean… not that it’s important to be good at alchemy or anything. I was just saying—”
Vermilion Dreams (Book One of A Vampire Fantasy Epic) Page 30