The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  With such of my wealth as I was able to carry with me, I purchased a little sheep farm. The barn, as I’ve said, has been turned into a storeroom, and the house expanded so that all of us can live in comfort and in decency. The people hereabouts find us curious, but I have made donations to Vahu’s shrine and to the repair of the public fountains, and we are tolerated, if not accepted. We own a pair of goats and a flock of chickens, and we have a little garden, which Ha-tsun and I tend; I’ve learned to perform all manner of domestic tasks, and my hands are as rough now as a laborer’s, my nails ingrained with dirt. In truth I take pleasure in the simplicity of this labor, which carries no great significance, which requires no great exercise of judgment, which when it is done is simply done and leaves no residue of triumph or regret.

  I tried as I could to shield Utamnos from the conflict in Faal, but he could not help but be aware of it, and suffered as children do when they are swept up in affairs beyond their understanding. He was bewildered at first by the changes in the way we live, but with the resilience of the young adapted quickly. He looks like a peasant boy now, brown and sturdy, his feet hard from running barefoot in the summer. He remembers the ceremony and luxury of Baushpar, but only as one might recall a dream.

  He is no peasant child, however. I am teaching him to know himself. His memories wait in the storeroom; soon he will be old enough to study them, and to begin his own record. At some point, I suppose I will have to consider going to Rimpang, where Kudrâcari and Dâdar and Ariamnes and Okhsa and Ciryas and young Sonrida have set up a diminished version of the council, and declared Kudrâcari the Blood Bearer. I know that none of them will welcome me. But Utamnos should know his spirit-siblings.

  Well. That is not a decision I need to make just yet.

  Kudrâcari, by the way, is said to wear a necklace identical to our father’s, containing the authentic Blood. It is certainly the third crystal, the one Gyalo Amdo Samchen brought out of the Burning Land, which according to Taxmârata vanished when she and the others fled Baushpar. Crafty Kudrâ. I’ll wager it was not any dread of Râvar that spurred her flight; I think she planned a coup all along, though I don’t suppose she imagined any circumstance in which her claim would go uncontested.

  Although not quite uncontested. Not content with his victory in Faal, Taxmârata has become a proselytizer of sorts, traveling from monastery to nunnery to temple preaching the dissolution of the church. Reanu saw him in Fantzon, and heard him speak. He goes, apparently, in considerable luxury (having not neglected to bring with him from Baushpar much of his personal wealth), surrounded by a large company of Tapati. With him is little Athiya, who has been given back his birth name and is being raised in ignorance of his nature. Ah, the bitter anger that shakes me as I write of it! As yet, Taxmârata and Kudrâcari challenge only one another’s works: She has issued a proclamation denying the coming of the Messenger, and endeavors to counter the spread of dissolution even as he labors to further it. No doubt there will one day be a more open confrontation.

  The rest of my spirit-siblings—Karuva and Gaumârata, blind Haminâser and faithful Idrakara, Magabyras, Vimâta and little Ivaxri, my dear malicious Martyas, my beloved Hysanet and young Rukhsane, and cowardly, treacherous Vivaniya—are scattered to the winds. I know not where they are.

  What else? In Arsace, Hathrida and his supporters outmaneuvered the queen and hers, and he was crowned King just over a year ago. He is not the ruler his brother was, and has not been able to foster unity within the fractious Lords’ Assembly. Already there are signs that Arsace may split along ancient provincial lines, and rumor has it that Chonggye is preparing to reclaim the Sinha region, which Arsace annexed four hundred years ago.

  Both false Messengers sought to strip Baushpar of its holiness. But for those who follow the heretical new faith, it is still a place of pilgrimage. Reanu, who has visited it, says that the city itself is deserted, but a transients’ town has sprung up in what were once the manita fields, with hostels for pilgrims and a so-called temple of rata Awake—cylindrical like the old temples, but open to the sky, with no image of the god inside—and the usual array of brothels and taverns and cookshops and stalls selling overpriced religious trinkets. “It’s disgusting,” Reanu said, but I only shrugged. Baushpar is dead, beautiful Baushpar with its lotus domes, its shrines and temples, its incense and its bells. What does it matter what people do there now?

  As yet there are no rumors of apostasy, or at least none that Reanu has heard. I am certain they will come.

  Of Gyalo Amdo Samchen—of any living man calling himself the Messenger—there is no word at all. I don’t understand it, and wonder if he met some mishap working in the ruins. Or perhaps he is only biding his time. The rage that fills me when I think of him is as bitter, as consuming, as on the night he spoke to me. Strangely, when I remember that night, it is often Râvar’s face I see looking at me from across the fire. My memory of Râvar, of whom I think far less often, is similarly mutable. But they were united in darkness, and each in a sense gave birth to the other. So perhaps it is not so strange after all.

  It’s to Reanu that I owe all this knowledge. Along with much else. It was he who got us here, he who taught me the ways of the life we now live. Now he brings the world to me, who can no longer go out into it. I rely on him more than I can say. And yet I feel a good deal of guilt, for though I know that he, and Omarau, too, chose exile gladly, it is a much-diminished life I have forced them to lead.

  Recently I steeled myself—for I knew that if they accepted, it would be the first in a series of steps that would lead them away from me forever—I offered to release him and Omarau from their ratist vows.

  “You are still young men,” I told him. “You could marry, raise families. You’ve sacrificed so much. It seems to me that you should have this, if you desire it.”

  He shook his head. He has let his hair grow out; it hangs now to the middle of his back, black and glossy. Omarau wears a beard to hide his tattoos, but Reanu goes proudly clean-shaven.

  “I don’t desire it, Old One.” Like Ha-tsun, he refuses to stop using my title.

  “Reanu.” I put down my knife. We were in the kitchen, and I was peeling onions for the evening meal. “At least consider it. This shell of mine won’t live forever. I can’t bear to think that you will end your life alone.”

  “I won’t be alone. When your spirit leaves the body you wear now, I and the Son Utamnos will seek you out in your new form. Old One, don’t ask this of me. Please.”

  “This is the end.” I had never given voice to this before, and it shocked me a little, how easy it was to say. “The false Messenger succeeded. The church is gone. You serve a lost cause.”

  “I serve rata.” His eyes were fierce. “And you.”

  He got up from the table where he was sitting. He came and fell on his knees in front of me, and took my hands, my rough hands pungent with onions, and laid his face in them. I felt his breath on my palms, the flutter of his closed eyelids. I shut my own eyes. I shall not say what it was I felt.

  There it is, then. Two years, disposed of in the same number of pages, where once I took twice that to record the events of a single day. It seems there is less to chronicle than I thought.

  I know now the meaning of my dream, my dream of mirrors, which has not come to me in all the time since Baushpar fell. I stand apart from my spirit-siblings more fully than I ever imagined I might do. I have scattered the mirrors of my lives most thoroughly. Despite Reanu’s promise, who will find me once my spirit leaves this shell?

  Still, life goes on. Sometimes at sunset, or in another moment when the beauty of existence overwhelms me, I wonder how it is that so much change has left the world so unaltered. At other times I wonder whether there has been any change at all, beyond the predictable convulsions of human history. Did rata rise? Is the Messenger yet to come? Or does the god sleep still? Was all that happened only human folly?
r />   Sometimes I question more than this, questions that strike at the very roots of my being and are too fearful to write down. At such times I feel myself unraveling, as if my life, which always seemed such a solid and seamless thing, were no more than thread wrapped on a spool. I’ve begun to wonder how much the certainties I cherished owed to the structure of my existence—the rituals, the teaching and the journals, the apparatus of rule, the reinforcement of my Brothers’ and Sisters’ belief—rather than to what rises from within: real faith, true knowledge.

  I even wonder, sometimes, if I will be born again.

  If I ever was.

  Let that be my final confession.

  Utamnos is calling. Soon I will go down and join the flow of life again.

  The Darxasa says: Dwell not in dread upon the morrow, for none may say what morning will bring forth. Turn not to yesterday in regret, for none can change the night that has already passed. Abide in the day, and be content.

  It is as good a thought as any, I suppose, on which to end.

  Glossary

  DRAMATIS PERSONAE

  Gyalo Amdo Samchen—A former vowed ratist, now a free Shaper

  Axane—Gyalo’s wife, a Dreamer, formerly of Refuge

  Chokyi—Axane’s daughter by Râvar

  Ciri—Gyalo’s and Axane’s neighbor

  Teispas dar Ispindi—Exile captain of the rescue expedition to the Burning Land, in which Gyalo was a participant; now deceased

  Diasarta dar Abanish—A former Exile soldier, companion to Gyalo

  Râvar—A Shaper, formerly of Refuge—the false Messenger

  Ardashir dar Adrax (the First Disciple)—Râvar’s second-in-command

  Zabrades—One of Râvar’s followers

  Sariya—One of Râvar’s followers

  Cina—One of Râvar’s followers

  Gaubanita—A citizen of Râvar’s Awakened City

  Obâna—A citizen of Râvar’s Awakened City

  Narser—A citizen of Râvar’s Awakened City

  Imene—A citizen of Râvar’s Awakened City

  Vikrit—A child of Râvar’s Awakened City

  Santaxma—Present King and liberator of Arsace

  Hathrida—His younger brother

  Cas—One of his secretaries

  Sundit—A Daughter of the Brethren

  Utamnos—A Son, her spirit-ward

  Ha-tsun—Her servant

  Drolma—Her aide, a Shaper

  Rearnu—An ratist ordinate from Kanu-Tapa, captain of her guard

  Omarau—A Tapati guard

  Lopalo—A Tapati guard

  Apui—A Tapati guard

  Mur—A Tapati guard

  Karamsuu—A Tapati guard

  Vivaniya—A Son of the Brethren

  Amchila—His aide, a Shaper

  Yailin—His servant

  Taxmârata, also known as the Blood Bearer—A Son, elected leader of the Brethren

  Athiya—A Son, Taxmârata’s spirit-ward

  Vimâta—A Son

  Ivaxri—A Son, Vimâta’s spirit-ward

  Artavâdhi—A Daughter

  Gaumârata—A Son, Artavâdhi’s spirit-ward

  Haminâser—A Son

  Idrakara—A Son, Haminâser’s spirit-ward

  Baushtas—A Son

  Yarios—A Son, Baushtas’s spirit-ward

  Ariamnes—A Son

  Sonrida—A Son, Ariamnes’s spirit-ward

  Okhsa—A Son

  Hysanet—A Daughter

  Rukhsane—A Daughter, Hysanet’s spirit-ward

  Dâdar—A Son

  Ciryas—A Son, Dâdar’s spirit-ward

  Martyas—A Son

  Kudrâcari—A Daughter

  Magabyras—A Son

  Karuva—A Son, Magabyras’s spirit-ward

  HISTORICAL CHARACTERS

  Marduspida—Prophet of rata, also known as the First Messenger

  Fârat—King of Arsace, first royal convert to ratism

  Vantyas—King of Arsace, leader of the ratist army during the Shaper War

  Caryax—Atheistic Arsacian philosopher and social critic executed for treason

  Voice of Caryax—Leader of the subsequent rebellion based on Caryax’s precepts

  Vandapâya IV—Arsacian king deposed by the Caryaxists

  GODS AND ASPECTS

  rata—The sleeping god, principal deity of the ratist religion

  rdaxcasa—rata’s dark brother and foe, also known as the Enemy

  Dâdarshi—Aspect of rata, patron of luck

  Skambys—Aspect of rata, patron of war and weather

  Hataspa—Aspect of rata, patron of fire and weaponry

  Tane—Aspect of rata, patroness of crops and the moon

  Vahu—Aspect of rata, patron of healing and childbirth

  Jo-Mea—Aspect of rata, patron of travelers

  Inriku—Aspect of rata, patron of wisdom and the arts

  PLACE-NAMES

  Galea—Continent of the Seven Kingdoms, believed by its inhabitants to be the only landmass in the world

  Arsace—Largest and richest of the seven kingdoms, birthplace of the ratist faith

  Baushpar—An Arsacian city, traditional headquarters of the ratist church

  First Temple of rata—rata’s temple in Baushpar, the largest and oldest temple in Galea

  Ninyâser—Arsace’s capital

  Great South Way—A highway built by the Caryaxist regime for transport from Ninyâser to the Burning Land

  Fashir—A town along the Great South Way

  Darna—A garrison city along the Great South Way

  Orimene—A town along the Great South Way

  Sardis—A city along the Great South Way

  Hâras—A town along the Great South Way

  Abaxtra—A city along-the Great South Way

  Dracâriya Hills—A stretch of barren hill country along the Great South Way

  The Hatane—An Arsacian river

  Kanu-Tapa—A kingdom of Galea, known for its martial skills

  Haruko—Another kingdom of Galea, home to a large population of Arsacian refugees from Caryaxist persecution

  Aino—Another kingdom of Galea, home to most Dreamer monasteries and nunneries

  Chonggye—Another kingdom of Galea, refuge of the Brethren during the time of Caryaxist rule in Arsace

  Rimpang—Chonggye’s capital, seat of the Brethren during their Caryaxist exile

  Isar—A non-ratist kingdom of Galea

  Faal—A remote ratist monastery in Isar, in which Gyalo was imprisoned for a time

  Yahaz—A non-ratist kingdom of Galea

  The Burning Land—An enormous, unexplored desert occupying the whole of Galea’s southern portion, sacred to rata, who according to ratist belief lies sleeping there

  Range of Clouds—A vast mountain range that divides the kingdoms of Galea from the Burning Land

  Thuxra Notch—The pass through the Range of Clouds that gives access to the Burning Land

  Thuxra City—A prison built by the atheistic Caryaxist regime at the edges of the Burning Land, as a deliberate desecration of holy ground

  Refuge—Rock-carved settlement of a group of ratist refugees from Caryaxist persecution, located deep in the Burning Land

  Revelation—Refuge’s river

  Plains of Blessing—The grass steppes beyond Refuge

  Labyrinth—Refuge’s living quarters

  Treasury—A complex housing Refuge’s workshops and storehouses

  House of Dreams—Abode of Refuge’s Dreamers

  MISCELLANEOUS TERMS

  ratism (ratist)—Dominant religion of Galea, followed in all but two of the seven kingdoms

  Way of rata—Broad ter
m covering the secular and religious practice of ratism; includes ethical as well as religious precepts

  The Five Foundations—The central credos of ratism: Faith, Affirmation, Increase, Consciousness, and Compassion

  Darxasa—ratism’s holy scripture; the word of the god as dictated to Marduspida, the First Messenger

  Book of the Messenger—ratism’s second scripture; the life story of the First Messenger

  The Next Messenger—Herald of rata’s awakening

  rata’s Promise—Prophecy of the Next Messenger’s coming

  The Brethren—The thirty-five Sons and Daughters of the First Messenger, perpetually reincarnated as leaders of the ratist church. All incarnations born into Arsace during the Caryaxist occupation were lost; only twenty-four incarnations are currently known

  The Brethren’s Covenant—The pact with rata by which the Brethren became immortal

  The Blood Bearer—Elected leader of the Brethren

  Vowed ratist—Men and women sworn to rata’s service

  The Sixfold Vow—The vow they take on ordination: to abjure doubt, ignorance, greed, complacency, pride, and fear, the Six Failings that caused the First Messenger six times to reject rata’s summoning dream

  Dreaming (Dreamer)—The power of true dreaming; according to ratist belief, born into humankind after rata lay down to sleep

  Shaping (Shaper)—The power to form, unform, and transform inanimate matter; according to ratist belief, granted to humankind by rata at creation

  Manita—Plant whose leaves yield a drug that suppresses shaping ability

  Doctrine of Baushpar—Seven-point creed formulated after the Shaper War, defining shaping as the property of the church

  The Shaper War—Ancient conflict in which pagan Shapers, angry at ratist attempts to place limits on shaping’s practice, attempted to eradicate the ratist faith from Galea

  Caryaxism (Caryaxist)—Modern atheistic political movement that came briefly to power in Arsace