Alisiyad

by Sarah R. Suleski

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t know anything, except that he’s a very bad man.” Eliasha turned her back to him and pretended to start reading the book. “And it’s such a terribly tedious subject, anyway.”

  Hmm . . . . “Okay. So . . . uh, who’s the king now, by the way? Or is Arl— your grandfather in charge?”

  She looked at him with a puzzled frown. “You really are quite in the dark, aren’t you? Haven’t they told you anything?”

  “About what?”

  “Leeton is still the king, of course. He lives in Varaneshe. Grandfather is only Mayor of Elharan.” She flipped a page over in the book without looking at it. “Do you not know why you are here?”

  “I have no idea why I’m anywhere,” Russ tried to say with as little appearance of concern as possible. “But I just thought . . . you said . . . ‘nearly a hundred’ years. He’d be very old right now.”

  “He is. They all are. But perhaps I should not be telling you this, if they have not told you themselves.” Eliasha drew her shawl tightly around her shoulders and looked out the open doorway.

  “Tell me what?”

  “Anything, I suppose.” She was regarding him with a new sense of suspicion. “You did drink from the Chaiorra, did you not?”

  “Yes. I mean, no. No, yes. Yes.” Russ shook his head. He’d always hated “did-you-nots.”

  “That’s what has them arguing more than anything.” Eliasha quieted. “They have plans for you, then.”

  “What plans?”

  She titled her head to the side, and smiled faintly. “I don’t know.” She turned around again and flipped another page. “Ask them.”

  “Okay.” He stood up and shrugged. Don’t stop, you’re onto something! But he didn’t want to push her. “So . . . um . . . who is that statue of?”

  Eliasha looked up at the statue’s face. “That’s Aysha. Of course. I told you this is Aysha’s Memorial,” she returned her gaze to him, and broke out into a smile again. The serious mood seemed to lift effortlessly. “Everything in here is Aysha’s. Or was. Things she owned, things she made. She wrote this book,” she laid a hand on the open pages. “It is a history of Adayzjia, her homeland. She wanted to remember it. Actually, this is a copy Halla made. The one done in her hand is in Varaneshe.”

  “Who was Aysha?” Russ peered at the statue.

  “The Queen, and Grandfather’s sister. Come, look at this, it’s my favorite.” She shut the book and beckoned him over to the back of the room. “See,” she said, pointing to one of the paintings, “this one is so beautiful. I’ve tried to paint, but I’ll never be as good as she was.”

  “What’s it of?” asked Russ, standing back at a comfortable distance and peering over her shoulder.

  “It’s called ‘Sorrow of the Moon Goddess’; it’s a picture of the goddess Aldia crying from her prison in the moon.” She touched the canvas.

  “Oh . . . yeah.” Russ tried to sound like it made perfect sense. He nodded. It looked like an anemic woman in a torn silvery colored dress, sobbing with her head on the lap of another woman in a light blue dress. They were both floating against the dark backdrop, just like the other family, but there was a whitish glow around them that could symbolize either holiness or the moon. Or electricity. “So what’s that one?”

  “That’s Alisiya, keeper of the heavens. She’s comforting her sister.” Eliasha caressed the painted hair of Alisiya, then stepped back and looked at the picture with her hands clasped at her throat. “I’ve always wished I could hang this one in my room. Or copy it.”

  She spun around and looked at him, hands still clasped. Her face was very young and fresh and earnest all of a sudden. “I love going out at night in the moonlight. It’s so beautiful. And the story of Aldia is my favorite, I think about her when the moon is full, and you can see her face in it, and it makes the water glow milky white . . . . She’s been trapped there for thousands of years, apart from her husband and children. It just makes me want to cry, and—” She stopped. Russ had been trying not to look extremely uncomfortable with her recitation, but she started to laugh, and turned away. “I’ve said too much. It’s very improper, not to mention bad manners, to chatter a strange man’s ear off about the moonlight.”

  “It’s okay. You like the story. What happened? I was reading about it in the book, said that Azmanvalli was pi . . . sorely . . . ticked off.” Russ scrambled to remember the page he’d read. No wonder the book had fallen open to that spot so naturally.

  “Oh . . . her father, great and mighty sun god that he was, made them stay apart. He locked Aldia away in the sky, in the moon, and he fought against Auchai to keep her there.” Eliasha waved her hands a little as she rattled off the familiar information. “Zalisha was angry with her husband, so she had an affair with a human, but Azmanvalli killed him. She had a baby afterwards and named him Erykumi. And that’s where we come from. My family.”

  She had started to lose him when she went off about Zalisha. “I thought it was a story,” he replied, latching onto the last part. “You know, like . . . mythology. Gods and goddesses.”

  “It’s history.” Eliasha shook her head. “Ancient history, but it happened. Otherwise we wouldn’t be here! You see, when Erykumi was born, Azmanvalli made him live as a servant, instead of as a son of the Queen Goddess. Erykumi gravitated toward the children of Aldia and Auchai because they were his own age, and also because they were all four products of forbidden unions. And that was how it had always been with their descendants, right up until Aysha wrote that book. The Erykumyn were the right hands of the Powers, the—” she paused, “—you’re confused, aren’t you?”

  He scratched his head, and tried not to itch the scab on his jaw. “A little. But what you’re telling me is that you’re descended from . . . gods.” Russ glanced over at the painting of the woman holding the fiery ball.

  “Yes. Oh! That’s right, they said that you’re a peasant.” Eliasha took a step closer to him, smiling in that dangerous way again. “In your world you’re a serving boy at an inn.”

  Who cares. ’Bout sums it up. “Yeah, sure.”

  “I have gods and goddesses in my ancestry.” She grinned, holding her hands up in a demur shrug.

  A light clicked on in his head. “Is that why . . . oh . . . is that why your grandfather and the rest look so young?”

  She laughed. “No!” She smiled as if it were a terribly cute idea, but ridiculous. “They are special in their own right.”

  He opened his mouth to ask why, but she turned and broke off on a different subject, “Not everything in here is Aysha’s, I left my guitar sitting in here this morning. That’s why I came back — I’m so scatterbrained to have forgotten why I’m here.” She breathed out another laugh. Before she picked up the instrument she whipped her scarf from her shoulders and draped it over her head. Then she picked up the heavier blue shawl from the bench and slung it over her back, clasping it at her throat in a quick, habitual movement. It was warm outside; Russ wondered why she needed all the draperies.

  She looked different all covered up — younger, more innocent, like a portrait of the Virgin Mary. Eeesh. He’d spent too much time inspecting paintings for one day. Eliasha walked back up to him with the guitar under her arm. “Do you want to know why I wasn’t there to greet you like a proper lady of the house should?” she asked.

  “If you wanna tell me . . . .”

  “Well, it’s a great secret.” She nodded, heading for the door. “Come along and I’ll tell you.”

  “If it’s a secret—”

  “Can’t you keep a secret?”

  “Yeah, but—”

  “Good. Don’t worry, I won’t tell you all my secrets; just the fun one.” She stopped out on the path with her hand on the knob. “After all, I know one of yours already.”

  “What?” He gulped, feeling his face turn hot as he quickly cycled through everything he didn’t want people to know.

  “That you drank from the Chaiorra. They’re
going to tell you not to tell anyone.” She nodded. “Come, I’m not going to just shut you in there.”

  Russ remembered what Halla had said to Liseli that morning. He stepped out after her. “Actually, they already did . . . .”

  “Just so.” She nodded, swinging the door shut. “Well, you see, I’m not allowed outside my grandfather’s grounds alone, without a chaperone or guard. But—” she motioned for him to lean in conspiratorially, “—there is an old crack eroding the outer wall, which I can use to leave the very city without anyone knowing.”

  “Isn’t that dangerous?” asked Russ.

  “My grandfather would think so. That is why it’s my secret, he would close the crack up if he knew. Right now it’s covered in ivy and close to the ground. The river runs by only a few dozen yards away.” She waved her free arm to the west. “I go there when the moon is full, because the Chaiorra turns white, like I said. It’s the most beautiful thing to see.”

  Russ thought about it for a moment, then nodded. He could imagine what she meant, though he knew for a fact that water didn’t look like milk under the moon. He realized he wasn’t surprised to hear that the Chaiorra did.

  “Bend down again, I shall tell you something else,” she said, wiggling her fingers. Her smile made Russ nervous, but he leaned in again. She kissed him loudly on the cheek, then began to giggle wickedly when he turned red and took a couple steps back. “You should see yourself!” She pointed. “Oh my word. It’s too perfect.”

  “It’s not funny.” He straightened his shoulders and tried to look dignified, resisting the urge to reach up and touch the wet spot on his cheek. You’re older than her, she’s a minor and she acts like one. It was obviously a joke to her. He frowned. “You shouldn’t go around kissing strangers. God. That’s a good way to get in serious trouble,” he said, and she mimicked his serious face before subsiding into giggles again. He rolled his eyes and studied the trees.

  “I know,” said Eliasha after a moment, with one last giggle. “It’s shockingly bold.” She began heading down the pathway to the main walk. “But you have to admit that you just beg to be teased. I can’t help it. You keep holding your breath like I’m going to bite you, so I had to.”

  “Look, it really isn’t funny,” he insisted. “You don’t know me.”

  “Oh, psh. I’ve seen enough. You couldn’t hurt a fly or take advantage of a girl if she begged you to.” Eliasha waved her hand.

  I could, too, he thought, but didn’t voice it. “I meant that you shouldn’t make a habit of it. If I was your grandfather I’d be worr—”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake!” She stopped. “How old are you?”

  “Twenty.”

  She shook her head. “Is everyone in your world this horribly serious about everything? Do you have no youth?”

  “Lots. But, you know, I am an adult. And you’re under eighteen. You shouldn’t have kissed me.” I have a girlfriend already. He couldn’t say that because it wasn’t true . . . but he wanted to. He would tell Eliasha that, if she wasn’t going to be meeting Liseli soon.

  “I’m an adult.” She straightened her shoulders and tilted her head back proudly, thrusting out her bosom. “I came of age two years ago. And I could even be married now if my grandfather wasn’t such a horrible old . . . mushroom!”

  Russ thought back to Arlic, and tried to make the description fit, but it didn’t work. “Well, in my world you’re just a kid.”

  “And you’re a horrible old mushroom.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Well, you are overreacting. I didn’t mean anything by it, so stop agonizing.” She had her nose in the air. “You act as if it makes me a slattern.”

  “Listen, that’s not it. I just . . . look . . . if my . . . I have . . . .” He raised his hands helplessly and blurted out what he was really thinking about; “You shouldn’t kiss me, Liseli kisses me!” Kissed, you moron. One lousy time. Moron.

  “Ooooh,” her voice took on a sly, catlike purr, and she nodded. “I see. The other one. I forgot. She’s the jealous kind?”

  He paused. Generally . . . that was probably a true statement. “Very, very jealous,” he said, hoping to put some fear of Liseli in her. “Just . . . just really jealous, y’know?”

  “Mm-hm. You needn’t worry,” she smiled, “I won’t tell on you.”

  “On me—? Hey—” he broke off when she started laughing again. Now he was afraid that she would make up something terrible to tell to Liseli. She wouldn’t dare. No, not after meeting Liseli. She’d be too scared of . . . damn; this girl wasn’t scared of anything. He shook his head. I’m in deep shit. Then he wondered if, even worse, Liseli might not even care.

  Russ wished again for pockets, because if he could he would have shoved his hands deep inside them and looked as surly as possible. He knew he would probably only make Eliasha laugh some more. Look indifferent. “Good, ’cause she’d eat you alive first and I might get away with it,” he said.

  She smiled, unconvinced. “Do you know, if she really is as insanely jealous as you say, she will be upset when she learns we met in the garden alone. So you’re already in trouble, and you may as well enjoy it.”

  “Great.”

  “I’ll show you where that crack is in the wall, if you would like.” She resumed walking.

  “Alright.” He didn’t think it would look all that interesting, but knowing where it was might be handy. “Why are you gonna show this to me? Aren’t you afraid I might tell your grandfather and he’ll close it up?”

  Eliasha glanced over her shoulder. “No. I’ve never dared show anyone before, but you’re different.”

  There it was again. Russ had always wanted to be “different,” whatever that meant, but doubted very much that he was. He had fallen into something different. “Thanks, but you don’t really know me, so—”

  “I’ve always wanted to show someone,” she cut him off. “You’re an otherworlder, and you broke into the memorial; I thought you would like this sort of secret to keep. If I made a mistake it’s too late now, isn’t it?”

  He shrugged. “I wasn’t gonna tell, anyway.”

  “Good. Come along.”

  Chapter 9 ~ Eliasha, part 3

  They walked out of the wood and crossed an open lawn before reaching the outer wall. It was grown over with ivy and climbing plants, some of them flowering in the late afternoon sun. An old tree grew nearly up against the wall, coming short of the top. Eliasha went over to it and bent down, pulling leaves and vines away from the wall near its base. “See?” she said, “the roots of the tree have grown under the wall and weakened it. I chipped away at it a bit, and now there’s a crack large enough to fit through. But you wouldn’t see it unless you were looking for it.”

  “Huh.” Russ bent over and peered at the crack. “Kinda narrow.”

  “Yes, but I can get through it. Let me show you.” She set her guitar down on a bench under the tree, and took off her shawls, dropping them over the instrument. Russ coughed and glanced at the ground and her bare shoulders appeared again. “You have to bend over backwards a bit,” she said as she demonstrated; “it’s a little like sliding under a fence. And the ivy . . . gets in the way . . . but . . . there . . . .” She squeezed through the crack expertly, disappearing for a moment. Then she reached back to lift up the ivy and lean through, peering in at him. “It’s really quite easy. Would you like to try?”

  Russ hesitated. At first it seemed harmless, but then he got the unsettling feeling that she was leading him somewhere, for a reason she wasn’t saying . . . . Why show your secret escape route to someone you’ve just met? Especially when that someone was him . . . . There was something else going on. There had to be. She was awfully . . . bold . . . and only seventeen, anyway. She took her fun with him a little too far. And he shouldn’t even be standing there like he was, staring down the neckline of a seventeen-year-old’s dress. He glanced away. And Liseli . . . how would he explain to Liseli that he’d been running around outside the city with
Eliasha? Best not.

  “It’s probably too narrow for me,” he said, taking a step back.

  She shifted the ivy and cocked her head to the side, smiling at him with her eyes glittering in amusement. “I don’t think so. Come, I’ll show you the places I like to go. There is some beautiful countryside out here.”

  “Seen it.” He looked up at the tree and cleared his throat nervously.

  “Oh psh.” She wiggled the ivy leaves playfully. “I’ll show you things you probably didn’t notice coming here.”

  He shrugged. “I just don’t think it’s a very good idea.”

  She sighed. “You are very uptight. You come from the land of Uptightia.” She stuck out her tongue and then backed out again, letting the ivy drop over the crack. He could still hear her voice, taunting; “Uptightia, where no one knows how to have any fun, and a man can’t so much as look at a girl without being struck by lighting and having his eyes fall out. Where twenty-year-olds act like old men, and there probably aren’t any real old men because you all die of ulcers by the time you are thirty. Where you are afraid of your sweethearts and feel guilty just talking to other girls. Where you think it’s all right to go around breaking locks and snooping where you ought not to be, unless a girl wants to show you something. Where—”

  Russ tried to stop listening. He sat down on the bench with his arms crossed and stared at the path ahead. He didn’t bother telling her that Liseli wasn’t even his “sweetheart,” because that would only amuse her more. So I make a good laughingstock. If Liseli had a sense of humor like this kid she probably would be my sweetheart. Ha. Haha.

  He gingerly lifted the corner of her discarded cape, and pulled the guitar out from underneath. He plucked the strings experimentally, fiddled with the tuning knobs, and strummed it a couple times. It was a nice instrument . . . well made . . . pretty nice . . . . He started to play a tune on it, and was gratified to hear Eliasha fall silent.