by Judith Huang
And she blew out of her nostrils and all the animals of the land formed, galloping with great freedom to all corners of the land, their feet swift and sure, their feet scuttling and leaping and bounding, born to twist in the open air.
And some of them climbed through the forests, and some of them dug and burrowed beneath the ground, and some of them leapt swiftly over the ground to chase or give chase. And each one was of such particular stripe or spot, as to be unique in all the world, each one magnificently formed.
And then she came to a great waterfall, the likes of which she had never seen before, and she stopped to view its majesty, her knees still gripping the sides of the broad back that was the tiger Milton. Out of this I shall make people, she thought, and slid off her mount.
From the red clay of the bank, she formed people, their limbs slender and deft and their eyes made of shining stones plucked from the riverbed, and she carved their faces with her fingers. And again she found herself holding her breath and she let it out into the nostrils of this race of men, so similar to what she had known, and out of the banks they sprang, fully formed, their limbs the colour of the red clay but now made of flesh.
One of them, a child only knee-high, looked up into her face and started laughing, a delighted laugh, gurgling and musical. It pointed a finger at the big round sun that hung in the sky, and then down at the earth, and laughed and laughed as though the most secret joke had been told.
And Sofia laughed too, her heart too full of love and surprise not to join in. It astonished her that this child, made out of mud and stones, had come alive and was now a separate entity, a being that had volition apart from her! And then the whole lot of them came to her wonderingly, and soon they were all laughing, their faces lively and intelligent, registering every sign of pleasure.
And time passed like clouds scudding across the sky, so swiftly that the sun arced over the dome of sky as though drawing its pale aurora, and her people worked and played and laughed by the waterfall that had given them birth. And Sofia saw how they wove the leaves of the coconut tree, raising little bumps upon them in an intricate pattern, and this they did with great interest and ingenuity.
And Sofia loved her people, for they loved her, and whispered their secrets in her ears whenever she alighted from the back of Milton and came among them. They loved to sit in a circle and swap stories, and she found their stories intriguing, for they were all so very new, stories of animals and angels and spirits and trees, stories of their own kind, made from the head and from the heart, many stories all unique to each of them.
It amazed her that such a new people could make up stories and remember them, for soon they came to have favourite stories, ones they liked telling over and over again.
It seemed to her that centuries passed, and she heard more and more strange and wonderful tales around the campfires of the people of this world. There were stories of Sky, and how she first whispered things to them, there were stories of woodcutters and fishermen and strange foreigners who came to their lands from other lands, and there were stories of great cities and civilisations that had risen and fallen thanks to the wisdom of a star, hidden in the depths of a mountain.
There were also stories Sofia saw that were about her: how they had perceived her as an exquisite Fragrance, a Fragrance that had awoken them to consciousness, and that they had studied and sought to imitate.
And when they got together, they brought their woven leaves and rustled them in honour of her, in an intricate new form of music, and they also brought all manner of plants and flowers, which they kept in shells in order to capture their smells, for they wanted to describe to her the way in which she had appeared to them as a fragrance.
And she delighted in these things, keeping them like a row of bottles along the shelf of her heart. And when she did this, and smiled at them, and kissed them, she made them so glad that they stopped whatever they were doing and laughed aloud and danced.
An age seemed to pass in the blink of an eye, and Sofia felt like she had been in this world forever. She had nearly forgotten her own world. But of course, it was still there, waiting for her.
Chapter 10: Hyzid & Leela
Once upon a time, a young man named Hyzid lived in a village by a snaking river that wound its way throughout the land.
Hyzid had lively brown eyes and dark hair that curled around his temples. He was a strong, healthy young man, and he lived a peaceful life with his family, fishing for the jewelled blue crabs in the river by day and weaving coconut fronds to guide his dreams by night.
But Hyzid had a problem. He was in love with Leela, the village chief’s daughter, and she with him, but the village chief would not hear of granting her hand in marriage so easily.
“Whoever marries my daughter Leela will become the next village chief,” said the chief, “and so he must be found worthy of the position. Therefore, since my daughter is of age, I will hold a competition open to all the young men in the village: whoever brings me the most jewelled blue crabs caught from the river in the next three days will win the hand of my daughter and be named my successor when I am old and feeble. At the end of those three days, we will feast on the crabs, and it will be decided, for that will be her wedding day.”
All the young men of the village were excited, for who did not want the hand of Leela, who was bright and beautiful and a wonderful girl? And who did not want the honour of winning the title of the best crab catcher of his age? And who did not want to succeed the village chief when he grew old, and rule over all the village?
“I will surely win,” said Kouza, a tall, broad-shouldered youth who also had his eyes on Leela. “For it is well known that the crab traps that my family makes, which my grandmother taught my father, and which my father taught me to make, are the best in the whole village. And so I will catch the most, the largest and juiciest jewelled blue crabs for the feast, and win the hand of Leela, the village chief’s daughter.”
“No, I will win the hand of Leela,” said Neam, a tanned, dark-haired young man who was the same age as Hyzid. “For everybody knows that my family owns the land by the most fertile bend of the river, where the jewelled blue crabs congregate, and it will be my catch that will be the biggest. I will become the next village chief, and I’d like to see anyone else say otherwise!”
At this, Hyzid was cast into gloom, for it was no false boast that Kouza and Neam made—Kouza’s family’s crab traps really were the best in the village, and Neam’s family did live on the land by the river bend where the biggest number of crabs seemed to be caught, and he had no such advantage over either of them. What could he do? He didn’t want to lose Leela to either one.
When night fell, he met Leela secretly in the forest behind the village.
“You know very well your father will marry you off to whoever catches the most jewelled blue crabs,” he said to her.
“Yes, he will,” said Leela, indignantly. “I have no idea how he came up with such an idea. Of course, I want to marry you, not whoever just happens to catch the most jewelled blue crabs in three days! It will simply have to be you,” she said, eyeing Hyzid, “for my father is stubborn as an old water buffalo, and nothing I say to him will change his mind.”
“But what if it’s not me?” asked Hyzid. “What if Kouza wins, or Neam? Or any one of the other young men in the village?”
“There must be a way,” said Leela. “Don’t you know how to direct your dreams with the weaving of the fronds? You must plead your case to the goddess Sofia, who is the patroness of all matters of power and love, and surely she will help you in your dreams,” she said. “Nobody weaves as skilfully as you.”
“Yes, I shall do that,” said Hyzid, thoughtfully. “But what if I still fail? Will you still love me then?”
“I will give you a token of my love,” said Leela, reaching for a stone around her neck, a sparkling yellow stone with many facets that glinted in the light. She pressed it into his hands.
“I promise that I will
love you even if you do not win. And I pledge that if you do not, I will still come away with you. But you must try your best, for my father will want the one I marry to take over the village in his stead, and it would be most irresponsible for us to run away. I would much rather you win fair and square, and marry me honourably, then you and I will be able to rule this village wisely and well.”
And so, that night, when Hyzid lay his head down on his mat, he fingered the bumps in it. The raised reds and pinks jumped out at him even in the dim light of the hut while the yellows blended into the fresh green of the undyed coconut leaves. He took out the coconut leaves and began to weave a fresh mat for himself.
His people believed that the mats, which they slept on, guided the dreams of the sleeper. He wove in powerful reds that denoted the goddess and her scents, yellows for a journey that would take him to his destination, and blues for the shells of the jewelled crabs. He prayed that the goddess Sofia would guide his dreams down to the right streams that night and help him to discover how to catch the most jewelled blue crabs for the village chief’s feast.
Hyzid threw a glance at the small carved figure of the goddess in the corner of his house and prayed to her before shutting his eyes. “Oh goddess, sweet goddess Sofia, come to my aid… Teach me how to win my love, for the fate of the village lies with you…”
Then he felt his body relax and let himself drift off into the realms of dream. Hyzid pulled his face out of his head and the rest of his body peeled neatly away from the sleeping form beneath.
This was how Hyzid knew he was asleep—his body was more of a spirit and did not follow the motions of his mind. He was in a room filled with tiny bottles ranged in little holes all across the walls. Some glinted with a red juice, some with green and yellow juices. His spirit-body floated towards one of the red bottles and uncapped it gently with his left hand.
A waft of the purest perfume spread into the air. It smelled of white flowers and rain and orchids and the deep dark forests. As he breathed the fragrance in, the room before him melted and turned into the banks of a river, flowing pinkly into the horizon. Ghost crabs drifted lazily at the bottom of the clear river, and Hyzid wanted desperately to catch them with his bare hands, they seemed to drift so close to the surface. But the moment he plunged his hands into the river, they drifted farther away, and the river seemed to grow deeper than it had been before.
I must go where the river is shallower, he thought, and as he did, he felt the crabs brush his fingers. He grasped a crab, and in his hands it morphed into a golden bird, its wingspan wide and magnificent. He could not hold on to it, and it flew away. In disbelief he turned back to the river, but it had turned blue and the crabs had all morphed into birds, fluttering their way through the air.
The golden bird was a good sign. It was a sign that the goddess was listening to his dream and may manifest in it. He ran after the golden bird, in the direction that it had flown away, leading the flock of crab-birds that followed in its wake. As he ran he felt the heat of the red sun on his back, and realised that as he ran he was running farther and farther away from the sun, and it was getting colder and colder.
His feet ached as he ran, but he did not stop. His muscles burned, protesting against the exertion. But he trained his eyes on the golden bird, now so far ahead of him it was merely a speck. He knew if he was to have a chance of meeting the goddess, he must not lose sight of it.
Finally he came to a hill, and when he reached the top of it, he saw that the crab-birds had alighted on the branches of a tall tree. They were feeding on the fruit of that tree, and above them circled the golden bird. Hyzid knew he had to climb up the tree. Panting, he grasped the trunk with his arms and legs and began to climb.
Up in the canopy, he saw that the fruit of the tree was blushing red and golden to the eye. He plucked one of the strange globular fruit, and bit into it gingerly. A
golden-honey nectar flooded his mouth, filling it with a burst of wonderful flavour.
A beautiful woman in a fiery dress appeared in the sky before him at that moment. It was the goddess he sought, and on her shoulder perched the golden crab-bird, coming to rest after its long flight.
“Who are you, and why have you plucked and eaten the fruit of my tree?” she asked, imperiously.
“Great goddess, I am your humble servant, Hyzid son of Ismail, and I have come to seek your guidance, for I wish to win the hand of Leela, the daughter of our chief. The chief has said that the man who brings him the most jewelled blue crabs from the river that winds through our land will win her hand, at the end of these three days. But I am but a poor village boy, without access to the richest bend of the river or the cunning craft of making the best crab traps in the village. I am certain to lose without your divine intervention.”
“And why do you wish to win the hand of this Leela, the daughter of the village chief?” said the goddess.
“Because I love her, my goddess, and she loves me.”
“And has she given you a token of her love?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Hyzid, producing the yellow stone that Leela had given him, which he had put on a cord around his neck. “My love Leela gave me this stone when we parted last night. She said that even if I do not win the competition, she will come away with me. But being the loyal daughter that she is, she does not want to go against the wishes of her father, and so she wants me to win. She was the one who bid me to seek your help.”
The goddess looked at the yellow stone and was satisfied. “Very well, I will grant you three boons: a crab net that will scoop up any crab that you meet in the river; a map that will show you where the crabs are most abundant far away from your village; and these sandals that will enable you to return as swiftly as the wind, in time for the village feast, so that you may indeed capture the most jewelled blue crabs and return to claim your bride.”
Hyzid bowed deeply to Sofia, thanking her profusely. The lovely golden bird, that had been a crab, flew towards him and brushed his face with its feathers, and Hyzid felt his spirit-body drift back to his house, where it lay down again in his body, and he woke up.
To his delight, when he turned, he found at his side the three items the goddess had promised him: a golden net, a map and a pair of brown sandals that did not look magical at all. Hyzid peered at the map, and saw that it led far away from his village, into territory where his people had never been before. It was at least two days’ hike from the village.
It was daybreak, and as he had woken up refreshed despite his eventful dream, he set out at once, strapping on the brown sandals that he had found by his mat.
For two days and two nights, he traversed the rough terrain, following the winding river. The lush forests near his village gave way to bare plains, and then he came across mountainous land that he had to climb over and dense vegetation that he had to hack his way through. Always he followed the river, never letting it leave his sight.
Finally, he came to the part of the river that was marked on the map. It was in the valley between two mountains, and the water was very clear. He saw right away that the goddess was right—huge crowds of jewelled blue crabs scuttled on the bottom of the river here, far more than even at Neam’s family’s river bend. What was more, these crabs were enormous, twice or even three times the size of the crabs he had seen in his village.
He removed his sandals and stepped into the river, rolling up his trousers so they would not get wet. He waded into the middle of the river, which was very shallow. Grabbing the golden net that the goddess had given him, he plunged it into the river, darting after the crabs that covered the riverbed.
There were so many crabs and they were so large that it was easy work scooping them out. The golden crab net seemed to sense exactly where the crabs were and nudge Hyzid’s hand towards them, even when the parallax of the water prevented him from judging accurately where the crabs were.
Soon, his sack was brimming with jewelled blue crabs that he bound with twine. They waved their little l
egs and claws helplessly and made a clicking noise outside the water, frantically communicating with each other. Hyzid counted them—he had almost 150! And he had only been crabbing for most of the morning and part of the afternoon.
Perhaps he would make it even more, just to be safe. He didn’t believe either Kouza or Neam would be able to catch a larger number, but he just wanted to be extra certain. He was also pleased to note that there was no way whatever crabs they caught would equal his in size or juiciness, for they were truly magnificent, their shells glinting and sparkling in the late afternoon light.
So Hyzid caught crabs until the sun reached the horizon, and then he realised he would have to make his way back in time for the feast, for if he did not, he would forfeit his place in the competition and Leela would be lost to him.
Frantically, he strapped on the brown sandals, heaved the sack of crabs over his shoulder, and started to run. To his amazement, the ground passed swiftly beneath his feet, so he seemed to be clearing entire mountains and fields in a single leap. Although the brown sandals had seemed completely unmagical on his way to the crabbing spot marked on the map, they now truly lent him the wind at his back.
So Hyzid leapt over hills and vales, past plains and forests, flying past the landscape that had taken him two days and two nights to travel, in just a blink of an eye. Finally, he arrived at his village, where he could see the lanterns had been strung around the house of the village chief, and large bouquets of colourful flowers were arranged outside the door, in preparation for a wedding feast.
The village chief sat in his beautiful carved teak chair just in front of the doorway. Kouza and Neam and all the other young men who had been hard at work catching crabs the past three days were standing to one side, and Leela was standing just behind her father, dressed in all the finery of a bride.
Kouza strode up to the village chief and emptied his crab traps at his feet. “A hundred jewelled blue crabs, my chief, as tribute for the feast, and to win the hand of your daughter, Leela,” he said, his voice full of pride. The crowd gasped, for indeed a hundred fat, juicy jewelled blue crabs lay on the ground, clicking and struggling against their bonds.