Alchaia yelled after him: "I could -"
She was about to utter a threat, but the fear of her older sister's wrath stopped her.
Alchaia saw no end to her jealousy. The long-lasting shortage of men on Kap Verita was not always painful to the islanders. Several unmarried women adapted effortlessly to a life with only female companions; and many of the few men married several brief times, fathering a great number of children.
But when two young women were competing for a desirable man, bloodshed lay close at hand. Alchaia decided to lie low, and wait for another opportunity to get Dohan - or get rid of Meijji.
When Mechao finally arrived to the beach with the council members and asked Dohan about the alert, Dohan said it had been a false alarm. The alert was called off. The islanders laughed and joked among themselves, happy that the dreaded attack had not come.
But Mechao sensed, through experience, that one of his daughters had mischief in mind. Later that day, he advised Amada to watch over Alchaia until the wedding.
"Those children!" Amada exclaimed. "Our prime source of joy and grief!"
CHAPTER 49
Two days later, the weather cleared up long enough for the awaited wedding to take place. The night just before the ceremony, Dohan confided to his friend what inner torment he was going through.
"Darc, I love her so. She is the loveliest, most beautiful woman I have ever met. Yet - do I put her in greater peril if I marry her? My parents, my peers - they are never going to forgive me. She is the daughter of a -"
"Don't say that word in Mechao's house!" Darc snapped. "I've been talking to Meijji's parents. They understand the risks, and they reminded me that I'm involved in this too. Whatever happens, I'll be there to help you and Meijji. I swear."
"You are my best friend, Darc. You're - the brother I never had."
Dohan had almost said "the father I never had", but changed his mind at the last instant. He was still hoping his father would one day forgive him.
"Good," Darc said. "Now get some sleep, and make Meijji the happiest bride in the world tomorrow. Or else!"
Shara knocked on Meijji's bedroom door.
"Go away!" a high-strung young woman's voice responded from the other side.
Shara yawned. Once, in her youth, she had sworn never to have children until she had fought her way up from the gutter. She was not about to assume responsibility for another daughter just yet.
"Stop whining and let me in," Shara said in a deadpan voice. "Or I kick in the door. Your father asked me to have a word with you."
After a minute, Meijji unlocked and opened her door. In the light from the corridor, Shara saw that the brown-skinned girl's face was shiny with tears.
Without a moment's doubt, the older woman stepped inside the darkened chamber and lit a candle. The bride-to-be, Shara observed, had left her wedding dress crumpled on the floor, in a pile of clothes.
"I won't do it." Meijji sat down on the floor, clutching her legs against her chest. "He's a beast. He would force me to leave my home, and take me out into that crazy world with its Lepers and wars and fortress cities, and..."
Shara yawned again, and said: "I can't stay here and talk all night, you know. I have a crippled child to attend to."
"Fine," Meijji sobbed. "Then please go."
"Not before I've found out what it is you want."
"You don't understand! You're not from here."
"Now listen to me! A lot of good people are working hard so that you and Dohan can be happy together. Because we all know you're going to face some hard times. But in the end, it depends on you if this is going to last."
Meijji looked up, her eyes wet. "What do you mean, I love him!"
Shara replied, with a shrug: "Falling in love... that's easy. But once the first difficulties begin, will you run home and hide between your father's legs? Or are you woman enough to face the duties of marriage?"
"I'm a grown woman! I can take care of myself!"
Shara was unrelenting: "But can you care for others? Do you have the guts to stand up for Dohan? His life is much, much harder than yours. I have seen him risk his life, sometimes kill people, for his family and city. There is some part of his soul that finds glory in bloodshed. You won't be able to change that, no matter how much you try. Would you still love him, if you had seen him fight a war? Would you wash the blood off his hands?"
"I saved his life once! You -"
Meijji burst into tears again and leapt forward, lunging at Shara with raised fists. The older woman dodged the girl, took a swift step away and held out her arms in a defensive stance.
"Calm down! I was just testing you." Meijji froze and blinked uncertainly; Shara smiled at her. "You did good. Don't worry. The wedding will be just fine. Now get some sleep."
"But -"
Shara let her guard down; then, sensing no danger, she gave Meijji a brief hug.
"Good luck," she said and left the chamber.
The wedding ceremony took place in the largest chapel of the main island. Over a thousand guests from the neighboring islands had to crowd outdoors and try to peek through its windows.
Inside, Amada and a large entourage of children and relatives were gathered in the best seats; Meijji's sister Alchaia was absent. Mechao's two oldest sons packed in their families in the rows behind.
Pop Shah's musical troupe was also present, playing a classical wedding march that Darc had remembered at the last moment.
Darc himself escorted the bridegroom to the altar in a slow, unrehearsed march. They were both dressed in the nobleman clothes in which they had first arrived, repaired and polished up by an army of seamstresses. The very sword that had killed Mechao's elephant-crocodile hybrid only months earlier now hung from Dohan's belt, polished and sharp.
Darc, sweating in his stuffed collar, sent a fleeting thought to his long-lost children. He had imagined seeing them grow up and raise families of their own; he shook off the thought, and was happy for Dohan's sake.
At the altar, Mechao waited with his daughter the bride. Her straight, long dress was of a golden-yellow, heavy fabric, and golden jewelry glittered on her head and neck. The bridal veil was a wide-meshed net of gold threads, through which Meijji peered at her groom with an expectant smile.
When Darc looked forward, he began to doubt his eyesight - then he realized that not one but three priests and one priestess were lined up at the altar.
The groom and best man reached the altar - it was not particularly large or costly, but decorated with painted statues and flowers - and faced the bride's father.
Mechao, resembling a shiny mandarin in his blue-black silken clothes, nodded to Darc and grinned childishly. Then he took his daughter's hand, and ceremoniously put it into Dohan's sweaty palm. He gave Dohan's shoulder an encouraging pat.
The two older men winked at the young couple, and quietly went to their seats in the front aisle - Mechao next to his wife, and Darc next to Shara.
Shara was holding a symbolic third seat for the only absent guest - Eye-Leg. It was as yet impossible, for many reasons, to allow her inside a church.
The ceremony proceeded, as a synthesis of the religions brought by all the peoples who had left their mark on Kap Verita during the Great Wars and later. Darc recognized traces of Christian, Buddhist, African, Moslem, and Hindu tradition in the liturgy - and, of course, the later practices of the Monro faith.
One female and three male old priests sung their respective chants, read from their books, and made their signs. Dohan sweated heavily during the rituals - partly because of the heat in the crowded chapel, partly because of his unease with the mixed rituals.
Each priest in turn gave the bride and groom a wedding ring.
After more than half an hour, the oldest priest finally got to the point: "Swear after me: 'I, Dohan Wyan Damon...' "
"I, Dohan Wyan Damon..."
"'...take you, Meijji Osanto al-Mechao-dattir...'"
"...take you, Meijji Osanto al-Mechao-dattir..."
"'...to be my lawful wife in sacred marriage, till death do us part.'"
"...to be my lawful wife in sacred marriage, till death do us part."
Dohan let out a sigh; a threshold had been crossed, and at once he felt a different man. Then the priest turned to the bride, and his whole brown, wrinkled face smiled - he had baptized her as a baby.
It struck Darc just then, that the bride and groom had not only grown slightly taller since he first met them... something in their postures was changing even now, their faces becoming more determined, their jaws set firmer. And neither of the two were yet eighteen years old. Adulthood came early in this era, Darc thought, and he envied the young couple.
"Swear after me: 'I, Meijji Osanto al-Mechao-dattir...' "
"I, Meijji Osanto al-Mechao-dattir..."
"'...take you, Dohan Wyan Damon...'"
"...take you, Dohan Wyan Damon..."
"'...to be my lawful husband in sacred marriage, till death do us part.'"
With the slightest tremble in her voice, so much lower than usual, she said: "To be my lawful husband in sacred marriage, till death do us part."
The priest nodded, raised his arms, and proclaimed: "You are now as one. May the gods bless you and your offspring. Ahmen! "
All four priests joined hands and the remaining three intoned in turn.
"A-akhbar..."
"Auomm..."
"Thee-end," ended the priestess.
Suddenly, the churchgoers burst into loud singing. The band, with Pop Shah and his electric bass-guitar, played a gospel-like tune that Darc had never heard - and before he knew it, he was singing along in the refrain.
Dohan and Meijji stood with their hands tightly locked together, kissing each other's lips without moving an inch, oblivious to the happy uproar among them.
The short and stocky Faluti, sitting in the third row from the altar, started to sob. Lucijja jabbed her in the ribs.
"Don't cry!" Lucijja shouted over the noise. "You're making me cry too!"
"I know!" Faluti bawled.
"They make such a wonderful couple! It is so beautiful!"
"I know!" Faluti cried with emphasis, leaned against her taller friend and blew her nose.
Shara sat silent, watching the newlyweds as in a daze, and covered her mouth with her face.
The spectacle lasted another half-hour, and was followed by dancing and feasting throughout the day. That night, many couples did not get much sleep.
Just before going to bed, Shara and Darc went to look after Eye-Leg. She remained deeply asleep - helped into sleep by medication, as it were - and they woke her up briefly.
Shara told her about the marriage, and the mutant child seemed to listen with great concentration. Then, as they were about to leave the girl's chamber, something stopped them in their tracks.
Eye-Leg stared intensely after them, and held up a crumpled paper note in her single healthy hand. The note read, in clumsy large letters:
DARC EYE-LEG SHARA
Her mouth moved, as she tried to push air through her vocal cords. Like some misplaced reflex, the withered leg on Eye-Leg's shoulders twitched in tune with the movements of her lips. She was attempting to read out loud what she had learned to write.
Darc stared at Shara, and asked: "Did you know?"
Shara was so moved, she burst into tears and kissed Eye-Leg's hands. Suddenly Darc felt his own eyes brimming over too. He held them both in his arms, as they laughed and wept.
He would never admit it to anyone, but he knew he had earned a daughter in exchange for the one he had lost 900 years ago.
Chapter 50
"It's now or never," Mechao told Darc the following noon, in the laboratory. "Do you have any experience in surgery?"
"Not really," he confessed. "But I've got a strong stomach, and I'll do anything I can to help. How long will it take Eye-Leg to heal afterwards?"
"Anything between a month and a year. It is an extremely difficult operation. Afterward, she will be vulnerable to complications. She may end up a drooling idiot, or die from a blood clot or ruptured artery."
Darc rubbed his scalp nervously; the ultimate decision to go through with this was even harder than he had imagined.
"I know! Either she might die today, or she will die for sure, soon! I told you... we are going to do it."
Mechao turned to his two oldest sons, who had already put on sterilized coveralls and face masks. They walked away to a sealed chamber farther into the darker recesses of the laboratory, and started preparing it.
From another corner of the cavern, Shara rolled in a bed on wheels. Eye-Leg lay on it, sedated, her eyes shut. Shara had tied up her own long hair in a shawl over her head, and put on a baggy set of coveralls.
She gave Darc a brief, frightened glance, but remained in control of herself. Darc looked at the artificial womb in its glass greenhouse, then to Mechao - who gravely shook his head.
" No , Shara," Mechao told her. This time you stay outside, until it is over."
Shara's eyes shifted between Darc and Mechao, pleading silently. Mechao wavered, as if some natural force was tugging at his senses. Then, the old witchdoctor burst into a fit of anger.
"Beware, woman!" Mechao barked; his thin voice echoed through the halls of the laboratory. "I am still the ruler of this island, and in this room my word is law! I am the son of eighteen generations of master surgeons!" Mechao banged his fist at a stone pillar, and paced up to the stunned Shara.
He pointed a bony finger to the machinery in the background, and shouted in her face: "My forefathers learned to create life in the machine womb, even before they learned to breed the natural way! How dare you think you can teach me how to save this Leper's life! Go, go help Amada in the household!"
Shara shrank away. For an instant Darc thought she would lose her temper - but he misjudged her. She nodded, and briskly walked off to the exit. Mechao wiped his brow, sighed heavily, and downed a large gulp from a flask of medicine.
He sighed again, and muttered: "I just needed to draw the line." Then he winked playfully at Darc, rubbing his hands - once more the enthusiastic, childlike wizard he was the first time they met. "Now, let's get the clone out of the womb. It's going to be a messy task."
At dusk it was finally done, and the operating team beheld the result.
Eye-Leg was kept unconscious as she lay under observation in the sealed operations chamber. Her bald head rested precariously on top of her new, pale body, wrapped in warm blankets. The girl's original, misshapen limbs were kept frozen in a storage locker, for later study.
When Eye-Leg awoke, she would find a perfectly normal body below her chin, and a heavy neck-brace that kept her head firmly clamped against that body until it was safe for her to move.
It was first now, that one could truly see the beauty and innocence of that young face. Her gray eyes were still bulging slightly behind her eyelids, as an aftereffect of a life spent upside-down. The DNA-shaped tattoo on her forehead was still there, a reminder of her past.
Now don't lose your head, girl, Darc prayed. Please don't. The bloodstained operating team left, leaving one member to guard the sleeping Leper during the first night shift.
They were allowed a long, undisturbed sleep.
Darc dreamt of his lost children again - not a nightmare this time. When he opened his eyes, a surprisingly pleasant memory of the dream was lingering in his mind.
A sense of closure, of a destiny made complete, filled him. Through the tall mansion windows, he saw the sky with rain and clouds drifting by. Another storm was rising, one that he might not live through.
He turned in his bed. Shara was already up and away. He sniffed at the bedclothes, trying to savor her scent in the imprint she had left. A little later he rose from the bed, groaning and yawning as he stretched his limbs.
In the mirror on the wall, he saw himself: A tall, lanky man in the prime of his life, with unkempt snow-white hair - even in his armpits and on various parts of his bod
y.
He stared into that undetermined-of-age, yet lined face with its sharp, Caesaresque features. Is that you, David? he pondered. Or is it Darc? Or...
"'He is both young man and old man... alive to the night...'" His muttering grew into a high-pitched, hoarse cry. "No! I'm not you! I'm me!" He picked up a shoe and flung it at the mirror. It bounced off to the floor.
Darc chuckled to himself - or was it a sob? - and held up an imaginary microphone to his face: "And now, ladies and gentlemen," he said in rapid American English to the mirror, "for the first and last time in history... the King ... back from the dead... possessing the body of a fool! A-one, a-two, a-one-two-three-four ..."
In that moment, Shara carefully opened the door, so as not to wake him up. She was fully dressed in a green and blue native skirt and shirt - Darc wore a pair of baggy long underpants. They looked at each other.
"What did you say?" she asked confusedly. "That sounded like your song."
"I was just trying to remember something," he excused himself. Then it hit him; he cornered Shara and grabbed her shoulders. "The operation! I haven't checked if... have you seen her?"
"I know," she said, flashing a quick grin. "I wanted to let you sleep. She is alive and recovering. Thank you... for everything." She embraced him, and he mumbled in her ear: "Don't thank me yet."
"Oh, but I will ," she half-whispered in his ear, tugging at his pants, and she began to kiss her way slowly down his chest.
The bulky carrier aircraft screeched and hissed deafeningly, as it hovered down toward the concrete landing-platform on top of Lord Pasko's castle.
As soon as the carrier had landed, a huge door rolled shut between it and the dark sky above. The carrier had been flown by robot control from Pasko City, stopped for refueling in an allied city farther north, and had continued northward to its secret destination.
It had departed several days earlier, loaded with precious stones and metals - and several cases of Lord Pasko's finest wine. As the carrier now returned from its clandestine journey, it carried a different cargo.
Yngve, AR - Darc Ages Page 33