by Brian Braden
“I recognize them. We made them last summer, before Father went to heli-dar.”
“Why does Virag buy wedding barges?”
Ba-lok shrugged. “Why does Virag do anything? He commissioned my father for two wedding barges. His price was generous, enough bronze to keep our village supplied for two seasons. Virag even supplied the axes without charge. My father kept his own council regarding his dealings with Virag.”
“And Setenay had nothing to say? Wedding barges are not merely large rafts; they are sacred symbols of unity. I find it strange she would bless such a transaction.”
“Father said a wedding barge is only sacred if used as a wedding barge. Grandmother remained silent as it was clearly a matter for men to decide, though I think she didn’t approve.”
Aizarg shook his head. “I do not regret your father’s dealings. The feel of this sturdy deck below my feet is reassuring, you can be sure of that! It is only Virag’s purposes that trouble me.”
“Is that all, Uros? I grow weary,” Ba-lok turned away.
With a firm grasp on Ba-lok’s shoulder, Aizarg turned him around and pointed to the south. “What do you see?”
Ba-lok shrugged. “Darkness. Nothing.”
Aizarg pointed to the group. “And now?”
“Ghalen, Levidi, Okta, and the Hur boy. I also see Sammujad scum and that Scythian bitch.” Ba-lok spat out the last words with so much hate Aizarg recoiled.
Aizarg shuddered to think what Ba-lok suffered at the hands of the Scythians, knowing full well the horsemen’s reputation for savagery to captives. But he needed to pull Ba-lok out of his simmering hate.
“Look again.” Aizarg kept his voice calm and motioned back to the sleeping group.
Ba-lok yanked away from Aizarg’s grip. “I see someone else’s people. I see enemies! What do you see, Uros?”
“I see the köy-lo-hely,” Aizarg whispered. “And out there, in the darkness, is death. Do you understand?”
“No.”
He is broken. We are all broken; broken chain links of all shapes and sizes. What to do with them? Setenay and Sarah were our fire, our forge. Now our fire is dead.
“Where people drift in the darkness, we must be the light to gather them up. This is our charge. It must start here.
“I know you are in pain. All of us are in pain. Let it remind you to take your next breath, your next step.”
“You left me!”
“No. You were taken. To believe anything else will only feed your anger until your soul is as dark as this night.” Aizarg leaned in. “An Uros will fail without his Second. You were chosen for this task. Setenay knew it. I trusted her then, and I trust her now.”
An impulse suddenly overtook Aizarg. He snatched Ba-lok’s hand and thrust the staff into his palm. Ba-lok jerked away, but then his eyes grew wide at the realization that he felt no pain.
“You are Second. You were chosen. If I fall, you are Uros. Setenay knew, and so does the God of the Narim.”
Ba-lok hefted the staff, which seemed to glow dimly, though Aizarg could not be sure it wasn’t his eyes playing tricks on him.
“Help me forge this broken chain into a lifeline.”
After a moment of hesitation Ba-lok handed Aizarg the staff and turned away.
Can I reach him when his grandmother could not?
Ba-lok stepped over the slumbering bodies, threw a few more sticks onto the brazier, and then settled in amongst them to sleep.
Aizarg lingered a little longer, staring into the void and wondering if the Nameless God watched over Atamoda and his boys, or even cared.
***
Daybreak arrived gray and dim under ever thickening clouds. Aizarg stood alongside of Okta on the makeshift raft as the wedding barges followed behind.
“Uros, the current strengthens from the north and the tree tops vanish. The old shore will disappear soon and the Black Sea will stretch uninterrupted in all directions. The sails are taunt and fully tacked.” Okta nodded to the south. “It will not be long before we will be pulled to the deep sea. Perhaps our people have already abandoned the coast for deeper water as well. I’m sure by now all our arun-ki are submerged.”
“We will cling to the coast as long as we can. If the open sea is forced upon us, so be it, but I will not commit to deeper water until then.”
“What is that?” Virag said from where he sat at the front of the raft. He pointed to an object caught in a nearby tree.
“Get us closer,” Aizarg commanded Okta as he peered ahead. As they drew closer Aizarg’s blood ran cold.
Under Okta’s direction they maneuvered the rafts with full sail against a steadily strengthening current until they secured them to a tree top.
Aizarg hopped onto Ghalen’s raft, which was closer. Ghalen reached out with a pole and snagged the boat.
“The stern is missing,” Ghalen pointed to the ragged end of the two man fishing boat. “It’s shredded.”
Virag scoffed. “So what of it? I’m sure we will find many more caught in the trees.”
“It wasn’t shredded in the trees. It was torn off,” Ghalen pointed to stains the inside of the craft. “Blood.”
“Teeth marks,” Aizarg said.
“Demons!” the warrior named Spako shouted from the farthest wedding barge. The giant Sammujad shrank to the center of their rafts while the Lo men leapt to the edges, gazing over the sea.
Water demons crept under the surface, swirling and slithering from beyond the trees and out to sea. They parted around the rafts, giving them a wide berth. They rejoined to form a long, greasy slick, a river of black within the Black Sea, meandering to a point south.
“There are hundreds, Aizarg. Thousands!” Levidi shook his head in dismay.
“Where are they going?” Ezra asked.
Aizarg followed the line until he spied an object on the horizon. At first, he could not make out what it was in the dim light. Then the shapes formed a coherent whole.
“Release the lines and lower the sails!” Aizarg shouted. “Man the tillers; we abandon the coast.”
In the brightening gray dawn, they followed the stream of demons until they saw a flotilla and the black horde encircling it.
“The demons attack a gathering of anchored boats!” Okta shouted. “There must be over a hundred boats tied together.”
“I can hear the people screaming! There are so many demons,” Levidi shouted. “Can we stop them? Shall I wave the staff over the water, Uros?”
All eyes turned to Aizarg. After a pause, he spoke. “Do not wave it. Touch it to the water.”
Levidi placed the tip of the staff in the water. To all their amazement, a glob of brilliant, white, liquid fire dripped from the red metal orb. It fell onto the water and spread away from the three rafts. A sheet of white flame danced on the surface, chasing the demons toward the floating island.
8. The Trail
Love burns brightest on the edge of oblivion. There, it is purged of the material life, leaving only the purest of essences ready to be bent to the will of the Emperor of Heaven.
Copper or iron, mortal or god, only the smithy knows how long the metal must lay in the coals. Alas, gods must be buried long and deep in the blazing embers, the bellows blowing long and hard, before divine metal glows even the dullest red.
I entered the forge several years before my fateful journey to Wu, when the Goddess Nuwa and I, unseen from the forest edge, watched a young orphan boy.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
An ocean tossed from heaven.
The unending storm gushed against the cliff, trying to wash Fu Xi and his horse from the mountainside. Water consumed him, trying to fill his nostrils with each breath. Head bent low, with shoulder thrust into the howling gale, the demigod defied the torrent. His outstretched right hand felt along the rocky cliff while his left tightly grasped the horse’s reins. Only the occasional nudge from behind or tug on the reins reassured Fu Xi that Heise still followed.
Ahead, the narrow path
etched into the cliff revealed itself only a few feet at a time. Impenetrable shrouds of gray and black concealed towering mountains Fu Xi only sensed. He braved a glance down the precipice, unable to see the boiling river swallowing the valley far below. It announced its presence with a continuous, quaking crescendo shaking the mountain, as if conspiring with the storm to scrape him from the rocky wall.
But Fu Xi did not fear for himself. He didn’t know how. Perhaps it was too late in his immortal life to learn. Instead, he concentrated on keeping his horse alive.
The saddlebags still bulged with grain and apples, but they wouldn’t last forever. Grass this high was almost non-existent before the storms. Now, torrents and mudslides swept away or buried what little vegetation did grow.
If we remain on the roof of the world, starvation will eventually kill Heise.
Fu Xi glanced over his shoulder at the stallion he called Heise, which simply meant “black.” He still didn’t have a proper name for the beautiful animal. Only a shadow through the rain, Heise sagged under the crushing downpour. How the horse kept his footing on the treacherous goat path, Fu Xi did not know. His right shank scraped the cliff while saddlebags hung over the abyss to the left.
Food wasn’t as much of a concern for the demigod. During his many quests he’d often gone days, even weeks without eating. He could function for days without a sip. While his body somehow adapted, Fu Xi’s divinity didn’t protect him from discomfort.
A cave, a ledge, any shelter I can find to build a fire and get Heise out of the elements. Then I can worry about foraging for food.
The only caves he’d found were thousands of small holes and ledges peppering the cliff-face, no more than handholds and nooks. Once nests for swifts, Fu Xi investigated them several times to see if any birds or eggs remained. The birds were gone, and the holes infested by hairy, vicious spiders, larger than Fu Xi’s hand.
The demigod chuckled. At least the spiders are dry.
***
He stood alone in the garden of stone, beneath a sharp blue autumn sky, frost glittering like shattered glass at his feet. Head down, the boy silently cried between his father’s freshly turned grave and his mother’s overgrown plot.
“His name is Tiejiang, son of the deceased smithy,” I said. “The Holy Mother arranged for him to live with his aunt.”
“This is not acceptable,” Mother said.
I frowned at the unexpected intervention of the Goddess in village affairs
“The child may have no father or mother, but my people have no blacksmith. He is the blacksmith’s son.”
“What do you intend, Mother?”
“I intend to send you on a quest.”
“A quest? Am I to bring a smithy from the outreaches of Cin to Nushen? A stranger hasn’t entered the purity of your abode in a thousand years.” I searched my memory for the closest village with a blacksmith. It would be at least a two month journey.
“No, my child. Your quest shall be to Nushen itself. Go to Tiejiang and raise him until he is a man. Teach him the art of iron and bronze as you did to the Tall Men in ancient days. Until that time do not return to my mountain realm.”
“You want me to dwell in Nushen, to live as one of them?”
“Dwell, yes; as one of them, no. His father’s hut is now yours until Tiejiang is promised to a wife. On that day, you may return to my realm.”
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
His trousers and shirt stuck to him like a second skin. Mud caked his legs and boots. He had put his oilskins to better use protecting the precious supplies on Heise’s back.
Fu Xi looked up into the turbulent sky and let the cold rain spray his face and rush down his throat.
Finding water is not a concern.
He lowered his head and considered his horse with a mock scowl. “The things I do for you! You are more trouble than a woman.”
Heise silently nuzzled his back, and Fu Xi stroked his snout in return, trying not to notice how little rock remained between Heise’s hooves and the edge of the narrow path.
“Did they also teach you how to be a mountain goat in the stables of Wu? Perhaps your mother was a goat.”
Fu Xi shook his head and gently tugged on the reins.
For many days they trod the spine of the world, occasionally straddling the very tops of the mountains. Denuded of glacial raiment, the peaks lay exposed, naked and jagged like dragon’s teeth. Sometimes they found themselves blocked by granite walls, lightning exploding around them in a battle between earth and heaven. More than once impenetrable terrain forced Fu Xi to double back until he located a new path. Sometimes, these pathways dipped precariously in elevation to the tree line, just above the boiling, flooded valley. Each time they descended Fu Xi discovered the water higher than before. The mist never lightened enough for Fu Xi to glimpse the opposite side of the valley.
Will I come to land’s end, unable to advance, unable to go back?
Carefully placing one foot in front of the other like a cat, Fu Xi picked his way down the path as it slowly descended. The roar from below steadily increased as the trail curved around the cliff face. Scrubby trees appeared out of the mist above and below them, misshapen sentinels clinging with gnarled roots to bare rock.
“If this trail does not ascend, we may have a slight problem,” Fu Xi remarked. Heise could not turn around on this narrow path. If the trail wound all the way down to the water, the horse, and perhaps, even Fu Xi were doomed.
“Don’t expect me to carry you!” Fu Xi huffed.
The trail steepened further and followed the cliff to the right, beyond his sight. He mentally drew a line through the mist from their present position to where he estimated the trail met the raging flood waters, still hidden from sight.
One hundred, perhaps two hundred yards before we encounter the torrent. His only hope, buoyed by the appearance of the trees, was the trail might widen below and at least afford them the opportunity to turn around.
Crack.
Fu Xi heard Heise’s hoof slip before actually feeling the reins snap tight. The alarming heaviness of the sound, the surrender of the stallion’s weight to the precipice, triggered the demigod’s instincts. He spun about, and threw his back flat against the jagged rock, bracing his heels against the ledge. Time seemed to crawl as the horse’s back haunches vanished over the cliff, Heise’s head craning forward as his front legs paddled furiously for footing.
***
“Mother, this is perhaps the most unusual quest you’ve ever charged me with,” I said playfully, truly intrigued. “Should I beg to ask the Goddess why?”
She didn’t take her gaze off the boy. “A village without a forge, is a village without a heart. It will soon grow cold and die,” she said. “I will instruct the Holy Mother to provide you anything you need. Should you ever require me, come to the edge of the forest at sunset.”
“You banish me to Nushen for fifteen years so the village can have a blacksmith? I doubt this is your only reason.”
“From the time mortals can walk, to the day they lie down to die, their existence is defined by the choices they make. Gods are only afforded two choices: rule or serve.
Now, go to him.”
Elated with my task, I stepped from the shadows, eager to begin my exile with my new charge.
Mother touched my arm. “At no time shall you call him Son, nor shall he speak of you as Father. This is my command.”
For fifteen years I lived in pleasant exile in Nushen, never once climbing the mountain to my mother’s realm. I raised Tiejiang as a son, but never did either of us disobey Mother’s command. Occasionally, he called me Lord Fu Xi, but more often addressed me as “Honored Teacher.” I simply referred to him as “Honored Student.”
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
In a blur, Fu Xi wrapped the reins several times around his right arm. Instinctively, he shot his full left arm into the nearest nest hole and braced for the shock of eight hundred pounds
of horse slipping over the cliff.
The reins snapped and sliced into his arm. Heise’s neck stretched, and the beast’s eyes bulged in panic. The God of Names arched backward and slammed his shoulders against the rock. Biceps and neck muscles bunched into corded iron bands, sinews and tendons strained to the breaking point.
Rainwater poured unimpeded over Fu Xi’s face and into his eyes, blurring his vision.
The horse’s front legs hooked over the thin ledge as his back legs pedaled wildly against the cliff face with a loud mix of scraping and clopping.
The reins began to stretch. Fashioned from the finest leather in faraway Wu, they were strong but never designed to support a horse’s full weight.
Fu Xi’s left hand found a strong grip inside the nest hole, but with no room to back up, the ledge’s narrowness prevented him from gaining further leverage. If he released his grip and tried to pull the horse down the trail, he’d lose his footing, and both of them would tumble over the precipice.
The reins cut deep into Fu Xi’s right arm. Blood oozed from the gashes only to be washed away. His immortal flesh continuously healed itself, and to his horror, skin began to seal over the straps, enclosing the leather within his flesh. Every time the horse struggled, the reins tore and sliced from within, slowly sawing toward the bone.
Something brushed against his left hand. Course hair and segmented legs probed his arm, then another, and another. Fu Xi steeled himself for what would inevitably follow.
In rapid succession unseen spiders attacked the length of his left arm, fangs sinking deep like jagged icicles. He clenched his eyes even tighter as venom raced into his veins.
Fu Xi knew the spiders could not kill him, but that didn’t make it hurt any less. His blood battled the venom, slowing its march to his heart. The pace of the bites began to slow, but not before his arm grew numb.
Fu Xi’s legs started trembling.
The horse hung absurdly over the precipice like a cat. Heise’s head craned forward, almost reaching Fu Xi’s trembling knees. If Fu Xi had the presence of mind, he might have found it all amusing.
He spoke in short, halting sentences, trying to focus against the agony, “As much as I...understand your need for...a rest,...I must...insist...we resume our trek down the trail....I’m being stretched, sliced and eaten...at the same time.”