Thirteen Ways to Water

by Bruce Holland Rogers

  “’Tis sad, this puzzle,” said Daisilodavi. He sighed loudly. “None but the Shanodin-enchanted for you to preach to. No one to hear your holy words.” He sighed again. “Sorrow was always best washed down with wine. Not a drop, are you sure?”

  “What did you say?”

  Daisilodavi brightened. “Ah, so you do have wine!”

  “No, no. Before that. About the Shanodin-enchanted. Why, there’s you, of course! I have you to preach to!”

  Daisilodavi picked up his lamp and began to back away. “Not if there’s no wine-drinking in your sanctuary. No, no words of the prophets for me, thank you!”

  As Daisilodavi turned to flee, Glinham scrambled awkwardly down the tumbled boulders. “Wait! Wait!” he cried. “Prayer is better than wine! You’ll see!”

  When his knees would bear no more capering, Khairt sat beneath a tree, facing the brook. The forest’s sounds, its musty perfumes, its wind-shifted light filled his heart, and ere long he was dancing again, though only from the waist up. As he sat, he let his arms twine in the figures of the Dance That Breaks Bones, and then in other forms he knew. Then he improvised, letting the light and shadow of the forest or the teasing call of a jay suggest a ripple of his great arms, a curling and uncurling of his fingers.

  In the brush and shadows across the brook, he saw a branch wave in time with his arm. When he fluttered his fingers, leaves rustled in imitation. He smiled. Still sitting, he swayed from side to side and twisted, and a tree trunk seemed to do the same although, a moment later, it was no tree trunk at all, but her. Her eyes blazed green again, and then were only mortal eyes. She lifted her leg and danced, mirroring what he did with his arms.

  “Lady, lovely lady, lovely maid,” said Ittono Khairt ni Hata Kan. “Of all the tapestries that hung in Oneah, none there was to match your forest ivy. Of all the musicians that played before the kings of a thousand thousands, none could bring forth the notes of the thrush. Lady, of all the maids I ever bowed to, of all the ladies ever I loved, none was such as thee.”

  If she understood, she made no sign. She only danced on, even after Khairt’s arms grew suddenly heavy and he paused to watch. His breathing grew slow and deep. She danced to the very bank of the brook, and only when his eyelids grew heavy and began to close did he see her smile.

  There was something more he wanted to say then. There was some line of poetry he wanted to recite, but his tongue lay heavy in his mouth and would not move. Do I sleep? he wondered. Let me not sleep. Let me not miss, by sleeping, a moment of her presence.

  But if he was sleeping, at least he was dreaming that she was near, for he felt fingertips tracing the birds and flowers of his tattoos. Gently, gently, in his dream, fine fingers traced the lines of bark that decorated his legs.

  There was pleasure in her touch, but he bethought himself of danger, too. Should she mean him harm, he was helpless to defend himself. Was a dryad not a creature of the forest? Like a bear, might she not turn from curious to fierce?

  He willed his eyes to open. They would not.

  And still he willed it. He was a man who had stayed within the ring to finish his final match, though one knee already would not support him. With strength such as that, he willed his eyes to open.

  Green lights.

  Gently, she made him close his eyes.

  Glinham stared at the blood pooling in his palm.

  Daisilodavi’s dagger glinted in the yellow light. “There’s slow poison on the tip,” he said. “It seemed a mercy. Though you’ll endure some pain, at least you’ve an hour or so in which to make your peace, to find your consolation in the prophets.”

  In the assassin’s other hand, a needle appeared. “I can give you the quick, if you prefer. Still more pain, but then it’s over in an instant.”

  Tears welled in Glinham’s eyes. “H-how?”

  “By which you surely mean,” said Daisilodavi, “how do I escape the Shanodin’s effects? After all, the Heart has made a holy man of you, who before worshiped only gold.”

  “Not so! I loved the words of the prophets, but only feared to live by them.” He clutched his wrist. “How it burns!”

  “Howsoever. All of your retainers were changed, and my own companion, who awaits me, he is becoming something else, not the brute slayer of men my Lord Amjad so loves. So how do I escape? How does Daisilodavi remain Daisilodavi? Is it really so hard a riddle?”

  Glinham looked again at his wound and bit his lip. His hand began to shake, and he closed his fist.

  “True, you’ve other matters to think upon, and so I will solve it for you. You see, Amjad himself brought me here once, for he would know the hearts of those who closely serve him. And he said it thus: ‘As thou art poisonous and merry without, so art thou poisonous and merry within.’ Or to put it another way…”

  The assassin leaned close to the wincing Glinham. “I act. I lie. I pretend. I change my seeming in a blink of an eye. So what lies beneath? What is the true nature that I guard by my dissembling?” He smiled. “I am an actor. A liar. A pretender. My single nature is that I have no single nature.”

  “To greet the eye of heaven, that is sweetness,” groaned Glinham. “So spake the Prophet Niptea as she burned.”

  “Did she really?” marveled Daisilodavi.

  “The quick poison!” Glinham pleaded. “Give me the quick!”

  Khairt heard him coming. Or, rather, he heard the silences of the erstwhile singing insects, circles of silence that moved as the assassin moved. Khairt knew when Daisilodavi stood regarding his chain mail, knew when he was looking at the mound of black clothes. Long before Daisilodavi stood over him, Khairt felt his presence.

  “Oneahn,” Daisilodavi said. “So that’s it. A lover of beauty in the Court of Oneah. No wonder I didn’t know your accent. That race of men is all but dead.”

  Khairt opened his eyes.

  “We’ve finished what we came for,” said the assassin. “Our lord awaits us with still more bloody deeds.”

  “I am staying here,” Khairt said.

  “Knight, you’ve no choice in the matter. You are sworn to Amjad’s service.”

  “Go. He has deadly enough hands in those two of yours.”

  “Ah, but we are not the same. Mine are the hands that strike unseen, but he needs yours, too. He may not always strike by stealth.”

  “I am no longer his.”

  “You would be,” Daisilodavi said. He looked around him. “You would be, were the curse of this place but lifted.”

  “It is no curse. I am come home. Please, leave me, Daisilodavi.” He took a deep breath. “In this forest even your name has music to it.” He said the name again.

  “And you accuse me of prattle,” said the assassin.

  “Once I lived at the center of the world, Daisilodavi, for such was the Court of a Thousand Thousands. I thought that I lived at the heart of beauty. To wrestle was beautiful. To stand in the glimmering court beneath the Roof of Lights was beautiful. And the women of the Court…”

  “That is long since past.”

  “Aye. For me it was passing with the strength of my body. But I thought it would yet stand beautiful forever, before the Goblin War.”

  Daisilodavi looked away. “You need speak of it no more.”

  “Why? Is this not why Amjad bade you bring me here, so that he might know my heart? Listen, that you may tell it well. When the Cities and Court of a Thousand Thousands fell, I thought I would never look upon beauty again. Thought I, If all things come to dust, then shall I be the ally of dust. That is why I wandered far until I found a master who would teach me the art of broadsword. Edged weapons were forbidden in Oneah. Sin resides in steel. I no longer cared. I designed to be as black of heart as any goblin.” With that last word, his voice shook. With fury, he said, “Let Amjad look upon me, even Amjad, and fear!”

  “That’s the Khairt I know!”

  Khairt laughed. “No longer. I have looked again upon beauty, and I conclude thus, Daisilodavi: That beauty, even mor
e than dust, shall endure.”

  “Nay,” said the assassin. “All things come to dust.”

  “Not the song of birds. Not sunlight. Leave me. Leave me to the gaze of the forest.”

  “You do not fear the dryads, then?”

  Khairt smiled. “One may know fear, yet not be mastered by it. Only a fool would not fear her.”

  The assassin nearly said something, then checked himself. “I see,” he said. He took a few steps away, then stopped to say over his shoulder, “Dust shall conquer thee, Khairt. Even more than beauty, dust shall endure.”

  Then he was gone.

  Khairt danced and practiced in the last hour of light, and though she did not appear, he knew she watched him.

  “Green, more rich than gold, my heart is green,” he said. That was the line of Oneahn poetry he had meant before to recite to her. He wished he could remember the rest of the poem, but it was gone. Gone, as all Oneah was now gone.

  He must not think of what he had lost. Those were the thoughts of his dark and damaged self. Thoughts of death and ruin did not belong in this place. The Heart of Shanodin was life itself.

  When the gloom deepened, he rested against a tree to wait for her. His arms, as before, grew heavy. As before, he could not keep his eyes open.

  Near. She was very near.

  Feather-light, she touched his skin.

  After this dream, his waking dream of her, he dreamed of flower-covered prairies, the sweet plains of his youth.

  He woke to a familiar voice.

  “High time you were stirring,” said Daisilodavi. He was sitting on a log. “It’s past first light. We’ve a long ride today to get out of this forest!”

  Khairt rubbed his eyes and stood. “I thought you gone.”

  “I was gone,” Daisilodavi said. “I returned.” He threw black rags at Khairt’s feet. “Dress. You’ll not want to sit ahorse naked. And put your armor on. We may have a fight anon, if we do not ride hard.”

  “I have no enemies here,” Khairt said.

  “You do now,” Daisilodavi said. “We both do.” And as he rose, Khairt saw the shape of the log he’d been using for a bench—the curved calf, the flaring hips, the shoulder.

  Khairt groaned, not believing. He rose, knees cracking, and went to turn her, to see the contorted face in the wood.

  “Her sisters will not care for details,” Daisilodavi said. He grunted as he saddled Khairt’s horse. “When they miss her, they’ll find this place. There is no judiciary of dryads, no appeal. They’ll overnumber and destroy any mortals they soon find near this murder spot.”

  Khairt gave no warning. Had he moved like the knight Daisilodavi knew, the assassin might have dodged him. But Khairt crossed the ground in the sprinting dance of Ittono Khairt ni Hata Kan, and his knees did not betray him. In half a blink, his hand was at the assassin’s throat, and he had the man bent backwards across his other arm. From the corner of his eye, Khairt saw the needle poised in Daisilodavi’s hand.

  They looked into each others’ eyes. With a squeeze of Khairt’s hand and a shift of his arms, Daisilodavi’s throat would be crushed and his back, broken. With a dying jab of his hand, Daisilodavi could kill the knight wrestler.

  “Why?” Khairt said through his grimace. “Do you hate me as your rival? But I would be your rival no longer! Why! You killed her to destroy me!”

  Daisilodavi, choking, managed to gasp out, “No. To keep you.”

  Khairt looked into the man’s eyes, then let him drop to the forest floor. Without a word, he picked up the black rags, shook them out, and began to dress.

  North of Shanodin, on the Plain of Suns, the grasses waved in the wind.

  There was no path. The two riders—the armored one astride a black charger, the gray-clad one upon a leggy horse—wove among the grassy waves.

  They rode parallel, not a sword’s reach apart. Neither looked to the left nor to the right. They did not speak. Not even as the plains gave way to marshes, then to swamps. Not even as they reached the foul and blighted bogs of their Lord Amjad.

  May his name cause silence.

  Introduction to “A Common Night”

  “A Common Night” is one of my favorite stories, and one of the least known. It has never been reprinted in English. Perhaps because of the heavy use of verse, no translator has attempted it (though there have been some nibbles of interest in France). In short, the story is an orphan, and I’m very happy to see it adopted into this collection.

  A Common Night

  “So it’s another one of her sunset poems,” the young woman said, managing to make it sound partly like a question and partly like a bold assertion so that Julian could decide for himself which it was. She gave him a neutral look.

  He looked past her, out the second story window to the bare tree outside. Snowflakes were falling.

  “Next to ‘Leaping like Leopards,’ this one seems obvious,” said another student, the one with short-cropped black hair. Randal. Or was it Roger? Five weeks into the semester, Julian would ordinarily have had their names down by now.

  “I mean, the spots are a clue,” Randal or Roger continued. “‘She died at play, Gamboled away Her lease of spotted hours…’ When I get to those spots, it reminds me of the one we did last week.” He flipped pages and read.

  Blazing in Gold and quenching in Purple

  Leaping like Leopards to the Sky

  Then at the feet of the old Horizon

  Laying her spotted Face to die

  “That’s one thing I like about reading her,” Randal said. “Once you’ve figured out a few of the poems, you sort of have an idea of what she’s up to. It’s almost fun.”

  Two or three in the seminar circle laughed at his almost.

  “I just don’t see why she has to work death into every other poem,” the young woman continued. “She’s so morbid.”

  No one said anything. For an unnaturally long time, the students waited for Julian to stick up for Emily Dickinson.

  “Well,” he said, but then the next word was very difficult to find. He kept staring at the window, at the falling snow. “Well,” he said again.

  He had stopped sleeping several nights ago—two or three. He wasn’t sure. For weeks, he’d slept fitfully amidst the daily rounds of Home-Hospice-Campus-Hospice-Dinner-Hospice with the kids. Lately he would lie awake all night, listening to the dark, closing his eyes, but never drifting off.

  He blinked and looked away from the window. “Death was rather more present in the nineteenth century,” he said. “More ordinary, I mean. We tend to hide it away, but death and thoughts of death were more routine.”

  “But why dwell on it?” the young woman asked.

  He looked at the book in his hands. It was full of words, and it was his job now to summon up some more of them, to use Dickinson to explain Dickinson. He could do it. Even after days without sleep, he could do it, but he noticed what a hollow exercise it had become. Whatever he might say next would sound good and satisfying, but it was just a stream of words.

  “Let’s look at 675 again,” he said, and before they had finished turning their pages he recited the first stanza from memory.

  Essential Oils—are wrung—

  The Attar from the Rose

  Be not expressed by Suns—alone—

  It is the gift of Screws—

  “There’s a lot packed into the eight lines of this poem,” he said, “and we’ve already talked about how it seems to be about the poems themselves. But you can think about this as a wider metaphor, too. Attar isn’t expressed by suns. That is, you don’t get essential oils, you don’t get the essence of reality by waiting around for it. You have to squeeze it out. Getting the essential oils out is tough on the rose, but it’s the only way.”

  “And thinking a lot about death is a way of squeezing,” said Randal.

  “I can enjoy life without thinking about death all the time,” another student said. “I agree with Chrissie. These poems are such downers. I don’t like bein
g depressed.”

  Julian thought of Von Trepl’s dialogue with Death. Don’t blame me for the anguish you’re feeling, Death told the Plowman of Bohemia. Your anguish is your own fault. If you had restrained your love for your wife, you’d be free of sorrow over her death. The greater the love, while you hold it, the greater your pain in the end. Unpleasure follows pleasure.

  Anna was not dead, but she was already lost to Julian. He had sought out the old German text when the tumor had overtaken the speech centers of her brain. She still recognized Julian, but she couldn’t speak. The bridge of words between them had burned, and there were things that still needed saying, would always need saying. Holding her hand as she lay watching him was not enough.

  But he didn’t mention The Plowman of Bohemia to the seminar. Why bother? It was all just words. Dickinson, too, just words from the dead. Empty, empty. The more he had studied dead words, the more dead they had become. It was the words of the living that mattered, and those had run out. He didn’t know if the dead words of literature would ever have anything to do with him again.

  “There’s a poem I read last night,” Randal said, “that I think fits. It’s 1100.” He found it and began to read.

  Julian’s attention drifted to the window again. Was that a cat in the tree? But it was gone, the round head vanishing almost as soon as Julian had made out the shape.

  The last Night that She lived

  It was a Common Night

  Except the Dying—this to Us

  Made Nature different

  We noticed smallest things—

  Things overlooked before

  By this great light upon our Minds

  Italicized—as ’twere.

  The young man’s voice droned on as the snow fell outside the window. The words blended and fell in on one another and his voice blended and mixed with the voice of the departmental secretary as she was saying, “Dr. Preston? Excuse me, Dr. Preston?”