Naondel

by Maria Turtschaninoff

  I went back through the corridor and found the staircase. I dried my sweaty palms on my trousers before starting up the stairs. Then I heard noises: clanking and thuds. They were coming from upstairs. I hesitated—did I dare go farther? The moment I stopped a figure appeared on the stairs before me. A man in leather mail had his back to me and was dragging something heavy.

  I slipped down the steps and hid behind an open door. I could glimpse the bottom of the staircase through the gap between door and frame. I heard a groan and several heavy thuds, and then I saw a brief flash of a guard, dragging a weighty sack behind him.

  A looter taking advantage of the prevailing chaos. He was brave, and stupid. Iskan would find him, no matter where he tried to hide.

  Then it occurred to me that he would find me, too. With Anji’s help, no one could hide from him.

  As soon as the guard had disappeared out of the front door I hurried upstairs. Iskan’s quarters dominated the entire upper floor: a series of chambers which at first glance appeared sparsely, almost humbly, furnished. I, however, knew the value of the few scattered vases. I recognized the true price of those ancient painted screens. He had an art collection worthy of a Sovereign, but when value is not displayed in glittering gold or jewels, few would realize what riches he hid there.

  I suspected that the guard had pilfered simple things such as silver candlesticks and other inexpensive items. I rushed through the chambers, afraid that the box with the key had gone into the plundering guard’s hefty sack. But when I came to Iskan’s bedchamber I saw it at once on a low table by his bed: a plain wooden box.

  In the box was a single key.

  I was soon downstairs and inside the library. Esiko and Sonan had described it to me in detail. It was not difficult to find the shelves with the most secret scrolls. The ones that contained all the hidden knowledge. The knowledge that Iskan wanted to keep for himself. I scanned over the scrolls, trying to decide which I needed most, when a scraping, metallic noise cut through the din of the fire.

  I rushed to a window that looked out on the garden and burning building. It appeared that the fire had spread to the Temple of Learning adjacent. Between the Sovereign’s palace and Serenity House was the prison Iskan had built for Anji. The noise I had heard was the sound of the door to the prison. I could not see it from my window, but I was entirely certain. Someone had just opened it.

  When I looked around I found a leather satchel and packed the most valuable scrolls into it. The ones I knew that not even Iskan could decipher, including some that told of sources of power. I knew that he had made no copies. He was too suspicious for that. I pushed in as many as possible, though I could hear the paper crumple and tear. I was not thinking about their preservation—then. I was thinking about flames and burning paper and vengeance. But most of all I was thinking about Anji.

  Several people ran past me as I rushed through the Garden of Eternal Serenity on the way to the spring. Nobody hindered me; everybody was occupied with quelling the fire, escaping the fire, helping the injured. I ran as well, so they might think I was participating in the same effort. As I was approaching the wall around Anji I saw that the door was open. I continued to run until I reached the door and quickly slipped inside.

  It had been so long since I had been in her presence. I stopped in front of the door and took a deep breath. She smelt like she always had. Moisture, soil, rotting leaves. Yet the surrounding walls Iskan had built had made the smell concentrated and almost stale. And what walls they were: gold relief patterns with images of mountains and wild animals. The floor was marble mosaic. Several burning torches hung around the chamber and the golden walls reflected their glow. I saw now that the pagoda roof had an aperture at the top, covered by a grate. Iskan had presumably recognized that he could not keep Anji apart from the moon if he wanted to read the future in her water, which of course he did. Once inside, the light from the blaze was less visible, and paled almost into nothing under the intense light of the full moon.

  At the edge of the spring sat Esiko, with one hand in the water. I walked slowly over to her. Stopped and, for the first time in over thirty-five years, looked down into Anji’s black water.

  It was like looking down into a well of bereavements.

  Suddenly everything rushed over me like a tidal wave. Mother, Father, my siblings whose faces had slipped from my memory and become lost. My three strong, beautiful sons. All those who had died at Iskan’s hand, with Anji’s help. I fell to my knees, weighed down by a sorrow so oppressive I could no longer stand. I wept as I had not wept since Iskan took Korin away from me. My tears disturbed the surface of the water. Esiko sat still beside me and said nothing. When I had finished weeping, without a word she passed me a silver ladle. I filled it with water and drank.

  Anji’s power flooded through me. It was like silver gushing through my veins, like intoxicating wine, like the sap of youth. I could feel years of youth returning to me. The sensation was stronger than I remembered from the times when I used to drink the full-moon water. I sat up straight and took a deep breath.

  “It is the blood moon,” said Esiko, and pointed up through the grate-covered aperture. The moon above us was red like wine. Red like blood. “I have never experienced it before. Something is happening with Anji’s water. She is showing me the future more clearly than ever.”

  I turned my gaze towards the surface again. I saw the red moon reflected. I saw my face, and my daughter’s. I saw us slipping away from each other. Farther and farther, until a vast ocean lay between us. I saw women from the dairahesi working side by side. Other images drifted past, distorted and difficult to understand. Threat, great destruction. Germination, something new. Then I saw a much clearer image: Esiko on the Sovereign’s throne, with all of Karenokoi at her feet.

  I shuddered and turned to look at her.

  “It is difficult for you to interpret Anji’s images,” she said softly, with a tone I had not heard her use with me since she was very little. “For me it is mostly very clear.”

  I was consumed with fear. Would Anji pull Esiko into darkness and madness as she had done with Iskan? Would she murder and poison just as he had to achieve her ends?

  “Esiko, promise me that you will not drink the dark water, the oaki, promise me!” I leant forward and grasped her hands. “This spring has led only to suffering and death. It must be walled in so that no one may ever come to it again!”

  Esiko stood up straight and the softness disappeared from her posture and tone. “I am not my father, Mother. I would use the spring correctly. As she is intended to be used. You should see yourself now, after only one ladle of her water you have regained years of youth! You look strong and healthy. What is wrong with that?”

  “There is nothing wrong with ageing,” I said, and before I could stop myself I continued. “I wish I could age faster, that I might die and be released from my suffering, and forget about everybody whom I have loved and who has been taken from me. But Iskan will not allow me to die, because he likes to see me suffer. Have you already forgotten your brothers, Esiko? Have you forgotten how they loved and doted on you, their youngest brother?”

  “Their deaths were not the fault of Anji, Mother.” Esiko crossed her arms and turned away from me.

  “Were they not? Iskan capitalized on her power, that is true, the fault is his. But the spring is the source of his arrogance.” I turned my face up to the red moon to stop more tears from flowing. “You should have had sisters, do you know that Esiko? Many sisters. But Iskan stole them from me, aided by Anji’s power. He murdered them all. That is why I hid your sex and had you be my son, Esiko. To keep you.”

  “It’s not true!” said Esiko. “Stop it, Mother!”

  “Look down into the spring,” I urged her. “See for yourself.”

  “No! Your lies are too shameless. I will not sully Anji with them.”

  “Look!” I implored and tried to force her head down towards the surface. “See if I am lying!”

 
My death. Suddenly something touched it. Held it in an iron-hard grip. Did not draw it closer, but did not release it either. It felt as if someone were holding my heart in their hands.

  I gasped for air. Esiko’s eyes met mine, first hard, then defiant.

  “Impossible,” I gasped. “The water is not oaki now.”

  “I have grown up with Anji’s water in my veins. I have played at her edge, read the future in the water of every full moon. I can do things that no one else can. Not even Father.”

  At that moment someone entered through the open door. Esiko released my death and we both stood up abruptly.

  It was Garai. Her long hair shone like white fire in the moonlight. Suddenly I was reminded of the world beyond Anji, of screams and shouts, the crackling fire. Might we be trapped here? Surrounded by fire? I was not concerned for my own sake, but Esiko…

  “How does it look?” I asked. “The fire?”

  “Starting to come under control,” Garai replied shortly. She rolled up her left sleeve and inspected her arm carefully. There was a row of scars on the inside of her arm, most of them silvery and difficult to see in the dim light, but one was darker than the others.

  “Good,” said Esiko, more to Garai than to me. “I gave orders that all the guards and servants must help put it out.”

  That was why the buildings were so empty of people. A thought struck me.

  “Where is Iskan?”

  Esiko looked away. “He is at the Palace of Tranquillity.”

  “It was he who started the fire,” I said and looked at my daughter, but she did not respond. That was confirmation enough.

  Garai approached the spring, knelt and drank a sip of water directly from her cupped hand. I turned to face Esiko again.

  “Do you not see? Iskan is mad, afflicted by the madness of the life force. He is willing to do whatever it takes, kill as many as it takes, to reach his ends. Surely you have seen the truth in Anji, Esiko, my only daughter?”

  She was quiet for a moment. “When you first met Father, what was he like?”

  “Self-obsessed. Willing to do whatever was necessary to get what he wanted. He thought that everybody was against him, and that he was superior to everybody else.”

  “There, you see!” She turned to me, her eyes beseeching. “He has always been that way! But that is not I, Mother, can you not see that? I am not Father.”

  I wanted to hold out my arms and embrace my daughter—my beautiful, strong, wise daughter. Yet all I could feel was the grip she had held on my death.

  Now it was I who turned away. Then I saw someone. Estegi glided in through the door like a shadow and walked straight over to me. She did not bow. She stood tall and looked me in the eye.

  “I have delivered two of your children. I have served you. I have kept your secrets as my own. Do you trust me?”

  Taken aback, I regarded Estegi the servant. Estegi the woman. She did not look like herself under the glow of the moon.

  “I trust no one, Estegi. But I trust you no less than my daughter or Garai.” As I said their names I realized that they were the only people in the world who meant anything to me. I glanced at Garai. She had a blade in her hand, held against her bared left arm, and stood muttering something to herself. Only then did I understand that she was my only ally against Iskan, against the dairahesi, against the world. More than Esiko, who had always been closer to her father than to me.

  Garai and Estegi, the two who had always stood by my side.

  Estegi contemplated my answer and then nodded.

  “Good enough for us,” she said. Then she turned to Esiko. “Will you not shout for help? Will you not call the guards, no matter what you see?”

  Esiko turned to me, to Garai and to Estegi. “Have I ever before? Who do you take me for?”

  Estegi quickly turned and left. Soon she returned with three other women. Sulani, Clarás and Orseola. They were all carrying sacks, rope and bundles. I could not prevent myself from laughing.

  “What a sorry sight! What do you think you are doing?”

  Sulani stiffened. She approached and stood tall above me.

  “We are leaving this cursed place,” she said through gritted teeth. “We have had enough of being treated like animals.”

  “You will not get far.” I shook my head. “How could four solitary women evade Iskan’s power and madness?”

  “We have a plan.” Sulani pointed at something in her belt. I looked.

  “A knife stolen from the kitchen? That is your plan? Your weapon?”

  “What do you know of our plan?” Sulani did not take her eyes off me. “What do you know about what we can do? What we are capable of?”

  “Sulani.” In Estegi’s mouth the name became an entreaty. A gentle caress. The word alone made Sulani step aside. Estegi looked at me, still with the eyes of a free woman. She used my name as though we were equals. “Kabira, we have long prepared for this escape. We have a boat.”

  Clarás made a move to stop her, but Estegi shook her head. “Kabira is just as imprisoned as we. And Garai, too.” She raised her voice to include Garai, who was now kneeling and chanting, blade in hand. “Perhaps you do not see the cage as we see it, Kabira. But it exists. And you can be free.”

  “Free?” I laughed, and even I could hear how bitter and wounded my laughter sounded. “Free? There is no freedom, Estegi. Not for me. Not from what keeps me captive.”

  “Yes there is, Kabira.” She laid her hand on my arm. “Freedom is possible, even for you.”

  I shook my head. Shook off her arm. Turned away, towards the spring where Garai was kneeling, and rubbed my cheeks with my sleeves.

  Garai slashed at her skin with the blade. A dark streak welled up. Blood dripped down into Anji’s water.

  And Anji responded.

  Clarás

  E ALL FELT IT. WHETHER WE HAD drunk the spring water or not. A torrent of energy rushed towards us, engulfed us, flooded into us. Orseola was thrown backward. I caught her before she fell. It was like a storm, like a great wave gushing down over our heads, drowning us in its power, and leaving us flapping and gasping like fish on the shore.

  None of us were the same after that. I could feel it inside me—the force that had taken possession of me. I could see everything as though with new eyes. I saw what power there was in the spring’s water, saw it as plainly as seeing that blood is red. When I looked at the other women I could see that the same energy had entered into all of them, in different ways.

  Garai stood up. To my eyes, she was now lit up from within. She placed the knife in her belt and looked straight at me.

  “I am coming with you. There is nothing left for me here now.”

  “We don’t have the food supply for more people,” I said.

  “I can fast. Where are you journeying to?” She walked towards me. Her steps resounded with the echo of the energy surge we had all felt. With my new eyes I could see the energy glowing inside her like a second heart. She had truly acquired all the power of a priestess. Behind her Kabira and Esiko continued to speak in low voices. Sulani looked at Garai sceptically.

  “You are old. It is a long journey.”

  Garai laughed. I believe it was the first time since I had come to Ohaddin that I had heard laughter free from bitterness. “I can survive without food or water far longer than you can, warrior. I know more about the powers of water and earth than you do, Clarás. And I know more about healing and birthing than Estegi.” She pointed at my belly. “I can help you.”

  “It is true,” said Estegi. When I looked at her I saw that her hands appeared to be glowing. Hands deft at crafting and making. “She knows more about healing than anyone. She can aid us in sickness. The way is long.”

  I yielded. “So be it. You can bear my burdens, priestess. We have a boat in Ameka, one night’s westward march.”

  “And the voyage, where is it to?”

  “To my land,” said Orseola. She was completely calm now. I could see the glowing energy as a blan
ket around all that gnawed and ripped at her insides. “To Terasu, the giant trees and the island of the mangrove swamps.”

  Garai seemed delighted. “Sources of power I am yet to discover, yet to make offerings to! We must leave without delay.”

  “You do not give the orders, old woman,” said Sulani. I saw the new energy, this gift from the spring, glow as new strength in her arms and legs. “I am the one who—”

  She stopped. There, in the open doorway, stood a slender young girl with her hair wrapped around her like a cloak.

  Iona.

  “I heard my monster calling for me,” she said slowly. Everyone froze.

  She was the one. She was the one who would betray us. The man’s new wife. The child bride.

  As soon as she caught sight of Garai she lifted one hand to shield her eyes as though from a bright light. Then she bowed low before her.

  “Priestess.”

  “Offering,” responded Garai, and bowed in return.

  “We must go at once,” hissed Sulani. “Who knows what she heard? Who knows what she will tell him? Anybody could turn up here.” She pointed up at the grate-covered aperture in the ceiling. “That is our best means of escape. But how can we remove the grate?”

  “I heard everything,” said Iona in her girlish voice. “I heard it all.”

  Sulani turned around. The knife glinted in her hand. She only managed a few steps towards Iona before she was hurled backward. With my new vision I could see a power in Iona. But it was different from ours. It throbbed, dark and dangerous, and emanated from an object she held wrapped up at her hip.

  “Mizra will not let you harm me,” said Iona. “Nobody can harm me. Not before the proper offering has been performed.”

  Estegi raised her hands. “None of us will harm any other. Sulani.” Her voice contained a warning.

  “Iona,” said Garai. “Will you come with us?”

  “Oh no.” Iona shook her head. “My fate lies here with my monster.” A flicker of hesitation. Something faltered. “But… I thought he was here. That he was calling to me. I thought the time had come.”