"No, wolf," Trickster said. "This isn't for you. This is for my friends, the man things. Go away."
The wolf looked ashamed and slinked back, but it was too late. The man things had already run off. Trickster glared at the wolf. This had to be the Mother's doing.
"Oh go ahead," he said to the wolf. "They're not going to eat it, so you might as well."
The wolf let out his tongue in a grin and devoured the deer. Trickster came and sat next to no one again.
"Well, that didn't work," he said.
"I think the man things like fruit," no one said from the rustling branches of an apple tree.
"Well, that's dumb. If all they eat is fruit, they'll always be afraid of the things that eat them. Did you see how they ran from the wolf? The wolf isn't afraid of anyone."
"If you think the wolf is so great, maybe he should be your friend instead of the man things."
Trickster thought about that for a second. He ran his fingers through a pile of rocks, and his eyes widened when his hand closed around a particularly sharp one. It only took a few seconds, and he went back to the wolf who was just finishing the deer.
"You're very fearsome," Trickster said. "It's no wonder you're the Mother's second favourite child."
The wolf cocked his head and asked a question with his eyes.
"The Mother loves the man things. Of course, if they weren't around anymore, you would be the favourite."
The wolf growled. He lifted his nose and tested the air before loping off in the direction the man things had run. Trickster followed, and before long they'd found the man things.
The family tried to run, but the little one tripped on a root. The father man thing stood in front of his child, trying to protect it from the wolf. Trickster had been waiting for that and tossed the brave father a gift.
The stick with the sharp rocked tied to it clattered on the ground at the man thing's feet. He grabbed it without hesitation, but he swung it like a club. Trickster rolled his eyes, but the wolf had never seen anything like it. He assumed the danger came from the stick, and leapt once it was down. The man thing panicked and thrust the weapon. The wolf yelped as the spear went into its throat.
The man thing looked mystified at the dead wolf. He turned to Trickster and clasped his hand. Trickster knew he'd made a friend for life.
Years passed and man used the gift Trickster had given. New weapons were developed, and they explored the world and had many grand adventures. Trickster played endless games with them, sometimes to help them, and sometimes just to laugh at them. No one was pleased. He spent time with man too, edging them ever forward.
One day, no one was listening to the sound of trees falling in the woods, which was his favourite thing to do. He heard Mother walking in the forest. He thought she was upset and tried to hide from her, but it's almost impossible to hide from Mother in the woods.
"Why did you give man that weapon?" she asked. She didn't seem upset.
"You're just mad because it's not your turn anymore." No one spoke from a bed of flowers that rustled in the wind, and mocked Mother with his form.
Mother scowled for a second, but then nodded. She'd held the world for a long time. Now that man explored every frontier, it was Trickster's turn, but it wouldn't end there. With their newfound weapons, man progressed in a way that had no relation to Mother.
Progress belonged to no one, and so, no one was no longer no one. He was Wetiko.
The Seven Thousand Year Chase – Part II
by Jordan Ellinger
Later that night, I crossed the body of water that would come to be referred to as the English Channel and entered Gaul. From there I travelled through Europe, to the land of the Apennines, who would later have their country taken from them by the Latins, who would be conquered by the Etruscans, who would in turn be supplanted by the Romans. The Apennines were newly come to Italy at that time, having followed mountain goats over the Alps from Mesopotamia, and were still a primitive culture. The Trickster had quickly grown bored of toying with these simple people and fled across the sea to ancient Egypt, a proud and flourishing civilization who would, in two thousand years, build the pyramids.
In the ancient city of Thebes, at that time the capital of the young Ptolemaic Empire, I learned of a young god called Horus who had the head of a falcon, so I hired a barge to bring me up the Nile to the city in the desert.
I arrived in the early morning and it was already blistering hot. High sandstone walls lined the docks. Behind them were huge warehouses holding elaborately painted pottery and rich silks destined for exotic ports like Athens and Baghdad. There were soldiers everywhere, dressed in colourful breastplates of sewn silks that had been folded many times to give the material surprising strength. Each was armed with a long spear topped by a bronze blade and they wore leather sandals laced around their calves. Every man wore thick black eyeliner that smelled of lead and ink, which was used to keep parasites out of their eyes. Several times I had to retreat under the cover of some awning while a group of soldiers passed.
As I travelled towards the palace, I came upon a bazaar where merchants hawked their wares in the streets and each shop had a colourful cloth awning under which toothless beggars sat. I ate a meal there of barley and dates, and drank wine that was served in a bowl. A vendor told me that Egypt was at war with the Assyrians who, having mastered the forging of a new metal called “iron,” had conquered the cities of the Nile river delta and were now marching south towards the capitol. Their leader, I was told, was a grossly fat general from Assur, a desert region with a reputation for producing tall, lean warriors without an ounce of fat on their bodies. His name was Baryoom, and his symbol was a circle with two fangs.
Wetiko had chosen a new Agent.
The palace at Thebes was a low, squat building built into the side of a sandstone cliff. The complex was so large that it could be seen from anywhere in the city, and must have offered a beautiful view of the Nile to anyone standing on its vast balconies. I entered through a courtyard ringed by giant stone columns, each painted in vibrant reds, blues, and yellows. A scrawl of hieroglyphs depicting the rule of the kings of Thebes climbed the sides of each pylon like flowering ivy. There were three empty places, reserved for the exploits of the future kings.
I used a touch of power to bypass the guards, knowing Horus – or Penarddun – would sense my arrival through the link we shared. I gambled that, having invested enough time in Egypt to surround himself with a mythology, He would not drop everything to flee before me.
The heat in the central audience chamber was oppressive. I had accidentally chosen a time of day when the sun’s rays aligned perfectly with a large opening in the wall and turned the entire chamber into a giant clay oven. Court was often suspended during the late morning for exactly that reason. Today, however, the audience chamber was packed.
On the floor were the cream of Egyptian nobility. The men were dressed in white shendyt skirts which were cinched at the waist with linen belts sewn with gold and silver thread. They wore pleated petticoats, damp with sweat, and bronze bangles dangled from their wrists. The women wore longer kalasiris skirts, but their feet were left bare in order to reveal painted toenails. Their black eyeliner told me that parasites were a worry to more than just the soldier class. Slaves with fans woven from marsh reeds peppered the crowd, trying in vain to cool their masters.
Peacocks had been released into the crowd, but the heat was such that instead of spreading their tail feathers majestically, they lay close to the ground in the shade offered by the giant support pillars stretching to the roof. Even some of the nobles had subtly chosen positions where they could take advantage of the shade.
The Pharaoh and Pharaohess reclined on a bed of pillows that sat on a shallow staircase leading up to the dais. I could tell by their wide noses and pronounced chins that they were related.
On the step above them stood a woman clothed almost entirely in black. The material was linen of the same quality as any worn
by the nobles on the floor beneath her, but black was a difficult and expensive dye to produce. Often created with lead powder and tannic acids extracted from gallnuts or Sumac leaves, it cost many times the average Egyptian’s monthly salary to produce. Her vestments were as valuable as any threaded by silver or gold.
I tried to get a look at her face, but it was covered by a perfectly smooth ivory mask, featureless except for two eye holes and a mouth slit, along with a slight crest for her nose. Though I could see nothing of her face beneath it, I could tell from her proportions that she must have been a great beauty. How odd of her to hide her features.
Above her, on a throne carved from elephant tusks woven together with thread-of-gold, sat Horus. Only the link we shared allowed me to recognize Him. He had recoloured His entire body to match the skin tone of His Pharaoh, and He’d reshaped the long raven bill of his mask to resemble the sharp, hooked beak of a hawk. He wore the same regal outfit as His subjects, except that His shendyt was made of spun gold and He wore a silver choker around His neck.
He stood as soon as I entered the room. “Lugh, my old friend from the North,” he beckoned, “let my people have a look at you.”
I advanced slowly. The mouth of His mask opened and closed fluidly as He spoke and its eyes mimicked the motion of the man beneath it. If I hadn’t know it was a mask, I might easily have believed it to be a part of Him.
Despite that, I knew that Penarddun was still a novice at wielding the power of the gods, and I was a master of what remained to me. I was certain that I could still take the mask from Him by force. However, an exchange between us would surely injure or kill many of the men and women in the audience chamber. Perhaps He’d planned it that way.
“Ladies and Gentlemen,” He continued, “I’m sure that many of you expected that civilized life ended where the Nile spills into the Mediterranean, and you would not be wrong.” The crowd tittered with laughter. “But Lugh comes from a land so far north that there are deserts made from ice instead of sand and it is so cold that the lions have taken to the sea.”
Several of the younger women looked on me with new interest, but whether consciously or not, they drew away as I advanced towards the throne. I was left in a small circle to myself.
“I need to speak to you in private, Horus.”
“I know that,” He said with a twinkle in his eye. “That’s why I surrounded Myself with all these people.”
Guards wielding bronze-bladed spears emerged from behind the dais. Elaborately dressed, they too wore masks – bronze hyenas painted with cobalt blue bands. They circled me and lowered their spear tips. Perhaps this show of strength was meant to intimidate me, but if there is one weapon familiar to a culture that sustains itself mostly through fishing and hunting large sea mammals, it is the spear.
“How did you overcome the protections I placed on the mask?” I asked. I took a step towards the soldier who had the misfortune of standing between me and the throne. The spear barely wavered. His eyes regarded me coolly from underneath bronze hyena fangs.
“Perhaps I didn’t,” he said cryptically. Then he shrugged.
Infuriated, I took another step towards him and felt the bronze spear tip jab into my chest. I looked again at the soldier before me, and this time I must have had a dangerous expression in my eyes, because his gaze darted down to the spear tip. He inched backwards until he was able to free it from my garments.
I wore a long hunting blade made of whalebone at my side, and I could have used it to fight my way through to Penarddun, but a bloodbath the Egyptian capital seemed gauche in the extreme.
“Fine,” I said, unable to hide my irritation, “we’ll do this here. The man you call Baryoom, whose troops now own half your empire and who is even now sailing his army up the Nile towards Thebes, is an agent of Wetiko. He serves the same creature as Hox the Younger. You needed me to beat him at Brodgar’s Ness, and You’ll need my help to beat him here.”
It is difficult to imagine a hawk smiling, but I knew that Horus had been doing just that when the expression was wiped off his face. “I’ll certainly have no chance at all if I give up the mask,” he said.
“Give it to me instead, and I’ll use its power to defeat Wetiko the same way I did in Brodgar’s Ness.”
He seemed to consider this, and then turned and sat heavily on His throne. He steepled His fingers and regarded me over His fingertips. After a moment of deliberation, His gaze shifted to the woman in black, who’d been calmly watching me from the depths of her ivory mask. “What do you think, Zahra? Do we need his help with the Assyrians?”
When she finally spoke, the illusion of the mask made it seem like her voice was coming from empty space. “It is obvious the stranger has power, my lord.”
“Really? How can you tell?” asked Horus.
“Because You fear him.” She turned her expressionless mask towards Him. “He has little fear of our soldiers and power enough to enter the palace and come all the way to Your audience chamber without being stopped. Further, You summoned us here to act as a shield in case he decided to take what he wanted by force.”
She turned back towards me, the narrow eye slits in the mask finding my gaze. I felt her judging me, and though she was right that I had no fear of Horus’s soldiers, I shuddered. “The fact that he hasn’t tells me that he is a good man,” she continued. “Perhaps better than You.”
A gasp went through the crowd, and the eyes of the soldier who held the spear at my chest darted in her direction. A few shouts of “witch” and “sorceress” came from with the ranks of the nobles, but they were quickly stilled as her gaze swept the crowd.
“Let him go to Baryoom and stop the Assyrians,” she said. “If the threat is removed then he can take what he desires and leave our lands for good.”
Horus’s eyes narrowed. His arms dropped to the armrests of his throne and He shifted His weight from one side to the other. His fingertips drummed the side of the throne. “Every morning, Zahra, I rise from my bed and ask Myself if this is the day I’ll have you fed to the crocodiles. I have no idea why I haven’t followed through on that.”
He shoved off from the throne and descended the steps towards me. Zahra followed two steps behind him. “Fine. You’ve got a deal,” He said, though it was Zahra who had proposed the terms and I hadn’t yet accepted them. “Convince Baryoom to leave Egypt and give up the territories he has already conquered and I’ll give you what you seek.”
“I am to do all that by myself?” I asked.
“Take Zahra with you. We’ll find something else to feed the crocodiles,” he said with a wave. And with that the conversation, such as it was, was over.
Zahra seemed to be the most famous woman in Egypt. Word of her presence travelled before us as we walked through the streets of Thebes. The only people we met were in the bazaars – merchants too suspicious or reluctant to leave their goods behind. They stared at us, grim-faced, as we passed.
Zahra’s mere presence was enough to obtain us passage on a barge very similar to the one I arrived on. This time the sails were furled and it was allowed to drift north with the river currents.
I was fascinated by my travelling companion. She spent little time on deck during the day and stood at the rail for most of the night. I imagined that the heat of the Egyptian sun beating down on those black robes would make her miserable, but she hadn’t shown the slightest hint of discomfort while we were walking through the streets of Thebes, nor was she reluctant to emerge from below decks those few times when she was called up to receive some bit of information from the captain about a course correction or a delay in travel.
Yet, despite her efforts to disguise any sign of weakness, she could not entirely suppress her emotions. At first, the captain’s daughter refused to bring Zahra her lunch, in defiance of her father’s orders. When the captain threatened her with a beating, she took the tray of dates and dried fruit reluctantly and then defiantly stared at Zahra’s ivory mask when she opened the door. Instead of ta
king offense, Horus’s emissary squatted before the girl, took her hand, and whispered a few words that seemed to reassure her. After that, the girl insisted that she be the only one to bring Zahra her meals, and each time they spoke a little more.
I theorized that Zahra’s choice of wardrobe could not entirely be spiritual. She must have some kind of disfiguring medical condition. I asked about her to the crew, but the only thing anyone seemed to know was that she had been sent to Horus as a gift from the King of Kush, a land far to the south, and that, although she had a reputation as a witch, no one could name any particular incident where she had earned it.
I was on deck one evening when she emerged from her quarters and took her position at the rail. Determined to get to know her a little better, I joined her.
“You must be hot,” I said, awkwardly.
“It’s hotter below decks.”
I leaned both elbows on the railing. “You come here every evening and stare at the shore. What are you looking for?”
She looked at me as if to see if I was being serious, then shrugged. “Before the sun set completely, I watch the peasants. You can tell a lot about the influence the Assyrian army has in this region that way.” She pointed towards the shore. Dozens of brown-skinned peasants bent their backs in a field of wheat, raising scythes high above their heads and then bringing them down in wide sweeps. “It is too early to harvest wheat, and yet this farmer has hired extra help to reap whatever he can before his crops are trampled or stolen. The Assyrians probably have scouts in this region, but the bulk of their army is still far enough away that these farmers believe they have time enough to cultivate whatever they can. I expect that tomorrow we’ll have travelled far enough north to witness farmers fleeing their homes.”
This was what Horus had seen in her. Zahra was educated, but also smart. It made me even more curious about what lay beneath those robes.
The Book of the Emissaries: An Animism Short Fiction Anthology Page 5