Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi

by Braden, Brian

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Somewhere in the darkness he heard a faint wail. Fu Xi sat up, wiped his tears, and strained to hear the sound. It came again, this time louder and stronger, from somewhere inside the convent.

  A baby!

  He snapped to his feet, sword and lantern in hand.

  The convent was composed of two low slung buildings against the north and south outer walls, and the high-roofed sanctuary against the east wall. The sanctuary housed the Celestial Gate, also called the East Gate. It led downhill to the foot of Tortoise Mountain and the Silver Stairs.

  The baby’s cries didn’t come from the sanctuary or the living quarters in the south building. It emanated from the north building, which housed the kitchens, granaries, and food storage.

  Fu Xi held the lantern high and rushed into the archway leading to the open kitchens. On the floor, a dead Ice Man lay sprawled with a bronze kitchen knife protruding from its chest.

  Someone fought back!

  His elation withered when he spotted a body splayed on one of the long tables. He recognized dear old Tiro, the cook. Thick and strong as a water buffalo, Tiro seemed to spring from her mother’s womb old and cranky. If anyone would have instinctively fought back against the Ice Man, it would have been her. They crushed her head, but otherwise left her uneaten.

  Why eat an old strap of leather like Tiro with so many young, tender morsels about?

  The infant’s cry rose out of the darkness again, this time stronger.

  The root cellar.

  Fu Xi dashed toward the rear of the main kitchen, beyond the gaping hearth. An archway opened to a small room behind the mud brick chimney. Split firewood sat neatly stacked to the rafters against the far wall and a wooden stairwell descended into the darkness to his left.

  Fu Xi held up the lantern over the stairwell. “It is I, Fu Xi. The Ice Men are dead. Come up, it is safe now.”

  From the blackness below, the baby wailed again. Fu Xi heard a shushing sound as a small shadow materialized at the bottom of the stairwell. Fu Xi took two steps down, lantern out and sword ready.

  His heart sank. The dingy light fell upon a naked Ice Man child, a boy of perhaps three. The boy on the bottom step considered Fu Xi without fear, his thick brown hair a wild mess. Other than his thick brow and sloped forehead, he looked like a Tall Man child of the same age. It wasn’t until puberty that noticeable differences manifested between the graceful Tall Man and the squat Ice Man.

  An arm shot out from the darkness and pulled the boy into the shadows.

  The infant cried again, louder this time. Fu Xi descended to the bottom.

  I should have expected this. Ice Men are cave dwellers. The cellar is a natural place for the pack’s females to take refuge with their young.

  Two females crouched against the earthen wall between two pots of rice. One mature female, perhaps sixteen summers, had long red hair and hazel eyes and bore an uncanny resemblance to Peacock, now dead thousands of years. She held the newborn against her full breasts with one arm and pointed a sharpened stick toward Fu Xi with the other. The baby tried to latch onto her breast, frustrated with her uncooperative mother.

  With budding breasts, the other female stood on the cusp of childbearing. She held the boy tightly against her. All of them were naked and covered in grime. The terror in their eyes filled Fu Xi’s heart with pity. He lowered his sword and scanned the room.

  That’s when he saw the shattered femurs on the cellar floor.

  The Ice Men brought the marrow to their females.

  His vision swam.

  ***

  I convinced myself it had to be a trick of light and continued deeper into the cave. The shadow was a natural stain upon the rock. It was always there, I must have missed it before.

  The Ice Men were learning as fast as I could have hoped. When summer came, they would migrate north. I still didn’t know how different clans interacted, but I assumed they would submit to the power of the strongest male. It was my hope Broad Back would defeat any challengers and draw other clans into his brood. In that way, I hoped my clan would share their new skills with other Ice Men.

  Firelight gave birth to giant shadows dancing across the cave’s roof, like one of Morning Star’s paintings come to life. Grunts and thuds echoed from ahead. I heard the ripping of flesh and breaking of bones. The clansmen were feasting on their kill. I took a deep breath and steeled myself for the bloody scene.

  I attempted to introduce the skill of cooking to the Ice Men, but they would have none of it. I prepared my meals in front of them, roasting all my meat on an open spit. I offered them cooked food. They only sniffed and poked at it, turning up their noses as if it were offal. There was something disconcerting about the way they tore at their kills with animal-like zeal. I was also shocked by how much meat they could eat. The average clan male easily consumed twice the meat of a Tall Man. And they only ate meat.

  After a kill, they always reserved the finest haunches for their god. My stomach rumbled at the thought of roasting a tender backstrap over the fire.

  I also taught them the art of butchering with a flint knife, as opposed to simply ripping the dead animal apart with their powerful hands and teeth. They were usually good about using the knife in my presence but, judging from the sounds coming from the back of the cave, I suspected they resorted to their familiar savagery in my absence.

  At that moment, I recall smiling in self-satisfaction and thinking I couldn’t expect miracles in seven months.

  I crested the small rise where the cave dropped off into a shallow pit at the back wall. My children squatted in a circle around the pit. They turned with bloody smiles as their god approached.

  Seeking my approval, Broad Back beamed at me and held up the piece of meat he was gnawing on. Morning Star had his head buried in a torso, blood and gore matting his hair against his forehead.

  My mind caught up with what my eyes beheld and my smile evaporated. The forms of the dead animals seemed odd. Why were there bloody strips of tanned leather and polished beads strewn across the cave floor? Then I saw the unmistakable shape of a human foot, ripped off above the ankle, in front of Peacock.

  Naked, she squatted over a pile of flesh. Her belly was starting to show with the baby inside her. She smiled up at me, strings of flesh stuck in her teeth and blood smearing her enlarged breasts and swollen belly. She held a human femur, broken in two in the middle. She was sucking out the rich, fatty marrow.

  As the horror of what I witnessed dawned on me, my first stunned thought was how natural it was for them to give the rich marrow to the expecting females.

  They saw my rage and their smiles vanished. I knew at that moment they didn’t see the Tall Men as human, worthy of compassion. I was also angry at myself. I should have foreseen this possibility, though the thought they would eat something so much like themselves came dangerously close to violating the natural law of the soul.

  I had to make them stop and burn into their simple minds that Tall Men had souls and were fellow beings favored by the Emperor of Heaven.

  I drew my sword and screamed, “Stop!” As my voice thundered through the cave, they dropped their meat and scampered against the far wall. They cowered behind Broad Back and whimpered, terrified and confused about how they had incurred the wrath of their god.

  Now I saw the severed human heads against the back cave wall. I recognized these people as the Tall Men who were stalking the mammoths on the glacier. Broad Back and his men must have picked up the trail of the Tall Men after I departed to the west, though how they beat me back to the cave was a mystery. Blinded by the snow, we must have just missed each other out on the glacier. The sight of the pile of bodies sickened me. How was I going to communicate to them eating the Tall Men was wrong?

  The torso Morning Star feasted on caught my eye. It was short and thick. I blinked and looked again.

  I looked closer at several of the other bodies. Two were Tall Men, two were not
.

  They were Ice Men from the clan on the glacier.

  I stumbled back. The warm cave now felt oppressive. I felt confined, overwhelmed, and unable to breathe. I turned and fled. As I passed Morning Star’s painting, the shadow loomed over me. It was now darker and unmistakably that of a black dragon.

  I fled into the storm, never to return to the frozen lands of the Ice Men.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  The sword barely stirred the air before the cellar fell silent. He fled the convent and stumbled out the Celestial Gate toward Tortoise Mountain. The path sloped down and ended at the Offering Temple.

  The Offering Temple, nothing more than a graceful archway, stood at the base of the Silver Stairs. The top of the archway had three red-tile spires. At the threshold of the Offering Temple the pebble pathway split around a central dais. Beyond the dais, the pebbles gave way to carved limestone and the Silver Stairs began. Just off the path to the right of the archway he saw the sacred Tree of Immortality outlined against the stars. A few yards beyond the archway, the limestone path crossed over a small arch-like bridge spanning a grotto, at the bottom of which a stream separated Tortoise Mountain from the village. The Silver Stairs ascended up the steep mountainside, illuminated by a sparse necklace of torches.

  Fu Xi examined the Offering Temple. Withered flowers were scattered over seven empty candle holders carved into the jade dais. He picked up a dry lotus flower and crumbled it in his palm.

  Something stood in the pathway just beyond the temple. He crossed under the archway, a realm forbidden to all mortals save the chosen acolyte and the husband of the goddess.

  Two pillars of salt stood in the middle of the grotto bridge, each in the shape of an Ice Man, spear in hand, running up the stairs. A fresh white lotus flower lay at their feet.

  She was here. Fu Xi’s mother protected her own temple, but abandoned the village. Unable to fathom the mystery laid before him, he sheathed his sword and raced up the Silver Stairs.

  ***

  The word ‘Ice Man’ will no longer cross my lips or flow from my brush. Human in form only, these unfinished men are devoid of compassion. I, the God of Names, have no name for these monstrosities and my words only serve to remind me of my failure. From henceforth, I shall use the names bestowed upon these creatures by mortals: goblin, troll, or ogre. Hunt these monsters until they are no more.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  14. The Scythian

  They first appeared in the time of Aizarg’s great-great grandfather. Fishermen caught glimpses of ghostlike apparitions watching from the shore. More than one sco-lo-ti dismissed such tales until refugees from the eastern g’an pressed into the shore camps, begging the Lo to take them in. They brought terrifying stories of attacks by two-headed monsters. Then the tribes of the western g’an flooded into the marshes, desperate for sanctuary.

  The marshes slowed the invaders, but didn’t stop them. They drove the Lo from the shore camps and far into the marshes. The hordes stopped at the water’s edge and that is when the Lo established the arun-ki, the stilted villages upon the sea. The Lo proved too difficult to conquer and the enemy turned away from the Great Sea. The Lo endured the invaders’ onslaught, but the Sammujad never fully recovered and were forced to the outer reaches of the grasslands.

  Many of the refugees were adopted by the Lo, quickly abandoning the brutal ways of the g’an for the gentle life of the sea. Ood-i and Levidi, darker and stockier than men like Ghalen and Aizarg, were descendants of those refugees. In those black days a Lo proverb was born - In the face of darkness, mercy.

  In time, the Lo and the tribes of the g’an learned the invaders were men, not monsters. They rode creatures new to the g’an – horses. However, the original name stuck – “Scythia,” the blended ones.

  The Scythian invaders brought two new realities to the world of the Lo: the horse and the bow. Only the Great Sea offered haven from both.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  As the day warmed, talk of the icy black river slowly died. Occasionally, they stopped to rest and eat dried fish, but only for a few minutes. The sun started its slow descent at their backs as they trudged onward, always keeping to the low ground.

  Levidi looked back at Aizarg, who trailed behind with Setenay and Okta in quiet conversation.

  Aizarg did all the talking. Setenay listened with concern. She held her walking stick with both hands behind her back and stared hard at the ground ahead of her. Occasionally, she nodded or shook her head. Okta appeared unconcerned.

  Levidi couldn’t hear them and wondered what they were discussing, but stayed out of the conversation.

  If the Uros wants my council he will ask for it.

  He wanted to walk with his friend, to get Aizarg to loosen up. He could see the weight on Aizarg’s shoulders, especially since the river crossing. Levidi knew heavy burdens fell on Aizarg in his new role as Uros, responsibilities far beyond those of a common village sco-lo-ti. Levidi shuddered at the thought of having that much responsibility.

  My duty is to serve the Uros. I will help him any way I can.

  Levidi’s eyes bore into Ba-lok’s back, now only a small silhouette far up the draw.

  He has no business being a Second to the Uros. In fact, he has no business being a sco-lo-ti.

  Levidi rubbed his aching left thigh, unaccustomed to marching long distances. He wanted to complain (something Alaya told him he was accustomed to), but he knew better.

  Aizarg needs a dependable friend. Ba-Lok is unreliable. I will have to be Aizarg’s Second, if not in name, then in spirit. A good Second does not complain. I will not complain.

  He needed something to take his mind off his aching legs, so he struck up a conversation.

  “The terrain is changing,” he said to Sarah and Ghalen. “It appears to go uphill in every direction.”

  “So it is, at least ahead of us,” Ghalen commented. “Are you tired, Levidi? If so, I can take my pack. Perhaps it is too heavy?”

  “It is not too heavy! That’s not what I am saying.”

  Sarah, walking between the two men, stifled a giggle.

  “I apologize, for I did not mean to offend. What is it you are trying to say, friend?” Ghalen continued with a look of mock concern.

  Levidi huffed, “All I am saying is the terrain appears to be changing. It feels steeper, though I see no hill ahead of us. And there are rocks poking out of the ground here and there. I cannot pull them out. When we stopped to eat earlier, I tried to dig one up and it kept getting bigger.”

  “We are climbing higher as we near the Adyghe Mountains, though it is difficult to tell because it is so gradual,” Sarah said, pointing ahead of them. “Soon, perhaps by nightfall, we will begin to see the occasional scrub oak on the ridges to our north and south. The ridges on either side will grow narrower and steeper. As I told the Uros, by tomorrow afternoon we will come to a place where this low ground terminates in a canyon, closed in on three sides. We will climb the eastern rim and there overlook the Hur Valley.”

  “What I really wanted to know is when does it go back downhill? My legs are killing me and I believe Ghalen put rocks in his pack.”

  Levidi winked at Sarah and Ghalen gave a hearty laugh.

  “Aizarg!” Ba-lok’s alarmed cry came from far ahead. Ghalen and Levidi set off at a full run, spears at the ready.

  In a few minutes the party found itself standing in amazement alongside Ba-lok and Ood-i.

  The grasslands were ripped open and trampled from north to south in a swath so wide they couldn’t see the other side. Endless tracts of exposed roots and clods of dry earth were turned up to the sun and wind.

  “Is this what you saw near the Valley of the Beasts?” Okta asked in awe.

  “Yes,” Aizarg responded. “Though the tracks leading to the Valley of the Beasts from the marshes were not on this scale.”

  Ghalen bent down and clenched a handful of the torn ground. A good hunt
er, perhaps as good as Aizarg, Levidi trusted Ghalen’s tracking skills. He was pleased Ghalen accompanied the party, even if he did lose a bet to him.

  If there is one man among us who might give the Scythians a good fight, it’s Ghalen.

  Ghalen let the dirt slip between his fingers. “The earth is dry, but the tracks are deep and sharp. This happened maybe two days ago. I recognize some of these tracks, but others are strange.”

  Levidi didn’t like the smell of the exposed dirt. He had once seen a band of Sammujad bury one of their dead on the edge of the marsh and the memory made him shudder. The musty odor of the disturbed soil reminded him of that Sammujad grave all those years ago. The Lo surrendered their dead in the Great Sea, but the a-g’an buried them in the ground, a custom Levidi couldn’t fathom.

  One buries refuse and excrement in the soil, not the body of a cherished one.

  Setenay poked the earth with her walking stick. “How many animals did this?”

  “All of them,” Ghalen said dryly.

  “Come,” Aizarg said. “We must cross.” He stepped out onto the broken ground.

  Levidi stepped out onto the shattered soil behind his friend. The group followed. Tendrils of dust floated around their feet as they trekked east.

  Levidi felt thankful for one outcome of the perilous river crossing — he was no longer dirty. Sweat and grime still permeated his clothes, but didn’t coat his skin.

  Fools and animals let themselves get filthy. It won’t take long walking over this ground before we’re all filthy again.

  Sarah and Ghalen strode well ahead of the group as Ood-i brought up the rear. Aizarg quietly spoke of what was to come.

  “We’ll camp tonight on the open grasslands. Tomorrow we’ll follow the low ground until, according to Sarah, we will encounter three distinct hills she calls The Canyon. Beyond that is a place Sarah’s people call the Dead Forest. It lies on the western shore of the Hur River and within sight of the mountains and Hur-ar.”

  “Why do they call it the ‘Dead Forest’?” Levidi asked. He didn’t like the sound of this place. Anything with the word ‘dead’ in its name couldn’t be good.