Aizarg studied the different widths of thin, tan strips crudely lashing the logs together. He glanced at his men in their loin cloths and laughed. The men smiled at each other.
“L-Let’s just say I’m glad we brought our w-winter clothes!” Ood-i grinned.
“Who is this?” Okta pointed to Ezra.
“He is Sarah’s brother. He saved our lives.”
Okta eyeballed him, stroked his beard and put one foot up on the raft. “Can you swim?”
Ezra shook his head.
“Can you handle a spear?”
Ezra shook his head.
Okta snorted, “Well, what can you do, boy?”
In a flash, Ezra’s knife flew through the air and sank into the raft only inches from Okta’s foot.
Okta didn’t flinch, but his eyes opened a little wider. “I suppose that’s a good start.”
Ezra snatched his knife out of the wood, never taking his eyes off Okta.
The men tried not to snicker, until Okta laughed.
“What did you learn in Hur-ar?” Ghalen asked and pointed to Aizarg’s shoulder. “And how did you get hurt?”
“Sit down, all of you,” Aizarg said. “And I will tell you everything as quickly as I can.”
***
The shadows grew long by the time Aizarg finished his tale. Sarah rested her head in Ood-i’s lap while Ezra examined Ghalen’s sagar. The men held their heads low and remained quiet several minutes after Aizarg finished.
Levidi spoke first. “If the water rises here, it rises at home, too.”
They all nodded. Aizarg expected more trepidation from his men. Instead, he saw cautious concern.
“‘Rain,’ you say?” Okta chewed on the word. “Water from the sky, eh?”
Setenay raised her head to the sky and closed her eyes as if reliving a memory. “I saw rain once, long ago when I was a young mother and never again since.”
“It does not matter where the water comes from,” Okta continued. “A well-made Lo boat will float forever, even if swamped, if it’s properly resined. A marsh oak raft will float two months before it waterlogs, longer if the builder took the time to strip and resin the logs.”
The men murmured their agreement.
“It seems to me, Uros,” Ghalen said. “This is a disaster for the g’an dwellers, but something we might survive. This Narim god, maybe he thought of us before he sent this disaster.”
“True.” Okta grinned. “A world covered in water? My clan calls that the Mother’s Womb, not a curse.”
“You are all calmer than I expected,” Aizarg said with mild surprise.
Okta leaned in. “Uros, unlike that...that...,” he searched for the word, “...‘angel’ we encountered two days ago, this flood is something we understand. We can grapple with this enemy.”
Hope swelled in Aizarg’s spirit.
Setenay remained conspicuously silent, arms folded.
“W-we only need to f-find the f-fish, and we can stay on the sea forever,” Ood-i said.
“It really doesn’t matter,” Levidi said. “We are committed to the sea whether we like it or not. Our people back home are probably already afloat. We only have one choice, sail to them and ride this out.”
Aizarg stood. “Levidi is right, the only way home is forward. Okta, this is an excellent raft. Let us finish it. Ghalen and Levidi, look for Ba-lok again. Look all night if you must. I can’t bear to leave without exhausting all hope. While you are searching, please scour the shore for a suitable mast. Be back by dawn. I want to sail home at first light.”
“Uros,” Ood-i said. “What w—will we use for a sail?”
“Good question.” Aizarg frowned. They’d used all winter clothes for rope.
Sarah stripped off her Narim robe and threw it at Aizarg, leaving her clothed only in her torn dress. Ezra did the same.
“Excellent!” Aizarg pulled his robe out of his bag while Setenay hefted the material and judged its suitability.
“It’s a bit thick and heavy, but I suppose it will work. I have enough sinew to stitch them together. Sarah, can you sew?”
“Yes, Setenay.”
Ghalen and Levidi had their sagars in hand and their boar spears strapped to their backs.
“We will work upstream first, then swing wide to the east and come back in from the south,” Ghalen said. “Expect us at dawn.” He turned to go, but Levidi motioned him to wait.
“Boy, what is your name again?” Levidi asked.
“Ezra,” he replied.
Levidi pulled his boar spear from his back and tossed it sideways to Ezra, who caught it without dropping it. Even though he tried, the boy could not suppress his smile.
“Come on, we need a strong arm. Don’t worry if you don’t know how to use a spear, Ghalen doesn’t know how to use one either. I’ve been trying to teach him to throw since we’ve been on this quest, but he won’t listen to me.”
“Don’t listen to Levidi.” Ghalen laughed as they walked away. “I will show you how to throw a spear. Now, about this man we’re looking for...keep your ears open, because you’ll hear him before you see him...he won’t shut up...”
As the sun set, Aizarg leaned on his staff and looked at his people. Sarah sat in the grass, busily cutting the robes into flat material. Okta worked on the raft while Ood-i started a fire from the plentiful drift wood. Aizarg took a cleansing breath and looked out across the water. Strength returned to his spirit.
Setenay stood on the shore and peered into the water, which had crept several feet closer since they’d arrived. She whispered something. He stepped next to her and looked out over the water.
“The current should carry us to the Great Sea. We’ll look for signs of the coastline and work our way west toward your arun-ki. We’ll collect your people and sail west, gathering the Lo nation as we proceed. We will create a flotilla and ride out the coming flood as one people.”
She didn’t respond for a few moments.
“In my vision, the God of the Narim spoke to me,” Setenay said. Aizarg detected a wheeze in her breathing, as if she wasn’t drawing enough breath. “He told me His name.”
Aizarg turned, astonished at this revelation.
Setenay looked out over the water somewhere beyond the horizon. “He whispered it, like a soft spring breeze that surprises you with its warmth after a long winter. I found comfort in it.
“When you step on that raft tomorrow, your long journey will just begin, Aizarg. These past few days will be as a passing dream. At the end of that journey you will know God’s name and also find comfort. Remember that in the darkness, Uros, and know you are never alone, never forsaken.”
A thousand questions flooded Aizarg’s mind and he opened his mouth to speak, but something caught the corner of his eye. He thought he saw a dark object, like a darting fish, move through the water in front of Setenay. For a second, he thought he heard hissing, like water drops falling in a hot cooking stone. He peered closer, but saw nothing except a thin crust of ice hugging the water’s edge.
Aizarg rubbed his eyes and turned back to Setenay, who stared at him intently. His feelings of unease returned.
Setenay turned back to the camp fire and Sarah. “I have a sail to make.”
***
Aizarg’s tale of approaching doom haunted Virag with every step. Doubts, as cold and dark as the water encroaching on the grasslands, swirled through the slaver’s mind. The look in Aizarg’s eyes haunted Virag the most.
Fear and truth.
I should have killed them as they reveled in my yurt. I should have sent runners to Prince Tuma that easy pickings wandered the steppe. He would have rewarded me for the tip.
It did not matter now, as Aizarg and his band of fools were probably already dead somewhere on the steppe. Virag returned his attention to the business at hand. What was important was getting to the cache, one of the slaver’s many secret stashes hidden up and down the coast, ahead of the rising water.
Virag followed the two burly S
ammujad warriors wielding their swords like machetes, cutting a path through the head-high reeds. This cache originally sat hidden several hundred paces from the shore. Now they slogged through almost knee-deep water.
Clouds of black marsh flies should have assaulted them, but the air was clear. Tadpoles and water bugs should have danced at their feet. Instead, silence dominated a marsh every bit as sterile as the steppe.
The marsh men’s arrival at his trading camp heralded the beginning of a string of ill omens. The day after Aizarg’s party departed, word reached Virag of a great horde of cursed beasts gathering in the east. Gentle grassland streams suddenly swelled with dark, cold water and swept away all in their path. Soon, they began to consume the marshes. Several nights ago, a thousand stars fell from the sky and then, this morning a great star thundered from the heavens.
The water comes from the land, not the Great Sea. Another half a day and it will cover the reeds and sweep away the cache. I am just in time.
With a muted thud, the lead warrior’s sword stuck something solid.
Virag shoved him aside. “You damn fool! If you damaged it I’ll run you through myself.”
Virag parted the reeds to reveal an enormous tarp of stitched and oiled horse hide concealing his treasure. He held his breath and lifted a corner of the tarp.
It’s all here, in perfect condition.
The two Sammujad considered the objects with ignorant disgust.
“The Captain of Hur-ar has paid for these, has he not, master?”
Virag slowly turned and let his eyes sink into the henchmen like a slow, twisting knife. The warrior turned away under the smaller man’s burning gaze.
“Will they still work, master?” the other warrior asked.
“Of course. I stored them exactly as the sco-lo-ti Ba-lok advised. Both of you return to camp and bring back everything as I instructed.” Virag looked down at the water. “And hurry!”
The two warriors nodded and sloshed off through the marshes, leaving Virag to further examine his treasure.
A good trader always hedges his bets.
27. Dawn’s Bitter Duty
The mighty Scythian king, Sosa, spied the young maiden bathing by a stream at the edge of the marsh. Intent on enslaving her, he carried her far across the steppe.
Instead of becoming his slave, she melted his black heart. Stricken with love, he made her his wife over all the maidens of the Scythia. In time, the horse warriors came to revere the wise and beautiful Lo princess, whom they called the Lady of the Water. Soon, she bore Sosa an heir, whom they named Sawseruquo.
Sosa doted on her and gave her all she desired, but sadness still filled her heart. Though she came to love Sosa, The Lady of the Water always pined for the Great Sea.
“What will make you happy? Tell me and I will make it so,” Sosa beseeched her.
“Bring me a white marsh flower and plant it in front of our yurt that I may remember the smell of the sea.”
He did, but in a day it withered. As the flower died, the Lady of the Water fell ill.
The next day Sosa brought back another flower, more lovely than the first. “This one will thrive and so shall you,” he said and planted it outside their yurt.
It, too, withered and died. The Lady hovered on the edge of death.
Desperate, Sosa rode once again to the marsh and found the loveliest flower of all and planted it outside their yurt.
That night, the goddess Psatina scooped up some of the Great Sea in her hand and carried it far into the steppe. The sky grew dark in her shadow. The heavens flashed when the goddess blinked her eyes. The horses fled as ear-splitting booms echoed with her footfalls. The Scythians cowered in their yurts as the goddess opened her hands and showered water over the third flower.
The next morning the flower was alive and in full bloom. So, too, did the Lady’s health recover. Sosa knew the Lo goddess had sent him a message. His beautiful flower would die separated from the Great Sea. With a heavy heart he returned The Lady of the Water to the marsh, content he would see his beloved in the eyes of his son, Prince Sawseruquo.
From that day forth a beautiful white flower blossoms alone and unmolested on the barren g’an. The Blossom of Lady Setenay blooms eternally on the steppe, a sign that love can find root far from home, and hope can bloom in the darkest of places. - Conversations with Sana
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
In the center of the living circle, the spirit’s features sharpened and focused until she crystalized into the shade of her final earthly shell. Black hair piled high on her head and clothed in a white silk robe emblazoned with the form of the golden dragon, the goddess appeared as she had for countless Offering Ceremonies. She unfurled paper fans in each hand and wrapped them around her like folded wings, one below her chin and one behind her back.
Her delicate feet, wrapped in silk slippers, floated a hair’s breadth above the ground. Her almond eyes simmered with a blue glow. The spirit could not smell the dust nor feel the chill in the air, but she remembered their physical sensations and mourned her earthly lives with each memory.
She sensed Fu Xi far to the east, climbing the Roof of the World on his gray mare. Her other son dwelt closer, beyond the Great Sea to the southeast.
Untouched by the living cloud of animals, she turned to the west and raised her arms high over her head, fans outstretched.
May this act begin my atonement.
As the last sliver of the red sun vanished into the sea, the age of Narim and Nephilim came to an end. The Angel of Death dropped her arms and the fans closed with thunderous snap.
Every creature in the circle crashed to the dust, from the smallest insect to the mightiest elephant.
Along the Black River, the Valley of the Beasts became the Valley of Death.
***
Okta woke Aizarg before dawn to find the water almost to the fire.
“When I woke the tide was starting to lift one side of the raft,” Okta said, chewing a bit of dried fish and handing Aizarg a piece. “I pulled the raft back, but I think the water is rising more rapidly now.”
Aizarg’s shoulder still throbbed, but felt better than the day before. He shed the sling and slowly ate the fish.
Aizarg opened his mouth to ask where Ood-i and Sarah were when the big man stepped out of the shadows and looked at Aizarg nervously. Ood-i threw more wood on the fire until it blazed enough to cut the pre-dawn chill and provide enough light to pack their belongings.
Winter is coming, perhaps a very long one.
Setenay remained where Aizarg saw her before he fell asleep – sitting by the fire and gazing into the flames. Her rolled bed mat sat next to her unopened pack. She looked exhausted, her wheezing worse.
Aizarg began to worry about her.
“Setenay, did you get any sleep?”
She nodded to a place next to the fire where the new sail was neatly folded. “When I get sewing I lose track of time.” Her voice reminded Aizarg of the sound of the wagon wheels crossing the Kupar Bridge, deep, rough and hollow.
The gray false dawn lightened the eastern ridge.
“Where is Sarah?” Aizarg looked about. Setenay didn’t respond and looked back into the fire. That’s when Sarah stepped out of the shadows, adjusting her dress.
Anger boiled in Aizarg’s heart as he realized she came from the same direction Ood-i emerged just moments earlier.
Setenay grabbed his hand and pulled herself up. “I know what you see,” she hissed into his ear. “Say nothing!”
“They both took an oath! It will poison the arun-ki.”
“The arun-ki is gone!” she shouted. “Look at the water! Our people are most likely afloat and praying for our return. The last thing you need to do is dwell on whether or not two people in love can keep an oath we both knew they could not honor.”
Okta, Ood-i, and Sarah watched them. Sarah stepped forward, tears in her eyes. “I am sorry, Father. I love him. I cannot deny it, especially now.”
Aizarg looked at Ood-i. “I love her, Uros,” Ood-i said clearly, his expression firm. “We w-will face the deluge alone if we must, but we will never be parted again.”
Everyone looked to Aizarg and waited for his reaction.
He sighed and nodded.
What was it Noah said? ‘Justice should never be meted without the council of the heart. That is where God’s voice can always be heard.’
Aizarg pulled Sarah closer and held her tight. “You are not going to be turned away, daughter. We will find a way.”
She wrapped her arms tightly around his neck and sobbed.
Ood-i placed his hand on Aizarg’s good shoulder. “Thank you, Uros.”
Aizarg thought about Ula and Su-gár. How will we work this out?
“Setenay, is there a ceremony or tradition which might be useful to resolve the situation when we return?” Aizarg asked.
Setenay sat back down and rested her head in her hand. “If not, I’m sure Atamoda can make something up.” Okta and Ood-i gave Setenay a bewildered look.
Setenay impatiently rolled her eyes and waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, don’t look so surprised! The gods know I’ve conveniently “rediscovered” enough ancient rites in my time. A good patesi-le does what she must to keep peace in the village.” Setenay sighed, “It will work itself out. One storm at a time, Uros. One storm at a time.”
The real dawn fast approached in a cloudless sky, breathing shapes and color into the gray shadows along the shore.
Okta pointed to the pink line heralding the approaching sun. “Someone approaches over the eastern ridge. It must be Ghalen and Levidi.” He bent over and tossed his pack onto the raft. “Perhaps this god of the Narim saw fit to help them find a mast.”
“Or my grandson.” Setenay shot Okta a stern glance.
“Yes, old mother,” Okta corrected himself. “I hope they found Ba-lok.”
Sarah looked up at Aizarg through tears of happiness. “Thank you! Thank you, father!”
Aizarg kissed her forehead. “Atamoda and I have much to discuss, but Setenay is right – one storm at a time. You and Ood-i must refrain from...from you know, until Atamoda and I can sit down with Ood-i and Ula and sort this all out.”
Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi Page 36