The Legend of El Shashi

by Marc Secchia

  Give me the dry land any makh,

  A place to walk across its back,

  Not for me to float on fishes,

  Lest I end up those fishes dishes!

  Popular Ballad of Herliki Free Fiefdom: Drink to the Sea My Lovely

  The city of Herliki perched as a great mother seagull warming an egg upon the famed chalk cliffs of Hakooi, overlooking the Gulf of Erbon. Its walls were monuments of white majesty. Herliki was named a free Fiefdom, because its citizens, men and women both, were freemen, not bondservants or landless serfs as in many of the other Fiefdoms. Orik had described Herliki as a sunny paradise, but in the Glooming storms when I arrived, the city was caught in the throes of a wild sea tempest that flung such booming wave-mountains against the cave-riddled cliffs that the ground shuddered at each blow. Once through the great gates, I had to lean into the wind whistling down the narrow alleyways while torrential rain lashed the cobbles into rivers.

  The storm blew me through the streets, and raged for five days. My innkeeper kept invoking Slukkan, a local weather-god much revered by sailors, and urged all her guests to partake in interminable rituals meant to encourage good weather. I have never been fascinated by the entrails of animals. After the second night, I confined myself to my room pleading illness.

  And it came as little surprise, mark my words, that good weather followed the bad. Superstition does irritate me like a burr in the boot.

  After the storm broke, I quickly learned that my position in Herliki society was only slightly above the crabs that the locals loved to consume in a bewildering variety of local dishes. My chances of entry to the Mystic Library appeared to closely mirror the chances of one of those luckless crustaceans escaping the cooking pot.

  But I am a trader at heart. As I marked in the past, healing power has leverage.

  One day, I removed a warty growth from the nose of a popular ulule. She knew that the only daughter of the Hassutl was deathly ill with a canker of the liver. The Hassutl had offered a great reward for her healing, which for anna had lain unclaimed while the usual procession of charlatans and vultures made merry with her treatment. Now they were waiting for her to die. Had they hoped for El Shashi? No. But the ulule knew my reputation. She did not believe I was he, but she did offer a bargain.

  Bargain enough to purchase an audience with the Hassutl.

  “I am minded to toss you off the cliffs!” snarled the Hassutl. First Lord of the realm, his word was second only to the Hassutla’s. She had not deigned to meet an itinerant healer. “I’m sick to death of your kind–lizards and snakes, swindlers to a man!”

  I pressed my feverish forehead against the cool mosaic tiles, depicting a fanciful underwater seascape. A creature they called ‘octopus’ was right beneath my nose. Horrible, rubbery meat. I had attempted it but once.

  “Who allowed this scoundrel access to my presence, let him tremble!” I imagined the pompous herald growing pale. “What my daughter has suffered–words fail me. What makes you think you’re offering any different potion, or poultice, or ritual, to the rest of those … those scum-sucking parasites? What skills have you? What proofs do you bring? Calling yourself El Shashi–I’ve never heard such brazen effrontery!”

  I wet my lips and ventured, “I bring no such proofs, great Lord.”

  “Then what in Mata’s name do you expect of me? How dare you.” A pair of magnificently tooled leather boots stamped into the periphery of my vision. “Arise, be you a man, and look me in the eye, and swear you will heal my daughter! Else crawl out of here like the cur you are and flee my city, or I swear I will feed your filthy, lying carcass piece by piece to the crabs.”

  It was not a fate I cared for. His challenge, however, angered me. I had suffered more than he knew. His doubts were his right, but so was my integrity. At my rising, an agitated hissing rose from his court.

  The Hassutl of Herliki wore crimson silk pantaloons cut to the knee and a vest of costly silver brocade. At wrist, ankle and neck, he wore tens of silver bracelets and torcs in a variety of designs, patterned after the tygar common to these parts and the great sea condor. A great chain-link of office, the hassulkarian, rested upon his broad-muscled shoulders, and was so encrusted with rubies, garnets, and carnelian that it was difficult to discern the metal beneath. A robe of the finest purple flowed from his shoulders to the floor. His crown rose a good handspan above his head, its centrepiece a ruby the size of a lyom’s egg. His right hand rested upon the hilt of a meliki-style scimitar, a double-pointed, double-edged beast of a weapon favoured by pirates and freemen alike, which could split a man in half at a stroke.

  He was, in a word, magnificent.

  But I was El Shashi, in truth mightier than he. Meeting his hostile stare with a measure of calm at odds with my churning belly, I replied, “Great Lord, I’ve no need of potions or infusions, poultices or ointments, or any form of trickery or cheap flim-flammery. I dare because I can. I dare, because I have a great need.”

  “Ah. And pray tell, what is your price?” I could tell he expected me, in my apparent arrogance, to demand half the jewels in his kingdom.

  “Entry to and free use of the Mystic Library.”

  The Hassutl stared. The longer he stared, the more frightened I became. His colour rose–dangerously. His eyes bulged, red-rimmed. A vein throbbed so fiercely on his forehead I feared it would leap out of its own accord and strangle me.

  “The Mystic Library?” he screamed at last. “Entry to the Library? That’s your price? Answer me, you worm!”

  An awful silence gripped the room.

  I burshingled stiffly, goaded beyond bearing now. “Perhaps we should see to your daughter’s good health first, great Lord, before we discuss the price of her life.”

  Harsher than I had intended. The Hassutl’s fist was white-knuckled on the hilt of his scimitar. Doubtless he had more than a passing temptation to separate my impertinent head from my shoulders. I bowed even lower than before, wishing I could disappear through the floor, and trembled.

  “Dismissed!” he roared at the nobles. “You.” His finger stabbed at me. “Follow me.”

  I have long legs, but I had to trot to keep up with the Hassutl’s storming progress through the palace. Evidently the staff were used to his moods, for his mien had them skipping and scurrying like frightened forest deer to clear his path. I had a confused impression of marble halls, galleries populated with priceless vases, and silken hangings and artwork from across the Fiefdoms, before we crossed a pretty open courtyard, darted between a pair of soldiers who raised their crossed scimitars for us to pass, and entered a wing with boudoir after fantastical boudoir set off a great central corridor.

  Without pause or warning he swept into one of the rooms, scattering maidservants left and right with a chorus of frightened cries, before leading me into the chamber beyond. It was dark and shadowed, and the stench of imminent death hung thickly within, despite Jartian incense being burnt in a brazier and a vase of fragrant lilies dominating a small side-table. A ghastly rattle drew my attention to the massive bed, where a bevy of elderly athocaries fussed over the dying daughter of the realm.

  “OUT!” roared the Hassutl, and made good his word with the flat of his scimitar when one of the athocaries moved too slowly for his liking. “Get out!”

  Again, a long, rattling breath sounded behind the kingly silken hangings. I knew I was not a makh too soon. Too many a time I have heard that sound–Ulim’s rattle, say the Elbarath, the sound a person makes just before death.

  “Behold the Hassia K’huylia, my daughter,” he said.

  The poor girl was swaddled in bandages suffused with some ghastly concoction–dung of the marmoset and crushed lizard livers, or I missed my mark. A favourite for cankers of the bowels, liver, and kidneys. I had to cover my mouth as I leaned over the bed. K’huylia was sallow and emaciated, her pulse barely flickering against the sunken flesh of her throat, and though her fever burned fiercely against my hand, there was no trace of sweat on her ski
n. They had probably withheld food and drink in a mistaken attempt to deny the canker nutrients to grow, never realising it would take all it needed from her body and more, regardless.

  Bloody butchers. Better the blade than this!

  Her organs would fail soon. A touch-and-go case. One wrong step and I could hasten her path to the grave.

  I drew back and addressed the Hassutl. “Get me a sharp blade, hot water, broth, and throw the windows open for Mata’s sake. Consign this stinking brazier to the firepit.”

  His eyes darkened.

  “We must cut off these filthy bandages,” I assured him. “Have the servants bring fresh linens as well.”

  Never before had I encountered so many poisons in a body. Usually much would be excreted or sweated out by a fever, but K’huylia was beyond that now. Concentrate them, and there was a good chance they would reach her heart. But maybe … yes. I closed my eyes and began to draw the poisons into a crystal I fashioned inside her abdominal cavity.

  Her heart stopped.

  Makh passed. Servants came and left. The Hassutla herself came to observe, but all she would have seen was her daughter breathing in perfect concert with me. I cradled her life at the cusp, like a baby bird trembling in my palm, and refused to let her pass on.

  I remember the first time I held a bird. Janos had rescued a kestrel’s chick from a marauding mountain fox. He placed it in my hands. He taught me how to hold it, to soothe it, and as reward, to feel the warmth of its fast-pulsing heart and to appreciate how life is curiously fragile yet as strong as ivy clinging to the side of a house. And once its spark is snuffed out, there is no return …

  At length, I began to drip the broth between her lips. Drop by precious drop. It took all night to finish a single bowl. With the moisture came the ability to remove the poisons faster. I cleansed her bloodstream, and sometime during the darkest makh her heart began to beat again–I gave it a tiny push, and her spirit did the rest. By the dioni orison, a glorious sunrise over the pearl-white peaks of the western Loibrak Range, her heart beat steadily of its own volition and her breathing eased.

  Now that K’huylia was stronger I cut off the dung-encrusted bandages with my own hand. I had the servants strip off the linens and bathe her body–much did they mutter at my presence, though the girl was nought but pitiful skin over bone. Surely they could see she was no attraction to a man? Always these social niceties over survival … Umarik customs are passing strange.

  I turned my attention to the canker. There were tumours throughout her abdomen, not just in the liver as the other athocaries had assumed. Her kidneys were dysfunctional, her bowels, riddled with growths. Here I did a deep, slow work–struggling to help her body find ways to remove the diseased parts while preserving the good. Again and again, I was stymied by my lack of knowledge, baffled by the progression of the disease, humbled by the elegant intricacy of the pathways I trod. I proceeded as much by instinct and experience as by understanding.

  When I was done, I knew my work was not done.

  A delicate gazebo, crafted of sliver filigree over columns of solid blue-veined Rhumian marble, housed our dining table. Three successive layers of diaphanous Sulmian silk hangings created an atmosphere of intimacy, but in reality left us at the pleasure of the cool, scented breezes of eventide. All around the gazebo, the formal palace gardens were lit with tiny candles winking like fireflies in the darkness. I wondered if the servants had perfumed the hangings especially.

  We four sat at table–the Hassutla, the Hassutl, the Hassia K’huylia, and I. Though they had other sons and daughters, this was a private celebration. A lummericoot twanged discreetly behind one of the hangings. Every dish was exquisite. The wine was by leagues the finest I had ever tasted, and completely wasted on an uncultured vegetable farmer of my ilk. Even the spoons and dishes were solid silver.

  The royals wore semi-formal robes, and the Hassutla’s hair alone boasted more jewellery than could have furnished a respectable trader’s business back in Roymere. K’huylia, in the manner of the younger court set, was wearing a flowing surriba the colour of amethyst, and I thought its close fit at the bodice and waist, and elegant length, befitted her slender figure most admirably. And I? My flowing sallinen shirt and soft bruke trousers, with tooled leather boots and a silver torc about my neck, were quite the finest clothes ever to grace my undeserving skin.

  “It is too much,” I said. The Hassutla beamed at me. “I urge you–my presence here cannot become widely known or I would become a danger to you and to those you love.”

  “You have healed my daughter. For that, half the kingdom were yours.”

  I poked at my food, feeling tired and dispirited. “My Lord, as we discussed, I merely stayed the course of K’huylia’s illness.”

  “Is my table not to your liking?” the Hassutla enquired.

  “He feels he has failed.” We three looked at K’huylia. Her eyes, framed in a mass of dark ringlets that when I first met her had been limp and lifeless, had regained their sparkle. “Is life not a mystery beyond our ken? El Shashi lacks the knowledge to heal what Mata has written into the very weft of my being.”

  Yes! A clean strike to the gong! I sat mesmerised by this insight. It did seem her illness was somehow–not fated, but written–in her life’s deepest roots, ready to return. Maybe not today, maybe not next anna, but as surely as the suns turn through the skies, it would rise again. Changing this fate would mean changing the fundamental K’huylia. It was not something external, such as a disease or a plague. No, the answer lay within. Etched in her bones. In every beat of her heart lurked a deadly potential!

  But … how? My mind was reeling. Did Mata intend her to die? Was she born but to die? Why her, why not someone else? Could this not be changed, even by my power? Were my greatest efforts doomed to failure? Was it as the yammariks taught–similar to a canker of the quoph that must be redeemed before the quoph can find its final rest–that in all flesh lodged some secret malice, a taint, that predisposed humankind to the clutches of Nethe? For all must die. Even Janos had died. Thousands more had died at my hand, but he was the first.

  My heart rained sorrow upon sorrow.

  K’huylia smiled gently at me. “That is why El Shashi would use our Mystic Library, father. I will gladly show him its ways. For does he not seek answers to the greatest question of all?”

  A yammarik would add, ‘all must die lest Mata’s mercy is sought and won’. I had always seen that philosophy as a means of lining the pockets of the religious. Had they a point after all? How many had I abandoned to Nethe’s dark torment?

  The Hassutl said, “Why do we die?”

  “No.”

  “No indeed,” said the Hassutla, laying her hand upon K’huylia’s. “The question, my husband, is this: ‘Why do we live?’ K’huylia’s new life is a gift beyond knowing.”

  Janos, ah, Janos! You who were father to me when I had none, and a true friend. I betrayed you unto death!

  I thrust my chair back from the table and fled, sobbing, into the night.

  Chapter 18: Eliyan the Sorcerer

  Bait the tygar in her lair,

  Kiss the cobra if you dare,

  But wake not a slumbering Sorcerer.

  Hakooi Traditional Ballad: Advice to a Young Woman on her Majority

  Two anna, seven seasons, three days and nine makh did I tarry in Herliki before I was exposed.

  In the early makh after dioni orison, I would depart the palace for the sandstone-cobbled streets; in less than a span stepping from opulence to poverty, from vaulting chambers to stinking, zigzag alleyways, and bathe in the bustle and buzz I so enjoyed. Ah, not for El Shashi the life of a Hassutl! Here, amidst the spice-sellers and fishmongers and roundel-sweetbread bakers, was my life and my Mata-service.

  Ay, and was there ought but a yammarik’s words in my mind?

  I would stride the two spans from my appointed chambers to the Mystic Library as if I were a man released from jail, eager to study the masters. The Libr
ary was queerly housed in a series of interconnected caverns that delved deep beneath the chalk cliffs. It was said that a library had been hidden here for over two thousand anna. I doubt I ever penetrated a fraction of its secrets. A zealous band of monks guarded its cool galleries, scholars of the Herkon Order, who seek elevation of the quoph through the pursuit of arcane knowledge. They accepted my presence and many questions with studied tolerance and secretive smiles.

  At the Hassutl’s command, a chamber within was set aside for my private use. I met there scholars from many of the Fiefdoms–some from as far as Rotaiki, which is a hundred leagues again beyond Roymere. Each had purchased a special favour in order to gain entry, a secret close-guarded among the academic class.

  Many a makh K’huylia would spend with me, poring over the scrolleaves, until it came to be remarked upon that we were a ‘couple’. Let it be recorded by the stroke of my own quim that I took no liberties with the royal personage. There were several indiscretions with daughters of minor nobility, however. I have ever harboured a weakness for beauty! And a beauty who flatters, cozens, and insists on gracing my bed unannounced–in one instance–wearing a slip of turquoise silk no larger than a small handkerchief …? Well. To refuse would be a gross insult, naturally. Were not womankind created for beauty, and men to serve that beauty?

  ‘A belief of the common herd, Arlak!’ I muttered, curling my lip at my own thoughts. ‘Preserves the social order, keeps men in their place. Their Mata-ordained place!’ Ay, I despised my weakness. Yet a coy look would turn my head every time.

  Guilt always followed such assignations, but never enough to stay my paths. Perhaps had I not been so diverted, I would have noticed I was being watched.

  From the Library’s resources I learned a great deal about human anatomy, and not solely that of the daughters of minor nobility. The library boasted works from all the major athocaries and physicians of the day. Coupled with my skills, I had a unique way of verifying their theories and techniques. I began to practice again. I needed to. As discreetly as I was able, wearing a stagesmith’s mask and guarding my accent, I began to see a few non-paying customers for a few makh every afternoon. Soon I took to disguising myself and walking the alleyways of Herliki. Again, what a fool I was! A fool thrice over! But I felt compelled to practice my art, to address those suffering outside the walls of gilded privilege.