“It won’t happen again, don’t be afraid.” The First Disciple moved a step closer. Yes, my dear warrior. I used that story against you! “I will never make a hero of you, or of your people. None of you will die. No one will harm a hair on your head. Oh, Asmeghin…I will make an example of you. Next time we meet you’ll be digging into my temple with every Nehama Tankar. You’ll crawl in the dust begging for water, and for another chance to hear my peaceful, reasonable request. These are the words of the First Disciple of Skyrgal, words that you can write in stone. If you’ve already decided to damn your people, there’s nothing that I, or your brothers, can do about it.” This time, it was Aeternus who caressed Baikal. Exodus, still overwhelmed by an alien pain, didn’t stop him. “What a pity,” the Disciple said. “Really.”
*
Exodus entered his tent, which was bathed in the orange half-light of the early afternoon. He put his callused paws on the soft carpet and looked at the woman, naked and lying on her belly. She kept her face on her crossed arms, with half closed eyes. He walked to her and laid a gentle hand on her butt. Give me a human female with a smooth ass and keep the best Tankar beauties all for you, he thought.
She was waiting for him. “How did it go?” she asked turning in the white sheets which slipped between her thighs, barely covering her sex.
“Umpf,” he answered. He took off his linen robe, hoping to get rid of the heavier burden it represented, and lay naked beside her.
“Yah!” A childish voice made him smile. His daughter emerged from the sea of white sheets to climb his hairy belly with her chubby hands. “Guh, aew? Yay!”
Exodus brought a giant hand close to the baby’s face. She grabbed her father’s thumb, laughing happily as she carried it to her mouth. She bit him and he jerked away.
“Kugar!” he scolded.
The baby laughed.
“There’s at least one thing she took from her father,” the woman said.
“No. She didn’t take anything from me.”
The woman snorted, getting closer and drawing a small, invisible spiral on his chest. “So it went bad.”
“What?”
“The Council didn’t go as you hoped, otherwise you’d be here babbling about how Kugar resembles you. She has the same courage, the same desire to explore the world. Even the same eyes, she didn’t get those two lapis lazuli from me.”
He turned toward her, watching his reflection in her black eyes. “You always understand me, don’t you, Onah?”
“Since the day you kidnapped me.”
The little one demanded her father’s attention, hitting his chest and laughing. Exodus let her do it, she was one of only three creatures in the world he would allow to tread on him as they pleased.
Onah brought a hand to his nose and pinched it. Exodus shook his head and growled. The baby fell on the bed and continued to laugh, holding her feet with her hands, while the woman ended up sitting on the Tankar’s belly with her legs open.
They looked at each other for a moment, then he stroked her thighs. “They spoke about this, too.”
“About that night?”
“About the two of us. We’re still considered a blasphemy.”
She snorted bitterly, shaking her head. “Love is always a blasphemy to a stranger’s eye. What’s between a man and a woman—the reason why they are together—is clear just to the two of them. The rest of the world will never understand.”
“But the rest of the world will use everything against you, especially your past.”
“I don’t remember you ever holding me in chains.”
“Well, every now and then I was tempted to, you know?”
“When?”
“The first time you cooked for me, for inst—”
Onah tried to beat him, and so did the little girl. They all laughed together.
Then the woman’s hands caressed his chest covered with white hairs. “This is a male-dominated society.”
“You say patriarchal.”
She shrugged. “It’s the same. They should guess at least one great reason why I like to be with you.”
“My great sense of sarcasm?”
“Umh.” She pretended to reason about it. “No.”
“My great wealth?”
“You mean those four goats?”
This time, he pretended to wonder about it. “Let’s see, what could it be?”
“You idiot!” Her arms broke free from his hold. Exodus held her by the hips, letting his hands slide down.
“Not in front of the child,” she said.
“You know there’s nothing vulgar in nature’s ways for us Tankars. Everything is sacred.”
“Come on…” Onah bent over, bringing her eyes close to his. She became serious. “They are so blue. They look like the sea.”
“I’ve never seen it.”
She stroked his chest. “Love is blind. Love deceives you. Fate sent you to rescue me from my father, and now I’m a prisoner of your eyes. They don’t know what a monster Varg Belhaven was, what he could do to those under his control. They’ll never understand because our secret lies here.” She put a hand on his belly, just below the hot humidity of her own sex. “Between our bodies. You were my second chance, the one which should be given to everybody.”
“I’ve never been afraid.” That was the only way in which Exodus, with his dignity of Asmeghin, would express his present state of mind. “Do you understand, Onah?”
She nodded, turning to his daughter.
“We must send her away,” the Nehama said, as if reading her thoughts. “We can save her, at least.”
“Yah!” The little girl laughed happily when she managed to bring her foot in her mouth. “Guh? Wah!”
“She’s so…” Onah’s eyes welled with tears.
“She’s so human,” Exodus said. “Her grandfather’s Arsis is the proof of her origins. We need to have her brought to the right threshold and she’ll be saved.”
“Not to Varg Belhaven, please.” After all that time, she still called her father by name, as if to keep him at a distance. “She must not grow up as a Guardian of the Hammer. She must never grow up like—”
“I’ll make sure she’ll arrive on the threshold of the right Guardian.”
“On the wrong side of Agalloch Walls there’s no right person.”
“I’m not talking about a person.”
Onah said nothing for a moment. “Araya?” she guessed.
Exodus nodded. “She’ll be entrusted to the Agent Orange. He will not refuse me this favor, not after what I did to help the Messhuggahs against the Sanctuary.”
The woman was silent for a time that seemed endless. Then she nodded, stroking his thick white hair. “If it has to be done…”
“…it’s better it’s done quickly.”
She spent what was left of the dying day with her daughter. She gave her a bath, even if the little one had no need of it—and no intention, either. She dressed her in her best white silk, to mark the end of the black past she wanted to get rid of.
Mother Desert…Exodus could only think watching her as she put the Arsis engraved with the Hammer around the neck of their child. Why must this be my fate? Why should I feel this pain?
“Funny,” Onah said. “I don’t have a portrait of you to put inside it.”
He came up and hugged her from behind. As she cradled Kugar, a terrible awareness came to him that was the last time they were a family. Then, fate would dispose of their lives, directing them wherever it wished.
Onah turned around and looked into his blue eyes, holding out the soft bundle that contained everything they could call their own.
He left before it was too late.
“Asmeghin!” exclaimed Torah, his Assistant to the Ceremonies, when he saw Exodus in the doorway of his tent.
“As agreed, I entrust to you one of the three most precious things I have,” Exodus said as he entered.
“Then it’s decided.”
“I gave orders
to kidnap my wife, too. Onah would never willingly have agreed to follow her daughter. The Agent Orange will find some solution for her too. This is a matter between Tankars and Tankars will solve it.”
Torah nodded. “Yay. My skar is already saddled.”
“Go, and never look back. The others will join you at the fourth length of the Main Road. You’ll find the Agent Orange where I told you, then you’ll join me on the way home with any information you have.” There was only time for, “Family, clan, Tankar!”
“Family. Clan. Tankar.”
After that, it all happened too fast. His Assistant went outside, leaped into the saddle of his skar—a more agile breed of mogwart—and became a small dot on the horizon.
Mother Desert sent a caress of wind to comfort him, but it was cold.
Am I becoming cold, too? Exodus wondered before returning to his tent.
There were signs of struggle everywhere. He knew Onah, she would have fought to the last, before yielding to her kidnappers. I hope you’ll forgive me. You, at least. “Baikal,” he called.
The boy didn’t get out of his favorite hiding place, the huge trunk where his adoptive mother kept her clothes.
Exodus could hear his frantic breathing, then a sob, immediately suppressed. No, my son. Show no weakness, show no fear, or the world will devour you. “It was all necessary. We’ll get over this, you hear me?” He stood there listening and didn’t hear that symptom of weakness anymore. “You are not alone. And as long as you’re by my side, I won’t be either. What’s in heart goes from father to son, don’t ever forget that. From father to son!”
He closed his eyes. Forgive me for taking away your Redemption, the sister I gave you after the night we both lost everything except each other. Forgive me. Forgive me, Baikal. “You won’t attend the Rite of Rebirth. I forbid you,” he continued. “It’s the last thing you need, now. We’ll break bread with our brothers when the ceremony is over, then we’ll ride together on the way home. We’ll meet them again. It will all be fine in the end.”
Don’t make promises you can’t keep, a paternal voice scolded him from the depth of his memory, as Exodus went out and walked back to the Throne of Skyrgal. He stood at its entrance, and in the dry air of the day, he hated the waiting with all his heart. He looked up to the sky but refused to pray.
When the other Asmeghins reached him they said no words, until Nehorur came. That year, the honor of administering the Rite of Rebirth belonged to the hated Kahar leader.
They walked in procession through the ruins of the Skyrgal colossus, the biggest statue erected in his image. Its limbs, collapsed to the ground, were now filled with precarious buildings made of baked mud bricks. One shoulder, covered with spines, was crowded with small Tankars sitting astride the numerous ledges. They watched them walking into the huge head of the god, his jaw broken up into five sections. Beyond the monumental uvula, they climbed the slope of a hill, along a road lined by the tombs of the Asmeghin.
Women-wolves dressed in purple and green, stood along the sacred way. They played a slow and solemn music, beating large drums and singing with operatic voices:
For the victory and the triumph of Ktisis.
Of Ktisis.
For the victory and the triumph of Ktisis.
Of Ktisis.
When they reached the tomb of his father, a simple monolith erected toward the sky like all the others, Exodus bowed his head. What’s in heart goes from father to son, he thought. You repeated those words until your last day. I know—oh, I know—you’re watching over me, Dad. If our ancestors could see what’s happening now, they would turn in their graves and would all be ashamed. The Free People of the desert are wearing the chains of their own will. They haven’t seen, they can’t understand. They are led by small and petty individuals who just want to expand the poisoned land under their control. Mother Desert, forgive them for they don’t know what they’re doing.
They reached the esplanade at the top of the hill, where a circle of megaliths erected by the Gorgors stood. As he always did, Exodus marveled to see the terrific structure, and wondered how the ancient inhabitants of the holy city could position the large lintels along its circumference. The procession crossed the moat, perhaps once filled with water, and the outer circle of the fifty-six pits—the tombs of the ancient kings-priests of Adramelech. They passed the middle circle of the fifty burials and then that of the thirty, inching toward the heart of the complex.
Nehorur entered the southern gate, the smallest one, and approached one of the four sacred altars, the one at the center.
Exodus watched that affront in silence. The Kahar had chosen the altar that rightfully belonged to the Nehama, the oldest clan—the first to have raised its tent on the sacred ground, descending from the Silver Mountains after the Red Dawn.
But that wouldn’t be the only offense Exodus had to endure that day, as he understood when he saw the sacrificial victim lead into the sacred circle. “ONAH!” he shouted, recognizing his woman.
Only the smile of Nehorur answered him…and the big hands resting on his shoulders to hold him. A slimy voice whispered to his right, “Don’t do stupid things, Exodus. Someone is watching your son at this very moment, as he plays alone or rubs his prick like all the Tankars his age. You don’t want that something happens to him, right? You’ll be good. You’ll let us humiliate you in front of everyone. She’s a human, after all. How long could this sacrilege you call love have lasted?”
Love is always a blasphemy to a stranger’s eye. The rest of the world will never understand. “I ordered you to take her to—”
“We only judged which side of the fence would be best for us. Don’t hate us for this. We allowed your mutt to escape, you know? Aeternus couldn’t resist the temptation to plant a half-Tankar in the bosom of the Fortress.” He laughed. “Or whatever you call that crap come out between the thighs of your woman. Maybe one day Mother Desert will call her back, who knows? Maybe her bestial nature will have the better of the human one, and that’s when the fun will really start!”
Onah stumbled as she was led to the altar, under the eyes of the Tankars peering into the circle of megaliths. Exodus realized that she had been drugged.
“But now…viddy well, brother. Look carefully.”
Sunset dyed the eastern horizon in gold and the young Nehorur began to undress with ceremonial slowness.
The sky turned red—fire and flames flowed through the lonely clouds.
As the sacrificial victim murmured her unconscious terror, the Kahar Asmeghin donned his clawed glove, reciting, “Rem ka! Tvas àrok nam kràhe, Tvàas Hotànkar nam kràhe. Kem tàbre sa làka res, ner ktòna trànkaldar. Rem ka! Rem ka!”
The flames in the sky turned to blood. The victim was immobilized on her stomach and the priest positioned himself on her. When the shadow of the huge western monolith penetrated the first stone circle—Vagina of the World—Nehorur did the same with the lamb.
Screams of pain and howls of ecstasy rose to the sky. The fathers held their children on their own shoulders so that they could see the ritual that would bring fertility and prosperity back into the world. The sun went into the horizon as the black pole sank into the second circle of stones. Ritually, the Asmeghin turned the torso of his victim around, and still penetrating her sacred body, he slew her. Blood poured out of her throat onto the stone, and then down to bless the earth. The dark phallus tasted the ruby fluid—satisfied, it merged with the surrounding shadows joining the world of the living with the dead.
Chants, drums, choirs.
Only then was the Asmeghin certain that the cycle was finally accomplished, leaving the most sacred circle.
*
“We’d better go, Asmeghin,” said Sherpa, the only one of the Faithful Five left to Exodus. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t foresee that the others would betray the clan.”
Exodus looked around, lost. He felt that the banquet offered that year by the Beshavis had been conceived as his funeral feast. Everyone looke
d at him while he was standing on the sidelines. Below the mother tent, five long tables were covered with all imaginable goods and everyone ate heartily. The children seemed the happiest ones. At least for a day, the hostility of the desert was forgotten thanks to the Beshavis. The Beshavis who deal and trade. The Beshavis who are so reasonable that they would sell the very stones of their homes, if the offer were good.
Baikal ran to him, holding out his hands. “Look, Dad! They have dates, chickpeas with honey, and dried fruit and dried figs and goat cheese and they have—”
His father slapped the food out of his hand.
Baikal was still. He looked at the food on the ground and didn’t dare say anything.
“Exodus…” Sherpa said. “He wasn’t there.”
The Asmeghin put a hand to his eyes. “Come here,” he said quietly but firmly, before cuddling his son’s head to kiss him on the thick fur. “Childhood ends the day you find out that the entire world outside the family just wants to rip you off, you hear me? Some will do it gently, some without scruples; some with persuasive words, some with offers you can’t refuse. But only in the family there’s hope. It’s the only safe place, the only refuge. Understanding this will mean the end of innocence, but will save you a lot of troubles.” He lowered his eyes to look at his son, expecting to find him in tears.
Baikal, instead, was returning his gaze, with the big and intelligent eyes that children have when they hear something that really interests them. “Family is the only safe place?”
“The only one.”
“So why did Darkan try to cheat his brother?”
“My son Darkan?” Sherpan asked.
“Yes, he told him that he couldn’t have his clawed glove, but he took it and went to play so he followed Darkan and threw him a punch on the nose, and he will remember it the next time, I’m sure he will remember it.”
Exodus did something he wouldn’t think possible to do again, not in his life, not that day. He smiled and rubbed his nose on the head of his living Redemption. “Every now and then there may be a conflict between relatives. Perhaps that’s meant to pave the way for reconciliation, for an even stronger bond. Once healed, the bone is harder where it was broken, you know?”
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