Salt, Sand, and Blood
Salt, Sand, and Blood
MarQuese Liddle
Copyright © 2020 MarQuese Liddle
All rights reserved
ISBN-13: 9798643479093
cover art designed by M.Y. Cover Design
“While many can pursue their dreams in solitude, other dreams are like great storms blowing hundreds, even thousands of dreams apart in their wake. Dreams breathe life into men and can cage them in suffering. Men live and die by their dreams. But long after they have been abandoned they still smolder deep in men’s hearts. Some see nothing more than life and death. They are dead, for they have no dreams.”
— Griffith of the Band of the Hawk
from Berserk by Kentaro Miura
Table of Contents
Opening Invocation
First Verse
Second Verse
Third Verse
Fourth Verse
Fifth Verse
Sixth Verse
Seventh Verse
Eighth Verse
Ninth Verse
Tenth Verse
Eleventh Verse
Twelfth Verse
Thirteenth Verse
Fourteenth Verse
Fifteenth Verse
Sixteenth Verse
Seventeenth Verse
Eighteenth Verse
Nineteenth Verse
Twentieth Verse
Twenty-First Verse
Interlude
Twenty-Second Verse
Twenty-Third Verse
Twenty-Fourth Verse
Twenty-Fifth Verse
Twenty-Sixth Verse
Twenty-Seventh Verse
Coda
Opening Invocation
“Day Dreamer,” droned J’bar from overtop of me, his voice half-muffled by the trickle of warm rain on my face. Only, I didn’t recall falling asleep outside, and the yurt had not leaked since my mother stitched the roof with goat’s skin. That was a decade ago, the year I turned ten, the year my mother took another man and moved into his yurt—a year since the slavers came who traded father to some far-away place. I used to dream of their faces, their squinted eyes and scarred cheeks, and silvered teeth like stars between black cavities. I never told my mother that it was I who poked those holes in the roof so I could see their faces in the sky over Umlomo Village.
It was not until I tasted salt that I opened my eyes—then shut them against the fiery stream of my half-brother’s urine. He started again, “Come on, Day Dreamer, it’s time to wake up,” and I lunged, half-blind, toward the sound of his laughter as he danced outside the door flap. “What you get, Kashim! Leaving me and Baba all of the work!” I wanted to chase after him, hack into his head with my matchet. Instead, I stood there, cursing his name while trying to wipe the piss from my eyes. He’s only ten, I reminded myself.
The years were easier to forget than those faces in the stars that shone over the twinkling beach at twilight. But so too was time like sand. Hands could not contain it no matter how tightly they clutched. Soon enough, J’bar would grow to be his father’s son, long and strong and dark and stupid. There was no wondering why my mother chose his old man. He was responsible, after all, reliable—one of a hundred fisherman of the thousands to ever sail Umlomo’s sea. She knew his seed wouldn’t be another lowly singer’s dog. Useless. A thing to piss on.
I mopped my eyes with the driest fibers of my mattress, yet the rubbing only worsened the sting. So I stumbled from the humid shade of my yurt into the blazing summer sun and groped with my toes toward the lapping of the ocean. A dozen steps and the beach softened underfoot where I crawled like a babe to the water’s edge, scooped as much sea as would fit my hands—scrubbed salt with salt till the water rubbed like sand.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Kashim the Dreamer. His unkempt curls and hollow cheeks were warped in the ocean, and in the foam, his teary eyes swirled red and white with their native brown. That was down in the depths, but on the face of the water, J’bar and his father had already found their niche among the hundred-or-so identical boats. Same place every day. The old man called it his lucky spot, but every fisherman thought that of where he cast his net.
I kicked my reflection and turned for the village. A short walk, a hundred steps west till I spot the others, people packed around yurts and cookfires, urns of boiling ocean or salted fish. Women mostly, wrapped in their family legacy: sheets dyed violet of a thousand crushed seashells wound about their waists, their bloated breasts left bare. Staring at the stretch-pocked bags, I renewed my oath to never grow so ancient.
Our ancestors never grew old in the stories. I don’t mean those who burned their sires bones, but their forefathers. They were the ones whose souls lived forever in tales told during cold nights with only the light of the moon to guide them. They were the ones who stole sheep and goats from the rocky hills, and reeds, fish, and shells from the sea. They didn’t inherit the banners sewn to each family’s door flap. They made them. They painted the spotted cats and cackling hounds, the sea hawks and deep turtles, the sharks and reefs, and the faded waves that decorated the elders’ yurt dead center Umlomo Village.
“In the beginning, all of Umlomo lived under one roof as one family,” Elder Kato had told me on my first day serving the singers. The elder’s words were easier to believe when I was but nine. Their yurt spanned several times the size of the others, and back then, even our paltry watchtower seemed taller than the wool tent it was meant to oversee. I hated that hideous mound of clay, and whoever thought to paint it black—as if we’d no pride of our own, that we had to match the northerners—deserved to have his throat cut. I used to swear that I would tear it down if the slavers ever let us be, as if my hands could have even scratched the pigment.
Young Ishmael was sitting up there when I arrived. Blinded by boredom, he must have had watch all morning given the way he rapped the conch slung around his neck. Didn’t even see me pass beneath his feet and into the elders’ yurt, though I hoped he at least heard me cough as I swallowed plumes wafting from the spirit pipes. The smoke stunk of bowels and ash, yet the seven singers huffed away in rehearsal for a long night of storytelling.
Listening from the entrance, I heard murmurs of childhood hardships and troubled romances. Some spoke of famines while others told of terrible beasts clamoring from the hills and sea. One of the four hags, Elder Hawa, was reciting a tired tale about tragic lovers, one from Umlomo and the other from northern Eemah, changing the names and places and dates, hoping new clothes would disguise her stolen story.
Certain I could sing a tale as well as any of them, I marched stalwart into viscous sound and smoke—spoke my piece. “Star-crossed lovers are as old as bones, Hawa. Even I could do better! Elder, why not let me—”
Kato cut me off. “You’re late, dog. We had to pack our pipes ourselves this morning.”
“You could have had Ishmael do it.”
The elder prodded my thigh with the hot end of his pipe. The others howled as I cried out, but he only scowled and scolded. “Don’t try to distract me. Why are you so late?”
“I just woke up,” I explained, wincing. “I was awake late last night—”
“Watching the stars again?” Kato rocked his balding head. “Kashim the Dreamer. Go ahead, then. What did you see this time?”
“Nothing.” That was the truth of it. Father’s inspiration, the memories and images hidden in the constellations, had been silent through that overcast night. Only the moon shown bright enough for me to see. But it wasn’t the stars where I learned my secrets—not that night. It was my dream. “I have a story I need to tell.”
“You have a thousand stories.”
“I mean for tonight,” I said. E
lder Hawa laughed at that, let a fog of spirit-smoke roll over her chins. I had to bite my tongue to keep from spitting on the hag. “Please! I’ve been practicing all year now. Every day. I’m ready!”
Kato squinted at me through a row of smoke rings. “Kashim, you’re here every day. A dog doesn’t have time to make his own stories.”
“But at night—”
“Listen. I know you think that you’ve got your fathers blood, and you do, but even he never told his stories during the solstice. And he knew better then to ask. He was half again your age when he was taken, and that was still twice too young.”
“So, what? Am I supposed to wait till my life is over before I’m allowed to prove myself? Just give me a chance! It’ll be different, I—”
The elder sighed a silver-blue stream between his wrinkled lips, and as I choked on it, Hawa and the others erupted with laughter. Even Kato smirked, but then he signaled with his pipe for the yurt to fall silent. “No, Kashim,” he grumbled, “You won’t waste your life because your life hasn’t begun. You’ve been a dog too long; you need to go out and live. You’ve got your father’s boat. Learn to sail and how to fish, or how to spin the reeds into canvas and nets. You can move west to the silt farms or north into the city. Find a woman, have a son, raise your own family. If you want to prove yourself, go out into the world and live. Then, if you decide to return one day, you can tell your stories. When you do, these old bones will still be here, listening.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. All I could think to do was to turn my back and curse them for my welling tears. Then came the words on the verge of sobbing. “You’ll be ashes by then, burned up with all the rest. But that’s not me. That’s not my dream.”
“Kashim the Dreamer!” Hawa snorted. I fled before they could see me cry.
Outside, Ishmael’s legs dangled beside the door flap. His head was leaned back and his jaw hung open, and there were flies buzzing about his mouth. It made me smile despite myself, though as I dried my eyes and climbed the watchtower handholds, I kept in mind my words to Kato. Burned and forgotten. Upon reaching the top, I took the conch, slipped it around my neck, and pinched the nose of my fellow dog.
“Wake up, Ishmael. Your watch is over.”
†
Our ancestral bonfire burned orange as the setting sun falling fast over the hills to the west; and on the eastern beach, they grew brighter by the second as darkness swallowed the sea. The moon was high, and from my seat atop the watchtower, I could just make out the villagers’ tired faces, lulled by the tide, waiting for the dawn. Umlomo will sleep long tomorrow, deep into the day. I wetted my lips and tasted humiliation. Hypocrites. No amount of salt could wash away the shame.
“Ashes of my ancestors, breathe life into my lies,” bellowed the eldest singer as she dunked her torch into the bonfire and raised it alight with spirit in hand. “Guide me like those you shepherded through the mountains of Horeb. Inspire my words as did the serpent who fooled his children into swallowing the sun!”
She went on, but the rest went drowned under my grinding teeth and crackling knuckles. I wanted nothing more than to rush down there and hurl those bones into the ocean, to shove each and every face before the water and make them see who they truly are. Instead, I buried my head in my arms against the cold and waited for the seventh torch to touch the fire. It didn’t matter what Kato said; I had decided. I would tell my story. I would prove myself.
The hours dragged on and on and on, and I thought those same thoughts over again, stoking the flames, keeping them hot so as not to lose my courage when the moment came. But after a while, I realized I’d lost count of the songs. I glanced up expecting to see three or four torches, but there was only the ocean and its watery voice. “Bring out the sun.” They were the words of the sea just like in my dream. And as in my dream, the stars were amber eyes staring down on a man; but he was not Kashim the Dreamer, nor was I the sky. I was the horizon behind the falling moon and rising sun, far from Umlomo Village where even Eemah’s black tower disappeared with the curve of the ocean. I was dark and distant, drowning beneath the depths. But then I saw myself staring down from the surface, reaching out. I took my hand.
My head snapped back, and my legs jerked awake as I slipped face first from atop the watchtower. I cursed and slammed my heels, out of instinct more than anything, and prayed the worn clay would hold. It did, but I could feel the sting of torn skin on my ankles brimming with blood while the rest rushed to my head. I hung for a moment, let my eyes adjust till I could make out the ground. The conch had fallen, I saw, but seemed to be in one piece. Carefully, I stretched out an arm, snagged the string with the tip of my finger, and fished it from the sand.
It took all my strength to curl onto the tower seat, the dream forgotten to my bleeding heels and the six torches burning on the beach. It’s almost time, I thought, and I said it out loud so I couldn’t take it back. Only after did I notice the shadow in the distance: a mast and black sails, and a hull massive enough for every man in Umlomo. And the whole village was right there, night-blinded by the burning bones, dozing off from the droning summer songs. And there I was, the only soul to see them coming, the signal ready in my hand, the mouth piece pressed against my lips.
But the ocean had spoken, and likewise, my decision had been made. Let the others have the stars, and let me tell my tale.
I pitched the shell and it shattered at my feet. Part of me worried whether someone had heard, but that part was Kashim the Dreamer. I left him atop that ugly tower, climbed down on bloody feet and cried over the beach.
“Let rest the tombs of my ancestors, I beseech the Moon, sink my teeth into its silver fruit. Imbue my breath with truth brighter than the stars that illuminate the land, words that burn like the sun, turn the water into sand, man into ashes. Grant me strength from passion. I am Kashim, hear me!”
I started my march.
“Long before the dawn, three giants were born into chains—slaves whose backs were bowed under the weight of creation. They were Mother Earth and Father Wind, and their Golden Son—together the legs which bore the world above the masterless abyss.”
The seventh torch dipped into the flames, yet heads were already twisting my way, faces of contempt from the elders and shame from my family. Kato gave a tired sigh as I sang.
“But there were jaws beneath the tides of chaos, and one by one, they gnawed at the giants’ feet. The Son was first to fall. That brought the Mother to her knees, and though the Father stood stronger than the others, even he could not bear the burden alone. In mourning, he cast the world into the sea and breathed his vengeance onto the gnawing beasts.
“With a word, he stripped them from the water and bound them with names and shapes. ‘Men,’ he called them. They became his slaves and, by his command, raised a great kingdom separate from the dregs. None would remember the darkness from which they came.”
Too late, Umlomo saw the slavers on the shores north and south, and more were coming. The sounds of their oars mixed with the screams of the crowd, so I shouted louder,
“But the dark was in Men, and there they found their Mother, dead and bloated at the bottom of their souls. They feasted on her corpse, and with the strength of the Earth, rose up in rebellion against the Wind.”
I looked to the fleeing village, saw scarred cheeks and squinted eyes charging from the shadows, but it was Umlomo who stamped out the bones as it abandoned its elders. Hawa was first to go, stuck like a suckling boar, then they opened Elder Kato’s throat. A few men turn around to fight. J’bar’s father was one of them, and I saw his nose erupt at the stroke of a cudgel. He collapsed, like all the others, fetters slapped onto his wrist and ankles.
I marched on, invisible in the dark and clinking din as I stole to the shore and into an empty raiders’ skiff.
“Rebellion turned to war. The Father against his children again and again cast Men into the abyss. In the dregs, they lost form, yet even with their cause forgotten, the gnawing beas
ts rose up and in vengeance murdered the Wind. They sucked the marrow from his bones, devoured his entrails, but even that was not enough,” I cried, my voice growing hoarse and the oars so heavy that I lost my breath before I’d escaped the shore. But I could feel the dawn burning and the thousand eyes staring from the slaver vessel. What must they have thought, watching me paddle into the monster’s mouth? Could they hear me shouting?
“They were glutenous hunger. They were pounding hands and stamping feet. They were gnashing teeth wanting a being to sunder, and as one, they chanted, ‘Bring out the Son!’”
I invoke Thee, Bornless and Blind Leviathan, who dwellest in the depths of the Abyss.
I am thy prophet, Kashim, unto whom King Solomon hast committed his mysteries: the Annals of the Black Goat, the secrets of the moon, the stories of the sun.
Evoke!
Ye with eyes on the inside. Come alive again. I beseech.
Hear me!
First Verse
Kill the boy, Cain thought, kneeling in the altar as he had done a hundred times before. He buried his calloused toes in the dirt and caressed the shards hidden beneath. They were home, the bits of redbrick and sandstone, chipped from the walls and worn smooth by the centuries. He stole a breath, guarded it with thick, scarred arms across his chest. It was old air, and it tasted of salt and sand and blood. His lungs were still swollen when at last dawn relieved him, its light washing over the altar and onto the darkness of his skin.
Then came the drums: their rhythm was a ponderous one, two close beats with a long pause between, the pulsing heart of the altar. It called to its sacrifice, and Cain could feel his own heart shouting back. Blood! it screamed, and his fingers fatigued squeezing the hilt of his sword. Kill the boy, he thought again, rising to his feet and unfolding his arms, the curved steel cold as it grazed his back, humming across the surface of the sand—music played to the tempo of the quickening drums. And as the rhythm reached its crescendo, his eyes flew open.
Salt, Sand, and Blood Page 1