Pekari -The Azure Fish

by Guenevere Lee

  “Oh, glorious princess, excuse the interruption of your lowly servant.”

  Kessara opened her eyes to see a middle-aged man bowing low to the ground. Perithos. He was not one of the Matawega. He came from the Sephian Islands somewhere in the Middle Sea. He had arrived in Matawe a few years ago. He said he came for the bronze produced here, for the metal was cheap in the mountains, and he used it to make sculptures.

  “Give me metal, and I shall give you immortality,” he had promised the Queen of the Mountain when she was still well enough to sit on the throne herself. He made a large statue of her, twice her size in real life, and set it on the pass between the valley of Kuwais Salli and the valley of Nesate, the unofficial border between the queen’s lands and those of the usurpers. He stayed at court after that, hoping for another job, but until he told her about his invention she had had no use for him.

  He was taller than most men in Matawe, thinner as well. His brow was more pronounced and his eyes wide and bright. His long limbs were wrapped in the silks he had brought with him, though age had frayed the once fine stitch, and he often wore a muddy wool cloak over them to stave off the cold. His hair was golden, with the slightest hint of red, though it was speckled with grey hairs. She had always thought he was quite ugly.

  She turned to the singer. “Later,” she said sweetly, and the singer bowed his head, stood up, and left the hall.

  “I have never heard music like his. The gods truly blessed him,” Perithos continued to grovel.

  She sighed in annoyance. She hated grovelling. “Yes, he is the prince of music,” her voice was dry. She knew how little the gods had blessed that man. If he had not been forced into music before he could walk, he would have nothing in this world at all.

  “I hear you have finished,” she tried to smile again, but the air was still too cold for smiles.

  “Yes, my Princess. The Queen will be most pleased when she sees our invention,” he motioned towards the main entrance.

  “Pray I will be pleased to see it,” she ordered, standing up. She turned to a guard. “Have my cloak fetched for me.”

  Once she had the long wool cloak, lined with soft mountain lion fur, wrapped around her frail body, she followed Perithos out of the Queen’s Hall. They continued through a narrow hallway to the exit of the castle. Perithos prattled on about his workmanship, and she nodded politely, but listened not to a single word he said. The entrances were built to bottle-neck any army that might try to enter, though to get to the halls they would first have to go through the double walls surrounding the castle, as well as the double walls that divided the valley in half.

  South of the double walls were farmlands and animal herds, and to the north was their great city of Nesate. She exited onto a stone plaza, steep steps descending before her. From the top she could see the wide low city, made from the dark mountain stones. The city roads had been built much the same as the halls in the castle, with the intention of confusing and misleading any invading army. The kings who built Nesate only had one thought in mind—creating an impenetrable city. It would have been a commendable feat, if not for the fact that being in the highest valley in the mountains had kept any army from marching on their walls, though the usurpers were certainly poised to do so.

  The usurpers. She wrung her hands together as she walked down the steps with Perithos. This invention was for them. The Sephian was getting more excited the closer they got. She could see it now. It was just to the right of the main plaza. They had built a raised dais for it, in the middle of which was a large fire pit, and straddling the pit was a massive bronze ram, its beautiful curved horns encircling its head and glinting in the midday sun. Its face looked focused, almost angry.

  She chose a ram to honour the first Kessara. When the first Queen Kessara had won the siege of Hattute, thanks to the plague that killed nearly everyone living inside the walls, she had ridden to the Hall of a Thousand Gods on the back of a white ram. When her own forces finally won that cursed city again, she would march the usurpers to her bronze ram.

  It was a giant of a ram. She wanted to make sure both the usurpers would fit inside together, but Perithos had gone above her expectations. As he opened the door on its side, she saw four or five men could easily fit inside it. A few other people were gathered around, admiring it with awe.

  “As you requested, the screams of whoever you place inside will travel through the pipes, emerge from the nostrils, and sound like a great bellowing beast,” Perithos smiled proudly.

  “Are you certain?” She gave him a sideways glance.

  “Of course. I tested it extensively,” he looked offended. He always looked offended when he wasn’t being praised. She hated pompous men.

  “Show me.”

  He laughed, sticking his head inside and gave a half-hearted scream.

  “No,” her voice cracked like a thunderclap. “Get in and do it properly.”

  His laughter turned nervous. He looked around at the people who watched with curious eyes, though his eyes fell mostly on the guards coming up behind Kessara. He couldn’t refuse her.

  “Of course,” he cleared his throat, putting his arms on either side of the entrance, one foot inside and pulling himself in. He sat close to the open door. Again he screamed, and she heard weak bellowing coming from the ram’s nostrils.

  “No, no,” she sighed loudly. “It’s too quiet.”

  “Well,” Perithos seemed to pale as he sat in the belly of the beast. “The door must be closed for the full effect.”

  “Ah,” she smiled then looked to a guard on her right. “Close the door.”

  The guard moved faster than Perithos could react. In a moment the door closed and Perithos’ nervous face disappeared. A strong bar was placed over the entrance.

  “Perithos, tell me, have you ever heard a dying man scream?” Kessara asked loudly.

  Through the door a weak reply came. “No, Princess.”

  “It is something you cannot replicate on command. You,” she pointed to the same guard. “Light the pyre.”

  “Princess?” Perithos called, perhaps not having heard her correctly.

  The guard crouched beneath the ram, and for a moment she had the image of a kid suckling at her mother’s teats. Would that rams were women, she thought weakly. But perhaps this ram was not a ram at all. Suppose it looked like a male, but inside lay the womb of a female. Inside, Perithos would be nestled much like a baby.

  The light of red fire began to dance underneath the ram and the guard stepped back. Everyone backed away as the fire grew, both worry and excitement etched on their faces. Without thinking, Kessara placed her hand on her belly, much like the young Kessara had that morning. “My babies burned inside me,” she whispered to the wind.

  Banging came from inside the ram. “Princess? Princess!” Perithos called as the fire grew, reaching so high that it blackened the ram halfway up its hinds. Perithos screamed, and the ram bellowed. She frowned. It was still too quiet.

  “Stoke the fire,” she said quickly, her hand digging into her dress and gripping the skin beneath it, stabbing into her useless womb. “Cry for me.”

  And then it happened—the moment when Perithos realized Kessara did not intend to open the door, and his death rattle came screaming out of the ram, converted and changed into a monstrous bellow. She looked around at the expectant faces, eyes wide with terror, and she felt the smile creep across her face. She realized this was the first time she had felt warm in years.

  HATTUTE

  I WAS RAISED TO HUNT, NOT KILL MEN

  That cracking sound was always satisfying. It came from the mountains and echoed between the slopes before finding its way to the streets of Hattute. At first, Tersh had no idea what caused the sound. It was a merchant who had told her it came from the ice snapping into pieces as it weakened and fell from the white peaks. The snows were melting. The days were getting longer, hotter. It was still cooler than when she’d first come to this place, but now she didn’t stay awake shiver
ing when the strong winds came down from the mountains at night, and there were even moments, with the sun on her face, when Tersh felt the same warmth she’d known in the Sea of Sand.

  She sat up in her small hut. She had built it from anything she found—discarded wood, pieces of stone she had pulled from crumbling walls, bits of skins she had managed to barter for, as well as the ones she had brought with her. It was too small to stand in, but she could stretch herself out and lay comfortably, and it kept the wind out. It had started as a lean-to in the corner of the walled off boulevard and grown from there.

  Tersh existed as a shadow in this city. Young children thought she was one of the bronze statues come to life, and older children would prove their courage by daring each other to speak with her and ask for their fortunes. Adults tended to ignore her, unless she placed silver or gold beneath their noses. It didn’t matter to her what these people thought. Their kings had damned them all, and once winter left the mountains, she would leave them to their fates.

  Leaving her small hut, she stood and stretched out, dirty tunics clinging to her skin as she lifted her arms to the sky. She scratched her head, her black hair shaggy and unruly. Once it grew a little longer, she could tease it into the familiar dreadlocks. The air seemed sweet that morning, as if flowers were blooming nearby, and for half a moment, she thought she heard a bird tweeting.

  “Good morning,” she always greeted the statues before crouching along the wall to relieve herself. It was easier to think of them as statues, instead of people cruelly murdered by having bronze poured over them, encasing them in metal for all eternity. She couldn’t deny the statues had unnerved her when she had first seen them, and there were even some nights, when the wind was unusually strong and chilling, when she thought she heard them whispering to her. Now, with four turns of the moon behind her, the statues felt familiar, friendly even. She would spend many of her afternoons inspecting each one, trying to guess which tribes they were from, and what their names might have been.

  She was hungry. The market would be opening its stalls soon, and Tersh wanted to get there before the crowds arrived. The merchants there didn’t mind her if there were few others around, because they only cared for profit. But if the market was full, the merchants tried to chase her away before the crowds became unnerved and less likely to buy anything.

  “Rattlecloaks rattle people,” one of the merchants had said, thinking the comment friendly.

  She wore her hooded Ancestral Cloak with the bones facing in. Everyone knew she was a Whisperer, but she noticed they were more willing to be nice to her if she pretended otherwise. She certainly received fewer stares. For that reason alone she would have stopped wearing her cloak. She didn’t need it to keep warm. She had accumulated several tunics, and her feet were wrapped in thick hides. But she didn’t feel like a Whisperer, and she certainly didn’t look like one anymore, so she wanted to keep her cloak close to herself, if only to remind her of who she really was and why she had travelled so far from home.

  The stone streets were now familiar to her, to the point where she might have called this place home. She’d never had a home before, her people were nomads. After being attacked her first night on the streets of Hattute, she was far more cautious. After dark, she rarely left the confines of the Whisperers’ street, and there wasn’t a chance anyone would enter there during the night. A few times, a child had been goaded into sneaking in during the day to touch one of the statues, though most ran off before they did. One time, a child had seen her standing there, believed she was one of the statues come to life, and Tersh had heard him screaming as he ran through the streets back to his home.

  There were a few markets, but the one closest to her was probably the smallest. One of the narrow alleys suddenly expanded into a wide, oval area. Merchants would bring their carts and set up along the sides. The carts would come and go all day, so there was always something different and fresh to buy, but Tersh only came early in the morning and just before the sun set, as everyone was packing to leave.

  “Good morning. I hear you coming,” one of the merchants said as Tersh turned into the square. He said that every morning, and every morning Tersh smiled politely.

  The merchant, Piya, was one of Tersh’s favourites. While some others still hadn’t grown accustomed to Tersh, from the very beginning, Piya had been happy to serve her—though perhaps that was because the man was half-blind. He was an old, grizzled man, his hair completely white and his skin like stretched leather. He walked with a hobble and sold the bread his daughter and her children baked at home.

  “Thank you,” Tersh reached out and grabbed the round flat loaf. She breathed it in deep, the smell of honey filling her lungs. It was still warm, too. She tucked it into her tunic and pulled out a small leather purse at the same time, the one Samaki had given her before sailing back south to Nepata.

  “No need, shadow-man,” he winked, “coin you gave me yesterday worth three loaves, at least.”

  Piya was also the only merchant who occasionally did not ask for anything in return.

  “I make medicine for you. I bring tomorrow.” Tersh spoke in a broken pidgin with them, comprised of words from Mahat she knew and a few words from Hattute she had learned there on the streets. Most traders and merchants spoke in pidgin back to her, though everyone seemed to use a different collection of words, which still made it hard to understand.

  The medicine was for Piya’s grandson, who had been sickly since birth. With the right ingredients, Tersh could make a broth that would help the boy breathe easier when he slept at night.

  “You still here tomorrow?” Piya looked skeptical.

  “Why not?”

  Piya shrugged, frowning. “Snows melt. You say you leave, go see queens. Spring is here. The mountain opens.”

  They looked up at the mountains, which were visible over the building tops no matter where you were. They remained completely white. Apparently in the summer, only the very tips of the tallest mountains would remain snow-capped, but she could not wait that long. The mountains didn’t look it, but she knew the snows were melting, if not because of the warmer weather and the river beginning to swell from the cold water rushing down the mountain, then from that beautiful cracking noise that echoed down to her. Yes, it was time to start gathering provisions for her journey.

  “But…I don’t know way,” she muttered to Piya, who just wrinkled up his face and nodded.

  “Up,” he finally said, cackling with laughter.

  Tersh smiled and moved on.

  In the first few days there, she did not stay away from the bronze Whisperers long, always rushing back to where it was safe, still worried she might be attacked again. After a while she realized more people feared her than wanted to harm her. Now she liked going to the rooftops and looking down at the people during the busy day. She had found a way to climb the sides of the buildings from the alleys, and from up there, she could see down many streets and view the whole marketplace while keeping herself hidden.

  She broke her bread into three pieces, putting two of them back into her tunic for later. She tore a piece of the still warm bread and chewed it happily in her mouth. Below her, the market was becoming busy. Women were arriving, many with children hanging off their legs. They carried baskets to fill with fresh breads and fish while their children fought each other with sticks on the street.

  Would her own son and daughter play like that if she brought them to the market? Her daughter, Ba’rek, had always been wild. Ba’rek would have torn through a marketplace like this, excitedly grabbing at everything. She would have undoubtedly joined in the stick fights with the local children. Her younger son, Farek, however, was always such a quiet boy, and Tersh had a hard time imagining him fighting, even if it was only for play. Mostly, Farek liked to learn, whether to hunt or to heal or to track using the stars. He was always asking questions.

  “Why are you leaving?” That was the last question Farek had managed to ask before starting to wail un
controllably, clutching onto his father, Ka’rel, for support.

  Does he still ask questions? she wondered, then frowned to herself. She hadn’t thought of her children in a long time. It was a thought she liked to keep tucked away, a thought she feared would destroy her resolve to travel over the mountains.

  She shook the thought away and focused on the people below. They seemed more energetic than she was used to seeing. It was the spring air, she realized. It was like taking a deep breath after being submerged in water for too long. Everyone looked truly alive for the first time since she had arrived.

  Yes, it was time to go.

  She continued on her usual daily route. She left the city walls to go down to the river where she could trade with the merchants docked by the quay. She also liked going down there every day just in case she were to see the Afeth. There was also the possibility that Kareth might have followed her, either because he had succeeded in delivering his message and now wanted to help Tersh, or simply because he had become too lonely. She knew she wouldn’t have cared either way. She missed him, maybe as much as she missed her real son, and longed to see a familiar face among the strangers by the river.

  There were more ships than had been there in a long time, though still nowhere near as many as had been there when she’d first arrived. Trade was impossible in Hattute during the winter, because they were receiving none of the metals and beautiful jewels they were famed for mining from the mountain. Now with the promise of spring and the mountain passes opening again, the hopeful merchants were arriving. The quay was a mixture of ships from northern Ethia, with their coal black skin, and Mahat, who were as the various dark shades of the desert sand.

  The Ethians seemed to have no idea what a Whisperer was, or at least they looked at her with neither awe nor fear, so she preferred to trade with them when at all possible. They wore bright reds and amethyst garments, their faces sometimes showcasing piercings of ivory in their noses or ears. Tiyharqu, Samaki’s first-mate and shipbuilder, was from the same lands. The sailors had her same beautiful, and that was impossibly infectious, deep laughter.