Pekari -The Azure Fish

by Guenevere Lee

“The greatest treasures of the east,” Tiyharqu laughed, and this time Samaki joined her.

  The white mountains of the east were tall and impassable, save for a wide gap that came into view now. Within the gap was a valley, carved by the glimmering river running between the mountain ridges. And there, along the rich banks of this river, and nestled in the safety of the mountains was Caemaan.

  Caemaan was the kind of city that should have only been possible in stories, but here Samaki could see it with his own eyes. Caemaan was the waypoint between the Middle Sea and the strange unknown eastern lands, with their silks and fantastical medicines, their jade men and lily women.

  “See,” Tiyharqu slapped her friend’s back. “I told you to have faith in the gods!”

  Faith or no, they had made it. They would arrive in the port of Caemaan hungry and sunburnt, weak and thin, but they would arrive, and Samaki had the smile of a conqueror as they sailed into the safe harbour waters.

  Nothing would stop them now.

  SETZ’IKIMOPA

  THE GODS SPARE NO ONE

  There was a lake, though Sha’di could not see it. He lay on something, not hard, but not comfortable either. He heard voices, but they sounded distant, as though he were under water and they on dry land. He knew the Katan word for lake. Mopa. That’s why he knew. We are going to a lake, he thought.

  He felt water on his lips and opened his eyes to see someone was holding a cup to his mouth. Cool liquid entered his dry throat, and he drank thirstily, though every movement made him feel as though something were pressing both sides of his head together, squeezing him so hard he became dizzy and fell back, unable to continue.

  “There is lake?” he asked, his voice sounding rather loud in his head, but his tongue felt thick, and he wasn’t sure he had pronounced the words properly.

  Maybe time passed. He wasn’t sure. It was dark, and he could see a fire. The warmth felt nice. He narrowed his eyes, and there in the flames he saw the woman, her back to him, her long black hair falling down the nape of her neck like a waterfall. He reached out to her, and a strong hand caught his wrist before she could burst into flames as she always did in his dreams. He looked up, the vision swaying before his eyes, and saw Tenok’s dark eyes and sad face.

  “Don’t,” he spoke, and the word echoed around his head.

  “N…nenne,” he muttered.

  “She’s here.” Tenok patted his own shoulder, and Sha’di saw wings grow from Tenok’s back and spread wide. Sha’di recoiled from the man, closing his eyes.

  “Nnenne is far…far…so far—”

  Nnenne, the woman he’d left behind. Nnenne, the woman who swore she would give him children.

  “Dozens and dozens of children,” he spoke and looked up to see Nnenne walking beside him.

  “What did you say?” she asked, and her red hair and silver eyes melted away, and it wasn’t Nnenne walking beside him. It was Qayset. It was daytime, and Sha’di squinted up at her. He could see the lake behind her. They were walking along the shore.

  “So bright…” he whispered, the lake shining like the gemstone it had been named after. Setz’ikimopa it was called, Sapphire Lake. Tenok had told them they would reach a lake, and from there sail to Chipetzuha. Was this the lake? He saw Qayset’s face hover before his. “Qayset…why are you here?”

  She laughed, her voice was a bell that changed the air to fire and embers. “You ask me every day.”

  “Every day…every day tell me. Every day…so far away…” a pain suddenly gripped his stomach and he felt himself heave. There was worried shouting around them. Sha’di could feel someone push him onto his side, and he vomited. He felt fingers on his forehead, and wherever they touched, something cold was left behind.

  “He won’t survive the journey,” a man’s voice spoke. Was it Xupama? Xupama hated him. If he hadn’t been in their party, Xupama would still be safe back at Chultunyu.

  “I’m sorry,” Sha’di whispered. He hated to be a bother.

  He was lying on a litter. He noticed it for the first time as he felt himself get lifted high and then lowered again. Or perhaps it was not the first time he had noticed, and he’d forgotten the times before. It was simply made with long branches and vines. He gripped the bark weakly, and felt himself deposited on a swaying boat. He couldn’t see the size; he could only see a sail with stripes, like amethyst powder smeared along the sky.

  A hand covered in a strong-smelling mud paste appeared before his eyes, grasping at his forehead. He moaned and tried to escape the cold fingers.

  “Be calm, it is for fever,” a woman’s voice replied.

  “Nnenne,” he sighed in relief.

  “No,” she answered calmly, as though she’d had to refute this fact before.

  “Qayset…” Sha’di realized. “Why…how? You here?”

  She sighed, and Sha’di saw sparks of light. “You ask me every day. I wish I come day before you start forget everything.”

  “You come because children,” he looked past Qayset, at the red-haired woman who wasn’t really there, holding a child who didn’t really exist. “I promise children—”

  “Keep your children,” Qayset narrowed her eyes in confusion.

  “Qayset? Why here? Now?”

  “The bad air will kill you,” Qayset whispered, and he could see something falling around her, like rain, only it was white and fell slowly, like bits of feathers.

  “Bad air…” Sha’di remembered hearing about that before. The bad air was in the jungle, and if you breathed it…What happened if you breathed it? “You have baby?”

  “Me? No,” she laughed.

  “Then whose baby she carry?” The world around Sha’di began to darken, and the last thing he saw was Qayset turning around to see if someone was standing behind her.

  They were still on the boat, they must have been. The world kept moving. He could see Tenok, sitting next to him, his face outlined by the sky, his long black hair blowing gently on the wind.

  “Qayset here?” Sha’di asked. He seemed to remember speaking to her, and he was certain there was a coldness on his forehead from where she had touched him.

  Tenok nodded. “She has medicine for the bad air.” On Tenok’s shoulder, a falcon rested, its head covered in a small leather hood, long dreadlocked hair falling from underneath it, as red as blood.

  “Nnenne,” Sha’di whispered, reaching out.

  “Look,” Nnenne’s hood fell from her head, and there was her human face, the face of the woman he loved, and in her winged arms she held up a small bundle, a baby wrapped in her Ancestral Cloak. “Look at the children you have given me.”

  The baby stared at him with cool, silver eyes. There were long, red dreadlocks on its head one moment and sheared red hair the next. The baby shifted back and forth, now a girl, now a boy, but always maintaining the same expression.

  “I don’t, I don’t understand,” Sha’di shivered and went still.

  He was lying on his back, the night sky full of stars above him. He could feel warm sand underneath his body. He was in the desert, he realized with sudden certainty. He sat up and knew where he was after a moment. He was in one of the circles of the temple. This was the temple at the foot of the Kerlra Hal’gepe. There were three intersecting circles, the walls of the temple had long since broken and now the stones only went knee-high. In the other two circles sat a woman and a boy.

  “Who are you?” Sha’di called out to them.

  “We are you,” they replied and Sha’di recognized them, though they looked nothing like the other two he remembered being chosen along him to speak for the gods. The woman’s long, dark dreadlocked hair had been cut short, and she wore the skull of a mountain lion. The boy’s hair had been cut as well, and he now had a bald head. There was no doubt he seemed older as well, perhaps slightly taller with broader shoulders, but his silver eyes were instantly recognizable.

  The three sat staring at each other, wearing nothing save their Ancestral Cloaks.

  “
Have you returned then? Were you successful? Will the gods spare us?” Sha’di asked them.

  “The gods spare no one,” they replied and pointed to the south. “Look.”

  He followed their gaze and saw beyond the Sea of Sand to the Hatmahe Sea. He watched the waters rise and crash down on the land, taking with it the children playing in the shoals and the women screaming in fear. He saw the waters consume the cities and villages along the shore, until nothing was left but churning froth.

  “Look,” they spoke again, now pointing to the west.

  Sha’di looked and saw the sun setting over the vast sea, and from the sea came seagulls, shrieking and ravenous, descending on the fishing villages, pecking at the eyes of those who tried to flee, eating the food stores of those who had laboured day after day, fighting with each other over the scraps until the sea was awash with feathers and blood.

  “Look,” they pointed to the north.

  Sha’di looked behind him at the Kerlra Hal’gepe, only now they really were the jagged stony teeth of a massive god. The god laughed and closed his mouth, his mountainous teeth crunching and chewing, and Sha’di could hear the distant screams and saw the waterfalls of blood running from between the jaws.

  “Look,” they pointed east.

  “No,” Sha’di wept. He didn’t think he could stand any more.

  “Look!” They demanded, and their voices seemed to grab his head, forcing him to face the rising sun, and there he saw the skeletons. They walked aimlessly wailing at the sky, their bony fingers dug into the empty earth, desperate for food, and crystalline tears ran down their ivory cheeks. Women stood silently over the skeletons of their infants.

  “The gods spare no one.”

  Sha’di felt large hands grabbing at his arms and legs, pulling his body taut. He was at the top of a pyramid, but this one was so massive it reached above the clouds. He was being balanced on one of the stone altars all pyramids had, the altar where men were sacrificed to the gods.

  Tanuk stood above him, his face pale and his throat still ripped open from where the jaguar had bitten him. He held a grey, flint knife in his hands. “I should have stayed in Chultunyu. I’d be in the hall right now, playing with the little ones, laughing at the lords trying to keep their feathers dry as they climb the ramp.” He began to cut into Sha’di’s sternum.

  Sha’di struggled, screaming in pain as Tanuk cut deeper and deeper, but men held him fast and he could not escape. He looked for Tersh and Kareth, but they were gone; he looked for anyone to help him but was only met with the uncaring faces of the Petzuhallpa who nodded in approval but looked bored.

  “Stop cutting!” Sha’di begged, feeling the warm blood drain from him, feeling the knife like burning coals being held against his skin. And then, above him, he saw the fluttering shadow of a falcon—Nnenne! She flew down but not to him. She landed on Tanuk’s shoulder, her human face smiling up at the dead chib’atl.

  “Are they…they come to Chipetzuha?” Nnenne asked in his voice.

  “My sons? Yes, it is the path all the nuktatl must take. My father travelled there, his father before him, and so on since Chipetzuha was first built,” the knife continued to saw through his flesh, and he tasted blood in his mouth and began to cough and sputter.

  “Why go there? It’s not an easy path to take,” Nnenne asked again, her face so happy and curious.

  Tanuk put the knife aside, and with a gleam in his eyes thrust his hand into Sha’di. Sha’di could feel the fingers wiggle through him, moving aside organs, reaching and climbing within until they wrapped around his heart. He screamed, but his screams did nothing to alieve the pain.

  “We are the Petzuhallpa. Our place is together, the huitl ruling together, living under the protection of the gods, and their blessing is at Chi—”

  Tanuk pulled out his hand, but he wasn’t holding Sha’di’s beating heart. Instead, he held a babe, enshrouded in flame, screaming in absolute agony. Tanuk held the child with one hand, the fire crawling up his arm, consuming his flesh, turning it to a crisp blackness, but there was no pain on his face.

  “Her anger and fury grew inside of her with her child. Her womb filled with malice and hatred, and the child became an entity of fire and suffering,” and Tanuk was staring Sha’di in his eyes, and his black hair spread and his face elongated. His features changed and distorted until he was no longer staring at Tanuk, but a horrible giant cobra, blood and fire dripping from his fangs. Its voice was the hissing of boiling water screaming at him now. “She did not give birth to the child! It burst from her uncontrollably! Fire rained on my people! The rivers turned to conflagrations! The sky was ash! The trees became bonfires!”

  “STOP!!! NO!!!” Sha’di squirmed and the boat rocked beneath him. He screamed and thrashed and saw the soft sky above him, felt the cold fingers on his forehead and wept. He tried to speak but all that came out were moans.

  “Is he awake?”

  The voice was soft, shrouded in darkness. Sha’di reached through the haze for it, but his hands came away empty.

  “He comes, only moments, then is gone,” another answered, this one closer. This one a woman.

  He knew their names, knew their faces, but he could not seem to make the noise come. He wanted to call to them, to wave to them, but his body was too heavy. He couldn’t move.

  “The worst is gone. Fever gone,” the woman sounded hopeful, happy maybe.

  He felt a hand on his brow, but this time, the fingers were warm and he didn’t flinch.

  “No one…spared…” He finally managed to say.

  “What he say?” the woman asked.

  “He’s speaking his own tongue,” replied the man.

  It’s Tanuk, he thought but then remembered Tanuk was dead. This was the voice of his younger brother, Tenok. And the woman…the woman was…

  “Qayset, go and fetch Xupama. He might still be too delirious to understand us.”

  “Qayset,” his voice was so soft he could barely hear himself. Maybe he hadn’t spoken at all. “Qayset is here. Qayset will blow the bad air away.” He was speaking his mother tongue, the only words he could find.

  “Xa’ti, hear me?” Tenok was holding his hand, speaking the Whisperer’s words as well.

  “He was telling me why we were going to Chipetzuha,” Sha’di opened his eyes, and it was too bright. He squinted in the light, trying to find Tenok’s face. He found him, a young handsome face surrounded by fog. He could just make out Tenok’s confused look.

  Thinking felt like trying to keep his head above water without using his arms. He struggled to remember Katan, the high tongue. Tanuk had tried very hard to teach Sha’di Katan. “When Tanuk die—”

  As he spoke the mist around Tenok retreated and the rest of the world appeared. They were in a bare stone room. There was sunlight coming in through a wide window on the wall opposite them. There was a cool breeze blowing incense around the soft bed where he lay. Tenok sat next to him, gently gripping his hand and leaning forward to listen.

  “I never know…what Tanuk will say…” Sha’di struggled to continue. I’ll never know what he was going to say to me.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Tenok’s voice wavered.

  The dizziness was gone, Sha’di realized. The pain was absent, too. He felt weak, and his stomach was empty and growling. Perhaps there was the dullest of aches in his head, but he took a deep breath and felt…fine.

  “Where… this… place?”

  “We crossed Setz’ikimopa to the pyramid at the mouth of the river leading to the lake and to the ocean. You’ve been lost to us for several days. If it wasn’t for Qayset, you’d probably be dead.”

  “How she find me?”

  Tenok smiled, shaking his head in wonder. “She said she was curious to see what we’d do next. And maybe she felt…” Tenok frowned, as though he felt guilty for something, “responsible for us. Because it was the jaguar she was hunting that—”

  A tall figure came through the entranceway, thin and sneeri
ng, his headdress had been cleaned and his tunic was fresh, dyed in stripes of iris and azure. Sha’di had an image of a sail then, stripes fluttering in the wind, though he couldn’t remember why. He’d seen boats sailing along the Middle Sea before, though none of them had coloured their sails.

  “Never mind, Xupama,” Tenok waved him away with barely a thought. “We’re all right without you.”

  “Whatever my huitl wants,” Xupama replied through gritted teeth, his face turning red as he left.

  Sha’di smiled, but the effort was too hard and he instantly felt exhausted. “Sleep,” Sha’di whispered, his eyelids fluttering.

  He came awake again and the room was dark, but there was light enough from the window that he could make out a shape leaning there.

  “Qayset?” he asked, and she turned around and smiled at him. She looked exhausted but happy all the same.

  “You are awake.” She moved away from the window and made her way towards him. She put her warm fingers against his forehead. “How you feel?”

  “Terrible,” he smiled as he answered. “You…saved me?”

  “Yes.”

  He rubbed his eye, and his fingers brushed against his hair. It was far shorter than he remembered it being. He felt his beard and noticed it too had been shorn extremely short.

  “I cut your hair,” she said, almost apologetically. “Your fever—you were too hot.” She smiled. “Pyramid Builders love long hair. They are vain. You and I, we know. Hair is bother.”

  “Oh.” He didn’t mind. It had been getting too long, and he’d thought about cutting it a few times before falling ill, but it felt strange. Nnenne was the last person who had cut his hair.

  “You…followed us?” he asked.

  She looked mildly uncomfortable then shrugged her shoulders. “I thought… maybe I can help your chib’atl, keep him safe until he reach the lake.”

  “Because…you can’t help Tanuk?”

  She frowned. “I am child of aletz. We are uncoloured. We are great hunters. But I…” She shook her head. “I only fail once then never again.”