Does your uncle have books on rock art? I am not very familiar with it. But if this is the origin of caves playing a role in Anevrai theology, it would make sense that the artwork in caves might be at least partly their doing.—K
7 I think we can take this part as formulaic, rather than an actual geographical description. Otherwise we’d have to find a starting point for them that is surrounded on all sides by plains, rivers, mountains, and forests, which seems unlikely.—AC
8 Too damaged to read.—K
9 Some part of Akhia, if the starting point is meant to be in Haggad? Or still just metaphor?—AC
FOR THE ARCHIVES OF THE SANCTUARY OF WINGS
written by Kudshayn, son of Ahheke, daughter of Iztam
I raise my hand to the sun, the glory of the sky, radiance of life. I touch my hand to the earth, the cradle of the world, bounty of comfort.
These are words I have recited, gestures I have carried out, ever since I was a hatchling. Never before now have I questioned them.
Sun, golden watcher: are you the Light of the World, the Maker of Above and Below, as known to my ancient foremothers? Earth, eternal stone: are you the Ever-Standing, the Foundation of All, whom they spoke of in their tales? What am I to make of the similarities between our religion today and that of the past—and what am I to make of the differences?
Where has the Ever-Moving gone, the Source of Wind? In the high reaches of the Mrtyahaima Mountains the wind’s presence is inescapable, yet it has no role in our faith. The ancient tale speaks of it bringing forth creatures that might be our draconic kin, but our own story tells us that the sun made the wind and the wind took form as the first sisters; dragons later came from us. Likewise the origin of humans: are they the children of the Ever-Standing, as we are of the Light of the World? Or were they also made from us?
Questions such as these have troubled my brothers and sisters ever since Lady Trent came among us, bearing word of the ancient past and scientific knowledge alike. Similar doubts have plagued human clergy of many faiths, as they confront the possibility that their own ancestral tales do not match the evidence of science. But this does not trouble me. Teslit and I have debated these questions from the shell, and I hold to the words she gave me: that religion and science offer different kinds of truth, which serve different needs in my heart.
What I read in these tablets troubles me more. And Teslit is not here to lay my uncertainties to rest.
Alone, I must confront evidence that our faith has changed. In the iconography of ancient sites and the scattered prayers found in tablets, we have found references whose meaning now becomes clear: we have lost a god. Where once we worshipped three, now there are only two.
What else has changed? What else have we lost, or added, or altered beyond recognition?
And what truth can there be in our tales, of the sort I have held on to all this time, if that truth proves itself mutable? Glorious eye, do you truly watch over us all, from the elders to the newest hatchling stretching her wings? Faithful heart, are you truly the protector of our kind, giving wisdom to the physicians who saved my sister’s life? What hears my words when I write this prayer? Do I err by neglecting the Ever-Moving, and how should I show it reverence? We have no place for you in our ceremonies, Source of Wind, and I do not know if we should.
What duty do we owe to the gods of our ancestors?
And how do we live with the possibility that those gods are not our own?
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF CORA FITZARTHUR
Kudshayn is a priest.
I didn’t realize this because the only priests I know are magisters, and he does not dress like them or talk like them. Of course he would not, because he is not Segulist, but I didn’t know how to recognize a Draconean priest. I asked him how to recognize one in the future, and he said they greet the sun every morning and bid it rest well every night, which I know he does, but I didn’t know this was why. Since I won’t always be around at dawn and sunset, though, this is not a reliable way of identifying priests, and I told him so. Then he said they wear a band of embroidered cloth around their wings, not really binding them shut, but sort of. I said, you don’t wear that. He said he does sometimes, but only for ceremonies. So that is unhelpful, and I still don’t know how to recognize a Draconean priest.
He was more helpful when I asked him what it means to be a priest. Apparently among Draconeans, priests and scribes are basically the same thing, so it’s his job to keep records of important events and ideas. He’s writing a record of what he and Audrey are doing here, but then he reassured me that he won’t send it to their archives until after his work here is done. I think Uncle will be all right with that, but I’ll check with him to be sure. (He’s asked me to watch Kudshayn the same way I’m watching Audrey. I forgot to make a note of that.)
Then I asked Kudshayn if he thinks the sun can hear him saying hello and goodbye when it’s a flaming ball millions of kilometers away. He laughed and said that no, he doesn’t think the flaming ball can hear him, but the spiritual power it represents can. So I asked if he worships the idols from the story, the Ever-Moving, the Ever-Standing, and the Light of the World. (Uncle insists “idol” is the proper word for gods other than the God of Segulism, even though he doesn’t believe in that god, either. Audrey said it’s offensive to call other gods idols, though.) Kudshayn made a very confusing answer that I did not understand, but his wings tucked in tight when he said it, which means I was making him uncomfortable, so I didn’t ask him to explain.
I wonder if Magister Ridson knows anything about Draconean religion? Probably not, but I could go to assembly with Mrs. Hilleck on Cromer and ask him then. Though that will make Mrs. Hilleck think I have become religious, and then she will start pestering me again to attend with her.
FROM THE DIARY OF AUDREY CAMHERST
24 Seminis
I had a very sobering conversation with Kudshayn over breakfast this morning.
He was unusually quiet, even for him, and seemed to be studying the jam bowl for some inscrutable reason of his own. It turned out, though, that he was just thinking very deeply, and the jam happened to be in his path. Out of nowhere, he said, “What do you think this text is?”
I had no idea what he meant by that. He’s read all the same bits I have, and we’ve discussed it more than once. The text is clearly a long narrative account, beginning with a creation myth and continuing into something genealogical, before telling the story of four siblings who—if I am reading the invocation correctly—eventually become culture heroes responsible for inventing various things like writing. Unless he’d suffered a head injury in the night, he couldn’t possibly have forgotten that. And surely he knew I would have told him straightaway if I had some reason to think the text isn’t what it looks like.
Kudshayn is not usually the sort to ask any question other than the one he means, but it seemed to me that was exactly what he had done. I said, “What do you mean?”
His claws wrapped delicately around the jam bowl, rotating it a few degrees. Lapsing into his own language, he said, “What do you think it will be? For us?”
I have never heard him sound so apprehensive. But I began to understand his uncertainty. Modern Draconeans have their own myths of how they began; it came as a great shock when Grandmama told them the Anevrai had a different one. Like when Albert Wedgwood came along and said, “I don’t think God made us out of clay—I think we evolved, and probably from apes.”
That particular shock was no longer new. But who knew what else might be lurking in these tablets? What other treasured beliefs of Draconean history might be smashed like the petrified eggs of their ancestors?
Or what might be added to them. It’s easy to recognize Kudshayn’s revered sun and earth in two of the entities that created the world and its species, but I don’t know of any parallel in his religion to the Source of Wind. Judging by his unease, there isn’t one—and that troubles him.
I said, “You’re worried that what we read h
ere will change things.”
One claw-tip scraped unpleasantly against the silver of the bowl, and Kudshayn withdrew his hand. “Every piece of information we gain about the Anevrai changes things. That is the entire point of archaeological excavation, of the work you and I do: we seek to recover the knowledge that has been lost, rather than resting content with what we already know. But this text is . . . more.”
Normally I’m good at reading between the lines of what he says, but this time I didn’t follow. “How so?”
Kudshayn fell silent for a while, and I bit down on the urge to prod him. Finally he said, “I have read a great deal of human literature.” (An understatement if I ever heard one.) “I have done my best to understand the character of the different human nations. And so, for a time, I asked the people I met what one book they would recommend to me as representative of their people. For the Yelangese, it was The Tale of the Sky. For the Vidwathi, The Great Song. For Scirlings, Selethryth.”
“All the great epics of the world,” I said. In the depths of my mind, the limp sails of my thoughts began to stir at the first touch of a breeze.
He nodded soberly. “And the Yelangese . . . I asked at one point why they consider the Ruxin to be part of Yelang. Not just within their borders—because that is a matter of politics—but why, despite the differences in their languages, the differences in their culture, they say the Ruxin are simply a subject population, not a subject nation. Do you know what the man I asked said?”
It was a rhetorical question, but Kudshayn waited anyway, watching me, until I had shaken my head.
“He said, ‘It is because they have no literature. What story do they have that is the equal of The Tale of the Sky?’”
The sails in my mind belled out before the wind. “You are asking if these tablets could be your national epic.”
“We have stories,” Kudshayn said. “I do not think there are any people in the world, human or Draconean, who do not. But we do not have a story that defines us. No tale that lies at the roots of our civilization, such that we can say any person of that society who professes to be literate has read it and holds it in their heart.”
What could I say to that? It wasn’t the right time to point out all the flaws in what he was saying—the idea that a single story can define a civilization, that Selethryth is what gives Scirland the right to call itself a nation, rather than a breakaway bit of Eiverheim, a crumb with delusions of grandeur. People give weight to that sort of thing, no matter how many holes you can poke in the idea.
And even if I could dismiss the political aspect, what of the personal side? No one can deny anymore that Draconeans are real . . . but they can and do deny that Draconeans are people, that behind the scales and wings and long, toothy muzzles sit minds every bit as sharp and creative and full of feeling as ours. Thousands of years separate Kudshayn from the Anevrai scribe who carved that tale into wet clay, but if his people could lay claim to a story the equal of The Tale of the Sky and other human epics, that would give them another way to assert their—well, their humanity, even though that’s the wrong word to use.
All I could think to say was, “What you’ll do with it going forward, I don’t know. But I do know that if we don’t get back to work, your people won’t have anything to work with—so let’s get to it.” I suppose that was good enough, because Kudshayn laughed and we headed for the library, and after that everything seemed fine.
It isn’t, though. I’m not religious the way Kudshayn is; it’s hard to imagine how I would react if, oh, someone discovered there used to be thirteen commandments instead of twelve. And it throws into sharp relief how different his own people are from their Anevrai ancestors. I’m just as different from my Scirling ancestors as depicted in Selethryth. . . but Scirlings aren’t struggling to find their place in the world, aren’t struggling to convince people they deserve one.
When I guessed that Gleinleigh wanted this translation published in time for the congress, I was only thinking about book sales and fame. But I’m starting to realize its effects might go well beyond that.
Tablet VI: “The Darkness Tablet”
translated by Audrey Camherst and Kudshayn
A year and a day passed after the rite of fledging. The people prospered, and the siblings were not parted. Together they grew strong, together they grew generous, together they grew clever, together they grew wise. In the hunts [. . .]1
[. . .] with Tayyit they went [. . .]
[. . .] the four [. . .]
Then, as Peli had dreamed, the mountain shook, the grasses trembled, the stone faltered in its rolling, the river flowed backward in its course. The Light of the World vanished.2 Without warning it dis appeared; without word it went away. Darkness covered the land for the first time.3
The people wailed their terror to the skies, to the earth, to the waters, to the silence. From the vault of the heavens, the nadjait4 looked down, and they hungered for the world. The Maker of Above and Below had kept them at bay, but it was gone. There was nothing to protect the people, and many were lost in that new darkness.
Brave Samšin brought the people together; with her siblings she brought [. . .]
The star demons descended with their ravening mouths, but Samšin struck them down. They surrounded her until she could not be seen, and the people feared she was lost, but Samšin feared neither the darkness nor its creatures. Five times, six times, seven times she swung her mace, until the star demons fled in fear of her.
Now the people were together. Cunning Imalkit struck stone against stone and made light. She said to the people, “We can fool the star demons. Let us make a large fire, and they will think it is the Maker of Above and Below, so they will not attack us.” Everyone gathered wood, and they made a large fire. The star demons flinched back and did not approach.
But without the Maker of Above and Below, plants did not grow, and the world was not green. Gentle Nahri showed the people what things could be eaten, from the worms of the earth to the tender bark of the pine. They [. . .] Because of her the people did not starve.
Ektabr prayed to the Ever-Moving, the Source of Wind. Pious Ektabr prayed to the Ever-Standing, the Foundation of All. Faithful Ektabr prayed to the Light of the World, begging for its return. Wisdom came to him in the night.
He came to his siblings and spoke, saying, “There is a fourth power in the world, a fourth power that is not in the world. It is the shadow(?) of light(?), the starvation(?) of life(?), the undoing(?) of doing(?).5 This power has taken the Maker of Above and Below. It is the thing we do not know, and I fear it.”
They [. . .] with the people [. . .]
“Why has this power taken the Light of the World?” Imalkit asked, but no one could answer.
“Where can we find this power?” Nahri asked, but no one could answer.
“How can we defeat this power?” Samšin asked, but [. . .]
Ektabr spoke, saying, “Let us seek out Hastu, who [. . .]”
Together they went, for the sake of the people.
1 I want to hunt down whoever Gleinleigh had conserve these tablets and shake him. I don’t know for sure that it’s his fault these parts are too damaged to read, but it’s easier to blame a person than a few thousand years of time.—AC
2 A solar eclipse?—K
The part about the river flowing backward makes me think it was something more like an earthquake. A volcanic eruption, maybe? A plume of ash could be said to blot out the sun.—AC
3 The first night, I think. Which explains why the previous reference was to “the time of noise” and “the time of quiet.”—K
Wait, they didn’t have night before? Or do you mean everything up until now somehow all happened in a day? No, because it said before that the siblings grew to full size in a year. You can’t have a full year without night.—CF
In my thol ogy, anything is possible. I’ve read stories where someone was raised to adulthood by a birch tree, or pissed all the oceans of the world into being.—AC
4 In the royal library in Sarmizi there’s a tablet that uses this word—nadjait is ibn Oraib’s best guess at how to transliterate it.—AC
Have you read Erica Pantel’s article on that tablet? She suggests that it may indicate a kind of star demon, based on a fragmentary prayer from the Library of Shukura that treated the night of the new moon as exceptionally dangerous.—K No, I haven’t! We’ll use that translation for now, then.—AC
5 I’m not even going to pretend I’m confident in that translation—hence all the question marks.—AC
It seems reasonable to me. If nothing else, the text clearly seems to be indicating some kind of oppositional structure, contrasting this fourth power against the Light of the World, or maybe against all three together.—K
So . . . what is that fourth power?—CF
I do not know.—K
FROM THE NOTEBOOK OF CORA FITZARTHUR
Audrey and Kudshayn talked today about whether there were any volcanic eruptions in the early days of Draconean civilization, or just before it got started. Ones big enough to make it seem like the sun had gone away. Or a solar eclipse. If there were, then the epic might be describing something real.
Audrey is very frustrated that Uncle has made her and Kudshayn promise not to share information about their work with anyone, even to ask questions. I know this because she made a very obvious point of talking about how frustrated she is, right in front of me. When I asked her why—why she was being obvious, that is, not why she was frustrated—she sighed dramatically and said, “Oh, I was just wishing there was someone who hadn’t promised.”
She meant me, of course, though when I said that to her she just winked and then went to clean up for dinner. She wants me to go behind Uncle’s back and look into volcanic eruptions.
If I asked him, I’m sure he would say that no, I’m not allowed to share information with anyone, either. The only reason he hasn’t told me that already is because it never occurred to him that I would write to anyone—he thinks there’s nobody for me to write to, and normally he’s correct.
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