The Wise Man

He was a young man again, his skin smooth and unwrinkled, his back straight and unbent. Tay Yi Ah stood in the void, wearing his Fallow-given name like a length of fine cloth, the burden of being the tribe’s shaman temporarily forgotten.

The darkness shuddered. Tay Yi Ah looked up. This was the first among visions, which all the shamans saw when they were first initiated. To see it again was a sign of great portent.

Although he knew what was coming, it did not fail to take Tay Yi Ah’s dream-breath away. Stars filled the void around him; there was no ground beneath his feet, so like a crucible the shifting points of light surrounded him.

He floated, suspended in nothing, and watched as three stars fell from the sky and came hurtling towards him. One burned green, like jade. Another shone white, the gleam of marble. The last was gold, with a pulsing amber glow.

“Raj Mal Azu,” whispered the young man. “A god, one.”

He took a step forward, and suddenly Albumere was beneath his feet. The earth felt cool between his toes, and he stood there, naked, as the stars landed. The twisted tree spiraled out of the earth, so tall that it touched the sky itself, so that the stars rippled at its touch. Its branches were made of human hands and feet, and at the very top they melded together into a face with translucent golden skin and pupil-less eyes.

“Lives in worlds two,” recited Tay Yi Ah. “Has faces three.”

It turned towards Tay Yi Ah. The outline of a wooden skull could be seen behind filmy skin, and its eyes stared unblinkingly at Tay Yi Ah. A pulse like a heartbeat ran through the whole length of the tree, spiraling into its roots and deep into the ground.

“And holds a court of ladies four and lords five.”

The green and white stars burned. Shadows seemed to stand behind them that Tay Yi Ah could not make out, as tall and great as the twisted tree. Around the white star they stood. The first to emerge had high cheekbones and an angular face. She had ladybird wings humming on her back, and was unashamed of her bare skin. Glowing runes traced themselves along the small of her back, geometric lines with hard corners and an unrecognizable pattern.

The second had softer features and curled hair that framed her gentle face. Owl wings curled around her as she stood, hiding her body from view, but Tay Yi Ah could still see the lines carving themselves into the base of her throat.

The next Tay Yi Ah almost did not notice. She stood in the shadows, bat wings stretching on her back. She had a small nose and mouth, and her eyes were cunning and swift. It might have been Tay Yi Ah’s imagination, but the glowing lines seemed to form a third eye upon her forehead.

The last flexed her stocky arms as she emerged, runes forming on her shoulders. Ladybug wings buzzed on her back, as she rolled her neck and stretched her arms. Her hair was cut short like a boy’s, and her features were square and hard. She alone looked at Tay Yi Ah, a direct challenge at the mortal who dared look upon her.

His essence trembled at her gaze. Tay Yi Ah turned away, and stared instead at the figures surrounding the green star. They were not nearly as human, hulking beasts and monsters made out of rock and wood and water. He saw only four, and some did not even look human. They were too distant to make out, too alien to recognize.

A long, somber creak made Tay Yi Ah turn once again to the twisted tree. Its mouth was opening slowly, ever so slowly, and its branches were held out in such a way that it looked to be pointing towards Tay Yi Ah. The stars began to shake violently overhead, as the earth beneath Tay Yi Ah began to hum.

It spoke.

“You do not understand.”

The u-ha blinked, and he felt such a fatigue in his bones that he considered turning over and dying right then and there. Pale rainbows danced over his face as the crystal shards in the net overhead shook with the swaying of the tent.

“You do not understand,” repeated Dal Ak Gan, standing with his feet planted and his arms crossed. “Kharr Ta would never do business with us after that. We had to leave. There was no other choice.”

“Then when,” growled Dock the mercenary. “Are we getting paid?”

The u-ha stared up, not listening. He was looking at the Lady Winter, and he was telling her no.

Blood sloshed through the old man as he found the strength within himself to sit upright. He knew he was dying. Not of any affliction or disease: no, he was dying of old age. Even the youngest u-ha could tell that, if the tribe had one.

The u-ha smacked toothless gums together. He had forgotten a long time ago what it was like to be hungry. He couldn’t chew meat, fruit didn’t agree with his stomach, and his bowels protested just about everything else. He supposed, though, that he could use some morning stew.

His shaking hand clasped the handle of his cane. Eyes that could barely make out his fingers an inch from his face scanned the room, and with some reluctance the u-ha stood from his sleeping furs.

He walked between Dal Ak Gan and Dock, both of whom had fallen silent once they had seen the u-ha rise.

He walked towards his pots and pans, and set about making stew. It took him a couple minutes to get the fire started, and while he fumbled with the match and wood both the others watched in silence.

Finally, Dock cleared her throat. “Want to ask him where to go?” she said, in the king’s tongue, and the contempt was evident in her voice. “Ask.”

The u-ha snorted. In his day, a foreigner would have treated a son of the emperors with a little more respect. If anything, she deserved their contempt. She was an impudent, hot-blooded, money-grubbing scoundrel who had lost (and, indeed, never had) the blessing of the old way.

All this, the u-ha muttered under his breath as he scraped oats into the bubbling pan of milk. Of course no one heard him. No one ever listened, these days, except for Dep Sag Ko, and he was an oaf.

“U-ha,” said Dal Ak Gan, his tone reverential. At least that man knew respect. That was why he was still chieftain. He knew who deserved his respect and who didn’t. “We have lost the way. We have many slaves but none shall buy them. We are not welcome in the city of our forefathers.”

Hak Mat Do was not the city of their forefathers. It belonged to the pyramid lords. What did the free-riding people of the steppes know of those dusty necropolises? Only the young of Albumere assumed that Hak Mat Do and Hag Gar Gan were one and the same.

All this, the u-ha said. Dal Ak Gan did not have a response. He just waited.

With glacial slowness, the u-ha watched his porridge simmer. Outside, he could hear a continuous buzzing, all the insects of Albumere swarming in the afternoon heat. Winter was near upon them. This would be one of the last times he would hear such a thing again. It might be the last time.

Impatience radiated from Dock, but even she knew not to interrupt the venerated u-ha. She had sense enough for that, at least.

He scooped the porridge out with a wooden spoon. He put the porridge in his mouth. He ate the porridge. Dock and Dal Ak Gan waited. The air buzzed outside.

The u-ha’s hand dug around his chest of medicines and supplies, and he drew out a little glass jar. It was full of worms and beetlebeasts, their tiny tabula dumped inside of a small wooden box next to the jar. Broken amber fragments littered the bottom of the box, but quite a few lived yet.

The old man shook a few out into his porridge, and watched them squirm inside the gruel for several seconds before capping the jar again. He put the jar gently back in the chest; glass was expensive, as were the services of a bug catcher.

He began to eat again, slowly. A stagbeetle twitched, half-drowned amid the oats, but the u-ha had no teeth to chew it with. He swallowed the thing whole, even as worms and grubs slithered into his gut. He put the bowl aside, and waited with Dock and Dal Ak Gan for the creatures to die.

Open disgust was evident on Dock’s face, while Dal Ak Gan was expressionless. The u-ha tapped his net of crystals, and watched the lights shimmer.

The stagbeetle died.

He emerged from the seas at the end of the world, his blocky head made of hewn jade, water spilling up out of the grate where his mouth should have been. A titanic hand reached out to smother the tiny fishing skiff, except his intent was not to smother at all. He cupped the boat in his palm and held it up to his face, watching it, observing it.

Terrified sailors tossed their cargo overboard into the sea creature’s hand: Jhidnu spices, lengths of fine silk, golden and silver peaches from the bay. But what did a god care for the trinkets of men?

His fingers closed slowly. Now was the time for smothering.

Spices and silk and golden peaches. The spirits pointed to Jhidnu. Jhidnu would take their slaves. The closest and most amicable market in the east, they could take the spice road through Hak Ger and be at the boy within a month. The winter would make the journey harsh, but the plutocrats would never turn them away like the pyramid lords had.

All this, the u-ha said.

“To Jhidnu,” said Dal Ak Gan, in the king’s tongue. “There are so many plutocrats that at least one of the Wind will buy from us there. It will be easy for you and your men to find new work, too, in the city.”

“You finished talking with your spirit man?” said Dock, crossing her arms.

Dal Ak Gan’s eyes narrowed. “Yes, I am.”

“Then let’s take this outside.”

They locked eyes. The air buzzed. Then, Dal Ak Gan said, stiffly, in the imperial tongue, “Excuse us, u-ha.”

They stepped outside, and the u-ha returned to his porridge.

He stared at it, his face wrinkled in disgust. The bugs and worms were fine—he had eaten many of those in his long service as the tribe’s u-ha—but the thin gruel was already making his intestines squirm. He was an old man. His hands shook and his shit leaked.

The u-ha looked at the Lady Winter, and told her no. Not today.

Inside his gut, the worms shriveled and died.

Her image graced the pyramids. On every slab of marble and limestone, they carved her and her great stone mask. She could only barely be called human: abnormally tall and slender, with arms like lengths of wire and wings made of glass. They prayed before her and she answered.

She had won the war against the world for them. She had forged a place for man in the unforgiving wilds. She had raised monuments of stone in the name of the greatest empire Albumere had ever seen.

The wild savages had become unruly again? The Ladies would descend upon them, their retribution swift and terrible. New colonies to the north and west needed building? Stone would raise itself from the ground, fully formed settlements ready to be lived in. She had given them greater steel magic than Irontower, better boats than Jhidnu, more knowledge than the Twin Libraries of Shira Hay had held in four ages of kings combined.

Then she had abandoned them, and the prayers of Hak Mat Do fell on deaf ears.

It had taken years of training to become the tribe’s wise man. Eating bugs was the easiest part. Learning the medicines, reciting the histories, understanding the essence of the world: that had been what becoming u-ha entailed. Even now, the old man did not fully understand the portents of his dreams and visions.

He blinked rheumy eyes. When he was young, before his hair had turned silver and his teeth had rotted out, he had thought his mentor was unstoppable, indomitable, and privy to all the secrets of Albumere. Now he realized the previous u-ha knew less than he did. Did they truly understand the dreams?

Coughing, the u-ha picked up his porridge again. Food first, then philosophy, even if it seemed to bring more going out than going in. He wouldn’t let something like an upset stomach kill him, not when he had survived so much more.

He ate slowly, mechanically, eyes wandering. The burned slaves had been treated as best they could; they were with the others now, away from the u-ha’s tent and tabula. They had left the river, and Hak Mat Do, and Kharr Ta, behind them. It was time to go a new way. They would make it. They were Hag Gar Gan; they always made it.

The u-ha stared up at the net of crystals. It inspired the same awe in him as it had in the days of his youth. If he had done his duty right, then there should have been another young u-ha with him to marvel at their beauty.

Except, there wasn’t. The u-ha was alone in his wise man’s tent, and he knew that for this tribe at least there would never be another. There simply wasn’t the time.

All the little deaths in his stomach brought him back, to when there was all the time in the world.

There shall be four, and a fifth to come.

A single cloud drifted across the full moon as it stared down upon Albumere, a pale white eye in the night.

He hung upside down, water streaming down his face, his hands and feet bound to the underside of the world itself.

Lightning sundered the tree, murdering one god’s people for the sake of another’s.

There was only one god.

The part that loved her and the part she gave him spiraled through the past, locked in such a tender embrace that Tay Yi Ah cried in remembrance.

“U-ha!” shouted a voice, interrupting the old man’s reminiscence. He opened his eyes, his cheeks wet and his hands shaking. “Dal Ak Gan says you are awake!”

Dep Sag Ko walked inside, his burly frame blocking out most of the ambient sunlight.

“And up you are, old man,” he said, clapping his hands together. He slid the plate of porridge aside. “Come on, let’s get you some sunlight. La Ah Abi has some leftover rhubarb, for your stomach.”

The u-ha sighed inside. The oaf meant well for sure, but sometimes he was simply tiresome.

“Can you walk? Do you need me to carry you?”

The old man brushed his hand away, standing slowly as he planted his cane in the ground. He was in no rush. He hobbled forward, as Dep Sag Ko stood like some overeager sparrowdog beside him. His infernal bird squawked from his shoulder, preening its feathers.

“Dal Ak Gan says we are going to Jhidnu,” said Dep Sag Ko. “Lo Pak will like it there. And you! The sea salt will do you good, I think.”

What did Dep Sag Ko know of sea salt? He had never known the spray of the ocean waves on his face. He had never seen the titans rise from the mist, the stoic guardians at the edge of the world. He had never known the sea.

All this, the u-ha said. Dep Sag Ko just laughed.

“Then I’ll get my chance soon, won’t I? You sure I don’t need to carry you? It would be no trouble.”

The old man grimaced at the idea and kept edging forward. Snakes bit their own tails, but horses rode straight. Slowly and steadily, he made progress. Always progress.

The u-ha stepped out into the sunlight, and squinted down at the camp. His people huddled around little fires, cooked in broken pots, and squatted in hide tents. His face turned up in a sneer. They were the first people of this world, and he could barely distinguish them from their slaves. They deserved better than this.

He looked upon the slaves, and the one he was searching for looked straight back at him, even though she didn’t have eyes.

“Dream Walker,” the u-ha whispered.

She knew. Rho Hat Pan knew. They knew. The knowledge of the u-ha were the echoes of a dying order, but the Walkers knew. They had to know.

“Tired, u-ha? Need help?”

The u-ha waved him away, as he walked among the remnants of the Hag Gar Gan. Tired? Of course he was tired. He had clung to life for eighty summers and he was dying.

But if the Ladies wanted his life, they would have to come to take it personally. Then, he would find out why they had abandoned his people. Then, he would find out how to bring them back.

He hobbled forward slowly. He was in no rush.

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