It has been some time since I last wrote, about half a year. The harshness of winter has come and gone (my poor Rosédan was miserable from the cold, which is far worse here than in Edazzo or her own home). Now I find myself writing again in order to explain what happened when Enikkhe Konahu returned from the north.
I had met his wife Phērīs Tipelahi shortly after the incident with the green women. She seemed to me a friendly and cheerful woman, even as she told us that Enikkhe Konahu had gone on an expedition into the north. This was apparently something he often did, though I found it hard to gather why from the explanations of the others. The north of Alka’ales was different from the south in some way that made it useful for Enikkhe Konahu, and so he had left without a word to anyone except for his wife.
Over the past months, Rosédan has learned much of the Alka’ales language and even some of their magic. I, meanwhile, found a place for myself in a niche that I should perhaps have seen from the start. Pilgrims come from various parts of the world to remember the chalice that descended on Alka’ales, speaking a dozen languages that I, or rather my Bird, can understand with ease where no one else can. Who better, then, to serve as translator for newly-arrived pilgrims than me? I found it to be an agreeable task, and I’ve heard many strange stories that perhaps I will have opportunity to tell someday. When I was not called upon to interpret, I occupied myself with the nearby stream, and more precisely with the fish that swam in it, spending many a morning and afternoon sitting patiently on the banks with the rod I had fashioned myself.
I was just returning from the men’s dormitory, to which I had guided an eastern traveler who spoke little except for the occasional aphoristic-sounding phrase, when I saw a tall man standing in the middle of the path. He was staring up at the image carved into the nearby rock wall, and as his clothes were those of a pilgrim, I naturally and understandably took him to be one of their number. “Hello,” I said as I approached him. “Welcome to A’ula Zölkhöh, city of the chalice.” It was the usual speech that had been prepared for me (my own small offered changes had been rejected). “My name is Kësil, and I will serve as your interpreter.”
He raised his thick eyebrows. “You will, will you? And into what language, for what audience? Do you plan to bring me to the eagles in their eyries, or to the marmots in their dens? Will you tell me the secrets that they hide from mankind?”
I perceived immediately that I had made an error. This was obviously a lunatic, a type that has become sadly familiar to me over the months. Often pilgrims would arrive in A’ula Zölkhöh and become overwhelmed by the reality of it, whereupon they would throw themselves off a cliff, break their teeth on rocks, or pronounce themselves the emperor of the world. It was very sad, and was generally blamed on the disappearance of the chalice. So I looked now at this man with concern. “Yes,” I said gently, “if you’ll just come this way with me.”
“What are you, some kind of lunatic?”
“That’s all right,” I said soothingly. “Just come this way.”
“I will not come your or any other way!” At which point he began to hit me with the club he was carrying. Fortunately most of his blows were to the fleshy parts of my upper arm and thighs, and I suspect were more intended to drive me off than injure me. He was calling me various things which I didn’t catch, paying more attention as I was to evading his club.
“Darling! What by the Flame are you doing?”
“Darling! What under Heaven are you doing?”
The voices of Phērīs Tipelahi and of Rosédan rang out in unison. The violent man and I backed away from one another, and after I glanced back and forth between Phērīs Tipelahi and the man, I deduced that he was no other than Enikkhe Konahu, here at last. I touched my fingers to my head in what I had learned to be the custom of Alka’ales. “My apologies,” I said. “I apologize most sincerely. I didn’t realize who you were.”
“And who are you, Kësil?”
“Well, as I said, I’m an interpreter.”
Any further explanation was interrupted when Phērīs Tipelahi threw herself into her husband’s arm and there was a great deal of murmuring and caressing that was no doubt extremely gratifying for the participants but held little interest for me or Rosédan. Though I’m not entirely sure what the looks Rosédan gave me at that moment meant.
When the murmuring and caressing ended, Enikkhe Konahu turned a much less tender gaze on me. “Now, who exactly are you and what do you think you’re doing? And what is that ridiculous thing on your head?”
I apologized yet again and explained myself. “As for my hat, I have become accustomed to wearing it over the years.”
He narrowed his eyes, the tufts of hair on his brows drawing together. “There’s something you’re hiding from us.”
“My hair,” I said in what I thought was a particularly clever reply. Enikkhe Konahu apparently did not agree, but only scoffed, and when Enikkhe Konahu scoffs, everyone within ten feet wants to crawl in a hole from shame.
“Well,” he said after scoffing again, “I’ll have questions for you later. Now I want to see what Ostalos Elsahi is up to.” Phērīs Tipelahi whispered in his ear and he amended himself. “Not right away, of course.”
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“So that’s Enikkhe Konahu,” said Rosédan to me later on. “They talk about him all the time, but their stories didn’t do him justice.”
“No, they certainly don’t,” I said agreeably, though I actually didn’t recall the details of the stories I had heard.
“He’s supposed to be different from the other students. He was always arguing with the masters and going off on his own. When he passed through the Valley of the Gods, they say he passed all the trials, but a voice was heard in the mist prophesying doom if he ever achieved the position of master. That’s why he’s still technically a student, even if he’s been here longer than the others. Thipērek Thüzranahü told me that the other day.”
“What kind of doom?” I asked.
“The voice didn’t say. Though if the story were true, you’d think they wouldn’t let him study here at all.”
“You’d think.”
“But he doesn’t seem like a magician at all. I had an uncle who was a soldier, and he reminds me very strongly of him.”
“And remember that Ostalos Elsahi wanted his help, back at the festival of memorial.”
“I’d forgotten about that!” she said with a laugh. “But then you probably wrote it down, didn’t you?”
I nodded, but slowly. A thought had occurred to me, as thoughts often do, and I wanted to make sure I had it right before I opened my mouth. Rosédan has, in her gentle way, suggested that at times I’ve gotten myself into difficulties by speaking without proper forethought, and no doubt she’s right. But the thought that occurred to me now was, I decided, a sound one. “You probably have a better notion now of what they were talking about.”
“I do,” she said. “And Ostalos Elsahi was right. Sawanin Lusahu was meddling in things that could have been disastrous for us all.”
“You can explain it to me, then.”
She laughed again and stretched up her hands to the branches of the tree above us. “No, I really can’t! It would be like you explaining to me what exactly your Bird does.” I was about to object that I actually had no idea what exactly my Bird did, but she went on before I could speak. “But let me try. Sawanin Lusahu’s philosophy, as far as I understand it, is that the wound the chalice left cannot be healed by simply bringing it back, which is what most magicians here are trying to do. It would only be a false image. Sawanin Lusahu believes that, rather, we should call upon something new.”
“And the green women?”
“I can only guess. But we know other places exist. Islands, maybe, that can only be reached through magic. That beach where we met the gray lord, or the sea of reeds you described. The green man and the green women could be interlopers from such an island.”
“And that’s dangerous, then?”
“In Ghadáreim we were taught always to follow specific rules when practicing our magic, always to have our goal firmly in mind, to avoid creating something we would rather not. There are many stories about magicians whose work results in disaster because they strayed from the proper path.”
I thought this through for a few minutes. “Well,” I said, “do you think the chalice was brought here by following the proper path?”
“No, it wasn’t,” Rosédan said, nodding. “And that’s what Sawanin Lusahu says, but Ostalos Elsahi mocks him for it. There’s something personal there, I think, but I don’t know what it is. Surely you’ve noticed how his face changes whenever the loss of the chalice is mentioned.”
I couldn’t say that I had, but I did remark that this didn’t seem unusual. “The departure of the chalice was a loss to everyone, wasn’t it?”
“You don’t understand,” she said, and I confess that I didn’t.
It was then that I saw Pūīros on the path ahead. At first glance I thought he was walking away from us, but steadily his figure grew larger, and there was a brief moment in which my eyes refused to make any sense at all of what I was seeing, until suddenly it was all reconciled and I realized that Pūīros was walking backwards.
I should clarify that I had not yet met Pūīros, nor did I know his name. All I knew was that Enikkhe Konahu had brought with him out of the north a handful of men who were rumored to be magicians of an immensely powerful school. Rosédan had dismissed these rumors even as she mentioned them to me, but I knew better than to dismiss rumors so easily. Rosédan herself had been little more than a rumor to me once upon a time.
When Pūīros was a couple yards away from us, he stopped walking and stretched out his hands in front of him. “My friends,” he said, and as he spoke I saw Rosédan’s brow furrow and her lips purse in concentration. Later she would tell me that Pūīros’s accent was an extremely strong one. “I am looking for my friend Enikkhe Konahu. Do you know where he has gone?”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” I said. Rosédan shook her head in agreement.
“That is a pity. A shame.” He made a forward bow and walked past us. I turned as he went so I could get a look at his face, but was startled to see it so deformed with scars that his features couldn’t be discerned. The scars scrunched together—was he smiling?—and he said, “I can’t see you quite so well like this, I’m afraid.”
“But your eyes are back here, aren’t they?” I asked. Rosédan turned too, then covered her mouth and gasped quietly.
“I do not see with my eyes,” he said. “There are better ways of seeing.”
“Did you learn those ways in the north?” asked Rosédan.
He didn’t answer, but only asked “Are you both magicians?”
“After a fashion,” said Rosédan, and I was about to correct her before I realized she was referring to my Bird. Though it was a far-fetched fashion of speech, I thought, that would refer to me a magician.
“Then we will certainly meet again.” He bowed once more and continued on his way.