Chapter 1: Argamag Khuleg, the winds of change.

Life had passed calmly there, beyond the mountains. The Valley of Spirits, they called it; plains and rock forests extended to the horizons. It was autumn and the morning mist covered the peaks and the immensities. The wind, going forward, seemed to carry the sound of war marches; beneath some rocks rose leather tents and the beating of the wind over their skins sounded like the beating of old war drums. The rainstorm whirled and in the distance black clouds invaded the sky. The grass whistled like flutes, offering songs of old time, of the vast steppe, to the dying sun covered slowly in black clouds.

Some Altai, people of the grasslands, silently got out of their tents and tried to tighten the ropes securing the skins, only to discover that the wind, subtle as it was, was filled with inexplicable power. They shuddered and covered their faces with their clothes, guiding the auris, the half llamas/camels that live in the northern lands, and the goats, back to the dark stables between the rocks. Then, inside, they prepared some soup to forget the coldness, and covered themselves in hides, waiting for the storm to pass.

In one of the tents, away from all others, a man spoke:

—The winds come again. Where are you, Unai? I can’t see clearly anymore—

A dark figure lay over some wool. Dense wisps of smoke covered its body, and the heavy scent of incense permeated his flesh. A little child appeared from the insides of a cave also hidden in the shadows. When he approached, the light entering from the folds of the inlet shone over his face, revealing his violet eyes.

“I was always afraid of looking at those eyes. Now I see how beautiful they are” thought the old man. Soon it would be the time; of them and of all those who will follow. From between the wool he drew some incense coal and put them on an old mud bowl.

—Unai, my child. The winds descend. Do you hear? Shek shiree, the sun, the black clouds. Once again we will part, and this time the Law… the law, my child. Do you have something to eat? Not at all? Don’t be sad, take some of these with you. Don’t worry. Go to Manjari and ask her for some dried apples to eat. She shouldn’t refuse this time. If she refuses offer them to her. –

The kid approached and revealed the body of the man; long ashen white hair fell over his brows, and beneath them two profound brown eyes looked at him. The old man talked with difficulty, his eyes drowned in soma, as if in a dream. When the child approached, the old man smiled; the crevices where teeth were missing let him taste the sourness of the smoke in the air. He extended his arms and gave him a bowl full of coal, and coughed because of the effort. The child lit them and sneezed. A faint dizziness invaded his body, and in the corner of his vision intentions of figures drew blurry.

—The giants will soon awaken. – said the old man, a tinge of madness pooled in his eyes. He was lost in visions. The kid endured the stinging of sorrow. That man he always called his father used to say that line since before he could remember.

—Go now. Leave me. When you come back, bring some more water. –

He left the bowl with the burning coals at his feet and the old man turned around to sleep. Outside, the dark clouds had already covered the sky, and only some rays of sunshine were reflected in the borders of the distant mountains. Little drops of rain fell.

“The rain” thought the kid. Through the folds he felt the cool caressing of the wind. “Father soon will die.”

*  *  *

The kid viewed the mounting shadows in the sky, the intermixing of light and darkness. He felt the power of the currents and the coldness of the water. In his hunger, he waited for something. A foreboding sense of awe that all his life had accompanied him slowly pressured the insides of his heart with the beating of the drums of leather. He left his tent and walked the few hundred meters that separated him from the nearest tent. He arrived, peeked through the entrance, and said:

—Manyari. Are you there? I’m hungry. Give me an apple. —

He couldn’t see much. The entrance was blocked by a folding screen. A woman answered.

—Is your father wallowing in soma again, Unai? Leave, leave. I have no more apples for you. —

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—I, I still have some pieces of coal. I can give them to you. Give me an apple, Manyari. I will go and gather some paperflowers for you. — He entered the tent and looked nervously around him

—Keep the paperflowers, kid. I have no more use for them. Now go. You can go up somewhere and find wild cherries, I don’t care. —

The kid could see her clearly. Manjari was sitting on an ancient vinewood chair, her sour face covered in a dark veil, absorbed in the picture of her old hands and her withered bosom. Besides her the smoke also rose from the soma. In some corner the clear sound of a creek fell over the rocks.

“I hate the smell of soma” he thought. He left before the dizziness invaded his body, and he started to hear the subtle popple of the drizzle. “What is Father going to eat? And I?”

They had no cattle; their only auri had died years ago on the travel of the Sierra, where the loss had clouded his judgment with tears and ended up lost in the mountains, only to be found days later in the peak of a gigantic boulder, singing lullabies with a blade of grass. They were alone between the Seyk, and he himself was alone between all the people.

“Pacqi. What would you do now? Where would you go?”

—Manyari! Time will never bring back Ankhata! And we will never go back to the mountains!— Unai exploded, and left running in direction to the rock forests. In his hand shone a big dried apple, lush with a dark red color like blood. It smelled spicy, bitter and slightly sweet. The wild fruit was toxic, and it was made edible submerging it in vinegar and dark peppers for three nights, while washing them later in honeyed water for six days. His mouth watered, and he gulped, but he took a turn and returned to his tent, where Father awaited for him. There, in the entrance, he cut a little, minuscule bit with a sharp rock from the ground and ate it himself, while he washed the rest of the apple with the rain, and collected some rainwater more in a pot he had left at the entrance.

 —Father! I got some food and water. Eat, come. — He approached the old man and helped him sit.

—How was it, son? —

—Manyari gave me two apples. She said she didn’t need the incense. Also, sorry, I ate a bit of yours. I was too hungry. —

—I see. Manyari is a good woman. Thank you, Unai. I know you were hungry. You have still a lot of room to grow. —

The old man looked at him with untold sweetness. In his eyes, visions of the future and distant pasts coalesced into the present. The history of the Altai, now scornfully named the Seyk, from the beginnings of time where the Law was wielded, to their Schism, and the Diaspora, where they all departed to slowly die across all the lands of the earth, were all reflected in the violet eyes he saw in front of him. In the shadows that covered his old body, and in the secret tremors that assaulted him, giving him the knowledge that he would die, and with him, they would all finally find their place again in this world, in this vastness. He said, almost broken, but lovingly, while the thumping of the rain over the tent muffled his voice.

—I’m sorry, my child—

“I can’t help you look for food. Nor I can help you live your life” he thought. He believed to see a dark, towering figure in the figure of the child in front of him, a whisper of the future. But he felt no terror, even though the image should have made him cower. “I have almost lost my eyes, and these old legs are not mine anymore”.

—Don’t worry, Father. I will go to the plateau to gather some mushrooms and flowers. Maybe someone will want them and give us some apples.—

Outside, the winds grew fiercer, and the sky was already covered in darkness. There were whispers of war marches, and thunders of change.

—Do you hear them, Unai? In the earth. They will soon awaken.

Unai assented. The giants would surely awaken, but when? He didn’t believe that, nor did he know what it meant, but he felt sad for his dying Father, and for those oppressing winds that were for him so liberating and so full of stories. He exited the tent, and looked at the horizon clogged with clouds of tempest.

In the distance, many days of travel away, where they couldn’t see, a million man army tried to cross the mountains.