The veiled throne, p.56
The Veiled Throne, page 56
Çami broke into her reverie. “The patterns are from the vibrations of the drumbeats.”
Théra focused on the top of the drum set and saw that Çami was right. The hollow central column acted as a resonating chamber for the set, and as Adyulek beat against the different drumheads below, the skin stretched across the top throbbed and quaked, sending the dust into a frenzied dance that became an abstract painting of her dance.
“… and so ended the Fifth Age of Mankind in bloodbath, starvation, and thirst. People were exiled from the land of plenty, and the gods remade the world into the scrublands.”
Sataari finished and stood still.
Adyulek twirled in place and slammed her staff into the largest of the drums one last time. Then she plunged the tip of the staff into the ground and held on to it, letting her momentum carry her once around the pole before finally stopping like a hawk swooping down to rest. She leaned against the pole, panting. Once again, she was just an old woman, not the embodiment of the Every-Mother.
The colorful swirling dust stopped moving and settled into a fixed pattern of beautiful and bleak bands, stripes, swirls, circles, starbursts.
One of the two young shamans now picked up a second piece of thin garinafin skin and held it up while the other one began to paint it with a cattle-hair brush dipped in some viscous, clear liquid. When the whole skin had been covered, the two shamans carefully laid it on top of the colorful pattern atop the drum set and rolled a thin bone pin across the top to press it against the “canvas.”
Finally, the two shamans carefully peeled the skin back. The colorful pattern stuck to the lifted skin, and as the two shamans held it up and displayed it for the crowd around the bonfire, everyone cheered. A new round of the chorus broke out.
“So this is how the voice paintings are made,” said Çami. “It really is a painting of sounds.”
Théra nodded, too overwhelmed to speak. She had seen the voice paintings hanging in the tents of the thanes, and Souliyan had shown her several that she said dated from the time of her father. But she had never known this was how they were created.
Though the story Sataari told was too foreign for her to appreciate, Adyulek’s dance, drumming, and the painting that she left behind as a record left a deep mark on her mind.
A speech is a living being. How can your word-scars capture that?
Dimly, she was beginning to understand the objections of Adyulek. The story that Sataari and Adyulek told, she could see now, was not meant to be written at all. It was much more than just words—it involved dance, exertion, the heat of the bonfire, the fatty grease of the ten meats, the smell of bone smoke, the call-and-answer of shaman and crowd, the feelings of family and tribe, of camaraderie and sense of belonging.
How could mere zyndari letters, so ill-suited to the Agon language that poor Razutana had to attempt to pin down the unfamiliar sounds with novel digraphs and trigraphs that were never used in Dara, ever hope to capture the beauty of this scene? Even if they were to invent an alphabet from scratch, custom-tailored to the sounds of the scrublands, how could mere writing hope to capture the nuances of tone and timbre; the sweat-drenched face and fleeting expressions of the storyteller; the sense of freedom in her dance steps and the varieties of thumping, thudding, banging, dinging, drubbing, patting, tapping, beating, rapping, tickling, caressing that she employed against the drums; the flows and blows and motions and emotions and colors and dust pillars of the voice painting—in short, the entirety of the experience of being alive here, in this moment?
The voice painting, in its abstraction, its refusal to be reduced to language, was in fact a better medium for recording this night, she could see now. The voice painting, like those knots on Adyulek’s staff, could not be interpreted in the absence of memory. But that was a strength, not a weakness.
She should have known. Hadn’t she, as a child, loved the performances of the oral storytellers in teahouses? Hadn’t she skipped school to attend the performances of street magicians and folk opera troupes? Hadn’t she watched as Risana danced with her impossibly long sleeves while Kuni, her father, accompanied her on the coconut lute and sang songs about home and away? She ought to have known that a play was far more than the script, and a speech far more than the transcript.
She had lived so long as a reader that she had forgotten that a culture could not be reduced to writing, that wisdom could not be imprisoned in books, that to live was to breathe, to dance, to hunt, to forget.
She was about to turn to Çami, to request that they descend from their perch on the garinafin so that she could attempt to make peace with Adyulek, to explain that she did now see that something would be lost in the transition from orality to literacy, in the transition from movement to stillness, from hunting and herding and riding and flying to a life of sedentary agriculture. She remained convinced that the transition was worth it, but she would now be sensitive to the costs.
She looked down. The two young shamans had stretched a fresh sheet of garinafin skin across the resonating central column of the bone drums and began to strew handfuls of colored dust over the top. Adyulek had recovered enough to prepare for a new dance, Sataari stood ready to chant, and the audience was starting on their third servings of meats.
Something about the dust drew her attention. She focused on the canvas and realized that the colorful grains were dancing. Slowly, rhythmically, ever so gently.
But there was no drumming. Adyulek was still leaning against her staff.
Why is the stretched skin across the top vibrating?
Before she had even finished asking herself the question, Théra felt a quaking in her bones as Riva began to low and moan, his whole body quivering. She looked over at Çami, perched atop the other antler, who was busy trying to calm the garinafin down.
Around them, the other garinafins were all lowing and moaning, extremely agitated.
Everyone around the fire stood up. Voices of confusion rose from every sitting rug.
Bright streaks of fire appeared in the night sky in the direction of the mouth of the valley.
Are they shooting stars? Is the sky cracking open?
Takval ran into the middle of the clearing, next to the bonfire.
“Get to your mounts! We’re under attack!”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN EXILES
MEANWHILE, IN KRIPHI.
Savo Ryoto looked at the slanted rectangle of moonlight cast on the ground of his dank cave cell through the bars at the cave mouth. Outside, the murmur of the eternal sea drowned out the noises of the world of humankind, and he tried to synchronize his heartbeat to it, to embrace his fate.
It was cold in the cave, exposed as it was to the elements. There was no fire even in winter, and he tried to burrow deeper into the rags that served as bedding, watching his breath linger in the air like smoke.
During the months of seclusion in this prison, he had imagined the horror of death by immolation in garinafin breath so many times that it no longer frightened him. I’ll finally be warm, he thought, and smiled a ghastly smile.
He was only sad now for his mother, because she was going to lose him, and for Master Nazu Tei, who was going to share the same fate with him tomorrow, when the Winter Festival would begin.
He would not be able to repay the debt he owed either of them in this life now. He would never find out the truth that Nazu Tei hinted at, never be able to reconcile the Ukyu-taasa that he thought he knew with the Ukyu-taasa that she told him was hidden beneath the surface, between the lines of doctored re-rememberings. He would have to go beyond the mountains at the edge of the world and hope to answer their love for him in the spiritual realm.
The door to his cell grated open on its rusty hinges. He turned to it, expecting to see a guard climb down from above. The winch at the top of the cliffs was the only way to access this cell burrowed into the rocks. It was too early for the delivery of the last meal, wasn’t it?
But instead, a dark figure climbed up from below and stood at the lip of the cave. The silhouetted figure was tall, gaunt, with a smooth head. Torchlight from behind and below limned it in a halo. Was it Toryoana of Healing Hands, the god of mercy?
The figure turned around, lay down at the lip of the cave, and reached down. When it stood up again, the intruder was holding a torch. It approached Savo. “Come. There’s no time to waste.”
It was his mother.
As though in a dream, he passively followed her, unable to voice his questions. There was a stake driven into the cliff face to which was attached a wheel and a rope. Goztan tied a harness around his chest, much like the one that garinafin pilots wore, attached it to the rope, and began to lower him into the darkness, into the raging surf below.
Instead of helplessness, he felt taken care of. He felt as though he was again a child of four, being prepared by his mother for his first garinafin ride. They were still living in Ukyu then—the homeland that he remembered only in dreamlike fragments—and as his five fathers looked on, offering conflicting advice and encouragement, the old slave Oga cinched the harness tighter so that he was secure against the chest of his kneeling mother.
“You’re a good boy,” said Oga, in the language of Dara. “Keep your eyes and heart open.”
“There’s nothing to be afraid of,” said his mother as she leaned down to kiss the top of his head. Then she stood up, and he felt his feet lifting off the ground as she climbed up the garinafin’s head. The garinafin then hoisted them both up toward its shoulder, and he finally believed that he was going into the sky.
He was closer to the sea now, and he could see a tiny boat bobbing among the churning waves, not much bigger than the deep-sea fishing ships that the natives sometimes took out to catch the prized marlin.
Some rough hands grabbed him and pulled him into the boat. He faltered, unsure of his footing on the swaying deck.
Later, when his mother had also joined him on the ship, she explained that these were pirates. Pirates, lawless bandits who had no home but the endless brine, had generally kept away from the shores of Rui and Dasu in recent years, terrified of the reputation of the fire-breathing garinafins that patrolled the skies. But some more enterprising pirate captains had learned to form alliances with Lyucu thanes. The pirates raided the merchant fleets of Dara and sold the coveted goods to the thanes, who could not get enough of what they wanted through the smuggling operation on the official tribute ships. Tanvanaki tolerated the liaisons between the pirates and her thanes, and sometimes even used the pirate crews to carry out missions that the Lyucu could not perform themselves.
Goztan had recruited the crew of such a pirate ship to mount this rescue. The pirates, used to attacking cliffside villages and scaling distant rocky isles for good places to hide their treasure, had developed a whole system for making handholds and footholds up a trailless cliff.
The pirates would now take him away from Rui and Dasu. Compared to immolation in garinafin flames, even life as a pirate wandering the seas was better.
“I will see you whenever you come back to trade,” said Goztan. “Perhaps you’ll even have a chance to see the core islands. That’s what you’ve always wanted, isn’t it? To see the strange machines you’ve heard so much about.”
The idea of going into exile from the only home he truly knew had been thrust upon him so suddenly that Savo didn’t know how to feel. Instinctively, he thought of the welfare of the people he loved.
“Can you also save Master Nazu Tei?”
Goztan shook her head. “I have only enough funds to entice the pirates to take on one addition to their crew—this way, Diasa willing, I’ll still see you once or twice a year. The pirates can use a young man like you, but they have no use for an old scholar. Saving you is all I can do.”
Grief struck him like a hammer blow. He shivered in the cold. Goztan wrapped a thick coat around him, the way she used to do when he was little.
Then he realized the risk his mother had taken.
“What will happen to you?” he asked. “When they can’t find me in the morning, they’ll suspect you right away.”
“Oh, the pékyu knows,” said Goztan. “I told her I was sorry that you couldn’t serve her well in Ukyu-taasa. But that doesn’t mean you can’t serve her, or serve all of us, outside of it.”
“I don’t understand,” said Savo. “What are you expecting me—”
“There’s no time for questions,” said Goztan. “You’ll learn what you need to know when you need it. Here, take this.”
She handed him something.
He ran his fingers over the object in the darkness and realized that it was a turtle shell covered in smooth markings, though he couldn’t tell what they were.
“What is this?” he asked.
“A map,” she said. Then, after a moment, she added, “Something to guide you back to family and home.”
And then she dove into the freezing water and swam away, and he didn’t even get a chance to say good-bye.
* * *
“You’ve done well,” Tanvanaki said. After a pause, she added, “You don’t need to follow her anymore.”
The nameless spy waited to see if the pékyu had more tasks for him. Tanvanaki had told him to follow Goztan and watch everything she did, but not to interfere. The pékyu didn’t explain why, and the spy didn’t ask. There was no need for questions when he believed in her like a goddess.
Tanvanaki paced back and forth in her tent, in part to think and in part to stay warm. As part of Cutanrovo’s purification campaign, the pékyu and all the thanes had abandoned the palace and native mansions in Kriphi and moved back into Lyucu-style tents. The tents didn’t keep out the cold winter wind as well as stone walls, and the fire pit was far more smoky than the hearth. But no one dared to complain lest they seem less dedicated to the grand task of returning to the purity of the Lyucu way of life.
What is Goztan doing? she seethed. Her old friend had put her in an impossible position. When they discover Savo missing in the morning, Cutanrovo is going to demand Goztan’s head. All my efforts at protecting her will come to naught.
Trust, but verify had always been her motto. Even the most powerful thanes—especially them—needed to be watched. The nameless spy acted as her eyes and ears, keeping her informed.
She still had the choice of ordering a garinafin strike against the pirate ship. They couldn’t have gotten very far. But as she was about to leave the tent to summon the garinafin riders, she hesitated.
Goztan’s cryptic words haunted her. What did she mean when she said Savo would serve me, or even all Ukyu-taasa, as a refugee?
The boy was defiant and too enamored of native ways, a fault that Tanvanaki partly attributed to the fact that he had spent so much time with Oga Kidosu, her own old master, as a little boy.
To see the strange machines you’ve heard so much about.
Tanvanaki stopped, her heart racing. Savo Ryoto was one of the few young Lyucu who was old enough to carry out important missions and who spoke Dara with no accent. Her previous attempts at sending Lyucu spies to the core islands had all failed because the spies could not pass as natives. Savo’s linguistic skills and his knowledge of local customs, gained from Nazu Tei, combined with his love of machinery, made him the perfect spy.
Was that what Goztan had in mind?
Goztan had spoken to her son in such a vague manner that it was hard to tell what the garinafin-thane planned. But that was understandable; Goztan couldn’t disclose to the pirates her true aim lest the pirates sell her son to Empress Jia for profit. She had given her son just enough hints to let him know what he must do.
Tanvanaki laughed silently to herself. Sly old friend! You’ve saved me.
Even after two months of midnight raids in Kriphi, harangues at court, public executions and arrests throughout Ukyu-taasa, Cutanrovo’s purification campaign was showing no signs of relenting. The tiger-thane had reversed most of the accommodationist policies, stripped all privileges from native scholars, added to the oversight of native temples, and discovered more traitors in Ukyu-taasa with each passing day. She was even expanding her effort into the countryside, and the harvest had been disrupted, meaning people would have to draw more stores from the granaries than usual to survive the winter. Timu was virtually a prisoner under Tanvanaki’s protection, unable to even leave his own tent.
The latest casualty had been the secret camp in the Roro Hills. Cutanrovo had led a mob of Lyucu warriors, each intent on proving they were more dedicated to the Lyucu way of life than the warrior next to them, on an attack on the camp. They bashed in the skulls of all the kidnapped scholars as a demonstration of “the Lyucu spirit,” and by the time Tanvanaki found out, it was too late.
The charged political atmosphere, with the hard-liners dominant in anticipation of the arrival of reinforcements, made it impractical for Goztan to meet with Tanvanaki, which could be interpreted as a sign of support for accommodation and erode the pékyu’s support.
That’s why Goztan couldn’t talk to me ahead of time to coordinate, Tanvanaki realized. And now, she’s left me a bit of a mess to clean up. How I handle it will be a test.
She beckoned to the nameless spy waiting patiently in the darkness. “Go find a corpse—an executed native will do—and place it inside the cell that held Savo Ryoto. Do this as quickly as possible.”
The spy nodded, backed away, and disappeared into the darkness.
Later, closer to dawn, she would arrange for one of the garinafins—perhaps she would even ride it herself—to incinerate that cave-cell and everything within it. She would tell Cutanrovo that Savo was killed during an escape attempt. Only Goztan would understand that the pékyu had deciphered and approved her plan.
So much had to be said without speaking, understood without signing.
What happened to the frank and open conversations we used to have, like the first time we met, when you didn’t hesitate to tell me that I was a spoiled little girl who didn’t know how to take care of a young garinafin?
