9: Omar’s Response Actress’s Tale

 

In the reign of the great Emir Mustaf II, the island city of Algazan flourished as it never had before, reaching a pinnacle of wealth that made it the envy of the world. Its ships reached out to lands previously known only in legend, trading in rich fabrics, scented woods, pearls and jade, slaves and spices, oils and perfumes, jewels, artifacts, and wondrously worked ivory. Kings flocked from the mainland to marvel at the glory of its many fine palaces and fabled gardens, merchants thronged from the ends of the earth to its bazaars. A hundred gods dwelt within its temples. Any who dared oppose it on the shores of three oceans, whether they be prince or pirate, were swiftly humbled by the might of its fleet and the armies hired by its gold.

But not all its avenues were paved with marble nor all its denizens dwellers in palaces. Men and women of a dozen races huddled in slums and tenements, in putrid alleys the rich never saw. For centuries, a human stream had trickled into the cesspits of Algazan: adventurers come to seek their fortunes, refugees from political oppression, malcontents yearning after their own gods. Few had prospered, most had sunk into dismal poverty. Their descendants congealed in lumps beneath the surface of society, enclaves of foreigners existing under uneasy tolerance—distinct from the natives, banned from the benefits of citizenship. The Algazanians discriminated but rarely persecuted. What the foreigners did to one another was worse.

One was a boy named Juss. He was Algazanian by birth but not by right. His skin and hair were a little lighter than those of the True, his accent faulty and thereby subject to ridicule. On the day of which I shall speak, he was approaching the threshold of manhood. He checked his height frequently against the doorpost, and on the rare occasions when he found himself both unobserved and close to a mirror, he would inspect his upper lip in it, although with more amusement at his own optimism than real hope of encouragement. He was wiry and unusually healthy for the neighborhood in which he lived. His dark eyes were quick and bright. He smiled more than his circumstances would seem to warrant, and the few adults aware of his existence tended to think well of him.

He was employed, after a fashion, by Gozspin the Purveyor of Fresh and Nutritious Vegetable Materials, meaning that Juss was allowed to stand with several other boys outside Gozspin’s grubby little store from dawn until an hour before sunset. Whenever a customer departed, having purchased some of Gozspin’s moldy roots and soggy leaves, Juss would try to outshout the others in offering to carry them home for her. Four or five times a day his offer would be accepted. He would then follow the lady around the bazaars until she had completed her acquisitions and he was so laden with packages that he resembled a walking bazaar all by himself. Upon arriving at her door, she would grant him whatever gratuity she deemed fitting. He was cheerful and respectful and had a sunny smile; many days he collected ten or even twelve copper mites.

He was expected to turn over half of them to Gozspin, and did. In return, Gozspin would allow him to buy some of the moldiest and soggiest wares at a sizable discount. If Juss had enough money left over, he would also purchase a stale loaf from the bakery next door. After that, he had the problem of conveying his supper, plus any remaining cash, safely home.

He lived in a very small room in a very high tenement in what was generally known as the Godless Quarter. To reach it, he had to pass through the territory of the Drazalians, the Jorkobians, the Alfoli, and the Children of Wuzz. Native Algazanians were another problem altogether.

On the evening of which I tell, Juss carried one loaf, two soft mangoes, and a bundle of almost edible spinach. Detouring up a particularly noisome alley to avoid some Jorkobian youths, he ran afoul of a gang of teenage Alfoli. When the brief encounter was over, he was bereft of his two remaining copper mites and had been kicked in various places for not having had more. Furthermore, his loincloth and sandals reposed in the sewer, and his supper lay in the mud.

It was a discouraging ending to a hard day, but not an unusual one. Juss gathered up his clothes and the food and walked on. His belly hurt, his right eye was swelling, and he had painful scrapes on his back. It could have been worse. He was later accosted by seven young Children of Wuzz. Concluding from his repugnant appearance that he was unworthy of their attentions, they let him past, promising to see him again the next day.

He felt relieved but very weary when he arrived at the Mansion of Many Gods. He plodded through a dark tunnel into the central courtyard that held the water trough and the toilets. The sun never shone there, except for a few minutes at noon. Those who lived on the outside of the Mansion despised those whose abodes overlooked the smelly court. The insiders retorted that the streets smelled worse. The two groups had separate stairs and walkways. Juss lived in an inside room on the seventh floor.

He washed himself, his supper, and his clothes in the communal trough, then headed for the stair. Not unexpectedly, a group of boys mostly older than he were sitting on the bottom step, barring his path. Several of them were chewing dream rope. Behind them sat Flower, their current leader. They all scowled at Juss.

“Let me by, please,” he said.

“Who got you this time?” Flower demanded.

“The Emir’s guards.”

For a minute nothing more happened, but Juss was not worried. They all knew he was Ven’s brother, and in the Mansion of Many Gods that was defense enough. They disliked him because he refused to join the gang and play his part in molesting Drazalians, Jorkobians, Alfoli, and the especially despicable Wuzzians.

Eventually Flower said, “Let him,” and two boys wriggled aside to open a space. Juss climbed through, alert for hands grabbing his ankles, but today there was none of that.

He climbed one flight, went along the walkway, up the next flight…

Old folk sitting by their doors greeted him and he responded. He paused to talk with Moonlight, who was growing prettier and more interesting all the time. He had an even longer chat with Joyful and Intrepid, his closest buddies, and they commiserated with him on his new bruises. On the fourth floor ancient Fine-jade asked him if he would fill her water pail for him, so he left his supper in her care and trotted all the way back down with the bucket. On the sixth floor, Storm-blast, who was even older, asked Juss to take his slop bucket down and empty it, so down he went again … It took him a third of an hour to reach the room he shared with Ven.

Someone had been rummaging in his absence, but that was not unusual. A quick check of the secret place under the floorboards told him that it had not been discovered. That was where the treasures lived: the book, and the money, spare clothes, and of course the family god, who kept it safe. Nothing else in the room had any value: two thin sleeping rugs, a water pot, an old box that served as a table. None of those had been removed.

Having divided the loaf and the other victuals into two unequal halves, Juss took the family god out of the secret place and set him on the box. Then he sat down wearily on his mat and waited until Ven arrived, a short while later. Ven had brought a bag of onions.

Ven was nine years older, and considerably larger than Juss would ever be. Like many large men, he moved with slow diffidence, as if constantly frightened of breaking something or hurting someone. His gray eyes and unusually light brown hair had caused him much grief in his younger days among the darker multitudes of Algazan, and he had learned then that his strength must be used with caution, even when righteously provoked. His stubbly reddish beard and crooked nose made him look much fiercer than he really was. In troth he was a stolid, deliberate young man, although he could be fierce when roused. He had been father and mother to Juss since their parents had died ten years earlier, and Juss worshipped him with all the fanatical zeal of a boy who has only one relative in the world to love and admire.

Ven worked as a porter at the docks, puffing his great strength to good use. He frequently earned thirty mites or more in a day, although half of that went to the gang boss, of course, and another five to the porters’ guild.

The brothers smiled at each other. They asked after each other’s day, and each responded that it had not been too bad, nor especially exciting. Ven pretended not to notice Juss’s swelling bruises. He remarked that the meal looked good, although he was a truthful man when truth was important. He knelt down before the god on his box, and Juss knelt beside him, taking comfort from his brother’s nearness and strength.

“Most Holy Father Kraw,” Juss said, “we thank you for keeping us safe this day and for giving us our food.” It was the prayer he could remember their father speaking, and he said it every evening.

The god did not reply. The god never did.

The Godless had earned their name because they never attended any of the hundred temples on the island. They had no need to, for every family owned its own god, like Kraw.

Kraw was a dragon’s tooth, old and black and about the size of both of Ven’s fists together—quite frightening if one thought about how big the dragon himself must have been.

But he never spoke. Other boys told Juss that their family god spoke to their fathers, or even to them sometimes, but Kraw did not speak. Still, a dragon’s tooth was a much more impressive god than any mere figure of pottery or metal or stone, and Juss was proud of him.

They ate their meal in silence, Juss taking the smaller portion because he was the smaller brother. They chewed hungrily and did not take long. They did not experience the feeling of bloated satisfaction that a large repast will give. Never having known that sensation, Juss did not miss it. The light from the little window was fading already and soon it would be time to curl up on the mats. Most nights the brothers would talk for a while then, in the dark. Ven would tell Juss a story about their parents, whom Juss could barely remember. After that they would sleep, preparing for another day.

There being no dishes to wash, and neither of them feeling thirsty enough to run all the way down to the trough for a drink, Juss went to the secret place and brought out the book.

Next to Kraw himself, the book was their most precious possession. Ven had been taught to read by their mother, more or less. He had taught Juss, also, and in the evenings they would read the book together. Juss was a now a better reader than Ven was, although he concealed that fact from his brother as far as he could. Neither of them was truly expert. The book was difficult; it related the history of the land their parents had come from long ago, and it was written in the language of the Godless. Although they spoke that tongue with their friends and neighbors, in their daily lives they conversed in Algazanian, which was very different. Neither brother understood much of the book.

Ven smiled an apologetic smile and shook his head. “Not tonight,” he said. “How much money do we have?”

Juss turned away quickly so that his sudden worry would not show. Although he already knew the answer, he scrabbled on his knees over to the loose plank and peered in the secret cache. “One silverfish and four mites.” There had been four silverfish a few days ago, but Ven had needed a wisdom tooth pulled. The pain of it had been driving him crazy.

He sighed. “Tomorrow is Pearl’s birthday.”

Juss said, “Oh. I didn’t know.”

Ven was courting the daughter of Stalwart the carter. She had hinted that his attentions were not unpleasing, although her mother certainly disapproved. Juss had mixed feelings about the matter and was rather ashamed of himself in consequence. He certainly wanted his brother to be happy. He could admit now that girls were pleasant company, but they did not promote the same sense of urgency in him that they did in Ven. He understood that he would feel otherwise when he was older. Of course it would be years before Ven could save up enough money to raise the matter of marriage. A birthday gift was a more immediate problem.

“I said I would go out this evening,” Ven muttered.

Juss tried not to show his fear. “I will come with you and watch.”

“No you won’t! I feel distracted if you are around, you know that! Now don’t worry and don’t get into mischief. I’ll be all right.” With those words, Ven jumped up and strode quickly out, before Juss could start arguing. Juss was much better at arguing than he was.

They could not live on Ven’s daily earnings, not even with what Juss now contributed. They had almost starved when their parents died. All the family possessions had been lost in the fire the authorities had used to cleanse the Godless Quarter of pestilence. In those days Ven had been too young to earn a man’s wages, although he had been big for his age. They had survived because Ven could earn money fighting. He had started with boys’ matches, the preliminary events to titillate the spectators and start the bets flowing. Now he fought in main events. Sometimes he won as much as two or three silverfish in an evening.

“He has never been seriously hurt yet!” Juss said firmly, knowing that he was speaking to an empty room. But what would happen to the two of them if he ever was seriously hurt?

The thought was terrifying. Without that extra money the brothers would be forced to give up their home and move into squalid communal quarters. Without it there could never be little presents for girlfriends or hope of marriage. The only alternative would be crime of some sort—Flower’s gang for Juss, worse for Ven. Sadly, an honest living for a laborer in Algazan was not a living.

Men did get seriously hurt at the fights, even died sometimes. Ven himself had once knocked out an opponent’s eye and had refused to fight for months after that, although he had been promised real gold if he could manage to do it again.

Already on his knees, Juss spun around to face the box. He touched his head to the floor and said, “Holy Father Kraw, please look after Ven tonight and keep him safe!”

“I cannot.”

Juss straightened up slowly. Even more slowly, he looked around the room. What he saw was what he expected to see, and it was more frightening than a gang of the Children of Wuzz would have been. Nobody. Four walls, two mats, one box … everything as it should be.

It might be one of his pals in the tenement playing tricks on him, but it had not sounded like a boy’s voice. No, nor even Intrepid’s new baritone that he was so proud of when it worked right.

“Who spoke?” Juss quavered.

“I did.”

It sounded like a very large voice, a huge voice, but a great way off. Juss suppressed a frantic need to race downstairs to the urinals.

“Who a-a-are you?” he asked the empty room.

“I am Kraw, your god.”

Juss’s forehead hit the floor with an audible bump. His teeth chattered wildly and his skin went cold all over.

“Why are you frightened?” the voice inquired, sounding amused. “I am your god. You are my son. You have nothing to fear from me, nothing at all.”

“You … You never spoke to me before!”

“You never spoke to me when we were alone, that’s why. Besides, now you are old enough to understand. Almost old enough, anyway.”

Juss sneaked a look with one eye. The big black tooth was just the same as always. He had half expected to see a misty dragon shape around it, or something, but there was just the tooth. “Why don’t you speak to Ven?”

“Because he is not mine,” the god said patiently. “You are mine. Only you can worship me and I will speak to no other.”

“But Ven is my brother!”

“He is your half brother. You are Sure-justice of Kraw. I am Kraw, the god of your father and his father and very many fathers before them. I suppose I would not be too angry if you referred to yourself once in a while as Sure-justice of Verl, although you had better not make a habit of it. Verl was your mother’s god. She has no other children left but you two, so I would not mind sharing you with her. A little of you, that is. Once in a while,” the god rumbled, sounding less certain.

A very misty light dawned in the boy’s befogged brain. “Our mother? She was married to another before my father?”

The god sighed. “In a manner of speaking. Your father knew that Cold-vengeance was son—”

“What?”

“Ven, you little goose! His real name is Cold-vengeance. Sea-breaker knew that he was not his father, but he accepted him. I did not, so tell your half brother—”

“Why not?”

The dragon rumbled ferociously. “Juss! You do not interrupt gods. Especially when they are explaining. Gods do not like explaining.”

Juss had his nose on the floor again.

“Now,” said the god, “where was I?”

“You were—”

“Yes, I know, Juss! The question was hypothetical. Tell Cold-vengeance that he must not to try to worship me. Tell him gently. He can call himself Cold-vengeance of Verl if he wants.”

“But where is his god, Verl, then? Our mother’s god?”

“Very far away, but I think safe.”

“I don’t understand!”

Kraw chuckled. Even at a very great distance, a dragon chuckle was not a laughing matter, and Juss felt a cool breeze chill his skin.

“Bring the book, Sure-justice.”

Juss obeyed quickly.

“Turn to the end. Now back up a few pages—until I say to stop…”

Juss sat on the floor with the book spread open on his legs, and apparently Kraw could read even from where he was on the box, although the light was fading fast from the little room. The pages of the book were not numbered, but the god told Juss how to find the passage he wanted, and then had him read it, prompting him when he stumbled over a word. The handwriting was very bad near the end of the book. Juss had avoided it in the past for that reason, and also because the story was so sad. It began cheerfully enough, with Morning-star raising the banner of freedom and chopping off King Grosail’s head on his own throne. Then it grew darker.

The room grew darker and the story grew darker: the failure of the revolution, the terrible vengeance of Vandok, White-thorn … Some of the details were gruesome. Ven never let Juss read bits like those.

“That will do,” the god said at last. “You have heard of Morning-star before.”

“Yes, Father.” Juss slid the heavy book off his shins with relief.

“And how do the people feel about him?”

A boy who rarely knew a full stomach found political affairs of faraway lands to be of very marginal importance to his life. He had not listened much. “Some of them curse him?” he said uncertainly. “Others say we need another Morning-star to stand up and try again?”

“Very good, Sure-justice! The story in that book is not complete. Morning-star’s daughter escaped.”

“Good!” Juss grinned to hear that. The brutality bits had made him feel queasy.

“She escaped here, to Algazan. But she changed her name. Why?”

“Um. Because some people didn’t approve of what her father had done? They might have hurt her?”

The god chuckled again, and this time the sound was less frightening. “Ah, you are a sharp little claw! But that is what we should expect of a son of White-thorn, isn’t it?”

“White-thorn was … But then Morning-star … My grandfather? My mother? And Ven’s?”

“And Ven’s, also. Think, my son! You are clever. You are more clever than Ven. Think before you ask any more.”

Juss sat back and leaned his chin on his hands for a while, unconsciously stating at the god in a way no mortal could have endured without squirming, although dragon teeth apparently do not mind. Juss thought things through in his clever, patient way, until eventually he said, “Why did she name him Cold-vengeance?”

“Why do you think, my son?”

“Because he was Morning-star’s grandson! So that Ven would lead the next revolution and drive out the Horsefolk and kill King Vandok! Will he?”

“He can try.”

And why Sure-justice? Suddenly very excited, Juss scrabbled onto his knees so he could touch his head to the floor again. “Most Holy Father, can I help him try?”

The god sighed. “If you wish to. Frankly, I don’t think Ven will get very far without help, and who will help him but you?”

“It is my fight, also, is it not?”

“Yes,” the god said. “Yes, it is. Are you ready to start tonight?”

Juss jumped up. His knees trembled but he said, “Yes, Father.”

“Then wrap me in your spare cloth and take me with you. You must go and tell all this to a man who may help you. If he doesn’t, I don’t know who will, and your cause is hopeless.”

So Juss wrapped the god up safely and ran down the stairs and out into the city night. He never returned to the Mansion of the Many Gods.