Dreams of the Compass Rose (46 page)

Egiras arose in that moment, straining up, freeing herself from Nadir’s arms, her eyes pupil-less. She stared upwards, between the shadow and the figure of corporeal whiteness of cotton.

“
Choose!” exclaimed Ris. “This is your only moment of true freedom! Chose Him, or choose me!”

Come, Egiras . . .
whispered the snake.
I have given you life, and I am a part of you always. Without me you cannot be.

“
Oh, I want to be with you, Ris, the Bringer of Stillness and Water, the Bright-Eyed Liberator, the Mad Sovereign of Wisdom!” sobbed Egiras. “And yet, He calls me, for He is my father also, my real father. . . .”

Choose!

And then the whole world came to a frozen silence. They all waited for her, even the granules of sand and the beams of the sun.

“
I cannot . . .” whispered Egiras. “I cannot choose either one of you, for I contain both of you. I feel it now. Thus, I choose death, for I choose neither one of you, only myself, and I am dead already.”

In reply, Ris laughed.

“
A perfect answer!” said she who was the opposite of the shadow.

Agreed . . .
whispered the snake. And then, surprisingly, the shadow began to fade, and the wind settled down.

Ris stood before Egiras, and she reached forth with a wrinkled yet preternaturally strong hand, and she helped Egiras rise.

“
Where is that old cup of mine?” said Ris. “Here, give it to me, my children.”

When Yaro placed the wooden bowl in her hands, Ris took the bowl and offered it to Egiras.

“
Drink,” said Ris. “Now you will be able to do so, for you are both his and mine, and thus your own. Death will claim you as it does all mortals, but not for quite some time. She was not invited to this feast, and she does not have any say today.”

And Egiras took the cup and she put it to her lips, and indeed the water remained what it was while Egiras drank many great gulps, feeling the liquid balm pour inside of her. . . .

When she was done, she returned the cup to Ris, who handed it back to Yaro and then to Nadir. They also drank, and were filled with sudden coolness, as though their weeks in the desert had not been.

“
Now then,” said Ris. “Give me a hairpin, Egiras!”

And as they stared in confusion, Ris did not wait but pulled out one of the small metal pins that were stuck in the crumpled veils that Egiras wore.

“
You think me mad, don’t you?” said Ris with a grin in her eyes, looking from one to the other of them with mischief, as she fiddled with the pin, straightening it. And then Ris cast the pin on the surface of the water that was in the cup.

The pin spun, but did not sink, and instead floated. It was like a very familiar thing that they should all know but somehow didn’t.

“
Observe a desert compass,” said Ris. “To help you navigate the ocean of sand. This needle points North, while its opposite end is South. Your journey, my children, lies toward the West, back where you came from.”

“
Will you come with us this time, Grandmother?” whispered Nadir, looking at her with luminous eyes.

But Ris sighed—if it is possible for a god to sigh—and then she smiled again, but with an odd bittersweet gentleness.

“
Not this time either, my Nadir,” she replied. “For I go with Egiras. We continue East, as is her destiny. And since the Cup is yours, I must walk at her side and give her My Water.”

And then, like a chameleon, Ris brightened. “Come,” she said to Egiras. “We must be on our way! But first you must kiss your beloved goodbye, this time in truth. For, although your hearts are bound now with true bonds of freedom, he is not yours, and neither are you his.”

And as water began to come streaming out of her eyes, Egiras approached Nadir, and lifted her face to him. She stood and looked at him and into him and though him, and could neither blink nor turn her gaze away. Nadir in turn lowered his head, put his hands on her arms near the shoulders, and placed his lips upon her cool forehead.

Then he released her and turned his back to Egiras. And he remained standing thus.

It was the harshest gesture of his life.

“
Tell me when they go, Yaro,” he whispered, “for I cannot bear to look.”

Thus Yaro stared directly East and blinked and watched in his stead. But before she could reply or describe the moment of their passing—if such a thing could be inscribed within a single moment—there was no one else with them, only the wind.

“
They are gone, Nadir . . .” she said. “Look at me, my Lord.”

And he did.

Silence and sunset.

“
Not your Lord,” he said. “But someone who will now walk at your side, if you will have it so.”

Yaro stilled. Her face showed a succession of images and emotions as she moved through each and seemingly discarded them all, settling upon a blank expression.

“
What side?” she said in a deadened voice, looking down at the sand. “I don’t know what my Lord means. . . .”

When at last she looked up, in the warm glimmer of sunset, he could see that water was streaking her cheeks with reflected flashes of gold and persimmon fire.

“
Yaro . . .” he said, putting his fingers against her thin cheek. “Oh, Yaro.”

“
Oh, Yaro what? Don’t bother,” she retorted with a snort. She scrunched up her features, and hastily rubbed the back of her hand against her dirty cheeks.

But Nadir could not help the involuntary curving of his lips, for here were the glimmerings of her former lively manner.

“
Don’t bother,” she added, suddenly intense and once more serious, “unless you will have it so yourself. I am nothing, a child of dust. I can never be
her,
my Lord. You know that. . . .”

In reply, Nadir again smiled. He cast a final glance at the Eastern horizon, then did not look there again.

“
If you are dust,” he said, “then look around—you are the whole world. With me, you fill this Cup. Only together may we both drink.”

T
he desert spring drew the threads of her subterranean waters to her, picked herself up from the sands and became a woman.

It had been a long time.

Her name was Caelqua. Rather, it was hers once, a human name.

The woman stood considering, while water-memories surged into her mind, and time flickered in eddies of cool liquidity.

She had once been a young girl with persimmon hair, a garish flame. Now there was only the sand ocean in her tresses, skin taut with wind, and colorless eyes.

She was a husk. As though she didn’t exist. . . . And yet she was something more.

Caelqua walked slowly through the scalding sands while the sky poured the anger of the sun upon her unprotected flesh. There was no sensation at the soles of her feet, and she felt no thirst.

She knew there was something she had to do.

But first she had to find it.

T
he North-bound caravan came to a stop before an oasis of several palm trees, and a small ancient well that was now almost dry. This had once been called Golden Livais, after a miracle of destruction had taken place here, a whole town being transformed overnight into solid gold.

It had been a miracle wrought of ignorance and tainted with greed. Legend said, they had tried to buy the favor of the gods with the bright clamor of gold in exchange for a replenishing of the water supply in a dwindling well.

But the gods only give you back more of what you offer up.

The gold had long since gone; fortune scavengers from all points of the Compass Rose had taken care of that. Not even ruins here. Only a new growth of trees remained, and the oasis persisted somehow.

But now a woman stood here, having come out of nowhere, with transparent eyes and hair like sand.

The caravan driver saw Caelqua from afar—or, rather, saw for a moment a bit of sun dislocated, a shadow of a candle flame.

Upon approach, it was no longer there. But observing her up-close, there came a blurring in his vision, a moment of times mixing.

“
Who are you?” he whispered hoarsely, for his own throat was dry and he had not yet quenched his thirst by drinking from the well.

But, as he looked further at her, cool water stood before his eyes. And it occurred to him that this woman might be one of the supposed immortals.

“
Are you Ris?” he asked carefully.

Ris. Bringer of Stillness and Water, the Bright-Eyed Liberator, the Mad Sovereign of Wisdom.

That name stirred something within Caelqua, another ancient memory.

“
No,” she replied. “But I have been touched by Ris and given a blessing of Water.”

And speaking thus, Caelqua came forward and lifted her palms toward him, cupped together.

The air shimmered and her flesh became transparent, flowing.

He blinked, and now observed liquid dancing in the sun.

“
Drink,” she said. “And take me with you.”

T
he caravan took Caelqua through the desert. She came with them wordlessly and they shrank away in awe, knowing from the first instant that she was different, one of the divine.

The journey involved a number of days that all blended into one day of sun-spilled monotony, silence and the low hissing of the wind.

Eventually, a great city showed itself on the Northern horizon, and a road emerged from the sands.

They approached, blended with other rabble, and entered gates of iron past stone-faced guards into a place of living frenzy.

Here the caravan and Caelqua parted ways, for they would stop in the city for only two nights and then head farther North. She, by contrast, knew that her journey ended here.

Caelqua walked several hours through the urban chaos of agoraphobic marketplaces and claustrophobic alleyways. The city air was an astringent stew of garlic, human excrement and the perfume of roses.

But Caelqua’s senses ignored the olfactory clamor and focused on one single scent.

She smelled water.

And thus she moved like a shade toward the heart of the city where stood a grand palace of white stone and garish gold.

Water was within.

And there was something very wrong.

T
he tired queen with anemic skin looked down from her divan-throne past the barrier of veils and silk pillows at the woman with dull sand hair.

Caelqua stood before her like a stilled fountain.

“
Who are you?” said the queen. “They told me you might help me. But I know that no one can.”

“
I am no one. And I am the only one who can redeem you.”

The queen sat up with great difficulty and pulled the golden veils from her forehead. Her lips were white with approaching death.

“
You bleed,” said Caelqua. “Your woman’s cycle has not ended for many moons now. Your womb is refusing to close up, and thus your life is running out of you in rivulets of darkness.”

“
Yes. . . . How did you know?”

But Caelqua said nothing. Instead, she stepped forward and touched the queen on the brow.

And the queen felt a rhythm of blood begin in her temples.

Guards tensed forward, but the queen stopped then with one weakly upraised palm. She stilled, and remained thus for a long span of moments beneath Caelqua’s touch.

“
I feel you. . . . An ocean. . . .” whispered the queen in vampiric ecstasy.

Caelqua released her hold.

“
I require a sharp knife,” she said.

“
Do as she says!” said the queen. “You, give her your dagger!”

A guard stepped forward with suspicious eyes, and slowly drew forth his ornate weapon.

A moment of impossible silence.

Then Caelqua took the knife from him. And with it she slit her own wrist.

A spurting fountain of hueless water began to pulse from her vein, and she offered it to the queen.

“
Take my Water and drink, for even Ris drank once from my wrist. For that act of quenching, Ris has given me Water in exchange for my mortal Blood.”

The queen fell upon the hand in mindless hunger and pulled at the open vein with her succulent pale lips. She drank for a long span while the court watched in terrible wonder.

Finally she tore herself away, satiated, and there was a new, manic energy in her eyes.

“
You have given me my existence, the one thing that was no longer mine,” said the queen. “I feel it now, this new strength! My womb is closing even as I speak, and my flow has ceased. What miracle are you? I have everything, and will give you anything you ask!”

Caelqua looked into her eyes, and for the first time there was a smile on her face.

“
I ask,” she said, “for the Past.”

T
here was an old place of stones and sand outside the city, a place where they buried their dead. The queen had given Caelqua a fine litter and servants to attend her, and a robe of ivory silk. Those, and a consultation with the temple Oracle, whose Voice had directed Caelqua here in her inexplicable search.