A couple of days without posts

I had a meeting tonight so I shall not be able to do tonight's post and tomorrow I have riding lesson so also no.  Next post should be Thursday!

Sorry about that.  Life is starting to happen.

#77 - What Good, Indeed?

Ahrimaz is dead, Ahrimaz never born, Ahrimaz commits suicide age four, Ahrimaz killed by his brother Ahriminash, Ahrimaz Beloved Emperor, Ahrimaz reviled Hand of the People, Ahrimaz the Damaged, Ahrimaz the Brilliant, Ahrimaz killed by Pelahir, Ahrimaz killed by Cylak King, Ahrimaz kills the Cylak King and becomes Stag King, Ahrimaz is flung off the High City of Yhomdon, Ahrimaz killed by Yolend Heir of Yhom.

The images of who he was and could be and might be and all the worlds where humans never evolved, where the Rummumalos lived and died in peace and eventually spread over their world, and traded with the Pfisirimmmm who swam in the sea.

Ahrimaz opened his eyes to darkness, warm in a bed his mind didn’t remember, but somehow his body did, even if he’d never slept in such a mean little cot as a child.  It wasn’t mean actually.  It was a wooden bedstead and a strap support for a pair of feather mattresses.  The quilt was feathers as well and four enormous pillows, warm enough that he had the window flung wide, even though the winter wind thrust icy fingers into his hair and under every edge not carefully tucked in.

“Ahrimaz, could you please close the window?”  It was Wenhiffar tapping on his door.  “The cold is howling along the floor out here, moaning under your door again.”

“Sorry.”

He reached out an arm and found he could just catch the braided wool cord… when had he tied it there?... to pull the pebbled glass pane shut, and clambered out from under the suddenly too hot bedding to lie on it, panting.

The room was green.  Paintings of trees and vines were hung from waist high, to the ceiling and the ceiling was childishly painted with vines.  Somehow he knew that the other Ahrimaz had painted them as a young boy.  It would have been gauche for me to paint my own rooms.  Father would have had a fit and hired the best artist in the land to do it to his specifications.  Not to mine, of course.  Children are not allowed to know what they want.

He buried his face in the pillows and just breathed in the scent of fresh laundry and a hint of sweat from his cooling skin.  Naked.  How is it that life just is like this?  I lie and breathe and do not hurt. No one requires anything from me.  Nothing, either possible or impossible.  How… strange.

And those words echo in my head around and around and around.  He reached to the side table and there was a chill, fresh cup of water and he could just drink.  Pour another if he wished from the hand-made green jug next to it.  Scorch, he could wander down to the water rooms and pour himself a bucket to pour over his head should he so desire, or sink himself into the hot water or… not.

For once the dogs were on the rug next the bed, driven off by his restless tossing, Heylia lay draped over the back of a worn brocade sofa, paws dangling as she purred in her sleep.

“What good does my suffering do anyone?”  He said out loud and Sure started up to see if he were calling her, let her nose settle back down on top of Teh when he didn’t look at her or address her further.

What good does my agony do?  How does it help anyone?  How does it help me? It rather causes people around me difficulty.  It makes trouble for others.  It makes Limyé dance attendance upon me, and the family. It causes problems for everyone around me.

What good does my suffering do?

What good?

What good does my suffering do for anyone?

#76 - What Good?

There were warm hands on either side of his head as he dozed in the water.  Before he opened his eyes he could hear Kinourae say “What good does your suffering do?  How does it atone for anything?”

His eyes opened slowly and he looked up into Limyé’s face.  “You might think about that while I get you out of there and dry,” he said.

Ahrimaz blinked and he said “What?  I didn’t hear you.”

“I asked you how does your suffering, your agony, atone for any of the evil you have done,” Limyé said, and urged Ahrimaz out of the elephant’s pool.  “Especially in this world where you have done no evil?”

“But…”

“You feel bad and feel that it is just that you feel so wretched.”  Limyé wrapped him in a blanket towel and walked him toward the door to the House of the Hand.  “Let me put you to bed.  Not in the cell any longer.”  Heylia slid ahead and Yustiç neighed from her stall, more disgusted that she couldn't come along.

“But…”

“You said that already.  There is a bedroom that was once yours… ah, his… as a boy, tidied up.  No more cells.  There are a number of people writing to the House protesting your treatment.”

“But…”

“Brace yourself across the breezeway,” Limyé said briskly.  “The temperature dropped again last night and there’s a crust on all that snow.  The Ambassadors have said they wish another day of privacy before they greet us all.”

“Didara wants to get her tusks shined and polished up,” Ahrimaz said.  “And Jagunjagun will want to outline his scars with paint.”  The wind droned through the pillars but Limyé rushed him across so only his hair had time to freeze and tap against the blanket only once before falling limp in the warmth of the House.  “Limyé, it’s not right I shouldn’t be…”

“…so comfortable?”  The healer tipped his head to one side as he fended off the two dogs who were Ahrimaz’s constant shadows now.  “I repeat.  What does your suffering pay for?”

Ahrimaz let himself be led up the stairs and down a hallway lined with honeywood paneling and bright green tile on the floor.  To a door he almost knew.  Children’s rooms.  He started to shake, then took a deep breath.  “My room.  In infinite worlds… very similar… My room.”

“Yes.  So let us set you up in bed and let you sleep more.  You had very little sleep on the road, Teel and Pel tell me and the Captain corroborated them with her report.  You needn’t worry.  There is nothing you need do for the next few days.  No Ambassadors to save.  You can train all day tomorrow if you like, Rutaçyen says.  She has a whole new wave of classes just beginning and says ‘we need more alternative world warriors to be a draw to the war school!’

“But…”

“Lie down, Ahrimaz.”

“But…”

“Just sleep.  And think on what I asked you.”

“What good does my suffering do?”

Limyé pushed him over with one finger in the centre of his chest.  “Sleep.”

“But…”

He was asleep even as his head hit the feather pillow, felt the feather quilt pulled up to his chin, still trying to argue. “But…”

#75 - Home Again?

I am home on the Presentation Balcony, watching the funeral pyre lit.  The House of Gold is here all around me. Kinourae is at my back, holding the ermine and gold train that I wear when sitting in Judgment, when the Law is being upheld.

I look down at my right hand on the red and gold marble railing, the gold and white lace falling over my fingers and almost to my knees as I stand, the tall ebony walking stick in my left hand.

 

The funeral pyre has been stacked over the heading block where ‘mother’ and ‘uncle’ have both just been beheaded, hiding their bodies clothed in penitent whites and expiation scarlet as their heads came off.

The High Priest of Aeono and all his Temple Priests fling their books onto the pile whereupon every book bursts into white flame, showing that my judgment was correct and just, the flames roaring up to over top the walls, showing the gathered crowd that the traitors were dead.

Choirs roar, praising me for my Justice, I’m swaying. Kinourae surreptitiously props me up with one gentle old hand.  “Don’t touch me, I’m become a monster,” I/he say. 

“Sen-Lumes’ Chasseur and Iraton and Houneau and Sen-Glor Moritaux are all watching to see if you’ve gotten as weak as they suspected.”

I snarl at him.  “I’ll show them weak!”  There are a couple of snapping noises from the middle of the hellish flames in the courtyard, the popping of a couple of skulls.  I accept a glass of wine from one of my pages, kneeling nearby.  “Good boy.  Go off with you now.”  He scampers away from us and the Sen-Lumes and Sen-Glors and their retinues narrow their eyes at him as he goes, wondering if he is my new favourite.  I drain the glass and turn on my high, red heels.

“We’ve seen justice done, M’sieus and Mesdammes,” I snap.  “Off with the lot of you.”  I pause before smiling into each Lord’s face.  “Go before I decide that my mother and my uncle did not act against me alone.  Go before I question you before God.”  The red column of an Aphoreitos stands right by the door, just to my hand should I wish it and the court frantically bows and curtseys casting their eyes down and away from me.  They recognize a ‘dangerous’ mood and evaporate out of my sight like piss on hot stone.

“Kinourae.”  I say as the door closes behind us.  Giving me privacy at last.  “Kinourae.  I cannot do this.  I’m a monster. I cannot… I just… I just killed Rutaçyen masquerading as Wenhiffar along with their brother.  My family.  I only have my brother Arnziel left and he’s very sensibly run away from me.”  I crumple to my knees.  KILL ME!”  It’s not a scream but a hiss so that no one outside can hear.  Even as he falls apart he keeps quiet.

“Kill me, kill me… just let me die!  I should have died, should have let them kill me…”  I watch my hands pound upon the expensive rug and the stone floor, the skin of my hands breaking the lace besmirched with my blood.

Oh, this is the other Ahrimaz, trying to be me.  Poor soul.  “It’s all right.” I say to him rather than out his mouth but he cannot hear me in the frenzy of his agony.  “You can heal even from this.”

“Kinourae, tell him!” He cannot hear me either, but he goes to interpose his own hands between the flailing fists of the Emperor writhing on the floor and the now damp carpet.  The Emperor freezes rather than hurt the old man.

“Let me run your bath, son.”  My soul has tears though I have no body or mouth to express them, but those of the man playing Emperor and his tears are frozen as mine used to be, his mouth locked tight on… ah… on his forearm.  His scars there are new.  He was fortunate that I was ashamed of them and always wore wrist bands and gold cuffs to hide them.  He would not have had them at the beginning.   

Kinourae gets him up.  Old man.  I loved you.  I hurt you. You were the only family I ever had that never betrayed me even after all we, I, did to you.

Now, when I am not here, I feel betrayed because you are showing love to this man, who I might have been.  He has your heart.  I see it in your eyes.  You used to love me like that.

I watch as careful old hands strip away the elaborate lace and cloth of gold, the silks and the satins, the fire-gems, the expensive cotton underthings and ease this body into the hot, steaming bath that was my only place of safety as Emperor.  Should I feel betrayed?

Should I feel betrayed?  Or thankful?

**

Ahrimaz woke in the velvet dark of the Elephant Hall, with Jagunjagun’s snores and Didara’s whistles marking where they stood in their new sanctuary.

He pulled his nightshirt up over his head and staggered over to the warm pool to plunge into the sandy, heated water, gasping as he rose just enough to float his head onto the pillowed edge.

I was there.  I saw and felt how he was disintegrating.  How much longer can he bear playing the monster before he becomes one?

I do believe I shall be thankful.  It hurts less.

#74 - Home Again Home Again

The weather had held almost.  It was the very last day of travel, home to Innéthel and the roads had been very clear.  Now the snow fell thick and fast so it was hard to see the horse in front of you.  Even the elephants were disappearing into the dense white wall.

Ahrimaz rode next to Teel, buried up to his nose in his great coat, mildly confused where they were.  In the Empire they would already have been at the outer city wall.  This undefended city messed with his head.

He could smell the tanneries, faintly since they were downwind but there wasn’t a breeze to really blow the stink anywhere, so it sat in damp puddles of air gradually spreading.  They were in the similar place in Innéthel in his world.  About a good two hours ride.  On a good day.

Today they’d be lucky to get inside at the House of the Hand before dark.  He rumbled that information to the two Ambassadors and got relieved  thunder back that he and Yustiç could feel up through her hooves.

She was used to it now and only tossed her head a bit.  “I am so glad we’re home,” Ahrimaz said to Teel who nodded.

“It feels like home to you now?” He said and Ahrimaz 

shrugged against Heylia’s weight on his shoulders.

“Enough.  More than anywhere else in this world.”

“You required the Stag Lord and the bulk of his men go ahead last night.”

“I did.  They could travel faster.”

“Do you mind me asking, as a friend, why you’re avoiding him?”

Ahrimaz pulled the scarf down from his face and glared at Teel who gazed back, calmly.  “It’s that obvious?”

“It is.”

“Well, I’m attracted to him.  This trip has thrown us together hard and… and…  I can understand why Ahrimaz loves him.  I dare not fall in love with the man.  If I am ever sent back, he will be my torture victim, not my lover.”

“And if you are not?”

They rode in silence for a while and out of the white there came a faint creaking of mill wheels, still working even in the dead of winter, the sluices kept clear by the grace of Aeono.

“Then it would still be best if I treated him and Yolend and the rest of the family like an old uncle with a sketchy past, who needs healing.  Not loving.”

Teel didn’t push him on it and Limyé, riding just behind, nodded.

**

“If that’s Cooper’s Quarter and the Glassworks over there we’re nearly there,” Ahrimaz said as the snow began to ease up, letting buildings and fires and gas lanterns actually drive the dimness back.

“Indeed.  I hope the Ambassador’s Quarters will be to their taste,” Teel said, throwing a look back at their dim, hulking shapes in the snow, their coats heaped with white flakes, enough to completely bury Ologbon on Jagunjagun, turning their already mythical shapes into something surreal, unimagined by any human being.

“I think they’ll be glad to rest,” Ahrimaz said.  “After all the obligatory cheering crowds and short parades.”

They turned carefully along the narrow street that led up to the horse barn and Ahrimaz felt a huge knot loosen in his guts as he recognized the portico and the enormous sliding door.  It was closed but people leaped to open it as the Captain hailed them.  The gaslamps turned the snowflakes gold as they swirled in the gust of air from inside and they melted.

The door didn’t open straight into the ring any longer, but was a long corridor that let the horses be led off to the stables on the left and the big slider groan shut behind them.  The moment it was closed the temperature hit Ahrimaz between the eyes and Heylia melted off the back of Yustiç, purring.  He and everyone else were shedding their coats and sodden hats and the elephants had space to shake themselves. 

Once he could open his eyes again against the spray of water and melting snow, Ahrimaz grinned.  “This is more like the temperature we need!”

The corridor wall slid open into two enormous doors and the warmth and light poured over them.  There was no bare wall showing, no bare sand.  The riding ring had been transformed into a hothouse garden with plants and flowers and grass and small trees in raised pots all around the edges.

One of the Liryen priestesses had clearly begged the Goddess for warm water for a small pool bubbled in the centre of what had been sand.

Ahrimiar and Wenhiffar stood beside the Hand, Ahriminash, who came forward, holding out both hands.  “Ambassadors Didara and Jagunjagun, please be welcome as long as you will, to Innéthel, and this your Embassy should you like it.”

Ahrimaz stepped back to pick up his coat and found it already hung on a hook.  Ologbon had slid down and begun unlacing elephant boots.  Despite the fur lined boots both Didara and Jagunjagun had suffered from cold feet.  Ahrimaz went to Didara and she ruffled his wet hair with her trunk, even as she addressed Ahriminash in her best Innéan.  “We are astonished and pleased to be so welcomed, Hand,” she said.  “I shall have to make a story song about your garden in the snow!”

She stepped out of her booties into the warm sand and rumbled a groan of relief that Ahrimaz was certain only he heard.

“Please rest and refresh yourselves,” Ahriminash said.  “Formalities can wait until tomorrow.”

“Of course, Hand.”

Ahrimaz straightened to find himself enveloped in a double hug from Ahrimiar and Wenhiffar and managed not to strike out at them, only stiffening in their welcome.  “We missed you, stepson,” Wenhiffar said.  “Welcome home, son,” Ahrimiar chimed in.  “You succeeded in saving your friends! We’re very proud and want to hear the whole thing from yourself, rather than the stiff little bits and pieces we’ve been reading from M’sieur James’ Broadsheet stories.”

“Am I dreaming this?” Ahrimaz asked faintly, letting his other parent’s fuss over him as if he truly were a beloved son.  “No.”  He checked the scabs on his forearms and they ached with cold, though that was going away.  “It’s real.”  He shut his eyes a moment.  “I’m glad to be back,” he said.  “Let me help Didara get her coat off!”

Thankfully they let him go and he helped the grooms wrestle Didara’s sodden wool coat off and over a wooden stand that held it off the sand to drip.