His taqoui were engaging in a ritual that did not involve him, a moment of intimate freedom, of wild abandon?
And the taqavor resumed walking, this time with a dark determination, until he was at the doors of the House of Wives, and there was being met by obeisant servants. But he cast them aside, pushing the first of the men forward with such fierce strength that the poor servant fell and remained cowering on the stairs, and the rest drew back in terror of their Lord. He continued through the entrance, and into the musk-filled soft luxury and darkness of the House. Then, as he picked up the pace and was beginning to race forward, frightened men and women servants scattered from him in all directions as he encountered them in the hallways. At last, he emerged in the internal courtyard and the inner private gardens, and was met by the rich clamor of celebration, of dance music and wild drums. It resounded on the wind like aerial perfume, and yet to his senses it was poison.
Seeing the taqavor, the musicians stopped playing their instruments, their tunes flattening out in dull final notes, and the drums quieted into nothing but echoes on the wind. The taqoui froze in place like glittering temple statues, and then all swiftly came down kneeling, and placed their foreheads to the earth. Strings of pearls swept the ground, and fine gauze veils were gently fluttering in the breeze.
Silence.
The taqavor walked to the center of the courtyard, his footsteps ringing against smooth marble tile warmed by the midday sun. He then stopped, feet planted apart, and glanced around him at the prostrate female figures.
Then he approached one young taqoui kneeling in silence, her form moving only with breath, and he stepped on her strewn auburn hair with his sandals.
“You,” he said very softly. “Tell me what has come to pass just now.”
The young woman gasped and then went so still that her breath ceased. She barely whispered, her face still to the ground, “It is nothing, my Lord. . . .”
The silence all around was profound and thick with fate.
“Is that so?” said the taqavor. And then his foot moved in closer, and he rested the toe of his sandal very lightly against the trembling woman’s bare neck.
“If I put my full weight on this foot,” he said softly, “it will break your neck. So, tell me again, woman. What has come to pass?”
Before the half-faint taqoui had a chance to formulate a reply, another female voice came from behind him, from the doorway returning to the House.
“My Lord! Why, you have spoiled your own surprise!”
The taqavor removed his foot from the unfortunate on the ground before him, stepped back, and turned to stare at the speaker.
A thin female covered with the poor shawl of a servant stood at the door, holding a large bowl of stacked honey-pastries and sweetmeats. She walked forward with determination and bowed deeply before the taqavor, casting her gaze swiftly to the ground before he could see her face.
“Forgive me for speaking out, my Lord,” she said gently, in a steady soothing voice, “but we were not expecting you today. The whole House is in turmoil, preparing a marvelous event in your honor—a feast for your delectation, with dancing and musical entertainment. As you can see—” and she motioned with one hand generally, while she continued to balance the heavy overfilled bowl with the other—“the taqoui and your concubines are working hard to make your surprise the most dazzling spectacle. It will please you very much, indeed, it—”
The taqavor stared at this lowly creature speaking, nay, babbling, calmly in his presence, with amazement. The amazement was such that it had made him forget anger, and inflamed him with a need to find out more. . . .
“Who are you? What is this that you speak?”
The creature bowed again. “I am nothing but your humble servant, my Lord. I serve you and the House of Wives. . . .”
“And who will be eating this, since I have not been yet invited, and arrived unexpectedly?”
said the taqavor, pointing to the bowl of delicacies, and expecting to catch her in confusion. But the creature was incredible.
“This? Oh, no one will be eating this, my Lord, for it is not food, but the raw materials of my artistic craft. I will be using pastry to create a voluptuous statue of your First Taqoui. For practice, of course, since the real statue will be made on the day of your feast, and presented for you to . . . eat.”
The taqavor stared in disbelief, his brows narrowing.
She noted the beginning of that terrible frown, the encroaching doubt.
“My Lord, let me demonstrate for you!” said the woman suddenly. And as he watched this insane thing taking place before him, she put down the bowl on the ground, and then crouched, and grabbed a handful of sugared gooey pastry in one hand, and with unusually adroit movements started to roll it into a sticky ball.
And then, before his unbelieving eyes, the woman rolled more honey dough—some pieces long and cylindrical, others spherical—and then started to put them together and shape them into refinement with thin strong fingers.
The taqavor watched her work in silence, in a sunlit courtyard of kneeling shapes of the Wives and the frozen musicians. He ignored the wind singing against the stone and the whisper of leaves, the rustling veils. He saw only skinny pale hands moving rapidly, and before him an impossible thing taking place.
The statue stood upright. It reached only to his waist, since there was not enough pastry to do something on a larger scale. And it was growing in intricacy every second. In a matter of breaths, a formless lump of honey and sweetmeats was now the figure of a woman with soft hips and full breasts, with every contour defined.
The artist continued to shape her, running fingertips through the head-lump to form locks of hair, then squeezing the holes for the eyes, the slender nose, the fine nostrils, the shape of the chin. She pulled longer thin rolls of dough to create more curving locks and wreathed the smooth forehead of the honeyed mass in spider-thin etchings mimicking the filaments of human hair, done merely with the raking of nails. . . .
At last, she put the finishing touches on the statue, so that the tiny sharp nipples on the breasts stood out sensuously, and the thighs curved and streamed into slender legs, tapering to feet with tiny shaped toes. From the shoulders of the statue grew upraised arms, and the hands curved, flowing into palms and dainty fingers like lotus-blossoms. The statue balanced impossibly on its slender feet upon the marble floor, without the assistance of the artist. How could this be, without some invisible assistance of the gods?
“It is complete, my Lord,” announced the woman suddenly. She got up from her crouch, but her head remained lowered, and she wiped her sticky hands upon her old tunic and long cotton pants. “How do you like your little taqoui? Though tiny, she is edible in all senses of the word. But I promise you, when I make the real one for your actual feast, she will be life-size. . . .”
For a moment, the taqavor was speechless. And then a smile came to his lips, an unusual smile in its innocence. He stared at the small statue, and then approached it, to look at it from all sides.
“It is indeed perfect . . .” he admitted.
In reply, she once again bowed.
“She is so perfect,” continued the taqavor, “that from this moment I forgive all of you. And you, woman, I forgive you also, for speaking in insolence. Indeed, you lie so well for the others
—for I know that you all deceive me even now, do not for a moment think otherwise—and yet you justify your colorful words with such impossible proof that it is the only thing I can do. Furthermore, if you can create an intricate form of wonder out of pastry, what other thing can you do, given proper materials of the artist’s craft?”
And while the multitude of wives let out a great breath of relief, and there were animated rustlings on the ground from all directions, the woman continued to bow, and she replied to the taqavor, “I can create anything for you, my Lord. Anything that you desire.”
“Then you and none other shall be the one to create for me,” he said, “the true
symbol of my empirastan.”
In his favorite hall of violet-veined marble, the taqavor sat in a high seat and conversed with the lowly woman who had no other name than “you with the knowing eyes.” A few steps away stood the quiet Prince Lirheas, with his back to them, looking out with an absent gaze through an arched window into a sun-filled garden. And yet he was aware of their every nuance of conversation.
“My finest soldiers have gone in all directions to find the End of the World,” the taqavor was saying. “When they return, they will describe to us what is the nature of the End, and from their description I want you to create the one symbol.”
The woman stood before the high seat, which was elevated five steps above ground, so that the feet of the seated taqavor were at the level of her eyes. She still wore simple servant clothing, and her eyes were downcast. But now, her back remained straight.
“There is no need to wait for their return,” she said, “for the symbol is as simple as the directions of the wind. It is the wind rose. A shape of four rays to represent the four greater winds, and, between them, four lesser winds. Then behind these eight, like petals of a rose, a layer of eight half-winds, and behind those in turn, the rest of the quarter-winds, in sixteenths—if you choose to make it into a true blossom.”
The taqavor listened in interest. “Go on, woman. . . . Tell me more of this wind rose. How do you know of it?”
“All those who sail know of it, my Lord,” she replied, “for to navigate the expanses of the seas one has only the sky and the wind. And one learns to give the wind many names and fathom its true nature.”
“Why is it that I don’t know this?” said the taqavor, his brow furrowing. “I have been on many ships that crossed oceans, and yet no one has ever told me of this wind rose. And why should you—?” and then the taqavor laughed. “I see,” he said. “That is why your name is ‘you with the knowing eyes.’”
In reply, she laughed also. It was a startling sound, to hear a woman laugh in the taqavor’s presence. The timbre of her laugh was rich and comforting, like energy in the air.
“The wind rose is a simple seafarers' thing, not for those higher up to be concerned about. People have not told you of it, because they cannot speak freely to one as lofty as you. You are as distant from them as the sun is from the sand, observing the world from remote great heights. And they do not dare tell you things unless you directly ask,” she said. “As for me—since my position is on the very bottom, many things fall my way. My eyes have learned to take in much of the world, my Lord. And, having observed much, I can tell you in truth that only the wind sees all of the world at once, from all directions. Only the wind can fathom its true End.”
“Yes. . . . The wind is everywhere,” suddenly spoke up the Prince Lirheas. “The wind is what can span the world, and thus all of your empirastan, father!”
The taqavor stared ahead of him with inflamed living eyes. For the first time, the flame was not anger but exultation.
“It is true, yes!” he whispered passionately. “The wind will be my symbol.”
And then he turned to the woman standing straight before him. “Your wisdom is great, ‘you with the knowing eyes.’ For that, I will reward you greatly. Create for me the physical shape of this wind rose, capture the wind and give it solid shape, and animate it so that it serves a true function. And, after you are done, you can have your desire. Thus there is no need to wait for my men to return, for the world’s shape is surely the wind rose!”
The woman bowed before him, saying, “My Lord, it will be as you say. I will proceed immediately. But I must inform you, it will not be a quick task. For to compress the essence of the wind into one lesser shape may be as easy as creating a rose blossom, but to create a shape that actually performs a function may be as arduous as finding the End of the World.”
And the taqavor nodded. “Then do what must be done, for as long as it takes. This symbol must be made true.”
The woman with the knowing eyes was removed from her daily servitude and given her own living quarters, not in the House of Wives but in the Palace itself. Prince Lirheas would observe from a distance as she walked the halls and the garden galleries, conversing with the best artisans of the taqavor.
It was odd to observe that they did not resent her presence or think of her as infringing upon their duties. Rather, they embraced her like a peculiar living and breathing gift of the gods, sent out of the blue sky and the thin air to assist them in an impossible task. The woman consulted with sculptors, painters, and carvers of fine wood reliefs. She even spent time with the arrangers of flowers, and Lirheas watched her bending over great royal vases and counting the number of petals in flowers of different species that had been collected from the taqavor’s own gardens.
Then for days she would draw. Again, the Prince would come upon her everywhere, this time seated on garden benches, with rolls of parchment spread about on the marble tiles, sketching with sticks of charcoal and dried rolls of thick cotton soaked in ink. She drew shapes of flowers and stars with many rays. She drew roses and lilies and the blossoms of lotus. She formed repeating patterns of flowers, and covered sheet upon sheet with impossible lines of intricacy.
Once, Lirheas made himself pause before her as she drew a symmetrical star with eight rays, and he asked her, although his heart was beating much too fast in his chest and his temples rang with the coursing of internal waters, “What manner of star flower is this, woman? I have never seen such before.”
And for the first time she looked up at him, meeting his gaze.
She replied, telling him something, but all he could see was the gentle color of her eyes, violet as amethysts and warm as the soothing wind currents of night—the kind of night that comes once in a million in the desert, when the air itself is strong with the sun, and pungent sweet richness lingers for hours in the darkness. . . .
The moment was past, and Lirheas nodded, then was on his way again. Only this time a smile came secretly to him, a smile that no one would see.
The seasons passed, and two winters swept the world, putting the desert into starkness, and the palace and the world around it weathered the cold as it usually did. The taqavor brooded, but seemed to do so less than usual, and often came to observe the workshops of his artisans, where he would see the woman without a name and his master artists hunched over pieces of precious metal and stone, over wood and over silken fabric, forming delicate shapes of flowers and stars. . . .
And then, one day, everything changed. For the first of the four expeditions sent to find the End of the Word returned.
They had returned from the direction opposite that in which they had been sent. And the taqavor was given unbelievable news.
“My Lord,” spoke Jimor, a wizened soldier with a face turned into leather hide by the sun and wind and exhaustion, “I followed the face of the rising sun, just as you had instructed me. Every dawn, I would wait for it, and would find the precise place where it rose, and would mark the land around it, the very shape of the horizon, indelibly into my memory. Then we would follow it until the sun set at our backs. This went on for an endless cycle of days as we crossed the deserts, then came to a place of sparse forests and, eventually, thick green growth, where we hacked our way with swords and long knives.
“We traveled forever, it seemed, and the days turned cold, then warmed again. At last, we came out of the rich wilderness into an open place, and before us lay a great ocean. Here we paused for a number of days as my men built a vessel of the sea out of the wood of the great forest at our backs. We tested the wood for buoyancy, rigged sails from caravan tents, and carved long oars, at the same time gathering a good store of food supplies and sweet water. And, when the vessel floated properly, we cast off.
“We sailed for so many days without seeing land that many of us began to think we would reach our deaths before we reached the End of the World—for our supplies were nearly entirely depleted. I, meanwhile, cast my gaze upon the horizon, where the su
n rose every dawn, and adjusted our course accordingly. Once or twice we saw sea birds flying overhead, and this was a good sign, for it indicated a shore was not so far away. And yet we never found it, for I could not deviate from our single-minded course toward the rising sun.”
“Go on,” said the taqavor. “What happened then?”
“Well, my Lord,” said the old soldier, “to tell you the truth, there was so much of the same thing, such a long expanse of terrible monotonous ocean, that some of us nearly went mad. I had to hold off a mutiny more than once, when my poor crazed men wanted me to turn off course to reach the nearest shore.
“But luck was on our side. The weather was incredibly fair, and the wind blowing in the direction we followed never let up or turned into an uncontrollable gale. In some ways, we could have been sped along by benevolent gods.
“Eventually, as we reached the last of our strength, we saw shapes of land on the horizon, silhouetted against the rising sun, and we knew we were saved. Within a day we reached a shoreline covered by odd black sand, like ashes or coal. Beyond it was another forested expanse, this one cooler, and the wind here blew sharply among peculiar trees that had rich sharp needles instead of leaves. We did not spend long marveling at them, however, because we desperately needed water and food.
“After unloading what few things we had with us on the vessel and beaching it properly, we ventured deep into the forest of needle-trees. Again, to our luck, we found a small fast brook and, yes, we found game.
“After regaining our trust of land, and resting for a few days, we continued ahead, hunting the game meanwhile, eating the flesh and collecting the skins of the various creatures for various uses. There seemed no end to this forest, and the weather started to get colder again, and there was less game, and fewer running streams on our way. Many of us put on the animal skins for warmth, and used some of the fur to wrap ourselves in at nights.
“After some time our breath became visible in the air. And the land itself seemed to rise, so that we saw mountains in the distance. The mountains were great pale shapes, covered with a whiteness that only some of us recognized properly to be a thing called snow. Surely, we had reached the End of the World.”