Chapter 3
When All Nations Gather
As the first day of Merhala began, Arkos went up to an abandoned turret that budded off the Avahorn. The turret room was carpeted with moss and mold, and cobwebs hung from the ceiling. Wiping the grime off one of the window ledges, Arkos cleaned himself a place to sit and let his legs hang outside over the city. While he waited for the festival to begin, he took dirty bones from his makeshift bag and began cleaning them with his carving knife. The carving knife, with its cormantle blade and its handle made from rokuli antler, looked too handsome for the gritty work, but it took off the dried pieces of matter and meat so smoothly it seemed as though it had been made especially for the task. One by one the clean bones fell in a small pile on the mossy floor.
From where Arkos perched, he could see the nations camped outside the city gate, the colorful groupings of tents far below appearing like flower gardens. Pilgrims from all six nations had gathered there. Even some of the tribal leaders from the Baladune Desert had come with their followers, but they had come more for trade than for the festivities. They did not follow the lore of Tierrion and believed in gods that were strange to the people of the six nations. While all the people below bustled about in excited anticipation for the Merhala that was about to begin, Arkos looked out beyond Tierrion’s walls, beyond the camps of the nations to where farmlands hatched the landscape with rows of crops, beyond to where there were forests and grassy hills. Three of the four great rivers meandered in Arkos’ view, rivers that sprung from the city and headed in the cardinal directions; the Asetsi to the north, the Vasden to the east, and the Eyamara to the west. The Weloc went to the south, but the massive Avahorn behind him blocked it out of sight.
“Look at the Asetsi now,” Arkos said to the blue stone as he took it from the pouch on his belt and set it on the ledge beside him. “Look at how she veers towards the east more and more. Her thirst for the Kanna Sea has grown great. Or perhaps she runs from the Catchamina and cannot get away.”
He envied the rivers, for they could leave the city and he could not. Even though the city gate opened every morning and even though no one would have stopped him if he tried, he had never left. A promise kept him there, a promise he had grown to hate but greatly feared to break.
Arkos held out his carving knife in front of him, closed one eye and looked down the length of his arm and the length of the blade. Then he ran the edge of his knife against the far horizon from east to west as though he were cutting the land from the sky. When he reached the end of the horizon, his arm dropped to his lap and he let out a heavy sigh. He then went back to scraping bones.
Splinter, splinter, splinter. War, war, war. His thoughts went to the rhythm of his knife strokes. The sky was clear and the surrounding land was still, but the message of war had come to him. The heavens had sent it—of that Arkos was certain—for no other element had claimed the words: from the splinter comes a war. He would have to speak to the king and give him warning, but a poor bone carver could never obtain a speaking totem great enough to do so. The rhythm of his knife strokes began to slow as his eyes narrowed and as he turned his thoughts to how he could gain an audience with the king.
A wind picked up and began circling the turret. Arkos listened. The wind’s tone was anxious, as it was eager to finish the chore Arkos had assigned it to do.
“Keep searching,” Arkos said. “Search every alley and every height. When I am certain that the entire city is secure, only then will I let you resume your games.”
The wind blew a gust in his face to show its impatience and then flew back down towards the gate where everyone else in the city had gathered.
All the way from the inside of the gate, through the gardens, and into the city’s interior, the main road was squeezed thinner by the swelling crowds that pushed at its sides. So tightly were the people packed together that the smell of perfumed people and unwashed people wafted together, but it was an occasion where such smells were tolerated. Mothers held tightly to their children’s hands, and the smaller children sat on their fathers’ shoulders. The old men and women sat at the back of the crowd, chuckling at their old jokes. When a hundred horns blew from the tops of Tierrion’s wall, idle talk changed to excited whispers. The city gate began to creak open, and all turned to face the widening gap between the doors.
The people had waited five years for the gates to open, five years for a time when the tables from every home would be pulled outside onto the streets and piled with food. It was a time when bonfires lit every square in the city at night, and the audiences gathered around the coals to be enchanted by the ancient tales of storytellers. It was a time when the music never ended, and everyone knew the words to the songs. But what everyone waited for most of all was the Flight of the Aeriatheas. The nations would revive peace between each other, the stories that founded their cultures would be relived, but the reason people came from far and wide was to see the Flight. Each nation had its aeriathea, and on the first day of Merhala it was the aeriatheas who led their people into Tierrion.
Even before the gates were opened to their fullest, an aeriathea bounded through with her nation of Tersia pouring in after her. She shined with crimson fur and padded into the city with bells jingling on her ankles and ribbons streaming from her tail. Tersian musicians passionately played upon their marimbas, and their people danced on the road. The Tersians drank their timber wine as they danced, and wagons heavy with casks followed them in. Theirs was a land of rich soil where the winewood trees grew. If there were a bad season and the land turned poor, the Tersians would have to drink the dregs from the year before. But on that Merhala the Tersians were in high spirits, which meant the land was healthy and the wine was good.
After Tersia entered, there burst a cloud of blue and red smoke, and the smell of incense pervaded the crowd. The aeriathea from Omberia leapt through the cloud, her silver fur and iridescent wings flashing in the sun. The dark-skinned Omberians played flutes with glowing embers cupped at the ends, spitting up flames that made notes bend and crackle. Their fire organ came in on a wagon and looked like a ceramic beast with clay pipes coming out of its back and mouth. There was a fire burning deep in the belly of the device and musicians pumped the bellows making flames and smoke burst from the mouths of the pipes. Different temperatures played different notes creating a volcanic music that made the crowds wonder at how Omberians could make fire sing.
Through the clearing smoke came the aeriathea from Anshaw. He was covered with thick gray fur, and scars streaked his sides, marks that showed he had had his bouts with the giant deogren birds of the mountains. As he entered Tierrion, little Anshine children flocked about his wooly feet, and he herded them into the city. The Anshines who followed were tall and fair skinned people with hair ranging from blonde to white. Tribal symbols in blue paint spiraled up their arms and legs much in the same way the clouds curled upon the high crags. The men blew on pipes, and the women sang their mountain songs.
The horns of Patarah sounded, and a beautiful aeriathea with golden fur and with a crown made of golden horns entered the city. He tilted his head upwards to receive the crowd’s praising eyes. The Patarans who followed were also a people who believed they deserved their pride, for they had knowledge that was yet undiscovered by the other nations. Great inventions, such as the mills that harnessed the wind and the rivers, marked the tops and bottoms of the canyons from where they had come. They had massive white stone universities that created apothecaries and inventors, priests and philosophers, makers of medicines and makers of laws. They had become a great people, and they wanted everyone at the festival to see it.
Once the golden nation had passed, the crowd turned their gaze to see entering through the gates the aeriathea from Dariseum, a creature of black fur with a white blaze running down his forehead. He walked into the city with a disciplined posture, keeping his chest out and his wings tall and trim. The Darisan sold
iers entered in likewise, marching through the city gate in strictly regimented formations. The drums thundered through their ranks, and they sung in deep voices of how the spear was their brother, how the bow and arrow were their sisters, and how they feared no beast of the forest. So powerful were their voices and appearance that as they passed, all the young boys watching from the crowd wanted to grow up to become Darisan soldiers.
The final nation to enter the city was Havamir. Haloreth led the way, though it took much restraint on his part not to run and leave his people behind. The millions of colors and smells tempted and teased, and he was afraid that if he did not hurry he would not experience them all before the festival was over. He panted wildly, twisted his neck this way and that, and kept his feet steady so he would not run ahead and break company with his queen and nation. Maris followed on the back of her indramon. She wore a silvery peplos made of tyruk hide, and her lady servants had rubbed oils into her skin so that her face shone. They had plaited her hair in thin braids and adorned her head with a headdress crested with a silver half sun. Maris felt the eyes of the crowd on her, drawn by her newness and examining her details. A nervous smile trembled on her lips and her fingers fidgeted with the folds of her peplos. The rhythm of the festival carried the procession onward, and she had no choice but to weather the gaze of the crowd while on her high seat.
Havamirian musicians followed behind Maris and played on horns made from giant mollusk shells and coral branches, flutes that mimicked the calls of seabirds, and drums that sounded like the pounding of waves. It was as if the seashore had composed its own melody and sent it to Tierrion by the wind.
But the music suddenly crashed into discord and then abruptly came to a halt. The rhythm of the festival stopped, and the crowd felt it as if it were their own pulse that had stopped. They desperately searched for the source of the rhythm’s collapse, and at last they came to Haloreth.
He stood crouched in the middle of the road, his claws dug into the grooves between the cobblestones as if he were ready to lunge out at something. His eyes narrowed, and he sniffed the air frantically. The same scent he had picked up the day before, the greasy odor of musk and filth, stung his nostrils once again. A low growl came from his throat and his lips snarled to show his fangs. The crowd backed away while Haloreth’s eyes darted through their masses, looking for whatever evil thing hid among them.
“Haloreth!” Maris cried out, but he did not hear her over the nervous commotion of the crowd. She looked for a way down from her mount so she could go over to him, but her elaborate trappings held her within the howdah. As Maris was about to call out a second time, Haeron pushed through the stunned servants and came up to the aeriathea without fear. The crowd held its breath. Haeron dared to grasp a handful of scruff from Haloreth’s neck and yanked down so the aeriathea’s eyes met with his. Immediately, Haloreth’s growls were silenced.
“What vile thing has crawled into you?” Haeron asked fiercely. “You are causing a strong fright here!”
Haloreth responded with whimpering, but Haeron did not let him finish.
“You wail over a foul scent? Move on or you will move the Darisans to spear your hide!”
Haloreth looked back at Maris. She met his eyes and frowned. Ashamed, Haloreth looked away and turned his great neck and shoulders towards the city center, pushing himself onwards once more. The musicians played again and the procession went on as it had before, though it took some beats for them to regain their music fully. It did not take long for the rhythm to revive, for everyone was anxious to continue the celebration. Maris gave a great sigh of relief; the incident was quickly forgotten. Haloreth walked many steps with his tail between his legs, but the further he went the more Merhala enticed his senses with its foreign aromas and sounds. Even the smell of musk and filth had faded away.
As the last Havamirian, Metaro the Broken, entered through the city gate, the spectators began to fill in the road behind the procession of nations. The crowds went up the road and into the center of the city where all would gather. Only the city’s poor stayed behind to pick through the litter on the lawn. Two grimy men, who wore the trampled hats that they had found, came across a pile of rags leaning against the city wall. The men began arguing over who had found it first but stopped when the pile began to move. First a hand wrapped in ruined cloth emerged from the pile, and as the hand pressed down on the dirt, it revealed lumps that became an elbow and a shoulder. Slowly, the pile unfolded itself into a whole body covered with rags. Over the head and shoulders there was a hooded cloak and over the face was a crudely made wooden mask where two smoldering yellow eyes glared through the eyeholes. The two grimy men were frightened and ready to run away, but the cloaked figure pulled out a handful of coins from inside his wrappings and set it on the ground in front of them.
“For your silence,” he rasped; his voice sounded as that of an animal taught to speak.
As the two grimy men were about to come to blows over the money, the cloaked figure got up and looked to make sure that there were no more aeriatheas around to sense him. Once he was certain all of them were gone, he picked up his thin staff from off the ground and headed towards the thickest part of the gardens where he would be hidden and his business in the city kept secret.