November 12, 2006 ~ Beshida's Dream
Sunday.
Morgan has been making me envious. You see, he's participating in National Novel Writing Month. By the end of the month, if all goes well, he should have over 50,000 words toward his novel. And I am positive that he's going to make it. He's already halfway there, and the month isn't half over. And not only that, it's really quite good for a first draft written at such speed.
He's been talking about writing this novel for... at least three years. A post-apocalyptic novel, set in a fascinating world. And every time he mentions Remik or Ilha'wa, or characters like Beshida or Aasim, I have really wanted to read his book, to learn more about that strange world and the people in it. The only problem being that I cannot, because it's not written yet. It has been entirely in his head. So the fact that there are now over 100 manuscript pages of this book is making me very happy.
So, Morgan asked me to post an excerpt here in hopes that he'll get some feedback, or at least some encouragement. E-mail responses to me and I'll forward them along: dawntreader AT fallingstar DOT net.
Morgan's progress
(click for more details, will change as he uploads new updates)
an illustration of Remik, the dark lands in Morgan's post-apocalyptic world
Beshida's Dream
by Morgan Davis
Beshida hadn't know the old woman's name. No one in the building did. They just called her the washer, or the sheet lady, or just Ajuz, which meant 'elder woman.' The old Mazru'a men had sometimes summoned her with a word that was light and fluid in old Aribi, but Beshida had long forgotten it. The old woman hadn't been allowed to know Beshida's name either. Instead, the washwoman had called her Kahalley, which she had said meant "blue-eyed shadow." During the long hours between her futur of oats and honey and the meager asha that she had shared with her mother before sleeping, Beshida had listened to the old woman's stories and had helped her carry the large baskets of wash down into the buildings shadowy basement where there had been a large coal-fired cistern and a pot of lye for the laundry.
The old woman had started a story once, saying that Rimik was a great, dark, mother night that was born from seed stolen from the crow Tairaswad.
"But who is Tairaswad, Ajuz?" Beshida had asked.
"Have you never heard the story of how the Sha'b came to live in Sama when the world was broken? Why, that is the first and greatest of stories! Here, you take this washboard, and I'll tell it. You can help me scrub these sheets.
"This is one of the great old stories, Hikayi Tairaswad it's called. It was one my mother told me as a girl and the first I got by heart when the old rahib came to teach the children--and a more bland and dusty woman I’ve never met! But no matter--a good story has its own life. Well, here you are then. The Hikayi Tairaswad as well as I remember it." The old woman had started then on the tale.
"Tairaswad was a shepard and a nomad who lived with his tribe in a great desert. One evening as Tairaswad was dozing in his tent, his god, whom he called father, came to him and asked if Tairaswad was his servant. Tairaswad said, yes, that he led his tribe in service and in glory for his father in the kingdom of the sky. His god replied that he must now ask Tairaswad to give up his manhood that he may lead his people in glory to the kingdom of Dau, where even god was but a servant.
"At hearing his god say this, Tairaswad was frightened and aghast, for he had always been told that his god was the one, true, and all-powerful God, and he prayed in this way five times each day. In his anger, he cursed the presence before him for a demon or jinn and demanded it leave him in peace instead of tempting him into damnation with promises of power. This god listened to Tairaswad with patience and said to him not unkindly: This world will pass away, and the one above it will pass away. The heavens and the earth will roll back in your presence. He who lives in Dau will not see death. They will eat what is dead and make it alive. If none lead them, what will they do? When they come into Dau, what will they do? I will return to my kingdom and kindle for you a sign, for I must cast fire upon the world and I must burn with it.
"With that Tairaswad's god left him alone where he sat in dread. Despite his old age and what he had seen in his long life, Tairaswad cried at the words he had heard, for they worked more terribly in his imagination than did any of the stories of jinn and their mischief he had heard. He spent that night in doubt and fear, staring at the sky and awaiting the sign. He knew that only the true god could alter the heavens for all to see.
"Very late, after the camp fires had burned low, Tairaswad watched the whole of the sky light up as if it were day for a brief moment. Then the light faded into a ball of fire that burned as a pinpoint in the darkness of heaven. He knew at that instant that he had heard the words of his god truly and had called him demon. At that, he threw himself into the dust and begged that he be given the burden of his people's quest that he may be raised up from his shame. At once his god spoke to him and said: fly to me and I will show you Sama, the land of Dau. Tairaswad said: but how shall I fly without wings? And he looked and there were feathered wings of a blackness like the center of his eye where his arms had been. He flexed them once and then again and was soon soaring into the sky and leaving his sleeping tribe far below where his camp dwindled and was lost to darkness. He said: "How shall I ever see what you show me in this darkness?" And the last word came out as a croak as his head and body became that of a giant black bird. Below him he could now see the earth as if it were a rich map, and before him he followed his god.
"What Tairaswad was shown after is known to no one, for he never spoke of it. He would reveal only that he came back with knowledge of the Dau and of how to survive the breaking of the world.
"A shahr later, the burning heavens fell to earth and set it to ruin. Tairaswad returned at that moment of fear and chaos to his people, and he cast a great inky wing over their camp and shielded them from the falling sky. The people, who had heard the story of his transformation and flight, loved him and put aside their tears to embrace one another beneath the great black wing. They had no fear then and slept in warmth though the ground rocked and groaned beneath their blankets. When the earth had stopped trembling and the long night had fallen, Tairaswad offered up a feather-tip to each man, woman, and child that they might be led through the darkness. He took them on a great journey, stopping often to feast on the dead plants and animals of the world as they fell around them--that the tribe may grow strong from the last passing breath of the world.
"At the end of their journey, the tribe came to a giant crack in the earth so large that they could not see the other side. Here Tairaswad picked them each up carefully in his beak and set them on his wide back. He beat his huge wings and bore them across the crack in the earth for a time so long that those that were old when the flight started died and those that were but babies slid off his back on the other side as men. It is said that the first Ilha'wa lifted Tairaswad's wings for that journey, and when he finally landed again the dust and ash were gone and the tribe, which was now called Sha'b, were standing in the presence of Dau in the kingdom of the sky which they called Sama.
"Tairaswad, seeing his people safe and happy in their new land, bade them farewell and flew high into the sky, where he became but a black speck on the brilliance of Dau and finally joined with that radiance."
The old laundress had fallen silent then, and her eyes had looked far away. For a time the only sound in the basement room had been the splashing rhythm of their hands against the washboard.
"Ajuz, how does a man become a bird?"
"Well I don't know Kahalley. It is just a story, mind. It's how people explain how the Sha'b came to the rim lands more than a hundred seasons past. Before that there had only been your pale-skinned great and great grandfathers that took shelter in the Ark. So say the great histories, anyway." Beshida had looked thoughtful for a moment.
"I could see him, you know. I could see Tairaswad."
"Could you now? Can you pass me the lye bucket, dear?"
Several years had passed thus, with Beshida learning stories from the laundress that had been passed to her from the ruhban. It was a story of the crow Tairaswad that had stuck with Beshida the most--the story of the making of the earth's dark face. It was one of the tales of Tairaswad's adventures as he led his tribe to Sama.
The old woman had used to say that Rimik was a great, dark, mother night that had been born from seed stolen from Tairaswad by a beautiful woman from the distant south who had come to the tribe as they were fleeing the death of the world in search of Sama. The woman, whose name had been marked out of history in shame, had seduced Tairaswad by reciting a beautiful ballad about her love of Dau (which was a lie) while she had danced with mirrors on her hands, always reflecting the light into the great bird's eyes. When Tairaswad had found what she had done, he banished her and spread his wings to block all of the light of Dau from reaching the South. The woman had fled back to where she had come from and there gave birth to a great shade. So black and huge was this shade that, when Tairaswad had grown tired and dropped his great wings, there had been no more light behind him. The Sha'b, seeing this, had named the shade Rimik and called her the mother of ruin.
When Beshida had heard this story, she had seen Tairaswad more vividly than ever before. He had been part man in her mind's eye. A great, tall man with dark skin like polished wood. His head had been that of the crow, covered in feathers of darkest sable with huge, liquid, black eyes. His beak had been black as well, like burnished horn, and cruelly curved. The feathers had fallen in a mantle around his head, ending above the gleaming muscle of his breasts. Rising behind him had been wings that spread several times his height. He had worn only a linen loincloth.
Beshida had seen him standing before the ruined throne of a dead king--one of the ancient ones. She imagined that the huge crow-man had eaten the body of this king beneath the dark and charred pillars of his throne room. The people of his tribe had been scattered around here and there--ragged and silent as ghosts--scared and desperate. The only body that had not seemed to bend, to skulk, and to sneak was the ebony of the crow-man who had stood erect like a statue with his arms folded and black eyes staring, impenetrable.
In her visions, Beshida had been dancing. Long after hearing this story--for one asha after another--she had been alone on her pallet unable to sleep, and this vision would come to her. She had stood then in the dusky darkness of her family's room and danced silently as she had in the vision. She had stared at her fingers--seeing tiny mirrors there. She had sung to herself, in a whisper, a song she had never heard with words that sounded like nonsense. The tiny pools of light had danced and fled across the walls of the great, ruined throne room. Where they touched the crow-man, they had seemed to vanish or had been reflected back in his great eyes.
Sometimes she had imagined that she was alone with the silent face of the bird above her in the darkness of a small room. She had smiled ruefully and whispered to ears hidden in black feathers. The tiny mirrors had been discarded, forgotten. The body of polished ebony had been above her and the wings like a tent had blocked out the flickering torchlight. Her nostrils had been filled with the strange scent of dry feathers, myrrh, and musk. Always in the distance she had heard Ilha'wa howl.
Beshida had woken from these dreams, come to herself as if from a long way off, with the fading memory of words she didn't understand still playing on her lips and a taste in her mouth like blood. In these dreams and visions, she had been the nameless woman--and the nameless mother of the night had taken her name, had walked in her skin. Sometimes she woke screaming.
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