Northern Border Country
In no way did Austin remind Pol of his first love. His first lover had been golden, a boy named Sandro Gutierrez from Solahn. He had been friends with his brother Kirk, and like Kirk, a hustler, a punk. But he had done it lightly and occasionally, or so Sandro had said, and Kirk had blessed the relationship..
Then, one day, Sandro had said he was leaving. No, Pol could not come. No, he had not cheated on Pol. And Pol could have stood that. He would have been able to live with is, But Sandro said he simply did not want to be with Pol anymore and that there were parts of him which Pol could never understand.
So one night, perhaps to spite Sandro, to show Sandro that he could go to those deep places, he had gone to the place his brother had worked. It was not hard for him to pick up a man, but it was hard to find one he did not mind having sex with. He had gone home with a man about forty-five, steel haired, single and a little bit sad. When the man had asked how much, Pol rattled off a price he’d heard his brother say once, and then, in a stark apartment, he’d let the man put his head between his legs, run his hands up and down him, and pinch his nipples. He tried to fuck him unsuccessfully, and after an hour of fumbling, Pol had kissed him on the nose, trying to be sensual, and left.
Leaving through the East Quarter, Pol had felt strange. It hadn’t felt like sex at all, and there were things he had done that he did not want to do. He tried to understand his feelings and realized he couldn’t name them, but why try? As the sky thundered overhead, Pol put his hand into his pocket and felt more money than he’d ever had.
TONIGHT THE MUSICIANS PLAY. Pol sings a little song from those first days.
Amsada astamadayan antamare
Indiho garvan tihushanan dani
Osrofan ostrofan nata
Tadami
Amsada astamadayan damare
It was a song his mother sang. She was from the old country, that oldest part of Westrial where they still sang in Royan and their blood was Royan. He only remembered her voice. She had died when he was very young, and Kirk had brought him down south to the city.
Under the shadow of the Plaidy Hills that lay like the breasts of a middle aged woman on her back, they sit by the fire. As the sky darkens the power of the fire increases and Anson says, “We are only a day away. Only a day from the Rheged border.”
But tonight they have come to village of Aksum, and it is like no other village they’ve entered. Since they’ve crossed the river, everyone here is dark, darker than Ohean’s caramel coloring, and Ohean tells the story.
“Longer than you can count, when there was one king in Ynkurando and the Ayl were seeking refuge, the King granted Eoga and his brothers right to enter the land and bring with them their people, and so they did, Eoga settling West in what would be Wester Ayl, and his brothers settling in what would be East Ayl or Essail. Their sister, the line of Inglad would come from, and later the Sussail would come from their own. But this land was ever the land of the old ones, the old kings, the oldest Royan. Here the Royan are as dark as they are in Chyr, and many old things here have survived.”
They are by a tree and by the tree have been left coins, for the musicians are coming, and tonight they will play the music that will heal all brokenness of soul. Pol jokes, as he tosses three gold coins into the pile of copper, “I could use some healing for my soul.” But it is not really a joke, no, not for anyone.
And now the men are coming, some caramel, some golden butter colored, one old man as dark as the earth, a face full of wrinkles, men with turbans twisted about their heads, and now from the stones houses, come the brown skinned Royan, and there are some folk here white as Austin, or ivory colored like golden like Pol and Anson, and now the musicians draw out their long pipes, their drums, their shawms, and begin to play.
The music is gentle and sweet and then, beneath it the drums race like heartbeats, and shawns drone in and out like buzzing bees. The music rises, and though the drummers do not rise from where they sit, cross legged under the tree, the people rise. As the sun goes under the hills, the people rise, and Pol unburdens himself of his great coat, and then even of his water silkened shirt and, swaying, enters the slow dance.
THIS IS THE CONFINED LAND. This is a land of hills and valleys, but tonight the hills and the moist air and the chill of the approaching winter remind Austin of the stark and, arid land of Zahem,
Erik Skabelund, of the soft firm lips, the skin that turns red in the sun and the white blond hair has brought him, at last, into the city of Nauvo and its center is the Great Temple. He does not remember anything else about the city but that high walled six towered temple unlike any cathedral he had ever seen and certainly unlike it on the inside. Skabelund himself had guided Austin to it.
It was like a honeycomb, and this made sense, for the sign of Zahem was the Honey Bee. The beehive was emblazoned in stone all along the temple walls. There was no one great nave, but a series of rooms, and through those rooms Skabelund led him. In those rooms they passed through mystery after mystery, sworn to secrecy, and in between each mystery, he was bathed. Skabelund undressed him and washed him. It was on the very last washing that Skabelund saw his penis, firm and standing up and Austin’s face went red, but Skabeland said, “You needn’t worry about it. It is a natural thing. That is a type of energy, and today you should be filled with much energy.”
And so he came from the temple purified, and it was Skabelund who led him to the school where he would learn to be a proper Zahem for the next four years.
As the dancers spun about, Anson looked up to see Pol was rising now, down to snug trews, his robes and shirt cast off, sweat trickling down his chest and in his damp hair. He moved up and down in jerking motions to the rhythm of the music, and Pol’s face was like one in ecstasy, mouth open, eyes unfocused, feet and shoulders seeming to move of their own accord. Austin remembered their time in the forest, when they had begun to make love in that wagon and then felt the approach of someone else, entering for water or for towels perhaps, only to see Thano, handsome, the plains of his face his, his eyes dark with desire. He hadn’t needed to speak, this cousin of Lord Ohean, the one they knew without knowing had once been his lover. Quickly he undressed, eagerly they had made room for him. All those days until the day he had left them, he came to them after dark and the three of them had exulted in each other.
“As the music plays,” Ohean said to Anson, “the spirits of the hills come out to heal the people, and to protect the land, to accept the energy offered and be one with those who offer it.”
“The Spirits?” Anson said.
“You would call them elves.”
Ohean shrugged and said, “In fact, I would as well.”
“Are they real?” Anson said.
As the music swirled around them, the shawms more and more ecstatic, almost screaming, the drumbeats fiercer, Ohean said, “Need you ask?”
Now the spirits called to him as well, far wilder than he had ever known them, and Anson’s legs seemed to rise without his permission. Now his feet were tapping out the ancient steps of the dance.
“Can I tell you something?” Skabelund had said, “Something that the people in the east don’t know?”
By people in the east, Austin assumed Skabelund meant Westrial, meant even the Royan. The Zahem always had secrets nobody else knew.
“Tell me.”
“Long ago, before our ancestors crossed the sea, before even the empire. Long long ago, there was a great war in this land between light and dark. Men came from. The Kokaubeam, the stars, for they were the star people, and they met with the Nephilim, those are the Strong, and they built two great Cities of Light. Their allies were of another race, an old race, but in time, they went wrong. Some of them at least, and a war broke out, those who belonged to the Light against those who belonged to the darkness. In that war one of the great cities of light fell, though there are some who say it was both. Zahem always said that God wanted us to find the city of light, or what was left of it. That was why he went to Chyr even before Westrial, because that’s where he said it was, in the southern country, in the oldest part of Chyr. And they don’t even know it….”
Skabeland had said a lot, or rather he had told Austin much of what he had been told, that people lived in the sun, that God had been a human being just like him and that one day he would be himself God and start the whole process over again, that the hills were filled with an ancient people older than men, that looked out at them with winking eyes and transformed into wolves. Being away from Zahem had allowed Austin to forget much of it, but as he watched villagers dancing in the night, and Pol and Anson, now stripped to their tight underpants, sweat running down their torsoes, heads flailing, the memory of that old legend returned to him. Here, in this land, the cities of light had stood. Here, in this land, there would be great war.
As Austin turned to the fire, he saw, he thought, a form approaching. It was only a shadow, a very tall man, taller, really, than the dimensions of a man, and now it stretched forth its hand toward the fire, but in that moment Austin saw it was merely shadow, no true hand, and so it disappeared.
He shook himself and, in shaking, saw Ohean looking at him.
“You did not fancy it,” Ohean said.
“What was it? Austin asked.
Ohean answered: “A friend.”
