Chyr
To Connleth Arragareth, the stones and pillars of the great Temple of Niakkarran shared the same quality as the rest of the city. As the sun set over it, striking everything as red as it was golden, you could see the original great temple, large as a small city, and at once you could see its ruinations, the years when it had been abandoned and attacked. And then, when you shifted your eyes past the ruins, you could see the villages that had risen up over the centuries, filling the wide pillar spaces of the anterooms and courtyards between the holy buildings, the sacred pools which had become swimming pools and drinking troughs, the palm trees lining the walkways into sacred chambers that had become avenues for barefoot villagers or cloaked and hooded shepherds to water sheep. One great street of tall stone tenements revealed itself to be the ancient walls of the temple which, over time had been repossessed by the people, and then, over the grounds of an old shrine was built a new one that had succumbed to yet another one, and all of Niakkarran had this dizzying quality, the feel of an ancient city grown out of rock and gone back to rock only to sprout a new city halfway out of the old.
Beyond what must have been the temple precincts spread maize colored houses, houses of white stone, old cement houses, and though it was easy to see what was new, it was not as easy to know what was old or how old.
“This is nothing like Kingsboro,” Gabriel said, as they walked through the old winding streets.
“Akkrebeth did show us how parts of the palace were founded over the ruins of an old palace,” Derek allowed. “But no. Nothing like this, where everything seems to be made of everything.”
The everything being made of everything gave a mad quality to the city so that even now Conn saw a line of town houses and flats, and as he looked at them harder realized that once upon a time these had been a palace, and then saw in the heavy stones and crenels a fortress, and then once again he saw them as the townhouses they were. Everywhere buildings seemed to be melting back to their original stone and rising up as something new.
“It’s been this way since we crossed the border,” Conn said.
They had followed Obala across the Waymouth Bridge, a long bridge of stone that looked over the great deep drop to the fast flowing Ahm. They had come out of greenery into greenery and one road led to Rheged, but the south road led into Chyr, the oldest of the kingdoms of Ankar. At first they had no concept of what it meant to be the oldest, for they were in the same green hills as on the other side of the river, and then they came out into the same villages. But it was when they left behind Obala and Sara and even Jon and Nialla, and traveled to the city of Tezzedeka, that they began to understand what a different country they were in.
Chyr was as green and lush as Westrial, though warmer, and to the surprise of Derek and Gabriel, they even saw white men, though not as many as would be in the white lands. They saw all sorts of people, the golden skinned Solahni, and Sinercians and the almond eyed Ikebukrans with their curved swords and multicolored hair as well as their cousins, the Imperial Haean. All through the day, traveling to the city, they had seen, in place of wooden or daub farm houses, houses of stone, round and high like beehives, and old as those in an ancient land would be, and coming to Tezzedeka they entered the first truly ancient city they’d ever been in. Derek had been in places where houses were old. He had been born in an old house, but this was the first place he’d been to where even the cottages were ancient, where one could feel that for ages on ages life had gone on in this spot, and when it seemed to end, it simply rose up again in another form. The streets of Tezzedeka were the first place where he’d seen house windows cut three feet deep into a wall with mysterious faces smiling down, then turning away to return to conversation with each other and disregard him.
Quinton had been walking far too long without complaint before Matteo said, “Enough,” and put him on one of the horses, and even now, on occasion, he could hear his lover wince. But he said nothing to Conn because he knew that if Conn was driving them to travel this much in a day or in the last several days he had a reason. When they had left Kingsboro with Ohean and the Prince and all of their other companions, there had been a feeling of great exhilaration, and it had carried to those days when they were on their own, going through the West Country and lying with whomever they encountered. But since they had rejoined Conn and come under his leadership, and since they had traveled into Chyr, there had been a different feeling over all of them, something of being on a deep and holy pilgrimage. No one stopped them on their travels, and all who bowed to them bowed to them as holy men. After all, if the Blue priesthood had not exactly come from Chyr, it had been in Chyr before it was in Westrial, and in every town they passed there was a respectable sized Blue Temple. Matteo had seen the windowless sides of one as he had come into Tezzedeka and wondered about visiting, but Conn was not leading them there.
“It is here,” Conn said.
Then, as today in Niakkaran, there had been the gentle playing of shawns, the small clap of a tambourine, music that was never far off, and now they followed Conn into an alley, but this was no empty and abandoned alley. It was not crowded, but Matt, leading the pony Quinton was on, saw that this was because the day was ending. This was one of the arcade bazaars where people set up shop to stay out of the hustle and bustle or the profound heat and light of the streets. A few merchants; a seller of bangles and trinkets, a woman with the last of her kabobs and pastries, were still doing business, but most were closing their stands. There were doors in the walls, borrowed rooms from people’s houses, that were shops in the day now being closed for the night, but now Conn tapped on the last door of the alley, one which was semi open and from which they heard a singer proclaiming:
Bemejemerīya maji neberi
ke’idimē wede ‘idimē mani tezawere
ina huletenyawi ye’irisu jegina t’enikara neberi
Sositenyawi yekewakibiti geredwa
bezafochi wisit’i yinori yeneberewi
inich’etu mechēmi āyimotimi
sebati weredu
ohi ina sebati weredu!
“What?” Matt wondered. The song was utterly unfamiliar, but when Derek smiled and whisper sang to the melody he knew, Matteo understood.
First was the mage
Who moved from age to age
And second was his hero strong…
Conn motioned for Matt to remain in the alley along with Calon and Gabriel, who held the other horses, and he entered the room.
A man came forward, bowing, and began:
“Yeteke berach ihu wegenochi inik wani bedehina met’achihu.”
At once, Conn went into the Westyl tongue, the language that was neither the Old Chyran nor Sendic, but by which most cultured people in all of the kingdoms spoke.
The man nodded and replied in kind.
“Sir,” Conn said, “we seek to visit this fine establishment, but also we see rest.”
“There is rest here,” he said. “Not so at all houses of wisdom. And there is,” he craned his head over Conn, “stabling for your horses. For, as you may see, the building is large and much of it is given to being an old inn for travelers going toward the heart of the land. This house is connected to that inn by a stairway and we share a kitchen. I will send out my lad to attend to your horses and, perhaps, my maidservant will run baths upstairs.”
Derek laughed, lifting his own armpit and taking a great wiff.
“What a very gentle suggestion,” he said in Westyl to the Keeper, “And an offer we will all accept.”
Derek had only heard of Houses of Wisdom, and longed to sit down and stay even though he was embarrassed of his travel stained state. Matt and the others were led away to the inn, but the Keeper said to Derek, “My Lord, there are baths here in the House.”
Derek looked about. He could smell coffee being pounded and coffee brewing.
“You could tell my love for the place.”
“You are one of those priests from the East, from our furthest outposts,” the Keeper said. “Yes, and you, young lord,” he nodded to Conn. “Let me show you the way.”
There were hushed voices having a heated discussion at one table, and youngish loud voices talking of very little at another. Trails of cigarette and cheroot smoke tendriled through the air and now, as they entered into a second room only divided by a rice curtain, they could hear the singer at his lute lift his voice to another song:
Inē yemiwedewi bētihi bicha nenyi
yetewededechiwi iraswa āyidelechimi
iwinetenya fik’iri legenizebi newi
leyazewi šat’ini āyidelemi ”
iwinetenyawi tewedaji liyu newi
jimirihi ina mech’ereshahi mani newi?
yanini sīyagenyu.
As they passed through the rice curtain, they could hear the sizzling food and smell meat and bread beyond this small cool and darkened corridor. As they traveled it, to the right was a door to the kitchen and the kitchen was lit and half outdoors. Conn saw that it opened to a central courtyard, and he wondered at the shape of these buildings, but the corridor he and Derek were in ended at a bathroom, and the Keeper said, “Here. Here. Take your ease, and I will prepare food and drink.”
Since they had arrived in Niakkaran, Derek had tried to understand the streets and the buildings, and now he remembered they had come here through an alley. So were the bath and the kitchen facing the side of a street or another alley? He wondered, was all the block one great building? He had seen a courtyard. Or were there several buildings joined together?
“Most likely,” Conn said, “it is a bit of both.”
Conn had traveled into Chyr with Ohean before, and informed Derek, “There were probably several buildings, and some of those buildings may have been joined into one. Doors and hallways were made to join some together, and walls to put some apart. Likely you could never tell where one ended and one began. That great house we passed with the women sitting in the window is possibly somehow linked to where we are now. Oh, there would be discreet walls to divide it, but it would not be like in Kingsboro where all the houses and shops are separate structures from each other.”
“And even in Kingsboro that is not always the case,” Derek remembered.
For many of the great mansions had ground floors, and even first and second floors that were shops and eateries, and at night they were cleared out so that the homeless and the vagrant or, if one preferred, the poor and travelers who paid a small fee had a place to sleep. On the opposite side of all that were servants quarters and kitchens reached by alleys and then, on the second or the third floors of those great houses, reached by private alleys and elegant staircases, were gardens and over the gardens still three more stories where the wealthy lived, their world high above the streets. In times when Derek, as a Blue, had the prestige and fortune to be in such settings he saw that, while from the main streets one saw a sheer faced six or seven story building with, perhaps, a nod toward style, when you went through black iron gates into private alleys and up into the elevated gardens, one could see, even in what seemed the rougher parts of Kingsboro, fountains, patios, many windowed entries into ballrooms and parlors, ornate turrets, bays and expensively tiled roves. And there were little bridges, connecting great house one to another so that the wealthy rarely had to touch the ground, castles in the air, a world of rose and gold and jade colored towers peeping above cool greenery, inward looking and removed from the world below.
“I suspect it is not like that here at all,” Conn said. “And I prefer that.”
They splashed about in a deep stone tub filled with cool water though Conn thought the spigots could be made to send down hotter water if he so desired, and at this moment he did not. This bathroom, floored by stone flags, was both dark and clean with no foul smells, no dampness. But he could see that there were shower stalls on the other side of this little wall, so this was public. A staircase beyond them led up to faint noise and Conn said pointing toward it, “Do you suppose that is the inn the Keeper spoke of?”
“I would guess we are in the bathing tubs for the inn,” Derek said, “and the regular showers are for the visitors to the House of Learning, for properly speaking a House of Learning is supposed to have everything you could wish for.”
“This is why I wanted us to stay here,” Conn said. “The Blue Houses, the ones that are not temples, are based on Houses of Learning, for in Chyr, where everyone reveres the Old Gods, Houses to Adaon are everywhere and used by everyone.”
Derek did not say, “What are we waiting for?” But he did stop lounging and scrubbed himself quickly, leaping out of the bath and changing into a fresh blue robe.
When they came out, and returned to the large, darkened room, filled with its smells of cheroot, cigarette and good food, a handsome young man put plate and bowls before them, placed his hands together, bowed and removed himself. Despite the heat of the day outside, it was cool in this windowless place, and they set to on hot bean soup and chicken, and beef wrapped in flat bread. In this room a new singer was clapping a tambourine on his thigh and singing to three who sat on the floor, listening.
“Yefik’irenyamochi yets’edeyi wek’iti met’itwali
yihi ye’ābwara sahini ye’ātikiliti sifira inidīhoni
yemenigišite semayati k’ali met’a
yenefisi wefi beberera iniditinesa!
“Baḥiru be’inik’u temola
yech’ewi regiregama inide kawitari t’afach’i yihonali
dinigayu kema‘idini wisit’i ānidi rubī yihonali
sewineti mulu nefisi yihonali!”
Nodding their heads and murmuring, two turbaned old men sat on the floor, drinking coffee and playing chess, and in the next room, the teacher was getting louder:
“Yezīhi dīgirī timihiriti besebati kifilochi yetekefele sīhoni be’āt’ek’alayi begoneti ijigi bemīyamiru k’elemochi tegelit’wali. Yešine migibari gidētawochi behulumi bota bet’ibik’i tefet͟s’amī nachewi. yemelekoti baḥiriyi ፣ baḥiriyi baḥiriyatina fits’imina betamanyineti teleyitewi begidaji teleyitewali.
“Inami inide ābatachini bego ādiragī ina yemorali gezhi inidemehonachini met’eni le’irisu yalenini migibarati be’isu layi tets’i‘ino lemasaderi bedenibi yiselalu። mahiberawī nuro...”
Now Derek supposed if he had not been so hungry, or so engrossed in the music or in the very quiet of the place, he would have seen and heard quicker. He was surprised at his own surprise. In the corner, on the other side of what would have been the wall to the kitchen, and a corner they had surely passed, were two great rubber plants but through them, with this being the only thing to hide them, were two men fucking.
Derek’s toe pushed Conn’s and Conn turned to look. The very darkness of the room afforded some privacy, along with the plants, but not a total privacy, and while Conn felt himself hardening, his whole understanding of the place changed. Unlike a Blue House, where things might be discreetly hidden away, the House of Learning revealed all.
Even as the singer finished there was a shuddering of coming on the other side of the plants, and all stopped, turning slowly, almost reverentially, to look, and then turning away. Conn did not feign his hunger and his desire to keep eating, and the two men got up from behind the plants, holding their clothes in bundles beside their naked selves and, linking hands, went to the shower rooms. Meanwhile, without shame, two boys who had been listening to the singer went into another corner, where there was not even a screen of plants, but only a pallet of mats, and began undressing. As they began to kiss and link bodies, and the rice curtain from the other room opened to allow in Gabriel, Cal, Matt and Quinton, all freshly bathed, the singer lifted his voice and strumming his lute quickly, cried:
“Fik’iri kesu gari minimi gininyuneti yelewimi
āmisitu yesimēti hiwasati ina sidisitu āk’it’ach’awochi
gibu memokeri bicha newi!
Betewedajineti yetešerawi mesihibi ፡፡
beḫwala minalibati fek’adi
ke’igizī’ābiḥēri yimet’ali!”
The feeling which, after so many years, Conn was finally coming to understand struck him. It was the feeling that tightened his scrotum and made his cock stiff, where in the midst of experiencing the holy, in the midst of attempting to transcend he understood what true transcendence was, what his path was. The path was beyond good and evil, or at least beneath them. It moved with emotion and sometimes left him feeling confused by his own actions. The very first times, and if he was honest, more than the very first times, when he’d found himself having sex with his sister’s husband, deep inside of Jon and enjoying it, those times had been like this. He had been unnerved, even ashamed of his own actions. It had been like this far back in the woods when he had told Derek he would not come to him at the orgy, and he had ended pouring his seed into Thano all night, and then doing the same with Jon in the morning. Now, perhaps, he could finally learn to bow to desire.
While they all swayed to the music, Conn, lowered himself to his knees and crawled under the table, He lifted Derek’s robes and felt Derek twitch, and then he took Derek in his mouth and began to suck him.
“Fik’iri kesu gari minimi gininyuneti yelewimi
āmisitu yesimēti hiwasati ina sidisitu āk’it’ach’awochi
gibu memokeri bicha newi!
Betewedajineti yetešerawi mesihibi,
beḫwala ፣ minalibati ፣ fek’adi
ke’igizī’ābiḥēri yimet’ali!”
His mouth and tongue moved up and down Derek’s penis, feeling him grow larger, harder in his mouth, feeling the familiar budding uplift of his cock, tugging on his scrotum and massaging it, thrusting his finger along taint and into ass while Derek, along with the music, cried out at the table. As the guitar increased, so did the snaking of Conn’s head. He was in the sex possession as happened now and again. He was at worship, cock worship, the idol, the image of the God, swelling in his mouth.
Conn held onto Derek’s naked hips under this robe, but he felt Derek moving away now, standing up, coming down under the table with him. Derek took him by the hand, and he came up from under the table with him. While the music grew wilder, and the others clapped their hands, Derek freed himself of his robe and stood there, milk white, black haired, red lipped, and he undressed Conn as well, While the shawms played and the lovers made love, while the other Blue Priests clapped their hands, Derek embraced Conn, and they kissed in the private open, in the dark back room of the wisdom house where anyone could come but few did. They held onto each other like wrestlers and kissed like long lost lovers, and as the music wound down, and first cries of orgasm were heard from boys tangled together on mats in the dar corner of that room, Conn and Derek sank to the floor, linked in love.
