North, South, East, and West [One-Shot]
Oct 24, 2018 1:16:47 GMT -5
Post by ELIRA on Oct 24, 2018 1:16:47 GMT -5
Year 2945 of the Third Age
In Nalaikh, a city which stood between the Red Cliffs and the Great Eastern Desert, a gong rang, and colorful flags wafted in the breezes beneath the tall observatory. The scent of spices drifted from windows inside the stone fortress below, and bells sang brightly as people moved upon the streets, dark of hair and dark of eye, wearing brightly colored dresses and tunics. In the highest window of the observatory, facing the western horizon stood the Od Üzmerch, the oracle. She stood with her hands upon the window ledge, staring outward, her thoughts as distant as her steel grey gaze. White hair fell to her waist, slender braids holding it back, clasped in silver.
Behind her another woman stepped into the room, Tsetseg, the watcher, nearly a full foot shorter, though slender as reed, with raven hair, a round tanned face, and eyes the color of deepest earth. Both women stood in mute silence, the watcher garbed in colorful wrap and pagden, and the oracle cast in only white.
“Tell me, Tsetseg,” the Od Üzmerch spoke upon hearing the young woman step into the room, her voice far away. “What does it feel of to walk upon the sand?” It had been so long ago that the oracle had walked upon anything but sleek stone within the tower, she could not recall the feel of it as her eyes drew over the rolling waves of liquid gold in the distance. The observatory tower in Nalaikh had been her home for over over thirteen hundred years. The oracle knew nothing else.
“It is soft, Od Üzmerch,” Tsetseg answered, used to the questions that would often come of the white haired oracle as she stared into the western sky each evening. The young woman’s arms were folded in front of her and the bells upon her wrists muffled to near silence as she spoke. “It burns during the day, and is cold during night. It shifts under your feet. The sand squeaks when you step.”
“It squeaks?” the oracle's voice cut quickly, a silvery lilt upon it. She turned her head suddenly, her white hair twisting over her shoulder as she looked upon the dark haired woman for the first time since she had entered the room with her this night, the corner of her lip turned in amusement.
“Yes, like a jerboa as it hops across the sands,” Tsetseg added, as the Od Üzmerch turned back to the window, a single clear laugh escaping her lips. She had watched from above the children playing in the courtyard with the tiny jerboas. She remembered long ago, when she had been small, in the days before Nalaikh, the way she had lured one from it's hole by just the hum of her voice, and how it had seated upon her hand with it's large black eyes staring back at her, before going back to it's business in the dusk. They way the jerboa squeaked and hopped had always amused her. She turned back to silence, in thought as she heard the sound of horses hooves below, though said nothing else.
The oracle did not answer her, and thus Tsetseg continued, knowing she wished for more. “It is difficult to walk in the deep sands. Each footfall pushes you down, and backward. Twice the energy you must expend, and the grains fall over and bury your feet. They sink into the depths. It holds you in place.”
Tsetseg paused again, hesitating. “Should I continue?” she asked eventually.
The Od Üzmerch did not look away from her window view, though waved a delicate hand behind her to bid Tsetseg still her speech. “Chhh...” she breathed to silence her. She was listening to a conversation below; far off in the lower courtyard, though her eyes did not travel there lest she give away her keen hearing. The Zakhiral; the chieftain, was now here, for his voice and discussion were ringing below. His voice was loud. He did not even try to hide his words from all around him, the way the prior Zakhiral had done. He was foolish.
The oracle's hand fell back to her side as the conversation far below stopped, and Tsetseg watched her, waiting, until the shoulders of the white haired woman relaxed, then finally the dark haired one asked the older, “What does it feel to walk upon the stars?”
A wry smile crossed the lips of of the Od Üzmerch, though she did not turn behind her to look. Her voice came light and clear. “It feels as a million shards of glass. Sharp slivers pierce the soles of your feet, and blood falls turning to red meteors as it flies towards the desert. Do you see the red cliffs from the northern watch?” she asked, pausing while Tsetseg turned to glance through the window she spoke of. Through moonlight the cliffs well known to the people cut upward from the desert plain.
“The cliffs are stained red by my blood,” the oracle finished. Her smile was hidden from the woman, for her own eyes had not left the western sky.
There was another beat of silence while the oracle listened to running footsteps below. She knew the sound of them. It was Chaghatai, a boy no older than seven summers. A messenger, who would be sent to the gatekeeper below to announce the entrance of the Zakhiral.
“Tell me, Tsetseg,” the Od Üzmerch began again. “What does it feel to walk within water?” Her eyes fell upon the fountain in the courtyard; gleaming in the light of the moon. Then her gaze coursed to the river Erhi, which passed between the city of Nalaikh and the desert wastelands, where the riverboats would sail to and from the far off Eastern Sea.
“You leave behind no footprints in the waters; they cover all,” Tsetseg answered. “The river pools about your feet, and it feels year round as the spring breezes which come from the north; cold and clear. The water pulses, and splashes, and ripples upon around you. The tension spreads around your ankles as they break through, like when you reach into the washbasin with your fingers; breaking the tension upon the surface.”
The Od Üzmerch smiled at the thought; her fingers moving surreptitiously in the air as she imagined touching the river, the way she would tread her fingers through the bowl of wash water that was brought to her each morning.
She was silent, her ears perking to the sound of the lock working within the metal gate below as the messenger was allowed in by the gatekeeper. She waited, and her fingers came back to grip upon the stone casement and her ears tuned to the call of a nighthawk in the far distance, and minutes passed in silence while she listened to Chaghatai beneath arguing with the gatekeeper; for nobody but Tsetseg was allowed into the chambers of the oracle alone, and the Zakhiral was making demands.
“What does it feel to walk upon the sun?” Tsetseg asked, having no knowledge of the goings on below that were keeping the attention of the Od Üzmerch.
The Od Üzmerch gave a long pause. “The sun burns with a fire that cannot die. She blinds you first, and then her heat scorches your body, until your flesh burns from your muscles, and your bones turn to grey ash. Your soul flees to the abyss of the night sky to be remade by stardust.” She spoke, and her voice was even.
“Do you see the grey wastes to the southern watch?” asked the Od Üzmerch, and Tsetseg glanced to the southern window where the rolling hills of mottled grey shrubland reached ever southward toward Khand. “The hills are my bones ground to dust and ash. When the southern breeze blows hot, you swallow me in the dust of their wake, and feel me burning your throat. Do you know the feeling?”
“I do,” Tsetseg answered as her throat constricted against the thought.
“Then tell me now, Tsetseg,” the eyes of the oracle flicked back to the round pallid face of the young woman behind her. “What does it feel of to touch the soil?”
“The fields are rolling, brown, rich; smelling deeply of clay, and loam, and blossoms. And as the season passes, greenery as earth gives life to root and stem. Soil has life within; life which sand does not.”
“I smell it far off on the breeze. Subtle,” the Od Üzmerch answered, glancing toward the eastern window wher the Red Mountains rose high; though at the roots of the mountains the fertile valley and fields made enough food to feed a kingdom. Small farm buildings and tents clung like beetles to to the mountain’s edges, where square patches of field were walked by ox, day after day, and through the season brown and red turned to green and gold; until the harvest when again the patches rode brown through winters.
“Though strongly scented up close. The smell clings to skirts and sandals. My Father farms yet, and so my Mother, and sisters, but I was chosen to serve here. I am among the privileged,” a hint of pride came to Tsetseg’s voice.
“Is it privilege to stand the days upon stone?” the oracle wondered; her voice a low monotone, without lilt or swing to her tempo. “Stone has no scent. No feel but cold and smooth. It gives no life.” The white haired woman turned back to the view of glossy sky before her in the west overlaying the desert. She sighed; though it was inward; soundless and motionless; listening to the voices below as she tried to see across the sands to far off lands where the ground was rich and fertile, not only within the worked fields, but everywhere the eye could see. To the land of trees which rested in her dreams. The wind gusted for a moment; a sing of sand biting off the desert as it struck against the oracle’s cheek, and she felt it grit between her teeth and frowned, but gave no movement in response as time passed by and the light of stars began to brighten in the sky. She could hear the breaths of Tsetseg behind her; waiting, ands he knew the question would come before it did.
“How do moon beams feel upon your feet? Have you walked on the moon? Have you--”
“Chhh...” the oracle hushed the young woman, silvery eyes cast over her shoulder. “You would ask after the moonbeams. Liquid beams which fall to earth; pure, bright liquid in a white bowl; like cream upon goatsmilk. Yet to walk upon it, no. One does not walk upon the moon, upon the moonbeams.”
“You have not?” Tsetseg interrupted.
“I have,” the oracle answered lightly.
“But you have said,--”
“One does not simply walk upon the moon.” The voice of the Od Üzmerch came, intoned as if she were speaking to a child. Tsetseg was no more than a child to she who had lived as long and longer than any in this realm remembered. “One dissolves within the moon. It is liquid. One sinks into the orb of cream silver.”
With a light swift motion, the tall woman spun around, and her slender fingers flew out, splayed upon the tender neck of the watcher, tightening. “One sinks within the orbs and dissolves within, until breath is stolen and the air is turned to liquid light. There is nothing but to eek out life on lakes of poison breath.” The oracle relaxed her fingers, annoyed an anxious, for voices were growing louder up the stairwell. Tsetseg was wide eyed, and she waited; as if her feet were sunken into the tower floor.
“If you stood as I,” the oracle noted, her anxiety drawing the better of her as she paced across the floor, from the western window to the eastern. “If you stood as I through the very reaches of the night; and stared long upon the eastern watch; you would know this. When the moon rises high and full, you would see how all dissolves beneath everything the light touches. Even green grass turns to white liquid.”
The hands of the Od Üzmerch clutched upon the windowframe as she looked outward, and then upward toward the open roof. The stars twinkling above as night grew dimmer, and a deep sob tried to rise within her throat. “Even the grass is diminished,” she whispered. Her eyes trailed not back upon Tsetseg, but the oracle crossed the room to the place where she stood and stared at the western horizon. Beneath the window the stone was most smooth here; worn away by her feet and her steps; slick as oil upon ice beneath her feet.
“And what of the grass?” the oracle spoke now, as her eyes moved below to the courtyard; shadowed figures were in motion; the great form of the Zakhiral now stepping beneath her tower; the manicured garden below saw blades of grass crushed beneath his step. “How does it feel to walk upon the grass? To twine it beneath your fingers?”
“The grass is soft, yet sharp,” Tsetseg whispered.
“How can it be both?” came swift the question of the oracle.
“One walks upon the grass and it bends and gives; a pillow under foot; Yet a single blade has razor edge, as the scimitar. Pulled swiftly over skin it cuts. With force it deals damage; though if handled gently one could hardly question it as a weapon.”
“A living sword...” the Od Üzmerch murmured curiously, again moved to silence as the door slammed below.
Tsetseg shifted on her feet, uncomfortable in the moment. Many in the city said that the Od Üzmerch was a kelet, a spirit from the stars walking upon the earth. Perhaps she was a star itself fallen from the sky. Her questions were as strange as any who had come from the sky. If what she spoke was true, than surely she was, and the Goddess of Night was the one whom had sent her. “What does it feel to walk through the abyss between the stars?” Tsetseg asked curiously, and the oracle's fingers became motionless.
“The abyss is void,” the oracle answered swiftly. “It feels of nothing.” Thoughts of grass, of soil and sand, of water, all began to fade from the oracle's mind and her expression once more became the void itself. Her eyes sunk into the sight of the western watch. Of it, she had no comparison; for there she had never gone.
“Of nothing?” Tsetseg wondered.
“Of nothing,” the Od Üzmerch answered, for the time for Tsetseg's questions was finished. She heard the sound of the messenger nearing, followed by the tap of a small hand upon the door, and the watchman outside lifted the bar to open it for him. Chaghatai whispered to Tsetseg, but the oracle did not listen for she already new what words would be spoken.
“You have a visitor tonight, Od Üzmerch. He waits below to know if the stars foretell his coming.” Tsetseg, spoke from arched doorway as she turned back into the observatory, her hands folded in front of her.
“Send the new Zakhiral in to me. The stars have told me he waits,” Od Üzmerch stated placidly, turning from the gilt arched window in the white room; pale face framed within her white hair. Her expression was blank. The moon shone overhead; flooding white light though the open rooftop, onto the marble table below, where was carved the star chart of the years. Seasons, months, and days intersected. Blue stone inlays marked the stars of the firmament; the only color placed within the room. The only color save for the blue gray eyes of the oracle.