One autumn, long before you were born, your uncle Mika and I took a long walk into the grey forest. It was Dujas who sent us there. He had written a letter to Mika by the illegal footpaths. It said there was something we needed to find before the Keks did. We were young, but not so young we couldn’t remember the time before the occupation. We would do anything to subvert the Kekmen, the masked agents of the Aturkyk parliament. They took whatever and whoever they wanted, and anyone who spoke against them was exiled to the bitter cold Witelands.
We walked for three days, not following the registered trails. There were checkpoints on the high roads and we had no money for bribes. On the second day came the grey fog. Even where it was thin it stayed in the treetops and blocked out the sun. Somehow Mika knew the way. He told me the trees all pointed him there.
“Soon,” said Mika on the third night. “He will show us tomorrow. Just like he showed Dujas a hundred years ago.” He spoke in a loud whisper, in the native Liht. This was what we called the language of the woods.
“Mika,” I said, “It’s been three days of walking in these fisherman’s shoes. My soles and legs are wearing out. I have come this far without a question because I love and trust you, and you are my cousin, but at least tell me something - where are we going? What are we looking for? Who have we come to see?”
Mika changed in front of me, drawing his back straight, shifting his arms back. He stopped being Mika, my guide and little cousin. Instead he was Mikalas, the wolf-slayer, the one who had escaped alone from the Bykriria riots, the one who found his way in the woods by asking the trees.
After a pause, he said, “We are going to see a king.”
That answer meant practically nothing. The last king of Liht, Alixus the Fallen, had died when we were children and left no heir. The Keks had overthrown their last king centuries ago and were ruled by a tangled cabal of their wealthiest families. The only living King I could think of was the Cambrian King Kerl, but he was a powerless figurehead.
We took the last hare we had brought and spit-roast it over the fire, adding the smallest bit of pepper we could spare. We slept on the ground with an ear to the earth. I dreamt that night, like many others, of the ocean. A good wind on a warm day, the constant to and fro of waves. I woke to find Mika shaking me awake, a thin frost on my clothes and hair.
“He is close. Leave your things. We must approach directly and without any fear.”
Half my soul still far off at sea, I rose and followed him. He walked noisily, crashing through the undergrowth. Still the trees pointed, and we walked for another hour, and he whispered—
“Look.”
It was watching us from a thick of new trees, completely still. Huge and black, the mightiest creature I’ve ever imagined. It could’ve pushed over a house just by leaning on one wall.
“Alut Mashka,” said Mika, “the King of the Bears. And the king of the bears is the king of the whole forest.”
It is hard to describe or even remember what we felt in his presence - it was not fear. He scared the fear right out of us. We don’t have this word in the government tongue, but in old Liht, they call this feeling “sedu” or “awe.” I remember it was so powerful that tears came from both our eyes, though we felt neither joy nor sorrow.
We came forward, walking straight to where he stood. When we were ten paces away, the bear king rose and stood two men high.
“Now kneel,” said Mika. “Kneel before the king or he will strike us both dead.”
We fell to our knees. Above us, the king stood, huge and black and silent. He never looked directly at either of us.
“Now he will show us,” said Mika. “And then go. Do not rise until he is gone.”
The king fell to four paws. He made no sound but we felt him through the ground. The dogwood and cedar saplings quivered, as if afraid.
With one paw, the king scratched at the earth, ripping out a hole big enough to bury a dog. Then he turned his back to us and began to walk away. He never moved fast, but in only a moment he was gone.
Time passed. Birds and wind and the constant low sounds of the forest started again. We stood and went to the hole left by the bear king. At the bottom of the hole was an box. We took it out. It was made from aged dark gold oak. There worn carvings on the top, and deep gouges where the bear king’s claws had raked the surface. There was one symbol I could barely make out on the surface. It was the old Liht symbol for “story.” The rest of the writing had long ago been taken by the damp earth.
“It is locked,” said Mika, handing the box to me. “We will have to return to Byel and pay Alytus to open it for us.”
“We could break it open,” I said, “if we had to.”
“I wouldn’t dare,” said Mika. “It is a gift from the bear king. That makes it far more important than either of our lives.”
“It says ‘story’ here. What do you think is inside?” I shook it gently. I couldn’t feel anything move.
“Perhaps it’s a book.”
“Then we’d better stay away from the Kekmen. They will surely take it and charge us with book smuggling.”
Mika looked sullen and turned away from me for a moment.
“What is it?” I said.
“We have no food left. I had thought we could stop by one of the rationing stations to bargain or steal, but you’re right. We can’t go anywhere near the Keks. So here’s what we’ll do. You will carry the box to Bykar Camp. It is usually deserted except for the ragged and penniless woodsmen who hunt furs these parts. In either case, the Keks don’t bother with it because there’s nothing for them to steal. I will take my bow and try to find us a bit of food and meet you there tonight.”
“I know the camp, yes. But I do not know the way there.”
“There’s a new blaze trail that runs along some ridges to the north. There’s no footpath so the Keks won’t find it. In the straight and tall poplars there are knife marks about the height of a child. It is meant to look as if a bear might have scratched there. Do not walk in a straight line. Walk like an animal and you will be harder to follow. If you lose the trail, look for the higher ground. From there you can usually see the poplar tops and hopefully find it again. If you are not at Bykar by nightfall I will look for you, so build a fire and stay put. The night will be probably cold, cousin. You can tell because the birds and squirrels are acting frantic.”
We parted ways. I was hungry. I took some spruce needles and crushed them in my teeth. The flavor was bitter but it was something. I soon found the trail Mika had mentioned. I now understood how the trees had given him directions. The woodsmen of Liht were far more organized than the Keks or anyone else gave them credit for. There was a meaning to each upturned rock, each broken branch.
After the morning had passed, I began to feel irritable with hunger. Why had Mika deserted me? Why had he left the box with me? What if the Keks knew about this trail? They were not smart, but they were rich. Any woodsman who tired of selling firs and meat could make a great deal of money by selling secrets.
I stopped to collect my thoughts and rest my legs. Something stirred in the leaves beside me. I startled for a moment, before seeing it was only a blacksnake. The snake flipped up onto its belly and stopped moving, as though it were dead. I had a small hatchet with me. I could kill and eat it, I thought. Mika and his father had once showed me when we were both children. If you removed the head, you could skewer it over a fire until the fat runs clear. It tasted like an oily and tough kind of fish. The snake only lay there, offering its tender white belly.
But I didn’t kill it. I was tired, and began to remember an old toothless man from Rythis, a town only a day away from where I was, who had come to Byel with a cart of peat and tree oil. The old man had drunk some vodka with the adults, and in high spirits, had begun to tell us children’s stories from his hometown.
Many of them were the stories of Keevas, a young man who traveled the world collecting and selling wisdom. Keevas would buy stories from people, and when they told him, the stories became forgotten and Keevas kept them, until he, in turn, would sell them to someone else, whereupon he too forgot the story. When Keevas got to be very old, a rich merchant from Rythis payed him for every story he knew and wrote them all down. Keevas then became rich, but forgot everything he knew. Foolishly, he then gambled away his fortune.
In this story of Keevas, as written in the merchants book, then retold by the old toothless visitor, Keevas had once been walking when he tripped over a snake and hurt his ankle. The snake tried to get away, but Keevas caught it.
“You are a menace,” said Keevas. “I should kill you and sell your skin.”
“It’s always bad luck to kill a blacksnake,” hissed the serpent.
“Tell me why,” said Keevas, “and I will let you free.”
“We don’t forget or forgive. Whether you kill me or not, I will follow you until you reach a moment of true despair. If you leave me alive, I will help you. If you don’t, I will make sure you die.”
“Very well,” said Keevas, “but if you do not stick to your word, I will kill every snake I find from this day on.”
He let the snake slither away. Later that day, he was attacked by bandits. They were on horses but he was on foot. He set off running into the forest. Just as the bandits were closing in, a hundred snakes came out from the leaves and started biting the horses on the legs. The bandits lost control of their mounts and toppled off. In a panic, they ran, leaving Keevas to collect their money and swords.
“You were true to your words,” he told the snake, along with all its family. “I will never again touch a snake in all my days.”
Many years later, as a forgetful and ruined man, Kevas was tending to turnips in his garden when he found a snake among the weeds. Without even hesitating, he killed it with his shovel. Later that day, a traveling Kek officer arrived at his house demanding “taxes”, meaning he expected a meal. Having no food to spare, Keevas prepared the snake he had killed. The officer was so offended that he had Keevas executed and buried in his own garden.
I sat and idly wondered if perhaps the old man still remembered the story after telling it to us. I couldn’t decide - perhaps in being written, the stories had been preserved. Or perhaps, when the old man, or whoever, read the story from the page, the ink had blurred away.
I stood and flipped the snake over with my foot. It looked up at me for only a second, with reptilian yellowgreen eyes, showing no fear or anger or goodwill, merely seeing me and ready to bite or flee in a moment. It slipped away through the leaves, and I kept going. It wasn’t long until the hunger pangs returned, and I felt very foolish for taking a children’s story so literally.
The blazes began to change. Now the cuts in the trees began to cross each other. It was something that Mika would have understood, but I didn’t know the meaning of them. It seemed to be a warning, or perhaps I was on the wrong trail. Using my own hatchet, I notched two vertical lines in a tree. I didn’t know what message I was sending, but I hoped the fresh cuts would help Mika find me later.
I noticed a blackbird that seemed to be following me. My mother used to call them the watching-birds because they had the same yellow eyes as the the old Liht god, Elir. Elir was known as the watcher, the one who could look through the eyes of any being anywhere. I was reminded of another story of Keevas, then. I ran through it in my mind to help pass the day.
Keevas was traveling through the lake-lands in western Aturkyk. This was long before their current rulers had taken power. In those days, Atur was much like Liht. Everyone took their food from the earth and lived simply. Somehow, Keevas had come into some money and was looking to buy stories as it was said many of the people from those parts were very wise.
Keevas saw an old man in a single-sail boat, collecting weeds from the water. I don’t know very much about water-plants in those parts, but I’ve heard of some kinds of Yato roots can be crushed to make a kind of medicine.
He hailed to the old man, who steered his boat close to the shore to let Keevas on board. The man was old and thin, but had a thick black beard and yellow eyes that looked unusually bright.
“I am a story-collector from the east,” said Keevas. “You seem to have seen many things here, and I will pay you to tell me one of the very best stories from this land.”
“Mmm,” said the old man, as if lost in thought. “No, I do not sell my stories. I don’t need the money.”
“Everyone needs money.”
“I’m old. I don’t.”
“Well then, maybe we can make a trade. I will tell you one of my favorites if you tell me one of yours.”
“Very well,” said the old man, “but let us go out onto the water so that nobody else may hear. I’m not above telling stories, and I have many, many stories to tell, but I won’t let them be heard by just anyone.”
Keevas agreed, though he wasn’t sure who might be around to hear. He had been walking all morning, and had barely seen another person, save for some dozing guards at a checkpoint.
When they were in the center of the lake, Keevas began his story. It was one from the south, a story about a prince whose father is overthrown and ends up destitute. The prince worked for a long time at a church, sweeping the floors and plotting revenge against those who had usurped his father. All the while, the prince had a long romance with a beautiful girl who would come to the church sometimes in the middle of the night. The girl and he talked for long hours and fell in love, but she never let him know her real name. The prince nicknamed her Lily, and so to him, that became her name.
By and by, there came an opportunity for the prince to take his revenge. The commander who had plotted the coup against his father made a show of being religious, and one night the prince overheard him talking to an advisor. The commander was going to leave for a few days to a secret meeting with a diplomat of some sort, taking only his daughter. The deal to be arranged was that the diplomat would take his daughter to marry, and in turn the commander would be allowed to annex a neighboring provence with no interference.
The prince climbed a tree above their meeting point and waited there with his bow for the right time. When the commander came with his daughter, the prince could scarcely believe what he saw. It was the girl he called Lily. She was crying at the prospect of being sent abroad, losing the life she’d made for herself and losing the love of the church-boy she’d known all this time.
With two well-placed arrows he killed the diplomat and the commander, then jumped down from the tree to his love. After he explained what he’d heard and what he’d done, she tearfully thanked him. Together, they returned to the city where the prince took back the vacant seat of his father.
When Keevas had finished, the old man only shook his head for a moment. “No,” he said, “That’s not what I saw.”
The old man then began to tell the same story, but with many of the details changed. His viewpoint also changed often - sometimes he told the story as the girl saw it, thinking of the church-boy as an innocent naif who knew nothing of the world. He told the story of the military commander frustrated with the king who ceded away territory for foreign influence, and disbanded many of the best units of their once-powerful army.
“And you were wrong about the ending,” said the old man. “It was a trap. The commander knew the whole time where the prince was, and that he often spoke with his daughter. He sent her there, poor thing. When he realized the prince would try and take back the throne, he set up a trap, to lure him out to the mountains. It’s true that he killed the diplomat. The commander had wanted that - it caused the diplomat’s country to attack, and they were soon crushed by the commander’s superior army, and ended up paying a hefty tribute. And the girl - whose name was Lila, by the way, not that far off from Lily - never forgave the former prince for killing her future husband, who she really didn’t dislike so much. The young boy was soon captured and tried for murder. The girl did go to visit him in prison, once she understood everything and told him she was very sorry for what had happened. But she was married away not long afterwards. I watched it all happen, it was quite sad.”
Keevas, upon hearing the morbid truth of one of his favorite story, began to fight back tears. It was then that he realized who he was speaking to. He begged Elir to tell him a happy story to cheer him up, but the old man refused.
“I envy you,” was all the old man said to him, “because you men can live in your fictions. I’ve watched every life go by, and it’s so very short. Even the good lives, the happy stories I know, they all end the same. Most of you die alone and afraid, and even the ones who don’t spend a good deal of time in sorrow. But that’s the price of it all, isn’t it? Besides, all you have to do to forget this story is to tell it to someone else.”
“Did the girl love the prince? At least tell me that.”
“She did. But she loved other men too. Everyone always does.” With that, the old man jumped into the lake and sank to the bottom.
I walked onwards, through my hunger and my doubt and wondering what I would feel were I in Keevas’ place. It was easier to accept the old man’s story than Keevas’ one. Life with the occupation made despair and sorrow far easier to understand than happy endings. I could remember the time that childish belief in the goodness of the world had first been ripped away from me.
It happened when I was young, perhaps about ten years old. The Kekmen had just arrived in substantial numbers, and there were rumors everywhere of a rebellion getting organized. Some of the young men from our village disappeared into the forest. Stories of them would filter through our town, told in low voices, always in the night when we were sure the Keks weren’t listening. It was mostly small things, the Keks getting their food supplies plundered, or sometimes a patrol would be ambushed.
As the stories continued, a couple of local heroes emerged. Two of the brightest young men from our town, Yutas and Tyrai, were said to be menacing the Keks and constantly eluding them. It was said that they would strike in the night, killing Kekmen and taking supplies, then vanishing into the darkness. The Keks posted wanted posters everywhere, sometimes searching house to house breaking down doors looking for them. They were never found.
Then the Keks started wearing black wooden masks whenever they were on patrol. They were afraid, everyone said, to show their faces for fear of Yutas and Tyrai coming in the night. It was only a matter of time, the old folks said. We were winning.
The winter that year was exceptionally cold. My family had a bit of money left over from selling the horses, and we still had the boat though it badly needed repair. Our potatoes were buried in good earth, so they lasted even through the coldest frost. We did not starve. Others did. Through the whole of it, I held onto the belief that Yutas and Tyrai would drive the Keks out, and come into the town with a full caravan of food.
That belief was perhaps unfortunately true. A caravan arrived in the thick of winter, with a Kek escort of six masked men. A crowd formed in the middle of town as hungry Lihts came pouring from their homes. I came forward with the rest of the crowd. I had no money, but I hoped that perhaps they would trust my family name and give me something on credit.
One of the Keks stood up on the first cart and shouted that it would cost seven brass for a loaf of bread, ten for a rack of meat. It was an outrageous price. Ten brass was usually the cost of a cow. Even the rich men in the crown began to yell. Nobody came forward.
The Kek folded his arms. He would not change the price.
“We will starve!” some of them shouted at him.
“That’s too bad. You should have saved more.”
With a great deal of noise, a dozen urchins descended on one of the carts in the back, beginning to run off with some bottles of wine. Four of the Keks ran after them. The two that were left got up on the cart and took out their crossbows. Even behind their masks, they looked very nervous. One of them was speaking to the other. The crowd quieted down for a second. Everyone seemed to think they might reduce the price.
“Now there’s only two!” someone shouted. Suddenly, the crowd surged forward, overturning the cart that the Keks had stood on. A riot, everyone grabbing whatever they could carry. Many of them descended on the two Keks, who were dragged underneath the crowd and kicked. I escaped the confusion with a loaf of bread, then climbed up on a snowdrift to watch.
Somehow one of the Keks managed to stand up. Before they could throw him to the ground again, he reached and tore the mask from his face. He held it up in front of him, like a flag of surrender. His face was bloody and he was crying. Everyone suddenly stopped and drew back. It was Yutas. He had grown a beard, but it was unmistakable.
The other was jerked to his feet, his mask torn away. There was Tyrai, looking exactly as he did when we’d last seen him, clean-cut and determined. He glared at Yutas angrily.
“They’ve returned,” I shouted, gleefully.
Yutas looked at me as if he had no idea who I was. “No,” he said. “We’re not Lihts anymore. We’ve nothing to return to.”
“Don’t you all get it,” shouted Tyrai, with an anger. “You can’t beat them. We thought like you all did once, but no. There’s no fighting the Keks. If you fight them, they punish you. That’s why you fools are starving. Because you cling to the idea of old Lihtia, a land with no king and with an incompetent government. The Aturkyk Parliament has offered you representation, but you refuse to participate. If you were to but pay your tribute and take your place in the coalition, there would be a caravan like this every week.”
“You’re a liar,” someone shouted back. The man closest to Tyrai clumsily struck him in the face. Tyrai fell and bounced back up, ready to fight, but Yutas laid a hand on his shoulder. Yutas was still crying, blood and tears dripping off his beard.
“Yes,” said Yutas. “We’re liars. We’re not heroes. We’re not even very good fighters. They caught everyone shortly after we met in the forest. They offered us one choice - join or die. Many chose to die. Tyrai and I chose to live. One of the Keks, a foreigner, suggested to our captors that we become more than just soldiers. We were much more valuable as heroes. So they made up stories about us, to make it seem like we were still out there. This, they said, would make sure that nobody else tried to defy them, because you already had Yutas and Tyrai. After that, there was no going back. The Keks would kill us if we refused, and once we heard about what heroes we were, well, it was nice to imagine. And believe me, I know how bad things are here. Maybe that’s why you need these fake-heroes like Tyrai and I. Maybe it’s better, because then you all may not have food, but you would still have a little bit of hope.”
An older man stepped out of the crowd. His name was Osiskuras, a wiry straigh-backed man with gray hair. He had been a fisherman for over fifty years.
“You’re a coward and a traitor,” he told Tyrai. Then he kicked him in the leg. Yutas yelled in pain and fell.
What followed, I did not witness. I simply ran away. I felt numb at first, but then gradually became sadder and sadder. I started to cry, angry at the Keks, at Yutas and Tyrai, and at the violent mob that had certainly killed them. I would’ve torn a hole into hell just to escape my village.
The late-day light went gold, the shadows of the trees became long and low. I found a blaze tree thad someone had felled with an ax. This made me suspicious. It could have been a warning from a woodsman, but I knew nothing about their coded signals. I decided it was probably the Keks, trying clumsily to hide the unauthorized trail. I kept on, no longer looking for blazes, but for freshly felled trees.
I noticed again, a blackbird that flitted ahead to every tree in my path. I could not tell if it was the same one as before, but something in me wanted to believe it was the watcher. I started to sense the true significance of what may be in the box I was carrying. Usually, I was a skeptical man. I’ve always believed we are small and insignificant to the greater workings of the world, and therefore we should only hope to be loved by those near us. But walking in the woods then, I was filled with a great sense of purpose, of mission. It was larger than our tiny rebellion against the Keks.
I began walking faster, as if the forest itself were somehow propelling me onwards. My eyes grew keen in the dying daylight, and I was still able to find my way until I looked up at the sky and realized that the stars were already trying to come out. The grey fog that lived in the forests lifted away, exposing a dark black sky with a new moon. I thought of the strong tides this would mean out on the water, a change for the women to gather amber and shellfish and for the fisherman to catch herring by barely leaving the shore. However in the woods, it only meant that I would have trouble seeing.
From far behind me, I heard the first howl of the night. The sound stayed in my chest and I felt an animal terror. My heart began pounding and my teeth clenched hard. It seemed less and less like I was on the right trail. I had been certain that Bykar Camp was less than a day away, that I would arrive to meet Mika already cooking our dinner.
Another howl. A chid from Byel always knows one thing about the grey forest. We know it is dangerous.
I had long heard stories of the wolf pack that lived east of the village. Their leader was called Mar Alek, which I’ve heard to mean Evil Prince in the ancient dialect, before the first Lihts came. He and his pack had ruled the grey forest since before the ruins of Notrol were even built. Mar Alek himself was a thousand years old, the color of cold steel, more ruthless than any beast in Lihtia. He bowed to no-one, not even the bear king. For most of my life, I had not even believed he was real. Of course, I had not always believed in the bear king either. There in the forest, hearing the wolves, Mar Alek was more present in my mind than ever.
He was but the worst of a thousand terrors said to live in the forest. I also began to think of the Vilkasho, a mysterious cult of men allegiant to Mar Alek and none other. They were men who ran the forest with the wolves, killing animal and men alike, sharing with the pack. And of course, there was also the Keks. This is why the woodsman were so well respected. They knew more than how to find their way in the daylight. They knew how to survive at night.
I had to start a fire. That much was clear. The placement, I knew, was as important as the fire itself. There was a protocol among the woodsmen, about where and how to start a fire that would stay hidden. I reasoned that the best spot would be on a hillside, about halfway up, with the wind blowing down the hill. This way, I figured I could only be detected from one direction, which I could keep under watch.
Perhaps, I realized, this was why Mika had chosen Bykar. I had been there before. It was a three-walled shelter, facing out over a shallow vale. There was a trail that led a short ways up to a stone outcropping where one could see the entire valley, including the trails leading up from either side.
I tried to find another spot where I could easily get to higher ground. This was not as easy as I imagined. I found one site that seemed out of the way, but was too steep to lay down on without rolling down the hillside. Another spot, a short ways away, was littered with many loose rocks, meaning any movement I made would be easily detected far below.
I climbed higher on the poplar ridge, perhaps unwisely, but I could find nowhere else. I decided to sleep near the husk of a dead oak, with wide roots that flattened out the ground somewhat. By then it was completely dark. I hide my things, along with the box, inside of the dead tree, and sat down to rest. My legs felt weak, and I knew if I did not rise again soon, I would not have the energy until the morning.
I gathered wood for a small fire, but without Mika’s sulphur I had trouble getting a spark to ignite. My stomach had stopped aching with hunger - at this point, I only felt a little thirsty and vaguely nauseous. There was only one thing for me to do, and that was sleep.
It did not take long for me to find myself in a dream. However, this dream was far more vivid and memorable than any I’ve ever had. I have never believed much in the significance of dreams. Most of them are just dreams, just someone’s mind trying to make sense of the world they find themselves in. Sometimes, when I remember this night alone in the forest, that is how I think of it. As only a dream, in a forest full of wolves and worse dangers, praying never to be found. Other times, I have thought of this dream as one of the greatest epiphanies of my life.
I started off dreaming of the ocean. I often dream about the ocean, so often that many have assumed that I love the sea. That is not true. Like any sailor, I love and hate the ocean, like a child both loves and hates a drunken, violent father.
I was on the boat that my father had built. It was the boat we had scuttled in the shallows as part of the unsuccessful naval barricade against the Keks. It was nighttime, and I was close to shore, the immense cliffs of the Radviliska Mountains north of Byel towering so high I couldn’t see the peaks. There was a cove nearby, and I had the impression that I was being pursued. The wind was light but constant, and the water smooth as glass.
As soon as I was in the cove, I could see two figures on the rocks ahead. They had their backs turned towards me, and were looking towards a trail that wound down from one of the cliffs. They were waiting for someone. I called out, telling them I was in danger.
One of them turned around. At first I believed it was Mika. The face of the figure changed as I got closer - it was a man much older than Mika, looking as he might in thirty years or more. From the lantern on my bow, his eyes caught a flash of yellow light and shone back at me for a moment. I tossed the bowline to him, and he wordlessly held it while I disembarked.
When the boat was tied up, I went and joined the two who were waiting. The other figure was a woman, but no matter which way she turned, I could not make out her face.
I have thought about who these two dream-people may have been quite a deal. Of course, the one may be called Mika, for he looked very similar. The other, I sometimes think of as your mother, though I was yet to meet or know her. But the other possibility is that the one was a manifestation of Elir, the watcher, and other is Mireh, his bride.
In most of the old stories, Elir is unmarried. But in a one of them, he falls in love with a mortal woman, who after watching her for all her life, he decides is the most beautiful and virtuous woman in the land. However, during their engagement, she goes to bed with a young and handsome foreigner. Of course Elir witnesses this, through both her eyes and her lover’s. Three times Elir comes and asks her to confess who she truly loves, and three times she lies and tells him she is his and no other’s. At last Elir catches the two of them in an embrace. Caught between her love for the mortal and for the god she splits apart, leaving her body with the young man and giving her shadow and soul to Elir.
The two of them stood there, watching the trail. At last something came out of the darkness above us, moving much faster than any man or beast, landing heavy on the rocks near us. My eyes took a moment to fix on what had just came down from the cliffs, but once they did I became filled with terror.
It was a wolf, standing almost as high as a man. I felt a radiating malfeasance coming from the beast. It looked at the three of us with a viscousness that stilled the very blood in my veins. It was a dark grey-blue, the same color as the sky and the rocks behind it. The only light came from the stars reflecting off the still water, making the wolf visible not in silhouette, but in an absence against the cliffs behind.
It was Mar Alek. I have never had any doubt about this. He spoke, not with men’s words, but with an animal language that echoed inside my chest. I called it the language of fear.
-This is my forest, man. Between the Cliw mountains to the south, the Dreit river to the east, the great marshes to the north, and the realm of the Bear to the west, this is all mine. Now you are mine too.
The man replied, not speaking, but his voice seeming to come from everywhere at once.
-No. This one will pass. He carries something that they have all tried to hide. He has to share these secrets.
-This is my forest. I am the sovereign.
-This one is not yours. Do not forget who we are.
-I forget nothing. I will not forget this.
I woke, sweating and cold, terrified. It was still very dark. I sat up, shivering, scanning the vale below me as best I could. A howl came loud and unquestionably close from the high ground. I panicked, grabbing my things and the box, more certain now than ever before that it held something far more important than my own life. I looked out to the vale, my head clear with the rush of cold and fear. I realized where I was - at the very north edge of the grey forest, overlooking the vast peat marshes. I was probably not far from Bykar, but that was still in the grey forest. It was Mar Alek that I feared most now.
Down below, there was a gold light. It was moving away from me. I looked once towards the top of the ridge behind me. It seemed the dark silhouette of Mar Alek could have been anywhere. I began to run down to the marshes, somehow finding footing among all the roots, sometimes sliding and catching myself against young trees. I realized I was making a great deal of noise. This only terrified me further. I ran faster towards the light below.
As I reached the base of the hill, where the marshes began, I had to stop, partly to catch my breath, and also to figure how I would cross the bogs. There was only one road that cut through the marsh, but it ran east to west. I was coming from the south. I decided to follow the light northwards, until I either caught up to it, or reached the road.
I caught another glimpse of it ahead, only by a thousand paces or so. It had stopped moving and stood tall and narrow. Some of my fear turned to curiosity - this was no torch or fire. It glowed yellow-gold, and did not shimmer or flicker.
I walked into the bog, sinking up to my thighs in the peat. I held the box, the thing I valued most, above my head and waded further. Progress was slow. I walked where there was grass when I could, where I would only sink down to my knees.
Soon I had walked far enough out that I was not sure of the way I’d come in, or where I’d fled from. The hills behind me loomed large and dark, indistinguishable from one other. I looked at the sky and guessed that it was still several hours from sunlight, but without my sextant and charts, I had no way of being sure. I had only the light to follow, but even as I walked on it seemed to slowly get further and further away.
A gradual despair overtook me. It started in my tired legs, numb in the cold water, but still sore with fatigue. It came upwards to my hungry stomach, again painfully growling for food. Then to my chest and shoulders, a deep weariness and tiredness in my arms holding the box on top of my head. Only my eyes stayed sharp and awake, focusing on the golden enchanting light.
I followed it for the better part of an hour, slogging through the marsh. I was less afraid now, out of the forest. I was, if nothing else, a strong swimmer. The peat below had not yet frozen and in parts was even warm with decay.
The light, as I drew closer, seemed to move quickly and erratically. I would spot it to the northeast, walk towards it for a while, only to find it again to the northwest. It moved with an alarming quickness, faster than someone on foot or in a canoe. I pressed onwards, more curious than anything else.
At last it lay only a hundred paces in front of me. I could make out the shape of it clearly - a glowing figure made from threads of light, jaggedly female in appearance. She was like no creature from any of the old stories I knew. I called out. She stopped, turned maybe to face me, but stood still. I tried to run and tripped, falling into the mire and dropping the box. It became caught in a briar, saved from the water. I lunged for it desperately, but sank further into the mire, up to my shoulders, and unable to move further, for fear I should sink deeper.
She walked towards me. Her feet never sank into the bog, instead gliding and sliding above it. Her movements gave the impression that she must have weighted almost nothing, if she had any mass to her at all. Her body was composed from thousands of tiny threads of light, which moved about all over her. She was very tall and thin, at least a head and shoulders above me, her limbs no thicker than a child’s, her long fingers thin and sharp as knives.
When she was close, she looked at me for a few moments, not saying anything. I was again taken by a strong sense of sedu, though this time held speechless not by power, but by beauty. Her face only resembled that of a human woman, the lights constantly moving, but concentrating where her eyes must have been. She did not blink, even once.
Her attention turned to the box I had dropped. She gingerly stepped over the briar and picked it up, looking at the cover of, it, then quickly at me, almost with a kind of surprise. I became fearful she would take it.
“Please,” I said, squirming in the muck and sinking deeper.
“Please,” she replied, almost mockingly. Her voice sounded like a whisper on top of a song, as though made by a violin and the rustling of leaves.
She set the box down on dry ground and knelt over it, touching the front of it with her hand. Her body somehow compressed, all of the tiny threads of light flowing in through the keyhole. The box itself glowed golden, then she emerged again, filling in from her feet upwards.
“Why did you bring this here?” she said, looking not at me but at the box.
“I was in the grey forest. I was in danger. I saw you, and thought—”
“You thought I would want it.”
“No, I thought you might save me. I only saw a light. I was being chased by the wolves.”
“Of course you were chased. They wanted it. It tells secrets about him.”
“Please. I do not even know what’s inside.”
“Then you stole it!” She took a threatening step forward.
“No! We were sent to get it. It would help us fight the Keks.”
“And who are the Keks?” Instantly, her voice and posture changed from hostility into interest. Her emotions seemed to be completely fleeting and spontaneous.
“They’re the oppressors! They’re the ones who hold our country in bondage, who ransack our houses for their “taxes”, who try and control every part of our lives. They tell us what crops we must grow, only to repossess our entire harvest and give us useless ration-tickets instead. They control the roads, the town governments, they even take away our boats. They deny our gods and our festivals, they outlaw our stories. Why they’ve even banned the very language you and I are speaking!”
She made a noise like a gust of wind passing through a dead tree. I realized she was laughing.
“You men!” She laughed some more. “You always think you’re so different than each other. That your kind of men are righteous, or holy, or what have you. Why I’d bet there’s one of these ‘Keks’ somewhere complaining right now about you Lihts.”
“But they’re different! They destroy what we create!” I thought for a minute. “They are the ones with the peat-trawlers. They come through here in those heavy machines of iron and copper, dredging out whole bails of peat a day. If we give them enough time, they will destroy this whole marsh.”
Again she began to laugh. “You men forget so easily.”
“Forget what?”
“What is below.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Of course you don’t. You’re only a man. You’ve never understood. But you do everything anyway. That’s what got you here, stuck in this swamp, isn’t it? You didn’t know. You just did something.”
“I was in danger. Mar Alek…”
“Yes, Mar Alek. He was chasing you, I saw him. And he would not chase you here, because he is afraid of me. You don’t know why, you don’t understand, but you ran anyway. And so here you are, carrying something that you don’t understand that was never yours anyway, and you expect it will help you somehow in this struggle between men. You don’t understand. You don’t understand!” She started laughing again.
I was quiet until she stopped. She seemed to be waiting for me to speak.
“I still don’t know who or what you are,” I finally said.
“Yes. I am Wysp. You are a man.”
“My name is Ivan.”
“You are a man. So fleeting and temporal. Your names never matter. But okay. I will call you Ivan. Ivan, I’ll tell you how to understand. I’ll tell you about what you are. You are the kind of man who calls himself a Liht. Well, I was here before you Lihts got here. Do you know what’s below? Can you understand?”
“I don’t know.”
“Then I’ll tell you. Beneath you is the old tree city. I lived here for thousands of seasons, in the treetops, with my love, Eki. He was made from darkness and wood, while I was made from leaves and light. In those days, this was not a swamp like this, but a great forest, with trees twice as high as the big evergreens that lie off where it snows in the spring.”
I knew the region she referred to, though we called it only “The Big Forest.” It held trees so high they tore holes in the clouds, which was why it would snow there, even when the rest of the country was planting.
“Then the men came up from the south. They stayed below on the ground, we stayed in the treetops and looked after the tiny ones. Sometimes Eki and I would go below to watch them. In those days, you were like animals, living by finding and killing. The smarter of you got to know a few things, such as how to make fire, build shelters. Other men came from the south and the west, you learned from them. You found metals in the ground, ripping them from the earth as though they just belonged to you. You stopped worshipping the world, and made gods that looked like you, worshipped them instead. Elir, Tyrie, Asha. I know their names.
“When you cut the first of the great trees, we did nothing. But then with your metal tools, you cut more and more. We took your gods into our city, and told them to stop you. They told us they could not. They said it was up to us to protect ourselves. We did not have armies, we were not like you. We had Eki and I, and all the tiny ones. So we took the Liht king, who called himself Mesis, and brought him to the tree city, and showed him all the grandeur of these great trees that we’d been given to look after. He told us over and over how much he enjoyed his stay, and our company, and promised us that our tree city would stay untouched.
“We were relieved. We went back to the little ones. But with the fleeting lives of men, so dies their words and promises. Mesis had a son who had a son, who called himself Mekis. Mekis, in his ignorance of his grandfather’s words, believed that tree city was not a true city at all, because, he reasoned, it had no men in it. His army came with their metal tools, and they cut away the trees. It made them wealthy, so they bought more tools. We could not stop them. We stayed above, Eki and I, in the very last tree, until they cut that down too.
“The ground below, without the great roots, changed into this swamp. The trees they left behind rotted into the peat that you men now prize, knowing nothing of what used to be here. And Eki, my beautiful Eki, he sunk below, and I, too light to sink, must stay above. And the tiny ones scattered about the world, picking out their quick lives amongst constant danger.”
She stopped. The cold water around me had stiffened my limbs, and I could barely even move. But her story had stirred me deeply, and tears were streaming down my face.
“Tell me,” she said, bending down, her face only a span or so away from mine, “What makes you cry?”
“Your story,” I said, my blue lips quivering. “And the cold. The loneliness that you must have felt, all these thousands of years. And your story. It makes me ashamed to be a Liht. It makes me ashamed to even be a man.”
She placed her hand against the side of my head. It felt like the brush of pine needles. Almost nothing at all.
“It has always been interesting,” she said, “how men can feel pain, just from words alone. How the mere story of my pain and my loneliness take you through yours. But I know, now, that you must have had some pain like mine, even just for a little while. So tell me, man called Ivan, tell me about what makes you feel this way. How have you been cold and alone before?”
Cold and alone.
“It started,” I said, my voice shaking but growing warmer with her hand still against my head. “It started with the Keks. When they came, they took my father’s boat, which he had built himself from the pines planted by his uncle. They took it, and in exchange gave us what we all called Kekboats - shoddy little craft, made from inland trees that had little sap in them, making them float high and sail fast, but also making them brittle in the cold ocean.
“That autumn, there had been a poor catch for everyone. Year by year, we had left the fish traps out just a little bit longer and longer, until this year, we would have to fish into the winter just to meet the quota expected by the Keks if we were to get our ration tickets. We went out on the ocean, further and later than anyone else. We hoped, by doing so, that we might catch a little extra and have some herring to salt for ourselves.
“My father’s beard had just turned fully grey. He was old. I was fourteen and boy-faced. We had gone out to check the cod traps. It was going to be the last voyage of the season, for only three days this time, just to gather as many traps as we could. But when we got out to where we’d lain the traps, someone had cut the lines.
“My father raged and shouted. He was sure the Keks had done it, with no reason at all, other than to try and starve all of Lihtia. Of course, they could have just taken our fish anyway when we returned. I blamed the Andal ships - they were maintaining a naval war with the Keks, and had so far made no distinction between the Aturkyks themselves or their occupied territories.
“In either case, our traps and our catch were lost. But that was only the beginning of our bad luck that winter. We returned to our village, Byel. There we had to explain ourselves to the dock-master. He was a low-level official, being a Liht, but still had to answer to the Keks and account for any boats the turned up empty.
“‘Look,’ he told my father, ‘the Keks are greedy. We all know this. But they are not stupid. They would not have cut your lines, because they want those fish as much as you do. So here’s what you’ll do. I’ll lend you a light anchor, you take it out there, and drag it across where you left your traps. I don’t care if it takes you all winter, we need those fish or we won’t meet our quota, and if we don’t meet the fishing quota, they’re not going to ship us any grain.’
“‘The buoy is gone too,’ replied my father. His eyes looked straight through the dockmaster, focusing out on the ocean.
“‘Then I wish you the best of luck. We’re all in this together you know. I’m sorry.’
“My father looked at the dockmaster sternly. ‘You sound just like a true Kekman. A real hero to us all, just like Yutas and Tyrai.’ He then walked out, leaving the dockmaster sputtering some reply that neither of us bothered to remember.
“We went back to sea, trawling over the spot where we’d laid the traps, over and over. For two days, we tried and caught only seaweed. The weather grew steadily worse, the wind coming in violent gusts and the water getting choppy and erratic. The first ice floes drifted by, accompanied by a great deal of worry. Soon the inland sea would be blocked by the floes. It would be difficult getting back as it was.
“On the third day, our anchor snagged on something. My father and I pulled hard on the line, feeling the end of it strain, and strain, then finally with a suddenness, it gave. With a great deal of relief, we hauled up the first trap, nearly full of fat white cod and red winter crab.
“For the rest of the day, we took up the traps, until our hold was full. The boat was now much heavier, and rode low in the water. Whatever joy or relief we felt was short, fleeting as you say, as are men’s lives.
“We set a course upwind back to Byel, but found the floes too thick. My father hoped to skirt the floes to the south before the whole bay was blocked, but we couldn’t tack across the wind with so many fish. We threw back most of the crab, but the floes drifted with us. At last it was apparent that we could not go to the south. We had two options - to try and sail through the floe or to return to the ocean and try from the north.
“We decided on the former. My father hated and mistrusted the brittle hull of the Kekboat, and for good reason. We had already taken on water, and it was only getting colder. We sailed north for most of the day, making good progress with the wind. Some of the worry left us then. There had to be a break in the ice, and if there wasn’t, we could land on the Whitlands and wait for better weather. At the very least, we had a full catch, one of the best we’d made in years. That was something.
“But that was when the real trouble came. My eyes were sharper than my father’s, but I was still young and inexperienced. We were nearly to the first of the Black Islands before I realized the mistake we’d made. For most of the morning, I’d been searching the ice to the east, looking for signs of a break or a gap. But then I noticed the indistinct white shimmer from the west - it was still far off, but it was another floe, having broken off of the Carrow Glacier.
“I told my father this, and he nodded, unsurprised. ‘Of course,’ he said sullenly. ‘But that’s not our concern.’ He gestured with his eyes to the south behind us. ‘I did not mean to worry you, but we didn’t turn back just because of the ice. We could have made our way through it just fine. We still could. But it would take too long. There’s a storm to the south. You can’t see it yet, but one happens every year around this time. Why do you think we’re getting such wonderful wind?’
“We had to make for the Whitlands. They were five or six days of hard sailing, assuming the ice allowed us there in the first place. The Whitlands. I’d never been there, but I’d heard about them, from my fathers and other’s who had been. In the summer, hunters would go to hunt Reindeer and Elk, but in winter the land turned hard with frost, a bleak white nothing.
“I could remember the stories of Alkar, one of the oldest seamen in the village, who had died just the year before. ‘More than anything else, winter in the Whitlands is cold. Very cold and very lonely. It will drive you mad and hungry, and if it doesn’t kill you, it will define you.’
“The next morning, the sky to the south had become dark. We tacked straight downwind, not even towards the Whitlands at this point, simply trying to get some distance between us and the storm, hoping it might somehow change direction.
“‘This is perhaps one of the more desperate things I’ve done,’ my father told me, with a dry humor in his voice. ‘But the only mistake we’ve made was listening to that fool dockmaster. I should have handed him the anchor, the deed to this warm-weather boat, and told him the fish are his now, he can go and get them if he pleases. We waited long enough on the traps as it was. And for what? So we can keep eating that terrible rationed food!’
“I laughed then. We both did. ‘We should have took him with us,’ I said, ‘Then when we got out to the traps, we could have pushed him out and told him to swim down and grab them for us,’ My father chortled, then looked back. Then he said, ‘We’ve been meant for this storm all along.’
“My father turned around then, made for the east floe to get into water that would at least be more sheltered. The further into the floe we could get, the less violent the waves would be, although we’d still have to contend with the storms and the ice. Far in the distance was the first of the Black Islands, named so for the jagged steep blackrock cliffs, where snow didn’t even have a place to stick when it fell.”
“The storm came onto us in the night. As wind and snow went, it was not a bad storm. We’d seen more violent waters, even in the spring. The real problem was the cold that came with it. The rain froze into hail, then to snow. The water seemed to freeze around us, ice forming and breaking against our hull. We were both shivering, and as the night wore on we were exhausted.
“‘The worst of it is over now,’ my father told me. ‘But that’s only the storm. Now we must make it through the night. I know you are tired, so sleep, but sleep light. We must sleep one at a time, so we don’t freeze.”
“We huddled together for the night. I slept against my father’s chest, falling asleep nearly instantly.
“And when I woke again, the storm had passed. And so had he. In the night he had taken his coat and laid if over me. There was ice on his eyelids. He was still warm where I had been laying, but his arms and legs were as cold as the frigid air around us.
“I did the only thing I knew to do. I covered him with what I could, and made for the Whitlands. In ten days I arrived, numb with grief and cold. For the first week, I slept on the boat, sailing around the coast looking for signs of life. As the floes came northwards again, and the sea looked to freeze once more, I took the traps filled them with snow, then using them like blocks, built a rude shelter against the wind, and covered the top with the mainsail. I lived off little more than fish and rosehips. My body suffered greatly from the poor diet, and after only a few weeks, I had already begun to lose my mind. I tried very hard to stay occupied. I read and re-read everything I had, mostly the ships logs that my father had kept. The whole damned journey repeated and repeated in my memory.
“I spent many days with my hatchet, chopping away a grave for my father. Whenever I could bear the cold outside, I would chop away at the hard earth until my hands were throbbing and raw. I did not think very much when I was outside - the cold made thought and anger both impossible.
“It was hard to even remember my life at home. Byel was so distant, it seemed more of a town in some story I’d heard than a place I could actually return to. It became a fictional town, full of people I knew very well, but none of whom actually existed. My mother was but an abstraction to me, a woman who would love and miss me and my father both, but there was no image of her that I could conjure up against the vast white plains of the Whitlands.
“I remember crying only once, when I finally buried my father. Of course, he had been dead for two weeks then. It had taken that long for me to dig the hole. And when I put him in it, and covered him up with snow and ice, I said to myself ‘Now I shall have nothing else to do.’ And then I collapsed on the ground, sobbing out tears that froze on my cheeks, clawing madly at the snow and ice with a rage, with an intention to then bury myself in the Whitlands, the only world I felt that I actually knew.
“Spring came upon me suddenly, and unexpectedly. I had long stopped counting the days, and so had no idea what month it was. I simply got up one morning, and noticed that the sea was clearing and the air was just a bit warmer than the week before. The sea smoothed out the next morning, and I packed up what was left of our catch, took everything I had of any value, and set out for home.
“As the days thawed out, so did my grief. I began to feel very human again, and welcomed the sadness of my father’s death. It was the first time I’d been allowed to feel anything since the storm. With each day at sea, my heart grew heavier. I began to talk to myself, like a madman, making up stories, even having discussions and arguments. It was a habit I would continue for many years.
“And of course, there was an elation like nothing else when I returned. You would have thought the Keks had just left by the reception I’d received. We held a funeral for my father, and afterwards, I and all the others from the town went to see the dockmaster. His door was shut while he was meeting with a Kek. With the crowd behind me, I kicked the door open. The Kek turned and rose threatening, saying something like ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ but I walked right by him. The dockmaster looked at me as if I was a devil sent to kill him. I took the anchor he’d given us and swung it over my head, bringing it down on his cheap pine desk, breaking it in half.
“The Kek of course grabbed me and threw me to the floor, then kicked me sharply in the ribs. It hardly mattered. I’d made my point and, in my mind, taken my revenge. The dockmaster resigned the next day.”
Back there in the swamp, I could seem the eyes of Wysp grow wide, even darkening. For what seemed to be a long time she was quiet. She seemed to have faded slightly, and looking to the east, I realized that dawn was coming.
At last she asked me, “On the night your father died, what did you dream?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I think maybe it was too cold to dream.”
She made a long hissing noise, that sounded very much like the wind coming over the boat on the cold ocean. “I think you did, but don’t remember. And that’s too bad, because I think it may have been a very important dream. I’d say you dreamed of your father, and in that dream, he told you that you are one of the strongest men in the world. But you found that out for yourself anyway, and now you’ll find out that you need to understand with all that strength, and maybe you won’t die stuck here in this mire. I will leave you now, man called Ivan, but I will leave you with a gift. Since you don’t remember that dream, I’ll give you one of mine. It’s understood.”
And she suddenly scattered, into thousands of dead willow leaves that began to blow in all directions. I called out but no response came. Again I was alone. It was dawn.
I tried again to squirm free of the mire, but again only sank further and further, up to my chin. I took a breath just before slipping under, as her strange words suddenly connected in my mind. Understand. I slipped beneath, and found a root with my feet. I used it to pull myself deeper, finding that beneath the mire where I’d been stuck, there was ordinary water. I swam down and found a firm bottom. I opened my eyes to find mostly darkness, but there was a very faint orange shape near my feet. I reached and picked it up, finding the smooth hard touch of a piece of amber.
I fought hard for the surface, pulling up on a briar. The water was hard and thick as the earth itself. When I at last broke through, struggling out of the mire, I found the marsh had gone, replaced by loose soil and the fallen remains of massive trees. The sky was dark with a yellowgrey smoke, and I could hear the voices of hundreds of men. In the distance, I could see the indistinct haze of them through the smoke. They were surrounding the base of a standing tree, pulling a saw-toothed chain back and forth along one side. I yelled and ran towards them, but they could neither see nor hear me.
This was Wysp’s dream, from the last days of the tree city. The tree that the men were cutting was one of the last ones standing. There were things I knew, without explanation. The names and histories of each tree that had been felled, the lives and loves of all the birds and rodents around me. I saw Wysp above, her glowing threads pale and dim against the sky above, a yellow shimmer in the bright grey smoke. I went up, floating, the way some travel in their dreams. There was Eki too. They were seated on the edge of a branch, watching the men below.
“This will be the end of our kingdom,” said Eki. “But not the end of us. Should they find us, they will do as men do. They will make use, consume, forget, and die. That is their danger, but also their downfall. We will wait then, you and I. I am the seed, you are the light. I will go below, and you shall stay above and away from their reach. And when they have gone, consumed and forgotten and died, we will be together. And out world will start over again.”
“Without each other, I fear we are but pale shadows of ourselves. It must not be our love of our kingdom that sustains, but our love of each other. I should rather reign over an empty world with you, than live in the grandest palaces without.”
They embraced, her tendrils of light circling his darkwood body, and like that, they jumped together. As they fell, all of the men and creatures stopped. In their plummet earthwood, together they glowed darker than the sun, and when they struck earth, there was not an explosion, but a whispered scream, as Wysp broke apart, a palpable pain left where they had just struck. She re-gathered and struck and clawed at the earth, unable to move even the smallest bit of soil, and screamed again.
The men, far below me, stood for a moment until they resumed what they had been doing. There was a general excitement I could see in their movements, the movements of men knowing that they would soon become very rich.
