The inquisitive sagarm, Raz, encounters tight-lipped farmsteaders and discovers a worrying truth about the blight …
Long live the High Sagarm!
Note: The pronouns di (s/he/they), dira (him/her/their/them), diras (his/her/hers/theirs), diraself (him/herself/themself) are used throughout.
Transition shrines ringed the farmstead. Castle turrets devoid of curtain walls. Stout structures of the same red stone resplendent with Azrith carvings and those of the diraghoni tooth-cycle. Rolled parchment and paper, no thicker than a finger, were poked in nooks. Well-wishing prayers of superstitious sentiment. In low-arched entrances, censors hung where rivulets of incense smoke would cascade in languid misty tear streaks.
Only one shrine was smoking this day.
‘How long in the shrine of transition?’ Raz asked, disregarding the attention di were drawing from the other farmers.
‘Why, since discovery,’ said Pov.
A flush of concern struck Raz. The incident on the steps of Azrith … ‘You cleansed the body?’
Pov raised hands in defence. ‘No. Such is a task for a sagarm cleric. We merely moved dira.’
‘Cleric in training,’ Raz corrected. ‘As for my question of time … I merely wished to discover how close Klahtar might be.’
‘Teeth are yet to loosen, good sagarm,’ came a croaky voice from the smoke-filled shrine. Out of the blue-tinged swirl, what Raz had thought an ancient statue, appeared the oldest onrake di had ever met.
‘Sagarms,’ Pov said, officially, ‘Shrine Custodian, Old Hur.’
Little time was wasted on pleasantries and customs. Once white teeth had been wished for, Old Hur steered Raz into the grotto by the elbow. Like most shrines the walls were tightly circled statues of ignions gazing centrally down. Dira crests brought the low ceiling to a teardrop pinch and the slab where the deceased rested had a chest at its foot. The grotto undulated in the light of a hundred candles borne in sculpted hands, pouring from crevices like flowstone and curling in golden tongues from polished brass holders.
‘A well-ordered shrine,’ said Raz, as di turned to regard the silk shrouded corpse. ‘And the adigili of transition, it has been affixed?’
‘Of course,’ Old Hur snorted. ‘We are at least dignified in death.’
Raz ignored the posturing. ‘And diras clothing is—’
‘Safe, of course. Here look.’ Hur unceremoniously kicked the ornate wooden chest at the foot of the transition stone.
Raz could feel Hur’s scrutinising stare over diras shoulders as di examined the chest’s contents. Raz tasted the air about the folded clothing with subtle tongue flicks. Di rose and hovered over the shrouded corpse repeating the process.
‘Tell me Old Hur, this odour … it was present when Lok was discovered?’
‘As you say. I thought it queer. We disrobed swiftly—to lessen the stench.’
‘It was stronger?’ asked Bur, joining Raz in diras inspections.
Old Hur nodded.
Gesturing for Bur to follow diras lead, Raz took a corner of the silk shroud. Together, di revealed a corpse as lifelike as the stone statues encircling it. A sniff. Raz softened diras recoil. Di and Bur exchanged agreement through elusive eye movements; the same smell. ‘And look here.’ Raz’s gestures matched diras whispers. ‘I almost missed it when cleansing Liz Orl Vex.’
Bur, in dutiful imitation of Raz’s discretion, examined the residue-flaked mouth. ‘What is it?’
‘I know not, but …’ Raz sniffed.
The ochre flakes seemed to be the source. The mind has an unconventional way about it. Images muddle and intermingle. Scent, taste and sound. However, agitated memories tend to surface like stones in sand.
The first thought: Azrith steps.
The second: blight fields.
The third: di had never actually scented blight so closely.
The first time Raz had, di had simply passed it off as a peculiar aroma. Pondering this, Raz had dira slip off the silk completely, which Old Hur punctually took and folded. After lathering the corpse in oils, Raz set a censor smoking.
‘You have sacred herb,’ Bur whisper-hissed. ‘You lied to the other sagarms, why?’
‘Lie … such a laden word,’ replied Raz, displeased by such vocal criticism. ‘This meagre amount is the last. Too little for the High Sagarm. But for this poor soul, a bounty. So please … assist without further comment.’
‘Yes, my sagarm. Gladly.’ There was nothing glad in Bur’s tone nor manner.
Scattered candles and an overworked fire licked long greasy shadows up tremulous stone. Farmhouse walls softened under that buttery flicker. Elderly pots and pans hid the roofbeams clustered like timid snails alongside all manner of farming irons beside. Here and there, the brass armour glare of polished pots too fine for cooking, and pretty baubles with no use but admiring.
In the sooty yawn of a fireplace, from lambent ember gums, liquid teeth of gold gnawed heat into a blackened pot. Such a perfect lightless black, as though it were an inferno-quenching throat. Bor Dor Hek, the cook who had thrown diraself into greetings as soon as the door opened earlier that evening, harried a stew pot with an unwatched spoon-wielding hand whilst offering herbal teas, dried lizards, and crispy grubs with the other. That warmth and those offerings dispersed like woodsmoke in a gale no sooner than Raz began diras queries.
‘Pov Bek,’—Raz broke crusty bread, placed it on a buckled plate and awaited diras stew—‘well acquainted with the late Loz Bak Nel, were you?’ The last syllable was barely formed when Bor, the cook, placed diraself between the facing parties. Di ladled stew into Raz’s bowl in great noisy slops. ‘That is plenty. A thousand thanks,’ Raz said.
‘Mmm … barely.’ Pov soaked up memories with a little bread. ‘Maybe eighteen years, give or take.’ Di took a bite.
‘More likely …’ Bor said as di served the old onrake, Alh Nuz Gar, who looked more like a twitchy carrion lizard rather than a diraghoni. ‘… twenty something years and di arrived grown. Yes.’
‘Not from seeding divination? Why?’ This was highly irregular. Raz tried to recall ever hearing of such an instance so recent. Most diraghoni took dira place as toothlings.
Pov reached across the crowded table for dried grubs. In a broad hand di crumbled flakes in diras stew. ‘Grown. Came an evening much like this—’
‘Young Bur lap! Stew?’ The cook’s strident warble startled everyone.
‘—evening,’ finished Pov, snout glowering ruby. ‘A boat. Five figures. All cowled. One turned out to be Loz.’
‘Hmph! Bad sssign,’ hissed Alh. The first thing di had said since dira arrival. ‘Lairgvrnsss belong here as much as usss onrake belong in the holy sssity.’
Alh and Bor communicated through a passing glance. Raz feigned obliviousness. Alh appeared set to say something, yet, before di could, Bor rose to hurriedly dish more stew but instead, swiftly dumped it in Alh’s lap. A mad frenzy ensued.
Alh: ‘Are you web-handed? My tunic is ruined.’
Bor: (dabbing with a cloth) ‘You shall have a fine new tunic, so forgive. I meant no assault, only to replenish your bowl.’
Raz: ‘We shall have our time, Alh Nuz Gar.’
Di hoped the comment would retrieve whatever words Bor had so expertly intercepted. Raz strove not to parade diras suspicions. This table was hiding something and mayhaps this discontented old lizard might just forget diraself and let slip.
‘And sssoon, I would sssay,’ Alh picked up. ‘What with the alignm—’
The stern look Bor threw Alh had the old lizard gagging on diras words.
Raz quashed eagerness and said with casual indifference, ‘What have you heard?’
When Alh finally answered it was in stuttered asides. ‘I sssimply meant … well. It’sss a long time coming. Di treat usss like—’
‘Like diraghoni,’ Bor interjected, ‘di treat us like diraghoni, leave it to Alh to take umbrage with most and especially ‘nions and ‘gvrns, always hissing about something, di is. Why, only yesterday di …’ The cook embarked a rambling discourse Raz did diras best to ignore.
‘What of visitors?’ Raz asked. ‘Did Loz treat with strangers? From the city perhaps?’
Pov sat back, finished the bowl and wiped diras snout on the back of a sleeve. ‘Directly?’ Di belched into a fist. ‘Excuse me. Not as far as I know. Like I said, Loz kept to diraself. Though we see our fair share of comings and goings, being closer to Verenesh than other farmsteads.’
‘Right on the canal! No peace.’ Alh had recovered from diras scald and diras scolding, Raz surmised. ‘Why the other day I sssaw the sssame ‘gvrn twice. Now isn’t that a thing?’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Raz.
‘Frequent visssitor thisss one. Common to have usss ‘rakesss back and forth. Not ‘gvrnsss. Leassst not ssso regular.’
‘A friend of Loz?’
‘I doubt.’ Alh’s sulk suggested past disagreements may have gone between dira and the late Loz. ‘Sssaw no sssign at Loz’s transssition. At leassst, you’d think a friend would show up. Maybe dirasss leg was playing awful that day …’
‘Diras leg? Whose? Loz’s?’
‘No, the visssitor’sss. Di walked with a limp.’
Bor snapped from fussing candles to scooping bowls and plates even if their owners were not yet done. ‘Something sweet? Honey? Nectar?’ Di pressed a bowl into Alh’s chest and growled. ‘Candles’re fading and lamps’re starving for oil. Lend a hand, would you?’
Alh relented to work while Bor noisily sought out honey and nectar. By the time the place grew brighter, Bor had served sweets and conversation that pleased Bor.
Bur Lap rose with a bow to leave. ‘I beg pardon. I must … where is the …’
‘Round the back. A sssmall outhoussse. Here, take thisss.’ Alh thrust dira a brass chamberstick, the plate swimming with wax. ‘Guard it againssst the breeze.’ Then to the others as Bur left, ‘Wassste of candlesss if you asssk me.’
‘I fear, dear cleric,’—Pov now picked diras teeth with a claw—‘we have been little help.’
‘On the contrary,’ Raz said, and pleasantries followed.
The inane chatter that lightened the mood and soothed Bor, provided Raz the opportunity to muse what old Alh had said about the visitor with the lame leg. Raz’s mind immediately went to Eev, Ash’s assistant. Why here though? Had Loz known something from diras time in the city? Or mayhaps uncovered some information here at the farmstead that justified poisoning dira?
‘Where is your assistant?’ asked Bor, interrupting yet again. Di was eying the candles that now burned low.
‘You fear di hasss fallen in?’ Alh said so plainly that Bor screeched offence. ‘I’m not making light. The ssstonework around the hole is sssomewhat crumbling.’
‘The hour is late,’ said Raz. ‘The evening is blustery too. Perhaps diras light was extinguished.’ Raz made further excuses and rose to adjust diras cassock. ‘I should probably investigate … I bid you goodnight.’ Teeth were blessed and bows were had and Raz left the farmhouse.
A search of the outhouse bore no assistant and Raz was reminded of Master Jak’s cautioning. How could di keep an eye on Bur if di did not know diras whereabouts? After a little aimless wandering in the chill night, the concern of becoming torpid drew Raz to the cottage Pov had arranged for dira. Just as Raz knocked the door to be admitted, Bur came shuffling up the stony path. Di made vague and evasive excuses. Too cold to challenge, Raz had dira retire. Before stepping into the warmth, di stared into the night sky where di imagined planets approaching synchronicity and with them an untimely darkness.
Sallow cream mist obscured the farm track in thick heady swirls. An anomalous mixture of bile and caramel sweetness. Tenebrous cottages prowled the early morning. Nebulous monsters stalking prey. Their thatched apexes breaching the misty pall. Ahead, rather than on a flatbottomed boat, the boater seemed afloat on some aethereal raft. Har called, voice ringing tinny in the choking mist. ‘May your teeth be white! Your stay was successful?’
‘The cleansing is done,’ Raz said, as di came beside Har. ‘What news of Verenesh?’ Di placed a hand on Har’s shoulder as though, subconsciously reassuring diraself Har was not some apparition.
‘Still there. The High Sagarm too …’ said Har.
In four or five good shunts, Har had the prow slicing the mists. A good few more later and Verenesh materialised. In this place, where no crops burned, the morning mist tasted mineral fresh. By the time Verenesh walls loomed over dira the red sunrise had swallowed the fog. Di halted sporadically in the city at Raz’s request to question diraghoni canal side, passing groups who gathered around to brush dira teeth and others who lay prostrate on basking slabs. After, in playing over the farmhouse conversation, Raz had fallen into a faraway sun-daze. The gentle undulations, the slosh and suck of water—
A screech.
Raz startled. Har had dira beside the slip and moored in a flicker. Raz was on the cobbles pushing through the hissing and muttering crowd gathered there.
‘Back! Make space. Back!’ a lairgvrn in modest attire bellowed. ‘The sagarm are here,’—an impressed snort—‘you came swiftly. We sent word but moments ago.’
‘A dark coincidence.’ Raz bowed and, in doing so, saw the corpse face down in the slipway, feet in the lapping water as if attempting to swim away from harm. ‘We are returned from the countryside …’ Di spoke in half consciousness, not really present. ‘Are di known to you?’
‘Should you not know? One of your own it seems. An acolyte.’
It was strange; ‘one of your own’. There was no anguish or upset in Raz. Despite the corpse being onrake and a sagarm, there were no other such bonds between dira. Raz stooped to lift the flap of the bag that was twisted about the body.
Raz: (beckoning Bur) ‘Look here. This bag, contained herbs.’
Bur: ‘See diras mouth.’
Raz: ‘Yes, that smell … still strong.’ (to the lairgvrn announcer) ‘Who found dira?’
An ignion noble in unblemished auburn surcoat and richly embroidered trews dipped a bow.
Noble: ‘It was I, sagarm.’
Raz: ‘Like this? In the canal?’
Noble: ‘Yes. With another … standing over.’ (pointing towards Azrith) ‘Fled into that alley. I must have disturbed the act. The beast was dragging this poor sagarm into the water. Di must have fought …’
Raz: ‘What makes you say so?’
Noble: ‘Well … the other had an injured gait.’
Raz wrinkled diras snout and gave the corpse a long hard look and gasped. ‘I am such a naive fool.’
Bur craned to see. ‘What is it?’
‘We must notify Ish Lor Mil of this dreadful news. This is Hev Nar, Ish Lor’s assistant. And then’—Raz almost explained diras suspicions but reconsidered—‘we must speak to senior cleric Orh Taz Mil.’
Scarcely several paces from Azrith, a bell tolled halting dira midstride. Its sullen timbre was a sound every sagarm hoped never to hear in diras lifetime. As if the universe wished to strike home the point, cries skipped from window to window high above dira heads.
‘Diras Sacred Holiness the High Sagarm is dead!’
The High Hall breathed heat and light. Banners of silk draped from ceiling to floor shimmering like pillars of deepest amethyst. The colour of mourning. A multitude of onrake attendants hung on dira masters’ whims. Clerics hissed and twitched and flickered tongues in frantic debate.
‘… arrangements cannot be delayed.’ Ash Kar’s adenoidal hiss was unmistakable above the din of breathy and brassy croaks common to most diraghoni. ‘You there! Dress the hall for the ceremony.’
‘A dark, dark time,’ Senior Cleric Orh said in brash observation. ‘Yet where darkness ends—’
‘Is light,’ Ash finished. ‘Well said, my High Sagarm.’
Raz could almost taste the honeyed tones turn bitter when Ash caught sight of dira.
‘Ah! Raz Dev Mil,’ Orh bellowed, ‘and diras assistant, er,’—Ash fed the sagarm the name—‘Bur Lap Jar. You are returned. And what news from beyond the noble walls of Verenesh?’
‘Senior,’—a throat clearing sound drove Raz to the proper title—‘High Sagarm, forgive. I request your tympana.’
Orh: ‘Well? You have dira. Out with it.’
Raz: ‘Forgive. What I must say should … is not for …’
Orh: ‘Yes, yes. Come Ash Kar Mil, if you will.’
Raz: (unmoving) ‘But my High Sagarm, I—’
Orh: ‘Senior Cleric Ash Kar Mil will accompany us.’
The title chilled Raz to torpor. Senior Cleric? Had the power shifted so soon? With a whisper, Raz instructed Bur to remain. ‘Keep our mentor company and your eyes and tympana alert.’
Walls dripped silk and the floor seemed to sprout cushions like large velvet mushrooms within the sumptuous private chamber. From an elevated throne, High Sagarm Orh sat peering down on Ash and Raz. Warm and sonorous, Orh bid dira to sit. In scathing curses, di commanded diras assistants gone.
‘Raz Dev, you seem somewhat anxious …’
‘Grave news. Hev Nar Jar was found dead but an hour ago.’ Raz hung diras head.
Ash spoke high and brash. ‘Terrible news, terrible.’
‘In the village,’ Raz continued, ‘when cleansing a Nel … Loz Bak … di had a queer odour. At first, I thought it some sickness.’ Raz knew di was stumbling. Yet di had not expected the unnerving presence of Ash.
‘I fail to see how this relates to Hev Nar Jar. Di knew each other?’ said Orh.
‘Not to my knowledge. Hev Nar, however …’ Raz told of rank smells and flaky residues. Orh and Ash appeared to talk in thoughts and Orh encouraged Raz to continue. ‘I found the same on Lis Orl Vex, but thought nothing of it at the time.’
‘And what of your suspicions now?’ enquired Ash.
This all felt so very wrong. As though history had altered in Raz’s absence and now there were loyalties and hidden connections as alien as the languages spoken by the other five races. ‘I-I think … mayhaps the blight is upon us.’ It was all Raz could muster. Everything pivoted on this falsehood.
‘My dear sagarm,’—Orh laughed sardonically—‘blight has been upon us for a quite some time.’ Orh and Ash shared a sneer. Falling abruptly stern, di glared at Raz, expectant and impatient.
‘No, I mean, upon us diraghoni. No longer is it restricted to plants.’ Di would think dira a fool. A small price to pay. I’ve stepped into a pit of hooded falryx. One retreated from a falryx with great care. Alert for slinking, hypnotising movements. Anything forewarning a strike. Raz saw no signs. Yet these falryx were masters of deception. Orh, bitten, had become a lesser creature. Bewitched by Ash’s saccharin tongue.
‘You believe it poisons diraghoni?’ Ash spoke as much with eyes as lips. The subtle communications Raz noted with clandestine observation. ‘Well, shouldn’t we act? My High Sagarm,’ said Ash, ‘a catastrophe averted! Is it not?’
‘Indeed! Much needed good news. To have caught it …’ The new High Sagarm rose, abandoning diras cushions to step down to take Raz’s hand. ‘My dear sagarm,’ di said affectedly, ‘we are indebted.’
The manner Orh leant on that concluding expression sparked instinct to skitter and hide like a gecko in a wall crevice. Orh towed Raz by the hand into the High Hall announcing the revelation. A storm of praise ensued and when Raz could bear the torrent no more, di excused diraself and sought refuge with master Jak Kor.
‘My sagarm,’ Jak hissed after bowed greetings and teeth wishing, ‘you are seeming nervous.’
Something is very wrong. Do you not see it? Raz’s language was faint ticks and insinuating eyes. Judiciously di scrutinised the chamber. Pretenders, grovelers, snout-blushers. To identify one honest creature amongst dira—it would be simpler to divorce ink from water.
Oh, I see it, spoke Jak’s eyes.
Raz followed the flight of diras master’s gaze to land upon Ash. A space yawned ominously beside the sagarm. ‘And where is Eev?’
Bur: ‘Left but a moment ago. After High Sagarm took your council.’
Jak: ‘You are suspecting dira of something?’
Raz: ‘Caution impedes my suspicions my dear sagarm. I trust neither Ash, nor Eev. Nor anyone for that matter. Present company excluded.’
Jak: ‘Both whisper in influential tympana, I fear.’ (leaning closer) ‘Working fast, di are. Not long after you left … Tell me, what of your findings?’
Raz: ‘I believe the deaths are connected and judge them as poisonings,’ Raz hissed softly.
Bur: ‘Poisonings?!’
Jak: (glancing about) ‘Hush … be keeping your tongue youngling. Eyes are watching and tympana are listening.’ (to Raz) ‘You spoke this to Orh?’
Raz: ‘You mean High Sagarm.’
Jak: ‘Pah! Di is being no High Sagarm to me.’
Raz: (a toothy grin) ‘No. I liked not the manner in which di regarded each other.’
Jak: ‘We should be keeping it this way.’
Raz: ‘Hev took trips … the mountains. Alone. Word is di brought back herb. I have not witnessed any in Azrith. Not of such potency.’
Jak: (snout darkening) ‘Nor will you.’
Silence.
Raz: ‘What of Ish Lor Mil? I imagine the news of diras assistant’s deat—’
Jak: ‘Not seen this day.’
Raz: ‘Missing? Why am I not surprised? Whoever poisoned Hev stole diras herbs.’
Jak: ‘Why was the late Hev not bringing back more, or even sharing? Azrith is in want. The dark dawn approaches.’
Both sagarms paused with that day in mind. Poison. It had been sacred herb that ended the tyranny of Zek Tuh. Raz’s disbelief in conspiracies and foretelling morphed into that of a believer. The decision was made.
Raz: ‘I will go. I will discover the true purpose of Hev’s excursions.’
Bur: ‘Sagarm, you can’t! You’re needed here.’
Raz: ‘To tend braziers and sconces? Bur Lap Jar you can take up our duties in my absence.’ (to Jak) ‘A day or two … I know not the spot Hev visited, so will have to enquire.’
Jak: ‘Must have left Verenesh via the south-east gate. That is being the only clear route to the Broken Tooth.’
Raz: ‘A fine start.’ (with a hand on Bur’s shoulder) ‘Be vigilant.’
Raz swirled to leave, diras gown flowing liquid wings. In epiphanic awareness, di fought to slow diraself and depart the High Hall as unnoticed and unhurried as the heat rolling indiscernibly into the cool passage.
To be concluded …
M F ALFREY 