When the Gods Slept Read online

  Khadji nodded, unhappy. "I suspect you’re right, Myrna," he said. "The boy’s uncle said as much. I think he fears for the boy’s life. He’s asked us to let the lad stay at the temple until the danger has passed."

  Safar could have told his father he’d used the wrong words.

  "Danger?" his mother exclaimed. "What danger, Khadji?"

  "Only to the boy, Myrna," his father soothed. "Only to the boy."

  "But what if they come here? What if they cause trouble?"

  "Only his uncle will come," his father said. "And only when it is safe for the lad to return to his family. Be reasonable, Myrna. We have to explain this to the others and if you’re opposed to it, why, we’ll have to go back on our agreement.

  "Besides, who would travel so far to Kyrania just to cause us grief? We have nothing they want. At least nothing that’s worth so much trouble.

  "And, as I said, how could we refuse?"

  "Next time ask me!" Myrna said. "I’ll show you all you need to know about refusal."

  Then she relented as her natural Kyranian hospitality came to the fore. "We’ll make the best of it," she declared. "Can’t blame a boy for the troubles caused by his family."

  "What’s his name?" Safar asked.

  "Iraj Protarus," his father said.

  The name struck Safar like a thunderbolt.

  He heard his mother say, "Protarus? Protarus? I don’t know that family name.

  But Safar knew the name quite well - much to his sudden discomfort.

  He’d experienced a vision some days before while working in his father’s shop. Whether it meant good or ill, he couldn’t say. Still, it had disturbed him deeply.

  The vision had seized him while he was cleaning pebbles and roots from a new batch of clay his father had dug up from the lake.

  Besides the lake, there were many fine clay beds in Kyrania. The lake clay was pure and therefore gray. But as any potter knows pure clay needs to be mixed with other kinds or it will not fire properly. Within a week’s stroll in any direction the Timuras could find clay of every color imaginable - red, black, white, a yellow ochre, and even a deep emerald green. Clay was long considered a holy substance and the clay from Kyrania was considered the holiest of all because it was said that Rybian, the god who made people, once spent much time in the Valley Of The Clouds wooing the beautiful goddess, Felakia. The tale was that she spurned the god’s advances and during the long lovers’ siege Rybian became bored and pinched out all the races that make up humankind and demonkind. He used the green clay, it was claimed, to make the demons.

  As Safar worked his thoughts were far from heavenly speculation. Instead, his imagination was fixed on the hiding spot he’d discovered overlooking the pool where the village maids liked to bathe.

  Then he found an unusual stone in the clay debris. It was a broad pebble - smooth and blood red. Examining it, he turned the pebble this way and that. There was a clear, thumbnail-size blemish on one side. The blemish was like a minuscule window and he was oddly drawn to look into it.

  Safar jumped back, thinking he’d seen something move... as if trapped in the stone. He looked again, blinking. The image blinked back and he realized he was looking at a reflection of his own eye. He peered closer, wondering the idle things people contemplate when they are alone and staring at a mirrored surface.

  Suddenly Safar found himself falling. But it was unlike any sensation of falling he’d experienced before. His body seemed to remain kneeling by the clay bucket while his spirit plunged through the window.

  His spirit self plummeted through thick clouds, then broke through. Safar felt oddly calm, looking about with his spirit eyes. Then it came to him he was floating rather than falling. Above was a bright sky, with clouds that were quickly retreating. Floating up at him was a wide vista of fertile lands with a broad highway cutting through.

  At the end of that highway was a grand city with golden spires.

  The last of the clouds whisked away, revealing a mighty army marching along the highway to the city, banners fluttering in a gentle wind. It was a dazzling array of troops and mailed cavalry - both horse and camel. Two graceful wings of chariots spread out on either side. In the lead was a phalanx of elephants Safar recognized only because of the illustrated books at school. The elephant heading the column was the largest by far. It was white and carried an armored howdah on its back. A large silk banner flew over the howdah, displaying a comet moving across a full moon.

  The comet was silver, the moon harvest red.

  Then he saw the city gates thrown wide and a crowd poured out to greet the army. Safar spread his spirit arms and flew toward the crowd. No one saw him as he sailed over a forest of spears and lances and he took a boy’s immense pleasure in doing what he liked amongst so many adults and yet remaining unobserved. Then he overshot his mark and nearly flew through the city gates. Correcting his course, he hovered over the crowd and looked down.

  Milling beneath him were hundreds of screeching monsters. He knew instantly they were demons. He should have been frightened. Demons were humankind’s most ancient and deadly enemies. But there was an opiate blur to his trance that allowed him to feel nothing more than amazement.

  The demons had yellow eyes and were fiercely taloned; horns jutted from their snouted faces. Sharp fangs gleamed when they opened their mouths and their skin was scaly green. All were costumed in the finest of cloth and jewelry, especially the tall slender demons in front, whom Safar took to be the city’s leaders.

  The tallest of them held a pike. And stuck to the top of that pike was a head. Safar had never seen such a grisly sight and it disturbed him far more than monsters boiling about beneath him. Still, he couldn’t help but move closer. It was a demon’s head on that pike. Huge - twice that of a human’s. Its snout was fixed into a wide grimace, exposing two pairs of opposing fangs the size of a desert lion’s. It had a jutting armored brow and long bloody hair. Perched on the brow, as if in mockery, was a golden crown.

  The demon king’s dead eyes were open and staring. But Safar imagined he saw a small spark of life in their yellow depths. This unsettled him even more than the gory display of death. He stretched his arms and flew away.

  Seeing the great white elephant approaching, he flew toward it to investigate. Sitting in the howdah was a large man with long gold hair, flowing mustaches and a thick military beard. His features were so fair he appeared strange to Safar, although not as strange as the demons.

  Below dark, moody eyes was a strong beaked nose, which added to his fierce looks. His armor was rich and burnished; the hilt of his sheathed sword was finely worked ivory bound with silver wire. Encircling his head was a thin band of gold embedded with rare stones.

  Safar knew he was looking at the new king - come to replace the one who had his head mounted on a pike. The demon crowd was shouting to their new king and he waved his mailed hand in return.

  They grew wilder still, chanting: "Protarus! Protarus! Protarus!"

  The king looked up and saw Safar. Why this man alone could see him, Safar didn’t know. Protarus smiled. He stretched out a hand, beckoning the hovering spirit closer.

  "Safar," he said. "I owe all this to you. Come sit with me. Let them praise your name as well."

  Safar was confused. Who was this great king? How did he know him? What service could Safar have possibly performed to win his favor? Again Protarus beckoned. Safar floated forward and the king reached out to take his hand.

  Just before their fingers touched Safar again felt the sensation of falling. But this time he was falling up! The movement was so swift he started to feel sick. Then city, army and finally even the green fields vanished and he was enveloped by thick clouds.

  The next he knew he was crouched over the bucket, turning away as quickly as he could to avoid fouling the clay with the contents of his belly.

  Luckily his father was absent. Safar hastily cleaned up the mess, finished his other chores and crept up to his bed. The experience had exhau
sted him, unnerved him, so he pleaded ill when the dinner hour arrived and spent a troubled night contemplating the mysterious vision.

  That uneasiness returned as Safar sat listening to his family chat about the young stranger who had come to stay in Kyrania - a stranger whose name was also Protarus. He fretted until it was time for school. Then he dismissed it as a coincidence.

  In his youth Safar Timura believed in such things.

  * * *

  It was a clear spring day when he set out for the temple school with his sisters. Men and women were in the fields readying the muddy land for planting. The boys whose turn it was to tend the goats were driving their herds into the hills. They would stay there for several weeks while Safar and the others studied with the priest. Then it would be his turn to enjoy the lazy freedom of the high ranges.

  The small village marketplace was already closing for the day, with a few late risers arguing with the stall keepers to stay open a little longer so they could make necessary purchases.

  The Timura children walked along the lake’s curve, passing the ruins of the stone barracks which legend claimed were built by Alisarrian The Conqueror who crossed the Gods’ Divide in his campaign to win a kingdom. That kingdom, the Kyranian children were taught, had once included all Esmir and demons as well as humans bowed to Alisarrian’s will. But the empire had broken up after his death, disintegrating into warring tribes and fiefdoms. It was during that chaos humans and demons had sworn to the agreement making the Forbidden Desert the dividing point between their species - a "Nodemon’s" as well as a "Noman’s" land.

  Outsiders claimed it would’ve been impossible for the Conqueror to have driven his great army over the Gods’ Divide. But Kyranian tradition had it that Alisarrian settled some of his troops in the valley and they married local women. Kyranians were mostly a short, dark skinned people while Alisarrian and his soldiers were tall and fair. Occasionally a fair skinned child was born in Kyrania, bolstering the claims.

  Safar saw his own appearance as evidence that the local tales were true. Although he was dark, his eyes were quite blue and like the ancient Alisarrians he was taller than most. Also, his people tended to be slender, but even at seventeen Safar’s chest and shoulders were broadening beyond the size of others and his arms were becoming heavily muscled. Any difference, however, is an embarrassment at that age and so Safar saw his size and blue eyes as a humiliating reminder that he was different from others.

  As the Timuras passed the stony inlet where the women did the wash one fat old crone happened to glance up. Her eyes chanced to meet Safar’s and she suddenly gobbled in fear and made a sign to ward off evil. Then she cursed and spat on the ground three times.

  "It’s the devil," she shrieked to the other women. "The blue-eyed devil from the Hells."

  "Hush, grandmother," one of the women said. "It’s only Safar with his sisters going to school at the temple."

  The old woman paid no heed. "Get thee gone!" she shrieked at Safar. "Get thee gone, devil!"

  He hurried away, barely listening to the comforting words of his sisters who said she was just a crazy old woman and to pay her no mind. But there was no solace in their words. In his heart he believed the woman spoke true. He didn’t know if he actually was a devil. But he feared he’d become one if he didn’t abandon the practice of sorcery. Each time he performed a magical feat or had a vision he swore to the gods he’d never do it again.

  The older he became, however, the harder it was to resist.

  Safar had possessed the talent even when he was a toddler. If a glittering object caught his eye he could summon it at will. He’d pop it into his mouth and start chewing to soothe his tender gums. His mother and aunts would squawk in alarm and drag the object out, fearing he’d swallow it and choke. Safar drove them to distraction with such antics, for no matter how well they hid the things he’d sniff them out and summon them again.

  When he grew older he turned that talent into finding things others had lost. If a tool went missing, or an animal went astray, he could always hunt them down. He was so successful that if anything was lost the family would instantly call him to retrieve it. Safar didn’t know how he was able to do such things but it all seemed so natural his only surprise was that others lacked the facility.

  That innocence ended in his tenth year.

  He was in his father’s workshop one day, pinching out little pots he’d been taught to make as part of his apprenticeship. Safar’s father was engaged in an errand, so the boy quickly became bored. One of the pots had a malformed spout which he suddenly thought looked like the village priest’s knobby nose. The boy giggled and mashed the pot between his hands, rolling it into a ball. Then his hands seemed to take on an intelligence of their own and in a few minutes he’d formed the ball into a tiny man.

  He was delighted at first, then thought something was missing. In a moment it came to him that the clay man lacked a penis, so he pinched one out where the legs met. He put the man down, wondering what he could do with him. The man needs a friend, Safar thought. No, a wife. So he rolled up another ball and made a woman with pert breasts like his oldest sister’s and a little crease where such things should go.

  Once again he wondered what he could do with his new toys. Then it came to him that if they were man and wife they should have children. The sexual act is no secret to children who live close to nature, much less in homes such as Kyrania’s where there is little privacy. So Safar put the two figures together in the proper position.

  "Make babies," Safar said to them. But nothing happened.

  A childish spell popped into his head, although at the time he didn’t know that was what it was. He picked up the figures and held them close together while he chanted:

  Skin and bone

  was all clay once

  until Rybian made people.

  Now Safar makes people,

  so clay be skin,

  clay be bone.

  The clay dolls grew warm, then they began to move and the child laughed in glee as they twined together the young lovers he’d once spied in the meadow.

  Then Khadji came in and Safar cried, "Look what I made, father!"

  When Khadji saw the figures he thought his son was making the sexual motions and he stormed over and cuffed the boy.

  "What filth is this?" he shouted.

  He snatched the dolls from Safar’s hands and they became lifeless again. He shook them at the boy.

  "How could you do something so disrespectful?" he snarled. "The gods blessed us with these pleasures. They are not to be mocked."

  "But I wasn’t mocking anything, father," Safar protested.

  His father cuffed him again just as his mother came in to see what was happening.

  "What is it, Khadji?" she asked. "What has our Safar done?"

  Angrily he showed her the dolls. "This dirty little boy has been making these obscene things," he snarled. "Behaving like one of those depraved potters in the city instead of a gods-fearing Timura."

  Safar’s mother eyed the dolls, her expression mild. His father became embarrassed, threw them into a bucket and reared back to give the boy another cuff.

  "That’s enough, Khadji," Safar’s mother warned. "You’ve made your point. He won’t do it again... will you, Safar?"

  The boy was crying, more in humiliation than pain. His father hadn’t hit him that hard. It was the act of being struck by someone Safar thought a hero that hurt worse.

  "No, mother," he blubbered. "I won’t do it again." He turned to his father. "I’m sorry, father," he said. "I promise I won’t be a dirty little boy anymore."

  The elder Timura grumbled, but Safar saw him nod. The boy prayed to all that was holy his father was satisfied. He swore to himself he’d never again give him cause to be scornful of his son. Then Myrna led Safar away. She took him up to the kitchen where she put him to work scrubbing the hearth.

  Safar bent to the task with a will, sobbing as he scoured the stone with all his little boy’s stren
gth. Eventually the sobbing stopped. He chanced a look at his mother and saw she was eyeing him. But she didn’t look angry, or ashamed.

  "They were very pretty, Safar," she murmured.

  The boy said nothing.

  "So pretty, I doubt you meant anything wrong. Is that true?"

  Safar nodded. Another great sob threatened, but he fought and won control.

  "Well, then," she said, "if you meant nothing wrong, don’t let it bother you. Just be careful from now on. Would you do that for me?"

  She held out her arms and Safar ran into that warm harbor, escaping the emotional storm. But from that day on the boy associated magic with something shameful - an act performed by dirty little boys. And that shame grew along with his powers and his inability to stop committing such sins. He felt apart from others, the good people of Kyrania who had almond eyes and were properly small.

  So when the crone cursed Safar as a blue-eyed devil, she’d unwittingly found a gaping wound for a target.

  When Safar and his sisters reached the temple their priest, Gubadan, was already lining the children up for their exercises. He was a cheery little man - with that great knobby nose which had inspired Safar’s earlier shame. The priest’s ample belly stretched the material of his yellow robes and he had a habit of gripping the sides when he was talking and thumping it with his thumbs. He also had a shaven head and a long white beard he kept in immaculate condition.

  As Safar joined the others in the slow, sacred motions and deep breathing Gubadan had taught them to rid their minds of trifles that hinder learning, he looked about for the new boy. He was disappointed when he didn’t see him.

  Gubadan noted his inattention and snarled: "Put your spirit into it, Safar, or I’ll take a switch to you."

  The others laughed, which drew more threats of switchings. But that only made them giggle more for Gubadan was a gentle soul who no more would beat them than he’d defile the altar of Felakia with an unclean offering. Although the exercises were the motions of warriors taught from the time of Alisarrian, Gubadan meant them to be soul cleansers - a means to examine the inner self. Once a week all the boys would use those same exercises on the drilling field. There they were overseen by a fierce old soldier whose duty it was to train them to defend Kyrania in case of attack.