Ever

I’m so thirsty. I take the goblet, sniff, look inside. The liquid is violet, odorless. “Thank you.” I fill my mouth.

  For an instant the drink is unbearably sour. As I start to spit it out, it turns sweet and fruity. I down the entire draft.

  The world spins. I stagger and almost fall.

  The ground is no longer thick with feathers. It’s now a grassy meadow dotted by tulips. Everything is bright. The lava bubbles are as brilliant as tiny suns.

  The woman with me has friendly brown eyes. I don’t know why I thought she was feathered when in fact she’s wearing a wool cloak. An extraordinary cloak, like a rug with the yarn left long. I reach out to study the workmanship.

  She lets me finger it. Soft. Warm.

  “Are you hungry, Eshar?”

  “Yes.”

  “Come then.”

  I can’t simply leave the god who named me. “All praise . . .”

  His back is to me as he mounts the steps that lead to his golden sanctuary. But wasn’t the temple copper a moment ago? Wasn’t the god copper?

  I shrug. The god and the temple are gold now.

  “Come!”

  I follow the woman through a forest of pistachio trees. The unripe nuts are a cool green.

  The woman says, “I am Taram, high priestess of Wadir. Eshar is such a pretty name!”

  I rub my arms for warmth and wish I had a cloak like Taram’s. My tunic is much too flimsy for the chilly air. A band of wool circles my right arm above the elbow. It’s the one part of me that feels warm and looks proper.

  47

  OLUS

  KEZI HAS BEEN IN Wadir for three days. My annual festival is tomorrow, but I think only of her. What torments me most is that I might have saved her before she became endangered. After the oath, as soon as Fedo went in, I could have ridden my swift wind to Senat’s house. I imagine the scene repeatedly: I barge into the house on some excuse, something about my goats. I say I’ve heard of Merem’s illness and recovery. When Aunt Fedo tries to speak, I congratulate Senat and then the whole family.

  Later Kezi marries someone—not Elon; a better man. She has the ordinary life she wants.

  Night and day I’m plagued by images of her among the warkis. They mock her. She chases them to capture a feather. They back away, just out of reach. She wants me and wonders why I don’t come.

  I don’t eat or sleep, but I pray to Admat. If there is an Admat, he may be the only one who can save her. If he’s everywhere, he’s with her in Wadir.

  Soon after dawn on the morning of my festival, Hannu comes to my bedroom on the temple roof.

  I’m in bed. “Every day I think Kezi will come today, and every night I think she will come tomorrow.”

  Holding my hand as if I were a child again, Hannu takes me to her room, where she and Ing, the goddess of love and beauty, help me bathe and dress.

  “Smile during your festival,” Hannu tells me, “or you’ll terrify the soap bubbles.”

  My temple is in a field not far from Kudiya’s hamlet. Kezi wouldn’t think it a temple at all. The roof is flat, supported by columns rather than walls.

  A wooden chair has been placed on the porch. Next to the chair, a small table holds a pitcher of therka and a goblet. I sit, but as soon as I do, I want to rise and pace. What will everyone think if I shout prayers to Admat?

  An endless line of worshipers waits to my right at the edge of the porch. When I nod, the first one mounts the steps. How frightened he looks!

  The man lays his gift at my feet, a basket filled with eggs. He asks for rain and tells me where he lives. I send rain clouds over his farm. He leaves. More worshipers file by with gifts. Many pray for favors I can’t provide: a cow, gracefulness, a talent for playing the lyre. I promise to pass these prayers along to the respective gods.

  Those prayers I can answer, I do. I clear clouds away or bring clouds. I warm the air or chill it. I prevent tunics from blowing off a clothesline, as one supplicant requests.

  Some prayers are beyond the power of any Akkan god: for long life, happiness, the ability to fly. One old man asks me for optimism. His wife asks me for peace in her heart. I can no more give her peace or him optimism than they can give me Kezi. I recite a blessing.

  Shortly after noon I see Kudiya in the line, the real Kudiya, with a sack hung over his shoulder. I wave him forward. Nonsensically I feel in his debt for my becoming a champion. When he reaches me, I grasp his arms and don’t let him kneel.

  “Kudiya! I am high and mighty to everyone, but not to one who’s seen me pee.”

  His Adam’s apple bobs in fear. He reaches into his sack for his offering, a fig sapling, its roots wrapped in burlap, its branches sagging with ripe fruit, not a single unripe fig. I’m sure it’s a portent. If I take it, Kezi will die. I signal a servant to take the tree.

  Kudiya steps back, stammering apologies. Nervous whispers spread among the other worshipers.

  When the tree has been removed, I struggle to collect myself. Finally I say, “What do you pray for?”

  “N-never mind.”

  “Tell me.”

  Kudiya pulls from his sack a clay tablet covered with wedge writing.

  The fig tree has unnerved me. I suspect Kudiya of being magical again—if not a vision this time, then a messenger bearing dire words about Kezi. With trepidation, I read:

  Olus, god of the winds, who is your equal in mercy? This mortal begs your forbearance. Hannu, goddess of the earth, who gave pottery to humans, rages against her worshipers. Recently her earthquake destroyed half our village. Olus, mighty among the gods, this worshiper begs you to save us from her enmity.

  I’m relieved enough to smile. “She isn’t angry at you. When she isn’t satisfied with her pots, she rampages.” And the soap bubbles suffer.

  Kudiya backs away, bowing.

  “Wait! I can do something.” I send my buffering wind to surround Hannu’s workshop. With my wind at work, earthquakes will be reduced to tremors, landslides to a few rolling pebbles.

  “Thank you, Olus, ruler of the winds.”

  On impulse I say, “Kudiya, would you stand at my side today?”

  He pales but looks into my eyes for the first time. “Olus, what’s wrong?”

  “I’m alone. Please be at my side.” He approaches, and we stand for hours, side by side. I’m soothed by his human presence. At sunset, when the last worshiper leaves, I thank him. “I need the friendship of mortals.”

  “Olus . . .” His Adam’s apple bobs again, but he dares to clasp my shoulders. “I am your friend.”

  “I am your friend,” I answer, and we part.

  48

  KEZI

  MY BODY IS NOW covered in deliciously warm, many-colored threads of yarn. In appearance I am truly a warki. In spirit, maybe not. The other warkis are always smiling, and I am neither happy nor sad. A dozen sleepy mice seem to have made their home in my mind. When I try to think, a mouse curls up on the thought and snores. The thought collapses with a gentle shoosh.

  Taram stays constantly at my side. I eat with her and the others, but without their delight, although everything tastes excellent. I rarely join in the conversation, which is always about whatever is occurring at the moment. I smile when everyone else laughs.

  None of them mention the past, their own or mine.

  After meals sometimes, Taram leads us to the temple of the golden god. We circle the temple once and bob up and down before it. The golden god never appears. When our worship is over, we march back through the pistachio forest to return to our ordinary activities.

  I have two pleasures: weaving and watching the dancers. When I first arrived, I tried to join the dance but couldn’t catch the rhythm. So I retreated to the loom. I don’t know how my fingers learned their skill, but I am glad for it. The basket at my side holds wool in every tone I see in my coat, a vast selection. My fingers fly, and I have almost finished knotting a rug of Sinad, the stew warki, stirring his cauldron.

  Taram praises my every choice of color an
d every new image. She is thrilled when I knot in Sinad’s face. “The likeness is perfect!”

  The mice in my mind wriggle happily.

  Finally I am ready to knot in the upper border, where my name will go. I reach into the wool basket. Eshar. I don’t know how to write my name.

  I begin to feel distress, but the mice yawn.

  Taram says, “It’s time to worship. Come, Eshar!” She calls to the dancers and to the kitchen warkis. “Come!”

  I leave my loom and follow her, surprised at the suddenness but relieved to delay the problem of knotting in my name. The other warkis crowd behind us.

  On this occasion, she leads us three times around the temple rather than our usual single circuit. When we return to the front of the building, she prays aloud, which she has never done before. She thanks the golden god for our skills and compliments the dancers on their dance, the cooking warkis on their food, the potter on his pots, and so on, including a tribute to me for my rug. She ends by praising the golden god for giving us our beautiful world. I feel vague gratitude to him.

  When she finishes, we return through the forest, and I find my loom empty. My rug has been taken off and stolen.

  Outrage awakens in me. The mice grow less sleepy. The rug was mine, and I didn’t even have a chance to put my name on it. I wonder if it was taken to stop me from weaving my name so someone else could claim it.

  Taram says she doesn’t know who stayed behind when we went to the temple. I don’t know either. She says she’s angry over the disappearance of my rug, but I’m suspicious of her for calling us to worship so abruptly.

  I wind new warp on my loom. Not so much warp this time, for a narrow rug. I will knot in my name first—if I can.

  “Will you depict Sinad again?” Taram asks.

  I don’t want her watching me weave. “No. A portrait of you, praying, as you did before the temple. But I need you to pose.”

  “A portrait of ugly me? No one will look at it.”

  “Everyone will look. You’re high priestess.”

  She remains by my side while I begin to knot in a border.

  “Don’t you want to draw me first?” She saw me sketch Sinad in the dirt next to my loom before I began to knot him in.

  I lie grandly. “You have inspired me. I will weave from life.” As she watches, I create a thin border of yellow-and-purple triangles. The work goes quickly because the rug is so narrow. When the border is finished, I rise from my stool.

  Feeling uneasy, I grasp her shoulders and move her far enough from the loom that she won’t be able to see my knots. “Place your feet apart. You can relax your arms for now.”

  I return to my seat and look down at my loom. Eshar. I don’t know how to write it. But when I think, I don’t know how to knot rugs either. The knowledge is in my fingers. My fingers will make my name.

  “How long will I have to stand here?”

  “You can rest soon. Don’t move your foot.” I stare at Taram and don’t look down. My fingers pull yarn out of my basket. I don’t choose the colors. My heart races. I am not knotting Eshar.

  “My feet hurt. I want to see.”

  “Stay another minute.” I have only begun, but my name is coming to me.

  “Eshar, I—”

  Not Eshar. Kezi!

  Taram is at my side. “Eshar, you didn’t even start my feet!”

  Kezi. My true name.

  The mice flee. Memory returns. I am Kezi of Hyte, a dancer and a weaver.

  Senat is my pado. Merem is my mati. Aunt Fedo is my aunt. Olus is my beloved. They are all far above and far away.

  I smell mold again and sense the sadness in the air. When I look down at myself, I see with double vision, both the wool coat and the gray feathers. I am a horror, a creature, a warki. My arms and legs are feathered. My tunic bulges over feathers. Only the palms of my hands, my fingertips, and the bottoms of my feet are bare. I touch the soft down on my face. Oh! Ugh! I swallow repeatedly to keep from gagging.

  How much time has passed? Are the figs all ripe? Is my month over? Do my parents think I’ve abandoned them to Admat’s fury?

  Olus must miss me. I miss him. Puru said I’ll be here forever. I’ll never see Olus again.

  49

  OLUS

  WHEN KEZI HAS BEEN in Wadir for eight days, Puru appears before me on the temple roof.

  I rush away from him, shouting to Admat, “Save Kezi. As you wish, so it will be.” My festival was four days ago, and now I am wild again, filthy, unshaven, starving. But I’m sane enough to want to drown out whatever Puru has come to say. “Admat! Mighty one! Save Kezi. As you wish, so it will be.”

  Puru waits. An hour passes before I will listen. Finally I quiet.

  “I . . . fear . . . it . . . is too late for your Kezi. She must have sprouted feathers by now. She will not return.”

  I call my swift wind and my wailing wind.

  “She . . . has . . . reached . . . her destiny.”

  My winds and I shriek high across the mountains of Akka, the hills of Hyte, the other city-kingdoms of the south. Mortals run into their houses. Sheep race in circles. Birds dive out of the air.

  I am the god of loneliness and grief.

  A day and night of this and I circle back to Enshi Rock at dawn. Even if Kezi must remain in Wadir, we needn’t be apart. I’ll join her and grow feathers too. We’ll make a nest and roost together, dead immortals in the netherworld.

  I go to Puru’s hut. He stands between his bed and his painted chest, juggling nine silver sticks, miraculously keeping them in the air despite his wrapped fingers. I tell him my plan.

  “Endure . . . what . . . you . . . must endure.”

  Death. “When I’m safely dead, tell Hannu and Arduk.”

  He nods while juggling. “Your . . . winds . . .”

  Without my control, they’ll rage. “I’ll contain all but my gentlest winds.”

  I take a huge jug from the temple kitchen, one of Hannu’s by its shape. Then I fly off Enshi Rock on my smooth wind. I savor gliding on this, my last flight but one.

  It’s time for me to sacrifice myself. Admat, is this what you want? My death? The death of a god? All along, have you schemed for this?

  On the lip of the volcano I put down my jug and begin to draw my winds into it. They curl in slowly, reluctantly. I coax in the ones I want to imprison and keep out the ones that can safely roam free.

  50

  KEZI

  TARAM APPROACHES ME, carrying a goblet.

  I hear, both at once, “Pfhisxtrooou,” and “Aren’t you thirsty?”

  Although I drank a few minutes before, I am very thirsty, but I shake my head.

  I close my left eye. Wadir is bright and gay. I open my left eye and close my right. Wadir is dim and dreary.

  I place my hand over my left ear.

  “Are you hungry? I can . . .”

  I’m starving. I move my hand to cover my right ear.

  “Nflusqrthbla.”

  “Taram . . .” I say, still blocking sound in my right ear. I don’t hear myself say Taram. Instead I hear Jbomnc. Again, I say, “Taram,” and now I hear Rzsoipkb.

  I think that warkis speak dream talk in which words change.

  “Yes, Eshar?” Taram says. “Udmnhpl.”

  The name Eshar almost robs me of my memory again. Kezi. I pluck a feather from my thigh. It comes out easily, although the plucking hurts. The tip of a new feather instantly pokes through the pore.

  I remember Puru’s last words. Fate may be thwarted. I long for a happy outcome.

  “Taram? Is there a way out of Wadir?”

  “Where else is there, Eshar?”

  Kezi! It was the wrong question. I try again. “Where did you come from?”

  “I began here, silly Eshar.”

  The repetition of Eshar is having an effect. “I’m silly Kezi.”

  “And you’re thirsty, silly Eshar.” Taram holds out the drink.

  The mice invade my mind again. I accept the goblet
and raise it to my lips. But the foul smell wakes me. Kezi.

  I wonder if Taram had another name once, if she came seeking someone she loved and the golden god took her memories too. “What was your first name, Taram?”

  Taram drops the goblet. Her down-lashed eyes weep. “I don’t know.” She starts away from me. After a few steps, she turns. “It was Taram! As yours is Eshar.”

  Kezi! I turn my back on her and march through the kitchen and past the dining warkis.

  She calls after me, “Silly Eshar, you’ll drink when you’re thirsty enough.”

  Kezi! I won’t. Better eternal thirst and hunger than no thoughts and no memory. The gloomy air asks, Truly better? Knowing you’re forever separated from Olus? Knowing your mati and pado suffered when you didn’t return to fulfill the oath?

  I wave my hands around my head, fending off the air itself. The brook of violet liquid is a few yards ahead.

  A hand grips my shoulder.

  “Taram . . .” I say. But the hand is gold—copper—both. The warki god!

  “Where are you going, Eshar?”

  Kezi!

  He turns me. I can’t resist his strength, but I look down. I don’t want to meet his eyes again!

  “Eshar . . .” His hands tilt my head up.

  I close my eyes and shout, “Kezi! Kezi! Kezi!”

  One hand grips the back of my head. “Eshar.” A finger lifts my left eyelid. The metal nail digs in below my eyebrow.

  I focus downward. We are motionless. He doesn’t let go. He cannot move my eyeball, but he can squeeze my head. My ear and scalp burn.

  Finally he says, “I won’t keep you against your will.” His finger leaves my eyelid. He lifts me by my head and shoulder and hurls me across the violet stream.

  Aaa! I slam down. The breath shoots out of me. If it weren’t for my own feathers and the feathers on the ground, my back would be broken.

  I scramble up and limp off as quickly as I can, not looking to see if he is behind me. When my knees give out, I collapse.

  If he’d pursued me, he’d have caught me. I dare to peek. He is gone. The warkis are small and dim in the distance. I sit up. Lightly, I touch my eyelid. My finger when I bring it away is not bloody. A relief, but my head and ear throb.