We were hardly ever cold in the wilderness, but never too warm either, never starving, never sated; existing in a tenuous state, between comfort and discomfort. To the East, the empty grey towers of a wasteland town poke at the sky; a place where lichens thrive. We gathered the lichens. Some could be used for healing, some for enabling the eyes to see beyond the edge of the world, some for poisons. The most toxic has the name of Sweetbreath, because its perfume makes you weep with poignant joy before the dreams of death begin. It was said, among the hara of my tribe, that people craved death from the Sweetbreath because the visions in its exhalations made our fragile lives seem too wearing and pointless an experience to endure. The victims of this candid fragrance gather handfuls of the lichen, filling their mouths and eyes and noses with its taste, its seductive aroma. Death might not come fast, but it is without pain, without regret; the dream becomes reality, becomes the final sinking that we all crave, all seek, becomes the numbing kiss that leaves only the lips sensitive to heat and pain. I have seen them, those hara, as they died. They were all smiling.
To the South lie the plains, the canyons, where flames grow from the earth like flowers; red flowers. Gangarad the shaman told us that it was possible to pick those flowers, the sweet, hot fruit of fire. You could walk right in and take them in your arms. Somebody asked him, ‘But do they burn?’ He smiled and said the caress of fire must necessarily always burn. ‘Then why do it?’
‘Because, for a moment, you can be at one with that element. You can take it and taste it, the heat of it touches your soul. Though it will scorch your body black, you can pick the blossoms of fire, that are the tears of the Great Lion, the dew of the Rising Sun beyond the veil.’
These are the words of Gangarad, whose left hand was almost transparent from the scalding embrace of Fire. He was cautious. There are some that never came back from the South.
To the West lay the wide, sluggish river we called the Torrent of If Only. Perhaps this was because nobody ever followed it far enough to discover where it ended. ‘If only we could go with the river,’ hara would say as they sat on the sulphurous banks. It disappeared into a haze, sometimes with a gleam like gunmetal, sometimes green and slick as the undulating spine of a great serpent. If you drank the waters from the river of If Only you could live your dreams, but from a distance. I and my friend Omarel did so, just once. I saw the wilderness fade away. Around me grass sprang like living wires from a fertile soil. Across the field, a slow figure moved towards me that had no face - for I faced the West, which is the direction of the twilight - but, all the same, I knew it to be myself; a self that was strong and free. I held out my arms for the uniting, the melding of flesh that could make me whole and spirit me away from the wilderness, but my body remained cold. I looked down. I stood in a circle of ash, where nothing grew, and I knew that wherever I trod that ash would be with me, binding me to reality. The figure glided past me; blind, wandering, searching. I roared with despair and found myself beside the Torrent of If Only once again, my chest constricted with a grief too great to be contained by flesh, that had to be screamed and screamed away.
The North was hidden from us. Nobody knew what lay that way. All we could see, far away, was a black wall that the shamans said was smooth as glass, and poisonous to the flesh. We were also told that the wilderness was so large, it could never have been traversed in one lifetime, on foot.
Sometimes, travellers came in from the east, because hara lived in the old cities there. They treated us with contempt, because they had Old Things The Men Had Left Behind which, they said, made life easier for them. We tolerated this behaviour so that we could choose from the goods they brought for trade. Ananke, with the seeking eyes, once bargained for a silver net for me that I could wear around my neck. I wore it all the time for there were stars within it and stories of the past, where the wildernesses were but earth’s own secrets and not a violent testimony bequeathed by humanity. I had known for a while that Ananke liked me, and I liked him, although he had a reputation for eccentricity. When he gave me the silver, I lay in the dust and opened myself to him. Afterwards, I found I needed to do that again and again. Ananke did not seem to mind. He liked to speak about the stars to me because they were important to him. I just wanted to inhale him so that his scent was with me even when he wasn’t there.
‘I am a star,’ he said, ‘and at the end of each of my glowing points, there is a different feeling for you.’
I didn’t know whether I was supposed to laugh at that, but I did. We used to laugh a lot, but sometimes I felt it was only a superficial thing, like the gleam on water that hides the dark currents beneath. I wondered what it could be that was hidden within the laughter and whether I would like it. Ananke spoke to me with his eyes, trusting that I understood his silent language. I don’t think I ever really did. And I never found out what lay within the laughter.
Then there was the time when Isatar went mad from the pull of the hidden moon and attacked me in the dark, by the river. I don’t know why he chose me, but he tore my skin, and the silver net that Ananke had given me was lost in the dust forever. Poor Isatar. I had to hold him close for a whole day until he could see properly again.
Ananke went strange as a red eye. He no longer laughed and, soon afterwards, gave himself up for sacrifice at the Doon Tower in the east, so there were no more gifts for me. I gathered the special mushroom for him that weeps indigo blood and performed a ritual all by myself in his memory.
I wish that could have been a turn of the Wheel in my life, but it wasn’t. Days came and went, as always. We gathered the lichens, charmed dew into our metal troughs, and fought those who came to steal our land. At night, I stared at the sky, as I always did, remembering the feel of Ananke’s hands on my waist, his breath against my neck, his scent in my throat. I couldn’t understand why I felt so strange, so sad, so empty, why all I could think about was him. Before he left, he’d said to me, ‘I’m going to Doon.’ It had surprised me. Nohar went there unless they wanted to die, and Ananke was a respected figure in our tribe. As far as I could see, he had everything to live for.
‘Why?’ I’d asked, truly puzzled.
He’d sighed and looked around him and then at me. ‘Because I can remember.’
‘Remember what?’
‘When things were pure. When I believed in the stars.’
I couldn’t understand him. It seemed nonsense. ‘And that makes you seek Doon? You won’t be able to think about those things again after that!’
He’d given me an odd, almost fearful look, and had touched my shoulders with his long hands. ‘No,’ he’d said and put his lips against my mouth.
So strange. He did not give me breath at all, just his touch. And then he left me.
Sometimes, I went to sing and dance in the ruins, behind the low-slung canopies and tents of the tribe. In my head, the sky was a different colour and the air full of rich scents. There, my confusing thoughts of Ananke could express themselves in movement, which I found more comfortable. Once, as I danced, a mad nomad came upon me and said, ‘You are lost! You are all lost!’
I asked him what he meant and he shook his head, muttering words I could not hear. I wanted to understand because I believe that all insane hara must be incredibly wise, but he’d said all he wanted to say and only slapped at my hands when I tried to approach him.
After that, I walked alone to the foot of the Tower of Doon, expecting to see blood upon the stones outside, but there was nothing there. It was silent and lifeless, and I was too afraid to go inside in case it thought I had come for death. I sat and leaned against its smooth side and thought of Ananke’s hair and eyes for a while. Then a strange thing happened. I stood up and walked towards the east; just kept on going. There was no conscious thought that initiated this action, no decision that I could recognise. I just found myself walking.
This is senseless! I thought, because I had no water or food with me, and it would be very easy to get lost among the fallen towers and skel
eton stones of the dead towns. There would be hostile creatures and hostile tribes living there too but, even knowing these things, I did not want to turn back. I could not turn back.
For a long time, I hardly saw a living creature, just the odd stray cur that whined and winced when it saw me, before darting away. Later, as the sun began to sink, a troupe of young harlings emerged from a grating at my feet, and pelted me with stinking mud and sharp stones. I ran, and they did not follow.
When the dark came, I happened across a palm-stroker sitting in the dirt by the side of an old road, in the shadow of a tumbled house. By that time I was feeling hungry and thirsty. Corroding dust had shredded my sandals and had started work on my feet. I had kept walking for hours, my mind a fierce star of confusing light, leading me to only the gods know where. The palm-stroker, clearly taking pity on me, offered his hand out of the darkness, and told me he could change my future for the price of a pitcher of sweet juice. I looked around the desolate, empty landscape and replied that he would be hard-pressed to find somewhere to buy such a luxury, even if I could afford it. ‘You have seeking eyes,’ he told me. ‘Maybe for your breath I will change your future anyway.’
I squatted down beside him. He had a small fire of twigs and moss, and I noticed a grey loaf of bread, half-eaten, protruding from a worn, leather bag at his feet. He caught the direction of my gaze. ‘Is it only Hunger’s Haunt, then, that brings me your company, rather than a need for my art?’
I had to tell him. ‘I walked to the tower of Doon and it made me keep on walking. Perhaps that is my death. Perhaps I need your talents more than I realise, more than I need to quiet the beast gnawing my belly.’
The palm-stroker laughed and offered me some of what he had. ‘Where do you come from, little seeker?’ he asked as he watched me eat.
‘From the west. I belong to a tribe that lives beside the Torrent of If Only.’
‘Ah, the Obliviata, the Forgotten Ones. You see, I have heard of you. Maybe, you are not as lost as you imagine. I know too that you sprang from the ruins of the tribe of Uigenna, from their blood upon the ground, in fact. You are far from the territory of your parent tribe here, you know, or perhaps I should say, the memory of your parent tribe.’
‘I didn’t know we had a parent tribe.’ I was more interested in what was in my mouth than what my ancestry might be.
‘Didn’t your hostling, or your father, tell you the tales that are carried by mind, the Speaking tradition?’
‘I never knew my father. He could be anyhar. My hostling died from a toxic wound when the Grey-Limbs came and attacked us. I was very small then. I can only remember his hands - not his voice, his eyes or anything else.’
The palm-stroker nodded, though I doubt if he was interested in details of my personal history. He was looking at my mouth and asked me to unbraid my hair, which I did. ‘So hidden from the sun and moon are we, yet they live on in the hair of our children,’ he said, stroking it. ‘Where will you walk to, little seeker? Will you walk until you die?’
‘If that is my fate perhaps you can change it,’ I suggested.
He lifted my hands in his own and looked at them keenly. ‘You have lost a lover.’
It started as a statement then somehow changed into a question when he looked at me. I knew he meant to confuse me, for love is one of the words used in the past to cover untruths of feeling. We, being more evolved, called this thing aruna, which was the connection of bodies, and much more truthful.
‘I have heard talk of this,’ I replied. ‘I know what you mean. If aruna is love, then what you say is true. The har who touched me most went to Doon. I never saw him again.’
‘And what is this Doon you speak of?’
‘The tower, as I told you. The one that made me walk. Those who seek death go there to find it, I suppose. I only went there to remember Ananke. I had no intention of seeking death, or at least I’m not conscious of doing so.’
‘There are no towers that bring death in this city.’
‘This is no longer a city, and how can you know about the towers? Many strange things can be found here. Anything is possible. This much I know for sure.’
The palm-stroker raised his brows, but said nothing. He resumed his scrutiny of my destiny. I watched him wrinkle his nose and shake his head. After a while, this discomforted me so much that I snatched away my hands. ‘Clearly, you don’t find much joy in what you see,’ I said.
‘Nothing is permanent,’ he replied. ‘That’s what I do - change the future.’
‘Then change it.’
‘First I must have my silver - in this case the molten metal of your loins, the priceless currency of your breath. The future for you as I see it is this: very shortly we shall be part of each other, which I shall enjoy. Then we shall see about the rest.’
He had about him the heady aroma of desire, which filled the dull night air with flowers. When he removed his robes, I could see the marks of old scars upon his chest and arms, the marks of deprivation which were the revelation of his ribs and hips. I lay down in the dust and ashes and he said, ‘You are far too passive.’ It was not a comment I felt the need to respond to. He gave me visions of crimson skies, a sweet smell of smoke that brought the dawn with it and a single bird high in the light grey sky, dipping and soaring. We had taken aruna through the night, yet it had not seemed that long. I held out my hands. ‘You promised,’ I said.
The palm-stroker smiled. He rubbed my fingers with his thumbs and pushed hard against the skin of my palms.
‘Little need,’ he said. ‘You will find what you seek in the Tower of Doon. Go back and climb it. Face the direction of what is hidden and - perhaps - something may be revealed.’
I looked over my shoulder. To the west, I could see the crooked finger of Doon against the sky. Climb it? Clearly, this har was insane and I had wasted my essence on him. My palms tingled. ‘You doubt my words,’ said the palm-stroker.
‘Is death my only future then? Did you do this to me?’
He shook his head. ‘A long time ago, your people were cursed into the wilderness. As time goes on, it may be that the curse fades and some of you may escape it.’
‘What curse? Why?’
The palm-stroker got to his feet and slung his bag over his shoulder. ‘It may be that your fate was to wander eastwards until some calamity befell you or you were adopted into some other lost tribe. I changed your future for you, as I promised. Now I must go. Take my advice, do what I say.’ He bowed and expressed a sweeping farewell with his free arm.
I watched him clamber over the rubble, robes flapping, towards another spire of smoke, where others might wait for his art.
For a while I felt quite alone and kicked at the ashes of his fire. There seemed little to do. Life was beginning to creep around me; the suggestion of hidden hara, furtive animals or curious spirits. I turned around and walked back the way I had come.
There was luck for me on the return. A small group of traders, attracted by my loose hair, which in their body language signalled an invitation of some kind, encouraged me to share their fire. I spent most of the day with them, listening to their tales of the city circuits. They spoke of places where hara had set themselves up as kings, like men, and gave orders in loud voices, clawing back the ruins into some kind of order. They told me of other places, where everyhar lives alone, shunning all contact except on certain nights, when wild, orgiastic rituals take place for the conception of harlings. And there were places too, at the end of all tales, where life and death have become inseparable, and strange creatures of light and dark walk the shattered stone. I wasn’t sure how much to believe of what the traders told me.
Halfway through the night a pull from the west dragged me from under the blanket I was sharing and to my feet. The har whose arms had held me muttered in his sleep, no doubt feeling the cold, but I was already off into the night, shivering like prey, determined as a hunter.
In the grey predawn, I reached the steps of the listing spire that
is the Tower of Doon. The cracked glass and crumbling, granular stone were close enough for me to touch, should I want to do so. I paused on the threshold and tried to peer through the dark glass. There was nothing to see. It was all too dim. Knowing I could only go forward, I took a great lungful of air and stepped through the door.
It was disappointing. I had expected arcane and terrible things, but all that faced me was merely rubbish; faded writing on the walls, old strips of cloth and paper hanging down from the walls and ceiling. Well, I thought, then I must go up. And up and up and up.
There was no sound in the tower of Doon, other than that of my own bare feet against the greasy stone. I could smell damp though, and in places the walls were moist and rotten. It was almost completely dark in there. Had Ananke trodden these steps before me? What had been in his mind? It occurred to me, for the first time, that he could not have felt much true liking for me, to leave me so abruptly and so finally. If it had been me in his place, would he have wandered into the ruins in his grief? Would he now be climbing these steps? Somehow, I thought not. Questions filled my head, and just a faint whisper of anger. Was it really Ananke I was looking for? Was it he who’d dragged my feet to the east, or something else? I paused in the dim light and it was so far to go back down, so far to carry on up. I had no weapons with me. This was senseless. I kept on climbing.
I came to a floor with glass walls all around. Most of them were cracked, all of them were dirty, so it meant that a strange light came into the building there. The sun was beginning to rise. Tired of climbing, I decided to investigate the rooms. I must have been virtually at the summit of Doon for the glass-walled place was really a sort of path that curled round the edge of the tower, with rooms leading off it. I walked along the path, around and around, peering into the rooms. They all seemed empty. Looking out through the glass, I could see for such a long way. I had never seen so far. It made the world look so small. In the distance, I could even see dark dots that I thought might be the tents of my tribe, and there was a glinting, sulky stripe that just had to be the Torrent. A heat haze to the south proclaimed the boundary to the realm of fire. And to the north... Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw in that direction.