One day, Ras had addressed him as king, and Gilluk had said, "I am no longer the king. The moment I lost Tookkaat, the divine sword, I ceased to be king. I could become king again, during the seventh new moon of the year, when the keeper of the sword, that is, the current king, must go alone into the Great Swamp and there defend himself for seven days against all comers."
Gilluk explained that anybody of royal blood who could kill the king during this time became king. Gilluk had slain all contenders in the Great Swamp for the past seven years. It seemed, though, that the sword had deserted him.
"If I let you loose, what would you do?" Ras had said.
"I would hide in the Great Swamp until the seventh new moon. Then I would kill whoever is king now and return to my village. But if I went back before then, the king would have me killed. He would be in his rights to do so, and he would be stupid if he didn't. There is no one of my people who is as great a warrior as I."
"How many men are there of royal blood?"
"All the Sharrikt are of royal blood."
"I am the son of God," Ras had said. "Would the Sharrikt accept me as king if I killed the man with the sword?"
Gilluk had taken so long answering that he must have been very surprised by the question, if not numbed. Finally, he had said, "How can a non-Sharrikt be king of the Sharrikt?"
"I can't see why not," Ras had said.
"It has never happened."
"Does that mean that it can't happen?"
"The hands of my mind cannot grasp the idea," Gilluk had said.
"What would happen if I killed the man with the sword and entered the Sharrikt village with the sword?"
"I don't think that the Sharrikt would know what to do. They would kill you, run away, or ignore you."
"I'm not easy to ignore," Ras had said.
A few weeks later, Gilluk had complained that he needed more space.
"But you have two rooms now," Ras had said. "You have as big a house as any Wantsb--except for their chief, and he lives in the Great House, which is also a place of worship."
"My house in my land has many rooms," the king had said. "It has more rooms than I have fingers and toes. It is made of stone, and it is three stories high. And it has a wide, wooden veranda that runs completely around the second story. And a wide court in its center."
"You had that when you were a king because it was the king's house," Ras had said. "You are no longer a king."
"Yes, but my ways are still kingly."
For some reason, Ras had felt compelled to build at least another room. Gilluk had been a little happier, but he had not been completely satisfied. By then, Ras had been getting interested in the construction, and he had also been curious about how far Gilluk's requests would go. So he had built two more rooms.
Gilluk had said that it was a fine house, although it lacked a veranda on which he could take the outer air.
Ras had built the veranda. The king had watched him and now and then suggested improvements or ways to work more efficiently. When Ras had completed the veranda, he had had to construct a huge cage for the house. He could not allow Gilluk out on the veranda until he had some means of keeping him from walking away. He had had to construct it strongly, and then he had thatched a roof for the cage so that Gilluk could walk outside the house in the narrow yard during the rain.
While he was. building, Ras had had to take time to hunt and cook for the king. He had also had to go home every few days to visit his parents. And he had gone down to the Wantso village to observe them, to make love to Wilida, or, if she could not get away, with Seliza and also with Fuwitha. One night he had confronted Thiliza, the chief's youngest wife, as she returned from the river with a pot of water. She had almost fainted, but he had talked quietly to her while he held a knife to her throat, and after a while told her what he wanted. She had been too frightened to say no, and, after that, she, too, had been making arrangements to meet him in the bush, since her terror had soon become enthusiasm. And there had been others as time went by.
Ras had told Gilluk about the women. Gilluk had taken delight in hearing the details, and he had seemed to think it was a good joke on the Wantso men. Then he had become depressed.
"I suppose you still want a Wantso woman?" Ras had said.
"Yes, unless you can get a Sharrikt woman for me," Gilluk had said. "After all, when I was king, I bedded three wives every night and also occasionally a good-looking slave woman or free woman during the day."
"If I brought you a woman, then I would have to keep her in this house, too. I couldn't ever let her go. She would bring the men back with her and they would capture you again."
"Don't let her go then," Gilluk had said, looking happier than Ras had ever seen him.
"Then the woman would be unhappy," Ras had said. "I don't hate the Wantso women. As a matter of fact, I love them. Why should I make one of them unhappy just to please you?"
The king had not answered. Ras had then said, "Two things puzzle me. One, why am I working so hard to keep you happy? Two, why haven't you tried to escape? I know that if I were in your position, I would have managed to get free a long time ago. And I think you could have, too."
Gilluk had said, "It will be six months until the seventh new moon of the new year. I have no place to go now. I don't want to live in the Great Swamp until then."
Ras had rolled his eyes and twisted his face and said, "So you will stay here in comfort and be fed, as if you were lolling in your stone palace."
"You are being rewarded for your efforts," Gilluk had said. "You are learning the language and customs of the Sharrikt. And you have the pleasure and profit of my company."
"But I could get all that with much less work," Ras had said.
"No. If I am not pleased, I won't talk to you."
"A little fire on your skinny buttocks would make you chatter like a monkey."
"No, it wouldn't. A Sharrikt does not succumb to torture. He laughs and sings and insults his enemy until his skin falls off and his flesh smokes off and his bones begin to burn. I would not do what you wish me."
Afterward, Gilluk had said that the house was beginning to be what it should be. But it was not furnished properly. Ras had groaned and asked him what he wanted in the way of furniture. Gilluk had described many things in detail.
"And how long did it take you to make these?" Ras had said.
"I? I didn't make anything. A king does not work with his hands to fashion objects. That is work for the artisans. A king rules his people; he shapes them; they are his work."
"You're not my king. But I'll make the furniture for you. Understand--I am doing this only because I like to make things, especially if they are to be carved from wood. I love to take the raw wood, the unshaped blocks, and reveal what is hidden in them."
"And I love to take raw people, the unshaped minds, and reveal what--if anything--is hidden in them."
"I, too, but not in the way you do," Ras had said. "I use words with people, not a knife as I do with wood, but I use words to help others reveal themselves to me and to themselves. You, however, if I understand you correctly, shape people to your idea of what they should be for your purposes. I have no purposes other than my curiosity and delight in knowing people."
"I shape them as they should be shaped for their own good and the good of the kingdom," Gilluk had said.
"I think that the best thing for the kingdom would be a people who shaped themselves in their true shape. Just as a block of wood has a true shape, which I expose with my knife. Now, this shape can be found only by me. A Wantso finds another when he carves wood. And a Sharrikt would find yet another. But you force all people to flow into one form--if I understand correctly what you told me of your work as king. This is not good. Every man should be his own sculptor."
"Then a kingdom would not be a kingdom. It would be like a pack of baboons."
"Baboons are the wrong example for you to pick," Ras had said. "Every pack is a kingdom, a kingdom such as you
described to me."
"You are very ignorant," Gilluk had said.
"I agree," Ras had said. And he had set to work to build and carve the furniture for Gilluk.
The king had not been pleased when Ras had presented him with the first roomful of chairs, a table, a divan, two vases, and a statuette.
"The furniture and the vases started out to be Sharrikt. But they ended up something strange. The furniture in my great stone house is square and solid and heavy. It inspires confidence and security. But your works are curving and airy and light, and they go this way and that way and confuse me. They look something like chairs and a table and a divan and vases, but the resemblance has to be looked for."
"They look delightful to me," Ras had said. "And, yes, strange, but strange in a stimulating way. I had fun making them, and at the same time I was fashioning beauty. The furniture that you described to me seemed unutterably ugly."
"And that statuette?" Gilluk had said. "Now, really, do you think I look like that?"
"Not to the eye that sees the sun and the world it paints. But there is an eye behind the eyes above my nose. That sees you as this. If you don't like what I do for you, I shall take them away. You can make your own furniture."
"It's better than nothing, I suppose," Gilluk had said. "And I suppose I can get used to it. You are going to make me a bed, of course?"
"I'll do that next," Ras had said. "Only don't complain about it."
"What good is a bed without a woman in it?" Gilluk had said.
Ras had thrown his hands up and walked away from the enormous cage. It had seemed to him that if he kept on trying to please the king, he would end up with a house that would stretch from cliff to cliff and from the cataracts of the north to wherever the river disappeared in the southern mountains. He would have to chop down every tree in the world and carve them into furniture. And still the king would not be satisfied.
Ras had decided that he would soon free Gilluk. The seventh new moon of the new year had been only three weeks away. He would then finish the house for himself. It made a splendid place away from home, although it would have to be provided with several underground exits. Ras had not intended to be caught in it without more than one way out. Then he had begun thinking of how delighted his parents would be with it and how they would praise it. This had caused some conflict, because he had wanted a secret place all to himself, and yet he had wanted to share it with Mariyam and Yusufu. However, he had doubted that they would come this far to see it. They had never been south of the plateau--or so they had said.
He had been able to do neither. The day he had expected to release Gilluk, he had found that Gilluk had freed himself. Moreover, the house and the cage around it had been ashes.
For a while, he had been so angry that he had thought of tracking Gilluk down and killing him. But the anger and the hurt had lessened, and he had not been sure then that he would take vengeance even if he had the chance. Gilluk had not been able to help it, because he had been unable to appreciate beauty, and he had been under no debt to Ras to be grateful. He, Ras, had gotten more out of knowing Gilluk than Gilluk had out of knowing him. He had not had to build the house; he had done it because he had wanted to do it. Just as Gilluk had remained a prisoner only as long as he had wanted to be a prisoner.
14
YOUR TURN NOW
There was silence for a moment, followed by more shouts. More silence. A thunking sound and a short, shrill cry. Silence again. Then chopping sounds. Ras came down out of the tree and slid down the steep, muddy bank. His legs sank into what had looked like solid ground. He pulled them out and began to slog through, hoping that the sucking sound would not be heard by those on the islet, although it did not seem likely. Before he was halfway across the level, he no longer cared whether he made noise or not. The semisolid stuff was up to his waist, and his feet found no support. He was sinking.
Panic almost made him thrash around. He remembered, however, what Yusufu had told him to do if he were caught in such a situation. Fighting against the impulse to struggle violently, he threw himself backward as hard as he could, his arms flung outward, his hands turned palms downward. He dropped the spear, which quickly sank. Although the upper part of his body began to sink, his legs came up. He rowed backward and managed to pull his legs loose and then to extend them straight out. His body continued to sink slowly. By presenting more surface per weight, he was decreasing the rate of speed of sinking.
However, his next move, to roll over quickly, was frustrated by the bow and quiver on his back. The quagmirish stuff was filling the quiver and adding so much weight that it had started to drag him down. His head was almost under by the time that he had freed himself of the bow and quiver. The quiver disappeared almost at once. His sidewise position now made him lose his buoyancy, so he began to sink more swiftly. With a desperately swift roll, he succeeded in getting upon his back again and spreading out his legs and arms. His head was turned to one side, permitting him to see the depressions made by his body where he had just been. These were filling in rapidly.
The thin, sticky film of the quagmire covered his entire body and face. He could taste its grittiness and smell its stench. It smelled like death. Bodies at the bottom were sending up their rottenness.
Overhead, the sun shone fully upon him. From distant trees came the cries of birds and the chitterings of monkeys, all intent on their own business of feeding, excreting, mating, looking out for enemies, and quarreling among themselves. A large raven flew above him and cawed at him. Ras got a grim amusement out of the thought that this raven would not be able to eat him if the mire did get him.
However, he did not intend to die here.
The antelope-hide bag, attached to his belt, did not seem to drag on him. Although it contained the mirror, razor, and whetstone, it held enough air to give it support. As for the knife, it was heavy, but he meant to hang on to it until he had to choose between going down or getting rid of it.
He rolled over again, jerking his body at the same time to swing it around parallel with the bank. With one more effort, he would be in line to start his pattern of roll, lie flat, roll, lie flat, roll, until he reached the shallow part of the mire. The bag impeded his movements, but not seriously.
It was then that he heard his name called. He raised his head to see Gilluk on the land to his far right, just stepping onto a fallen tree that formed a bridge from islet to islet. In one hand, Gilluk was carrying his sword, bloodied almost to the hilt, and holding with the other to the hair of a severed head.
Ras attempted to increase the speed of his escape procedure. By the time he was able to stand up with a solidity of a sort under his feet, he found Gilluk standing on the bank above him.
Gilluk smiled and said, "Ras Tyger!"
Ras smiled and said, "Gilluk, king of the Sharrikt!"
"Not king until I kill all those who would be king," Gilluk said. "Of the four who came into the Great Swamp to kill me and take the divine sword from me, three are dead. Two heads are cached in a hollow tree. You see the head of the third here. One has not found me yet nor I him."
Ras was at a disadvantage. Up to his knees in the mire, he could not jump to one side or leap ahead. He could snatch out his knife and throw it, but the hilt was slippery and Gilluk would drop down on the ground at the first movement of his hand to the knife. If Ras then tried to come up the slick bank, he would be exposed to the sword. He could draw the knife and act as if he were going to throw it, then try to get up the bank before Gilluk would realize he was tricked. But he was sure that he could not move swiftly enough to do this.
"What do you intend to do?" Ras said.
Gilluk looked thoughtful. The head dangling by its long hair from his hand looked much like Gilluk. The skull was narrow; the face, lean and long. The eyebrows were bushy, and the eyelashes were so long and thick they looked like flower petals. The nose was thin and arched, the upper lip was long and broad, and the chin was cleft and pointed. The eyes were closed
. Surprisingly, the mouth was also closed. The expression was that of downcast thought, as if the head were pondering this new state of death. A drop of blood fell from the jagged neck.
Gilluk finally said, "What am I to do with you?"
Ras thought that if Gilluk took long deciding, he would not have to make up his mind. Ras was sinking, and although his rate of descent was much slower than farther out in the mire, he would be completely under within a few minutes.
Gilluk must have realized this, yet he spoke slowly. "That mire has killed many animals and men. There is a very hideous and powerful god who lives at the bottom with his two wives. He seldom lets a victim get away. Yet you got away--to this point, anyway. You must be a favorite of the gods or else hard to kill. Or both. But then you said you were the son of the god you called...?"
"Igziyabher," Ras said. "Not a god. The God."
"Of course there is one God," Gilluk said. "But He has many forms and many lives, all at once. Can you understand that? This sword is a god. I am a god, though I can die. However, I am not standing here to discuss religion with you."
"Why are you standing there?" Ras said.
"If I killed you and took your head back, the people would be amazed. And I would be regarded as a great king indeed. The minstrels would sing of me until the end of the world, when the sky will break into frozen pieces of blue stone and the great crocodile will lead all the devout Sharrikt past the ice and the fire to the land of plenty and of much war, where a man can fight all day and even be killed and yet arise at evening to eat all he wants and bed all the women he wants."
"That's interesting," Ras said.
"Not since the great king Tabkut has a king killed a demon," Gilluk said.
"The Wantso say that I am a ghost," Ras said.
"You can be killed, so you're a demon, not a ghost," Gilluk said.
"What's the difference between the two?" Ras said. "Also, how do you know that I can be killed? Have you ever seen me dead? Have I not been bitten by a green swamp adder and lived, fought a leopard with my bare hands and lived, been struck by lightning and lived? Why do you think I can be killed?"