39

City of the Red Sun

So Habbili, son of Nushash, found himself alone in the world after he had been crippled by cruel Argal. He took himself on a journey into the far west, my children, of which only legends speak and where men have never traveled. There it is said he spoke with his father at one end of Nushash’s mighty voyage, and afterward returned to the lands we know.

To his lordly father he said that one day he would throw down the children of Mother Shusayem, and so he did.

—from The Revelations of Nushash, Book One

FOR A LONG TIME THE MAN wandered without a name through a forest of black poplar trees and tall cypresses that swayed in an unfelt, unheard wind. A dark stream wandered near the path, but its course veered away and vanished into the mists again as he went forward. Willows curtained it, drooping and shivering like crying women, their branches dangling just above the silent waters.

The man had no strength to wonder where he was, or how he had come to this land of mist and shadow. For a long time he could think of nothing to do but walk. The sun was utterly absent, the sky a gleaming emptiness that was neither dark nor light. He thought that he had been in such a place before, a country of perpetual evening, but he also felt certain he had never been in this gloomy country. The only other thing he knew was a quiet fear that if he did not keep moving he would become as still and hopeless as the black poplars that surrounded him—might even sink into the muddy, squelching soil and become one of the trees himself.

The man wished someone were with him, a voice to sing, or speak, or even weep, anything that would pierce the unending stillness. He tried to do it himself but he had lost the knack of making words and noises just as he had lost his name. It was very quiet in this country. A few black birds walked on the branches above his head, or fluttered from tree to tree, but they were as silent as the trees and the wind and the water.

He walked on.

He had been seeing moving shadows on the far side of the stream for some time, misty figures with the shapes of men and women. Now he saw something else on that far shore which made him pause in wonderment, but he was still uncertain. He wished again he had a voice so he could ask for help from those shadow-folk, for he could see no way to cross the water, and although it seemed to move slowly he did not trust its opaque quiet.

But what do I have to lose even if the water swallows me? He had no immediate answer, but he felt that somehow he did possess something, a truth of some kind he did not wish to surrender, but which the waters of the stream might wash away.