"In Search of Paradise" by H. Coyne

         The sunrise split the world in half. The waving, dark meadow of ocean was separated from the from the endless sky by a fissure of molten orange light. A single ship lolled in the rich alien scape, quietly trying to escape the god-like notice of either sphere. It crept and creaked across the water, hurrying towards land like an animal would scamper across a road to the cloistered green of the woods.

Gwyneth stared at the broken world, the blue and green pulled taut in either direction. She felt like she was at the very center of the sea, furthest from all sides of land. Karadur was behind her only in imagination. She had no proof that her memories of earth floors littered with sweet herbs, her mother's white furs and the black pines heavy with snow were true. Here she stood, able to concoct a vision of her life that could remain unbroken by tactile contradiction. She could dwell in silence, not speaking to her father or the others and immerse in the dream. The endless water allowed her to build shadow empires and mute figures beyond the blinding orange horizon.

Softly, her mind wove a world in which her mother stood on the beach facing the water. The sand and her skin were lunar pale and raising currents of wind pulled long copper strands of hair around her face in aqueous waves. Her mother laughed and clapped her hands close to her chest. No other living thing was visible on the beach, only her cut out against a leucous sky.

She laughed, unabashed and sweet, "Come my mermaiden. Swim to me." She looked at Gwyneth from the shore, smiling with enough love to break the world, as Gwyneth beat against the cold and brine, it filling her mouth with a sweet bitterness.

"Then I will come to you, pretty mermaiden."

She entered the sea, the water parting around her fair feet for a breath as she walked. The sea rose to her mother's waist, her tunic billowing beneath the water, a pale flower opening in the dark sea. Beautiful, polished-bone white arms stretched from the softly floating vision, clasping Gwyneth's small hands.

"And now we shall dance, my little fish." And so they did in the weightless world, suspended and breathtaking, surrounded by immensity like stars in the evening, or swans crossing a sea.

Gwyneth spoke aloud, "I love you."

The heavy reality of her voice smothered the thinly woven dream. The ocean's empty maw swelled and her mother's submerged tunic swallowed her into its sublime and surreal beauty. But Gwyneth could not follow her mother's white hand as it was sucked into the churning deep. A rush of stone memories thundered into her mind: her mother sick, a pyre, the ash falling on her hair, sticking to her fingers and cloying her living breath with loss. A broad hand on Gwyneth's shoulder kept her from spinning too far into the awakened grief.

"Daughter, turn away from there. That is the way towards Karadur. Candera is on the other side."

She spoke matter of factly, "Sometimes I don't know if another land exists anymore, Father."

Warrior Hale looked down at the girl beneath his rough hand.

"I promise it does. Our brother clan would not lie about the land they stood on, nor would your maiden of her birthplace."

"Why us, father?  Why must we leave?" It was not the first time she had asked.

"I'm a King's Dayne, Gwyneth, I go where he wills. And he wills that I protect the hoard his brother gathers for him." He spoke with unwavering understanding. To assault the order of this hierarchy was to remove a man's bones.

Hale guided her by the shoulders, "So come away Gwynnie, let's see if we can learn more of the Canderan nomad language."

She came dutifully, but her eyes were cast away at some unseen light, until she was forced to listen to the heat filled language of Nishar as it bubbled from the scholar's lips. Gwyneth equated the language with a purr and the rustle of stiff bristles on the floor, the sounds of her Nishani maiden, Asrafel, moving about the longhouse. The cadence of the language had come through the door many a morning like rays of yellow light, for Asrafel sang as she fed the chickens and boar. Songs too warm or too quick for the cold island of Karadur, and forever at odds with the air. The language was not so hard for Gwyneth to absorb. She already knew the rhythm, its music drifted in her: subtle and scalding.

 "Chaq Hor. Chaq Hor. Chaq Hor." The scholar repeated the phrase slowly with his hand raised in a gesture of instruction. "It means Bone Eater and is the Nishani name for the desert between the outpost of Thendry and the Silver Plains, before Laranay."

"Thendry is 'forsaken' in our sacred speech, but what is Laranay?" beardless Edgard asked.

"It is the land of the monsters, Larana. The name means bondage in Nishani. It is not wise to wonder about that place overmuch."

Gwyneth shuddered, she had heard stories of the Larana from Asrafel. Dark places, dark things and deeds muffled in the gloom.

Edgard caught her revulsion, "Afraid of stories with monsters, little Gwyneth?" He looked to the other boys, "Girls will believe anything that is told them."

"And boys will ignore everything until it is too late." Gwyneth retorted, "If I had your poor aim with the spear I'd hope monsters were fictions too."

The insistent voice of the scholar ended the clash before it escalated, "Listen here. Chaq Hor. Larana. Say them with me and be careful to lengthen the 'H' in Hor."

         Asrafel watched the lesson through her magnificently green eyes, shaped like a lion's, but the Karadurians had never seen lions. They called any indentured Nishani "crevice-eyes" for the diamond pupils that contracted and expanded with the flush of light and dark.

Asrafel smirked to herself as her charge spoke her mind.

Though she detested weakness, Asrafel could forgive Gwyneth her heightened fear of the Larana. They ought to be feared, not to do so was foolishness. 

As Candera grew nearer the pale Karadurians stared more and more at Asrafel. They were realizing she was their closest tie to the land beyond. They beheld her blue- black curls and amber colored skin with a strange, detached interest, and the men watched the way she carried her spear, as if it would tell how Nishani men carried theirs. Asrafel knew these broad pale men were not merely strong, but cunning. They reminded her of desert wolves, savage and furred, but many of the pale men, like her master Hale, were also shrewd and patient. Hale was good man, kind to her in his own way and as protective of her honor as his daughter's. She owed him much despite her servitude.

Any existence was better than being bartered as a bride to the Sons of Ya'ir. While Hale lived they could make no claim on her, or so she prayed to the Eternal Father.

 Asrafel turned her face towards the breeze. Tiny black dots that could sense the electric tang of heartbeats and the first churning winds of a storm were sprinkled like freckles across the "bridge" of her non-existent bump of a nose. All the Nishani's taste and smell was in their mouth, so it was not uncommon to see a Nishani whistling air into their cheeks as they hunted. Her "nose" told her there would be no rain tonight, but she was not infallible.

~*~

The belly of the ship stank. Fumes of sweat, rot and animal waste pinched Gwyneth's nose. It smelled like the summer refuse, overly ripe and sticky. It would go away in a while, her senses deadening to it, but it was no wonder she fought to stay above deck. The women were clustered on a bed of furs. A wall of boxes and the threats of fathers and husbands kept the men away from their den. Gwyneth rested with her head in Asrafel's lap, as the latter stroked her hair.

"It's been seven years today since she walked on. My heart still feels tight on this day, though it was long ago.." Her fingers played absently with the strings of her shift. "I didn't tell my father, but I think he knows, even stranded out here. Perhaps the anniversary is why my vision of her today was so clear." Gwyneth began to look troubled, "It was bright but cold. I am not sure if I should dread Passing Day this winter moon."

Asrafel's voice was never sweet and gentle, but it could be low and soft, like a purr. "It will come whether you dread it or not, so do not waste your energy. You will need it all for Candera. It is a beautiful but searing place."

"Will you tell me one of its stories?"

"Of the Larana?"

"Of your family."

"You know all that you must. They are gone like your mother, but I was much older when they passed. I will tell you of Manara instead."

This appeased Gwyneth for now.

The story revealed the origins of many Nishani customs, but for every shining answer there were more questions. Gwyneth felt the holes added to the mystic pulse of the tale, but found herself trying to piece together the secret's of the ancient world after its every telling. It was an elaborate puzzle that needed a few pieces to illuminate the entire matter.

Very few Nishani told stories, and even then, each were able to tell five at the most. Oral tradition possessed stringent guidelines in the Nishani culture. Stories were written as they transpired, but in the voracious desert, precious few original manuscripts existed, so when learning or copying stories a teller had to display a perfect mastery of what was written. Teller apprentices learned only from original manuscripts and while studying they sat under constant scrutiny by elders established in the art. Apprentices who were not eventually tested and blessed in proper teller ceremony were forbidden to tell the sacred tales ever again, under pain of more then death. If the teller would attempt to obliterate their heritage, than they would obliterate him and his memory.

Gwyneth thought herself immensely lucky to have a blessed teller in her handmaiden, but Asrafel once expressed distaste for the honor. Without the title she would never have enticed the attentions of the sons of Ya'ir. On this day stained with mourning, though, Asrafel would utilize the talent without letting her tainted perception of the gift seep into her craft.

"Long ago, the Nishani were one tribe and lived in a great city of stone and earth, a city larger than your Dayne's lands, Karadurian." Asrafel acknowledged Gwyneth's indignant look before continuing. "As the Eternal Father..." Every time she spoke the name of the Eternal Father Asrafel would lift her hands in a ritual of veneration. "...blessed the Nishani with wealth and wondrous craftsmen their city grew larger and more prosperous. It seemed that the stone city would overtake all of Shani, but the Eternal Father told his children of the sand to 'Leave the Silver Plains and the west, but all that is gold I have given to you my Nishani.' For years the Nishani obeyed our Eternal Father and creator, but as the city became greater, the hearts of the leaders grew dark and their ears blocked to the creator's voice. The last High Chief, Zedekias, saw the green bounty and crystal water of the Silver Plains and lusted after it. Like their leader the nishani began to question why the Silver plains should not be theirs as well. Food and water was plenty in the city, but the round fruits and black earth of the Silver Plains tempted the Nishani sorely. Fulfilling the shallow desires of their bellies, many Nishani rose to the plains."

Gwyneth quietly corrected Asrafel, "Don't you mean, 'went' not rose?"

Asrafel stilled her hand in its stroke, "No, I repeat the history as it was written. Many things about our history is lost beneath the sand, but not this tale, Karadurian. Never Manara and the breaking." Asrafel's voice faded as she spoke of the breaking, but left no room for any emotion to bloom in her words. All feeling remotely associated with personal weakness was turned forever inward by Asrafel. She was to be the unfailing pillar in this land so strange to her charge.

The Nishani went on, resuming her calming caress of Gwyneth's hair.

"High Chief Zedekias built a great palace in the Silver Plains and held moon long feasts upon it's marble roof. The people devoured the treasures of the Silver Plains and in their desire for more, the Nishani began to worship the black earth in hopes of greater harvest. Offerings and many prayers were made to the ground, grieving the heart of the Eternal Father, who is greater than the land. All would not continue to go this way, though. In time, many Larana, which means 'bondage' to us Nishani, came to reclaim their birthright to the Silver Plains. The stubborn Nishani were without the wisdom of their creator and helpless to the arriving monsters. Even our Sun Warriors were no match for the Larana.

The Larana have the armor of poison-worms all over their bodies, savage teeth of the fiercest desert wolf, claws like the killing birds and the strength of many bulls. Not only this, but the Larana were able to cast false skins about themselves, like one would a sandcloak, hiding amongst the Nishani as one of them. Many children were returned to the sand in the War of the Silver Plains. The land is called by us the White Land, now, for our bones once covered it.

The few Larana became many, as others came to the Silver Plains. The Nishani now broken by the western monsters were kept as slaves for many generations by the Larana. Horrible things passed in that dark time, but those are other tales.

In time the Nishani remembered the creator and cried out unto Him to free them.

The merciful Eternal Father bent his ear to the Nishani and, seeing their pain, made for the Nishani a judge and hero. Wrought from the flames of the blistering island and the delicate sea foam she came to us in flesh infused with life by the creator's breath. In her hand was a sword, named Ezreli, strength from on high, and with her came freedom. Upon Ezreli's hilt were emblems of the sea and on the blade writhing fire, forever reminding the Nishani of Manara's miraculous birth so we may never claim her victories as from our own strength.  That blade killed hundreds of our oppressors, but could not strike any but one creature pure at heart. As many as she slew, our hero loved more. By her the Nishani were made free from the Larana, so she is called Manara, meaning deliverance.

During the many years of the Nishani's slavery, the deserted stone city fell to ruin, swallowed by the Chaq Hor desert. Without a city or High Chief, the Nishani broke apart, content to wander in smaller tribes, and forever cursed with restlessness. We call this the breaking. Manara traveled amongst the Nishani, giving us the creator's wisdom and promise, that in time, He would restore the years that the wolves had eaten. With her also came joy and laughter, for Manara loved life and friendship. No Nishani was too rich, or poor for her regard and no song was unsung by her. 

The Nishani followed the creator for a time, but grew dissatisfied and envious as they saw the wealth of the Larana. Many children of the sand forsook the creator's teaching and shunned Manara, too impatient for the promise. Many returned to the Silver Plains, only to be enslaved.

In His great mercy, the creator sent Manara to free the Nishani once again. Once the Nishani were again free, though, the Larana were sore vexed with Manara. The loss of their Nishani slaves was a great bane to the Larana, for who would build their Anay temples and harvest the offspring of the land? In their distress, the Larana called on their empire to the west to send their greatest warrior: the Fierce One.

The Fierce One is the greatest of all Larana, and known by its color, for no other Larana is as black as it, and only it is able to become as large and fierce as the terrible lizards of the sea when it cast a great shell around itself, more terrifying than any other Larana. Its strength was greater than twenty of its kind, its size unparallelled, and its speed overtook the wind of storms. Cunning in mind and learned in all forms of battle and weapons, the Fierce One posed far more threat than a mere brute. Killing the creature with a blade was nigh impossible, for many a grand blade shattered against its scales, hard as the core of the earth. Most fearsome of all, this Larana had no heart or pity. It is said that from many dens and cities of Larana the Fierce One would take youths for servants and a maiden for pleasure, luring them in with binding words or force. Several Larana women came to love him and esteemed him as their mate, but despite their affections, in time, the Fierce One would strangle his loves with their own long hair and slit the bellies of the youth servants before their eyes.  Even the desert wolves feared such a monster who would betray its pack so easily.

By offering it great wealth, the Larana of the Silver Plains gained the strength of the Fierce One to vanquish Manara.

The Fierce One drifted into Nishani tribes under the guise of Manara's likeness, and savagely killed many innocents. All tribes but one, the Gold Snake, rejected Manara, for the chieftess of Gold Snake did not believe Manara to be a murderer.

During a feast of the Gold Snake tribe, The Fierce One arrived in Manara's form and sat at the chieftess' table. Now the chieftess had not believed the stories of Manara's wickedness, for she was a betha to Manara, a bonded sister-friend, and knew Manara incapable of such evil.

At the end of the feast the false Manara asked the chieftess to walk with her outside the camp, and as they reached beyond the torch's light the Fierce One mortally wounded the chieftess.

When the true Manara drew near to the Gold Snake camp, she found a likeness of herself gloating over her death- destined friend. The great Manara wept at this, and where her tears fell remains to this day a bitter spring.

Manara drew near and commanded the monster to drop its mirage and face her with some semblance of truth. Though the true form of the Fierce One was terrible, Manara did not falter in her purpose, but cried out, 'For my people and my betha I will give all, even my life to destroy you.'

The vile monster laughed at her sacrifice and proclaimed, 'I see defeat in your own eyes, you know this is your last battle. Your people are forever lost, just as this betha is lost to you.' The Fierce One then grew in size and shape, becoming its feared form of a great monster like the lizards if the sea and the ancient beasts.

In righteous fury, Manara attacked the Fierce One's savage form, beginning a great battle that lasted far into the night. The Fierce One could not catch Manara, but Manara's blade was useless against the Fierce One. As the sun began to rise, Manara began to sing of a vision she had. The words she sang are lost, but we know that Manara had seen her death on the very day of her birth and wished only to see one more sunrise before she journeyed into the glorious Haven, land of a thousand risings.

As she sang the blade of Ezreli glowed with words. Manara spoke them as she plunged the sword into herself. 'For many one! For beginnings an end!'

Covered in Manara's life blood, the blade became stronger than the Fierce One's scales. Lunging towards him, Manara pierced the monster's heart spiriting his soul to Dartislough, but the power of the Fierce One fled to the west, not to be seen again by Nishani for many ages.

When the Gold Snake tribe found their dying chieftess they tried to fan the fading spark of life in her, but she lived only long enough to tell of Manara's sacrifice for her people. Since then, we Nishani, though broken, will forever remember the deliverance and love of Manara, the Creator's gift to us, for her love was His love, and her power His power in her."

Asrafel's voice dropped from its sweeping cadence into its normal patterns, signaling the original text's end, "And we Nishani have yet to be conquered as a whole by the Larana since. Yet we have never been one kingdom since that day."

Asrafel had spoken more words in the past few minutes than she normally would in a month, and found each additional word abrasive to her throat.

"You know, Asra," Gwyneth slowly pushed herself up, "Manara did not have a mother and she did many brave things. I sometimes feel unprepared without one. The other girls learn much from theirs, things a father cannot teach."

The Nishani nodded, cradling Gwyneth in her lion like gaze for just a moment, "She had the Eternal Father, all that is needed for greatness and you have kept from the stone idols of your land. He is not stone but a living God who sees and hears. Your mother taught you this. She dwells with Him now."

Gwyneth knew Asrafel was not given over to sentiment or its outpourings, so the story and tiny gestures of affection were volumes in the context of their friendship. Asrafel would be offended if Gwyneth thanked her, so the Karadurian only smiled and spoke the Nishani evening blessing she had been taught.

"May the Stars cool you with their silver," she added with a wry look, "And the aroma of the ship be dead to your senses."

Asrafel gave a strained and tight-lipped smile, her face unaccustomed to the expression.

"Sleep, Karadurian."

And so they did.