Nelatha, sensing how frightened Si'Wren still was, smiled her approval,
and leaned over to hug Si'Wren in a reassuring embrace.
"You keep up a good pace," Nelatha agreed with evident satisfaction. "I
am proud of you, Si'Wren."
They were charged to labor without ceasing, but sometimes both girls
would alike find themselves the free time to rest and watch others, for
which neither girl was apt to criticize the other too unfairly.
Outsiders could not easily see into the tent, thereby to voice any
complaint of idleness, for the veil screened the girls while they
worked, keeping them safely out of view while they labored happily
within it's shadowy confines.
Even so, the two girls did try to be faithful and willing servants who
would scarce conscience the deliberate wasting of their Master's
valuable time and resources, and whose household they rightly
considered themselves to be a part of. To be sure, they counted
themselves but inferior members of the House, and yet, if not heirs,
nevertheless exceeding fortunate to be the property of so great a one
as Master Rababull.
This, then, was their fate and fortune, and it was good in their sight.
Master Rababull had never deliberately mistreated either of them,
although he was known to deal harshly enough with rightly deserving
wrongdoers or habitual slackers if they pushed their luck too far.
He had more than enough of those to preoccupy his attentions. According
to the elder slaves, times were never so evil as now. Si'Wren wondered
at this, being too young to say for herself. But she was inclined to
agree with them.
The giant came out again, and made equally short work of his brief walk
across the wide courtyard to the foundry. To the tune of many hammers,
a group of talented artificers was busy at their labors there as they
worked diligently to create numberless idols of stone, brass, silver,
pearl, ivory, gold, wood, bone, and sparkling, mystically colored
gemstones and jewels.
These skilled men worked together like tireless oxen under the
unflinching eyes of the sweating, dirt-streaked Foundryman, the
traditional Task Master of their Trade, and could readily produce any
sort of cleverly carved and molded artifact, and an endless variety of
molten and engraved idols and gods of all sizes, shapes, and
descriptions. These were always sold or traded off at a handsome profit
for Master Rababull, although some were given as gifts instead. The
handiwork of the clever craftsmen went mostly, as did the wares of
Si'Wren and Nelatha, to the market place in the nearby city of Emperor
Euphrates, ruler over all the land.
Across the yard, the giant stood talking in a voice so deep that it was
like the continuous lowing of a great talking ox. His huge, ugly face
was like a terrible stone mask, and all men of ordinary stature were
utterly dwarfed by him, and so afraid of him that they stood frozen in
stark fear if he so much as but glanced in their direction momentarily.
"The gods of the giants are exceeding mighty!" breathed Si'Wren,
keeping her voice low so as not to be overheard. To this Nelatha made
no reply, but watched only, and kept her silence.
Because of the six-fingered giants, one could speak of another race.
But the way of ordinary men, throughout the known world, was; one kind,
one race, one speech, easily recognized and understood by all. This was
the way it had always been and it would scarce have occurred to any to
so much as question it.
Only two kinds of men might speak and not be understood; drunkards, and
the possessed, and though foul be the reproaches and slurred speech of
a drunkard, so much the worse be the abuses one risked in knowingly
dealing with some possessed madman!
Giants, Si'Wren was told, were all possessed.
The two frightened girls stayed hidden, watching motionlessly in the
spice tent as the giant stood like a temple god himself and conversed
at great length with the Foundryman. They could not hear clearly what
was said, but the giant gesticulated with his huge hands so much that
it was interesting to watch and try to figure out.
He wanted an idol made. This much was plain to see. Verily, for that,
he had come to the right place.
Si'Wren knew no Polynesians, Asians, Eurasians, or Mongolians. She knew
no Amerinds northern or southern, no Hispanics, Negroids, or Pygmies.
She knew no Caucasians, rain forest people, or Eskimos. She knew no
people other than her own kind, for there was but one race of Man the
world over.
Yet these unknown future races -with their diverse tongues yet to be
born out of history- were hidden in the bloodline of Si'Wren's one
world-wide race, one day to emerge, and then would come proud evil
speeches of 'the purity of the race' with exclusive regard to
individual strains, and a need to 'ethnic cleansing' and racial
'purges' of the 'mixed breeds'.
The human race, of which Si'Wren was but a single leaf, one lone, timid
female, had spread abroad by a plethora of land bridges. There were
many shallow seas and easily crossed land bridges in this, the world of
Si'Wren, land which was but slightly above the level of the seas, with
broad exposed continental shelves, vast coastal plains, and virgin,
fertile land. Much territory was given over to swamp, tropical jungle,
and dense forest.
Thus there was but one people in the world, medium-color, and more or
less medium-dark of hair. To suggest that from the loins of a single
man and his wife would one day spring forth all future races in their
manifold colors and countless differences would have been a source of
great astonishment to Si'Wren, could she but have known. One might as
well harken unto the daffy old woman, L'acoci, and her crazy talk of
colors in the sky, as to speak of many differing colors among the skins
of men.
There was no other kind of human, except for the giants, and even these
spoke the same language as the rest of the human race, in spite of
their great difference in size. Even those with six fingers were not so
different as all that. Yet in spite of the fact that there was only one
race among men -which included the giants- there was hatred in almost
every heart, wickedness such as to compound every evil, and deliberate
mimicry of the savage wild beasts which roamed this wild primitive
world so overflowing with such indescribable natural beauty.
Si'Wren reached for the water skin, and fumbled as her fingers plucked
for it, and accidentally dropped it in the dirt. She reached down and
picked it up, ignoring the rough coating of caked-on mud which clung to
the bag as she raised it to her lips. The water ran freely out of the
bag's horn spout, it's mud coating wrinkling across the contracting,
silken wet goat skin, giving rise to many miniature ridges.
When she had drunk her full, she heedlessly hung the depleted goat skin
back on the stub of a knot-end on the tent pole upright, a small
axe-hewn sapling. The half-dried mud clung to the goat skin in a
curious pattern of broken and layered ridges that were partly crushed
together wherever their broken edges collided and overran one-another
as a result of the escape of water beneath the muddy leather, which
Si'Wren had taken to quench her thirst.
The water skin forgotten, she rubbed her hands lightly to brush the
coating of mud off her palms and turned to her work, while unheeded
behind her, some of the water skin's encrusted mud crumbled and dropped
to the ground behind her bare feet in little broken clods that
contained the tiny seeds of plants, and the remains of a few dead
insects.
Even as there was but one race of man, which included the giants and
the six-fingered ones, there was also but one breed, likewise, of the
dog.
Hardly a noble creature to look upon, the common camp dog was a
different breed altogether from the huge and fearsome dire wolves that
stood as tall as a man at the shoulder and roamed the farthest and
deepest wilds in savage packs.
The dogs of men more resembled the small wild plains dogs.
Yet, like the wolves, which ran in packs, this hardy domesticated breed
retained a strong pack instinct. It was used as a guard dog and camp
scavenger, but could, like any wolf, become dangerous if starved too
long or unduly provoked, as by the tauntings of foolish children.
Covertly watching the giant visitor, Si'Wren found it a relief not to
be seen by him, unlike the unhappy Foundryman, who, normally considered
by all to be no runt in his own right and anything but a coward, looked
now equally as puny and scared as any small boy. He looked so scared
that Si'Wren could not help but feel sorry for him. The giant was so
tall that the Foundryman must needs tilt his head back and look almost
straight up at the hairy visitor. What an ugly head, to behold against
the majesty of the skies.
"Their gods may indeed be strong," said Nelatha, "but the fight is not
always to the strong, nor the race to the swift, and I have heard
speakings in my time, of an Invisible God."
Si'Wren was so distracted by observing the giant that she forgot
herself and suddenly had to look at Nelatha and say foolishly, "Huh?
Forgive me Nelatha, what did you say?"
Nelatha sighed patiently.
"I said, the gods of the Giants may seem exceeding fierce and large,
and like themselves, false-hearted, but there is an Invisible God that
I have heard of, who is strongest of all."
"Indeed?"
"Aye, and He is a loving, forgiving god. But," Nelatha said, her voice
lowered to a conspiratorial whisper, "the idol makers despise this
Invisible God, because they cannot make any money selling idols of Him."
Nelatha giggled, and Si'Wren smiled also.
It must be a joke, of course.
Si'Wren and Nelatha both loved to privily mock the moneymakers. The
wheelers and dealers must provide their own fare, and were much
obsessed with money-making schemes in the market place. They were
shrewd cheats, long accustomed to swapping not only goods, but lies and
lives, and often resorted to savage ambushes and bloodlettings after
dark. There was ample reason to be fearful of the night. Hence, they
deserved not only to be feared, but mocked on occasion.
Nelatha giggled because the artificers who made the idols always acted
so godly and superior, and were so full of the greed of dogs but could
never seem to suspect the similarity of themselves to such lowly
creatures. It seemed to the two girls like Heaven's well-deserved gift
of madness to such evil ones.
At least, that was Si'Wren's unspoken opinion. However, it would never
do for a mere slave girl to be so blunt as to speak with such open
foolishness. Si'Wren always guarded her thoughts. For as the wise men,
who ever sat in the city gates, were fond of repeating so often and so
well-deservedly, 'What is foolishly uttered in private, will surely be
regretted openly in public'.
Wise counsel dictated that one such as Si'Wren must not criticize
others more important than herself (which was virtually everybody),
even if she saw cutthroats setting up their gods of greed under every
green tree, with which to furnish themselves an imagined, perpetual
divine approval of their moral filth and wickedness.
For the idol-makers, greediness begat holiness, and their chief deity
was the god of gain. But Si'Wren could not help wondering whether such
be gods at all. Hence, her sudden and immediate interest in Nelatha's
words.
"How could a god be invisible?" asked Si'Wren. "How could one make
proper obeisance to him? Which way would you bow?"
"Well," Nelatha thought a minute, pausing in her work. Then she said,
"Little one, when you close your eyes in prayer to the Master's family
god, and then bow, tell me this; do you see him at the precise moment
of bowing?"
"No, I do not," said Si'Wren. "How interesting! I have never thought of
that before. One can bow in any direction, then?"
"I think so," said Nelatha, showing with her slowness of speech, that
she was becoming very, very preoccupied about what had up until now
been mere conversation to Si'Wren.
Si'Wren, noticing this sudden onset of seriousness on Nelatha's part,
sought how to retreat from the imagined danger of causing any possible
offense to Nelatha.
"There are many gods," said Si'Wren quickly. "I am sure yours is just
as good as anyone else's, in spite of the unfortunate fact that you
cannot see him."
"Not so," said Nelatha flatly. "The Invisible God is the only true god.
It is not so difficult if one cannot see him. Consider, Si'Wren, such a
time as when you are suddenly frightened while lying in your bed after
dark, when it is not possible to go to the House temple which the
Master has built, therein to pray. Then, surely you must make prayers
to the Master's god without seeing him."
"Aye," agreed Si'Wren, wondering at this, for, of a curiosity, she
perceived strange new truths in Nelatha's words.
"Well, then," Nelatha said simply, "that's all there is to it."
"Pray tell; 'that is all there is to what?'" inquired an imperious and
sultry female contralto, coming from almost directly behind their
unguarded backs.
Both girls started like birds and together as one bent swiftly and
automatically to their tasks as if bowing to one of the many idols of
the House of Rababull with an instinctive zeal born of grievous prior
experience. One must never be caught openly slacking, and the voice was
that of Sorpiala, standing just at the opening of the tent flap.
Sorpiala, so slender and tall for her sex, with long glossy dark hair,
and such lovely almond-shaped eyes, was a beautiful young slave woman
greatly favored by Master Rababull. Like the Master, Sorpiala was not
always so agreeable with the sometimes carelessly chosen words of
others, unlike amiable Nelatha.
What made Si'Wren even more afraid, was that some of the others had
been heard to remark of late on how beautiful Si'Wren was becoming. In
fact, some said Si'Wren was even more beautiful now than cruel, proud
Sorpiala.
It gave Si'Wren a scary feeling. In fact, sometimes a positively
dreadful feeling. From the warnings Si'Wren had been privately given by
others in the House, it was evident to all that Master Rababull had
been making eyes at Si'Wren in the months since young Si'Wren had begun
to physically blossom, and as was increasingly clear to all, had begun
at long last upon the path of becoming transformed from a human reed
into something a little more shapely, after the manner of all womankind.
Si'Wren somehow found herself becoming progressively more aware of such
dire warnings by the older female slaves in the House, who seemed to
feel that it would be Si'Wren's very life if Sorpiala should perceive
Si'Wren as a threat to her domain.
But, being so young and innocent, and not able to fully comprehend the
meaning of such dark speakings, Si'Wren could only shrug inwardly,
knowing not how or what she might do to avoid such an unintended
confrontation of fates. Lives should intertwine and complement, not
strangle, one-another. And it seemed to her that sometimes now Si'Wren
felt Master Rababull's eyes lingering inordinately long upon her, and
could only feign not to notice, for she was utterly at a loss to know
how to behave, even without the unconventional idea of some unguessable
danger stemming out of Sorpiala's secretly harbored and uncontrolled
upwellings of jealousy.
It was well-enough known to all, that syrupy sweet Sorpiala could
without warning become subtle and vicious at the slightest perceived
insult. For Sorpiala's lips were quick to smile, although her
almond-shaped eyes had always betrayed an hardness, and Sorpiala could
be unrelentingly vindictive about her jealousies, which were countless.
Sorpiala had been the Master's favorite for as long as Si'Wren could
remember. Cross up Sorpiala, and you could end up strapped to the
nearest alter with a stone knife hovering in a pair of hairy fists over
your chest.
There was no way of knowing how long Sorpiala had stood behind the two
of them in deathly silence, listening at their backs while Nelatha and
Si'Wren spoke foolishly, uttering what could all too easily become
their own death warrants on a moment's notice, for appearing to so
willfully and heedlessly forsake their proper duties.
Deep in her heart, Si'Wren had always held as deep a love, reverence,
and respect for Sorpiala as if she were an elder sister, although they
were unrelated by blood. An orphan, Si'Wren had no known siblings. As
for the other slaves in the House, many were known to be the children
of Master Rababull, for he was a man who had many wives, and the
slave-offspring which he had sired might at least claim many
half-brothers or half-sisters among their kin. Not being freeborn, this
was anyhow counted an honor among those slaves who could boast of it,
for it gave them many incidental advantages they might not otherwise
enjoy in their low estate.
But Si'Wren had none to call blood kin. Not a soul.
Si'Wren had also been afraid of Sorpiala more recently, purely aside
from the warnings of others, because of the queerest look Si'Wren
thought she saw in Sorpiala's eyes now and again. It was an alarming
expression, like a deep, searing mask of thinly-veiled hatred, the way
that a surface layer of whitest ash masked the red glow of a fire
living in a long-burning bed of coals while betraying no visible flame
or spark on the surface.
Such confused goings-on both frightened and perplexed Si'Wren, and she
was naturally at a loss how to respond, and so did nothing. What could
she have done anyway?
Si'Wren had been given special warning by old L'acoci, and now also
began to understand, dimly, that to a slave girl, any degree of beauty
could be a terrible curse, if it brought the wrong kind of attention
from the wrong kind of person. To a slave, especially a young girl such
as Si'Wren, were not all others superior to herself? She was virtually
at the mercy of whoever chose to molest her, for she did not even know
how to run away or where to go.
Now, fearful in the presence of Sorpiala's ominous silence, Si'Wren
kept her eyes downcast on her little jars, pretending with an agonized
trembling and the barest amount of fumbling over everything she
touched, to be utterly oblivious of anything out of the ordinary.
Unexpectedly, Sorpiala stepped forward to face Si'Wren and smiled
tenderly from one side.
"Si'Wren, what is this? Did I not just have the good fortune to hear
you talking about the Invisible God?" Sorpiala asked in the sweetest
tone of voice. "How curious," Sorpiala went on, "that I have never
before noticed your belief in him, dear. Is He not wonderful?"
Si'Wren lifted up her eyes to Sorpiala in a shy smile. Of course she
could trust Sorpiala! Who could dare to think otherwise?
"Aye, Sorpiala," said Si'Wren, looking up and nodding readily and
continuing to smile beamingly. "We were just talking about him. I have
never before heard of a god so unusual that one could not even see him."
But abruptly, as Si'Wren turned from smiling at Sorpiala in order to
include Nelatha in the conversation, she was struck dumb with shock by
the stark, thinly veiled terror in Nelatha's trapped-looking eyes.
After betraying that one warning look to Si'Wren, Nelatha bent over her
work and pretended not to be aware of anything around her, especially
anything in the direction of Sorpiala.
Si'Wren looked back at Sorpiala again quickly, blinking rapidly in
confusion.
"Fear not," soothed Sorpiala, reaching to stroke Si'Wren's cheek gently
with her fingertips. "I have heard of the Invisible God. Does he not
watch over all the world and even ourselves at this very moment?"
"Aye," Si'Wren nodded doubtfully, casting her round eyes from
Sorpiala's curiously reassuring countenance, to Nelatha, who, looking
sick at heart, seemed ready to die of fear on the very spot.
Si'Wren suddenly wished that Nelatha would stop worrying. Could Nelatha
not see how loving and faithful Sorpiala was, both to them and to this
Invisible God?
"Don't work too hard, Nelatha," Sorpiala said, and then let out a funny
little laugh. "Remember; the Invisible God is always watching every
move, and hears every word. Bye-bye, girls."
"Bye, Sorpiala," said Si'Wren, smiling fondly.
But Nelatha did not return the farewell, and when Sorpiala was gone,
Si'Wren stood motionless for a long time, as motionless as any dumb
graven idol, as she struggled with some nameless, faceless inner
turmoil in her effort to take proper stock of the situation.
Why was Nelatha so troubled, and so unwilling to so much as speak of it?
* * *
In the following days, Sorpiala seemed to harbor a special look of
affection which she secretly displayed for Si'Wren's eyes only,
whenever they chanced to meet. It gave Si'Wren the most deep-down,
sisterly feeling for Sorpiala, and made her feel inexpressibly
contented with life.
But with each passing day, Nelatha became if possible even more
fearful, and finally, she would no longer so much as speak scarcely a
word to Si'Wren or even acknowledge her presence with so much as a nod,
causing Si'Wren much anguish when they worked together in the spice
tent at their labors and causing her to long desperately for their
former good times together.
Whenever Master Rababull would chance to pass by, he would nod and beam
and smile at her, filling Si'Wren's day with consternation and no
little dismay that she should feel so dumb about everything. Any simple
slave girl might quite sensibly have experienced a right and proper
bliss, even a contentment, at such attentions, but all Si'Wren felt was
a terrible sense of foreboding.
Si'Wren occasionally saw Sorpiala standing in the shadows, frowning,
but only once did Si'Wren chance to deliberately spy on Sorpiala, as
she stood across the courtyard in the shadow of the House and stared
down at an overripe fruit that had turned partly rotten. The fruit had
already begun to dry up, and Si'Wren could see the shrunken, wrinkled,
flattened side on which it had lain in the dirt, and the flies that
scattered when Sorpiala shooed them away with a distracted frown.
It was uncharacteristic for Sorpiala to touch such filth with her
hands, and Si'Wren could only wonder at what could have motivated one
such as she to do such a thing. It fretted Si'Wren to see her elder
sister in bondage grieving so over a mere rotting fruit. Were there not
an hundred fresh ones, ripe for the taking, to replace the rotten one
that seemed to concern Sorpiala so?
Si'Wren was fairly mystified at this.
Suddenly three of Sorpiala's female consorts approached, catching her
off-guard with the offending fruit still held openly in her palm.
Sorpiala seemed to give a sudden start at the appearance of the others,
as if not expecting them and for some reason seemed
uncharacteristically at a loss how to face them, although Si'Wren could
not say why. There were many such slave girls under Sorpiala's personal
power, who were virtually as answerable to Sorpiala as they were to
Master Rababull himself.
Si'Wren watched in blank astonishment, secure behind her tent skirts,
as the other three women made carefully orchestrated faces of sham
sorrow over the fruit to Sorpiala's face, and then when they departed,
delivered with equal skill and dispatch the most despicably reviling,
hateful looks to Sorpiala behind her back.
Sorpiala's slave attendants were like flounders, fish that could not
swim with a proper motion, that dwelt in the mire at the bottom of the
sea, and looked strangely at one with the peculiar oddness of two eyes
both wrongfully on one side only, but no eye on the other side. So
that, wherever the flounder looked, it looked while concealing it's
other side, all the while appearing to be as falsely over-sincere as
only a flounder could seem.
The following morning, Si'Wren found herself working in the spice tent
beside a disturbingly quiet Nelatha. It was early enough that the
morning mists still drifted thickly over the glistening outer walls and
swirled wetly through the compound and softening and obscuring all form
and substance.
Softly, Si'Wren sang a prayer to herself for a day filled with
blessings from Heaven for all who lived in Master Rababull's House,
respectfully beseeching various and sundry gods as she followed a
tribal melody with the words of her prayer. Forgotten were her fears,
for there remained only, from time to time, that distressing silence of
Nelatha, which Si'Wren had been so vainly at odds to dispel with her
cheerfulness.
She had never been so happy, working in the spice tent. Only now, she
was aware of the fact that she did pray to unseen gods. Gods whose
graven idols were not in her immediate, visible presence, just as
Nelatha had scornfully pointed out earlier when still on speaking terms
with her. This led Si'Wren to consider more seriously the strange
Invisible God of whom Nelatha had initially spoken.
Nelatha still adamantly refused to speak of the Invisible God, in spite
of the fact that Sorpiala clearly meant no harm, and stubbornly refused
now to so much as say one word about this or practically anything else.
But Si'Wren could not stop herself from wondering about this strange
Invisible God. For the whole idea was still very unclear to her. She
was still so young, and the world so vast.
She supposed that the elders of every village must know all about this
Invisible God, and imagined that they must surely understand why His
image could not be somehow made visible by the contrivance of wooden or
golden idols made with hands. Yet, she was fearful of going to any of
them and asking.
The least of the elders of any of the villages round about, and those
also that sat in the gates of the Emperor's city, was each and every
one of them, from the highest to the very lowest in rank, a great civil
dignitary. That was how Si'Wren had always viewed them.
Such great men should not be trifled with, especially by a mere girl,
and might severely chastise Si'Wren for her boldness, and perhaps as
well for her blatant ignorance of such matters. What if, in their
anger, any of them was to complain to her Master Rababull and shame him
openly for the stupidity of the foolish girl slave called Si'Wren? The
more that even one of them should happen to laugh and make mention of
it to him, the more Master Rababull would punish her, it seemed to
Si'Wren. No, it was not worth such a risk, merely to ask such a curious
and doubtful question.
"Nelatha, I have longed that I might speak with you once more about
this curious Invisible God," Si'Wren finally said, eyes meekly downcast
to her work. "Why has He given us eyes, and then made Himself
invisible, that none might ever look upon His face? Is it because He is
ashamed?"
Nelatha worked on, as if she had not heard.
"Why would God be ashamed?" Si'Wren whispered, as if to herself now.
Finally, Nelatha looked up with an expression of open impatience and
exasperation.
"Only man is ashamed," Nelatha said with quiet assurance, at long last
overcoming her reluctance of speaking of the Invisible One again. "Not
God. Foolish Si'Wren, you must try your best to live a sinless life. Do
good, and shun evil! Does not the wisdom of our folk lore teach us that
Adam, and Eve his wife, saw God openly and spoke to Him freely and
often, before they were both cast out of the Garden of Heaven for one
sin? No wonder He never shows His face! And does this not also teach us
that there is but one God?"
"It is curious," Si'Wren agreed, "that Adam and Eve should have been
created by only one god, when all men say there be many gods. Of a
truth, I have never considered it before. How can this be?"
"There is but one God," said Nelatha, "and in this life, no one may see
God and live. For all are sinful. Sin, before God, burns like charcoal
in a fire. But you will see Him on high some day, if you go to Paradise
after you die."
"You mean; if I have lived a good life?" Si'Wren said.
"Aye," nodded Nelatha, "that too. More, it will be to your good and
everlasting fortune if you have had good inside your heart, which like
Him is unseen, and not just in your outward behavior. Then you will
surely rejoice to see Him in all of His eternal glory. Aye, you shall
stand before the living God for all eternity, and live, and not die."