Chapter 6: In the Wilds by the Xap'yu
Then the familiar sun peeks above the
Dark line of a black and brown horizon
To witness a land anticipating
Something new, something fresh, something unseen;
But beneath the land stirs old cadavers,
Poised to kill their unborn murderers.
The Moyeganeni were tough people hammered to sturdiness by the strict care of nature. In the empire that had everything from forests to coasts, mountains to plains, and snow and sand, the Moyeganeni had decided to call their home those parts which were some of the driest. In a land where there was more dust in the air than moisture, they had for centuries given themselves to the spirit of exploration, living their whole life traversing the vast, inhospitable lands of Moyegan.
But gone were those days of yore. Even if they refused to forfeit their toughness and their land, the Moyeganeni of today lived a very different life. Wandering the land was no longer the centre of their existence. Time had forced the collective crystallization of ideals and lifestyles among them into four different strands. Every Moyeganeni individual eventually identified as a part of these four ‘families’ of Moyegan. The only facet that remained the same was that only the hardiest of the hardy, the sharpest of the sharp, had the privilege to lead.
Of course this ideal had endured! For the Moyeganeni were certain – only the strongest could endure the world and lead all of them to satisfactory lives. The strongest were people who had earned their place. The strongest were people who had earned their respectful title as the Zax’syilava Ziggoyeth.
It was the perceived loss of this respect that caused a yawning, shivering Rraos Arroxath to contemplate the verity of his standing. Would he still be considered one of the Zax’syilava Ziggoyeth? Was he being actually, subtly, thrown out from the folds of those illustrious few?
Though he tried his best to contemplate, Jyevodirr’s incessant questioning wasn’t helping him form an objective opinion. Clad in his thin, daytime clothing, Jyevodirr was far too energetic for the morning and for Rraos.
“So, you’re telling me that only the best among the Arroxatha are considered as part of the Zax’syilava Ziggoyeth? But how do you even decide your ranks?” Jyevodirr asked, his gait nearly frolicsome and light-footed despite the enormous baggage he was carrying.
Rraos sighed. He was certain that R’vag and Jyevodirr had to be partly wild animals. How else could they be so energetic, so immune to the cold this early in the morning? Granted, it was not that cold, but the time of day had to count for something, no? What abomination could be immune to the weakening, depressing effects of early morning?
But regardless of his feelings on the matter, he had to answer. He had no clue why he needed to; only a nagging feeling nudged him towards entertaining the torture.
And what could he do but obey? It was early morning, after all!
“Ugh, you buffoon,” he complained, “don’t you know anything at all?”
Jyevodirr laughed. Rraos groaned.
“Listen well,” the older youth spoke again with a glance at R’vag, who was much further ahead of them, “because I’m not repeating again.”
He paused, yawned, then rubbed his eyes before continuing.
“We, at the head of the family, are all about competence. Whoever is capable is privileged.
So what happens is that people considered talented gather at the estate. Then, a sorting happens. Most of the times, newcomers are either Giv’na, or they are Heir Candidates like myself.
Now then, I hope I don’t need to explain that Heir Candidates are the youngest, and that Giv’na are the in between. You know that, right? Just like a blood related family, if you still don’t understand. The Heir Candidates are the youngest generations, the sons and daughters that stand at the bottom. Giv’na, just as that word implies, are the previous generation – the mothers and fathers. Just like any other family, see?”
Jyevodirr hummed energetically in agreement. “I think I can. By that idea, higher up above the giv’na would be the Elders – the grandfathers and grandmothers, right? But there is one thing I don’t understand. Does promotion from one to the other happen based on age, or is it something else?”
Rraos clicked his tongue vehemently. “Can’t we just be done with this conversation? Gods, does my head hurt!”
But he didn’t stop speaking.
“Fine. You should know that only Heir Candidates get the chance to be a Family Leader. Once the Family Leader is chosen, the rest of the Heir Candidates become the Giv’na. So, you can say this happens by age. In a manner of speaking. But becoming an Elder is more complicated, and I don’t want to explain the entire damned process. Just know that a Giv’nus doesn’t become an Elder just because he or she has grown old.”
“I see. But won’t you tell me more about this? At least tell me more later, okay?”
A wry smile thinned Rraos’ lips. “Sure, sure.”
Knowing that he wouldn’t be getting anything more from Rraos, Jyevodirr considered rushing ahead and sending R’vag back. But to his surprise, Rraos’ spoke again and broke the monotony of plodding feet.
“You know,” Rraos was saying, “most people like us – the Heir Candidates, I mean – don’t ever get a chance like this. We know a lot, but don’t get the chance to come and visit the sites ourselves. Not with any authority.”
“So is our journey now like a coming-of-age ceremony?” Jyevodirr interjected.
Rraos smiled wryly again. “If that’s how things worked, wouldn’t I be a little too old for that?”
Jyevodirr’s answer was intentionally cheeky. “Wouldn’t that be because you were busy fleecing people and ignoring your responsibility?”
Rraos swung his fist, though it was so lazy it didn’t cross more than half the distance to the younger youth. Jyevodirr laughed and skipped away, not waiting for Rraos to explain that this journey was a privilege offered only to a Heir Candidate who had been selected to be the next Head. Jyevodirr believed he hadn’t the luxury for more conversation. After all, R’vag was walking back towards them, and the boulder-headed youth irritatingly loved poking sleeping things awake. This tendency had landed the two old friends into enough trouble during their childhood for Jyevodirr to know when to walk away.
By the time R’vag was by Rraos’ side, and the inevitable bickering he expected to hear also began, he had already walked a fair few shortsteps away. The noise of the row was muffled by the distance, but it still doubled his enjoyment.
What a strange new pair of friends those two were!
Back at Orron, it had been as much a shock as a gift to Jyevodirr when R’vag and Rraos bonded far faster than he could have imagined. Apparently, both loved wealth and splendour just as much as all the greasy money grubbers of the empire. In fact, during the entirety of the ten days they had spent at Orron after the incident, all Rraos and R’vag wanted to do was spend money in some way – that, after Rraos had himself warned against spending carelessly!
Jyevodirr could hardly believe it when R’vag was even whining one day alongside Rraos about having to travel by a common-capacity carriage. What had only days ago been the norm suddenly became something for R’vag to complain about!
Jyevodirr had observed them silently for many days at first, choosing to believe in his friends. He had kept quiet when Rraos tried his best, and failed, to get an exclusive luxury carriage to travel the Moyegan in. He had also not protested much when Rraos went back to his mother and shamelessly pursued the matter. Even when all desperate measures had failed, and R’vag convinced Rraos to spend money on women, his calmness had not forsaken him.
But R’vag and Rraos did not stop there. The month turned into the next, and nearly ten days were spent in crazed opulence. The money crazed duo did not stop. Only then had Jyevodirr let anger guide him.
The argument had been ugly and borderline violent; but it also had been effective. The following day, the money sickness collaring the two seemed to release them. Though neither of them willingly sacrificed their comfort even afterwards, the petulant complaints of the days before had vanished.
A sudden gust of air coaxed Jyevodirr out of his memories, making him blink and attentively look around.
Of the four quarters of the day, each with nine hours, he could see that it was only nine of the first quarter now. The sun was still below the horizon, though the sky bore hues of blue and a strip of yellow at the east. Far, far above the weakening breeze, patches of clouds burnt the sky orange. It was a stark, beautiful morning.
Jyevodirr inhaled the cool morning air deeply. It tickled his nostrils and throat. In the distance, the Xap’yu’s glimmer broke uncertainly through the thick riparian wall and played hide and seek with his eyes.
Wondering if he was going back to memories too much today, he headed towards the riverside. He didn’t want to revisit the days he started questioning what strength was if he could.
Getting under the line of trees took him as long as it took the sun to rise above the horizon. Colours were returning back to the land, but there was not much to see. Outside the woods, there were gold-tinged browns of the soil and grass; inside, there were gold-tinged browns of tree trunks and near leafless shrubs. He was surrounded by a brown world washed in pale golden.
Still, Jyevodirr was enjoying his walk.
He loved being able to stroll by the Kip’trresa – beautiful trees that could only be found by the Xap’yu. He had loved them from the first time he laid his eyes on them a year ago. Back then, when Jyevodirr had first arrived at Xap'yu's banks, his eyes were caught by a broken line of enchanting flames at the distance. That crimson line, which he had almost mistaken for fire, was a line of Kip’tressa in full bloom. That evening, their crown had also been playing with the golden light of sunset.
Here and today, no such thing happened. They were more numerous here than around Orron, but their fluffy, red flowers were nowhere to be seen. Their blooming season was over.
Nonetheless, Jyevodirr found them beautiful. He admired their knotted barks, their short, twisting trunks and branches, and their near-barren crown with short, pinnate leaves still desperately clinging on. To him, they were a delightful resistance of beauty amidst this multi-brown hued brutality.
He smiled to himself.
He supposed he had grown up to be quite an odd fellow.
Turning his attention away from the trees, he looked far out towards the river. Being as faintly brown as it was, Xap’yu almost sported a murky look. It surprised Jyevodirr, however, not because of its colour, but because it almost looked deeper and wilder here than around Orron. How could that happen, when trees and shrubs had only become scarcer the further north they had travelled?
He made a mental note to ask Rraos about this later.
But where even was he? Did he and R’vag forget the need to keep walking?
Jyevodirr would have worried about dangerous wild beasts too had Rraos not been with R’vag. At least he could be sure they were safe.
Turning around, he noticed that the two pale dots in the brown world were closer than he had anticipated. Maybe their argument was over?
“Hurry up you slowpokes!” Jyevodirr bellowed at the top of his lungs. “I want to sit at the riverbank! The day won’t wait for you two to finish bickering!”
Someone, most likely R’vag, shouted something back, but it didn’t reach Jyevodirr in any intelligible form. The distance had chewed the words to a garble. That meant he had not been comprehensible to them either.
Despite that, Jyevodirr decided to keep on walking. He had drawn their attention, so they would at least be able to track him by sight. The woods weren’t thick enough to obscure his form entirely, and even if it was, R’vag would be able to track him down. His friend was good at that.
Within minutes, Jyevodirr was quite close to the river. Its innumerable, thin braids had grown thicker, many of them even merging together. This was something he had noticed back at Orron, though the effect was more pronounced here. What he hadn’t prepared for was the Xap’yu here being a paradise for animals seeking water, and for their crocodilian predators.
Jyevodirr quietly set his enormous backpack down, then sat cross legged and leaning upon the trunk of a kip’trres. His seat was not as close as he wished it was, but it had to do. Better not to trespass someone else’s territory meaninglessly. The understanding was sacred.
With a relaxed mind, he watched a small herd of Moyeganeni horses treading close to the water. Above him, a bird he had never heard in his life sung its warning tune. It was a song just as familiar and as alien as the scene unfolding before him was.
Jyevodirr quietly rummaged around the backpack and extricated a can full of dried date fruits. He opened the lid, then popped the sweet fruits into his mouth one after the other.
At the edge of Xap’yu, the herbivores satiated themselves; the carnivores waited to do the same. Whether the end was bloody or not, both happiness and sadness lingered in the future, waiting to be assigned. It was a moment that made him strangely forlorn, yet strangely content. It was a moment beyond good and evil.
Then the tension in the moment snapped. There was commotion. There was blood.
It felt a lot like the day he had broken his own father – but it was absolutely nothing like that. These killers did not kill meaninglessly, nor did they kill unintentionally. This violence was far purer than the one he had sparked years ago.
Tearing his mind away from those depressing memories, Jyevodirr tried to equate the scene with a different thought. He sought for a meaning. What could the wilds be trying to tell him? That life wasn’t easy? That someone had to be sad for another to be happy? No. That seemed asinine. Maybe its message was that everyone had their own circumstance instead. That suffering and joy had to exist together. That…... things that were done couldn’t be undone. Like the way his father was gone. Like the way he was responsible for it. That couldn’t be the answer either, but he was no longer thinking about the lives in front of him.
Now, the only thing in his mind was the past. And yet – he could no longer remember why he had gotten angry at his father that night. All he could remember was the power burning within him. And his father lying on the ground, arms broken, a leg bent the wrong way. There was commotion. There was blood. The rest was a meaningless blur.
By the time his mind was functioning again days later, his father was whole once more. He could remember thinking that things were back to being normal. That was only a foolish thought of a power drunk child. Nothing was normal. His father would never be whole again.
To cope with his grief, Jyevodirr worked twice as much as an adult did. He stopped doing things for fun. He tried being responsible. His only respite was R’vag sticking together with him through everything. Soon, he was as much a pride of the village as he was its curse.
Four years later, his father died. Was he forgiven? He didn’t know. The haggard look on his mother’s face haunted him even now sometimes. But at least, they had their moment as a family once more. Ragadirr had told Jyevodirr that he was proud of his son. That foolish man was proud of his murderer. But the Ragadirr made him promise to use his strength. His father’s last wish for him was to do good using that strength. His mother, so wordless for so long after that incident, had that afternoon quietly implored him to be the best in the empire. The extinguished fire in her eyes was smouldering again when she asked that of him. In front of their kindness, the burdened teen could only cry. And apologise.
A sharp pain pinched Jyevodirr’s heart. He blinked away the memories alongside the tears pooling under his eyes. Then, he found himself smiling. Painfully. Hopefully. It was the smile of a man who didn’t know if he deserved a chance for greatness or affection. But nothing in the world was simple.
Now that he thought about it, maybe there was just no message at all in that violence – just hunger, and a world working as it did.
Jyevodirr set aside the fruits and laid down on the grass. The breeze was slowing down now; the air was getting warmer. They made his eyes droop. He complied.
When R’vag and Rraos finally reached Jyevodirr, R’vag was nearly dragging Rraos around. R’vag watched the sleeping young man and frowned. He wanted to wake his friend up, but Rraos plopped down beside Jyevodirr before he could. Sighing, he sat down beside them too.
They remained there for one long hour.
Once Jyevodirr woke up, he blinked and looked at the faces of his two friends.
“Good morning!” he said with a cheeky grin.
“Yeah, good morning – you monster!” Rraos mumbled.
“What was that?” Jyevodirr asked.
“Oh, he was just blaming you for not shaking in your shoes. Because he had never been this close to flesh eaters,” R’vag answered instead.
“Shut up. You two are completely wild animals.” Rraos grumbled. Jyevodirr laughed.
“Oh? But I remember that you loved doing some ‘wild animal’ stuff? At some fine establishments?” R’vag quipped with a pouty face.
Rraos’ cheeks burnt red. “Shut up, you damned animal!”
This time, R’vag laughed along with Jyevodirr.
“Anyways,” Rraos interrupted the laughter, “I think we should go. We’re not far now.”
Despite Rraos’ words, it still took the laughing duo a little time before they were ready to leave. When they moved again, they did not bother getting out of the wooded region. They walked in relative silence through the riparian line. Calls of unfamiliar birds filled the soundscape, and listening to them was a greater delight.
Not long afterward, the woodland encroached further away from the river into the grassland. Along with this change came an additional set of sounds – and a sight – of workers rummaging around the woods. Their faces were grim, their eyes unwelcoming. As the trio passed them by, many threw them irked looks, but they went unobstructed. They moved this way till they were within sight of off-white fabric shapes clumped together. Only then did a man step in to make them stop.
“Hey!” the well-built man cried, “What are you people doing here? Do you want something?”
Rraos stepped forward. “Yes. We’re here to see old man Dogan.”
The expression in the man’s face changed. “Old man Dogan? And who are you to demand a meeting with him?”
Rraos smiled. “No one. Just tell him that the young man who had asked him for passage from Orron is here.”
For a moment, the man hesitated. Then he turned and called up another person loitering around the woods. The man arrived promptly, but so did a woman from another direction. They discussed the matter amongst themselves, and the man who had been called up raced off towards the white clumps at the end of discussion.
Understanding that now was the time to wait, Jyevodirr stepped forward, his mind brimming with questions.
“Hey,” he said with his arm extended, “I’m Jyevodirr, son of Nyivingi and late Ragadirr. And you are?”
The man hesitated, looking as if the offered hand offended him, but he ended it clasping it.
“Karrgos Arroxath,” was his only response.
Both Jyevodirr and R’vag’s eyes widened. Their eyes flicked momentarily towards Rraos, but the young Arroxath did not react.
“Did you outsiders not know about Moyeganeni tradition?” Karrgos asked with a hint of exasperation. “Is your friend an Arroxath too, which is why you’re looking at him with expectant eyes? Well, we’re not related by blood. We only share a leader.”
The woman who had arrived earlier planted a hand on Karrgos’ shoulder, which seemed to calm him down a little. With a polished smile pasted on, she extended her hand towards Jyevodirr. The countryside youth did not decline the clasp.
“Pardon Karrgos here, will you?” she said, her voice sounding rich, deep and at least somewhat calculated. “We are not having the best of times here. And I’m Naxa Arroxath. Feel free to ask questions as you wait.”
R’vag stepped in with the smartest grin he could sport. “Nice to meet you, Qin Naxa. I’m R’vag.”
He offered Naxa a clasp, which she took somewhat hesitantly. R’vag glanced at her, then at Karrgos. Finally, he relaxed and released her hand before it veered into the territory of flirtation.
“It’s great to see you too, Karrgos,” he said as he respectfully stepped away from Naxa and offered a clasp to Karrgos. It was taken with a lot of teeth gnashing.
Unlike the other two, Rraos neither stepped forward, nor took part in the impromptu introduction. When Naxa and Karrgos looked at him expectantly, he did not even move a muscle.
“So….” Jyevodirr spoke up, stepping in the line of sight of the two adults, “Why exactly does everyone look sullen here? Are visitors unwelcome?”
Jyevodirr’s question managed to strike deep enough to turn the attention of the two locals towards him. Karrgos fell into a sullen silence, so Naxa had to handle the question.
“It’s been a bad year,” she said. “It rained quite well early on this year. The heat was good. Everything seemed nice. But the Eft’pla grasseswe planted didn’t grow. Well, it did grow initially. But then it just stalled. The eft’pla browned and went dormant. Which wouldn’t really have been a problem if the harvest last year was good. But it wasn’t. There was not enough grain to get by. This has been troubling us all for a while,”
R’vag glanced at Jyevodirr, then turned back to Naxa. “What will you do if the crops fail later this year as well?”
Both Naxa and Karrgos shot him a hateful glare, but the woman still kept her tone even. “Then we will have to spend money on food. We’ll buy if we can, borrow if we cannot. The Lady will keep us safe even if disaster strikes.”
“The Lady?” Jyevodirr asked.
“The leader of all Arroxaths. Kinz’rra Rrianxi,” Naxa replied.
Jyevodirr closed his mouth and looked down. He was in awe of Rraos’ mother again. The faith her people had in her, and the strength she had to keep that faith alive was just phenomenal. It made him aspire more to be like her!
But then he wondered – why wasn’t she a Mag’rra? What was it that she lacked? Unsurprisingly, he had no answer to that question.
“That's enough about us,” Karrgos finally butted in, “Why doesn’t your silent friend speak up, eh?”
Rraos was silent still. Karrgos walked towards him, but R’vag barred his way. They squared off almost immediately.
“Don’t pick on someone who doesn’t want to speak. Have you considered that he’s just shy?”
“Shy? More like he has something to hide!”
“And you’re the one who will pry it out from him? Think again. He sent one of you to your boss, and till that old man comes, I’ll protect him.”
Naxa had stepped back to stand beside Karrgos. Jyevodirr had neither moved nor let his wariness show, but the heat in him had subtly been increasing too.
Rraos decided that it was enough.
He stepped closer to Karrgos and Naxa. “I’m silent because I have no need to prove myself. I have asked for Old Man Dogan, and he will vouch for me when he comes. If he doesn’t…. well, he will come – but if he doesn’t for some reason, feel free to pry out the answers you want from me.”
Distrust simmered beneath the surface, but nothing could be done about it. Both sides had no choice but to wait for old man Dogan.
In the meantime, more people were streaming in, surrounding the trio of outsiders. Being confronted by this enmity made Jyevodirr shake his head. Though he was relaxed still, he didn’t want to use force if he could. Overpowering people wasn’t the problem. Hatred was. The hatred accumulated by meaninglessly beating down people was not something that would easily dissipate. In that matter, he and R’vag were already indebted to the Arroxaths. Repeating that violence wasn’t something to be taken lightly.
R'vag, on the other hand, ignored everyone. His eyes were set upon Karrgos alone. The man’s apparent dislike for him was not something he could ignore. It made him feel confrontational.
“You know, if you really don’t like me that much, you should just start the fight. Come on! What’s the point of stitching your hole shut?” he taunted.
Karrgos seethed, but he refrained from lashing out physically. Instead, he looked down on R’vag with disdainful eyes and said, “We’re not people who mindlessly indulge in violence. No man nor beast would meaninglessly indulge in violence here. And that barbarity is exactly why I don’t like you, Qai R’vag.”
Some people hollered and whooped. The situation was fast turning into something else.
“Yeah? And that’s exactly why you seem constipated with anger, you no-hole worm!” R’vag taunted with an extremely exaggerated scowl. It almost made Karrgos move.
“Are you truly that immature? Can you not hold back any emotion and leak yourself everywhere you go?” Naxa was the one who stepped in this time. Gone was her mask of politeness. She looked angry and irritated.
Jyevodirr sighed.
R’vag shrugged and backed off. Surprisingly, the locals did so too.
“Come on, Naxa,” a raspy old voice suddenly butted into the conversation, “Young people sometimes need to go and let their blood do the talking, you know? Young boy’s right. If you keep holding everything back, you’ll get constipated. Let the old people do the talking.”
Naxa nodded reverently and backed off, as did Karrgos. Between the parting crowd walked in an old man shorter than even the short Altrakheni standard. He swiftly stood in front of R’vag and looked at him from top to bottom through the round, black goggles fixed upon his eyes. A little smile deepened many lines upon his face.
“So, you want a fight? You’ll have it. If you win against our Karrgos here, I’ll see what you’re made of myself,” the old man declared, stroking his long, black moustache.
The old man’s attitude surprised R’vag. He had never heard anyone talk this way before. Who was he?
“Do you people have a fighting ritual or something, old man?” R’vag asked almost reflexively.
The old man grinned, waving off the angry locals, and stood before Jyevodirr. “No, nothing like a ritual. I just encourage youngsters to move their bodies a little, to keep their arms and legs strong. And keep youngsters like this one fluent in Mayyux.”
He slapped Jyevodirr’s shoulders. “You’ll need to stretch your arms and legs a little too, young man. I’ll help you out, so don’t worry.”
Before anyone could question him more, he walked to Rraos and removed his goggles.
“It’s good to see you here, kid. You’ve grown tall,” he said with a nod. Rraos nodded back with a fond smile.
“Come with me, then,” said the old man, turning back towards the off-white settlement. His breakneck pace surprised the two countryside friends. Rraos, however, kept up quite comfortably.
The locals started dispersing now that it seemed there was no problem. Karrgos threw one last look at R’vag and turned back. Before he and Naxa left, however, the old man addressed them again.
“Karrgos, Naxa – before you go, listen up,” he announced loudly, making many others pause alongside the two. “You both did a good job. It was an old man’s job, certainly, but it was well done.”
The old man didn’t wait to hear their thankful words. He wasn’t thanked either. There was no need for such formalities. Everyone at this togazi, this settlement of the Moyeganeni, was grateful to the old man at all times.
He looked back one final time, remembering another thing he had forgotten to say. “Oh, and kid, tell your new friends – I’m not just an old man. Tell them to remember my name.”
He put the goggles back on with another grin.
“I’m old man Dogan Qaso Arroxath!”