“Do you know our language?” The chief loomed over Sankesh like a mountain.
He was holding the unconscious girl in his arms. He studied her delicate face, her small, snub nose, her thick, black hair. It was too early to guess about her figure, but Sankesh was certain that Aisha would grow into an unprecedented beauty, one capable of sitting on the throne of the Pearl of the Sands and looking as beautiful as any natural born princess.
“Yes, master.” Sankesh nodded.
“That’s good. Teach it to her and make sure she isn’t hurt by anyone or gets too spoiled. If you make a mistake, San... Sank… By the Great Warriors, what an awful name!” The chief swore, pulled his fur cloak off his shoulders, and threw it over his slaves. “You’ll be Aril. To be honest, I didn’t need you. My grandchildren need a babysitter. I didn’t want to take her mother. It would’ve been a waste of money. She wouldn’t have survived the first frost. I bought you to keep the girl company. So, you are responsible for her. You will be beaten for her faults. You’ll do her share of the work. For this, I’ll give you double rations and let you sleep with the other slave girls. Do you understand me, you copper-skinned weakling?”
“Yes, master.”
“What’s your name, slave?”
“Aril.”
“If I hear San… Sank… Damn it! If I hear that accursed name again, I’ll whip you! Let’s go.”
Sankesh followed his new master. Aril wasn’t such a bad name. In the language of the desert, it meant ‘sunshine’.
Chapter 419
“Aril, Aril, tell us a story!”
Sankesh was sitting on a stool and carving a toy desert raven out of a plank. He was wearing a fur coat and trousers with a fleece lining. His boots had a white fur trim and reached almost to his knees. If not for his skin color, it would be difficult to tell that Sankesh was a slave. Besides, his slave collar had been removed three years ago. After all, he had nowhere to run. For nearly five years, Sankesh had lived in Brown Bear Village, located on the edge of the world, at the foot of the Icy Shield.
“Why not!” Sunshine laughed. “What would you like to hear? A story from my homeland? Maybe one about the living sand and the Princess? Or a local one? Maybe the one about the girl and the spirit of Frost who took her as his bride?”
After three years of cultivating without the slave collar around his neck, Sankesh had been able to reach the twelfth and final stage of the Bodily Rivers, but no matter how hard he’d tried, he hadn’t been able to reach the Formation level. It remained an insurmountable obstacle to his progress.
“Tell us the first story!”
Three children were scurrying around him, all of them about five years old. They’d been born only a few months before the chief had bought Sankesh and Aisha.
The latter was their nanny. She helped their mother swaddle, feed, and walk them. Sometimes, she did all of it by herself, when the chief’s daughter went off to participate in the local wars. Although, according to what Sankesh had learned, it would be difficult to call them ‘wars’. In the autumn, men and women gathered in squads numbering several hundred warriors and went to the southwest, to raid the other provinces of the Empire. They returned in the winter, bringing back loot: weapons, jewelry, and grain. Grain was as valuable around here as iron and wood were in the Sea of Sand. And they also brought back prisoners, of course. They were the lowest caste in the local society. Since they’d been too weak to preserve their own freedom, they performed the hardest and most demeaning work.
Compared to them, Sankesh and Aisha lived like kings and queens. At first, he hadn’t liked the local food, cheese and butter especially, but after five years, he had gotten used to it. A slave couldn’t choose what they ate.
They’d fared better in the chief’s house than any other slave in the village. They were dressed well, not particularly burdened with hard work because there were prisoners to do that sort of thing, and because the chief occupied a dominant position. Why should he work, after all, if he managed those who did the work?
Well, cleaning pots, cooking, and watching the children and Aisha was easy enough for Sankesh. Moreover, he’d begun to feel a certain affection for the three children lately. Among these eternal snows, surrounded by the mountains and forests, he had found his peace. He’d long since accepted his new name, ‘Aril’, and rarely even thought of himself as a slave. Thoughts of escaping had ceased to haunt him four years ago.
“The first story, huh?” Sankesh-Aril pretended to think about it. The two twin boys and the little girl, looking like little balls of fur, sat in the snow and waited. “Well, alright then, here goes: It happened so long ago that neither the mountains nor the snow remember it. Back then, the North was where the South is now, and the South was where the North is today.”
“How is that possible?” One of the twins asked.
“Haven’t you heard Aril’s story about the Sun Kingdom?” The girl protested. “You always do this! First you don’t listen, and then you ask him to repeat or explain something he already talked about.”
“I just forgot about it, that’s all.” The boy sulked.
“The Sun Kingdom once stood here instead of the Icy Shield,” his brother said. “Warriors who fought sea monsters lived in that kingdom. They worshipped the Light Spirit.”
“But why is there so much snow here now?”
Sankesh, sensing that things were getting heated (the younger twin was quite absentminded, which irritated his impatient sister a lot), reminded him:
“Because it was a long time ago. Because of the wars that took place here back then, we now live among the snows, and not green meadows. In my homeland, there is only sand.”
“What’s sand?” The boy asked.
His sister rolled her eyes, “It’s yellow snow!”
“Yuck,” the twins said, “that’s gross.”
“I tried it once,” the absentminded twin said. “Ragar’s grandson and I made a bet, and I lost. Yellow snow is very yucky.”
Sankesh managed to keep a straight face, but only just. The sister was so shocked that she didn’t say anything.
“Well. As I said, it happened a long time ago. The North was-”
“We’ve heard that already,” the girl interrupted him. “Tell us about the Immortal and the gods.”
“Okay.” Sankesh smiled. Continuing to carve the figure, he began to tell the story he’d read in Rahaim’s library. “Once upon a time, there lived a wanderer. He had as many names as he did faces, and no one knew in what form or where he would appear next. Some said he was a short, handsome man, and some said he was a giant and a freak.”
“A freak,” the twins laughed, “just like Olgerd!”
They hated Ragar’s son.
“Tell us why he traveled.” The girl asked breathlessly.
Sankesh smiled again. Women…
“He lost his sweetheart a long time ago. She was a beautiful Princess from one of the ancient cities, and he was but a simple potter. They ran away to live together, but the girl was stolen by Derger-” The children immediately clanged their wrists together. Their miniature bracers rang out. Derger was revered more than any other god in the north.