Volume 1 - CH 8
Part II: Gishzida (D.NIN.GIS.ZI.DA)
Renier’s master, the fisherman from Elde Isle, sold her the year she turned fourteen. For ten silver shekels. Most slave girls around her age were sold for twenty shekels, and male slaves were sold for thirty.
Renier guessed that she was about to be dragged away to somewhere bad when she learned how cheaply she was being sold for. She had done all kinds of backbreaking farm work to avoid being sold off, but it had all been to no avail.
Renier herself knew best why her master was selling her off for so cheap like he was throwing her away.
All kinds of accidents had always occurred whenever a man tried to make passes at her, but the incident from last week had sealed the deal. Her master’s youngest son had tried to rape her as she herded the goats and sheep in the field, and Renier had accidentally severed the veins in his wrist with the bronze decoration he had been wearing on his clothes.
Renier had avoided being killed on the spot because her master was terrified that Inanna would curse him, but she could not avoid the fate of being sold to somewhere beyond the isle.
The person who had come to buy Renier was so beautiful that he didn’t seem to be of this world. He had blindingly blond hair, his skin was as pale as goat milk, his eyes were as blue as the southern sea, and his lips were as crimson as ripe cherries.
Renier’s master, who normally stared rudely at vagabonds from foreign lands as if they were no better than cows or pigs, had bowed before this stranger like he was intimidated.
“Is that the child who recently began menstruating?”
“Without a doubt, Lord En-ishib.”
En-ishib?
Renier knew that the male priests and female priestesses who guarded the Golden Forest and could control the power of ngak were called ‘ishib’ and ‘nugig’ respectively. High-ranking priests and priestesses were called ‘en-ishib’ or ‘en-nugig,’ and the high priest who governed the forest was called the ‘galtir,’ which meant ‘Guardian of the Forest,’ and the priests were Celestials who lived on earth and not like the rest of the mudpeople.
But that person’s an en-ishib even though they’re so pretty? That’s a male priest? No way.
Renier snuck glances at the priest’s chest out of the side of her eye. Surely enough, however, the clothes flowing down to the priest’s calves were loose-fitting and straight, without a single bend or curve in sight. The priest noticed Renier’s disrespectful staring and scowled for a brief moment. And there was frost in his voice, which had previously been as serene as still waters, as he said,
“Your name is Renier. The master of this house found you in a forest when you were young and you were raised here ever since, you turn fourteen this year, and I’m told that you recently began menstruating. Is this correct?”
“Yes? ……Oh, yes.”
Renier didn’t know what menstruating was, but she decided to nod back for now. If her master had said that she had begun menstruating, then it must be true. It never crossed her mind that her master might have lied in order to sell her off as quickly as possible.
“You look like a boy. I think I might have to confirm that you’re truly a girl.”
“What are you doing? Undress yourself at once!”
Renier’s master yelled as he interjected. Renier was stunned, as she hesitantly replied,
“R-right here? You want me to undress right here?”
Renier immediately realized that she was being made to pay the price for staring at the priest so rudely. There are so many misters and grandpas who looked at me all weird here with us, but I really have to undress in front of all of them? Should I just get on my knees and beg the priest to forgive me for being rude?
“Undress at once! Or do I need to whip you first?”
Renier’s master began yelling even louder as she dithered, but the man whom her master had called an en-ishib shook his head with a frigid expression on his face.
“Ah, that’s enough. If she’s begun menstruating, then she’s old enough to feel embarrassed even if she isn’t quite aware of when she’s being insolent.”
Then, he turned to the small spring that was gushing beside him and took one of bracelets that had been dangling over his wrists in his hand. He continued,
“Idim, Mug, Girigub.”
A moment later, the spring water began circling like a whirlpool before it shot up and created a large lump of water in midair. Several people around the priest gasped.
“Sur, Mir.”
The wind suddenly gushed after the priest had recited the next short incantation. The water floating in the air moved in the direction that he was pointing as it twisted this way and that as it stretched out into a long shape.
“N-ngak?”
Renier’s master, who had been standing next to the priest, gasped loudly as he took a few steps back. Renier was so surprised that she dropped her jaw as she stared up at the floating lump of water.
“I can’t see your face properly because you’ve slathered mud all over it. Shub.”
The floating water splashed down upon Renier as the priest pointed downward. The sudden baptism of cold water snapped Renier back to her senses.
“Ngak —he manifested a ngak!”
“I guess he really is a priest. A noble en-ishib from the Golden Forest.”
The slaves who had been peeking glances at the priest immediately got down on their knees. They had previously seen their master igniting fires with a ngak tablet from the Golden Forest that he had bought from a merchant, but this was their first time bearing witness to a high-level ngak being manifested personally by a priest from the Golden Forest.
Renier squeezed her eyes shut and quivered. The baptism was over, but she was still too terrified to open her eyes. She quickly wrapped her arms around her chest when she realized that her old clothes were drenched and clinging tightly to her figure. She was so scared that she felt numb, but her instincts were telling her that she needed to sort out the situation quickly before something worse happened to her. And so, Renier got down on her knees.
“You’re so beautiful that I thought I misheard my master calling a nugig an ishib. But I was wrong. Please forgive me if I’ve displeased you.”
The priest narrowed his eyes and observed Renier for a while when he heard how clearly she had managed to convey herself despite the trembling of her quiet voice. It felt like such a dreadfully long time to Renier.
“You’re rather deft at reading the situation. And you’re quick to act too,”
his voice fell over her ears. It was smooth and gentle now that his ire had evaporated. It almost sounded as sweet as honeyed goat milk. But Renier could not feel any human warmth in the timbre of his voice. Was that why? Renier couldn’t help but keep trembling.
“Here I thought you’d be rough and ragged, but you’re actually quite the lovely child.”
Renier gingerly looked up and studied the priest’s face. His eyes, as vividly blue as the seas surrounding Elde Isle, were looking right back at her. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell from his expression whether he was truly no longer angry. Were all Celestials like that? The priest’s eyes narrowed even further as he continued observing Renier. He continued,
“It was never my intention to embarrass you. I apologize for that. Shahan, Dig Mir.”
The priest moved his hands again as he recited yet another unfamiliar incantation. Renier forgot to be afraid for a moment because the gestures of his long and pale fingers were so concise and beautiful. There was a sudden swoosh as a warm and gentle breeze wrapped around Renier’s frame and dried the water from her limbs.
Renier squeezed her eyes shut once again because she realized that the priest was still watching her. She felt like her entire being would freeze over if she met his azure eyes.
The priest frowned as he stared at the trembling slave girl before he took off the soft kaunakes shawl that he had been wearing over his shoulders.
“Perhaps you should cover yourself for a bit.”
The long and fluffy woolen kaunakes enveloped Renier’s frame. Renier quickly adjusted the front of the shawl and bowed her head.
“……What a lovely child,”
she heard him say as he quietly smacked his tongue.
Then, the priest pulled out several pieces of silver and a set of scales and paid Renier’s master ten shekels. Renier blinked quietly when she saw the colorful and beautiful bracelets on the priest’s wrists and the small smear of blood at the edge of his alabaster fingertips.
“My name is Gishzida, and I am an en-ishib of the Golden Forest.”
“…….”
“You will be working for the Golden Forest from now on, Renier.”
***
Gishzida rode on a donkey, and Renier was holding the reins as she guided the donkey. She’d thought that it would be terrifying to leave the household that she’d lived in all her life, and she was mystified to find that it wasn’t. She even felt relieved when she learned that they would be boarding a ship and leaving the isle entirely.
On the first day, they walked all day long without exchanging a single word. In Renier’s case, she had been so daunted by her time living in her master’s house that she was in the habit of always working hard to read the atmosphere before she spoke up, lest she beaten, and she found it strange that such a noble priest could be so reticent too.
Renier stared at Gishzida and blinked whenever they came across a fork in the road, and Gishzida silently pointed at the right direction from atop his donkey. The bastard’s apathetic and emotionless visage was so captivatingly beautiful that her mind went blank and her fingers twisted together every time she looked at him.
But she felt like she would die if she kept walking in absolute silence like this. The last thing she had eaten the morning before she was sold to the priest was a hard piece of barley bread no bigger than her palm, and she hadn’t eaten anything since. Renier gulped as she gathered up her courage.
“Um, Lord Gishzida?”
“…….”
“Excuse me, Lord Gishzida?”
Instead of replying, the priest only tilted his head ever so slightly and looked down at Renier. His reaction was so subtle that it was difficult to know whether he had actually heard her or not, but Renier could tell by the slightly lifted angle of his chin and the subtle way he moved that he disliked talking to humans.
That being said, she couldn’t exactly suffer in silence without saying a single word like a mute either. The Golden Forest wasn’t some nearby place that they could reach within a day. Renier clenched her stomach tight and gathered up her courage once more.
“Um……are you a little hard of hearing, Lord Gishzida?”
Renier heard something in between a tongue smacking and a short gasp when she posed her question.
“No.”
She obviously knew that he wasn’t deaf. But she felt like she wouldn’t get any reaction out of him at all if she didn’t provoke him like this.
But his response, which she had only just managed to draw out, had cut short and broken away. It would be a long and hard road before she finally got some food out of him. Renier desperately did anything she could to start a conversation with him.
“Do you not like it when a slave talks too much, Lord Gishzida?”
“……Are you the type that likes to talk a lot, Renier?”
Rattle. Gishzida pulled the reins and stopped the donkey. His expression hadn’t changed very much, and his voice sounded the same too, but Renier could tell that he was growing annoyed.
“N-no, not at all! I used to be a chatterbox when I was younger, but now I can go for months without talking.”
……As long as you feed me, that is.
The indifferent priest, who hadn’t noticed Renier’s desperate wish at all, seemed somewhat intrigued as he looked down at Renier.
“That’s not bad. What brought about that change?”
Well, it’s because I had to stand out as little as possible and keep as quiet as the dead if I didn’t want all the misters and old men to do weird things to me…… But it wasn’t as if she could actually be honest and tell him that. Renier gauged the situation and quietly mumbled,
“I forgot how to talk to people after living with the goats and sheep in the field for a couple of years.”
Hah! —Gishzida exclaimed from the absurdity of it all.
“Then, that must mean that you’re rather skilled at talking to goats and sheep.”
“A little.”
“Why don’t you show me?”
“What? You want me to show you?”
He must have strange tastes to be asking me to show him this. Is he bored? Renier had been stealing glances at the priest, and he did certainly look apathetic to the world. Is this his way of telling me to shut up and be quiet? Does it sound like animal noises to him when I talk?
Renier wriggled for a bit before she finally straightened out her shoulders. She was hungry, and she was also stubborn. Hmph. You think I can’t show you?
“They go baaa when they’re thirsty, baaah when they’re really thirsty, baa when they’re cold, bahahaa when they want to say, ‘I’m super cold, you rascal,’ they go baa baaa when they’re sleepy, baah baaah when they want me to put them to sleep, baaahbaa baahaabaaa when they’re hungry, and they go bleat bleaaat when they want to say, ‘I’m gonna starve to death, Master.’”
“Pft.”
Gishzida’s frame staggered on top of his donkey. Renier blinked as she gathered her hands together. There was nothing she couldn’t do for food. She made the most pitiful face she could and said the words that she had been wanting to say for a while now in the language of sheep and goats.
“Baaahbaabaahaabaaa! Bleat, bleat, bleaaat!”
“Ahahahahahahaha!”
Gishzida finally burst out in laughter. His shoulders heaved as he clutched to the reins, and he nearly fell off the donkey. The frigidness had finally left the priest’s mien, and Renier looked up at him quietly. Was it really that funny to hear a poor slave girl saying that she felt like she was about to starve to death?
It was only a while later that Gishzida seemed to have given up on something and let out a short sigh as he nodded.
“Very well. Let us eat.”
***
Gishzida smiled wryly as he looked at the back of the slave wench’s short-cropped head while she hopped around in excitement.
She’d waited on him patiently until he had finished his own meal, and she had accepted it with both her hands like she was receiving something precious when he pulled out a hard piece of bread, a piece of honeycomb, and a dried fig and handed to her, and then she had hugged the food close to her chest. He had even seemed overwhelmed with emotion for a moment when, with a tremble in her voice, she’d exclaimed, “I love rock honey! I really love it! Thank you so much!”
Is the food truly that delicious?
Gishzida felt strangely displeased as he watched her crouch under a tree far away, likely so as to not offend him, and nibble away. The sensitive child felt his gaze and looked up as he continued to glare at her quietly. She grinned from ear to ear when their eyes met and quickly bowed her head.
……Was she really that hungry?
He became a bit more disgruntled.
Gishzida disliked speaking with the mudpeople. Rather, he loathed coming into contact with humans in general.
Celestials had originally lived in the heavens, so it was only right for humans to hold them in awe and serve them. There was a line that could never be crossed between the two races, and Gishzida was the Celestial who was most uncompromising when it came to maintaining that line. And yet, he had been sent outside of the Golden Forest to buy slaves all alone despite being a high-ranking priest because his attitude had earned him the ire of his superiors, who were sycophantic to humanity.
He had only told the cheeky wench to show him how she talked to goats and sheep as a warning —he was telling her, “Do not approach a Celestial without reserve,” and, “You humans sound no different from the bleating of goats and the baaing of sheep to us Celestials.”
But his warning had been made without purpose, and so it had quickly fallen apart. And Gishzida had realized that the wench might actually end up communicating with him solely through the language of goats and sheep whenever it was time to eat if he kept being stubborn.
The fun part, however, was the fact that the child had responded the way she had precisely because she had understood his intent.
“Lord Gishzida…”
Renier, who had carefully licked off every last drop of honey from her fingers after she had finished eating her food, walked up to Gishzida and gingerly brought her hands together. She continued,
“Will we be heading to the Golden Forest immediately? Or are we stopping by someplace else first?”
“We’ll be stopping by a few other places first before we return to the forest. I need to buy more slaves.”
“Lord Gishzida, if you don’t like talking to other people…….”
Gishzida looked up at Renier without a word, and Renier confirmed that he had affirmed her suspicions with his silence before she cautiously continued,
“Then what if I stepped up and talked to people in your place until we get to the Golden Forest? It must’ve been so uncomfortable to come all this way without a single slave or pageboy to help you, Lord Gishzida, but I can stand by your side and bargain, go shopping, find lodgings, and prepare meals on your behalf if you just give me the money as I need it.”
Aha?
Gishzida narrowed his eyes as he observed the slave child standing before him.
He actually had been rather uncomfortable because he didn’t have even a single pageboy with him on this trip. Still, he was surprised that a slave child whom he’d never met before had made such a bold offer.
The child was innately smart and astute even though she looked so frightened, and she even carried thorns that were sharp enough to make his palms sting at the most surprising times. Gishzida, who normally felt like he was being eaten away by depression and boredom, found the sting rather amusing.
He was one of the brightest minds in the Golden Forest, and he valued disciples and subordinates who were quick on the uptake and intelligent like he was. Apparently, his favoritism also extended to mudpeople.
“You aren’t old enough to make business transactions on my behalf.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right.”
The child brought her hands together and lowered her head. There was a subtle vitality in her features as she blinked her sparkling eyes and beamed. Gishzida found that he could not easily look away, perhaps because hers wasn’t the kind of vitality that could be found inside the Golden Forest. She continued,
“In that case, I’ll do trivial chores and serve you in every other way so that you won’t be displeased and so that the Celestials won’t lose their dignity. There are a lot of idiots who look down on people who travel without a single slave attending to them, you see. I can do the work of ten servants. Give me one week, and I’ll have you thinking that I’m a slave worth one hundred shekels instead of ten.”
“…….”
“I’ll be in your care.”
She bowed her head of short-cropped hair yet again, and she had a wide grin on her face when her head bobbed back up.
And Gishzida finally felt like conversing with that small, chestnut-like slave girl with a smile on his face.
***
Renier was finally able to relax a little. She no longer had to go without her meals ever since the noble Celestial priest had ‘permitted the lowly slave girl to speak.’
He even seemed to pay extra mind to how he spoke to her, perhaps because he could see that the slave girl had been intimidated in her previous household. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, of course, so she did keep his distance from him. His tone had grown so soft and gentle, like how his voice lifted and the sounds trailed ever so slightly when he called her name, “Renieeer,” and it made her feel like her entire being was shriveling up.
Only Gishzida knew whether that was simply how the Celestials normally spoke, whether that was simply how he personally spoke, or whether that was simply how his voice had ended up sounding when he intentionally tried to speak gently. But Renier was still certain that being called, “Renieeer,” was still a hundred times better than being threatened, treated coldly, or whipped.
She was given ample food too. He gave her a piece of honeycomb from the jar inside his sack once a day. It hadn’t even been that long since Renier had left the fisherman’s household, and her world had already turned into sunshine and rainbows. Renier licked the honey off her fingers so hard that she could have licked her fingerprints right off with it, and she silently vowed to herself upon her life that she would be loyal to Lord Gishzida hundreds of times over.
A series of other curious events had happened too. Renier had gathered some firewood and was rubbing some branches together so hard that the skin on her palms were beginning to split as she tried to start a fire when Gishzida, who had been watching her from behind, let out a sigh and recited a brief incantation.
“Ganzer.”
Just then, a spark shot out from his fingertip and billowed into a raging flame in the middle of the firewood.
“It’s the en to manifest a fire ngak.”
Gishzida chuckled and stood up when Renier dropped her jaw and fell on her behind and tossed her a pouch of powdered grains and a copper pot. Then, he said,
“Prepare the meal.”
“Hey! Fall down already! You should just fall down out of courtesy at this point after how much I’ve hit you! You’re destined to be eaten anyway, so just accept your fate! If you’re going to fall anyway, you should do it after being hit just once —or is it that you just want to fall down only after you’ve been beaten and bruised? Do you like it when your leaves get all shredded up like that?”
“……Pft.”
The priest made a strange noise as he watched Renier jabbering to herself while throwing stones at a fig that was hanging too high for her to reach. He apparently seemed to think it was funny to watch her struggling, especially considering how he was hanging back and making weird noises while spectating instead of helping her.
“I know you’re short, so just ask me to pick it for you if you can’t reach. Sur Mir, Kichura Baj, Pesh.”
He waved his hand, the one with the pretty bracelet, as he spoke his long incantation, and Renier heard a sharp swish from thin air even though there was nothing there. Then, a bunch of figs and leaves dropped down to her feet a moment later.
“Wow! That was amazing! Wow! That was incredible!”
Renier raised her arms and began cheering like crazy, but then she saw how the leaves and branches had been cut so cleanly —as if they’d been cut with a blade— and froze stiff.
I’ll get killed on the spot if I fool around just because he looks pretty.
Right, pretty mushrooms tend to be poisonous, pretty flowers usually have thorns, and the prettiest frogs in the forest can be used to make scary poison arrows. Naturally. Mhmm. Renier jumped to her feet and nodded to herself.
“O grasses, o weeds, don’t you feel pain too when rabbits or goats nibble on you with their teeth? So, can’t you just sit still and let me pull you out, you stubborn and tough pieces of poop?! I’m going to bring the donkey over here if you keep being stubborn, you got that?”
It was evening, and Renier had put up the leather tents and was in the middle of gathering grasses to cover the ground with. She was huddled over the side of the road struggling against the weeds when she heard the rude and weird chuckling behind her again.
Renier began sulking. Lord Gishzida never helped her immediately, now that she thought about it. He would make noises like ‘pft’ and ‘mmph’ behind Renier as she floundered, flailed, and stomped all alone, and he would only help once he finally couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore.
He definitely gets a kick out of watching me act ridiculous. He has such bad tastes. Seriously.
When Renier looked back at him with a petulant look in her eyes, he abruptly stopped laughing and scowled as he spat out,
“What are you doing? You looked like a little rabbit squirming in the grass.”
……Are you trying to say that I’m cute, or are you cursing me out?
Talking to Lord Gishzida always gave Renier a headache. He never made it clear whether he was praising her or scolding her, whether he found her cute or funny, or whether he was in a good or bad mood, and it drove her insane.
And trying to read his expressions was an even bigger headache —it didn’t always mean that he was in a good mood when he was smiling, and it didn’t always mean that he was in a sour mood when he was scowling either. He was the kind of master whom someone who wasn’t quick on the uptake would never be able to serve.
Gosh, I’m only able to serve him so well because I’m me. You have to be as clever as Lady Renier……. Actually, I’d still serve him anyway because he always gives me a piece of honeycomb at least once a day, to be honest.
“Stand back for a moment.”
Eventually, he stepped out in front of Renier. He was somewhat frail, delicate, elegant, indecipherable, and had questionable tastes, and Renier could guarantee that he was without peer when it came to being a fussy master who was difficult to serve, but Renier’s grievances seemed to fly away whenever she witnessed him using a new ngak.
Lord Gishzida showed Renier more ngaks are time passed, and Renier couldn’t help but think, even if somewhat foolishly, that he kept showing her new ngaks not because he needed to use them per se but rather because he enjoyed watching how curious and astonished she was whenever she saw them.
“Sur, Mir.”
Swoosh.
The wind whooshed around them. The dry grasses bowed down whenever he moved his hands, and sliced up pieces of leaves began circling as they gathered together.
“W-w-whoa! T-the wind beneath your feet, Lord Gishzida…it just keeps……whoaaa!”
Renier could feel something squishy(?) sloshing around in empty space. She couldn’t touch it per se —the empty space was still, in fact, empty—, but she could feel some kind of resistance like when she put her hand in water and sloshed it around. It felt like she was touching invisible water inside an invisible leather waterskin, but she didn’t know how to explain herself because all she could see was empty space.
“L-Lord Gishzida! What is this? There’s something there even though I can’t see anything! Something’s there!”
Gishzida apathetically took off the kanaukes shawl that had been draped over the shoulders and spread it over the empty space when Renier began shouting while pointing at the empty space.
“You should be able to see it now.”
Snap. The thick and wide woolen shawl flattened itself out like a spread of tablecloth and remained floating in midair instead of settling down to the ground. Gishzida often feigned indifference, but he apparently had a flair for the dramatic. Renier dropped her jaw, just like Gishzida wanted, and drooled in her genuine marvel. Gishzida continued,
“This ought to be better than a grass mat. I’ll put this inside the tent, so be sure to sleep on it.”
He’s letting me sleep inside the tent?
Renier opened his eyes wide. She understood fully well that Lord Gishzida, a Celestial, was showing her immense goodwill. But she couldn’t help the fact that her spine automatically straightened out as she grew nervous.
……Could it be?
Gishzida tilted his head to the side when he saw how nervous Renier had grown, and then he suddenly snorted sharply. He’d immediately realized what Renier was thinking. The air around him grew instantly cold as he narrowed his eyes.
How absurd. Why would I, a Celestial, cast aside my nobility and lust after the body of a lowly mudperson —and a slave wench, no less?
Renier opened her eyes wide yet again when she all too clearly felt his poignant contempt and rejection. It wasn’t that she was happy, but rather that she was surprised that he didn’t consider her a target of his lust.
Oh, maybe Celestials don’t feel any lust for mudpeople?
Gishzida’s forehead twitched. Renier realized that he knew exactly what she was thinking. And she also realized that he knew that she had realized this. A heavy curtain of silence fell in between them.
“……You are mistaken,”
Gishzida spat out frigidly as he whisked around.
Renier didn’t exactly know what it was that she was mistaken about, but she decided to understand it as Lord Gishzida’s declaration that he harbored no strange desires for her. After all, she had never once seen the bone-chillingly evil aura that other men exuded coming from Lord Gishzida.
He felt closer to a snow-covered rock or a frozen winter lake than a lustful man. Renier was grateful for that, even if it originated from his contempt toward mudpeople.
“Thank you, Lord Gishzida.”
Lord Gishzida stopped in his tracks and looked back at her with an unfamiliar look on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was puzzled or bewildered. He narrowed his eyes and observed Renier quietly as she bowed to him in genuine gratitude.
“……Is this really something that you’re thankful for?”
“Yes, Lord Gishzida.”
“I see. Go inside and sleep, now.”
Lord Gishzida didn’t ask any further questions. And Renier was grateful for that too.
Renier stepped inside the tent, squinted as hard as she could, and jumped on top of the white shawl that was floating in midair. Bounce —her body sank down and airily flung back up again. Next, Renier plopped down on the bed on her stomach and rolled around.
Wow. This is awesome. It’s better than a grass mat, he said? What kind of joke was that supposed to be? I feel like I’m sinking into a pile of wool. I feel like my body’s just gonna melt in here, seriously. The bed of wind was the single greatest luxury that Renier, a country bumpkin from the boondocks of Elde Isle, had ever experienced.
It must be really nice to be a priest of the Golden Forest. Renier was so envious she thought she could die. How nice must it be to be able to get so much work done with just one finger?
She could start a fire with just one short incantation instead of having to rub pieces of wood together until her hands started bleeding, could draw up water in the morning without having to labor to pump it up, and could sleep on a comfortable bed of wind that her whole body could just sink into at night.
Actually, she’d first use her skills to make a lot of money so she could buy her freedom, and then she’d make even more money buy a big house and a lot of fishing boats just like her master and eat lots of delicious foods without having to do any hard work…….
Renier was giggling as she entered the land of fantasy, but then she abruptly stopped laughing.
How did one become a priest of the Golden Forest? Could a slave become one too?
Renier turned around, and her face crumpled as she flinched. Lord Gishzida wasn’t using any cloth, so he was simply floating in midair as he slept. Renier’s conscience pricked.
I’m sleeping on the shawl that he meant to use as his blanket…….
What do I do? Should I give it back to him? Is it okay to wake him up?
Renier agonized so hard that she could have ripped out every last strand of her short cropped hair before she quietly asked,
“Uh, er, um……. Aren’t you cold, Lord Gishzida?”
He muttered back from the darkness,
“Ugh, truly……you’re quite the handful.”
“Pardon? O-oh no, t-that’s not what I…….”
“Shahan.”
A warm and comfortable wind blew into the leather tent as soon as the quietly uttered word left Gishzida’s lips.
Renier vowed to never speak up again as she spent the entire night sweating because of the sudden scorching heat.
***
Afterward, Renier served Gishzida diligently without needing to be told what to do. She stopped the donkey and had it drink whenever they came across a small stream, gathered grasses to make a comfortable place for Gishzida to sit, and collected branches suited for firewood and tied them tightly to the donkey’s back.
She picked wild strawberries and large mushrooms from the road every now and again, and she used her sling to hunt down birds. She also caught a few grasshoppers, skewered them on long sticks, and roasted them over the fire for snacks.
“You’re remarkably skilled at hunting, aren’t you?”
“Well, I have to be able to eat in order to survive.”
Lord Gishzida seemed like the type of person who had lived a high and lofty life in the Golden Forest and had never needed to dirty himself with even a single drop of water, and it didn’t seem like he had much experience living out in the society either. There was no way that he would’ve bought Renier without haggling over her price —though she had already been incredibly cheap at just ten shekels, of course—, apologized to a mere slave wench, given her his shawl, or personally make a bed for her otherwise.
Moreover, Lord Gishzida was weak to the strangest things. He couldn’t bring himself to watch as Renier began yelling as soon as she spotted a snake, grabbed it by the tail, and began bashing its head against the earth or hunted a rabbit by slinging a stone at it, skinned it, and skewered it, and he shuddered as he looked away.
“Er, ahem. Catch the snake when I’m not looking, Renier. And skin your hunt when I’m not looking too. Don’t walk around with that red thing dangling from the skewer, Renier. Take off the grasshoppers’ legs when you roast them, and you don’t need to give me any —I’m not eating that!”
“L-Lord Gishzida? But you like rabbit meat. And you like snake stew too. My master —my previous master, that is— said that snake stew is good for stamina, and he always had the first bite. Do you actually not like it?”
“This and that are two different things entirely. Put…put it away. You fed me snake stew? Renier?! Renier!”
Renier began to ponder serious as she watched Lord Gishzida try to regurgitate the stew that he had already eaten and digested.
Wait, why’s he doing that when he ate it just fine, even said that it was delicious, and it wasn’t like it gave him a stomachache or anything? Why? Why? Just why? Renier pondered for a while before she finally reached a major conclusion.
Celestials were very beautiful, but they were also very, very frail.
Right. I have to be sure to watch over Lord Gishzida even if only during our journey to the Golden Forest.
Renier made a fist and steeled herself as if she was an escort warrior from the West.
Gishzida observed with great interest as Renier’s attitude changed by the day. The child seemed to come back to life and return to her true colors the farther away they got from her former master’s house. She’d probably had to deal with a lot back there.
Renier was unable to hold back her curiosity. She asked a lot of questions, and she grew curious about many things. In particular, she opened her eyes wide and hopped up and down and ogled whenever Gishzida manifested a ngak. Watching her like this was oddly addictive, and Gishzida found himself using ngaks even when he didn’t need to just so he could show them to her.
She also had a surprising reaction speed and perception for danger. She moved swiftly and concisely, and she was able to readily see any plant or animal that entered her line of sight because she had good vision. She stood before him like some kind of guardian warrior or something and meted out punishment upon any creature in his path no matter its size.
Gishzida had snorted and simply watched at first, but he gradually stopped laughing. Even the strongest patrol soldiers of the Golden Forest were no match for her. He’d been wondering how such a young child had managed to do something as dangerous as herding in an open field for as long as she had, but any doubts he’d harbored had all but disappeared by this point.
The only problem with the bright child was that she knew so little about the Golden Forest because she had grown up in such a remote area. The bigger problem, however, was the fact that Gishzida was responsible for teaching the slaves of the temple the basics about the Golden Forest.
“Renier”
“Yes, Lord Gishzida?”
“You may ask me if there’s anything you’re curious about the Golden Forest. Stop casting sidelong glances at me with such a strange look on your face.”
“I beg your pardon? Oh, I’m sorry!”
Her round head, which was bursting with hard brown sprouts, bowed down, and her face was filled with a mixture of curiosity and fear when she peeked back up. But the questions were something else even from the get go.
“How does one become a priest of the Golden Forest?”
“Huh?”
Renier realized that she’d made a mistake and covered her mouth while looking down when Gishzida was so astonished by her question that he stopped the donkey.
How impudent and insolent of you —but Gishzida swallowed back his harsh reprimands. It looked like this child had no notion that Celestials weren’t human beings, that even the kings of entire cities weren’t allowed to speak so casually to a Celestial, or that the Celestials disliked the mere act of intermingling with mudpeople.
Gishzida didn’t bother to hide his irritation as he spat out,
“The priests of the Golden Forest are Celestials, people who belong to the sky. To be more exact, we’re the bloodline of ‘Kittu of Six Wings,’ the son of Utu, the sun god. No mudperson or slave wench can become a priest simply because she wants to.”
“O-oh, I see……. I only asked because I was curious.”
The clever child didn’t ask twice and immediately changed the topic.
“Are all priests as beautiful as you, Lord Gishzida? You know, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life, Lord Gishzida!”
Gishzida couldn’t help but huff out a chuckle when Renier balled her hands into fists and raised them into the air as she sang his praises.
“We all more or less look similar. But we’re not born looking like this. Our bodies become Celestial-like when we draw ngak from a divine stone and use it for the first time. Our hair takes on the light of the sun, and our skin becomes fair too. Just like Kittu of Six Wings, our forefather.”
Wow. How nice —not only do they get to become a priest, but they also get to be pretty too.
“Was this Kittu person really that beautiful?”
“Yes. He was so beautiful that he was called the ‘Glory of Light,’ which means heavenly beauty, even in the world of the gods. It’s said that even Inanna, the goddess of love and beauty, lost her light before Kittu. It’s also said that the entire world was shroud in darkness for a whole week when the sun god Utu, Kittu’s father, failed to operate his solar chariot because heaven had lost its light when Kittu passed away.”
Renier found it easier to latch onto Kittu’s beauty rather than his death. Silly words began flowing out from her mouth.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that you’re still more beautiful, Lord Gishzida.”
“……What?”
Gishzida’s expression suddenly turned sour. Renier only came back to her senses a beat later and quickly covered her mouth. Are you crazy?! I’ve finally gone crazy because of that face of his. She grabbed her head and began pulling out the short hairs she could barely even grasp hold of, but she could not take back the words that had already escaped her lips.
Ah, goodness. Gishzida looked like he’d heard the most absurd thing in the world as he asked,
“Do you really believe that I’m as beautiful as Kittu of Six Wings?”
“No! Not at all! You’re much more beautiful than him!”
“Aha? Then you’ve seen Kittu before, I take it?”
“Nope! But I can still guarantee it anyway. No god in all the heavens and the seas could possibly be more beautiful than you, Lord Gishzida!”
She was so enthusiastic that Gishzida couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.
“Anyway, Kittu forged a covenant before he died so that only those who guard the forest may use his powers. That’s what the priests of the Golden Forest are. And Kittu and the Celestial warriors, his offshoots, turned into large and lustrous stones after they died, and those stones are called divine stones.”
“……Gosh, that’s so unfair. The warriors were beautiful when they were alive, and they got to turn into beautiful stones after they died too —life is so unfair.”
Gishzida’s expression stiffened, and he stopped the donkey. He decided that now was a good time to issue a warning.
“Celestials aren’t mudpeople, Renier. We are gods from the heavens who are simply dwelling on earth temporarily. Do not quibble about the unfairness of worldly affairs before a Celestial.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll be careful,”
Renier replied quickly as she hunched into herself. Gishzida nodded and stopped speaking so sharply.
It was only proper to whip slaves promptly after their transgressions because they always seemed to be raising at least seven stubborn yet foolish donkeys in the pits of their stomach, but the girl named Renier seemed to understand that she was being warned as soon as the warning was given. Besides, Gishzida was the displeased with the discomfort he experienced every time he raged at children.
“In any event, Kittu’s powers remain in the divine stones, and the divine stones only permit us priests, who protect the forest, to use them. Ngak manifests when the Guardian of the Forest, who made a contract with Kittu, his ‘blood,’ and a stated command called ‘en’ touch a divine stone.”
Renier opened her eyes wide for a moment before she nodded back in understanding.
“I saw blood on your finger on the day we first met, Lord Gishzida.”
“You have sharp eyes. But yes. I pressed my finger against a small needle on the hook of my bracelet and drew a drop of my blood. ……Don’t worry, it’s not painful at all,”
Gishzida added with a grin when he saw Renier looking worried.
“Then, are all Celestials born with the ability to manifest ngak, Lord Gishzida?”
“No. A strong desire to manifest the powers inside the divine stone emerges from within us around the time we come of age. We only become official priests after we’ve successfully manifested a ngak at that time. This is our rite of passage as Celestials.”
The girl looked up at stared quietly into Gishzida’s face. He felt like he could hear her voice echoing, ‘I want to try manifesting a ngak too, just like you, Lord Gishzida —I have that desire in me too.’
What was he to do about this daring fixation of hers? Did he need to scold her harshly out of it?
But Gishzida changed his mind, only ever so slightly, when he saw the sparkles in her eyes and the cheery grin on her face. Surely, there was no need to rebuke her for words she had never said aloud. And so, Gishzida smiled and continued his explanation instead of expressing his anger.
“The process of drawing out ngak by oneself is a difficult process. The body rejects it strongly until one grows accustomed to it, and sometimes, a Celestial is rendered unable to eat for days because it makes them so nauseated or dizzy. Our hair takes on a blindingly beautiful golden color, just like Kittu’s, after the first time we’ve successfully manifested a ngak, and sometimes this happens when a Celestial is ten, and sometimes a Celestial is only able to manifest their first ngak well into their twenties.”
The donkey trotted along slowly, and Gishzida educated Renier as best as he could. Renier was bright and was a quick study, but she was also very curious and had lots of questions.
Where do divine stones come from, Lord Gishzida? Why is the Golden Forest on such bad terms with the Northlands? What kind of people live in the Northlands? Who rules the Golden Forest? Which gods do the Golden Forest worship? What kind of people were Lord Kittu and Lady Armanu?
“A lot of divine stones can be mined from the Whitesalt Mountains in the Northlands. We’re on bad terms with the Northlands because they, and their leading tribe, the Salt Mountain Tribe, in particular, are strongly opposed to anyone mining the divine stones. The people of the Salt Mountain Tribe are the descendants of Armanu and the man-eating eagle. They’re dirty and barbaric beastmen…….”
Gishzida paused for a moment and coughed drily as he sat upon the ridge of a hill. His throat was sore and dry like he was about to lose his voice. Renier was quick to notice and swiftly handed him a waterskin with both hands. Gishzida accepted it and drank sweetly of the water until he suddenly heard alarm bells ringing in his head.
Slowly, he brought the waterskin back down.
“……Unbelievable.”
It’s only been a week since I bought this little slave girl from Elde Isle, but I talked to her so much that I nearly lost my voice? He had spoken more to this child than he had ever spoken to all the other mudpeople he’d ever met in his life combined, now that he thought about it.
He took one look at the winding, twisting, hilly road that led to the next village and one look at Renier’s face before he turned back to the road going downhill again.
“Then again… They say that anything can happen in the span of one week. After all, seven is a terrible number indeed.”
Gishzida smiled faintly as he massaged his tired eyes.
“Pardon me? What do you mean? What did the number seven ever do wrong?”
“Seven is the holy and perfect number of the great gods who decree fate, but it’s also the terrible number that can change all things.”
Gishzida gently stood up and observed the small girl who was looking up at him. Her eyes, which was open round in her inability to comprehend, were bright with the sparkling light of curiosity.
The girl was fourteen this year. He had a feeling that any multiple of seven would surely be terrible too, moving forward. Gishzida lost himself in the strangest and most unfamiliar thought he had ever entertained in his life as he received Renier’s puzzled gaze.
“One week. It’s ample time for all things to come to be, and ample time for all things to collapse to nothingness.”
A chill ran down Renier’s back as she listened to the words that Gishzida was ruminating quietly to himself. His sapphire eyes and sharp gaze passed over her like a whip. Renier had thought that her initial fear of him had passed after their first day together, but it had only been hiding away somewhere, and now it had suddenly reared its head.
Swoosh.
He withdrew his gaze. But Renier still found it difficult to breathe. Then, a gentle and quiet voice fell over her from above.
“We still have a long way to go, so I shall tell you more about the two gods that are worshipped in the Golden Forest.”
Renier sighed a breath of relief as she looked up. Her eyes met Gishzida’s for an instant because he had looked down at her at exactly the same time, but he quickly turned away.
The faint blush on his face made him look so beautiful that it made him seem fickle, but his profile was quickly covered by the cascade of his long, golden hair. The sweet honey of his languid voice flowed through their rippling waves and gently began settling over Renier’s shoulders like dew.
A long, long time ago, just after the great and terrible gods had created the world…”
“…….”
“A lone tree sprung up from Enki’s, the master of the life tree and the earth, bellybutton.”
Renier’s master, the fisherman from Elde Isle, sold her the year she turned fourteen. For ten silver shekels. Most slave girls around her age were sold for twenty shekels, and male slaves were sold for thirty.
Renier guessed that she was about to be dragged away to somewhere bad when she learned how cheaply she was being sold for. She had done all kinds of backbreaking farm work to avoid being sold off, but it had all been to no avail.
Renier herself knew best why her master was selling her off for so cheap like he was throwing her away.
All kinds of accidents had always occurred whenever a man tried to make passes at her, but the incident from last week had sealed the deal. Her master’s youngest son had tried to rape her as she herded the goats and sheep in the field, and Renier had accidentally severed the veins in his wrist with the bronze decoration he had been wearing on his clothes.
Renier had avoided being killed on the spot because her master was terrified that Inanna would curse him, but she could not avoid the fate of being sold to somewhere beyond the isle.
The person who had come to buy Renier was so beautiful that he didn’t seem to be of this world. He had blindingly blond hair, his skin was as pale as goat milk, his eyes were as blue as the southern sea, and his lips were as crimson as ripe cherries.
Renier’s master, who normally stared rudely at vagabonds from foreign lands as if they were no better than cows or pigs, had bowed before this stranger like he was intimidated.
“Is that the child who recently began menstruating?”
“Without a doubt, Lord En-ishib.”
En-ishib?
Renier knew that the male priests and female priestesses who guarded the Golden Forest and could control the power of ngak were called ‘ishib’ and ‘nugig’ respectively. High-ranking priests and priestesses were called ‘en-ishib’ or ‘en-nugig,’ and the high priest who governed the forest was called the ‘galtir,’ which meant ‘Guardian of the Forest,’ and the priests were Celestials who lived on earth and not like the rest of the mudpeople.
But that person’s an en-ishib even though they’re so pretty? That’s a male priest? No way.
Renier snuck glances at the priest’s chest out of the side of her eye. Surely enough, however, the clothes flowing down to the priest’s calves were loose-fitting and straight, without a single bend or curve in sight. The priest noticed Renier’s disrespectful staring and scowled for a brief moment. And there was frost in his voice, which had previously been as serene as still waters, as he said,
“Your name is Renier. The master of this house found you in a forest when you were young and you were raised here ever since, you turn fourteen this year, and I’m told that you recently began menstruating. Is this correct?”
“Yes? ……Oh, yes.”
Renier didn’t know what menstruating was, but she decided to nod back for now. If her master had said that she had begun menstruating, then it must be true. It never crossed her mind that her master might have lied in order to sell her off as quickly as possible.
“You look like a boy. I think I might have to confirm that you’re truly a girl.”
“What are you doing? Undress yourself at once!”
Renier’s master yelled as he interjected. Renier was stunned, as she hesitantly replied,
“R-right here? You want me to undress right here?”
Renier immediately realized that she was being made to pay the price for staring at the priest so rudely. There are so many misters and grandpas who looked at me all weird here with us, but I really have to undress in front of all of them? Should I just get on my knees and beg the priest to forgive me for being rude?
“Undress at once! Or do I need to whip you first?”
Renier’s master began yelling even louder as she dithered, but the man whom her master had called an en-ishib shook his head with a frigid expression on his face.
“Ah, that’s enough. If she’s begun menstruating, then she’s old enough to feel embarrassed even if she isn’t quite aware of when she’s being insolent.”
Then, he turned to the small spring that was gushing beside him and took one of bracelets that had been dangling over his wrists in his hand. He continued,
“Idim, Mug, Girigub.”
A moment later, the spring water began circling like a whirlpool before it shot up and created a large lump of water in midair. Several people around the priest gasped.
“Sur, Mir.”
The wind suddenly gushed after the priest had recited the next short incantation. The water floating in the air moved in the direction that he was pointing as it twisted this way and that as it stretched out into a long shape.
“N-ngak?”
Renier’s master, who had been standing next to the priest, gasped loudly as he took a few steps back. Renier was so surprised that she dropped her jaw as she stared up at the floating lump of water.
“I can’t see your face properly because you’ve slathered mud all over it. Shub.”
The floating water splashed down upon Renier as the priest pointed downward. The sudden baptism of cold water snapped Renier back to her senses.
“Ngak —he manifested a ngak!”
“I guess he really is a priest. A noble en-ishib from the Golden Forest.”
The slaves who had been peeking glances at the priest immediately got down on their knees. They had previously seen their master igniting fires with a ngak tablet from the Golden Forest that he had bought from a merchant, but this was their first time bearing witness to a high-level ngak being manifested personally by a priest from the Golden Forest.
Renier squeezed her eyes shut and quivered. The baptism was over, but she was still too terrified to open her eyes. She quickly wrapped her arms around her chest when she realized that her old clothes were drenched and clinging tightly to her figure. She was so scared that she felt numb, but her instincts were telling her that she needed to sort out the situation quickly before something worse happened to her. And so, Renier got down on her knees.
“You’re so beautiful that I thought I misheard my master calling a nugig an ishib. But I was wrong. Please forgive me if I’ve displeased you.”
The priest narrowed his eyes and observed Renier for a while when he heard how clearly she had managed to convey herself despite the trembling of her quiet voice. It felt like such a dreadfully long time to Renier.
“You’re rather deft at reading the situation. And you’re quick to act too,”
his voice fell over her ears. It was smooth and gentle now that his ire had evaporated. It almost sounded as sweet as honeyed goat milk. But Renier could not feel any human warmth in the timbre of his voice. Was that why? Renier couldn’t help but keep trembling.
“Here I thought you’d be rough and ragged, but you’re actually quite the lovely child.”
Renier gingerly looked up and studied the priest’s face. His eyes, as vividly blue as the seas surrounding Elde Isle, were looking right back at her. For the life of her, she couldn’t tell from his expression whether he was truly no longer angry. Were all Celestials like that? The priest’s eyes narrowed even further as he continued observing Renier. He continued,
“It was never my intention to embarrass you. I apologize for that. Shahan, Dig Mir.”
The priest moved his hands again as he recited yet another unfamiliar incantation. Renier forgot to be afraid for a moment because the gestures of his long and pale fingers were so concise and beautiful. There was a sudden swoosh as a warm and gentle breeze wrapped around Renier’s frame and dried the water from her limbs.
Renier squeezed her eyes shut once again because she realized that the priest was still watching her. She felt like her entire being would freeze over if she met his azure eyes.
The priest frowned as he stared at the trembling slave girl before he took off the soft kaunakes shawl that he had been wearing over his shoulders.
“Perhaps you should cover yourself for a bit.”
The long and fluffy woolen kaunakes enveloped Renier’s frame. Renier quickly adjusted the front of the shawl and bowed her head.
“……What a lovely child,”
she heard him say as he quietly smacked his tongue.
Then, the priest pulled out several pieces of silver and a set of scales and paid Renier’s master ten shekels. Renier blinked quietly when she saw the colorful and beautiful bracelets on the priest’s wrists and the small smear of blood at the edge of his alabaster fingertips.
“My name is Gishzida, and I am an en-ishib of the Golden Forest.”
“…….”
“You will be working for the Golden Forest from now on, Renier.”
***
Gishzida rode on a donkey, and Renier was holding the reins as she guided the donkey. She’d thought that it would be terrifying to leave the household that she’d lived in all her life, and she was mystified to find that it wasn’t. She even felt relieved when she learned that they would be boarding a ship and leaving the isle entirely.
On the first day, they walked all day long without exchanging a single word. In Renier’s case, she had been so daunted by her time living in her master’s house that she was in the habit of always working hard to read the atmosphere before she spoke up, lest she beaten, and she found it strange that such a noble priest could be so reticent too.
Renier stared at Gishzida and blinked whenever they came across a fork in the road, and Gishzida silently pointed at the right direction from atop his donkey. The bastard’s apathetic and emotionless visage was so captivatingly beautiful that her mind went blank and her fingers twisted together every time she looked at him.
But she felt like she would die if she kept walking in absolute silence like this. The last thing she had eaten the morning before she was sold to the priest was a hard piece of barley bread no bigger than her palm, and she hadn’t eaten anything since. Renier gulped as she gathered up her courage.
“Um, Lord Gishzida?”
“…….”
“Excuse me, Lord Gishzida?”
Instead of replying, the priest only tilted his head ever so slightly and looked down at Renier. His reaction was so subtle that it was difficult to know whether he had actually heard her or not, but Renier could tell by the slightly lifted angle of his chin and the subtle way he moved that he disliked talking to humans.
That being said, she couldn’t exactly suffer in silence without saying a single word like a mute either. The Golden Forest wasn’t some nearby place that they could reach within a day. Renier clenched her stomach tight and gathered up her courage once more.
“Um……are you a little hard of hearing, Lord Gishzida?”
Renier heard something in between a tongue smacking and a short gasp when she posed her question.
“No.”
She obviously knew that he wasn’t deaf. But she felt like she wouldn’t get any reaction out of him at all if she didn’t provoke him like this.
But his response, which she had only just managed to draw out, had cut short and broken away. It would be a long and hard road before she finally got some food out of him. Renier desperately did anything she could to start a conversation with him.
“Do you not like it when a slave talks too much, Lord Gishzida?”
“……Are you the type that likes to talk a lot, Renier?”
Rattle. Gishzida pulled the reins and stopped the donkey. His expression hadn’t changed very much, and his voice sounded the same too, but Renier could tell that he was growing annoyed.
“N-no, not at all! I used to be a chatterbox when I was younger, but now I can go for months without talking.”
……As long as you feed me, that is.
The indifferent priest, who hadn’t noticed Renier’s desperate wish at all, seemed somewhat intrigued as he looked down at Renier.
“That’s not bad. What brought about that change?”
Well, it’s because I had to stand out as little as possible and keep as quiet as the dead if I didn’t want all the misters and old men to do weird things to me…… But it wasn’t as if she could actually be honest and tell him that. Renier gauged the situation and quietly mumbled,
“I forgot how to talk to people after living with the goats and sheep in the field for a couple of years.”
Hah! —Gishzida exclaimed from the absurdity of it all.
“Then, that must mean that you’re rather skilled at talking to goats and sheep.”
“A little.”
“Why don’t you show me?”
“What? You want me to show you?”
He must have strange tastes to be asking me to show him this. Is he bored? Renier had been stealing glances at the priest, and he did certainly look apathetic to the world. Is this his way of telling me to shut up and be quiet? Does it sound like animal noises to him when I talk?
Renier wriggled for a bit before she finally straightened out her shoulders. She was hungry, and she was also stubborn. Hmph. You think I can’t show you?
“They go baaa when they’re thirsty, baaah when they’re really thirsty, baa when they’re cold, bahahaa when they want to say, ‘I’m super cold, you rascal,’ they go baa baaa when they’re sleepy, baah baaah when they want me to put them to sleep, baaahbaa baahaabaaa when they’re hungry, and they go bleat bleaaat when they want to say, ‘I’m gonna starve to death, Master.’”
“Pft.”
Gishzida’s frame staggered on top of his donkey. Renier blinked as she gathered her hands together. There was nothing she couldn’t do for food. She made the most pitiful face she could and said the words that she had been wanting to say for a while now in the language of sheep and goats.
“Baaahbaabaahaabaaa! Bleat, bleat, bleaaat!”
“Ahahahahahahaha!”
Gishzida finally burst out in laughter. His shoulders heaved as he clutched to the reins, and he nearly fell off the donkey. The frigidness had finally left the priest’s mien, and Renier looked up at him quietly. Was it really that funny to hear a poor slave girl saying that she felt like she was about to starve to death?
It was only a while later that Gishzida seemed to have given up on something and let out a short sigh as he nodded.
“Very well. Let us eat.”
***
Gishzida smiled wryly as he looked at the back of the slave wench’s short-cropped head while she hopped around in excitement.
She’d waited on him patiently until he had finished his own meal, and she had accepted it with both her hands like she was receiving something precious when he pulled out a hard piece of bread, a piece of honeycomb, and a dried fig and handed to her, and then she had hugged the food close to her chest. He had even seemed overwhelmed with emotion for a moment when, with a tremble in her voice, she’d exclaimed, “I love rock honey! I really love it! Thank you so much!”
Is the food truly that delicious?
Gishzida felt strangely displeased as he watched her crouch under a tree far away, likely so as to not offend him, and nibble away. The sensitive child felt his gaze and looked up as he continued to glare at her quietly. She grinned from ear to ear when their eyes met and quickly bowed her head.
……Was she really that hungry?
He became a bit more disgruntled.
Gishzida disliked speaking with the mudpeople. Rather, he loathed coming into contact with humans in general.
Celestials had originally lived in the heavens, so it was only right for humans to hold them in awe and serve them. There was a line that could never be crossed between the two races, and Gishzida was the Celestial who was most uncompromising when it came to maintaining that line. And yet, he had been sent outside of the Golden Forest to buy slaves all alone despite being a high-ranking priest because his attitude had earned him the ire of his superiors, who were sycophantic to humanity.
He had only told the cheeky wench to show him how she talked to goats and sheep as a warning —he was telling her, “Do not approach a Celestial without reserve,” and, “You humans sound no different from the bleating of goats and the baaing of sheep to us Celestials.”
But his warning had been made without purpose, and so it had quickly fallen apart. And Gishzida had realized that the wench might actually end up communicating with him solely through the language of goats and sheep whenever it was time to eat if he kept being stubborn.
The fun part, however, was the fact that the child had responded the way she had precisely because she had understood his intent.
“Lord Gishzida…”
Renier, who had carefully licked off every last drop of honey from her fingers after she had finished eating her food, walked up to Gishzida and gingerly brought her hands together. She continued,
“Will we be heading to the Golden Forest immediately? Or are we stopping by someplace else first?”
“We’ll be stopping by a few other places first before we return to the forest. I need to buy more slaves.”
“Lord Gishzida, if you don’t like talking to other people…….”
Gishzida looked up at Renier without a word, and Renier confirmed that he had affirmed her suspicions with his silence before she cautiously continued,
“Then what if I stepped up and talked to people in your place until we get to the Golden Forest? It must’ve been so uncomfortable to come all this way without a single slave or pageboy to help you, Lord Gishzida, but I can stand by your side and bargain, go shopping, find lodgings, and prepare meals on your behalf if you just give me the money as I need it.”
Aha?
Gishzida narrowed his eyes as he observed the slave child standing before him.
He actually had been rather uncomfortable because he didn’t have even a single pageboy with him on this trip. Still, he was surprised that a slave child whom he’d never met before had made such a bold offer.
The child was innately smart and astute even though she looked so frightened, and she even carried thorns that were sharp enough to make his palms sting at the most surprising times. Gishzida, who normally felt like he was being eaten away by depression and boredom, found the sting rather amusing.
He was one of the brightest minds in the Golden Forest, and he valued disciples and subordinates who were quick on the uptake and intelligent like he was. Apparently, his favoritism also extended to mudpeople.
“You aren’t old enough to make business transactions on my behalf.”
“Oh, yes, you’re right.”
The child brought her hands together and lowered her head. There was a subtle vitality in her features as she blinked her sparkling eyes and beamed. Gishzida found that he could not easily look away, perhaps because hers wasn’t the kind of vitality that could be found inside the Golden Forest. She continued,
“In that case, I’ll do trivial chores and serve you in every other way so that you won’t be displeased and so that the Celestials won’t lose their dignity. There are a lot of idiots who look down on people who travel without a single slave attending to them, you see. I can do the work of ten servants. Give me one week, and I’ll have you thinking that I’m a slave worth one hundred shekels instead of ten.”
“…….”
“I’ll be in your care.”
She bowed her head of short-cropped hair yet again, and she had a wide grin on her face when her head bobbed back up.
And Gishzida finally felt like conversing with that small, chestnut-like slave girl with a smile on his face.
***
Renier was finally able to relax a little. She no longer had to go without her meals ever since the noble Celestial priest had ‘permitted the lowly slave girl to speak.’
He even seemed to pay extra mind to how he spoke to her, perhaps because he could see that the slave girl had been intimidated in her previous household. This wasn’t necessarily a good thing, of course, so she did keep his distance from him. His tone had grown so soft and gentle, like how his voice lifted and the sounds trailed ever so slightly when he called her name, “Renieeer,” and it made her feel like her entire being was shriveling up.
Only Gishzida knew whether that was simply how the Celestials normally spoke, whether that was simply how he personally spoke, or whether that was simply how his voice had ended up sounding when he intentionally tried to speak gently. But Renier was still certain that being called, “Renieeer,” was still a hundred times better than being threatened, treated coldly, or whipped.
She was given ample food too. He gave her a piece of honeycomb from the jar inside his sack once a day. It hadn’t even been that long since Renier had left the fisherman’s household, and her world had already turned into sunshine and rainbows. Renier licked the honey off her fingers so hard that she could have licked her fingerprints right off with it, and she silently vowed to herself upon her life that she would be loyal to Lord Gishzida hundreds of times over.
A series of other curious events had happened too. Renier had gathered some firewood and was rubbing some branches together so hard that the skin on her palms were beginning to split as she tried to start a fire when Gishzida, who had been watching her from behind, let out a sigh and recited a brief incantation.
“Ganzer.”
Just then, a spark shot out from his fingertip and billowed into a raging flame in the middle of the firewood.
“It’s the en to manifest a fire ngak.”
Gishzida chuckled and stood up when Renier dropped her jaw and fell on her behind and tossed her a pouch of powdered grains and a copper pot. Then, he said,
“Prepare the meal.”
“Hey! Fall down already! You should just fall down out of courtesy at this point after how much I’ve hit you! You’re destined to be eaten anyway, so just accept your fate! If you’re going to fall anyway, you should do it after being hit just once —or is it that you just want to fall down only after you’ve been beaten and bruised? Do you like it when your leaves get all shredded up like that?”
“……Pft.”
The priest made a strange noise as he watched Renier jabbering to herself while throwing stones at a fig that was hanging too high for her to reach. He apparently seemed to think it was funny to watch her struggling, especially considering how he was hanging back and making weird noises while spectating instead of helping her.
“I know you’re short, so just ask me to pick it for you if you can’t reach. Sur Mir, Kichura Baj, Pesh.”
He waved his hand, the one with the pretty bracelet, as he spoke his long incantation, and Renier heard a sharp swish from thin air even though there was nothing there. Then, a bunch of figs and leaves dropped down to her feet a moment later.
“Wow! That was amazing! Wow! That was incredible!”
Renier raised her arms and began cheering like crazy, but then she saw how the leaves and branches had been cut so cleanly —as if they’d been cut with a blade— and froze stiff.
I’ll get killed on the spot if I fool around just because he looks pretty.
Right, pretty mushrooms tend to be poisonous, pretty flowers usually have thorns, and the prettiest frogs in the forest can be used to make scary poison arrows. Naturally. Mhmm. Renier jumped to her feet and nodded to herself.
“O grasses, o weeds, don’t you feel pain too when rabbits or goats nibble on you with their teeth? So, can’t you just sit still and let me pull you out, you stubborn and tough pieces of poop?! I’m going to bring the donkey over here if you keep being stubborn, you got that?”
It was evening, and Renier had put up the leather tents and was in the middle of gathering grasses to cover the ground with. She was huddled over the side of the road struggling against the weeds when she heard the rude and weird chuckling behind her again.
Renier began sulking. Lord Gishzida never helped her immediately, now that she thought about it. He would make noises like ‘pft’ and ‘mmph’ behind Renier as she floundered, flailed, and stomped all alone, and he would only help once he finally couldn’t hold back his laughter anymore.
He definitely gets a kick out of watching me act ridiculous. He has such bad tastes. Seriously.
When Renier looked back at him with a petulant look in her eyes, he abruptly stopped laughing and scowled as he spat out,
“What are you doing? You looked like a little rabbit squirming in the grass.”
……Are you trying to say that I’m cute, or are you cursing me out?
Talking to Lord Gishzida always gave Renier a headache. He never made it clear whether he was praising her or scolding her, whether he found her cute or funny, or whether he was in a good or bad mood, and it drove her insane.
And trying to read his expressions was an even bigger headache —it didn’t always mean that he was in a good mood when he was smiling, and it didn’t always mean that he was in a sour mood when he was scowling either. He was the kind of master whom someone who wasn’t quick on the uptake would never be able to serve.
Gosh, I’m only able to serve him so well because I’m me. You have to be as clever as Lady Renier……. Actually, I’d still serve him anyway because he always gives me a piece of honeycomb at least once a day, to be honest.
“Stand back for a moment.”
Eventually, he stepped out in front of Renier. He was somewhat frail, delicate, elegant, indecipherable, and had questionable tastes, and Renier could guarantee that he was without peer when it came to being a fussy master who was difficult to serve, but Renier’s grievances seemed to fly away whenever she witnessed him using a new ngak.
Lord Gishzida showed Renier more ngaks are time passed, and Renier couldn’t help but think, even if somewhat foolishly, that he kept showing her new ngaks not because he needed to use them per se but rather because he enjoyed watching how curious and astonished she was whenever she saw them.
“Sur, Mir.”
Swoosh.
The wind whooshed around them. The dry grasses bowed down whenever he moved his hands, and sliced up pieces of leaves began circling as they gathered together.
“W-w-whoa! T-the wind beneath your feet, Lord Gishzida…it just keeps……whoaaa!”
Renier could feel something squishy(?) sloshing around in empty space. She couldn’t touch it per se —the empty space was still, in fact, empty—, but she could feel some kind of resistance like when she put her hand in water and sloshed it around. It felt like she was touching invisible water inside an invisible leather waterskin, but she didn’t know how to explain herself because all she could see was empty space.
“L-Lord Gishzida! What is this? There’s something there even though I can’t see anything! Something’s there!”
Gishzida apathetically took off the kanaukes shawl that had been draped over the shoulders and spread it over the empty space when Renier began shouting while pointing at the empty space.
“You should be able to see it now.”
Snap. The thick and wide woolen shawl flattened itself out like a spread of tablecloth and remained floating in midair instead of settling down to the ground. Gishzida often feigned indifference, but he apparently had a flair for the dramatic. Renier dropped her jaw, just like Gishzida wanted, and drooled in her genuine marvel. Gishzida continued,
“This ought to be better than a grass mat. I’ll put this inside the tent, so be sure to sleep on it.”
He’s letting me sleep inside the tent?
Renier opened his eyes wide. She understood fully well that Lord Gishzida, a Celestial, was showing her immense goodwill. But she couldn’t help the fact that her spine automatically straightened out as she grew nervous.
……Could it be?
Gishzida tilted his head to the side when he saw how nervous Renier had grown, and then he suddenly snorted sharply. He’d immediately realized what Renier was thinking. The air around him grew instantly cold as he narrowed his eyes.
How absurd. Why would I, a Celestial, cast aside my nobility and lust after the body of a lowly mudperson —and a slave wench, no less?
Renier opened her eyes wide yet again when she all too clearly felt his poignant contempt and rejection. It wasn’t that she was happy, but rather that she was surprised that he didn’t consider her a target of his lust.
Oh, maybe Celestials don’t feel any lust for mudpeople?
Gishzida’s forehead twitched. Renier realized that he knew exactly what she was thinking. And she also realized that he knew that she had realized this. A heavy curtain of silence fell in between them.
“……You are mistaken,”
Gishzida spat out frigidly as he whisked around.
Renier didn’t exactly know what it was that she was mistaken about, but she decided to understand it as Lord Gishzida’s declaration that he harbored no strange desires for her. After all, she had never once seen the bone-chillingly evil aura that other men exuded coming from Lord Gishzida.
He felt closer to a snow-covered rock or a frozen winter lake than a lustful man. Renier was grateful for that, even if it originated from his contempt toward mudpeople.
“Thank you, Lord Gishzida.”
Lord Gishzida stopped in his tracks and looked back at her with an unfamiliar look on his face. She couldn’t tell if he was puzzled or bewildered. He narrowed his eyes and observed Renier quietly as she bowed to him in genuine gratitude.
“……Is this really something that you’re thankful for?”
“Yes, Lord Gishzida.”
“I see. Go inside and sleep, now.”
Lord Gishzida didn’t ask any further questions. And Renier was grateful for that too.
Renier stepped inside the tent, squinted as hard as she could, and jumped on top of the white shawl that was floating in midair. Bounce —her body sank down and airily flung back up again. Next, Renier plopped down on the bed on her stomach and rolled around.
Wow. This is awesome. It’s better than a grass mat, he said? What kind of joke was that supposed to be? I feel like I’m sinking into a pile of wool. I feel like my body’s just gonna melt in here, seriously. The bed of wind was the single greatest luxury that Renier, a country bumpkin from the boondocks of Elde Isle, had ever experienced.
It must be really nice to be a priest of the Golden Forest. Renier was so envious she thought she could die. How nice must it be to be able to get so much work done with just one finger?
She could start a fire with just one short incantation instead of having to rub pieces of wood together until her hands started bleeding, could draw up water in the morning without having to labor to pump it up, and could sleep on a comfortable bed of wind that her whole body could just sink into at night.
Actually, she’d first use her skills to make a lot of money so she could buy her freedom, and then she’d make even more money buy a big house and a lot of fishing boats just like her master and eat lots of delicious foods without having to do any hard work…….
Renier was giggling as she entered the land of fantasy, but then she abruptly stopped laughing.
How did one become a priest of the Golden Forest? Could a slave become one too?
Renier turned around, and her face crumpled as she flinched. Lord Gishzida wasn’t using any cloth, so he was simply floating in midair as he slept. Renier’s conscience pricked.
I’m sleeping on the shawl that he meant to use as his blanket…….
What do I do? Should I give it back to him? Is it okay to wake him up?
Renier agonized so hard that she could have ripped out every last strand of her short cropped hair before she quietly asked,
“Uh, er, um……. Aren’t you cold, Lord Gishzida?”
He muttered back from the darkness,
“Ugh, truly……you’re quite the handful.”
“Pardon? O-oh no, t-that’s not what I…….”
“Shahan.”
A warm and comfortable wind blew into the leather tent as soon as the quietly uttered word left Gishzida’s lips.
Renier vowed to never speak up again as she spent the entire night sweating because of the sudden scorching heat.
***
Afterward, Renier served Gishzida diligently without needing to be told what to do. She stopped the donkey and had it drink whenever they came across a small stream, gathered grasses to make a comfortable place for Gishzida to sit, and collected branches suited for firewood and tied them tightly to the donkey’s back.
She picked wild strawberries and large mushrooms from the road every now and again, and she used her sling to hunt down birds. She also caught a few grasshoppers, skewered them on long sticks, and roasted them over the fire for snacks.
“You’re remarkably skilled at hunting, aren’t you?”
“Well, I have to be able to eat in order to survive.”
Lord Gishzida seemed like the type of person who had lived a high and lofty life in the Golden Forest and had never needed to dirty himself with even a single drop of water, and it didn’t seem like he had much experience living out in the society either. There was no way that he would’ve bought Renier without haggling over her price —though she had already been incredibly cheap at just ten shekels, of course—, apologized to a mere slave wench, given her his shawl, or personally make a bed for her otherwise.
Moreover, Lord Gishzida was weak to the strangest things. He couldn’t bring himself to watch as Renier began yelling as soon as she spotted a snake, grabbed it by the tail, and began bashing its head against the earth or hunted a rabbit by slinging a stone at it, skinned it, and skewered it, and he shuddered as he looked away.
“Er, ahem. Catch the snake when I’m not looking, Renier. And skin your hunt when I’m not looking too. Don’t walk around with that red thing dangling from the skewer, Renier. Take off the grasshoppers’ legs when you roast them, and you don’t need to give me any —I’m not eating that!”
“L-Lord Gishzida? But you like rabbit meat. And you like snake stew too. My master —my previous master, that is— said that snake stew is good for stamina, and he always had the first bite. Do you actually not like it?”
“This and that are two different things entirely. Put…put it away. You fed me snake stew? Renier?! Renier!”
Renier began to ponder serious as she watched Lord Gishzida try to regurgitate the stew that he had already eaten and digested.
Wait, why’s he doing that when he ate it just fine, even said that it was delicious, and it wasn’t like it gave him a stomachache or anything? Why? Why? Just why? Renier pondered for a while before she finally reached a major conclusion.
Celestials were very beautiful, but they were also very, very frail.
Right. I have to be sure to watch over Lord Gishzida even if only during our journey to the Golden Forest.
Renier made a fist and steeled herself as if she was an escort warrior from the West.
Gishzida observed with great interest as Renier’s attitude changed by the day. The child seemed to come back to life and return to her true colors the farther away they got from her former master’s house. She’d probably had to deal with a lot back there.
Renier was unable to hold back her curiosity. She asked a lot of questions, and she grew curious about many things. In particular, she opened her eyes wide and hopped up and down and ogled whenever Gishzida manifested a ngak. Watching her like this was oddly addictive, and Gishzida found himself using ngaks even when he didn’t need to just so he could show them to her.
She also had a surprising reaction speed and perception for danger. She moved swiftly and concisely, and she was able to readily see any plant or animal that entered her line of sight because she had good vision. She stood before him like some kind of guardian warrior or something and meted out punishment upon any creature in his path no matter its size.
Gishzida had snorted and simply watched at first, but he gradually stopped laughing. Even the strongest patrol soldiers of the Golden Forest were no match for her. He’d been wondering how such a young child had managed to do something as dangerous as herding in an open field for as long as she had, but any doubts he’d harbored had all but disappeared by this point.
The only problem with the bright child was that she knew so little about the Golden Forest because she had grown up in such a remote area. The bigger problem, however, was the fact that Gishzida was responsible for teaching the slaves of the temple the basics about the Golden Forest.
“Renier”
“Yes, Lord Gishzida?”
“You may ask me if there’s anything you’re curious about the Golden Forest. Stop casting sidelong glances at me with such a strange look on your face.”
“I beg your pardon? Oh, I’m sorry!”
Her round head, which was bursting with hard brown sprouts, bowed down, and her face was filled with a mixture of curiosity and fear when she peeked back up. But the questions were something else even from the get go.
“How does one become a priest of the Golden Forest?”
“Huh?”
Renier realized that she’d made a mistake and covered her mouth while looking down when Gishzida was so astonished by her question that he stopped the donkey.
How impudent and insolent of you —but Gishzida swallowed back his harsh reprimands. It looked like this child had no notion that Celestials weren’t human beings, that even the kings of entire cities weren’t allowed to speak so casually to a Celestial, or that the Celestials disliked the mere act of intermingling with mudpeople.
Gishzida didn’t bother to hide his irritation as he spat out,
“The priests of the Golden Forest are Celestials, people who belong to the sky. To be more exact, we’re the bloodline of ‘Kittu of Six Wings,’ the son of Utu, the sun god. No mudperson or slave wench can become a priest simply because she wants to.”
“O-oh, I see……. I only asked because I was curious.”
The clever child didn’t ask twice and immediately changed the topic.
“Are all priests as beautiful as you, Lord Gishzida? You know, you’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen in my life, Lord Gishzida!”
Gishzida couldn’t help but huff out a chuckle when Renier balled her hands into fists and raised them into the air as she sang his praises.
“We all more or less look similar. But we’re not born looking like this. Our bodies become Celestial-like when we draw ngak from a divine stone and use it for the first time. Our hair takes on the light of the sun, and our skin becomes fair too. Just like Kittu of Six Wings, our forefather.”
Wow. How nice —not only do they get to become a priest, but they also get to be pretty too.
“Was this Kittu person really that beautiful?”
“Yes. He was so beautiful that he was called the ‘Glory of Light,’ which means heavenly beauty, even in the world of the gods. It’s said that even Inanna, the goddess of love and beauty, lost her light before Kittu. It’s also said that the entire world was shroud in darkness for a whole week when the sun god Utu, Kittu’s father, failed to operate his solar chariot because heaven had lost its light when Kittu passed away.”
Renier found it easier to latch onto Kittu’s beauty rather than his death. Silly words began flowing out from her mouth.
“Don’t worry. I’m sure that you’re still more beautiful, Lord Gishzida.”
“……What?”
Gishzida’s expression suddenly turned sour. Renier only came back to her senses a beat later and quickly covered her mouth. Are you crazy?! I’ve finally gone crazy because of that face of his. She grabbed her head and began pulling out the short hairs she could barely even grasp hold of, but she could not take back the words that had already escaped her lips.
Ah, goodness. Gishzida looked like he’d heard the most absurd thing in the world as he asked,
“Do you really believe that I’m as beautiful as Kittu of Six Wings?”
“No! Not at all! You’re much more beautiful than him!”
“Aha? Then you’ve seen Kittu before, I take it?”
“Nope! But I can still guarantee it anyway. No god in all the heavens and the seas could possibly be more beautiful than you, Lord Gishzida!”
She was so enthusiastic that Gishzida couldn’t help but burst out in laughter.
“Anyway, Kittu forged a covenant before he died so that only those who guard the forest may use his powers. That’s what the priests of the Golden Forest are. And Kittu and the Celestial warriors, his offshoots, turned into large and lustrous stones after they died, and those stones are called divine stones.”
“……Gosh, that’s so unfair. The warriors were beautiful when they were alive, and they got to turn into beautiful stones after they died too —life is so unfair.”
Gishzida’s expression stiffened, and he stopped the donkey. He decided that now was a good time to issue a warning.
“Celestials aren’t mudpeople, Renier. We are gods from the heavens who are simply dwelling on earth temporarily. Do not quibble about the unfairness of worldly affairs before a Celestial.”
“Yes, I’m sorry. I’ll be careful,”
Renier replied quickly as she hunched into herself. Gishzida nodded and stopped speaking so sharply.
It was only proper to whip slaves promptly after their transgressions because they always seemed to be raising at least seven stubborn yet foolish donkeys in the pits of their stomach, but the girl named Renier seemed to understand that she was being warned as soon as the warning was given. Besides, Gishzida was the displeased with the discomfort he experienced every time he raged at children.
“In any event, Kittu’s powers remain in the divine stones, and the divine stones only permit us priests, who protect the forest, to use them. Ngak manifests when the Guardian of the Forest, who made a contract with Kittu, his ‘blood,’ and a stated command called ‘en’ touch a divine stone.”
Renier opened her eyes wide for a moment before she nodded back in understanding.
“I saw blood on your finger on the day we first met, Lord Gishzida.”
“You have sharp eyes. But yes. I pressed my finger against a small needle on the hook of my bracelet and drew a drop of my blood. ……Don’t worry, it’s not painful at all,”
Gishzida added with a grin when he saw Renier looking worried.
“Then, are all Celestials born with the ability to manifest ngak, Lord Gishzida?”
“No. A strong desire to manifest the powers inside the divine stone emerges from within us around the time we come of age. We only become official priests after we’ve successfully manifested a ngak at that time. This is our rite of passage as Celestials.”
The girl looked up at stared quietly into Gishzida’s face. He felt like he could hear her voice echoing, ‘I want to try manifesting a ngak too, just like you, Lord Gishzida —I have that desire in me too.’
What was he to do about this daring fixation of hers? Did he need to scold her harshly out of it?
But Gishzida changed his mind, only ever so slightly, when he saw the sparkles in her eyes and the cheery grin on her face. Surely, there was no need to rebuke her for words she had never said aloud. And so, Gishzida smiled and continued his explanation instead of expressing his anger.
“The process of drawing out ngak by oneself is a difficult process. The body rejects it strongly until one grows accustomed to it, and sometimes, a Celestial is rendered unable to eat for days because it makes them so nauseated or dizzy. Our hair takes on a blindingly beautiful golden color, just like Kittu’s, after the first time we’ve successfully manifested a ngak, and sometimes this happens when a Celestial is ten, and sometimes a Celestial is only able to manifest their first ngak well into their twenties.”
The donkey trotted along slowly, and Gishzida educated Renier as best as he could. Renier was bright and was a quick study, but she was also very curious and had lots of questions.
Where do divine stones come from, Lord Gishzida? Why is the Golden Forest on such bad terms with the Northlands? What kind of people live in the Northlands? Who rules the Golden Forest? Which gods do the Golden Forest worship? What kind of people were Lord Kittu and Lady Armanu?
“A lot of divine stones can be mined from the Whitesalt Mountains in the Northlands. We’re on bad terms with the Northlands because they, and their leading tribe, the Salt Mountain Tribe, in particular, are strongly opposed to anyone mining the divine stones. The people of the Salt Mountain Tribe are the descendants of Armanu and the man-eating eagle. They’re dirty and barbaric beastmen…….”
Gishzida paused for a moment and coughed drily as he sat upon the ridge of a hill. His throat was sore and dry like he was about to lose his voice. Renier was quick to notice and swiftly handed him a waterskin with both hands. Gishzida accepted it and drank sweetly of the water until he suddenly heard alarm bells ringing in his head.
Slowly, he brought the waterskin back down.
“……Unbelievable.”
It’s only been a week since I bought this little slave girl from Elde Isle, but I talked to her so much that I nearly lost my voice? He had spoken more to this child than he had ever spoken to all the other mudpeople he’d ever met in his life combined, now that he thought about it.
He took one look at the winding, twisting, hilly road that led to the next village and one look at Renier’s face before he turned back to the road going downhill again.
“Then again… They say that anything can happen in the span of one week. After all, seven is a terrible number indeed.”
Gishzida smiled faintly as he massaged his tired eyes.
“Pardon me? What do you mean? What did the number seven ever do wrong?”
“Seven is the holy and perfect number of the great gods who decree fate, but it’s also the terrible number that can change all things.”
Gishzida gently stood up and observed the small girl who was looking up at him. Her eyes, which was open round in her inability to comprehend, were bright with the sparkling light of curiosity.
The girl was fourteen this year. He had a feeling that any multiple of seven would surely be terrible too, moving forward. Gishzida lost himself in the strangest and most unfamiliar thought he had ever entertained in his life as he received Renier’s puzzled gaze.
“One week. It’s ample time for all things to come to be, and ample time for all things to collapse to nothingness.”
A chill ran down Renier’s back as she listened to the words that Gishzida was ruminating quietly to himself. His sapphire eyes and sharp gaze passed over her like a whip. Renier had thought that her initial fear of him had passed after their first day together, but it had only been hiding away somewhere, and now it had suddenly reared its head.
Swoosh.
He withdrew his gaze. But Renier still found it difficult to breathe. Then, a gentle and quiet voice fell over her from above.
“We still have a long way to go, so I shall tell you more about the two gods that are worshipped in the Golden Forest.”
Renier sighed a breath of relief as she looked up. Her eyes met Gishzida’s for an instant because he had looked down at her at exactly the same time, but he quickly turned away.
The faint blush on his face made him look so beautiful that it made him seem fickle, but his profile was quickly covered by the cascade of his long, golden hair. The sweet honey of his languid voice flowed through their rippling waves and gently began settling over Renier’s shoulders like dew.
A long, long time ago, just after the great and terrible gods had created the world…”
“…….”
“A lone tree sprung up from Enki’s, the master of the life tree and the earth, bellybutton.”
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