Quibble, 59. Nahli (i)

As Alnasl the Zero becomes Nuah the Far, a fraught history comes to light.

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Though the remainder of Quibble will be available in full only to paid subscribers, I’m making an exception for this and the next chapter. Taken together, these two chapters comprise a short story, originally entitled “The Boy Who Fell in Love with Night” and intended to sit apart from the novel. I’m so delighted with the story, though, that I can only countenance offering it to readers for free.

59. Nahli (i) @Qahf

I am the Aht-ri, so I have told stories beyond count. Yet in my age, as blindness takes me above its shield, as every day I become less a ri and more a nahli, never have I told a story afresh to the person who told most of it to me. And it is most strange that now you are blind, Nuah, but perhaps this cast of the bones is right. Perhaps only now does the story finish itself. Perhaps. None but the Far-nah know, do they?

Once, you were an orphan without kin, a boy called Uhta-nahli-nuah. You lived in a stone city of the Northern Far. There, you wanted for nothing, for according to the law of the Uhta, orphans were above the nah’s shield. You were everyone’s child.

Hunger and thirst were strangers to you, for no one else was. If you lacked food, you had only to seek out a widow or a shopkeeper with work needing to be done and no one to do it. In exchange for your work, your belly was filled and you were sent on your way with the nah’s token, the promise of another day’s work. You made your bed on the city’s roofs, but you never suffered when rain flew or winter came, for always you were invited into a home and allowed to sleep before the hearth. At the harvest feast, all the nahli were the nah’s guests. She gave you a new suit of clothes, the best fruits of the cornucopia, and the tender meat of a yearling calf.

Thus, as an Uhta-nahli, you led a more carefree life than such as the Aht-nahli, who now scavenge to live and, if they are caught thieving, become uhn-say abandoned to the mercy of the Far-nah and the Waste, perhaps never to find the sea.

Yet the law of the Uhta is also harsh in its own ways, and you learned this as you grew. The law permitted you no possessions save the nah’s token, food, and the clothes on your back. It forbade you to marry into an Uhta family. If Uhta-nahli married each other, the law demanded that they leave the city, and since the couple would find little welcome in the farmsteads around it, they were driven at last to the edges of the Waste, there to live as best they could devise. And if the law at least let you marry into another tribe, what of it? What family would accept for its daughter a nahli? What tribe wanted a wastrel who could give it nothing, neither cattle nor silk nor steel?

If no family turned orphans away from the door, none adopted them, either. You had no brothers or sisters. There was never enough work for all the nahli, so sometimes you had to fight for what work there was, and thus you made few friends.

So the Uhta in those stone cities of Qahn-dah the North then imprisoned orphans in a cycle of penury and charity. And so, though you knew all in that city, you were lonely.

Every morning, you watched from a rooftop as Far-nah-sol renewed himself and took flight. Every day, under the sun-spirit’s gaze, you met your city’s people, worked with them, and ate with them. Every evening, as Far-nah-sol sank to the western plains, you went away from the Uhta friendless and unloved.

At night, sprawled in hay on the roof of a mill or a cobbler’s shop, you gazed into the bottom of the sky, where the stars live, and you wondered what would become of you. The moon-spirit Far-nah-luhn blessed you with his radiance. Sometimes Far-nah-si, the cloud-spirit, and Far-nah-roa, the luminous sky-spirit of the North, visited you as well. And these companions assuaged your loneliness, but they were distant, silent. So, with no hopes, you grew to be a young man and came to your fifteenth year.

In that year, Sen-aht-nah-lupah – the fearsome warrior who led the Aht to many victories against the Qahlif of the South and who even crossed part of Ayn-qesh to raid the Isleh of the West – came north herself to conduct trade with the Uhta. Customarily, this nah sent her brother-husband Sen-aht-ri-hesim to trade with the Uhta while she led the Aht-sah raiding. Her arrival with so many Aht, late in the year just after the harvest feast, caused much alarm.

Was Lupah invading? Did she dare to break the longstanding peace of Aht and Uhta, a peace so enmeshed with the two tribes’ hel that they were virtually sistren?

Halim-uhta-nah-qasreh, the nah of that Northern city whose sah were not fierce Aht-sah, now found herself beseeched by the Uhta for protection. So the appearance of the Aht-nah jeopardized Qasreh’s hel. Indeed, this was why Lupah came. As a daughter of the Sen, Lupah was not only ruthless but calculating, as shrewd in barter as in battle. She now had an advantage over Qasreh, and she looked to it to solve her own problem.

Lupah entered the city with a small contingent of sah as bodyguards. With her also came her brother-husband Sen-aht-ri-hesim and their daughter, Sen-nahli-aht-qah-lapi, as well as Lupah’s rival Wahn-aht-jah-asnul and her daughter Wahn-jahli-aht-qah-nefri. In those times, the nah and jah both brought their eldest daughters to observe the audience with the Uhta-nah, so both girls could learn how to conduct negotiations with the Uhta. In these fraught times, this custom has fallen out of use. Sen-aht-nah-lupah, though ruthless and a trickster, was no tyrant. But now the Sen do not wish to share the sword and shield, and they treat the Aht-jah almost as uhn-say, vagabonds. The spirit of the Aht has sadly changed.

Ever have the selfish Sen and the compassionate Wahn vied to lead the Aht. With the tribe, the jahli-qah Nefri was popular for her beauty, wisdom, and kindness. In time, Lupah knew, Nefri would challenge the nahli-qah Lapi for leadership. She hoped to prevent this by arranging Nefri’s marriage to an Uhta, and the more disadvantageous the union, the better.

Halim-uhta-nah-qasreh was sorely taxed in negotiating with Sen-aht-nah-lupah. Within three days, the Uhta lost a dozen beeves in im to the Aht – hospitality they were bound to offer – with nothing to show for the loss. All the while, the Aht camp outside the city thronged with sah restless for the battle they had missed, and rather than make a declaration of peace, Lupah let Qasreh worry about those bloodthirsty sah. This was not the usual manner of negotiations. The Uhta-nah could not discern what the Aht-nah really wanted, so Qasreh always felt off-balance and weak.

As each passing day brought only more loss and no trade, the city’s people sent ever more desperate appeals to Qasreh, asking her to end negotiations with Lupah and send the Aht away. Forbidden to interrupt the nah’s audiences, they sent their letters by couriers – and in that city, the bearers of all letters and news were the Uhta-nahli. This circumstance, it turned out, was part of Lupah’s plan.

Your qah was then quick within you, Nuah. So when you brought letters to your nah, inevitably you noticed Wahn-jahli-aht-qah-nefri, who was graceful, lithe, and as raven-haired as a Qahlif. From the moment you first saw her, you could not look away. She seldom spoke, but you were keen to see a person’s true spirit, and the little she said tokened not shyness but self-possession. She was a soul who kept her own counsel and listened more than she ever spoke. This made her wise. These traits intrigued you more than her beauty. So, despite its pointlessness, you began to fall in love with Nefri.

A boy of fifteen suffering the pangs of love is apt to think no one understands his feelings, and thus he may imagine his charade of indifference is successful, while to the adults around him it is all too obvious how he feels. You followed Nefri with your eyes when you supposed yourself ignored, and the rest of the time you stole furtive glances. The two nah and their ri and even Nefri’s mother the jah all smirked behind their hands to see your attempts to hide your infatuation.

Then, on the fourth day, during a heated exchange between Lupah and Qasreh, the jahli-qah caught you looking at her. The two of you locked eyes. All the others were absorbed by the argument, but Sen-aht-ri-hesim noted the mingled embarrassment and curiosity which crossed Nefri’s face like a breeze and was gone. Thinking of his sister-wife’s true purpose, Hesim gave Lupah a secret sign.

Speaking to each other, it is the nahs’ custom to hold naked swords on their laps and then to kiss each other’s swords when they strike a bargain. As daylight waned and the day’s negotiations ended, Lupah nudged her sword beneath the table of im between herself and Qasreh. So Lupah left Qasreh’s house without her sword, and since she left foremost in the retinue, the other Aht missed its absence. As the retinue walked through the streets, Hesim strode ahead and fell in by Lupah’s side.

“What did you see?” she muttered.

“We have been laughing at that smitten boy, but the jahli-qah does not laugh,” the ri told her. “I think she is smitten, too. Perhaps he will be her undoing.”

The Aht company had traversed the city to the gate nearest their camp when the nah pretended to realize she had lost her sword and cursed aloud.

“Send a sah back for it,” said Wahn-aht-jah-asnul, wary of Lupah’s trickery.

“How will it look to the Aht if I return to camp without it?” thundered Lupah.

“Then we will go back with you,” Asnul countered, “for the Uhta fear us, and the city may not be safe for an Aht walking alone and unarmed, even the nah.”

Scoffing, Lupah said, “Your concern for my safety touches me! But it is needless. Have I not an army of battle-tested sah at my back? Who among the Uhta dares attack me? Who does not fear the vengeance to follow, the whispering sword?”

Then Asnul relented, for oft her brother Sehlim-aht-ri-supra said the Wahn must be like water and flow with the course of events. So Lupah left the retinue and returned alone through the city to the nah’s house.

“A lucky thing!” Qasreh said when the sword was found. “The Sen’s whispering sword is famous with all the Far. What possessed you to forget it, nah?”

“Distraction,” Lupah replied. “I envy the young learning love for the first time. I was thinking of that boy who steals looks at Nefri. Tell me, nah, who is he?”

“Uhta-nahli-nuah, an orphan above my shield.”

“A pity!” Lupah cried, seizing her chance. “My ri observed Nefri favors Nuah in kind. The jahli-qah is full in her im, but she has turned away two eligible suitors, much to her family’s chagrin. And now she favors a wastrel?”

Almost at once, the game of bones the Aht-nah had been playing became clear to the Uhta-nah. Passing over the matter of the rejected suitors, Qasreh asked what might make you an acceptable suitor to the Wahn. For after all, Nuah deserves happiness, she thought, justifying your use as a throw of bones in this game. Lupah, for her own part too wily to appear eager, refused to answer directly.

“Come, nah, Nefri’s happiness must be worth something to you!” said Qasreh at last. “If only we each surrender something, we may serve each other. Give me back the dozen beeves you have stolen – yes, stolen, for these four days of fruitless talk have been nothing more than pretext for robbery! – and in return I will attire Nuah with the finest silk from my ri’s wardrobe. Then I will introduce him to the Wahn myself.”

“With the name Uhta-nahli-nuah?” objected Lupah. “Wahn-aht-jah-asnul is no fool. She will know whence this introduction comes. She will sow strife among the Aht, and it will end with my head on a pike!”

“I see,” said Qasreh pensively. “Then I will make him a sah and adopt him into my house, if in turn you will make him an Aht-sah. He will not be Uhta-nahli-nuah but Halim-uhta-sah-nuah when I present him to the Wahn. As a sah, he will have prospects, and the Wahn cannot reject him out of hand. We must only keep his poverty a secret.”

Halim-uhta-nah-qasreh’s proposal pleased Sen-aht-nah-lupah beyond all hopes. By joining in the deception, the Uhta-nah shared blame when the Wahn learned how we were hoodwinked. And when it was revealed Nefri had married a pauper without a jot to his name, the Aht would think the Wahn were not wise, as reputed, but a family of gullible dupes. So disgraced, Nefri could never challenge Lapi to become nah.

The two scheming nah drank cups of wine and kissed each other’s swords to seal their pact. Lupah returned to camp late that night. Even now, it is whispered among the Aht that their swords were not all the nah kissed. The Aht well knew Lupah shared her bed with others besides her brother-husband the ri. As for Qasreh, she was ever without a husband or a wife. But this is only gossip. None but the Far-nah know the truth of it.

The next day, there were no negotiations, and Lupah forbade the Aht to enter the city. Qasreh called all the Uhta to the city’s square. None of them were more surprised than you were when the nah adopted you and made you a sah before the assembly. She gave you a fine sword and a suit of clothes much richer than the drab cotton attire you had received at harvest – a suit of pure silk with a brocade of silver leaves, signifying a retainer of the Halim. This reversal of your fortunes perplexed everyone. Qasreh said nothing of her bargain with Lupah, for it could not stand if someone bore thanks to the Aht for relieving the Uhta of a nahli now full in his im.

When you dined that evening in the nah’s courtyard, you got a greater surprise: she asked if you would like to become an Aht-sah.

“Only today, you made me an Uhta-sah,” you said, confused. “Why now would I leave your service or this city?”

The nah eyed you closely. “Wahn-jahli-aht-qah-nefri,” she said.

You looked at the dusky sky, at once embarrassed to find your love no secret and ashamed to learn your nah wished to banish you on the flimsy excuse of a passion Nefri could not requite, as surely the nah knew.

“To what end do I follow her?” you muttered.

“Take heart, Halim-uhta-sah-nuah,” said Qasreh. “Have I not made you my own son? I will present you to her family myself.”

At this, you blanched and stared at the nah.

“You object?” she said.

“Do you not fear Sen-aht-nah-lupah’s vengeance?”

“It was the Aht-nah’s idea!” Qasreh laughed, and then she explained to you how Lupah had played bones with her.

“And what of Nefri’s kin?” you said when the nah had finished.

“They do not dare defy their nah. Of course, you should take precautions. I will teach you all that you need to know. You will not go to Nefri with nothing, either, for I will provide a dowry of cattle. So the ruse should last until you have journeyed through the Sen-an-dah and reached the land of the Aht. It will be laid bare when the Aht make an accounting of their gains from this year’s journey. But have no fear. The Aht will have given you say, and by then you will have consummated the marriage. They will not be happy, but the Wahn are kind. And supposing they rebel or plot vengeance – well, it is a long way north, and longer in winter.”

A long way for me as well! you thought, not reassured, but you did not insult your nah by saying it. Anyway, while she had spoken, you had weighed the benefits of your new rank. Had you not oft daydreamed of such luck as this? Of leaving your loneliness and servitude among the Uhta? Of becoming an equal among another people? Of better prospects for the future than only becoming uhn-say and finding the sea? You found in your heart not only a yearning for a new life but a desire to make that life with Nefri, if she would have you. So, with some guilt for your role in the deception but a great deal more hope than ever, you accepted your nah’s offer.

Now, Nuah, I hope you and your Ayzhed friend will forgive me, but I must stop here in the storytelling tonight. I am an old man. Long recitations are not as easy for me as they once were, and perhaps Nahli-aht-sah-lurah grows weary of repeating my story to you. Anyway, it is late, and surely she must make a report to the Aht-nah before the night is done. Go with her. Have no fear of the nah. Lurah will protect you. She is the daughter of the Halim, and the honor of the Halim is famous with all the Far.

Come sit at my fire again tomorrow, and we will discover what we may.

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rem