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Dear Top Web Fiction and other new readers:
Back in February I switched over from this blog site to a Digital Novelists site at chevenga.com. That much-improved site is where I now post. I am keeping this version up only for comparison purposes for readers who are curious as to what I have revised. So this is not the current presentation version, a lot of links are dead, and I generally recommend you come on over to the new site using these links:
The Philosopher in Arms "cover" material and Table of Contents
The Philosopher in Arms First Chapter
Being the collected memoirs of Fourth Chevenga Shae-Arano-e compiled by the Workfast Literary of Yeola-e; Aletheya Athal, editor, Y. 1555.
[AD 4979]
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The day my father was assassinated, and they brought his corpse in and laid it under the linden tree in the courtyard, he looked as if he had spread out his robe to take a nap in the shade, except that his long limbs all lay straight, which they never did when he slept. On his chest was a nick from which flowed a single-drop-wide trickle of blood.
I was seven. “He’s not dead,” I thought. “I thought he was dead last time, when he went under for the Kiss of the Lake, and he wasn’t. He’s asleep. I know him better than anyone, I’ll wake him up.” Expert I was at slipping out of elder fingers; now I twisted out of my shadow-father’s, ran and knelt at my father’s side.
He was pale, but I’d seen him paler before, when sick. In the breeze the flecks of sunlight from between the shadows of the tree-leaves played on his face, and the bright curls on his forehead stirred. I would wake him, and he would blink and smile, and maybe yawn, and say, “Chevenga,” and tousle my hair. I took his shoulders, kissed his cheek and said, “Daddy, wake up,” and waited for his eyelids to flutter open.
Several people gasped. Someone called me. That made me angry; he may be your semanakraseye, I thought, but he’s my Daddy. Then I felt myself snatched up by my shadow-father. A rage as quick and blinding as lightning made me curl my fist to strike him, but I felt a wetness on my fingers. I looked. My hand was wearing a glove of scarlet.
His back was covered with it. I saw why when the funerary people arrived with the bier, and lifted him onto it. They bent him forward to show the people; between his spine and his shoulder-blade was a slit which opened slightly as they moved him, loosing a last slight red gush. The scratch on his chest had come from within, made by the tip of the blade running him through from behind.
When fresh game is brought in for the stew-pot, you can see how the movements of the carcass, while caused by the movements of the hands that carry it, are reminiscent of the way the animal moved in life, since the bones and sinews retain the same form after all. So my father moved in their hands, his shining head lolling on the arm that cradled it, his arms seeming to flex as they were crossed on his chest. By his blank face one would have said he did not care what was done to him; there was nothing within, I saw now, to care. This was like a puppet without a hand.
I wonder if death would be less cruel if it transformed us in some more blatant way, such as turning us brown like plants, so that no child could ever mistake a corpse for a sleeper, and then be struck by the truth when the loved one seems so near. This thing that bore such a striking resemblance to my father was not him, I understood now, but only that which rots if it is not burnt. This was the leaf fallen from the tree; he was gone, forever; he had been taken away by Shininao, his soul dissolved to return its energy to All-Spirit, finished with this life and this form. He was no more.
I went light-headed then. It seemed to me that all I saw around me was unreal, only a design painted on a great round curtain, behind which lay I knew not what. I heard the thud of my shadow-father flinging himself to the ground again, and his harsh scraping cries; I saw, vaguely, my mother’s white tunic with orange, turquoise, green and now scarlet as well, browning on the edges. Her touch on my head was feathery. I looked again at the corpse of Tennunga, and saw it change.
My eyes had drawn it nearer and clearer, as a sphere of crystal lying on the palm of the hand magnifies one portion of skin to the exclusion of that around it. Doubting my eyes I tried to rub them, and found the back of my mother’s hand. I should not be able to see at all, yet the sight did not alter.
The face was similar, but different, the nose smaller; it had shades of my mother, as if I had again become her, and saw something of myself in the husband I had loved. The features looked less jovial, and more careworn. The scars were worse, more wounds, and as well as the official brand-marks, other obviously purposeful ones. Strangest of all, this man’s hair, everywhere—on his arms, between his legs, in the brows and lashes and soft curls on his head—was black as an overcast night, setting off even more the death-pallor of his skin.
He was not my father, obviously; I didn't know who he was. I had never seen his face before, that I could remember. But I felt for him, and sensed that if I ever saw him again, even so fleetingly as a glance in the marketplace, I would know him. And though there was horror in the sight of his corpse, as with any, there was a grace too, brought by some sort of peace about him, which there was not in my father’s. He was dead, but it seemed as if he’d expected it, instead of experiencing it as the bitterest of surprises.
Then he was gone into blackness, leaving only the memory like the after-image of the sun in closed eyes. I found myself being carried in the arms of my aunt Tyeraha, my face buried in her shoulder. She took me to my parents’ room.
I remember how it was full of Tennunga’s presence, his arms rings and ivory comb and kerchief on the table, two semanakraseye's shirts, black with the white-bordered keyhole collar, strewn over the bed. What had been permanent had become transient, though; tomorrow it would all be stored away.
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