190 - Self-induced alcohol poisoning

“Aba Tyriah honoured you,” she said. Aba Tyriah… Father Sky. “You will see.”

“I will trust you,” I whispered to her, as she led me along another path, following the people through paila trees, their leaves like arrays of sword-blades in the darkness. More drums were beating now. “There was another message that Lord Friend had for me alone.” Her hand tightened a touch on mine. “It was… kyash, don’t say I’ve forgotten it! It had the word ‘araham’ in it…” I thought hard, straining to cast my mind back, as my feet felt their way along the sand. “Mi… mi something… mi en min. Mi en min, araham, that was it.”

Her hand tightened so hard it almost hurt. “What… what you and I talked about… that was secret,” she whispered. “He said, ‘You are mine, still.’ But araham doesn’t just mean still… it’s a closeness. Like lover.”

I heaved a breath. “I wondered if it might be about that. I guess I can’t be surprised.”

“No. Wait.” She stopped me. “You have to be blind-folded for a bit.” I saw the faint flickering of light through the trees; another fire had been lit. She tied a piece of silk around my eyes.

“The other thing, love,” I whispered. “She said know more than one of you carnally… is that yet to come?”

“I’m sorry, love—I didn’t really translate that well. The word means more… bodily. Physically. Enchian, ‘meat’… I forgot the sex meaning. She meant what you had to do to stay on the path of the Gods.” This was something of a relief, in truth. Now I was back on the earth and thinking of it, I noticed the pain of bruises here and there.

The drums beat as one, now, a double beat as from an enormous heart. Blind and with the visions still close, I could feel as if there really was one. The people began to chant. “Wahan ko! Wahan ko! Wahan ko!” Some cried, in a counter-rhythm “Vai! Vai!” “What does it mean?” I whispered to her.

“It’s the birth chant: come on, come out… ‘vai’ is emerging or new.”

“Really? Who’s being born?” I was close enough to fire now that I felt its heat. She just laughed, as if to say, ‘What a stupid question.’

“Guess who! You’re being adopted and we get a new family… you couldn’t have got better from the Gods.”

“Truly… don’t ask me how I did it. Because I don’t know.” The chant cut off, with only a single drum continuing.

“Assume it’s you she’s talking to and answer,” she faintly whispered, and then her hand was gone.

Several hands began anointing me all over, with something cool and sticky. It smelled like clay. When I was coated with it fairly thickly, there was silence for a moment, and then a voice I knew as Riahla’s spoke. “You come to become Niah, is this correct?”

I bit back on the protests of my law-trained mind, it’s impossible, it’s not really. I would be Niah allegorically; I was in a ritual and so that’s what the question meant. “Yes.”

“Who represents your people?”

“I do.”

“Are you willing?” Her voice was somehow like a bell.

“Yes.” Niku whispered from a slight distance, “You have to say ‘I am.’”

“I am.”

“Then be welcome. Man within becomes man without. Your parents are the Gods and the Sky Father has named you.” Named me? Niku pulled off the blindfold. “Among us, you are Vaimoy Sala aht Tennunga, nar sept Yeola-e.”

The clay on me was red. I understood: the blood of birth. A throng of women carrying pots of water and flower garlands surrounded me and began washing me, laughing and playful, flinging gouts of water at me and each other, then threw the garlands over me once I was clean. One of them put a coconut-half full of dark liquid in my sword-hand and a big chunk of chocolate in my shield-hand.

Krero… well, you’ll never find out I drank and ate from their hands. I took a long draught—it was pehahka, the liquor the A-niah make from chocolate—and bit from the chunk. A Niah infant’s welcome to the world… They babied me in other ways, clucking, pulling faces and saying nonsense words, leading me to the fire and pretending to lie me down beside it. I pretended to root for Niku’s breast, and she pretended to burp me, both earning a big laugh. “I’m not going to go so far as to spit up down your back, sorry,” I said, thinking of Fifth. The man who had fought like a boar did pick me up, on his shoulder.

“I should have yelled while you were washing me,” I said to Niku when she had me back. “Call me a shy baby.”

“You? Hah. But you said ‘I am.’ That’s what a baby’s cry means.”

It was plain and simple party from then on, with pehahka for all, even the children, dancing and singing and feasting on chocolate. Everyone, even Riahla and Breicia, hugged me, sometimes rocking, sometimes stroking my hair, sometimes kissing my cheek. I felt enwrapped in family.

Tomorrow I would grow up, Niah-style; “I’m going to teach you more flying,” Niku said, setting my heart to dancing even more than it was. “We’ll pick out a tree for you and put all your flowers on it; I’ll show you Vriah’s tree.” Breicia and the two high commanders of wings and windboards respectively told me, “We will plan tomorrow evening.”

Of course there were what seemed like a thousand introductions. Niku’s brother Rojhai was here now; he seemed a little stiff and cold. Her mother seemed more vaguely angry at me than in daylight; of course I had won her daughter’s love enough to nearly get her executed, and was having sex with her. Some A-niah, at least, are less worldly about these things than they’d like to admit.

“We will make a wing for you,” Niku said. “Blue and green, for Yeola-e. I’ve asked Oweda—one of our master builders.” I wanted to jump up and down, like a child with a new toy. The liquor didn’t help me stay calm. My half-shell was never allowed to become entirely empty.

†

12 Jin 4974 | Strangers’ Island, Niah-lur-ana

Dear Mamin:

We are here because Chevenga is seeking an alliance with the A-niah. What was the greatest surprise to his people was that a Niah woman has had a child by him. She was a fighter in the bloodsport place, too: Niku. All the time he was on Haiu Menshir he was pining for her.

All of his parents are not so happy. The A-niah took him off somewhere—he’s the only foreigner they’ll let on any of the islands other than this one—leaving them here, and because I am close and understand their tongue, I cannot help but overhear. “Sure it has hair like Tennunga’s, but it’s still a brown thing! We are going to let that into the semanakraseyeni bloodline? We should be shipping him back to the House of kyashin Integrity!”

That’s his shadow-father, Esora-e. He respects me only because I am a Haian, I am sure. If he is shot in the lung with an arrow I can save his life.

His two mothers (I know that sounds strange—they’re Yeolis) are more tolerant, saying the colour is only the outside of the skin, and so on. They have always been very nice to me, and are more so now that he’s hired me. They are both warriors themselves—they are all warriors—and they don’t seem in the slightest bit afraid to be heading to battles against Arkans. That is one thing about warriors that I don’t think I will ever understand: how they can be so fearless doing what they do.

Krero—that’s his second-in-command here—says he is going to come back tonight, so I am writing this as I wait up so that I can do the night-time examination and remedies. Kaninden ordered that he take potentized grium sefalian for two years, so there’s that, plus the emotional ones that I will not name in case this letter somehow gets intercepted, for torture aftereffects. I have him on his constitutional as well, since it is also one that cleanses.

†

13 Jin. Krero stayed up too, since he had promised. He was cursing and spitting by the time a canoe came onto the beach by the guest houses, with a clutch of people on it. I heard Niku’s voice. Her Yeoli is as good as mine. “Only a few more steps to bed, omores.” He said, “I thought… I’d be telling you that.” Soft laughter. She had her shoulder under his armpit, as if he was wounded, but they sounded too happy for him to have been hurt.

“Shhhleep,” he said, slurring as if he’d been stunned. He was staggering that way too, clumsy-footed. “I don’t know… Krero. N’yingi. You didn’t need to shhtay up.”

“I said I would. It is part of my assignment. I set you up in the middle hut. Hey! Careful.”

“Thanksh, heart’sh brother. It all went well… very very very well. I love you.” I didn’t know there was something between them. He planted a kiss heavily on Krero’s cheek. “Arkansh would ssshhit their silken pantalonsh if they had any idea.”

“Shush, you drunken lout. If you can’t tell me, quit hinting!”

Drunken! That was it—that was why. It had been a celebration, and so he had indulged in self-induced alcohol poisoning, and was now showing the symptoms.

A good opportunity for me. You know how I am, not in the slightest bit inclined to go down to Sailortown. But I am heading to an army, and I know that armies celebrate, too. Or use it to numb their pain or sorrows. I had never observed the symptoms of it first-hand before. I could now.

“No hinting? Where’sh the fun in that?” Niku took one of his arms over her shoulders, Krero the other. “I can walk!” He clearly could not. “I can ssshing, too… my heart is shinging. Toluano, you go from me-mmph—” Niku silenced him with a kiss. Which was good, because his singing was hurting everyone’s ears.

“Next thing I know you’ll probably need to do this all over again tomorrow,” Krero half-growled.

“Probably. Shuch hardssship.”

“Kanincha’s waiting up for you too… watch, it dips here.” They took him into the middle guest-house. I followed, with my remedy bag. He smelled like earth and perfume and flowers, except his breath, which was full of the alcohol smell. There were petals stuck here and there to his skin. They sat him on the bed, and made him drink two big cups of water. To offset the dehydration caused by alcohol poisoning—they know about that. The experience of mainlanders has taught them some things. “Don’t worry, Cheng. I dipped it myself out of the freshet here we’ve been using all day.”

He didn’t seem aware I was there until I said his name. “You must sleep in tomorrow, or you won’t get the eight aer of sleep you need,” I said.

“Good night, heart’sh brother, thankssh for everything, I love you.” They embraced and kissed again, and Krero went. Niku unslung the baby, who was fast asleep, and lay her on the bed tenderly to strip herself.

“Chevenga?” I took out my notebook. “I have never observed someone affected by self-induced alcohol poisoning before. May I have permission to observe, and ask questions, as well as examine you?”

He stared at me, blinking, his thick brows knitting. I moved the cormorant-oil lamp so I could better see his face. Eyes slightly bloodshot—yes. Facial skin flushed—it was, especially in two proscribed places on his cheeks. Slurring speech, loss of balance, I had already seen.

“Well… sshertainly, Kaninsssha. I am… happy to help.” We looked at each other in silence for a little. I observed and made a note or two. He looked at me again. For no reason, he started giggling.

Easily inclined to laugh, or laughing for no reason. I put my pen to my notebook to note that. His giggles turned into full laughter.

“May I ask, can you explain what seems so funny to you?” I asked him. Perhaps something in his answer would shed some light on the phenomenon.

“Ssshertainly, it’shh jusssht that ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!” He laughed so hard it made him fall back on the bed and then slide off it onto the floor, where he lay in convulsions. Niku was snorting through her nose. The baby woke and fussed, but it was giggling fussing. Niku put her to the breast.

I put down the notebook to help him up. In the lamplight I saw tears on his cheeks. He tried to stifle it now, pursing his lips closed, quaking all over his body. “I understand you can’t quite speak yet,” I said. “When you can, I hope you will tell me.”

That set him off again. He laughed so hard it looked like it hurt. I don’t understand. I could barely get him lying down and stripped, or take his pulses. He didn’t say another word, Mamin, passing almost seamlessly from uncontrollable laughter to death-like sleep.

I will have to take this up with him sometime when he is sober. Since alcohol poisoning also sometimes produces amnesia, I hope he will remember. I’m sure he will be serious about it then.

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