because of the pandemic he swore he’d never get back to Terra. It was then that he denied God. Then came the long journey to Nede and the fifteen years’ ordeal on Zayon. There he had had all sorts of humiliating jobs. He thought marriage would bring him happiness and, for a short time, he had been married to Kath’ryn, a Pteolean who only squandered his money.…
He was terribly thirsty, trying to desperately cling to the last drop of life. After about two hours, he came across another corpse. And another and another!.… The carcasses lay around a humanoid creature with blue skin covered by thousands of scales. He wanted to turn but the shadow didn’t let him. His ears were tingling and his breathing was more and more abrupt…
Surprisingly, a woman’s voice, gentle, shook him up from that morbid vision.
“Don’t be afraid. Come here.”
“What…what, who…who are you, what do you want from me?”
“I’m Mud. Come, I’ve got something for you.…”
“Mud?” he said and immediately remembered the dream.…
In her left hand the creature was holding a Nedean stone the size of a Kiwa egg and in her right a cup full of green liquid that was bubbling softly.
“Which will you choose? Riches or knowledge?”
He started. He couldn’t forget the corpses or Naej’s words. The stone was driving him mad, though. And Mud was staring at him with her unfathomable black eyes. Knowledge? He was sick of so many utopian concepts. Riches? Wasn’t that what he had come to Nede for? He could have whatever he wanted: darins, fame, a harem of Sereneans.… But what was behind his dream of Naej? Hm.… Nonsense. He had to take advantage of the situation.
“Riches.”
“It’s your choice.”
Mud handed him the emerald in which at once he saw Suara’s face, clearly. He felt he couldn’t move his arm.
“So you’ve chosen riches. What are you waiting for?”
“Suara? No, noo! I can’t do that. I can’t.… I’ve got to know where she’s going.…”
“As you wish then,” Mud said and handed him the cup.
All his lost love, all his suffering, all his remembrances, everything was draining down the throat of a body that was abandoning itself to the unknown. He saw in quick succession what had mattered most in his life: his mother’s tender words, her fingers playing with his curly blond hair; his father’s support, his strong arms balancing him on his shoulders; his grandparents’ joy, the enchanted realm of the stories; Suara’s voice, her hot lips melting him in the silence of the night.…
Suara, beloved,
You carry me on the kiss of a thousand lips,
Upon my wish, you change into the most beautiful face,
Long forgotten voices vibrate in me,
Embrace me,
I thought you would never come,
You were but a mere whisper lost in a thunder of echoes…
Suara…the milk of each starry night
Flourished your bosom
While I recited my bone flute psalm,
Remember what I felt…
Remember my thought, the most beautiful moment of sincerity…
A child exiled in a cage of erotic dreams
Forever sentenced to endless desire.
Do I still exist?2
The liquid was burning his guts. The veins swelled and all his senses grew ten times, a hundred times more powerful. The transparent vision of an old man reading a book appeared before him. On the yellowed pages there was a map. At once he recognized the outpost, the Tanor, and near it the former springs.…
1. Snowdon King—Giving In, translated by Vanda Florea.
2. Snowdon King—Suara, translated by Vanda Florea.
CHAPTER TWO
KARAN
He felt a cold touch and opened his eyes. A young nurse was wetting his forehead with a compress.
“Look who’s woken up!”
He tried to sit up but his body wouldn’t budge.…
“Don’t move. You’ve got to get more strength first.”
The nurse fed him, spoonful by spoonful, as if he were a baby, almost half the bowl of hot soup. Soon Tarek opened the door and asked in a low voice.
“Excuse me, can I speak to the gentleman?”
“Do you have a pass?”
“Yes, I’ve just talked to Dr. Kilmer,” he answered and handed her the paper.
“OK then. Make sure you don’t tire him out. He’s still very weak. I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
“No problem.”
Tarek waited for the nurse to leave and came closer to the bed.
“How do you feel, young man?”
“Lousy.… What did you expect?”
“I believe you, young man. You were in a deep coma for a whole week. No one thought you’d ever recover.…”
“You know.… Not long ago I was in Zayon, even if I was twiddling my thumbs in the factory.…”
“I understand you. But what kind of life was that? You wouldn’t have left if you’d enjoyed it, right? Anyway, it’s really so strange what happened to you.… In the middle of the desert, next to a heap of corpses.… People keep talking about Uezen’s murders.…”
“Uezen??”
“What? Haven’t you heard of Uezen?”
“Well, I have but I didn’t think.…”
“There are all sorts of rumors in the outpost.… According to most of them he’s a horrible creature that kills out of sheer pleasure.…”
“In the middle of the desert? Who could live there?”
“I don’t know, I’ve kept wondering myself. But again there might be one of those schemes. Another excuse to get rid of the troublemakers, eh?”
“Sounds pretty bad.”
