Kurush: The First City - Chapter 8

Oresh realised it was morning, since light was pouring into the flat through the hole in the ceiling shaped like a lisha’s foot. The couple downstairs had already started arguing. His mother was nearby preparing breakfast. In their old house, they had windows on the dawnward side. But in this dark, cramped flat, it was hard to tell how high the Sun was.

Then Oresh remembered, “Is it the first of Gusisa?” 

“That’s right”, said Gishka

Oresh leapt off the floor, threw on his tunic and burst through the door. His mother called after him about breakfast, but he ignored her.

“Good morning, sir”, said the lisha with a scar-covered face squatting in the alleyway

“Good morning”, said Oresh awkwardly as he stepped over him

A thousand plumes of smoke rose from Kurush as lishas and hurums cooked their breakfasts. Most lishas were on their rooftops, letting the sun heat up their stiff bodies. The streets were becoming thick with hurums who had already started their day’s business. By the time Oresh had got out of the Ekuan quarter and started climbing the hill, he was panting and his legs were aching. Lishas were simply never meant to be this active this early in the day, but his apathy towards exercise didn’t help him either.

He knew a shortcut to the Sun Temple near the house he had lived in all his life until a few days ago, a narrow street behind a beer hall whose gimmick was a wall with several small holes lishas could stick their tongues through, hoping for a taste of one of the hurums on the other side who wanted to remain anonymous. Of course Oresh had never dared to go near it. Bukur had told him he was fairly sure that one night the hurums had given him an amphora to lick, he only realised when he heard them sniggering.

He had almost reached the far end of the alley when he passed a young hurum woman who without warning stretched her arms as high up as she could, pulling up her lacy top. Oresh’s eyes slipped from his control and drank in the sight of her belly. She was slender yet her flesh looked so soft and tender, as though she had the consistency of cake. He dragged his eyes to the ground and kept marching forward, hoping she hadn’t noticed his indiscretion.

“Have you had breakfast yet?”

Oresh froze and gulped the saliva that had suddenly pooled in his mouth, “Pardon?”

“I said, have you had breakfast yet?”

“Er, no…”

“You must be hungry,” she said with a smirk, “you could have me for breakfast. I’m all alone, it’s almost like I’m just waiting for someone to gobble me up”

Oresh felt his face turn hot, “No thank you”

He started walking again, but she blocked his path. Her mousey face and short, scruffy hair looked familiar, he realised it was Misha, one of Anka’s friends who sold rather racy attire in the high market. She was fiddling with a gourd, no doubt filled with orokosa.

“Don’t I look tasty?”

“No, I mean, I-“

His stomach grumbled loudly. Oresh had the furious urge to punch it.

“See, your tummy wants me! Come on, there’s no-one around. I promise I’ll be a very nice breakfast”

“Sorry, I need to get to the Sun Temple”

“Oh, you’re that type? Well, I’m pretty sure the Sun created me to feed the hungry. Why else would He make it so fun? Why else would He make me so delicious, so utterly scrumptious? Let’s just do what He so clearly wants us to”

Misha stepped closer, her eyes smouldering, but Oresh snaked around her and dashed away.

“Your stomach won’t forgive you!” she called after him

Sighing with relief that he’d managed to extract himself from that conversation, he made it to the shining, monumental bronze semi-circular disc of the Sun Temple. After a short passageway whose walls were covered with centuries-old prayers, he came back outside. The Sun Temple was an outdoor theatre with dozens of rows down the slope of the hill facing the dawn. The backs of seats were slanted so that the attendees could lay back, and there were deep holes in the stone for lishas to slot their tails into, although hurums who were on the small side had to take care not to fall in. The seats were packed, mostly with old lishas and hurums laying back and letting the Sun’s sacred power pour into them as they listened to the Ushi Sopri recite poems on the stage. There were also some young hurums here and there, who presumably saw the temple as a good place to make connections.

Oresh saw Pilesh in his usual spot, on the far left of the farthest row up.

“You’re late”, he said as Oresh shuffled past some lishas to get to him

Oresh had to wonder how a blind lisha could have known it was him, but didn’t dare to ask. Like everyone else, Pilesh was wearing nothing but a loin cloth. It was strange to see a lisha look so shrivelled, like he had been left out in the sun for too long.

“Sorry,” said Oresh as he took off his tunic, “the past few days have been a bit rough”

Before his retirement, Pilesh had been the Ushi Umbisag, the highest bureaucrat serving the Ikark. Oresh had found him wandering around the docks a couple of years ago looking for a scribe for him to dictate his poetry to. Oresh had read better poetry scrawled on the walls of beer hall toilets, but Pilesh became his highest-paying client. And he insisted that he come to the Sun Temple on the first of every month.

Shakresh, the Ushi Sopri, in his white toga, lent heavily on his walking stick. Having finished a poem, he looked deep in thought, or possibly he was falling asleep. Then he took a deep breath.

“In the beginning, the Sun was alone in the never-ending darkness. He longed for company, so He created the moon. The Sun and moon copulated, and from their first clutch of eggs were born the stars. Then from their second clutch of eggs were born the earth, sea and sky. The Sun was entranced by the beauty of His daughters. He copulated with the sky, and from their clutch of eggs were born the clouds and the birds. He copulated with the sea, and from their clutch of eggs were born the islands and the fishes. He copulated with the earth, and from their first clutch of eggs were born the mountains and the first lishas, Anki and Kisha. The Sun loved His daughter the earth the most, and from their second clutch of eggs were born the first hurums, Damesh and Ninura. From their third clutch of eggs were born all the animals which walk upon the earth. From their fourth clutch of eggs were born all the trees, shrubs and grasses which take root in the earth.

“Anki and Kisha looked upon their siblings Damesh and Ninura with hunger, and they chased them across the blossoming young earth. But before they could devour them, the Sun came down to them in raging fire and said, ‘Thou shalt not eat hurums’. Kisha rose and said, ‘Father, they look so delightsome, are you absolutely sure?’ The Sun said, ‘This is my command. They hold my power, just as you do. Treat them as though they came from the same clutch as you. If you eat a hurum, I shall take back my power from you.’ Kisha said, ‘Father, my belly grumbles, and everywhere I look I see only family. What are we to eat?’ The Sun said, ‘Eat your siblings the animals. But eat not your siblings the plants, they are reserved for the hurums to eat’

“In time, the lishas and hurums had children of their own, and they lived together in harmony. But the hurum boy Kanesh was jealous of the lishas’ strength. He lured his cousin, the lisha boy Oresh, up a mountain, and pushed him off the cliffside to his death. When Oresh’s father Anki discovered this, he hunted Kanesh down, grabbed him by the neck, raised him to the sky and called out, ‘Father, this boy has committed the most heinous of crimes. He will never be able to repay his debt to me, but he can give unto me his flesh. Will you allow me this justice?’ And the Sun said, ‘So be it’, and so Anki devoured Kanesh despite his pleading for mercy”

Oresh gulped, thinking of Anka’s predicament. Tiuk said she was safe, but where?

“And thus did the Sun create the world and give us his sacred laws”, said Shakresh as he moved to sit down

A young hurum man near the front raised his hand, “What about Sapesh and Galka and the creation of orokosa?”

“You’ll have to go to the Sapphire Temple for that story”, said Shakresh

“Master Shakresh,” continued the young man, “why does the Sun fly around the earth? Why doesn’t He just stay still?”

“He’s being chased by the moon,” said a hoarse old lisha behind him, “He kept fucking their daughters, she’s as pissed as a woman can be!”

The congregation erupted into laughter.

“Well, that’s one idea,” said Shakresh, “the important thing to learn from this story is that, although lishas are the strongest creatures to walk upon the earth, although we came from the very same clutch as the mountains, we are like crippled children, with feeble bodies and minds that are vulnerable to wicked urges. If we are to be worthy of our heritage, worthy of the power the Sun grants us every day, we must restrain those urges”

“Stop being such a downer,” said the hoarse old lisha, “could crippled children build Kurush?”

Shakresh shrugged and sat down, leaving one of his acolytes to take the stage and sing a plaintive hymn.  

Pilesh tutted, “He’s lost his touch. And to think that man saved Kurush. You take his vow, don’t you boy?”

Oresh nodded, “Of course, every year”

Ten years ago, a disease spread through the ganas on the island, turning their meat rancid. All lishas were instructed to expend as little energy as possible and soak up as much sun as possible, while hurums were drafted to catch as many fish as possible, or to go and buy as much meat as possible from the mainland and the other islands. But it wasn’t enough. Eventually the pain became unbearable and lishas succumbed to their cravings in what became known as the Night of Hunger. Half of Kurush’s hurums disappeared overnight. Oresh was only ten years old at the time. He could remember the fear in Anka's and Shanessa's faces as they cowered in the basement as though it was yesterday.

The next day, Shakresh gathered the citizens and convinced the lishas to vow to never eat a hurum again, to never use orokosa again, to never lick a hurum again, even to never look at a hurum hungrily again. Each year he exhorted lishas to repeat their vow, and each year the number who did dwindled a little more.

"He only delayed the inevitable," said Pilesh, "Kurush will fall apart. It's an experiment that was always doomed to fail"

"I've overheard merchants say that there are places like Kurush at the other end of the mountain belt," said Oresh, "on the coast of the far sea"

"And I've overheard merchants say that the nightward isles are inhabited by bird-people and fish-people. Don't trust a word merchants say. No, it's only a matter of time before everyone realises that there are no meaningful differences between us. Lisha or hurum, Oshuan or Ekuan, man or woman, rich or poor, we all want a content life. People will realise that hierarchy is a scam, and they'll give up on Kurush"

"Kurush has its problems," said Oresh, "but surely they can be fixed?"

"Of course not! To build walls and palaces is completely unnatural and irrational. We know it’s wrong, even if some can’t pinpoint why yet, but we can feel it in our bones. We've been lured into a trap, but once we come back to our senses we'll simply walk back home. You ever been to Parua, boy?”

Parua was the name given to the region on the mainland on the noonward side of the mountains. Oresh’s mind went to a fresco in their old house of rolling hills cloaked with golden wheat stretching to the horizon, dotted with verdant trees.  

“No, but I want to see it someday”

“It’s a beautiful place. I lived there for a few years in my youth. The lishas and hurums there don’t know hierarchy. They understand how to live in balance with the world and each other. Just being there soothes the soul, as though the peace is in the air. It washes away your worries”

“There are some good things about Kurush,” said Oresh, “the architecture, the markets. If you were a farmer in Parua, would you have the time and energy to write your poetry? Do the Paruans even have writing? What if we could bring the best things about Kurush to Parua, but leave behind the palaces and the walls? The Ikark and the soldiers? The greed and the poverty?”

Pilesh shook his head and furrowed his brow, “As glorious and elegant as my poetry is, I can’t hide from the fact that it would not exist without the toil of the poor, and without my shameful jealousy of my pension. No, Kurush’s heart is rotten. Makush made a colossal mistake by founding it. I only wish I had come to realise this sooner. I suppose you’re too young to remember my time as Ushi Umbisag?”

“I’ve been told that you were a tenacious voice for change, that you were always working to make Kurush a better place”

“And what did I achieve? Lowering the fee to join the Ikark? Nope. A sewage system for the Ekuan quarter? Forget that. I was eventually able to persuade the Ikark to spend money on a team of urchins to keep the main thoroughfares tidy. That will be my legacy. Then the Night of Hunger came. Lishas forgot that hurums are their siblings and turned on them. And although I took Shakresh’s vow, all I could think was, why have I wasted my life trying to protect this place?”

“I think it’s too early to discount Kurush,” said Oresh, “you shouldn’t underestimate the resolve of lishas and hurums. My adopted sister lost her parents in the Night of Hunger, but she didn’t give up on life. Every day she gets up, works hard and gets things done. I mean, she could stand to care more about society in general, but channelled in the right way by enough people, that resolve could transform Kurush into a wonderful place”

“Ah, your adopted sister,” said Pilesh, turning his cold, glassy eyes on Oresh, “you’ve mentioned her before. You’re not eating her, are you boy?”

"No no no!" Oresh blustered as his mind reeled from the sudden deluge of sinful thoughts, "Like I said, I take the vow"

"That's good. If you treat them like food, you'll lose their respect. Never forget that hurums are our siblings"

Oresh leant back and huffed. The day had barely begun and he was already exhausted, physically and conversationally. Did Pilesh, or Misha for that matter, have any idea how draining it was to talk to them? When the time comes to fix Kurush, he thought, I hope I have the energy to actually help.

Next chapter

Constructive criticism welcome

© Paul Bramhall