Lurush had sent a messenger with a tablet outlining her deal with Anka back to her home in the Rush, but she wanted to spend a few more days at Alabaster Cove. Anka couldn’t wait to get into the Rush, so she dragged Bukur away, despite him pleading to stay until he had eaten at least one beautiful hurum.
They reached the walls of the Rush around noon. Waiting
outside the gateway was a hurum woman wearing an indigo tunic, her hair tied
into a bun, her eyes beady and her mouth small. She looked as though she had
never cracked a smile once in her life. She was just as Lurush had described
her.
“Are you Dila?” said Anka
“You must be Anka. Put this on”
She handed over a small clay tablet which had been painted
blue and which had a loop of string through a small hole. Imprinted on it were
the character for ‘guest’ and the head of a horned lizard, the Ushi Karsh’s
seal. With this magical pendant, Anka walked through the gateway with only a
stern look from the guards and found herself standing on the polished paving
stones of the Rush. Ahead of her was a narrow street leading straight to the
Palace of the Ikark. Even in her silky outfit, she felt ragged compared to the
elegantly and extravagantly dressed lishas and hurums she was now surrounded
by. She realised she had been holding her breath, and when she breathed out she
felt all of the tension she’d been nurturing for the past few days – or was it
closer to the past ten years? – flow out of her.
She hugged Bukur, “Thank you for being my bodyguard”
“I didn’t really do anything,” his hands flailing awkwardly,
“but it was my pleasure. I’d better tell my mother you’re safe now. Keep out of
trouble”
He walked into a square fort conjoined to the walls and just
as tall. Dila took her to an office next to the gateway where she explained to
the clerk that Anka would now be resident in the Rush. Anka watched as Dila
filled out the necessary tablets, scratching the clay with a reed stylus faster
than Anka could keep up with. Then the clerk took the tablets away to be baked.
The uncomfortable silence as the two of them sat waiting was broken when Dila
suddenly trained her eyes on her.
“You’re not a thief, are you?”
“What? No!”
Dila leant closer, “Are you sure?”
“Yes!”
“Last month, Lurush brought home a pretty young hurum woman
to dine upon. Then in the middle of the night, I caught her carrying off half
of Lurush’s jewellery”
“I’m only trying to prove my worth to Lurush,” said Anka, “I
have no interest in theft. And for the record, I have no interest in being
dined upon either. What happened to her?”
“I tackled to her the ground, our guard handed her over to
the soldiers, they gave her thirty lashes, then she was thrown out the Rush and
blacklisted”
Anka found it hard to imagine someone so straight-laced
wrestling anyone, “Remind me to never get on your bad side”
“I will not. You should not need a reminder. Do not even
contemplate getting on my bad side”
“Okay, okay”, said Anka, reasoning that telling her that she
was only joking would only make her even more suspicious
Once the tablets were baked, Dila led the way to Lurush’s
home. Space was so precious in the Rush that the streets weren’t even wide
enough for two lishas, and no-one apologised or even seemed to notice as they
pushed past fellow pedestrians. Anka had to try hard not to trip over or get
hit by the swinging tails of lishas as they barged past. The walls on either
side were at least twice as tall as a lisha, with rows of sharp stone teeth
running along the top, making Anka feel like she was trapped in a deep ravine.
But the walls had a variety of immaculate mosaics – some had smug-looking
lishas showing off their muscles and jewellery, some had hurums being lashed
with the character for ‘thief’ next to them, and naturally some had hurums
disappearing down the throats of lishas, with ecstasy written on both their
faces.
One of the most detailed mosaics was of a gigantic
four-legged reptile with a resplendent crest, two long horns and
ferocious-looking teeth being hunted by a party of lishas with spears. It
turned out this was the front side of Lurush’s home. To one side of the mosaic,
there was an indent in the wall with a short staircase leading to a door.
Standing on the first stair, watching the lishas and hurums walking along the
street with his arms crossed, was one of the tallest lishas Anka had seen.
“Goresh, this is Anka, she’ll be living here until further
notice. Anka, this is Goresh, Lurush’s bodyguard”
Goresh stared down at her without a word. Anka ducked her
head and followed Dila up the stairs.
“Don’t worry,” said Dila, “he’s like that with everyone”
Walking through the doorway seemed to transport them to much
more serene and airy world. A path wound its way through a shady forest full of
brightly-coloured flowers, past a pool of clear water, to a three-storey
palace, each storey smaller than the one below it, making it look like a golden
mountain. The path led to a staircase on the outside that went up to the peak.
“The ground floor has the kitchen and the toilet,” said Dila
as they climbed the stairs, “the top floor is Lurush’s bedroom and study. Your
room is on the middle floor”
The corridors inside were lined with frescoes, all of them
of Lurush. In one she was lounging on a pile of gold ingots, in another she was
handing out bread to a multitude of emaciated hurums, in another she seemed to
be pirouetting. In none was she as rotund as she was in the flesh.
Anka’s room was so clean it seemed to shine. One wall was
dominated by a window with a view of the other little mountains of the Rush.
The height of the building and the incline of the hill also meant she could
just see over the walls of the Rush to the rest of Kurush, the sea and the
jagged peaks of the mainland. The window was so large that she could easily
climb through it to lay on one of the loungers on the roof of the ground floor.
“What’s that?” Anka asked, pointing at a strange piece of
furniture squatting on the floor which seemed to take up an inordinate amount
of room
“That’s called a bed,” said Dila, “you sleep on it. If you
need me, I’ll be next door. Oh, and if I catch you sneaking upstairs-”
“I promise you, I’m not a thief!”
Anka slumped onto the bed. She had only ever slept on reed
mats before, but the mattress was so soft and her body so drained that she
expected to drift off to sleep within seconds. Then she noticed that on the
ceiling directly over her head there was a fresco of Lurush smiling creepily
down at her. She got up, dragged the bed to another corner of the room and lay
back down.
But her mind was buzzing with excitement and would not let
her doze off. She hadn’t yet completely wrapped her head around the fact that
she had finally got into the Rush, but there was something she had always
wanted to do, something that would make it feel real. She jumped back up, went
downstairs and along the path to the entrance.
“Is it okay if I go for a walk?” she asked Goresh
He stared at her, then went back to silently intimidating
passers-by. Anka took that to mean that it was okay. The Palace of the Ikark
was practically around the corner. Like Lurush’s, it was structured like a
mountain, but atop its highest storey was a statue of Kurush’s founder Makush. Even
as solid and stable as the Palace itself looked, the statue was so colossal that
it was a wonder that it had never crashed through the roof.
She scaled the grand staircase, past some officious-looking
lishas and hurums, to the top. A lone soldier guarded the entrance to what must
have been the chamber where the Ikark met.
“Can I get to the roof?” Anka asked him
He shrugged, “Sure”
He pointed the way around the side of the Palace to another
staircase. Anka found herself at the very pinnacle of Kurush, the whole island
beneath her, and only the endless empty sky above her. To her surprise, there
was no-one else there, apart from Makush. An inscription chiselled into the
stone plinth said ‘The Sun has given us the gifts of writing and currency, and
the ground beneath our camp is as sturdy and precious as bronze. We shall
thrive here.’
She reached across the plinth and laid her hand on one of
his enormous golden stone toe claws. She looked up at the giant from his feet,
his outstretched hand looking as though he was trying to pluck the Sun from the
sky. If only I could have done this with Shanessa, she thought.
She broke out of her reverie when she heard voices coming up
the stairs. It was two old lisha men, their scales dark and lumpy. Anka
recognised one of them as Shakresh, the Ushi Sopri, with his white toga and
walking stick. The other, who despite his age was still a towering presence,
didn't look familiar.
"Ah, look Shakresh! It's the girl who overtook us on
the stairs. You looked like you were in quite a hurry"
"It's my first day in the Rush"
"Is it? Well then welcome! My name's Tadarur"
Anka's stomach dropped, "Tadarur, the most senior
member of the Ikark, you're that Tadarur?"
"I sound ancient when you put it like that. I like to
think I'm the head of the Ikark, the guardian of Kurush's traditions"
"I'm so sorry," said Anka, panickily considering
getting on her knees and grovelling in front of arguably the most powerful man
in the world, "I should have recognised you"
"Think nothing of it. I hardly ever leave the Rush, and
they haven't made a statue of me - yet. So how did you manage to get up to the
Rush?"
"Through years of hard work and natural, raw talent,
sir"
"Splendid," said Tadarur as he turned to the view,
"one of the things I love most about Kurush is that everyone has the
opportunity to succeed if they have the determination. The Code of Makush makes
no distinction between anyone"
"Well, apart from-" Anka froze, inwardly cursing
herself for opening her mouth
"Go on", Tadarur eyed her
"The only difference between lishas and hurums in the
Code of Makush is the method of execution for murderers"
"Very good, you have an eye for detail"
How many murderous hurums have met their fate in his
stomach? Anka wondered. If I'm ever sentenced for killing that lisha, will he
be the one who eats me?
“Shakresh and I are old friends,” said Tadarur, “we like to
come up here on occasion for a chat. You can really see how miraculous Kurush
is from up here. Don’t let us keep you, enjoy the Rush. And congratulations!”
“Thank you”
Anka looked down at the magnificent palaces, the unyielding
walls and the citizens of Kurush scurrying around the streets like ants. She
shook the thought of execution from her head. I'm safe now, she told herself,
now all I need to do is make sure I don't get thrown out. I've got to dig my
claws into the Rush.
Constructive criticism welcome
© Paul Bramhall
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