Chapter 1: Lighter Shades of White

Part One

Anaka slipped on the desert blue dress and stared at her reflection in the fickle stone, smiling. She was thinking about the night before her, an Awakening came only once in one's life and she had to look her best.

16 rains stared back at her. Her hair was a faint red, not nearly enough vigor in it to be called fiery, but enough to give her a decidedly auburn sheath. When combed and bristled, it settled nicely well below her shoulders but Anaka most always preferred to just button it up unordered.

Today, that was not to be. Her mother was behind her, holding a thick comb and was steadily and strongly combing through her hair. With each stroke, the hair seemed to settle down a bit, but there was something about her hair that seemed to always defy that comb.

The blue looked good on her. Anaka was tall for her age, taller than most boys and even taller than her father. The dress had to be specially made for her, but it was money well spent. It wrapped around her body with a quality that silk rarely achieves - a kind of ephemeral glow that was accorded only to the right wearer. Anaka, and her blue eyes and her steady gaze into her image, even the thin scar that ran in a lazy way on her right arm glowed with delicious youth.

Anaka herself was feeling pretty bubbly, though if she'd heard that term being used to describe her, she would have denied it hotly. She was merely excited and with justifiable reason. Even though her mother had forced her to sit, she turned this way and that in front of the mirror often looking at a single pimple that she hadn't quite grown out of.

Thisme, her brother was beside her. He was still a child, of only seven rains, but he had the makings of his father - strong, sure, silent, and authoritative.

Anaka too was a bit like her brother, but in her the qualities were not appreciated. A strong and authoritative girl was not seemly. In Umriel, boys were supposed to be like Thisme and girls were supposed to be anything other than what Anaka was. But her mother had done a very good job on her - the blue hue of the dress and her mother's strong warnings hid the Anaka within. Couched in the excitement of the moment, Anaka had forgotten to be defiant and now looked like any other girl in the village. Beautiful, nervous and trying hard to subdue a not so hidden excitement.

The Awakening was indeed something to be excited about. It was a ceremony that marked the coming of age. It began at dusk - when the red band of the twin suns went just over the horizon, accomplished drummers in the village would play out a definite staccato rhythm that would sing around in the suddenly still air and announce to the villages nearby that the ceremony has started. The Awakening was held every two rains - and it was a ceremony that the whole village participated in. Every boy and girl of the age of 16 rains was blessed by the Goddess and after the ceremony, they became men and women. Most of the men stayed back in the village and they were given a new hut. Some who had the blood of Shinza became explorers or hunters, nomads who traveled the entire Kharke - mercenaries in search of work or book-keepers forever wandering in search of knowledge.

Anaka couldn't become an explorer or a hunter. She would become a woman, and women could leave the village only if they were wed to a man in another village. She suppressed her rising anger and thought instead about the night before her.

She didn't know anything more about the Awakening. Two rains before, and twice two rains before, she had seen the ceremony as a child. The drums at dusk would quickly give way to colorful dancing - the parents of the children to be awakened would wear their best and would dance a furious dance to please the Goddess. Then as suddenly as they had started, the drums would cease and then Anaka and her parents would rush into their huts leaving only the parents and their children outside. Anaka hadn't seen any more and her mother wouldn't tell her anything more about it.

The light that was coming in through the brown translucent hut had been slowly decreasing. Anaka's mother Adfae'l, who stood behind her bore no resemblance to her daughter. Except for the height. She was a tall woman, but her height was hidden in a permanent slouch. She was the village medicine woman and hard work had taken a good toll on her youthful body. Anaka had been born late in her marriage - the result of countless prayers, remedies, offerings and rituals. And soon after Anaka, Thisme. Around her children she had a stern stance, never wavering in her decisions, never allowing her children more than the required amount of leeway, and never letting them out of her eyes when they were young. Perhaps it was protectiveness on her part, but as Anaka grew older, she began to resent the bonds placed around her. Anaka was one of the few children who started her jhartas when she was just four. At four, when she'd grown unmanageable around the house, Adfae'l had taken her to the village school-master - a strict wizened old man who'd taught the village since the eldest elder could remember. She'd hoped that his stick and his tongue would quickly put an end to Anaka's roguishness. But Anaka had endured the punishments and displayed a strange enthusiasm to learn that quickly grew into a strong desire inside her to best the rest of the children. When Anaka was just seven, the man told her that there was nothing else that he could teach her.

Anaka knew that to be a lie. She'd barely been taught the basics of the written language. And just the bare necessities of counting. The boys in another class were learning what seemed like esoteric mathematics. But she'd closed her mind to what she really want to say and walked out on the schoolteacher. Whenever she saw him again, she refused to clasp her hands and bow - a serious offense, but the schoolteacher ignored it - perhaps a strange feeling of wrongdoing making him look away.

Adfae'l didn't know what to do with her. In the village, a woman's virtues were her good looks (which thank the goddess, Anaka had in plenty) her submissiveness to elders, respect and her cooking. The last three qualities Anaka had no hope of ever cultivating. She was defiant to customs - ruthlessly so - forever challenging authority and asking questions where no one else - even the men - found any reason to talk. She'd been punished more times than Adfae'l could count. And after a while, about the time Anaka had her first blood, her defiance had stunted into a sullen nonchalance about her elders. She was a hard child to raise, particularly because she was born to not fit in anywhere. She was too beautiful - if that was a crime, too intelligent, too adventurous and too vengeful. Adfae'l would be glad when the ceremony would be over and she would hand Anaka out to a decent young man. Her good looks would glaze over any of her faults and would ensure that she would have a decent pick of suitors. And then there would only be Thisme - capable, lovable Thisme.

The one defining quality about Thisme was that everybody liked him. Everybody - from the harsh schoolteacher to the taunting elder boys couldn't but help but smile when Thisme was around. He was the only soul in the village that Anaka liked, loved. Though he was much younger, her brother had the same intelligence that made Anaka a pain to mold. They were most often always seen together, and they would talk and talk about everything under the sun. Boys were not to be seen talking with their sisters but when it came to Thisme, all the rules were relaxed. But Anaka didn't resent that fact - her love for her brother and her love for the time they spent together far over shadowed any ill feelings she had about the unequal treatment.

But that was only when it came to Thisme. The other boys, or for that matter the other girls were an entirely different matter. Anaka didn't want to do what the other girls did. She often ran away from the cooking classes and hid behind bushes and watched the boys receive instructions on fighting and the art of a bow. She missed so many of her classes that every one of her teachers - in cooking, handcrafts, manners and childrearing had expected her to fail her tests. Yet she'd passed and done so with brilliance. To her teachers, to her mother - indeed to the entire village, she was an enigma best forgotten.

Anaka's only friend among the girls was a slender and short girl called Aleen. They grew close only because Aleen had the guts once to hit back when Anaka had thrown a mango on her head. It was an incident long forgotten by the village, buried under many more of Anaka's exploits, but on that day they had fought like wild cubs in the mud. Both had gotten more than a few scratches and Anaka had promptly received a horrendous spanking that had made her wails heard over the entire village. Aleen hadn't escaped punishment either, but the incident instead of making them enemies had brought them closer. Aleen was Anaka's only friend. She was a popular girl, friends with the entire village, but all the other girls considered Anaka as something to abhor and even, hate. Anaka didn't mind that. For the most part of the day, she just wanted to be left alone.

The boys were aloof, and they were taught not to make friends with the girls. Whenever a group of boys rushed past - brandishing bows or herding sheep or running to attend their jharkas the group of girls around would giggle and whisper. Anaka thought that the other girls were the epitome of silliness. She would just spent the entire day reading - books that were at first stolen from the village library, and after that at her father's insistence lent out to her; she would remain immersed in her books suppressing the wish behind her blue eyes to stare right back at them and to stare them out. The boys seemed to sense this suppressed hostility about her, yet she was the one girl who received the most stares - mostly because of her red hair.

It was an oddity. No one had red hair in the village. Her mother's was an ashen black and her father's was a vivid shade of black. Her father had once told her that she was specially blessed by the Goddess. Red hair was a symbol of power. But to see it in a girl was... unusual.

Her father Hjgio was the one person in the village that Anaka respected. He was a man of words, of an unnerving wisdom and knowledge who was in his younger rains a nomad - one of the select few chosen to be the followers of Shinza. Though he was more than a capable fighter, her father had chosen the way of knowledge to honor Shinza. He was a respected man in the village, but in Umriel, nomads were feared more than they were respected and that led to a certain friction that prevented him from becoming an elder though he was more than capable. Hjgio had recognized the potential in her daughter early. But he had been unable to do anything to further her education. Umriel was a hard place to change, and to tell the elders that a woman could do something other than cook and feed and have babies was just a thimble short of blasphemy. But he had done everything in his power to teach her well. But childrearing was traditionally a domain of the mother and there wasn't much he could do to interfere that wouldn't go against the scriptures of the village. When Anaka had asked him once why her teacher didn't teach her more, he'd told her the truth.

That he didn't consider women worthy. That in Umriel, woman were just supposed to be child-bearers and home-keepers.

"What do you think, papa?" she'd asked quickly.

"They are wrong, little one," he said and then went on quickly before she could put in another question.

"They are wrong but there isn't much that I can do about it. There is your mother and you know what plans she has for you. If I had the chance, I would... I will never tell you to just forget about the world child, because I know you can't. Learn about everything that you can and you can ask me anything anytime. And never give up hope."

He'd looked down at her and smiled. She was in one of her rare quivering moods - when her lower lip would tremble just like she was going to cry. He picked her up and tried to change the topic.

"Do you know the name of our Goddess, Anaka?" he asked.

All her troubles were instantly forgotten.

"The name?"

The Goddess was always just the Goddess. From her earliest days she had heard the words interspersed in common conversation. "Praise the Goddess," "May the Goddess grant you eternal life and love." and so on in that vein. But she'd never sought out the name of the Goddess mainly because it was so taken for granted.

"No, what is it?" she asked.

"We don't know her name, little one," he said and she giggled thinking that it was another one of his pranks, "Ah, but do you want to know why?"

"Uhmmm."

It was hard to get affirmatives out of this girl.

"Do you?"

"Yes!"

He smiled and began the story.

"Ten thousand thousand rains ago when the world was still young and the suns were still one, there..."

"How can the suns be one?"

He glared at her, "Do you want the story or not?"

"But how can the suns be one?"

"Questions later Anaka or I won't tell the story."

"Hrmphmmm," she muttered.

"So, where was I? Ten thousand thousand rains ago when the world was still young and the suns were still one..."

He looked down at her and she was smiling.

"There came a God to this world who saw the rusted barren surface and decided that such a prime world wouldn't just waste away. He decided that there should be life. But this God was a God of Gods, he was too powerful and too busy to create life..."

"Busy?"

"... and so he made two younger Gods to take his place. One of the Gods was Shinza whom we honor today as a great explorer and wanderer. The other was our Goddess. They sowed the seeds of life on our world and soon all of Kharke was green. But there was no one to keep the Gods company, nothing to prove to them that their creation was worth the effort and soon they grew bored."

"Bored?"

He glared at Anaka which made her shut up.

"So they decided to create us. In creating sentience, they gave Kharke a purpose and for a time they enjoyed the world that they had created. We were still young and we were still learning, but our Goddess and Shinza soon realized that we would one day learn enough to justify our creation.

"But it was a long period of waiting. And our world quickly grew so much so that it became impossible for our two Gods to help the world as before. So they decided that they should unite and create younger Gods to help the world. Their union was a strong one and the Gods that became were seven in number. Three female and four male. And for a time after the younger Gods had learnt their duties, all was well.

"But then all this time Shinza was restless. Just tending a small world didn't seem to justify his time. So one day, without telling the Goddess or his children, he ran away.

"Ran away?"

Hjgio smiled.

"Yes, ran away. The Goddess grieved, but deep inside her heart, she knew that the time would soon have come, and though she was sad she accepted her fate and continued to tend to the world that she had breathed life into. At the care of the younger gods and the Goddess herself, the world bloomed until all other worlds paled in comparison to Kharke.

"And then out of the void came Jhuhaii. Jhuhaii was a Demon lord - powerful and cruel and he found Kharke to be the perfect place to unleash his vile designs. His presence on this world was at first undetected but slowly the younger gods became corrupt and decadent and they began to demand more and more sacrifices to increase their power. The change was so insidious that it was many rains after our Goddess finally discovered that something was terribly wrong. She sought and immediately found Jhuhaii's handiwork. With all of the power that the God of Gods had blessed in her, our Goddess sought to defeat the demon.

"But he had grown too powerful. They fought a battle that raged for thousands of rains, but alas our Goddess found that the Demon could not be defeated. In the moment of her defeat, she blessed our world of Kharke with a curse."

"How can you bless with a curse?"

"The blessing was that in the moment of his victory, the Demon lord found that our Goddess had hidden the way to our world so that Kharke will forever be invisible from the countless other worlds in this Universe. The curse was that she had to make her people forget her to hide our world.

"Kharke had escaped from the Demon's clutches, but we had to forget our Goddess as well. It was a blessing and a terrible tragedy."

Hjgio looked at Anaka and found that she was staring down at the floor, thinking.

"And that is how we forgot our Goddess's name. When the younger gods realized what the Goddess had done, they sought to right the wrong, but they couldn't. Without the Goddess their powers were diminished and all they could do was await her return."

"Papa?"

"Yes, little one?"

"Is this story true?"

Hjgio laughed. Trust Anaka to ask questions like that.

"It is a legend Anaka. It could very well be true."

"What about Shinza?"

"Nobody knows what happened to him."

"Papa?"

"Yes, little one?"

"I'm feeling sleepy."

Hjgio laughed and twirled Anaka in the air.

"I love you, little one."

"I love you too Papa."

And then he carried her to her mother's hut. In Umriel, men and women stayed in separate huts even after their marriage. Children who hadn't yet been awakened and unwed women stayed at their mother's hut.

Anaka would spend the night dreaming out tales that her father would tell her. In the back of her mind, there would be the thought that one day very soon, she too would be awakened and then her days of subtle defiance would soon be over and soon she would be wed and would spend the rest of her days as any other woman in Umriel. She knew that it was in the back of Papa's mind too as he stared at her oddly sometimes, but there was nothing anybody could do about it.

The sudden explosion of drums terrified her. For a moment, she thought of leaving it all and running away. But she felt her mother's sure hand on her back and she slowly calmed herself.

Anaka had mixed feelings about the Awakening. It could very well mean that she would have to be a woman, but her father had told her that the Awakening would simply bring out what is hidden in a person. It seemed to be true because she hadn't ever heard a villager expressing a desire to be a hunter or a nomad. But then again, no woman had ever become a hunter or a nomad.

She took her mother's hand and clasped it behind her in the fashion in which she had been taught. Hjgio was waiting at the door of the hut. He saw the mix of confusion and excitement in Anaka's face and put a hand to her forehead.

"It will be as the Goddess wishes little one," he said and smiled.

She looked outside and saw that almost everybody who had to be Awakened had gathered outside. There were about twenty girls and an equal number of boys this rain. Since the Awakening was held only once in two rains, there were an equal number of boys and girls from the last rain who was seventeen but had yet to be Awakened. They were standing aloof from her group to another side of the clearing.

The preparations were enormous for a ceremony like the Awakening. The Harvest was another ceremony which came close but the strain that the Awakening put on the village's meager resources was sometimes a little too much to bear. That is why the Awakening was held only once every two rains. The whole of the center clearing where the elders usually met every three moons had been raised to a platform made of strong sturdy wood. It was obviously prepared to enact some sort of ceremony. All around that raised platform, the men and women of the village were crowded around, already starting their euphoric dance to the drums.

Anaka enjoyed the random rhythm of the drums and enjoyed dancing, but she had been warned sternly today that she was not to dance. She was to drink a cup of the Holy Water - which Adfae'l was bringing hastily - and sit with the girls, crossing her palms over her knees.

She drank the water quickly - her father had told her that the Holy Water was actually water mixed with a bit of a drug that would make her feel slightly more alert than usual. She then walked demurely to where the girls sat and sat down obediently crossing her palms over her knees. She was going to be a good girl today and it was mostly because of the love that she had for her papa. She'd promised him that she wouldn't disgrace his name today. And she wouldn't.

Anaka smiled when Aleen came and sat down beside her. Aleen was wearing a subdued pink dress and it made her look very pretty. Though she was a lot shorter than Anaka, the robe made her look appealingly tall and sinewy and it would help her to fetch a good husband. Anaka was glad for Aleen. Aleen's wishes were restricted to a good husband and handsome children. The Goddess was sure to grant her wish.

Aleen as always began talking. About the Awakening, about the cost her dress took to procure, about the other girls and their wishes, about the boys and something about the Goddess. Anaka was nervous enough that her replies were monosyllabic, and soon Aleen got tired of talking and they turned to watch the dance.

The dance was Umriel's way of letting it all go. All the desires, the passion, the silent sorrows and the rejoicings that the villagers hid they brought out through the dance. The wild booming of the drums, the close-chested bass of a tambo, and the furious timbre of a chorde would unite to an irresistible beat that would have the villagers moving around in a frenzy. Anaka concentrated on the rhythm for a little while and soon found that she was swaying to the drums.

As soon as it had started, the drums suddenly died off and the villagers froze in half-step. An absolute silence grazed the clearing and a lot of the men, women and children went back to their huts. Anaka's parents were one of the many who stayed behind. Every mother and father came and took their child with the mother to the left and the father to the right and the child held close in betweeb, and they took the children and walked them close to the center of the clearing.

Anaka felt her father kissing her right ear and her mother kissing her left ear and then they walked away, leaving her alone. She had asked Hjgio what would happen next, but he had smiled and said that nothing more could be said about the Awakening.

From that point on, they were truly alone. She was a little afraid, but that quickly became curiosity as she saw a movement on top of the wooden platform. From the shadows there came forward to the dim light a man wearing a thin faded blue coat.

Anaka heard a girl beside her gasp. Her breath caught in her throat. The man was... unusual, and in the light of the night sky, his blue toned skin glowed with a light of its own. His eyes were a pale white that glowed like the moon. His robe Anaka quickly recognized. It was like papa's old robes. This man too was a man of Shinza, but whether he was a knowledge-seeker or a knight was hard to say.

Quite suddenly, breaking the even tone of the silence of the night, the man began speaking. His voice was low and it resonated with the stillness of the night so that one had to strain to catch the words.

"My name is Andori. I am a priest of the Order of Shinza. Tonight is your night of Awakening. Tonight the Goddess will welcome you to new life - the life that you want, the life that you have been chosen to lead."

"This ceremony is simple. You will enter as children; you will leave as men and women. I will call your names one after the other. You will arise and come stand before me. After we have finished, I will whisper your trade in your ear. There is only one rule. Do not speak until you enter your hut.

"Your trade is your life. If you are assigned to be a wife, that is your life. If you are assigned to the Order of Shinza, that is your life. If you are assigned to herd, that is your life. If you refuse your trade, you have no life."

The man's eyes glowed in the dark. All the figures before him stood rigid against the dark. He smiled and took a paper out of his coat.

"Jalli Arul," he read off the first name.

It was a boy. One of the haughtier ever-active boys, forever teasing the girls and playing pranks on them. Tonight however, he was as frightened as anyone could be. His steps were slow and faltering as he climbed the platform. Anaka couldn't see much from where she was sitting. The boy on the platform had his back to her. He gave a sudden shiver, and Anaka saw the man bend and whisper something in the boy's ear. Anaka watched the boy descend the steps. He was happy and was walking at a strange gait towards the huts. He broke into a run when he was a respectable distance away.

"Kirza Jufi"

This time it was a girl. And then another boy and so on. There was not much to be seen. Whatever was happening was happening in the span of a few thimbles and Anaka could find no way to discern what was happening in there. After the first twenty or so boys and girls, Anaka quickly became bored. There were still a sizable number of them still sitting and if her name was towards the last, there was still quite a while to go. She began a short prayer to the Goddess, praying that all her wishes would be granted. Just what those wishes were, even Anaka didn't exactly know.

It happened when she least expected it. She had just finished her prayer and was pondering what to do next when the silent voice carried over to her ear.

"Anaka Djo'r"

She was so startled that for a thimble she forgot what she was supposed to do. Then she sat up quickly and walked the way to the platform. Aleen, who was sitting a few rows in front of her pressed her right hand to her left shoulder - a universal symbol of good luck. It was a few steps up to where the man was standing. She went over and stood before him.

He was smiling.

"Are you Anaka?" he asked.

His voice had the same whispery quality but at close it had a soft musical note to it that made it beautiful. He spoke the tongue with a trace of an unknown accent and that added to its flavor.

"Yes," she said.

"Good. Are you afraid, Anaka?"

He brought a hand and placed it on her cheek. It was cold, but it was a soothing cold that made some of the tingle in her bones go away.

"Yes."

"Good. There are no short paths to the end, Anaka. You have to strive just as everybody and sometimes, harder. Now raise your right hand and hold it in front of you."

He had a bowl in his right hand. Inside the bowl was a strange liquid - sometimes blue and sometimes colorless depending upon the way it caught the dim light. He held Anaka's right hand with his left and then slowly whispered.

"This will hurt a bit."

Anaka felt a slight stinging pain in her index finger and found to her surprise that the man had somehow cut it just by his bare hand. Blood was flowing down her hand into his in drops. She stared at the man and saw that he was whispering something - something in an unknown language. The words were musical but gibberish to her ears. He brought the bowl towards her hand and slowly placed it below her finger. She saw a single drop of blood flowing down into the bowl. She saw it striking the surface of the strange liquid.

And for the merest of an instant, the world stopped all around her. It was as if she was alone with statues all around her. The silent breeze that was around her was no more. The eyes of the man before her were vapid and lifeless. At the very edges of her consciousness, beyond any semblance of conscious control, she sensed a power that defied any explanation. It was awesome, but the power was like a raging beast - there was no hope at all that she could comprehend it. For a tiniest thimble, it seemed like it was drawing close to her, but then the moment passed and she was left with her head pounding.

When she opened her eyes, the man before her was staring at her in open astonishment. Her headache made her a little dizzy, but it seemed like a long time before the man finally came back to the night at hand. He placed a hand on her shoulder and said in the same, even, quiet tone.

"Go to your hut and rest. We will talk in the morning."