Chapter 9: Duzon

We traveled for about eight days before we reached the village of Duzon. In that time we went through most of the food we’d packed with us, and by the end of the fifth day we were hunting for most of our meals. I was definitely starting to miss having a car after all that walking; I had gotten used to tramping around the forest every day, but just walking constantly in one direction all day for days on end was starting to make my legs feel like rubber. But I had long since learned from Shimara not to complain.

It was actually more strenuous on Heleen than on me, if you can believe that. Since she’d never left the village before, and had spent most of her life being pampered and attended to, she tended to need more rest breaks than some of the rest of us did. While I often felt like I could have kept going on many occasions when she asked to stop, I’m not going to say I didn’t welcome the opportunity to rest. Especially since she usually liked to sit cuddled up next to me when we stopped.

But Sabal kept pushing us to move on, and after a few days, Heleen started pushing herself to keep moving long after I could see how tired she was. We would be walking along, she would be starting to lag behind, and then she would stop and bend over, putting her hands on her knees and taking some panting breaths. I would stop and call for Sabal to let us take a break, but Heleen would try to brush off my concerns, saying that she only needed a minute to catch her breath. Sometimes I would really have to fight with her to get her to agree to a break.

I think it was a great moment for all of us when the cliffs of Matakam came into view. We followed them for a few more hours, before we finally came upon Duzon. It was hard to say at first glance whether it looked bigger or smaller than Jivalika. In horizontal terms, it was definitely smaller. In vertical terms it was quite another story. Immediately upon approaching the town, the eye was drawn to a great pyramid-like structure built into the side of the cliff. There were plenty of people moving in and out of doorways on the structure, making it look like a lot of them lived inside it. And from the way the pyramid seemed to feed into the cliff face, I got the sense that what we could see of it from the outside was merely the tip of a large iceberg.

There were also some tunnels built into the cliff walls in some places, with pulley systems going up and down them to carry water and ore and other things to the workers I could see mining in those tunnels. I’d been told that Duzon was the premiere exporter of gold and raw metals in Azakos, and from what I could see it looked like the reputation was well earned.

There were several more outlying houses surrounding the pyramid, with plenty of the people moving among them. There were a lot more people wearing gold jewelry here than there were in Jivalika, which I guessed was because they simply had more gold available here. There was a clear stream running through the village just before you got to the pyramid, with some bridges over it that some of the people were standing on while they talked about whatever their business was.

On the outermost edges of the village were some watchtowers, each manned by a single archer, one of whom gave a shout to the villagers when he saw us approaching. As we neared the village we were approached by a large guard wearing a gold collar and wristbands and holding a spear with a shining metal head that put ours to shame. When he asked us to identify ourselves, Heleen stepped forward and firmly introduced herself as the Veseed of Jivalika, traveling on her Kuwazieh, and stated that she wished to meet with Farees Geyla.

The guard looked us over for a moment, and then instructed us to follow him. As we moved into the village, a few of the villagers stopped and looked up from what they were doing to notice us, but most of them didn’t pay us much mind ... Well, let me amend that. Most of them didn’t pay the rest of the traveling party much mind.

Me, on the other hand ... well, I got a few looks. It may not have been as pronounced as it was when I first arrived at Jivalika; I wasn’t a makot covered in strange things called clothes this time around. But it didn’t take much to see that I looked different from the rest of my companions, or anyone that these people had seen before. I may have come as a visitor from Jivalika, but I was very well aware that I looked like a foreigner.

Once we reached the pyramid, we began an ascent, climbing one set of stairs after another, moving ever farther up to the distant throne chamber at the top. Needless to say, climbing stairs after stairs after stairs started to get pretty damn tiresome, and at one point Patu made the mistake of trying to complain about it. A quick hiss and a stern look from Sabal put a quick stop to that.

From what Heleen had told me, Duzon was a matriarchy, ruled at all times by a Farees. She was apparently revered among her people, not just as a leader but as a sort of mother figure, literally and figuratively. Instead of taking a husband, the Farees of Duzon took a string of chosen consorts to be the fathers (the plural there being fully intended) of her children, of which she was expected to have as many as she could while she was still fertile. Once she passed the point of being able to bear children, she was expected to step down, abdicating her position to her eldest daughter.

It was also said that the Farees of Duzon rarely left her penthouse on top of the village. Since she spent so much of her life being pregnant, she typically stayed at home and was cared for by attendants, usually only stepping out of the house to address her people. Meanwhile, many of the duties of governing the village were delegated to her brothers and sisters, who served as her council, helped to advise her and acted as sort of go-betweens between her and the people.

When we finally reached the top of the pyramid, the guard led us inside the royal audience chamber of Farees Geyla. We entered through the open doorway and entered into a lavish, luxurious chamber of polished stone, filled with scented oils and potted plants, with sunlight streaming in from the doorways in each wall but one. The celebrated Farees herself was relaxing on a cushioned floor seat, luxuriating in her sweet-smelling, comfortable surroundings, and enjoying little bits of jojai fruit from the bowl beside her, as she cradled the unborn baby she carried in her belly. She had a preening, Cleopatra-esque vibe to her, covered in beauty makeup and lots of gold jewelry, basking in the joys of her position, and looking up at us with a calm, Mona Lisa smile as we entered.

Surrounding her were her children, most of whom looked a bit less pleased to see us than their mother was. An adolescent girl with a fair amount of jewelry herself knelt by her mother’s side, holding onto her shoulder, as she watched us with a bit of trepidation, and a slightly younger boy stood behind his mother’s seat, gripping a wooden practice spear as if warning us that he was prepared to use it. Three younger children knelt by their mother’s feet, playing with a furry little ruka. One girl cradled the cuddly little creature in her arms while looking up at us curiously. The girl’s younger brother and sister, kneeling by either side of her, seemed more interested in the animal she held than in us; there was a little girl of about five or six holding out a vegetable for the ruka to nibble on, while a boy who couldn’t have been much more than three reached out to pet it.

There were two more guards, one male and one female, standing behind their Farees, coming to attention as we entered. The guard escorting us introduced Heleen, informing his Farees that the Veseed of Jivalika had arrived, and then the male guard in the back took a step forward and bombastically announced that we stood in the presence of Geyla, Farees of Duzon, using a few adjectives to describe her that I wasn’t entirely familiar with, but I think there were some that translated to “magnificent” or “divine” or something like that. It was enough to make Geyla roll her eyes with amused embarrassment, and she threw a hand up and gave a quick command, effectively telling her overzealous protector “at ease.” He relaxed slightly and stepped back again, while Geyla continued to examine us.

“Heleen Jivalika en Veseed, goza pelamo,” Geyla formally greeted Heleen with a polite tilt of her head, still smiling serenely as she delicately munched on a little jojai fruit. “Kwed Kuwazieh ni kisamene jaka chigolen, ga ken kwed ja mez jaka jon chenene I’d heard you’d left for your Kuwazieh, but I didn’t know when you might arrive,” she said. Then she looked Heleen up and down as with the smile of someone admiring a beautiful sculpture, and added, “Kwed fraree okes jaka do chigolen <I also heard you were a beautiful young woman>. Mon jon egel, shukam <I see that wasn’t a lie>.”

Heleen blushed slightly. “Goza valesa, Farees,” she thanked her.

Geyla looked around to her kids. “Pelamo olas, okomo ,” she instructed.

“Pelamo, Heleen Veseed,” the two little girls on the floor obediently said with the enthusiasm of school kids dutifully speaking in unison to greet the guest speaker in class, while the little boy remained blissfully enraptured with the furry critter in his sister’s arms. A moment later the boy with the practice weapon cautiously gave a courteous “Goza pelamo.”

The oldest girl remained silent for the moment, continuing to eye us warily. Geyla turned to look at her daughter. “Eket mugramas ,” she instructed.

The girl hesitated, and finally gave us a tepid greeting herself. Geyla made a dissatisfied frown. “Bemeil Jeneka temal e doronas ,” she said. “Es goht makot e luut .”

“Giben,” Heleen reassured her.

Geyla turned her head off to the side and shouted a name: “Petiné!” Almost in the blink of an eye a teenaged girl appeared through the door at the back of the chamber, rushing to the side of her Farees. Geyla calmly instructed her to fetch some of her other attendants and bring us some refreshments. The girl nodded and rushed off to obey. As she did, I began to see some other figures entering the room, ranging in age from late thirties to early twenties, most of them wearing some kind of jewelry similar to Geyla’s, but none of them to the extent that she had.

She started making introductions then, beginning with her children. In order from oldest to youngest, her children were Jeneka, Kokan, Shiri, Lilet, and Boma. Then she stroked her belly, commenting with a bright smile that her latest one didn’t have a name yet.

As the group of people entering the room drew nearer to her, she introduced them as her brothers and sisters. It turned out Geyla was the third child in her family, after her two elder brothers, Moken and Hanto. Then there were her three younger sisters, Tidria, Droell and Chitiri, and the youngest was her brother Kelez.

Then Heleen began making her introductions. Starting with me. And she specifically referred to me as “Clay Beraza.” She continued to introduce everyone else after that, but once I was brought to Geyla’s attention, it seemed like her attention could hardly be bothered with anyone else. Yes, she listened to everyone’s names, sure. But she couldn’t seem to stop sizing me up, as if noticing for the first time that I was there and very intrigued by what she saw.

The girl from before returned moments later, accompanied by a few more young women, carrying bowls of fruit and trays of drink cups and pitchers. Geyla gestured toward a cluster of cushioned seats on the floor not far from where we stood, and urged us to have a seat and relax. So we did, those of us who were armed setting our weapons aside, as the attendant girls came and started setting out the refreshments in front of us, pouring us cups full of kolfa. Personally, I was a little thirstier for water than booze after the long trip and the ascent up the pyramid; on a parched throat, kolfa tended to taste kind of bitter. Still, I wasn’t about to refuse the offer. After giving a polite “Valesa” to the skinny young girl who handed me a drink, I took a quick swig of it, thinking I might need it in the next few minutes, when I was undoubtedly about to get a lot of attention.

Geyla didn’t disappoint. As soon as we sat down and got comfortable, the first thing she wanted to know about was me. “Clay,” she said. “Kreshaga dasuk .”

“Jaka jozama <I am a foreigner>,” I said, fairly certain my face and my accent gave that much away at least. Heleen explained to her how I had arrived four months ago and was accepted into Jivalika, making sure to also mention that I was still learning Azakosian, just as some of them were still learning my language.

That was when Geyla’s brother Kelez stepped forward. “You ... from other place?” he said.

My head jerked up, my eyes going wide. I suddenly had a feeling of déjà vu, remembering the first time I heard Kezalo speak English all those months ago. “ ... Yes,” I gasped. “You speak English?”

He nodded, smiling. “Is long story. I tell you later.”

I blinked. “Wow. This was unexpected.”

Geyla started asking more questions about me, but she directed them at Heleen instead of asking me directly. I helped contribute what answers I could, especially to the questions that Heleen wasn’t in the best position to answer. It was initially a lot of the same questions that had been asked after my arrival in Jivalika: where I came from, how I got here; the things even I couldn’t fully explain, let alone Heleen. She asked about what happened to me after I arrived, getting the details from us on how I became a hunter, and the grueling training Shimara put me through.

And then she asked the inevitable question: how I of all people earned the title of Beraza. This time it was Tekia who spoke up, going into verbose detail about our encounter with the hungry zalaku, and how I courageously defended her when she was injured. She was happily embellishing the story quite a bit, making me out to be some great godlike figure, as if I had slid down that hill without a single scratch, or that I had been so fearless and imposing in facing down the bloodthirsty beast as to make it start to back away. She laid it on thick enough to start to embarrass me, but when I looked at Heleen, she was just giving me a proud grin, and as Tekia wrapped up her tale, Heleen put a hand on my arm and started stroking it proudly.

The gesture did not go unnoticed. Kelez looked down at where her hand was, and then took a careful look at Heleen and me. “The two of you are... ?” he said.

Heleen and I looked at each other, and I saw her blushing slightly. We hadn’t really meant to advertise it, but there wasn’t really any point in trying to hide it either. “Yes,” Heleen said. “We are lovers.” Then she said it again in Azakosian for Geyla’s sake.

I cast a surreptitious glance aside at Tekia, looking to see if she was making any outward reaction to not being included in that statement. Fortunately she didn’t appear to be reacting in any particular way, other than continuing to beam at me with the adoration of the brave Beraza she had just gushingly described me as. I prayed she would leave it at that, at least for now. If I hadn’t meant to advertise that Heleen and I were a couple, I certainly had no desire to advertise that I was sleeping with Tekia at the same time.

Although, knowing what I did about the Farees of Duzon, if that little detail of our relationship did get out, we might have been in good company.

Eventually we managed to steer the conversation back around to our hosts, as Heleen wanted to hear more about Geyla, and about her children. Specifically, she wanted to know about their fathers. As soon as that subject came up, Jeneka broke her silence and took off on a verbose description of the man who had brought her into the world. She was obviously very proud of her father; his name was Hamaan, and he had the distinct position of being the people’s representative; not exactly a Faruum, but the closest thing Duzon had. And apparently he was the greatest man alive. Geyla told us we would meet him at the welcoming banquet that night, where he would be presiding over the festivities.

Kokan’s father was also a person of distinction: namely the Kemkuva of the village. He was fairly proud his father too, and was trying hard to emulate him, which was one of the reasons he had the practice spear. He said he wanted to be the Kemkuva himself when he grew up. Jazum asked if that was possible, for a member of the Farees‘ family to take up such a post. Geyla’s brother Moken claimed it didn’t happen often, but it wasn’t unheard of.

The younger children had fathers in slightly less prestigious professions, who had earned the right to bed the Farees in some way that Geyla didn’t deign to elaborate on. Shiri’s father was a jeweler, who had in fact crafted most of the jewelry that Geyla and Jeneka were wearing now. Lilet was the daughter of a woga, a sort of acolyte in the temple of Rahaal. Little Boma was the son of a scribe, and the still unborn one Geyla carried was the child of one of her chief guards.

And when I started looking pointedly at the guards in the room around us, Geyla laughed and informed us that he wasn’t in the room with us now.

We exchanged a few more pleasantries and details about each other, during which the little ruka that Shiri was holding hopped out of her arms and went scurrying away, prompting the three youngest kids to go chasing after it. As we all watched them and laughed, Geyla finally suggested that we should be shown to our rooms, and allowed time to rest from our travels before the banquet tonight. She asked her brothers and sisters to escort us, and suggested that Kelez should be the one to escort Heleen and me.

Kelez started walking for the exit, gesturing for Heleen and I to follow, as others of the Farees’ family did similarly with the rest of the party. We got up, Tekia following close behind Heleen and me as we followed Kelez out of the chamber and down the steps, descending the pyramid again.

“So how do you know English?” I asked him as we climbed down the steps

“I learn from Julu,” he answered back over his shoulder.

“Who’s Julu?”

His answer was to look back with a glowing smile. “Julu is beautiful,” he beamed. “She is most wonderful woman to live.”

I blinked. “I see. So how does she know English?”

As we reached the bottom of another flight of steps, Kelez started turning as he began, “She learn from...”

And then he stopped, looking at us, as if noticing something. And then I realized he was looking at Tekia, realizing for the first time that she was accompanying us. Tekia just put her hands on her hips and cocked her head, raising an eyebrow as if to say, “What? Do I have mustard on my face?”

I just looked sheepishly back at Kelez and asked, “Yeah, uh ... do you think the bed will be big enough for three people?”

He continued to stare at us for a moment longer, comprehension coming over his face. And then a smile came over his face with it. “Yes,” he nodded. “It big enough.”

He brought us to the third level down and led us inside, bringing us at last to the room that the three of us would be staying in for the length of our visit. Despite the walls and floor being made of hard and unyielding stone instead of the more forgiving wood that I was accustomed to, it definitely looked inviting. It had plenty of room, a good amount of light, plenty of places to sit, some potted plants, a pravak-skin rug, and a bed that I could honestly imagine as many as four people squeezing into, let alone three. Painted in black ink on the wall near the head of the bed was a mural depicting a woman who could only be Zuika, the Moon Mother, said to be the goddess who governed the night and the moons, with her hair flowing out in all directions to become the black curtain of night, while she held in each hand a glowing orb, representing the two moons in the sky.

We started to get settled in, setting aside our weapons and our travel supplies, while Heleen promptly collapsed onto the bed. After eight days of sleeping on the ground, a soft bed had to feel like heaven to her, and in fact I was just about to lie down on it myself, when suddenly a large weight landed hard on my back, making me stagger forward. It took me a second to identify the arms and legs that were grabbing me and the giggling voice behind my head, before I finally rolled my eyes and let Tekia wrestle me down onto the bed. It seemed she too was interested in trying out the bed, but she had a slightly different reason in mind.

Heleen gave a tired laugh from where she lay, her head half sunken into the mattress. I heard Kelez laughing too, and looked up to see him watching us from the doorway. “You lucky,” he grinned.

A moment later I heard a feminine voice call his name from somewhere outside. He took a step backward out the door and looked in that direction, his face immediately brightening. And the next thing I knew, one of the most stunning, model-esque girls I had seen in Azakos yet was stepping into his arms, planting a tender kiss on him. She turned to face us as they each put an arm around each other’s back, their heads pressed together.

“This is Julu,” Kelez said. “She teach me your speak.”

The girl molded to his body did a double take when he said that, and looked at us, blinking rapidly. “You speak English?” she said.

“I ... should be asking you that,” I said.

“That one named Clay,” Kelez introduced me. “Come from other world.”

I might have said more, but I was a little preoccupied observing the babe that Kelez had his arm around. After living in Azakos as long as I had, I had long since passed the point where simply seeing a naked woman was enough to excite me. At least most of the time. But every once in a while along came a girl like this, who, had she been born in the world I knew, could easily have modeled for Playboy. She had dark brown hair down to her butt, big green eyes, and a cute, round face on a slender neck, leading down to smooth, sloping breasts, and a slender hourglass figure. She wore a coiled gold band on her arm similar to Heleen’s, and had minimal pubes at the junction of her legs.

And paired next to Kelez, with his fit and firm body, his black, ponytailed hair and the barest hint of a goatee on his jawline, decorated with that gold hexagonal pendant and those bands on his wrists, they seemed like one of those couples that just oozed sexiness.

Ultimately, all I could say was, “Wow. You’re lucky too, man.”

Kelez grinned proudly. Obviously he knew it.

After Heleen and Tekia introduced themselves, Kelez and Julu came in and took a seat in the room, at which point I asked Julu the obvious question: “So how do you know English?”

“I was born in Topona,” she said. “A man lives there who came from your world a long time ago. His name is Adrian.”

“My father says the people from Clay’s world who came before went back to Krotar after they met the Avaresa in Topona,” Heleen said.

“Most of them did,” Julu nodded. “Adrian wanted to stay. He found a woman and married her. He taught his words to his wife and his children, and to many of us who know him.”

“So how did you end up here in Duzon?” I asked her.

“I go to Topona,” Kelez grinned, gripping his arms around her waist tightly. “I find beautiful Julu! She come back with me!”

“Kelez visited Topona some years ago, for trade business,” Julu began, saying the same thing a little more articulately. She turned her head to touch her forehead to his and continued, “We fell in love. When he had to return here, I went with him. Because we never wanted to be apart again!”

They exchanged lovey-dovey smiles and a few kisses, creating a perfectly “Awww!”-inducing scene. And it had a suitable effect on the two ladies surrounding me. Heleen turned an affectionate smile to me, sliding her hand across the bed to take mine. And a second or two later, I had a four-limbed amoeba that felt a lot like Tekia crawling all over my back and my shoulders, tenderly nibbling on my earlobe.

And then I felt a hand starting to slide down my chest toward something below, and I started to get the sense that Tekia was about to take things beyond being PG-13. Which ... now that I think about it, isn’t exactly a suitable reaction to the scene that Kelez and Julu were presenting, but there it was. Either way, I decided I ought to avoid making this a spectator sport.

“Umm ... I hate to cut things short,” I said, “but maybe we should continue this later? I think Tekia wants us to get some ... private time.”

Julu grinned almost like a Cheshire cat, and then she and Kelez stood up. “Please, take all the time you need,” she said.

“We come get you when time for banquet tonight,” Kelez said.

I stood up and nodded, stepping forward to shake his hand. He looked at the gesture a bit curiously, but returned it.

And then Julu stepped up to me. “Welcome to Duzon,” she purred, cupping my face in her hands. And then her face came forward, planting a full, wet kiss right on my lips.

I stared at her unblinking when she pulled back, grinning impishly at me. She giggled softly, stepping back into the arm that Kelez wrapped around her waist as they turned and walked out of the room.

I blinked a few times after they were gone. “Well,” I got out at last. I started turning around to the girls. “That came out of nowh—”

Tekia suddenly pounced on me like a jungle cat.

The welcoming banquet that was held for us took place in a huge, cavernous chamber on the ground floor of the pyramid, which at least half the population of Duzon gathered for. There were dozens of tables built low to the ground with hundreds of people kneeling around them as food was placed before them.

There was a special table at the front of the room, which had members of the royal family kneeling at it all along one side, facing toward the rest of the people, while the other side of the table was reserved for the ten of us. Hamaan, Jeneka’s father, was seated in the middle, with Geyla’s brothers and sisters extending out on either side of him. He addressed the people when we entered, calling all their attention to us. The people murmured about us, some of them offering us token applause, as we came and took our seats at the table.

A few minutes after we knelt down and some dishes of food were set down before us, Geyla’s children appeared, coming down a set of wide stairs at the back of the chamber, escorted by some of Geyla’s attendants. The younger ones came scurrying around to random parts of the table, little Boma reaching for whatever bits of good food his little hands could find, forcing one of his aunts to rein him in and tell him to behave. Jeneka, meanwhile, gracefully came and took a seat next to her father, and Kokan did the same with his, seated at the far end of the table on my left.

And then I heard several of the people oohing and awing and applauding, and I looked up to the stairway the kids had emerged from to see a couple more attendants escorting Geyla herself into the dining hall, making one of her rare public appearances for our sake. The attendants escorting her tried to insist on helping her to the table, but Geyla brushed them off, looking the tiniest bit impatient with them. She was no fragile blossom, having already gone through the trials of pregnancy five times and very well able to handle herself in her condition. She dismissed her attendants and stepped up to the side of Hamaan, who took her hand as she knelt down, and then gave her an affectionate kiss, which she happily returned. They shared the look of two happy lovers, despite the fact that five other men had already fathered children with her after him.