Book 3, Letter 6, part 2 of 2. To Herodotus: The Scythian Sun Devil

To Herodotus: The Scythian Sun Devil

(Part 2 of 2)

*

For ten years his name was whispered only in private, for our people considered him an exile and they felt betrayed by his sudden departure in the wake of their calamity. But the Scythian people are strong, we are survivors, and even without out our blessed Weather Maker, we continued to live, and found a way to thrive again in the land made new and strange by the rupturing of the earth.

When at last Soguda returned, he was not welcomed as he had been, despite the fair weather he brought with him. The wounded never forgot their wounds, and though everywhere Soguda rode, the rains ended droughts and the sunshine melted the snow, the people did not shower him with praise and gifts as they had done. Some began to suspect that Soguda had made sacrilegious pacts with foreign gods, and others began to ask where his mother had disappeared to, all those years ago.

Soguda went to see one of the Enarees, vexed as he was with his life which now seemed cursed with powerlessness. Where once he had brought happiness to all who saw him, now their faces were marred with suspicion and fear and the maidens who once sang love songs for him, stayed silent in their tents, or rode out hunting whenever he approached.

The Enaree shaman he went to see was named Gelon Dur, a northerner whose skin and hair and eyes were pale white. As Soguda approached, he saw that the weather did not change, but rather the snow fell exactly as it had upon his approach. He felt a magic at work equal to his own.

Where have you been Soguda? The shaman asked. Where have you been and what foreign sun now rises in your eyes? For the shaman looked deep and saw, within the glimmering green of Soguda's eyes, a pale white sun rising over a snow capped mountain.

I have been to the plateau of the sun. I worship no foreign gods, but rather, I have spoken with the origin, the God who made the gods of our land. Soguda spoke the truth, revealing part of a secret he had kept his entire life.

What did you learn, Weather Maker?

Soguda was reluctant to say more. He had kept his secret for decades, and feared that speaking it would somehow dissipate his power.

The Sun gave me the power to see into other people's dreams, and in doing so, to know how to give them exactly what they want. When I first returned from the Plateau of the Sun, I was welcomed and hailed as a blessing. But when the earthquakes came, all my insight was for nothing, for I could not bring the dead back, nor restore severed limbs or smooth burned flesh.

Soguda wept.

So I returned to the Plateau and lived another ten years in darkness and light, absorbing the power of the sun, but when I returned home, the people only dreamed of my destruction, and every night I have exhausted myself with the effort of confusing and confounding the dreams of assassins who would murder me. I bring spring flowers to end the winter, and I bring winter rains to end the drought, but the people will not forgive me for my failure to heal them when they needed healing the most.

Tell me Gelon Dur, what am I to do?

The Enaree shaman replied:

Tell me Soguda, what did you do to your mother?

Soguda hung his head in shame.

I showed her the truth of what she wanted. I stained her hands with my dream blood, I showed her the vengeance and justice she craved, and in the morning, when she saw that I had command over her dreams, she left, exiling herself. I have not seen her in thirty years.

The shaman, weaving and unravelling strands of grass around their fingers, instructed Soguda what he must do.

You must find her, Soguda. She gave you the gift of weather making. She gave you the gift of your life. You sought power from beyond the gods of our ancestors and you have insulted the laws of our people in doing so. In wishing for your death, she obeyed the laws of our people, and you punished her for wishing to see justice done. You deserve to die Soguda. Now leave me, and do not return until you have restored your mother to her place at the family hearth.

Soguda left the shaman named Gelon Dur and went into the wilderness where he made himself a mask of wood and bone, and covering his face for shame of his sins, he began to search for the mother he had exiled. For many years he journeyed, hiding his face and his name, but still bringing fair weather everywhere he went in his search. He grew old, wearied by his failure and when his beard grew long to cover the pommel of his saddle, and still he had not found her, he took his horse to the edge of our lands, and he kept riding.

He rode to the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white.

He climbed the furthest peaks of the ice mountains, where the land flattens into a tabletop of stone and snow.

He struggled through the wasteland where the sun shines ceaselessly half of the year, and, grows darker every night thereafter.

In the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the Plateau of the Sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone, Soguda pitched his tent, and sought the wisdom of his ancient God.

Where is my mother? He cried to the wind.

The wind did not reply.

Where is my mother? He wept upon the frozen earth.

The frozen earth did not reply.

Where is my mother? He screamed to the sun, source of all power, maker of the gods of earth and sky.

The Sun spoke to him, as it always had, in an untranslatable poetry of sounds both animal and human, and Soguda submitted to the will of madness, all his intelligence subverted into a useless corruption of noise and disorder.

Soguda did not return from the plateau. Soguda did not ever again take off his mask. Soguda's howling cries joined forever with the Arctic winds. The Sun granted him the power to rule over the dreams of mortals, and to know their true desires, and to grant them what was good and what was of benefit and to always bring fair weather with him wherever he went.

A man cannot be always a servant to others, he must also be a servant to himself. The Sun, however, has no desire, has no self, seeks only to lay its power upon the earth and to drive all the forces of nature before it, as a herdsman drives his horses upon the steppe. A man, however, is not a god, and he must submit to the laws of his people. The sun is a law unto itself, and a man cannot serve two masters.

These truths are contrary to one another, and Soguda who sought to grasp the immortal power of his own name, ended his mortal journey in banishment, madness and shame.

Soguda never found his mother, for she had long departed from this life, and her bones lay rotting in foreign soil, her ghost wandering lost in foreign skies.

In the frozen north, where the land is a painting shaded white.

In the furthest peaks of the ice mountains, where the land flattens into a tabletop of stone and snow.

In the wasteland where the sun shines ceaselessly half of the year, and, grows darker every night thereafter.

In the frozen north, in the furthest peaks, upon the plateau of the sun, in the wasteland of ice and stone.

In that place dwells the Sun Devil.

*

So Herodotus, we must believe in the legends of the ancients, even if they are not true.

Thank you again, for all you have given me. I, and all who write and read and tell stories, owe you a debt which cannot be paid, though we might live a thousand, thousand generations.

Still, I try.

With admiration and respect,

Morgan.