But the fathers of our fathers became greedy as dogs in a pig’s trough. They began to take more and more gold from the nests of the Griffin, and to hunt them down when the season was not right, when the sun blazed in the sky instead of hiding its face under the snow’s crossed spears. The Griffin took their revenge—they gobbled up our herds, mare and stallion. They slurped the marrow and lapped up the eyes of our most magnificent animals. When we had no more horses, the Griffin began to take the beautiful maidens of our tribe, whose dark shoulders glinted like the pelts of cats and whose voices were sweet as autumn harvests.
When I was born, there were only a few Griffin left in the world, hidden away in mountains and forgotten mines, in vales concealed by sheets of ice, in the desert where the wind burns. Likewise, there were only a few maidens left in the Ocular—and no horses at all. When the time came for the Ritual of Ob, which would make me a man and allow me to take the place of my father, Oluwatobi the Ever-Watchful, as King of the Arimaspians, there were but two remaining Griffin. One dwelt on the Hidden Isle, in the Boiling Sea, whose water steams with constant bubbles. The other hid itself away in an aerie atop the great Mount Nuru, a mountain made entirely of ruby, whose light blinds all who approach it.
Oluwatobi gave me a choice of these dangers, for the Ocular must be forged of Griffin-gold according to the ancient rites or else it is no more than a lump of slag pressed into a man’s face. Of course we bent under the guilt of our fathers’ fathers’ lust for gold, but we could not defy the traditions of our people. We had to have the gold, whatever the cost to the Griffin—it is our right, you understand. The Ocular is all things; without it we are like a leopard without a head. I could no more deny the Ritual of Ob than I could deny my own limbs. And after all, we had no more horses left; the scale would not be balanced until the Griffin had no gold. In the end, I chose the ruby crags, for we are not a seafaring people. With the blessing of my father I clothed myself in the spotted skins of wildcats and the mirror-bright breastplate of the sons of Oluwa, forged from the gold of the first Griffin’s hoard. I went out from the Arimaspian veldt, and sought out the Red Mountain of Nuru.
In those days I carried in my head an eye of beryl, which is the mark of the heir, for the Griffin lay eggs of beryl, and the gold of their yolks is the purest of all. I traveled easily in my strength, and ate the meat of young deer at my night fire. The Red Mountain was not far from the boundaries of the Oculos—indeed its scarlet lights could be glimpsed from my father’s hut when the sun set low in the winter sky, shining through the peak like arrows dripping with blood. I followed the light of Nuru, but in my heart I quailed, for I did not know how I could protect my precious fleshly eye from the scalding prisms of its faceted stones.
But the World-Eye does not close on its favored children, and on the ninth day of my travels, I sighted another creature hobbling through the smoke-scented brush. As I drew closer, I began to perceive what sort of beast it was, and guess at its shape. It was a Monopod, a race of beings who live further to the East than even my people, and whose lower bodies are twisted into a single huge calf and foot—the foot itself so large that legend tells of a bygone age when fleets of Monopods sailed the ocean on those huge, curving soles. My fellow traveler was just this sort of man, but not being on the waves his gait was somewhat less than graceful. He was hopping and shuffling merrily along, dressed in a beautiful vest of many colors and a strange kind of skirt which accommodated his fleshy leg, kicking up a great cloud of broken leaves and dust.
“Hail, Monopod!” I cried, and held up both hands as a gesture of friendship.
“Hail, Cyclops!” he cried in return, turning towards me with a toothy grin. Indeed, several of his teeth were missing, and his hair was a disaster of curls darkened by the dirt of the road.
&n
bsp; “You are mistaken, Stump-Leg,” answered I with some indignant pride. “The Cyclops is an island-dweller and a drunkard besides. They are not even cousins, the sheep-herding simpletons, but an embarrassment to all one-eyed folk. I am the heir to the Arimaspian Oculos, Oluwakim by name.”
The Monopod looked shrewdly at me, his blue eyes glinting like gems in a vault. “Then you’ll be headed for the Red Mountain, yes? For Jin’s nest. I did not realize the old Oluwa had grown so ancient.”
“He is still hale, but the generations increase in the sight of the Eye, and the time of Ob has come again. I aim for the red peak of Nuru, and the Griffin—I did not know his name.”
The Monopod seemed to consider something private, and come to a decision I could not guess. “Well, then! I offer myself as companion and guide to the honorable son of the Oluwa! Chayim is my name, and I am bound for the aerie myself, so it will be no trouble to walk alongside you. With your one eye and my one foot, we almost make a full man! Certainly together we can both get what we want.” He clapped me on the back with his splay-fingered hand and rocked back and forth on his great foot. I agreed—I was glad of the company, I will admit.
“Why do you seek the Griffin?” I asked as we walked—rather, as I walked, and he hobbled.
“Well, that’s quite a story, my young Prince…”
I WAS BORN FAR FROM HERE IN THE SILVER-RICH city of Shadukiam, in the year that the Rose Dome was erected and the diamond turrets were completed in their perfect beauty—all things built with tax money are beautiful: so we must think or go mad. My family was modest—like all Shaduki Monopods we lived in the Ghetto of Moss and Root, a great expanse of open land on the north edge of the Dome. There we were allowed to live as our ancestors had, without the painful constriction of human houses—which we wreck with our clumsiness and which scab our feet with their difficult corners and edges. In the Root we lived out our days on the open moss under the moon that shines like the white rim of a toenail. When the night pulls on her dark socks, we lie on our backs, and our curving feet arch over our heads, protecting us from cold and rain. During the days we work side by side, makers of the famous Rose Vintage, the delicate wines of Shadukiam, whose tiny white grapes we are uniquely equipped to crush.
The Shaduki are disturbed by Monopods. Though monsters and angels of all description walk the streets of the city, though indeed it was the Hsien, men whose wings are greater in span than even the Griffin’s and who are no more human than we, who raised the Rose Dome over their spires and rooftops, the Monopods seem to trouble them like no other. To them we are ugly and misshapen. To them we are stupid and slow. To them we are scheming and slant-eyed. Though the wine we crush between our many toes brings in great sacks of silver for the city vaults, whenever disaster occurs we are blamed. If the snaking Varil does not flood its banks or floods too severely, our hideousness must have offended some god or another. After all, beauty is, of all the exports of Shadukiam, by far the most prized. Beauty and money, and not those diamond sticks, are the twin pillars that hoist the city into the skies.
We take this as gracefully as we can. We live peaceably in the Ghetto of Moss and Root; we do not ask for more. We sleep beneath our feet knowing that we are virtuous, and that one day we will take our wine barrels and sail south on our heel-ships to the promised kingdom of the Antipodes, where the first Monopod walked, and where legend tells us whole nations of our people still dwell.
Because we are not liked, when the Yi came among our people, no one would help us. There was no outcry. The Shaduki shrugged together and were grateful that the Yi had moved on into less desirable portions of the population. Clean out the rats, they said, and leave the cheese for the rest of us.
It was a year before I set off for the Red Mountain that my Tova died. The tendon in her foot was severed when the horses of a passing Shaduki cart trampled her underfoot. This tendon is to us what an artery is to most creatures—when it is cut there is no hope. She survived long enough on her bed of peonies and crabgrass to whisper to me that she wished we could have been married, as we had planned to do after the next barreling season. It was a horror to see her there, unable to lift her foot, the thick leg hanging at a limp and weeping angle, like a broken hinge. We buried her that night, and asked the Root-Paths which connect us all to guide her spirit to the Antipodes, and to rest.
The next morning, I awoke to find my Tova staring curiously at me, her familiar red braids neatly plaited, her cheeks as fat and well-colored as ever. But in her eyes there was no Tova. There was something strange and cold instead, something with teeth. The Thing-That-Was-Not-Tova laughed harshly, a sound like spoons scraping against stone, and hopped away from my patch of violets and bladderwrack without looking behind her.
Of course it was clear to all of us what had happened. We knew of the Yi, but until now it was a plague that only visited the Shaduki. Only they suffered the gruesome sight of their dead loved ones walking among them; only they were forced to watch their children worn like clothing. We had never guessed it could come among us. But we should have guessed—the Yi could not pass up the experience of our strange bodies.
The elders did not want to see the Tova-Thing. They ignored it as though it did not walk through the Root; they would not speak of it, as though not giving it a name would make it leave our home. But the Tova-Thing seemed happy to stay in the Ghetto. We could not force it to wear the moon robes Shadukiam enforced outside our places. It hopped wherever it pleased, curious and silent, except for that awful laugh. I begged the elders for permission to put the body of my Tova to rest and kill the thing that wore her, but they would not give in; they would not soil the Root with a stranger’s blood. Finally, I could not bear it any longer—to see my beloved’s face laughing at me each morning, as if the Thing inside her knew that she had loved me, and specially enjoyed seeing my face twisted up in pain. I went into the city center, to find a way to give my Tova peace.
It was said that one of the Yi kept a human apprentice, but I could not risk consulting such a corrupted creature. And anyway, what Yi would reveal a secret weakness to a human? He would just as likely strangle me and give my body to his master. No, I had to find a deeper knowledge, a knowledge as old as the Yi itself.
Those who are not accepted with open arms into the bosom of a city often know more about the goings-on of its dark corners than those who sit high on the hill and dine with sapphire forks clinking against golden plates. This is how I came to know of the Anchorite.
In the central square of Shadukiam stands the Basilica of Rose and Silver, whose spires are famed throughout the world for their intricate carvings, whose gargoyles have made women faint at the sight of their grimaces, whose door is carved from a single living cedar whose roots delve deep into the earth beneath the Basilica and whose branches crown its towers. This is what the beautiful and wealthy Shaduki see.
Behind the Basilica, concealed behind a brick wall overgrown with belladonna and other poisonous tendrils which creep and twist, a woman is chained to the church wall. She is clothed in a dress woven from the hair which even still sprouts from her head—as the black strands grow, her gown lengthens. Her eyes are bright and wild, rolling in her head like a baker’s pins. She has no mouth; her face is blank and smooth where her mouth should be. It is said that she scrapes letters in the soil when she wishes to speak, and that there is nothing she does not know. It is for this reason she is hidden and chained, so that she will not reveal the secrets of the Shaduki. This is what we who are hated see.
I went to the Anchorite in the early hours of the morning, before the Basilica held its Mass of Coins, before the Tova-Thing roused itself. I ducked behind her wall, careful not to touch the green growth that clutched hungrily at it, and crouched at the side of the mouthless creature. She was huddled against the stone church, knees clutched to her chest, staring at me with her blank, mad eyes. She made no sound—I suppose I could not have expected more.
“Help me, Anchorite. One of the Yi has taken the body of my Tova, and I cannot bear to see her used so, as though the heart of my heart were no more than a fashionable hat. Help me to kill the Yi in her, and lay her body to rest. I beg you, holy Anchorite, to tell me the secret of bringing death to the deathless.”
She stretched out her thin legs, truly no more than bones, and touched my leg with her skeletal hands, stroking the ropy muscles as if divining some fortune from their patterns. Finally, she drew back, her chains clinking against each other like dinner glasses. She pulled at her gown of hair, opening the tangled strands covering her stomach and pulling the plaits open as though they had been fastened with buttons.
Underneath her thick black hair was a fleshy expanse of belly, and in the center of the belly was a perfect mouth, lined with teeth.