Ydnas: The Girl of the Prophecies Read online

YDNAS: The Girl of the Prophecies

  By Paul D. Bowen

  Copyright 2015 Paul D. Bowen

  Thank you for downloading this ebook. This book remains the copyrighted property of the author, and may not be redistributed to others for commercial or non-commercial purposes. If you enjoyed this book, please encourage your friends to download their own copy from their favorite authorized retailer. Thank you for your support.

  DEDICATION

  This work is dedicated to

  Judith Ann Strong,

  Amazon, Mage, Goddess

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank Harold Brown and John Overbeck, both of whom read the first draft all the way through and made many detailed and helpful comments. Others who read all or part of the way through include Sandra Schilling, Susan Bowen, Gary Poole, Rachel Hadas, Jonathan Edwards, and Caleb Beers. Especially, though, I would like to thank Judith Strong, to whom the novel is dedicated, who not only read it all the way through and made many useful comments, but who is responsible for preparing it for publication.

  Cover design by Renee Barratt, www.TheCoverCounts.com.

  DISCLAIMER

  This is a work of fiction.

  Any resemblance to real persons or gods,

  living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  Views expressed by persons or gods

  are not necessarily

  those of the author.

  Table of Contents

  Translator’s Preface

  Ydnas

  Glossary

  About the Author

  TRANSLATOR’S PREFACE

  [Readers may wish to skip this preface and proceed directly to the story.]

  It is a great privilege to be able to present this new translation of Ydnas, which is believed by many to be the greatest novel in the Gastripi language, in spite of the fact that parts of it have apparently been lost, and other parts forged or altered. Recent scholarship has, however, discovered or restored 720 previously unknown fragments dating from the Trang Interregnum, bringing the total of known credible fragments to 5,040. These in turn can apparently be plausibly gathered into as few as 120 complete variants; within each variant, the separate fragments are consistent except for minor details. Of these variants, 24 appear to tell a fairly complete story, although it is hard to be sure, given the tendency of the author(s) to ignore many of the usual conventions of the tale or novel. As far as I know, mine is the only translation so far to profit (I hope!) from perusal of all this material and from the scholarly controversies thereon.

  I must confess that I have added to the confusion by combining episodes from several variants, although in the main I have followed the Karlekola-Staxvalt variant, number 6 in the Rimraf listing. I cannot justify this from purely historical evidence; I did it because it seemed to me to make a better story that way. I have tried to make the work as a whole self-consistent, although I am intrigued by Serimenth’s contention that the original was deliberately made not so.

  Indeed, some may object to my incorporating the new material, since speculating about the missing parts has always been one of the greatest pleasures of reading Ydnas. One might even say that it has become a huge collective work with thousands of authors, each filling the gaps in his own way. Furthermore, Mirple and others have argued that the novel was originally and deliberately written with multiple versions, and Gratibulash has presented intriguing evidence that it was originally and deliberately written with parts left out. Of course, they may both be right. I can only reply that although my version may be too complete and coherent for some tastes, the reader who enjoys attempting to improve on it is free to do so. Readerly creativity is therefore still an option.

  Quite apart from the problems of missing or multiple versions, scholars have long argued about what exactly Ydnas is supposed to be. Is it a work of pure fiction, or are we supposed to take it, to some extent, as history, or prophecy? Is it a serious work in Theology, sweetened with tales of sex, drugs, violence, magic, and intrigue, or is it a satire on that very genre? Or do sex, drugs, violence, magic, and intrigue constitute the main point, and Theology the sweetening? Do some characters and events have symbolic or archetypal significance? Is the work meant to propose a complex but coherent picture of the universe and human society, or is it meant to suggest that the complexity of the world will always be too great for us?

  Is it meant to precipitate a religious conversion, as Tordel Rei now claims (having experienced one), or is it meant to build the reader’s resistance to religion, as Rei insisted in her younger years? Is it a systematic exploration of moral failure and redemption, as Trr has suggested? Or is it rather about the Problem of Evil, as the D’reneki School argues? Is the Arjikranz Group correct, that it is about the nature of the self? Is it a Utopian socio-political tract, as the Zugurgili Collective has maintained? Or is it just a patchwork of various loosely connected tales, as A’Artigan has proposed?

  I have argued that it attempts to be all those things, like Ydnas’ chameleon god, who can (and no doubt will) take form as a mountain, a sound, a mood, a prime number, a style of literature, a headache, a mystery, time, evil, Philosophy, a contradiction, a city, a world, pictures of worlds, a community of literary historians, a book and its reader, a chameleon god, and everything else. As my esteemed colleagues will happily tell you, this sort of claim cannot be proved. Besides, general acceptance of such a view would put an end to the debate, which would surely be an unfortunate outcome.

  We will probably never know whether there was ever a single correct version of Ydnas, whether it had one author or many, how many of the fragments we now have are forgeries, or to what extent chance and mathematics played a role in its creation. Fortunately, the non-scholarly reader doesn’t have the slightest need to have an opinion on these matters.

  Please accept a wish of good luck from your hopeful translator,

  Intipisk,

  Three-quarters through Shortmoon 6, year 1729 of the Aluid Aristocracy.

  YDNAS

  “A journey of a thousand horizons begins

  with a single act of the imagination.”

  (The Book of Achievement)

  It is written that once there was a fabulist. He was intrinsically creative, and so he began to make up stories. In his stories he created many people, and many worlds for them to live in. Among the people were gods and mortals, women and men, parents and children, criminals and saints, teachers and students, demons and angels, rulers and ruled, writers and readers. There were laborers, warriors, monks, philosophers, merchants, aristocrats, con artists, healers, farmers, thieves, kings, fishermen, fabulists, and many others. Over time, these people interacted with each other in a progressively more intricate way, creating various patterns on a larger scale. Language and custom changed with time and place, and every person had to grapple with his own uniqueness. Many of them tried to see larger patterns in their lives, and to grasp the meaning and purpose of it all. They had mixed success.

  This particular fabulist created the wonderful and terrible city of Kondrastibar, on the coast of the Sea of Dreams. Sometimes small and sometimes large, Kondrastibar at its greatest extent rose from the many-fingered shores of the coast, sprawled across the rich tropical delta of the river Kron, marched over the dry but fertile plain of Yuclo, groped through the soulful mists of the Thousand-Lakes region, scaled the cliffs and gorges of the Hill Country, and finally climbed the ever-steepening sides of the great mountain Archonect, almost up to the tree-line. To and from Kondrastibar go more kinds of convoys and caravans than anyone will ever think of. Thence go even the diaphanous Tellamir, singing in prismatic ships, and the deep-dwelling Rotimor, ech
oing through their caverns.

  In Kondrastibar, everything possible must happen. Of course, the likelier things happen more often. This particular story begins in a Slave Market, where a young girl was being offered for sale by the one-eyed slave merchant, Dolla. Scrawny, unkempt, pre-pubescent, disoriented, and bruised, the girl was not likely to fetch a high price, so Dolla’s irritation was tempered with relief when there was only one bidder, an elderly Suimi woman who offered a tiny copper coin. Dolla quickly made the exchange and turned to his next item, a platoon of hypno-soldiers being sold by their pirate captors.

  The elderly woman, whose sole mark of status was a small tattoo on her left earlobe, approached the shivering girl slowly and stood an arm’s length from her, smiling gently, while Dolla’s blind assistant removed the chains and pinions.

  “Easy, there, Dearie,” she said, smiling, as she slowly unrolled a white blanket, turning it to show both sides, “Let me just drape it over you, poor thing.” The girl did not understand the woman’s language, but some part of her heard the gentleness and concern in the woman’s tone, and so she did not flinch as much as she might have.

  Reaching into a pocket of her robe, the Suimi produced a piece of black bread. Muttering a short prayer, she handed it to the girl, who accepted it hesitantly, examined it surreptitiously, and finally mimed for permission to eat it. “Of course, Dearie,” replied her new mistress, nodding and smiling, “and when we get home, you can have some hot soup.” After sniffing, poking, and licking the bread carefully, the girl tried a small bite. With an expression first surprised and then dreamy, she chewed it, slowly and deliberately. Then, closing her eyes blissfully, she swallowed it.

  “Do you like it?” asked the Suimi woman. “By the way, my name is Kor. Kor, Kor,” she repeated, gesturing to herself.

  “Ydnas, Ydnas,” said the girl, making a similar gesture.

  “Shall we go then, Dearie?” asked Kor, reaching out a hand. Ydnas took it, very hesitantly. They walked away from the auction block area, like two little insects in a swarm, beneath the towering, many-handed statue of Honggur, God of the Free Market. Throughout his temple, people, things, and services were being advertised, bought, sold, rented, liened, loaned, traded, assayed, promised, insured, imagined, bonded, futured, gambled with, and manipulated in countless other ways that Kor would never have wanted to understand. She gave one of her tiny coins to a cheap policeman, who, quarterstaff raised, escorted them through the feverish crowd to the hot and spicy afternoon outside.

  Proceeding down the seemingly endless marble steps of the Temple, and through a smiling crowd of naked Zillist wanderers, Kor and Ydnas found themselves at the edge of an avenue whose great width would, in most cities, have made it a major thoroughfare. Lined by the huge trunks of ancient baobob trees, this avenue was made of huge blocks of blue granite. The traffic of the ages had worn the pavement down so far that courses of steps had been installed to allow pedestrians to get down to their lane. At the far edge of that lane one could see the lane for elephants and other large, slow-moving transport. When traffic was light, and the air clear, one could make out, in the distance, the lane for chariots. There were said to be other lanes, but they could not be seen from the edge.

  Kor waited until she could position herself and her charge between a phalanx of brightly-hued Korzibian accountants and a division of elegantly scarified mercenaries from the Church of Balan-Ching. She and Ydnas then entered the thoroughfare and proceeded, passing frequently under overpasses for other streets, or leading to other lanes. Many of these bridges, pleasantly wrapped with ivy or wisteria, were lined at the sides with houses, stores, or temples; more than once Kor and Ydnas had to leap aside to avoid garbage (or worse) emptied from windows. As they marched, the accountants chanted a contrapuntal oratorio declaiming the fine points of multiple-version bookkeeping, while the mercenaries made an intricate chiming music by tapping with the pommels of their daggers on their shields, which were dented after the manner of steel drums. A somewhat modernist symphony of smells played on the afternoon air, and now and then they saw tendrils of red mist drifting on the breeze, indicating that magic had recently been used nearby.

  Their way was long, and Ydnas, not in the best of health, was soon exhausted. Fortunately, traffic was stopped for a time, for up ahead, the caravan of a wealthy merchant, insufficiently disguised and defended, was being sacked by a local street gang. Kor encouraged Ydnas to use this time to eat a bit more, and to take a nap on her blanket.

  Afterwards, they walked past an abandoned neighborhood, where all the buildings, including a huge ziggurat that had apparently once been a mall, were covered by vines and creepers. The next neighborhood, abandoned for an even longer time, was entirely given over to trees, except for a small portion that was being used for gardens. Soon after that, a large aqueduct crossed the road at an acute angle; the mercenaries apparently knew how to use it as a short-cut, for they scaled the piers like mountaineers, and made an antlike line along the top. Kor would have been more comfortable with the company of soldiers, but she resigned herself to the rowdy crowd of university students that took their place.

  Soon after that, the two sojourners passed through a wealthier neighborhood, with great high temples of bronze and obsidian, and private residences large as hills. By this time their road had grown smaller, and they could see, in the distance, crowds, cavalry, and caravans going the other way. Then they rose on a sinuous bridge over a great river. Pausing to peer between two of the laughing gargoyles that made up the rail of the bridge, Kor and Ydnas briefly observed the network of barges, naval craft, houseboats, police vessels, floating temples, and pleasure boats below.

  Later, the road entered a great dark tunnel beneath a ridge. Ydnas, fearful, refused to enter it, in spite of Kor’s reassurances; so they left the main road, and Kor improvised, eventually finding a small path of cracked steps that led to the top of the ridge. There, exhausted by the climb, they paused to rest, observing a crowd performing some ritual by a broken-down statue of the Goddess of Entropy. Looking back, they saw the road they had come by, as far as the bridge; following the river with their eyes, they saw it join with another, larger one, which disappeared into the horizon’s haze. Looking ahead, they saw a steep and tumbled land, covered with an exhausting variety of architecture, and punctuated with parks, lakes, and regions of decay. One small hill appeared to be on fire.

  After their rest, they rejoined the granite road, which was once again sunken and lined with beobab. In another hour, afternoon was itself exhausted. The sun was a mottled orange ball imprisoned by distant spires, and chilly breezes of evening were blowing. Both travelers were weary to the bone, and Kor had to use both her hands on the rail to help her arthritic body to climb out of the thoroughfare. She hoped to find a temple hostel where they could obtain food and lodging for the night. As they passed between the trunks of the beobabs, however, they were struck by the astringent reek of pari blossoms, for they were entering a park frequented by fashionable addicts. But I will not tell you the whole story of their journey; should you wish to know more, it is the subject of an exquisite 1,729-line poem by the 108th-Century Trong Dynasty Poet, Pseudo-Aminthine of Telosium. Pseudo-Aminthine’s poem, a work of allegorical fiction, predates the incident itself by over 17 millennia, but describes it quite accurately, presumably by coincidence.

  Suffice it to say that it was five days later, when, utterly exhausted, they finally reached Kor’s dwelling, a condemned building in a badly decayed slum whose name does not bear repeating. The building’s exterior was boarded up, and covered with obscene graffiti and advertisements for a local suicide parlor. A painted-over sign above the main entrance (no longer usable) could barely be seen to have once read, “Madame Caramami’s School for Courtesans.” Stepping over the comatose body of a local drunk, and ignoring the smell of urine, Kor led Ydnas around behind the building and into an inner courtyard. There, after making sure no one else was observing, she knocked an intricate r
hythm on a boarded-up door. She listened for a moment, and knocked again. A knocking was heard from the inside, and Kor knocked yet a third time, with a different rhythm. A few moments later, the entire raft of boards swung silently outward, revealing crumbling steps that descended into total darkness. By this time, Ydnas had come to trust Kor enough to hesitantly enter that darkness with her. They stood, holding hands, breathing must and mildew, as the secret door shut and latched itself behind them, depriving them of all light; Kor could feel Ydnas’ hand trembling in her own. Then, an inner door opened. Suddenly they were bathed in light, warmth, music, color, the fragrance of food, and the sounds of happiness and love. A crowd of joyously screaming children of various ages rushed up to hug and climb on Kor, who sat on the floor, so as to be accessible even to the smallest. Ydnas shrank back into the dark, shuddering, but she did not panic, and the wideness of her eyes was not entirely due to fear.