The Power and the Glory

Book 1 Chapter XI: You'll Never Believe It!

...Why should one idle spade, I wonder,
Shake up the dust of thanes like thunder
To smoke and choke the sun?
-- G. K. Chesterton, The Ballad of the White Horse

"Father! Father!"

It was extremely rare for Shizuki to make so much noise. Even in his immortal form he usually moved as quietly as... well, as a snake. He could go anywhere he liked without anyone noticing him unless they already knew he was there. Now he shouted at the top of his lungs for the first time in centuries. Heads popped out of the windows as Siarvin's servants tried to see what was happening. They were disappointed. Shizuki ran straight to the garden, where Siarvin could always be found at this time, and the overhanging tree branches blocked their view.

Shizuki ducked under the trees and leapt over the carefully planted rows of nuyium[1] as if he was practicing for a race. He skidded to a halt in the middle of the dwarf inikul[2] patch, right in front of an amazed Siarvin.

"What under heaven has gotten into you?" his father exclaimed, dropping his shovel in his surprise.

It took several minutes for Shizuki to get his breath back. In the distance he heard the murmur of voices from the main house, followed by the distinctive and unmistakable sound of the front door closing. Siarvin, whose hearing was not as sharp, didn't notice anything.

With an effort Shizuki straightened up and forced his fangs to disappear. Forget the toll it would take on him. Now was one of the times when he urgently needed to speak clearly.

"I delivered the letter to Princess Abihira," he said in between gasps. "I left it in her room. She couldn't have helped seeing it."

"You told me that before." Siarvin took his arm and guided him over to sit in one of the garden chairs. "Are you quite all right? I warned you the sun might be too strong for you up on that roof. Why do you stay up there for hours when we have perfectly good chairs?"

Shizuki shook his head. "It's nothing to do with the sun. I just saw Princess Abihira arrive. She's in the main manor right now."

All the colour drained from Siarvin's already pale face. He stood as still as a statue for several minutes.

"What?" he cried when he got his voice back. "But... But we warned her! I was as clear as  I could be without telling her too much! Can she not read?"

"She's been in Seroyawa. Perhaps we should have written it in Seroyawan," Shizuki said with unwonted sarcasm. His own inability to speak Seroyawan was a nagging pain at the back of his mind, a feeling of guilt that he knew was irrational but he couldn't argue away.

He knew there were thousands of people in Saoridhlém who were either maligned as "yaðar"[3] or politely described as "líuga"[4]. Most of them didn't speak the languages of their foreign parents or grandparents. Most had no more understanding of their ancestors' culture than the fully-Saoridhian people around them.

Shizuki knew from painful experience that there was nothing as embarrassing as someone twenty generations removed from their last ancestor to actually live in Seroyawa who still thought they understood everything about the place. He was mortified on her behalf when that person tried to tell actual Seroyawans that she knew their culture better than them, and wanted to convince them that something they had no problem with was actually very offensive to them.

That woman's abject humiliation years ago was a perfect example of how he did not want to act. He knew he didn't understand the first thing about life in Seroyawa. He knew that if he ever visited he would be as much of an oddity there as he was here. It was one of life's cruel ironies that Princess Abihira, whose only Seroyawan ancestor was Emperor Miaris[5], knew more about Shizuki's ancestral home than he did. Yet still he longed wistfully to speak Seroyawan. Tangled up with that longing was a lurking fear. If he ever met his birth father, would they even be able to communicate?

"--zuki? Shizuki? Are you listening?"

Shizuki snapped out of his thoughts. Briefly disorientated, he blinked up at Siarvin and tried to look as if he'd been paying attention. It didn't work. His father sighed and shook his head.