The Blessing of Krozem: A Tale of Ziraf's World

By Lorinda J Taylor

This fantasy tale is an expansion of the author’s novelette The Blessing of Krozem, still free here on Smashwords.
What would it really be like to be immortal? And how important is the power of friendship and the need for communion with one’s fellow humans?
On Ziraf’s World, a planet in a universe far away from ours, an old priest named Gilzara decides to ask the Dreamers for the gift of immortality, and Krozem the Creator of Humankind grants his request, including giving him the power to make others immortal. However, things go tragically wrong; Gilzara’s dying wife refuses the gift, and Gilzara is left to live his immortal life alone. The Troil, incorporeal spirit beings who also inhabit this world, take it upon themselves to save Gilzara from destroying the token that holds the key to his immortality, but he continues to see himself as a freak and an outcast, unable to relate to any mortal. The Troil teach him the power of venwara – wizardry – and thus fortified, he returns to the human world, desperately searching for a connection. He finds it in Halrab, a young novice priest, and together they set out to climb the Starbell, the highest mountain in Ziraf’s World, the symbol of an unattainable goal.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lorinda J Taylor
• Release date: Jun 26, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463615775

Lorinda J Taylor

A former catalogue librarian, Lorinda J. Taylor was born in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and worked in several different academic libraries before returning to the place of her birth, where she now lives. She has written fantasy and science fiction for years but has only recently begun to publish. Her main goal is to write entertaining and compelling fiction that leaves her readers with something to think about at the end of each story.

Book preview

THE BLESSING OF KROZEM

A Tale of Ziraf’s World

By

LORINDA J. TAYLOR

This is a work of fiction. All characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Cover illustration by Lorinda J. Taylor

Copyright ©2020 by Lorinda J. Taylor

Smashwords Edition, License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Table of Contents

Prologue: The Blessing Is Conferred

Part One: The Perils of a Beginning

Chapter 1: The Elders of Tin-Arul

Chapter 2: To Heal an Immortal

Chapter 3: The Search for Truth

Chapter 4: Ziraf’s Star

Chapter 5: Fire and Illusion

Part Two: The Starbell Beckons

Chapter 6: The Venwa of Tin-Arul Island

Chapter 7: Gilzara Struggles to Curse a Friend

Chapter 8: Flithin

Chapter 9: The Ice Journey

Chapter 10: Final Ascent

Chapter 11: A Venwa Is Made

Chapter 12: The Zhinthá Stone

Appendices

Author’s Note

List of Characters (Human)

List of Characters (Troil)

List of Characters (Zem’l)

List of Geographic Names

Glossary

Prologue

The Blessing Is Conferred

It was during the Sixth Era of Ziraf’s world – the Era of Tongues, when humankind first learned how to speak – that it occurred to the Headman of Greivat Fastness that he was getting old. He stood on the bank of the Mistgel, which terraced the mountainside before it pooled at the feet of the fastness, and spoke with the Troi who lived in that stream, Wagmi of the weedy eyebrows.

At one point there was a long silence, until Emtash-ka-Zidzod said, loudly and testily, What are you trying to say? You fool Troi, if you don’t push breath out of those gills, I can’t hear you!

Wagmi shifted on his knob of rock in the middle of the stream, letting his hands, which were appended to weed-brown limbs as long as his legs, trail in the water. Any part of him that was in the water, which included most of his legs, disappeared in wavy, luminescent patterns. I don’t have gills – that’s a mouth, he said. And if you humans hadn’t invented tongues, you wouldn’t have any trouble understanding me. Your ancestors never did. You’ve lost control over the spirit in yourselves. You are all lips and wind these days.

Emtash brushed aside these accusations, massaging the back of his wrinkled neck with slate-gray fingers. His skin was all slate-gray, except an area over cheekbones and nose where a blue flush of youth still came and went. His own silver-blue eyes stared into the rock-brown, pooling eyes of the Troi.

Part of the difficulty, said Emtash, is just what you said. You were here when my ancestors were. I wasn’t. Things change for humans. They don’t for Troil.

Of course not. There isn’t a material bone in our bodies. Wagmi produced a rare, wide-mouth grin, displaying the toothless nothingness inside his head. It’s simply easier for spirit beings to communicate without all that buzzing of flesh. The Kairam have forgotten how to do it.

Emtash looked sour, yanking on a strand of blue-black beard. I’ll never understand why the Zem’l made Troil to live forever and gave humans nothing but 150 years.

The weed-fringes above the Troi’s eyes shot up, precipitating a shower of droplets into the air. A hundred and fifty? I thought 120 was a ripe old age for a human.

Well, it is. But I’ve heard of 150.

So that’s what’s bothering you. You’re feeling your age.

Emtash sighed, using his staff to prod a clump of green-starred ferns near the root of an ancient conifer. I’m 95. I like my grandchildren. I’d like to live a long time. Why do you suppose Ziraf allowed the Zem’l to botch the world so badly?

By making the Troil immortal and the rest of the world not? Wagmi threw up splayed hands, kicking his legs until the water churned into a mist around him. Out of the sun-glinted spray he burbled, Spite! Spite! For shame!

Nonsense! retorted Emtash. I’d just like to know why the Zem’l couldn’t at least have allowed us as long – as long as this tree here. It was already old when I was a boy and it’s still flourishing.

Wagmi’s head was materializing amid the cloud of droplets. Why don’t you ask one of the Zem’l?

Emtash’s jaw dropped. Summon a Zem?

Why not? They used to come around a lot. That’s another thing that the creation of humans spoiled. Ziraf’s Dreamers shun the world these days.

Emtash ignored the insult, or failed to hear it in the captivating novelty of the idea. I don’t know how to summon a Zem.

Can’t your priests in those little round houses up there do anything except put out curds for us Troil, who don’t eat?

They do much more than that, retorted Emtash, but I’ve never known one to summon a Zem.

Go down to the lake. The priests on Tin-Arul Island must be good for something besides brewing fern tea and exorcising Troil who don’t do a snail’s worth of harm.

A snail’s worth! But Emtash again waved aside Wagmi’s hectoring. You think the Zem’l come there?

Of course they come there! The Kairam were created on High Crown Island! Use your mind, friend man! – if there is any spirit left in it that hasn’t been blown away on words! And with a burst of froth the Troi kicked himself heels-over-head backward and disappeared.

* * *

Emtash thought as he ascended the mountainside, he thought as he passed the round-capped huts of his priests, and he was still thinking as he entered the walled garth of Greivat Fastness. The svina vines over the dead pines at the south end were covered with masses of golden blooms, and tiny dust birds fed on the nectar as half-naked children chased one another beneath the tangle. Emtash shaded his eyes to peer east, into the cloudless setting sun. It was high summer, and warm even in the mountains of the Crown, the highest of all mountains. He mopped his neck and went to pour a bucket of water over his head before dinner.

By the time he entered the hall, he had finished thinking. You’re late, said Zidzod-koi-Emtash accusingly as he sat down beside her on the floor of the dais.

Late! The hall is hardly half full! He surveyed the length of the oblong room, with its walls of irregular dark blocks, its cold fire trench, the holes in the walls where stones had been pushed out to admit light and a summer breeze. People, slate blue, with straight, blue-black hair and stocky, nimble bodies, were congregated in deceptively casual order up and down the hall, the eldest closest to the dais, the grandchildren and their children at the far end. The young ones were so tenderly blue that they glowed like sapphires in the patches of sunlight.

Emtash gave a growl of regret, looking at Zidzod’s drab gray hands as she poured pine beer out of a stoneware jug.

Have you been wasting your time with that Troi down in the Mistgel again? she said.

It’s not wasting time, woman. He gave me an idea.

Her glance was furtive but sharp. It always worries me when you talk to that Troi.

At that moment Emtash’s sister Verkoi, oldest blood member of the fastness after Emtash and so next in line to become its head, joined them on the dais and began to chatter with Zidzod. Emtash watched the hall fill up with five of his seven children and their offspring, with his dead brother’s four, his sister’s two, his uncle’s two grandsons. His father and uncle had founded Greivat Fastness 150 years ago after their own fastness on the other side of the Blackbone had been cursed by plague and those who survived had abandoned it. Now Greivat had nearly a hundred people – not a large settlement, but he liked it that way. It felt like a family, the way a fastness was supposed to feel. He looked at his youngest daughter as she went up and down the rows dishing up boiled mutton. She had been born like an afterthought, twenty years ago. In a couple of years she would come to marriageable age. With a sudden clutch of feeling he hoped her husband would want to live in Greivat Fastness – it wasn’t fair to lose his sky blossom to another hold. He hoped he would live long enough to see her with a husband.

He turned abruptly to Zidzod. Your nose, he said, is beginning to fall.

Startled, Zidzod put both hands over the midpoint of her face, as if to catch the errant appendage.

What a thing to say! cried Emtash’s sister.

I have an idea, said the Headman persistently.

I heard you, said his wife, hiding the offending member in her beer bowl, the first time.

You and I are going up to High Crown Island, to ask the Zem’l to make us live longer.

What? squeaked Verkoi, while Zidzod’s silver eyes opened until the thin blue slivers around the pupils widened.

Is that the idea Wagmi put in your head? she cried.

Why shouldn’t we? Are you in a hurry to leave all this? He swept his arm over the hall. You’re not so young any longer, either, Zid.

What presumption! cried Verkoi. Why, Harzem will seal you up in a rock for daring to presume such a thing!

Why in Ziraf’s name would I ask the Zem of Darkness? he exploded.

He is the one who controls death!

Oh, well … Emtash deflated a little. The priests will know which ones to ask. That isn’t the point. The point is – the Zem’l have never explained why humans were made mortal when the Troil weren’t. I can’t see any good reason why we have to be mortal.

How would you know anything about reasons? retorted Verkoi. "What do you know anything about, except hunting horol and planting chachab roots and putting back stones that fall off walls?"

Are you suggesting I’m stupid? rumbled Emtash.

And selfish, too, said Verkoi, a little catch in her voice. You’re going to ask for immortality only for Zid and yourself?

He was silent, scowling at the empty bowl before his crossed knees. Maybe I dare to do that. Maybe I don’t dare to ask for everyone. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t dare to ask at all. He stole a look at Zidzod.

She was pensively rubbing the bridge of her rather thin nose, and she met his eyes diffidently. It could be that it’s falling, she said. Then, It’s not such a terrible idea, Emtash. We haven’t been over to Tin-Arul for years. I wonder if the priests will laugh at us.

A grin broadened on his face and he turned triumphantly to his sister. But she looked so plaintive that he sobered.

Won’t you ask for me, too? I don’t want to leave this life, either, Emtash.

All right. All right, for you. But I can’t ask for everybody, Verk. It would be – be really too presumptuous. So don’t tell anyone about what we’re doing until we come back.

I hope you come back, she said, and she bent quickly over her bowl as her sweet-voiced, blue-flushing niece knelt to fill it for her.

* * *

A lofty peak rose in the center of Tin-Arul Island. If one pivoted on that vantage point, one could see nothing but even higher mountains. East, south, west, north lay the Arul – the slaty mountains of the Crown – holding in a tight oval the lake that absorbed the color of their blue-black cleavages. Many streams fed that lake, which at its southern point drained into the Cutrock Gorge. It was said that the mountains surrounding the lake were the points on the crown of a sleeping giant, while the lake was the silver matrix of the Crown. The peak in the middle of the island was the top of the giant’s head, from which it got its name, Ora Vakana.

At the lake’s north end rose Zhinthá – the glacier-seamed Starbell – the highest mountain in Ziraf’s world and the richest jewel in the Crown.

On this warm summer day an old man stood shivering on Tinlor, the highest point of Ora Vakana. His twisted hands clutched at the knobbed head of his staff as one lame leg faltered beneath him. His faded gray face was as seamed as the mountains around him; his eyelids dragged low to hood eyes that nevertheless were still vital, glinting more blue than silver. Those eyes were turned northward, past the low circle of storm-blasted stones where the Zem’l were wont to appear, toward the gleaming, complex heights of the Starbell. He had always meant to climb the Starbell. Now, each morning when he rose, he doubted that his legs could any longer bear him even to the top of the Giant’s Head.

Shivering harder, he gathered his woolen priest’s robe closer around him. It was summer, but he was cold. In two moon-weeks – 30 days – it would be autumn. In another 60, winter. The seasons were brief but passionate in Ziraf’s world. He did not know if he could face another winter. And Javon – Javon might not live to see the end of summer.

Abrupt thoughts scoring his mind, he turned for one last look at Zhinthá before he began the painful descent to the garth halfway down the mountainside. What point was there to his life? He had done nothing – finished nothing. The priests of High Crown had begun to count years 297 years ago. Every year at the end of winter, in a colony on the north side of the island, a stone was placed in a grooved trough of moonwood. He had joined the ritual there when he was 35 years old, guarding the stones and worshiping Nírazem the Motion-Dreamer. He had married a beautiful woman, sired four offspring; he had some power to call the Zem’l, to affect the perception of human minds. But his children were dead, his wife lay withering in their hut, the Zem’l were no longer consulted much, and illusion was empty. When a man learned one thing, a thousand other unknown things crowded around to taunt his erudition. There were a thousand mountains, and he had not even climbed the Starbell …

Gilzara! There you are!

Hiding his dismay, he stopped his halting descent of the path to confront Tiloi his serving woman. What is it? Javon …

No, Gilzara, she said softly. A man and woman have come to consult you. Svantov on the shore sent them up.

Why? he said, beginning to descend again.

They want to summon a Zem. She told them no priest could call them more easily than the Shrine-Guardian.

His mouth twisted in harsh irony. Svantov is right.

They came into the low-walled garth, with seven round-topped stone huts. Most had fallen into disrepair; the shrine had once demanded a guardian for each of the Zem’l, but of late two had seemed enough for all of them. Soon there would be only one …

Gilzara saw two people sitting on stones in the middle of the yard, the man looking unnaturally subdued, the woman openly fearful. They got hastily to their feet when they saw the old priest approaching.

I am Gilzara-ka-Javon, he said, fighting his shortness of breath. How may I serve you?

I am Emtash-ka-Zidzod, said the man, who was something beyond middle life in age. I am Headman of Greivat Fastness. He could not keep comfortable pride out of his voice. This is Zidzod, my wife.

Gilzara nodded indifferently. Sit down. I’ll join you, if you permit it. I am an old man who can no longer make a middling climb without needing rest.

He saw the couple glance expectantly at each other and Zidzod exclaimed, Oh, I’m sure, Lord Priest, that you will understand.

Gilzara pressed a hand to his midriff as his breath stabbed him. What request have you?

You see, Lord Gilzara, began Emtash, I was having this talk with a Troi – Wagmi, of the Mistgel – that’s a small river that runs past my fastness and down into the lake. Do you know where it is, lord? We get our water from … He stopped as Zidzod poked him with her elbow. Gilzara permitted himself a dour smile, agreeing with her assessment of her husband’s loquacity.

And it made me wonder, recommenced Emtash, why the Zem’l created the Troil to live forever and yet made humans mortal.

But that is easy enough to explain, replied Gilzara with a toneless indifference. The Troil are pure spirit and so are part of Ziraf’s endless, most essential dreaming, whereas humans take only a part of their nature from spirit. The rest is of grosser matter – stone, earth, water, light, all of which, even light itself, are subject to change – to decay, to darkness – to death. His voice had shifted at the end, deepened into a queer mourning.

Emtash was shaking his head. Wagmi said something like that. But what I wonder is this: The Zem’l can do anything they like, can’t they? And they’ve been known to do strange things when requested. What if one asked them for a longer life? Is there any chance they might grant it?

Shocked into attentiveness, Gilzara stared at his questioner from under drawn brows. What? Ask the Zem’l to alter their own laws? For whom? For yourselves? A laugh shuddered out of him. How old are you?

A little taken aback, Emtash said defensively, Well, I’m 95 and Zidzod is 93. I know that isn’t the oldest of the old, but it isn’t young, either. Look how her nose is falling. He stopped. Gilzara had heaved himself to his feet and turned away.

Then he turned back again. "Look at me, he hissed. I am 123."

After a moment, Zidzod whispered, All the more reason you can understand why we might wish for long life.

And restored youth, I take it, Gilzara replied witheringly.

Emtash cleared his throat, beginning to be embarrassed. Well, that would be nice. We have many grandchildren, you see, in the fastness …

And a little girl of our own, interrupted Zidzod with an eager smile, "who hasn’t yet made her koleina. We would so like to see them all grow up."

And my sister, too, who is three years younger than I – she made me promise to ask for her. But no one else, Lord Priest. We wouldn’t want to presume …

Do you know which Zem to call, Lord Gilzara? Because we didn’t. We thought it might make Harzem angry …

As their voices drifted on, Gilzara stood gripped in an unanticipated struggle, as if fighting a hard wind that had opened a rift to the sun in a very black cloud around him.

Ask the Zem’l for long life. Ask the Zem’l for – immortality …

For all his life he had striven to understand what made the world of Ziraf as it was, and for all his life that knowledge had eluded him. Never once had he asked the Zem’l for anything, using instead the gifts of Krozem that made humans superior to the animals, superior even to the Troil. But those gifts had not been enough; time had defeated them and left him in Harzem’s grip without even one hundredth part of the potential in him fully realized.

Even the trees live longer than we do, Emtash’s voice was saying plaintively.

And only one nut out of the thousand a pine produces makes a tree …

Gilzara raised a hand, hearing his own voice far-off through the blood singing in his ears. Enough. I understand what you want. I cannot summon the Zem’l to you in so important a matter; instead I will seek them out myself and lay your request before them.

You’ll do that for us? cried Zidzod.

Gilzara gripped his staff to conceal the trembling of his hands. Don’t be too hopeful. I can’t promise a favorable answer; the Zem’l are often unpredictable. But I can turn their wrath away from you; they will never harm the guardian of their shrine.

When – when will you ask them? quavered Emtash.

Tomorrow morning at sunrise. I must have time to meditate and to rest. Remember how old I am. Gilzara’s laugh broke on the words. He looked at the faces gazing up at him, open-mouthed, bewildered, innocent. Tiloi will see to your lodging for the night. Don’t be afraid. No Kairal have ever been harmed here on the ground where Lulzem shaped the Slate Men’s bones. And he turned to retreat into the hut he shared with Javon.

* * *

She lay as she always lay these days – a shrunken bundle in the heap of fur robes, racked continually by the palsy that was shaking the life out of her. Her face, the color of faded ash, turned slowly to Gilzara as he entered. But the fire burned in the fire bowl with a clear red-gold flame, unfueled, indomitable. Javon’s power was greater than his; she could summon and bind fire to her will.

He lowered himself to a stool beside her, reaching to touch the braid of ash-gray hair that lay upon her shoulder. Javon …

I heard what you said to them. My outer ear may be weakening, but the inner is still strong.

They want to ask for extended life, he whispered, kneading his hands together.

What made you lie to them, Gilzara?

Lie? He frowned upon her.

You can summon Krozem to them. You can let them ask for this boon themselves. The Zem’l will not harm a person making a courteous request, no matter how unusual. They are angered only by willfulness, Gilzara.

The angle of her eyes upon him, the twist of her voice, made him turn away and stretch out his hands to the fire. No. I want to consult Krozem alone first. I have to know what his answer might be.

First you told them you could shield them from the Zem’l’s wrath. Then you reminded them no Kaira has ever been harmed on this holy ground. If they were not so simple, they would see contradictions in your words.

Stop it! What evil have you ever known in me?

None. But I have known – one who could not endure defeat … Javon’s voice faltered and her breath caught in a whine.

He was at her side, kneeling, his touch pleading with her. Javon, what is it? If only I could help you …

Nothing. I’m tired. Just give me a little water to drink. And she began to drift away from him, into that world of half-dream that lies before the Cave of Death.

* * *

The climb in the predawn darkness took longer than Gilzara had anticipated and he arrived at the shrine as light was breaking, with barely a moment to recover his wind. Collapsing on his knees at the altar stone, he buried his sweating face in his hands, feeling the bite of the soundless dawn wind. He had scarcely slept that night and his thoughts were tumultuous, unshaped.

At last he lifted his head, looking west where the sun was rising over the black peak called Latwonas. Out of his eye’s corner he could see the glacial crown of the Starbell turning to fire. Already the circle of stones was emerging into light. He spread his arms. It was not difficult to summon a Zem out of the hidden realm. One had only to call, silently, with the mind. It was only an attunement of mind.

Slowly Krozem began to take shape within the ring of stones. He appeared always in human form, unlike the other Zem’l, who came frequently as fires or mists – shapes horrific and unpredictable. This time Krozem came robed with the dawn sun, blue-bodied as the fairest woman, with sky-colored hair. The sex of the Zem’l could shift; this time Krozem looked more female than Gilzara could ever recall. He swallowed the rising in his throat, remembering a youthful Javon.

Krozem seated himself gracefully on a stone. Gilzara, he said, with the voice of the created body. How can I serve you?

Lord Krozem … He stopped, steadied his voice. I come – with a question.

A question? Not a petition?

Gilzara moved uneasily. He was never sure how much the Zem’l knew of his intentions before he summoned them. "And a petition also. Lord Krozem, it is a question of –