i.
We are all given many names. Among my people, the first name of our childhood is called the “name given.” There are names beyond this, but they are not gifts. The name received when a boy becomes a man, this name must be earned. I was given my name Rethi and earned my name A’sesh, but I have been called many other names in my time.
When I was a young man, I was given the name Ceyan: “One who yearns to see.” In the oases there are old men who we call sages, for like the sage brush the Valdashi, these men have learned to thrive in the desert. My most known sage was Soruna Demsi, and he fed me each day with wisdom and knowledge of the world beyond our oasis. I asked him questions again and again, for I was hungered to know more about the world beyond the sands. One day he told me he had spoken all he knew. All else I could know must be seen with my own eyes.
When I walked the old paths to the oases of my people, I carried the name “Ceyan,” which Soruna Demsi gave to me. When I had walked to Berelani, the oasis of sunrise found on the far east of the sands, I did not stop. I walked further and further. I walked until I could hear the ocean and set my feet into sands as white as alabaster dust.
When I sailed from Horrun to Tilyun to Dambria to Seam, working along a score of other hired men, they gave me the name Bird, because I spent my days in the high reaches of the mast, lingering there in the straw that was packed inside the wood-plank nest. I would stay there with legs dangling into the open air as my eyes searched the horizon. I called out to the other men when I saw land or strange ships or watery beasts, but my eyes were not searching for these. My eyes were searching for the god who lingered on the horizon.
In the land of my people, we call this only God, but the western strangers call our God Multadae. The God of Multitude. Our God is the one who is many. Our God is the many who is one. He has no faces and no avatars. He is Light, as the western God is, but he is also the Darkness. Our sages tell us many things about God. They tell us he is found in all places, but like a shadow is to flame, so God is to our sight: The nearer we draw to seeing, the further God will fly.
So I looked to the horizon, hoping to see the God of my people. I did not find him on the way to the western Seam, but as we crossed the western ocean he came to greet me. It was twilight and fire, the suns catching the clouds to blazing even as the horizon turned its dusty violet. The storm came on so fast that the clouds seem to be carried forth by great, unseen spiders that drew this web across the sky. The storm was salt and thunder, the world splitting open overhead again and again as our boat spun upon the churning waters. High above the screaming crew, holding tight to the mast as I hid within the crow’s nest, I was blind but for pure light and pure dark. In that turn of the glass, I saw God.
When our vessel came ashore, we were all drenched through and quiet to the last man. We had lost a mighty portion of our merchandise. My own wealth, which was but little at that time, had been drowned to nothing. We could find little gratitude for an ocean that had delivered us only after such a tumult. Yet our captain visited a wayside shrine to the western Goddess of the Ocean and gave a fifth of all that the ship still carried. “We own nothing,” said the merchant captain when I questioned. “All is given. All is grace.”
When I told him that I had nothing left to my being but my name, he gave me the name “Su’fandi.” He told me that my loss gave me a rare wealth. That silver and jewels could be lost, but names could only be forgotten. He told me to remember that I was but an instrument through which the world played and a chamber that the world could fill: Su’fandi, he gave me. “Empty vessel.”
As I first journeyed from Eilos along the Verisvick river, I carried a great pack for a man whose horse had grown weary and could no longer bear the load. He let me keep the pack and gave me a few silver as well. With what little fee he could offer, I bought goods in the city that the people along the Verisvick had a great want for.
When I journeyed with companions met on the road, they saw my pack and called me “Mule.” They laughed at my stubborn will to carry the pack on and on, to always journey one town further along on the road. I gained but little coin, though what I came to learn of the people and the paths was a wealth that cannot be purchased.
Back and forth along the Verisvick I went, and never did I refuse one who would travel with me. “Strangers can only be met once,” are words often spoken among my people. Each stranger becomes something new upon meeting. So I came to know many good souls and some others who had a dark fire that frightened and called to the primal elements within me.
When I once helped a man on the Pilgrim’s Road, I was called “Light-Sent.” He moaned, holding to himself in a ditch, and my fellow travelers simply looked ahead. Their silence told me a story that I did not care to hear. I found the man and brought him into our company, though my fellow travelers told me that injured men have enemies and this man’s enemies could become our own. I fed and clothed the man and gave him a chain forged of silver links, though my fellow travelers told me that neither gods nor men would repay me for my kindness to a lowly creature. “You are Light-Sent,” the man told me. I told him, “All that we have is given.”
When I learned who the man was, I was called “Kray-Brother.” The injured man was named Barrias, second son of the House of Kray. When we returned to the east, Barrias told me that he had hidden his identity lest it put us in danger or cause some lesser men to hold him for ransom. Yet Barrias told me I had earned a ransom that would be paid. He gave me gifts of silver and of gold and gave me an amulet of the House of Kray. He told me I was brother to him and that, should I ever have the need, the House of Kray would aid me, for I was one of them.
With this coin, I bought a wagon and two horses. For seven years I went from Eilos to Kolmas and back again. As my wealth grew, I added wagons and horses to my command. I came to hire boats to bring my goods from Kolmas to Cheyvelrus. I came to hire men at arms to guard my goods as the roads became endangered by bandits who called to the stories of the Shadow Dragon. I came to be a man of power, but my greatest wealth has come as knowledge. I have come to learn the names of many, and I have fought to not forget them. I have come to learn the western gods, and try to see in them the many faces of the world. I have come to learn of many places and many sights, but each day I remember the day I saw God as I held to the mast and knew the world only in light and in darkness. I am a stranger to many, but can only be a stranger once.
As to my name, it is multitude. I am Kray-Brother Light-Sent Mule Su’Fandi Bird Ceyan A’sesh Rethi. There are many among my people who are known to fiercely demand you call them by the names they have earned. Yet call me Rethi, though it is my given name. Call me Rethi, for all we have is given.
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