Chapter 7
The people of Persia forgot their god, and worshipped only murder and sin. But then the virgin Tuche gave birth to a male child. Before the flood, even before Egypt's greatness, the world was divided into three main countries, named Javeth, Shem, and Erebinah.
There were other less populated lands and places. Europa in the west, Holesta in the north, and the two great lands of the far west, called north and south, Gotama. Now at the juncture of the borders of the three greatest countries lay a mighty city named Ous.
It was the capital city of the Arabian nation called Persia. Its temple of skulls was the greatest known to any traveler, but the temples built to the god Mazda and his son, Ehua Mazda, were empty and unadorned. The people had forgotten god. Soki, king of Ous, sent out his armies throughout Javeth, China, conquering and slaying, bringing
back ever more skulls for the Golgotha temples, more gold and more slaves for the enriching of king Soki. His harem was the greatest of buildings, of the mighty city, and his wives beyond man's ability to count. Tuche was one of the finest ornaments of the city of Ous.
Tuche was slim, her breasts were two mounds of magic, her eyes were pools of mystic green Her legs were subtle, sinuous beauty. But Tuche was a virgin, and in all that city of a million sinful souls she alone held aloof from the sins of the flesh. Which was very strange, for Tuche became big with child, though she had not been with a
man. Which came to the ears of Soki upon his great black throne supported on a tower of human skulls in his palace of Gran, across from the great Golgotha, which was built entirely of human skulls, the skulls of people conquered by the armies of Persia, over which the city of Ous reigned.
Soki shook his big belly under the lion's skin, let slip his serpent-skinned headdress, and let the battle-axe that was his symbol of office drop from his hand as he shook with mirth at the great and thumping lie told by Tuche. I suppose her child was fathered by Mazda, peering into her womb with his all-light. He laughed Soki, for in Ous it was not the fashion to worship the god Mazda any more.
The great skull temples had their priests and their sacrifices, but no more did people bow down in the temples of Mazda, or have anything but ridicule for those few who did still worship in the old way. His serpent-skinned headdress and battle-axe scepter, too, were relics from the past, just as the belief in Mazda, but more potent relics by far.
With them he was the sun-king, lord of battles, master of life and death, creator of the universe, lord of souls, maker of the law, etc. Without them he was just old Soki, getting fatter and more stupid every day. Bring this harlot before me to see if she can produce a miracle to prove her child is not a common one.
If she cannot, she will be stoned to death at once, do you hear? I have no time to be bothered with the lies of every sinning woman who seeks to hide her bastard's origin. Asha, the philosopher who had told his king of the birth of the child, nodded his head sadly and left the presence.
Why did kings have to get so blown up as to be inhuman? He sympathized with the girl and her predicament. If it had been his to say, he would have had the child proclaim divine a thousand times in preference to shedding one drop of her blood. But then he had seen Tuchy sauntering home from the well, with her water jug on her head
and her hips the focal point of all eyes in the street. Asha smiled and took his gray-headed, bent, unnoticed figure back down the streets to the house of Tuchy. As he went, he pondered gloomily on the fate of this great city under the heartless and ignorant Soki.
Surely, something dreadful would happen to Parseia, laying as it did at the juncture of the lands of the three-mindest kingdoms of the world. Japheth, China, Shem, Africa, and Erebenia. Any one of them could crush them. Did they get themselves organized for it?
And Soki preyed upon them all ruthlessly, knowing they could never stop warring interiorly long enough to attack him. Old Asha thought of the future, which his star studies were supposed to give him power to foretell, and of the great flood that was to come and wipe out all the old boundaries and nations.
He thought of the peculiar gray-blue sky, which the wise men had taught him bore up within its whirling self-vast oceans of water, waiting for the time to drop the whirling water-shell upon them all. He thought of Europa, the great land in the west, and all her peoples. He thought of Holest, that mighty and gracious land in the north, and all her beautiful and
strong and courageous people. And he thought of the two great lands of the far west, called North and South Guatama. And he was sad, for they were all to die in the great deluge to come. But the time was not yet come. Sadly he pushed among the stalwart copper-colored men of Ous, gazing a little wistfully at the
women's proud breasts and the strong young hues of their lovers beside them. If only he were young again, Asha sighed, and knocked upon the low, rude door of the house of Tuche. The smile of the beautiful Tuche made him welcome, very proud to have the wise man come from the court inquire after her child.
He worries me, wise Asha, said Tuche, moving slim and supple, as a panther to sit protectively beside the little cradle of bent ash boughs lashed together with strips of hide. He talks like a grown man, and him not yet weaned. Hmm! Old Asha looked down upon the over-large infant solemnly looking back at him.
She nearly fainted when the tiny red lips opened, and a strange, small voice, cultured and adult, said, I am not the child you see, but your god Mazda speaking through the child's lips. Asha pondered only for a moment, then turned in anger upon the woman Tuche. I pitted you, Harlad, because the king has ordered your death if you did not produce
a miracle. But I did not think you would hide a man behind the child's cradle to be fool me. Old Asha, what do you take me for? Tuche broke into tears, bending her graceful neck and sobbing to hear that the king had decreed death for her, but the peculiar voice came again from the child's mouth.
Take me in your arms, Asha. Feeling very foolish, but unable to refuse for some mysterious reason, Asha bent and picked up the child. O man, temper thy judgment with patience and wisdom. Asha knew now that it was the child's voice truly, and at last asked,
Why do you come in such a weak and helpless guise, O Lord Mazda? I had hoped to see a god appear in stronger shape. Nevertheless, through this helpless child in your arms, this city shall be overthrown, for self-made king of kings, and I shall deliver all the slaves and strike off all the bonds from the old time.
Mazda will have this city for his own, or it will be destroyed forever. Now Asha was filled with wonder and asked the babe of many obtruse things, receiving answers beyond his understanding. So at last convinced, he put the babe down, turned to Tuche. O woman maiden, who in my eyes is without fault?
I cannot go to my king and tell him one word of what this child has revealed, for I would only die with both of you as a liar and worse. You must take this child and hide him away from the eyes and the ears of the men of this city. You in your innocence do not understand the ways of kings and courts and warriors and
such things. Flee, for if you are here tomorrow, you will die and your child will die with you. Asha took himself out then, and made his way sadly along the crowded streets to his home. There he packed up a few belongings and left to go into hiding himself, for he knew better than try to tell Soki any such cock-and-bull story.
Yet if he went at all to Soki, he had to tell something, and either way someone would be doomed, if not himself. Tuche took up the babe and fled through the city by night to the home of one Kojan, a maker of songs. This man had long made love to her with his poetry and his voice from afar, and she knew
he would hide her and protect her. Her heart was in her throat, because she wondered if he would believe in her virtue now that she had had a child, or in her love for him when he felt that another had given her child when he had been denied the privilege. Slender and dark-eyed and handsome he stood in his doorway, looking upon this girl who
had come to him with her babe in her arms. A babe by another! His heart was hurt, tears came unbidden to his eyes as he turned and allowed her to enter. For a long time he could not speak, the shame and the hurt and pride and the strange new emotions in him not suffering him to talk.
At last he said, Tuche, I love you and I cannot deny you anything. If you put this shame upon me, I will bear it as my own. Consider this your home, and me as your slave. If I did not love you, I would not bear this, but I do.
Tuche saw the conflicting emotions upon his face, how his dark red lips struggled to remain firm, how his thin, wide nostrils trembled, how his eyes were wet with unshed tears, how his shoulders bowed as with a sudden burden. Oh, my dear Kajan, I have no other friend to whom I can turn, and that I thought of you, who has only loved me from afar, with your eyes and your soft, sad songs, should
tell you that I bring you no shame or insult. This is not the child of another man, for I have been with no man, ever. This is a child of the legends, a son of a god in the skies, our god Mazda. He is a miracle, as hard for me to believe as for you, but it is true. Tuche could not stand the unbelieving eyes of Kajan, who thought that Tuche lied, and
looked down at the sleeping babe in her arms, saying with a pitiful voice, Please, little stranger who talks like a wise man, wake and tell my Kajan that you are not the son of a man, but the son of one whom no maid could resist or run away from, ever. Tell him, little one. And Mazda heard Tuche imploring speech of her child, and made it to speak with his own
voice. Kajan, what my mother says is true. I am the child of the All Light, endowed with powers beyond ordinary men, to accomplish my lord's mysterious purposes here on earth. Do not hold my mother, the less for my birth.
Kajan sank slowly to his knees, realization stealing over him as he heard the adult words issue from the suckling babe's mouth. The unleashed tears began to pour from his eyes in relief, for he knew now that Tuche might not love him yet as she would when she learned love, but at least she had given herself to no other mortal man.
And the miracle of the child of a god there before him lighted up his face as his inward soul, so that he took up his flute and lifted his rich deep voice in a joyous song, the song of Zarathrusta. For the legend of their people had the name of the babe to come as Zarathrusta, and Kajan knew that its name was thus now.
Tuche dwelt for some time in the house of Kajan, and the songs of Kajan were circulated among the singers of the city, so that everyone knew he sheltered the child of the god Mazda in his home. The songs of Kajan came at last to the king's ears, and as one of the songs proclaimed Zarathustra as stronger in one finger than all the power of Soki, he led out a great
oath and sent his soldiers to find Tuche and the babe. But Kajan heard of the search. He took Tuche and her babe out of the gates in the night and went off into the forest and joined a band of Lystians, who are razors of goats and a fine, strong people. Now when the search failed to find the babe, Soki proclaimed that every male child of the
city, Ous, should be slain if the child was not found. And within a week Soki was sorry, because his own wife gave birth to a little son whose life was already forfeited by royal decree, unless Tuche and her child were found, and they were not to be found in all Parasaea. Asha, the old philosopher, who had been in hiding all this time, now came out of his
hole and went to the king to give him counsel. As Asha progressed through the city, mothers with male children in their arms on all sides were making their way through the streets to the gates to flee the city, for no decree of a king of Ous may be repealed, but is law for evermore. The king sat upon his throne of skulls, gnawing his nails off his fingers, for he had either
to slay his own son or say that a law once made by a king could be unmade. If he allowed the law to be thus abused even by himself, such was the nature of his people they would have no respect for him, and might even kill him for a fool who could not enforce his own decrees when they hurt him a little. So it was that when Asha presented himself before the king, Soki asked,
What shall I do, O Asha? My son has smiled in my face. Asha was prepared for this, and answered, Thou shalt send me and thy son and thy daughter's son and every male infant to the slaughter-pens, and have us all beheaded and cast into the fire.
Otherwise it will become true as the infant Zarathrusta prophesied. His hand will smite Ous City, and it will fall as a heap of straw. So the king appointed a day for the slaughter, and ninety thousand male infants were adjudged to death. Khojan, from the safety of the forest, made a scornful song about the tyrant of Ous who
went to war against babies, and it was sung everywhere in the city, and the king could do nothing about it, for it was cleverly worded, seeming to approve, though in satire only. When the day for the slaughter arrived, there were but a thousand appeared with their babes out of the ninety thousand adjudged to death, all the rest having fled to the forest as had Khojan.
The king saw an excuse in this to get out of killing his own son, and stood pondering how to escape his own decree. His wife, Betraj, came before him, holding out her son, saying, Here, O king, take thou thy flesh and blood, and prove the inexorable justice of the king's decrees.
But the king said, Let the officers go and collect all the others who have fled beyond the walls, and until are gathered here before me, no matter how long it takes, let the decree be suspended. Now the god Mazda moved the soldiers' minds to see their king had not the backbone to enforce his own decree when it hurt himself, and they, one and all, took up stones and
stoned the king to death. Asha, standing strip for the slaughter, was made king by the clamor of the men who stoned Soki to death. A great voice came out of the sky and announced to the people that God had given them a new and righteous ruler.
Asha bowed his head and accepted the task put upon him. The people gave thanks to Mazda the god, and Asha proclaimed him all to the city. Off in the forest, Tuche lifted her eyes to those of Khojan and thanked him for saving her son, and Khojan touched her with his fingertips and kissed her on the lips, and the child crowed lustily to see their love.
These two walked through the forest of the goats, Tuche bringing beauty like a spring breeze with her, and Khojan singing and touching his harp with magic fingers, so that joy and love walked before them, announcing them to the Listians, the people of the forest. When Zarathrusta, the infant child the woman bore in her arms, lifted up his piping voice and spoke to these rude wild people.
Their worship sprang into life, for surely these were gods come to them. And thus all the people gave up the worship of murder and became Zarathustrians. End of section 7.
