The Gardener of Nahi

Chapter 2

Nahi

Last night after finishing writing, I must admit a sense of fear came over me. I quickly rolled up the parchments and tucked them into a drawer before retiring, as if they were ghosts that needed to be locked up, else they float away. Even this morning I was anxious, that perhaps out of disbelief I would eventually throw these sheets into the immense fireplace which seems to swallow up half my room. But after reading yesterday’s entry just now I surprised myself by sitting back with a smile of accomplishment across my face.

Chaliani was right after all.

It’s almost as if putting these memories down makes them real. They’ve been rattling around in my mind for days upon days until I no longer knew when they occurred (or more importantly if they occurred), but now that I see these words again, the doubt vanishes. I remember now. I know what happened.

Like everything else here on Nahi, the solution to my problem was a simple one, but not what I had expected. Considering my other resent issues (albeit none of them as serious as the struggles with my memory), I should have expected this.

For instance, there are no screens on the windows of my room. They are open to the tropical air, and even when the shutters are closed, the narrow gaps between them do not keep out the insects. At best they are a nuisance. At worst, they may carry some dreadful disease which I have no immunity to (in the dizzying chase through which I somehow came to this world, bio-acclimation was not an option).

I asked Chaliani what could be done about the insects, expecting screens to be installed, or some other device. Instead, he gave me a large bird which hangs upside down on the chandelier above me and is the color of the outside sky at all times. I asked him if the creature feeds on humans. Chaliani said yes, but that he is trained not to.

As for the cold - it does get surprisingly frigid up here at night and the rain has not ended. We are high up in the palace, overlooking the coastal city down below. The fireplace helps, but it seems wasteful to let it burn all night, being tended by silent servants who come and go like shadows.

I explained my reasoning to Chaliani, asking him if there was a better way. Warmer blankets would be fine, I said. Some furs, perhaps.

Instead, the next night a woman is sent to my bed. If the earlier servants were skilled in the art of fire-making, this woman was as well but in a different way. And the first thing I asked her was that she not tell me her name, but answer to Myria instead.

After three days with her, I could not bear it any longer. The more I wanted her to be the woman I remembered, the more I knew she wasn’t. And the warmth that was made between us became sickly, like the sweat after a fever breaks.

No, the cold is better.

It was only a few days ago that I spoke to Chaliani about the most troubling problem of all, and as usual the solution was a direct one.

An array of servants came in, carrying this desk which I write on now. An ornate piece of art it certainly is - gold inlay in the patterns of a fisherman’s net on its surface. Next was a tome so large that Chaliani struggled under its weight as he carried it in. Leather bound and filled with countless hand-painted drawings, "The Book of the Intercessors," it is called. Apparently it is a collection of stories – dreams of the high priests here.

Chaliani had carefully sat it down on my new desk and opened it up to a story about a gardener who loses his past. "Read it tonight," he told me, a finger resting lightly on the immaculate script. "And when you’re done, open your desk drawer."

Since I had not slept for days and seldom left my room at all I had no excuse not to do as he told. As I read the dream of the gardener, I could not help but envision myself in that poor man’s body, sinking under the weight of his own confusion. The elusive girl, only a shadow on the horizon, I see as Myria – a woman I had known for only a handful of cherished hours yet crossed impossible distances with.

In the drawer was a roll of blank parchments, a sharpened quill, and a bottle of ink.