*
What a pleasant thing it would be to be a knife, always eager to take the path of least resistance, always drawn to the weak points, falling though tendons and skin and rinds like a blade of grass swept downstream. The knife slips and slides, skids and curls, leaving piles of tiny scrolls of orange peels, lemon peels, melon rinds, like a mound of curling ticker tape. It saws slowly against flesh, parting vein and muscle, tendon and gristle, breaking the goat cutlet down until it no longer resembles any part of any living creature.
All you need is one good knife, and one good skillet, thinks Shara. With these simple tools one can create anything.
Shara lights a match, hunts for the gas jet. Flames bloom along the oven, caressing the skillet. She douses the skillet with oil, then grabs an onion.
“There were six of them, originally,” says Shara quietly. Her face flickers with the light of the gas flames. “Or at least six that made themselves known. Olvos, the light-bearer. Kolkan, the judge. Voortya, the warrior. Ahanas, the seed-sower. Jukov, the trickster, the starling shepherd. And Taalhavras, the builder.”
Mulaghesh clenches her right fist; her knuckles emit a chorus of cracks. “I know all this. Everyone knows this.”
“You know part of it,” says Shara. She stands before the ovens in the spacious embassy kitchens, which once catered to numerous social events before Troonyi oversaw the embassy’s decline. Mulaghesh and Sigrud sit at the servants’ table producing a small cloud of smoke, Mulaghesh with her cigarillo, Sigrud with his pipe; Pitry runs back and forth from the pantry, bringing more vegetables, spices, salted meats. “There’s a lot of it that is not taught. The Worldly Regulations might demand silence from the Continent on this subject, but there are just as many strictures about it in Saypur. Historians are permitted to publish some discoveries; others are filed away to be forgotten. Especially when it comes to the Ancients, the Most Heavenly, the Divine. All six of them sprang to life on the Continent—how long ago, no one is quite sure—all six of them built their domains here, and all six of them fought like cats and dogs for what we estimate to be over five hundred years.”
“I didn’t know they fought,” says Mulaghesh. “I thought they were allies.”
Shara’s knife makes a seam on the onion’s skin; she plucks at it, peels it back, and tosses the glossy outer layer away. “They were, eventually. But at first they fought like mad, for territory, followers, anything. But sometime in the early 700s they chose to stop fighting, and unite. Shortly after, they chose to expand. Rapidly expand. This would be the beginning of the Continental Golden Age, and the beginning of Saypur’s slavery to the Continent. Of which we know much, of course, though we would prefer otherwise.” She pulls out a cutting board, tests its flex, and slaps it on the counter. “But imagine the Continent like a pie—for it is roughly circular—with six pieces cut. And there, at the center, the spoke of the wheel …”
“Bulikov,” says Sigrud. The word is a wad of smoke from his lips.
“Yes,” says Shara. She splits the onion, slaps one half down on the cutting board, and grips it hard enough that its tiny veins bleed white. The knife makes a staccato clattering; there is a wave of white blocks, and the onion appears to disintegrate. “The Seat of the World. No one’s city, and everyone’s city, established when they chose to unite. After all, each Divinity had their own city. Kolkashtan for Kolkan, Taalvashtan for Taalhavras, Ahanashtan for Ahanas, Jukoshtan for Jukov, and Voortyashtan for Voortya. So Bulikov was meant to belong to everyone.”
“But you only listed five,” says Pitry from behind a small mountain of celery.
“That’s true. Olvos did have a city, once. But she abandoned the Continent just after the Divinities opted to unite. And when she left, her followers deserted her city. They left it to be claimed, one historian recorded, by ash and dust. No one even knows where it was.”
“Why did she leave?” asks Mulaghesh.
“No one quite knows. Maybe she just wasn’t a sociable Divinity. Maybe she disagreed with something. Maybe she did not wish to take part in the Great Expansion, when the Continent would conquer almost all the known world. Whatever the reason, she has faded from history: the last time anyone saw or spoke to Olvos was in 775.”