Greetings, friends!

This is something I've wanted to do for a while. And finally, I have begun. This is the result of my first couple of hours of translation from the Bulgarian original. A translation that turned into rewriting. Well, two years ago I was a different wannabe writer.

Here it begins...

What Is Not There — Part I

Long before the rays of the sun break over the horizon and touch the tops of the colossal fir trees, the woods echo with battle orders and warcries. Steel clashes on steel. Dying men and women shout their last. Just like any other morning of the last twenty-seven months since I’ve been watching the battle. And it always goes differently. The attacking hordes often change their strategy and so do the defenders of Kumono, the City in the Clouds.

I move stealthily among wet and slippery branches. Under the frost-covered wood floor. Between ice blocks, and snowdrifts, and rocks. I watch as Yamada’s squad is being pushed back on thin ice and scores of warriors are being dragged down into the deep by the weight of their equipment. They will remember those chilly deaths in their bones as long as they live. They shall not remember me being there below the frozen surface. A dark shape that moves away from attention.

I am Water.

…

It was the Month of the Summer Thaws in the Year of the Silver Fox, the sixty-fourth cycle since the founding of Kumono. It was the Day of Questions and Answers.

He stood in the middle of a round dais under the windowed dome of the Academy. Pilgrims came from all parts of the Hidden Empire to witness his words. Once in every four years. A chance to meet the legend, Vaeri Sorashindzo, the Philosopher-Emperor and Founder of Kumono, who still looked like an eleven-year-old boy. After almost a millennia.

Reflected daylight shone on his serious face as he was listening to a youth’s awed tone coming from the lower rows of the auditorium.

“Master, you are the only god I’ve been taught of during all my years. I do not understand. Why did you say it was time we learned how to defy the gods? Who are the others? Are you not one of them? And how can a mere mortal defy any god?”

The speaker looked about the age of fifteen, although he had no facial hair yet. That seemed typical for his phenotype. Like most of the audience members, his ancestors came from a specific part of world called Terra. Few among them knew that name and none knew exactly what it meant.

The Emperor’s voice was indeed one of an eleven-year-old, but also wise, and serious, and calm, and earnest.

“My life’s story, Tanaka-san, has already answered all of your questions. But it has been twisted so much by so many people telling it in their own way. This is only natural. And it is the reason I am here for you now.” The face of Vaeri Sorashindzo broke in a smile. And it was childish. And it was not childish at all. “I like those driven by curiosity. But you all must understand this — I can only guide your curiosity, I cannot satisfy it completely. In fact, it should never be completely satisfied. Because then it dies. It should live on. And this is how you defy the gods.”

“I think I understand that, Master,” said the youth in a youth’s confident way while not yet understanding. “But why defy? And whom? You, Master?”

“Well, maybe not me, Tanaka-san,” The Emperor was almost laughing now. “For I do not seek to control you. But there are those who do. There is a reason we call ourselves The Hidden Empire. And it is not because of the gas clouds that surround us.”

“Forgive me, Master, but we know that,” spoke an elderly person in long pale blue robe and with long white beard hanging almost to his waist. His face was somehow different than those of the people around him. His eyes were quite round. His skin was much darker. His nose arched in a strange way. “The legends we have still speak of you ridding our ancestors of tyrants and finding a safe place for us. Even though it is a harsh and unforgiving place. Our scientific efforts are mostly focused on...survival.”

“Ours, too, Master!” Loudly spoke a young female soldier with an obviously disciplined posture. “We’ve been dying over and over in combat simulations. It hurts sometimes. A lot. But none would abandon the training you assigned. Some wonder what’s it all for. And I can’t answer that, Master, other than you said we needed it.”

“Thank you, Senior Sylva and Captain Yamada! For your efforts and your trust. Trust me also when I tell you, that I’ve given you the best explanation possible. Nothing.”

“You want us to find out everything on our own, is that it, Master?” Asked the elderly senior Sylva while bowing respectfully and sitting back on the wooden bench he shared with his colleagues.

“I want you to find The Nothing.” Said Emperor Sorashindzo. “To see all that is not there. To ask the Universe the right questions yourselves. It is the only way to know yourselves, your environment, the rules that bind us. Or unbind us. You and me, we are not that different at our cores. Neither are those of whose godhood you must learn.”

A practice piece of Kumono painted in...coffee. It does not depict the settlement correctly. A fortified town stands where that lake is. You will see it soon, on another piece. If I can find the original, that is.

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Thank you for reading!

Yours,

Manol