Anastasia Szasz.
Anikelam, or visit to the junk dealer's shop
Prologue.
…Spring had already burst into the life of the Holy City several days ago. Everywhere, there were those extraordinary scents of spring—viscous, spicy, damp, filling everything around them…
At times, rains poured down upon the Holy City. Slanting, resilient streams widely and freely drenched the frozen earth, as though embodying the departure of the land and all the people living upon it from winter and from the death it carried within itself. This sap, flowing from the heavens, meant for all the inhabitants of the Holy Land, for the vast nation of the Sacred Empire, a transition to life, a transition from the impermanence of existence to eternity. For spring had always signified eternity…
The inhabitants of the Holy City, meeting one another in the streets, sincerely rejoiced in life. Life seemed beautiful to them. Their Empire seemed to them the best place on earth, their capital the most wondrous, and their Tsar the most just…
And every year, on the days of the solstice and the equinox, the old gods left their altars in order to answer with their grace the gifts brought to them by the mortal inhabitants of the Holy City…
And every year in spring the buds swelled, in summer the rye ripened in the fields, and in winter blizzards swept through and snow fell. It was an unchanging cycle. And the inhabitants of the Holy City believed that it would continue forever…
But the people did not know that in recent years it had become harder and harder for the old goddess of fertility to ride out from beneath the earth to the surface, toward the light, in her gilded chariot… The people did not know that the whirl of life had little time left to endure, that they had little time left to sing merry songs, little time left to give birth to and raise children…
And today, Grakhash too was walking through the streets of the Holy City, rejoicing in life. Grakhash was one of the warriors who had dedicated themselves to the Tsar. As a child, he had undergone the rite of initiation. It had been on a fine spring day just like this one. Grakhash involuntarily surrendered himself to memories…
…Do you agree to keep forever the oath of loyalty given today? — asked a voice from the darkness of the church.
“Forever… Forever… No, I don’t want to!!! But I must… I must…” Grakhash’s thoughts were tangled in his head. He understood that his parents had decided it so. Their Tsar was the fairest, the best ruler in the world. All the inhabitants of the Sacred Empire were certain of his infallibility. Grakhash did not believe in rituals, but, regardless of his faith and will, after this ceremony had been performed, his head began to ache every time the full moon came…
