That's it then...

That’s it then.

A few more hours, and I will be done.

As the sky lights up with hundreds of sky lamps to welcome the New Year, I will set out for a world of my own. And that will be the whole World. Vast and wide. Free and liberating. There will be no more stopping me.

Esai will have to let me go. He will have to find someone else for his games and tricks. I will no longer be here for his arguments and squabbles.

I will miss our friendship. But priorities matter.

The Empire is his priority. My liberty is mine.

But before that moment arrives, I will have to complete the murals on the mighty Ergaczar Wall that have spread over miles and years, telling the story of the Emperor, his father, and his father, and so on.

For the last ten years, my father and hundreds of sculptors under him are sculpting the murals. And that is the rule of the World. You have to tell your own story; otherwise, no one else will. Or you will have to create something story-worthy. That is what these murals are. As per Esai, “a story-worthy story-telling by the mighty Emperor of Ergaczar.”

And for the last ten years, I have known him. Esai, the Prince who loves to be the boy-next-door, plays with the stone mason’s children and is friends with a petty sculptor. He has become a sculptor himself too and quite a proficient one as per my critical father.

“Do you think anybody will remember you, Yumi?” Esai asks me often. “You are immortalizing my ancestors, but what about you and your people?”

“I am earning a living, Esai! And maybe an escape route,” I say. “And they are too. But no escape route for them. They are bound to this society by the love and responsibility they have taken up.”

“Is it bad? Love and responsibility?”

“No. But I want to be free.”

“Don’t you love anyone?” Esai asks.

“I do. But I love the impossible more. The unattainable, massive, and daunting. Don’t you think there’s a romanticism in this? I will chase and chase and never achieve. The adventure of it is exhilarating, isn’t it?”

“What if you get tired of the chase one day?”

“That’s the whole point. I’ll not.”

“You can’t be so sure. Okay, what if what you consider as unattainable is actually not? You will lose your love?”

“Maybe I’ll fall in a different kind of love with it,” I say, winking. “Let me work, Esai. You go back to your high palace.”

“Who told you I want to go back there?”

And Esai will lend a hand here and there. Many a day, we will bicker over a pattern or an expression on the Emperor’s face. If people remember the Emperor for commissioning these mammoth murals, they should remember Esai for his ideas and inputs. But he is not the telling-his-own-story type. He is carefree, not bothering about these worldly matters. I sometimes feel how tied down he must be feeling, being burdened with his royal responsibilities. But he rarely lets the inner turmoil out.

I am going to miss this free-spirited captive soul.

“You know, the Emperor may choose to hold you back if the mural is not completed by midnight!”

Esai’s words yank me back to the present. I turn around to find his smiling face, but the smile looks different. The twinkle is missing. And it has been missing for the past few days.

“Anything happened?” I ask frowning.

“I came to remind you that most of the others have completed the final polishing. They are cleaning up now. And you are still chipping away. What are you up to?”

“Nothing.” I deadpan. I will not let him know that I will slip in a little tribute to the Prince, who will always choose to be in the shadows, letting his father and brother shine. “I’m almost done. Don’t you have the sky lamps to arrange? Go, help Prince Derrel. I’ll join you soon.”

“Will you be ordering me now?”

I roll my eyes. But I feel something is not alright again. Esai never sweet-talks, but he is not this curt either. I wonder if it is him adjusting to the fact that I will be gone. I know he will never voice it.

I am grateful that Esai lets me call him by his name. And that does make me sometimes forget that we are worlds apart. He is a Prince. Glorious and loved by all. And I am a stone sculptor, dusty and preferring the shadows more than the limelight.

“You go and get some fresh air. You are stuck here since morning. I’ll finish it off for you,” Esai says. Being a sculptor, an artist, he can finish my work very well, but I am on a different mission today.

“No. Don’t you dare to touch it! I’ll not get time to remedy any flaws. Not today. I barely have a few more hours to finish this off.”

“I’ll stay back to give you company then. Derrel doesn’t need my help with the ceremony. He has a hundred others.” He sits on a rock piece nearby.

“I need to concentrate here, Esai. Please go away.”

He stays silent. When I look at him, he smiles, “You are in so much hurry to lose me! It’s not that easy to do that, you know.”

I suddenly realize that it is just a few more hours, and I will be gone, probably to never meet him again. Or maybe we will meet years later when he will have a family, and I will be the lonely wanderer. Perhaps I will have a companion too, though most likely not. Maybe one day, when I walk by this mural, which will have grown many miles more, telling more stories, Esai will not recognize me at all. I will be rugged, sun-burnt, and wrinkled by the touch of nature and weather, and he will be the warrior prince, his softer sides chiseled away by the wars and responsibilities of being the Emperor’s general and brother. But somehow, I get a feeling that he will never forget me. Suddenly I feel a void in my chest as if my heart has gone missing. Am I going to miss him that much? I steal a gaze at Esai. I can never let him know this. Or he will poke fun at me no matter what he feels.

So, I say, “As if you would come away and travel the world with me if I asked!”

He stays silent.

“See. It’s easy to lose you,” I say, shaking my head. “Let me work, Esai. And I don’t want to get my father in trouble because of my incapacity.”

He opens his mouth to say something, but an attendant arrives and announces, “Your Highness, the Emperor has summoned you.”

“Now?” Esai frowns.

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“I will come.”

“Come away with me now, Your Highness. The Emperor is waiting.”

Esai leaves, sighing. The Emperor dots on his younger son and that makes things more difficult for Esai, I understand. Parental love tagged with hopes and expectations can do that sometimes. I know how it feels to get caught in the crossway of love for the parents and own dreams to set out for. My father has stopped talking to me since I expressed my desire to give up my family trade to tread the World. All the explaining that seeing the World will make me gain experience and widen my horizons has not helped. I know he is more hurt than angry. And that makes my departure even more difficult. Finally, after I promised him a week back that I will return home eventually, he half-nodded in some semblance of consent.

Esai will never fly, I understand.

I get back to my chipping, sculpting out tiny figures of him in various stages of sculpting, toiling, washing, designing, sword-fighting, bickering with me. I add a little of myself too.

When the realization came, about a week back, that I will be gone, probably forever, I felt this urge to pay Esai a tribute for his friendship, for treating me with dignity, for keeping me real. And for being able to see the real me beyond my rough, calloused hands, dusty features, and not so girly attributes and disposition.

As my few friends and I chisel away frantically, adding little humans to my murals, the seniors push us as the moment is fast approaching. When the Belltower gongs to announce the New Year’s arrival, the Emperor will unveil the murals set on the wall. We work our chisels fast while a frenzy of activities goes on around us.

“The red lamps are up! Just another hour to go,” Renai whispers to us.

I avoid looking up in the sky and go on smoothening Esai’s stone face and robes. He is sculpting his father in this one, and there is a tiny me beside him. This one is close to my heart, and I want to get this done.

Renai places a hand on my shoulder and whispers, “You can leave the polishing part for us. We can do it after the unveiling is over. Nobody will notice the little rough edges in the chaos of ceremonial activities.”

I shake my head. “I will not be here.”

She nods, understanding.

I move on to the next and the final mural, oblivious of the surrounding. The time has developed wings, it seems. And I keep chasing behind, unable to catch it. I start to feel why Esai says chasing can get exhausting. But I am not wrong either. Chasing has its excitements too.

I suddenly realize Esai has been gone for hours. As I go on polishing his stone robes, I keep hoping that it is just him handling that his friend will be gone, and nothing more. Then I slowly remove Esai’s thoughts from my mind. I try to. I have to stop worrying. I will be gone soon, and I cannot keep doing this.

“Yumi, daughter of Yohannan! How dare you deface my murals!”

The thundering voice makes a riffler fall from my hand and almost hit my toe.

I turn around to find the Emperor and the crown prince and their entourage standing there. I immediately bow down before the Emperor, so do my friends and my father and my seniors. My heart starts beating fast, and my ears feel hot. Something wrong has happened.

“How dare you change the angels for humans! The murals will be cursed, and the wall of Ergaczar will crumble down!” the Royal Priest roars.

I get dumbfounded by the absurd superstition.

I find myself saying, “Your highness, I haven’t changed the angels. I have sculpted faces for the workers at the bottom. And they’re Prince Esai’s face, as a tribute for the help he has done to us.”

I see something shift in the Emperor’s face. A doubt. A hesitance. Did someone provide him with the wrong information?

“Who permitted you? The designs were approved and sanctioned by the Emperor and the priests! What if misfortune befalls the Empire?” the royal Priest roars.

My mouth falls open. I look from the Priest to the Emperor to the Crown Prince. Adding my little figurines was wrong, but sculptors of all ages have done this to slip in a bit of individuality to their works. And he is making it sound like a matter of national calamity. My logical brain fails to accept this.

I sputter out, “Honorable Priest, how can Prince Esai’s face bring misfortune to the Empire? Doesn’t everyone love him? Doesn’t he always have the Empire’s welfare in his heart?”

Two things happen at a time. My father slaps me straight across the face, uttering, “Stay quiet, foolish child!” And the Royal Priest roars again, “Prince Esai is cursed. His mother, the Queen, had died at childbirth, and the King never had a child again! He is not allowed in any auspicious ceremonies ever!”

I remember how I have never seen Esai at the temples and mass prayers ever. I have always thought he is an atheist, a modern thinker who believes in man’s power more than the Gods’, which made me believe in myself. I never thought he is considered cursed.

The puzzle pieces fall into place now. That is why Esai stays away from the palace, away from people who judge him, blame him for crimes he did not do, and make his life hell. That is why he does not want to light the sky lamps!

A wail chokes up my throat, but I do not let the tears roll out. I remember how Esai always tells me, “Don’t ever let anybody see your hurt. Save it for the few who care.”

Everything makes sense now.

I was taking his friend away from him today. He acted rude to appear strong. And that lonely soul could not even tell me that he was missing his friend, exactly how I did not say to him that I missed him already.

I look around to search for him. I know well that he will not be here for the ceremony. All through the years, he has appeared after the sky lamps have floated up in the sky.

“Your Highness, punish the sinner. Maybe on this auspicious day, the Gods will be kind enough to pardon us! Punish the sinner strictly!” the Priest says.

I start laughing. Punishing a petty sculptor is enough to please the Gods who never created the rules, who never came down to look at the designs?

As I laugh, I see the dilemma in the Emperor’s face.

“Cut her hands off,” the Priest orders, finding the Emperor silent.

“Stop! Don’t punish the sculptors! My Emperor, if anyone has to be punished, it should be the one who gave the orders. All my ancestors, my father, and my brother are there in the murals. I got greedy. I wanted my face there too! I ordered them to do it. So, punish me!”

“Prince Esai! Why are you here?” the Priest gasps.

I wriggle out of my father’s grasp and blurt out, “No, he did not! Prince Esai did not even know. Neither does my father know. It’s all my doing. I defied the order. Take my hands, my Emperor. If anybody is the sinner here, it’s me.”

The Belltower gongs announcing the midnight and the beginning of a new year, but today no sky lamp illuminates the sky. The World stays dark today to mourn the extermination of logic, creativity, and free-thinking.

My heart goes numb, thinking how foolish I have been and how petty someone has been to have informed the Priest about the sculptures. A brave commoner, a confident woman, an open mind is always dangerous for those in power. If subjects start thinking and questioning the royal and temple decrees, the throne and the unscrupulous temple will start shaking. Not every Emperor has the ability to face valiant hearts and challenging questions.

“What nonsense! Do you believe a petty sculptor dares to commit such a crime?” Esai shouts.

“Silence!” The Emperor’s voice booms. Finally, I see a determination in The Emperor’s eyes.

“I see a lot of people guilty here. Yohannan, you are guilty of not supervising your subordinates well. It makes you inefficient, and I will remove you from the post of Royal Sculptor. But you have done some amazing works for the Empire, so I will allow you to stay in the Capital.”

My father bowed down to the Emperor accepting his punishment.

“Yumi, you are guilty of defying the royal order, which is a grave offense, and it equals rebellion and conspiracy. I could give you capital punishment, but I will give you a chance for your dedication and young age. You should get an opportunity to learn from your mistake. I evict you from the Empire. You will never cross the walls back. If you are ever found, I will have to take your thumbs away.”

My numb mind cannot process anything anymore. I think that it is what I always wanted, to go away. How is this even a punishment?

“Prince Esai, you lied to the Emperor. It makes you equally guilty as Yumi. Your punishment is the same too. I banish you to the Kainer province, beyond the Northern wall. That Province is afflicted by arid land and savage tribes. Make it livable, rulable. I may consider pardoning you.”

Esai’s punishment brings me back to my senses. He will be serving banishment for a mistake that he did not commit and a lie he told to save a friend. It sounds unfair, wrong. But before I can say anything, Esai bows to the Emperor and leaves, never turning back.

“As for the altered murals, they will stay. The wall is not part of our Empire. It is the boundary. I don’t consider that the face of an unfortunate boy will bring the wall down. If it does, we will rebuild it.”

With that, the Emperor and his entourage leave. And I feel proud of him for the first time this evening. I perceive the pain he is feeling for banishing his motherless, unfortunate, beloved boy.

I smile, thinking that people will see the murals over the ages and witness how superstitions were defeated this day.

So, that’s it then.

Bidding farewell to my friends and family, I cross over the walls to never cross it back again and set out for the unknown. And there I meet Esai at the crossroads. He is on his horseback, setting out to conquer an arid land in the North, and I set out to the West to explore the vast World.

We bow to each other. We both know we are beyond boundaries now. And that we will definitely meet again one day.