GODS AT THE CENTRE ( EDITING)

CHAPTER XII, IKAN: SEEING THE PAST THROUGH SMOKE

Ikan took a long draw. His eyes were closed in concentration. Then he puffed. A cloud of smoke ushered  from his mouth, rising with serpentine grace, filling his world. Ease and comfort that was what he needed.

He watched satisfactorily as wisps  of smoke curled above his lacquered white clay pipe, climbing with a slow elegance to the   panelled  ceiling of his wide  chambers.

He winced slightly as his  grandson sputtered  over the passage he was reading out loud.

The boy read the old Alamarian text in a way that reminded him of his first time seeing an Andorian new to the City trying to speak Alamarian. A  dog trying to meow would have done better.

He sighed as his grandson continued to murder and mutilate the story from the book. He hesitated and mumbled every now and then.

"Á...meri... Alamaria?"

"No,"  he interrupted the boy who looked up to him with tired eyes.
" It's meRI not MEri. One is Old Alamarian for victory. The other is just plain nonsense. Doesn't that  talkative tutor of yours teach you Old Alamarian?"

The boy shrugged his shoulders, batting his long lashes, before stifling a yawn.

He's handsome, no pretty is the word, like a girl. 

He took after his Hond mother. He probably had her wits as well.

Although, he has his father's complexion, my complexion.

"Grandfather, papa told my tutor not to teach me old Alamarian. He said it is a waste of time to learn a dead language. That it is of no use to a noble born of the house of Vona. Only scholars who had nothing better to do and priests in rite may  bother with it."

He sounds girly too! I had a louder voice at ten.

"Did your father also tell you that Old Alamarian was the language of the kings of old. It was in those words that Arin sang. In those words, our first scribes wrote. Our name is of old too.

"Even that tutor of yours. He should know better than that silly  father of yours who couldn't read a line of old Alamarian in his day.  A story is best told in the tongue that it happened. It captures the very essence of it. Hah!"

He exclaimed, exasperated. He and took a whiff  and puffed again.

"Grandfather?" He asked smiling shyly.  Is he blushing?

"Can I read it to you in proper Alamarian?"

Proper Alamarian?  Does that make Old Alamarian improper? Scholars have a lot to answer for.

"Fine!" He waved his hand. "There's a tome of "King Arin" up the shelf, be careful not to knock off the expensive jade vase next to it. He pointed. "The book was translated into "proper" Alamarian by the pretentious Kuzie Dim . He was dishonest in many of his works, but in that his lies are hardly visible. It's fairly endurable."

The boy leaped off his seat as delicately as the butterflies motifs on his blue luanzi.

The boy found the big book, returned to his   stool next to Ikan's  arm chair and began to read as soon as he found the text.

Ikan watched the smoke dance in the air, clouding the ceiling,  spreading to the  bright mosaicked walls. Some  lazily sailed  out through the open door to his right,  leading to a balcony.

He stared at his smoking dark reflection on his night marble floor. His pipe's mouth glowered like a red eye on the marble.

I'm the King of  smoke.