Jilayda woke up early that morning, to go search for a hero.
She loaded her donkey with water flasks, sacks of lentils, a basket of apricots, and a woolen rug. This was all she owned, all they had left her. Leading the donkey on a rope, she began to walk down the path, through the field of dead thorns she would hide in so often. The dirt was hot, but her feet were callused. Dust rose from between her toes. Locusts buzzed around her, and the sun baked her black hair so hot it hurt to touch. Never did she look back at her hovel. Nothing was left for her there, only memories too beautiful to recall.
Squinting against the blinding sun, Jilayda raised her eyes, and in the vast, bleached sky she saw the flying chariots. She looked down again. She did not like to see these things of the Fayons. They had come for her husband in such a chariot, had come for her sons. They had come for all the men of this dry, troubled land she called Kesaya and they called Planet Thirty Four.
“You have taken my husband,” Jilayda whispered with cracked lips. “You have taken my sons. But you have not taken him. Cansom.”
That last word Jilayda did not say aloud, only shaped her lips around it, feeling the silent, mystical syllables. Him, Cansom. The Leader.
Jilayda blinked, clearing her eyes of tears. Moisture was life in these summer days, especially since the Fayons had taken the wells, and allowed each person but a gourd of water a day. Jilayda took her tears on her fingers and sucked them, bringing them back into herself, as if she could bring back her old life.
At noon she stopped under an olive tree, and drank some water, and ate some apricots. She was so hungry, and there was so little food. She slept till afternoon, then walked all night until noon the next day. She knew the way. Her husband had whispered of this place to her, had told her where to go should the chariots take him. And Jilayda had remembered. She walked through the fields of yellow grass, hidden between the tall blades. For seven days she walked before she came to the old ruins.
This used to be a proud town, she knew, a place of stone temples and wide squares, a town of trade and culture. Then Opola of the Fayons had come, had landed with his greed and cruelty, and had brought these towns to ruin, like he had done to Jilayda’s life. But today, here in these ruins, their hope dwelled. Him. The Leader, the Hero. The man who made Jilayda shed tears again, even in the heat.
Before Cansom they had lived like mice, oppressed, tortured, killed. For years they had given their sons to be slaves on Fayon. For years they had suffered with no hope of ever defeating the flying chariots and shooting sticks. And then he came. Rising from a village of loggers, he was the first man to say no, to resist. When Opola killed his family, Cansom raised Kesaya in rebellion, and with his miraculous strength, brought them hope.
“Cansom,” Jilayda whispered again as she entered the ruined town. “Cansom.” The only word that could soothe her now, the only word that meant anything anymore.
She walked amid the ruins, leading her donkey. Columns and statues lay shattered around her. Yellow weeds rose out of broken pavement. Old skulls lay baking in the sun, staring at Jilayda as she walked by, mice inside their sockets.
Finally Jilayda heard the sound of speech from ahead. She turned around a tumbled building, and there, in a cobbled square, she saw a congregation of men and women. Her heart thumped as she approached.
A tall, middle-aged man in drab robes was standing atop a fallen pillar, speaking to the assembly. “Opola cannot hide in his Star Palace forever. No, he will land to march against us again, and I, Cansom, will kill him.”
Jilayda’s breath died. Here he was, standing before her, this was him. Jilayda had to lean against her donkey. She had expected him to be handsome, with shiny golden hair, the bluest eyes and strongest jaw. But this man looked like a peasant. He was tall, but haggard, with stooped shoulders and lines under his eyes. Those eyes were small and black, and too close-set, giving him the look of a simpleton. His nose was large, his mouth crooked, his hair shaggy and graying. He wore the clothes of a farmer and carried no weapon.
Could this man truly be the legendary Cansom, the Hero? How could he be so ugly?
But then Jilayda saw how his comrades treated him. With respect, even with awe. When Cansom spoke he did not need to raise his voice, for everyone listened respectfully. And though the man looked feeble-minded, with his small eyes and heavy lips, Jilayda saw nobility in him. He was not handsome, and not young, perhaps even stupid, but here, she knew, here in this ruined place stood their Leader. That moment tears filled Jilayda’s eyes, for the third time since she had left her home.
Cansom noticed her then. He stopped speaking and a smile spread across his face, an ugly smile that showed his crooked teeth. A warm smile.
“Dear woman!” he said, and his voice was kind and honest. “Come to us, into the shade.”
Jilayda could not stop herself then. Her body convulsed in a great sob, and she ran forward, and tossed herself at his feet, and began to kiss those callused feet, her tears washing their dust away, drawing white streaks down his skin.
“Cansom,” she said. “Cansom, Cansom.”
#
“I knew your husband and sons,” Cansom said that night, as they sat in his cave eating fig leaves and chickpeas. “He was a good, noble man, your sons good, noble youths. They died bravely fighting for us.”
Jilayda lowered her head and stared into her lap. “I thought they had been taken for slavery. They did not tell me they were rebels. My sons... they were only thirteen and fourteen.”
Cansom touched her hair with a thick, dusty finger. “I know, Jilayda. They did not want to worry you. We thought it better that way.”
Jilayda looked up into the small black eyes and saw that they were soft, that they felt her pain. The other rebels were out in the fields, moving amid the tall grass, spying on the movement of the flying chariots. She and Cansom alone had stayed behind, for Jilayda was joining them now, and needed to learn some things.
“Tell me how they died,” she said.
Cansom looked outside into the night. “It was our largest battle,” he said, and he seemed to be speaking to himself more than to her. “The Fayons had discovered our base. They came upon us with their shooting sticks, with their horseless chariots, with all their hosts. Opola himself landed that day, to end us forever. Your husband and sons fought bravely. I had never seen such bravery. They killed many Fayons, and with evening that day, they came upon Opola himself.” Cansom shook his head then and lowered his eyes. “I should have been there with them. I could have helped them with my blessing. But without me, they could not defeat Opola.”
Jilayda saw a tear trickling down the large man’s coarse, lined cheek. She reached out and took it on her finger, and brought her finger to his lips. He took the tear into his mouth, back into himself.
“So it was Opola who killed my family,” she whispered. “Like they say he killed yours.”
He turned toward her then, and somehow, Jilayda did not know how because it seemed to her they hardly moved, her mouth was touching his mouth, and as they kissed she tasted his tear.
#
She married Cansom that summer.
At first, Jilayda thought that together with him, her pain would leave her. She thought that at last, marrying her leader, she could find another life. As she tended to their cave and to her husband, she could almost bear to live again.
But things changed. Cansom’s coarseness soon became unbearable to her. His size, his clumsiness. The way he ate with his hands. The way he smelled of sweat. But worst of all were the nights. Jilayda came to dread them, for he could not pleasure her, only bring pain. He would moan atop her, use her, then fall asleep above her, crushing her, snoring. He would bruise her during his love making. He was too strong, impossibly strong, and his caresses hurt. Jilayda knew he loved her, his eyes told her that every day. But he was stupid, and crude, and he was not the hero she had imagined. Every morning when he left her, Jilayda would suck tears from her fingers, and watch the chariots above.
She should have been content, she would tell herself in later days. She should have been silent, should have let him bruise her, should have ignored his coarseness. Instead, she let her secret grief grow, and was unable to resist the day of change.
She was making bread that day, kneading the dough with her aching hands, when the stranger came to the cave. So silently he approached, and so occupied she was with her anguish, that she did not notice the man until he appeared at the opening.
“Hello,” he said to her, and Jilayda started and dropped her clay bowl onto the floor, where it shattered. She stood, staring at the stranger with the strange clothes. Shiny blue clothes. The clothes of a Fayon.
“I’m sorry to have startled you,” the Fayon said. Quickly, he entered the cave and began to pick up the broken pieces of clay. “Let me help you.”
Jilayda shook her head. “No!” she whispered. “Stop. Who are you?”
The Fayon straightened and regarded her. He had blue eyes and short blonde hair. His nose was straight and his jaw square. A beautiful man. When Jilayda had first imagined Cansom, he had looked like this. The beauty of a leader.
“Who are you?” she repeated.
The man took a step toward her. “You are unhappy,” he said.
Jilayda took a step back. “What do you want here?”
The man touched her hair. His touch was gentle. “Such pain in those eyes... A woman so beautiful, and yet so sad. Do you ever laugh, Jilayda?”
She looked away from him, staring at the dough on the floor. “Best you leave,” she whispered. “My husband will be back soon.”
“Does Cansom make you sad, Jilayda?”
She shook her head vehemently. “No Cansom lives here! Now leave me.”
The Fayon’s eyes were soft, and they seemed to look into her. “I see bruises on your arms. Does Cansom hurt you, Jilayda?”
Her voice was hoarse, and she fought against tears. She looked down to hide the turmoil on her face. “He does not mean it. He... is too strong, he cannot help it sometimes.”
There was no response. When Jilayda raised her eyes, the man was gone.
That evening, when Cansom returned, Jilayda said nothing as they ate, only listened to her husband talk of his wars. She did not tell him about the man who had visited her. That night, as Cansom lay moaning atop her, Jilayda shut her eyes and imagined it was the Fayon instead.
#
There was a great battle the next day. Opola came down upon the rebels, with his hosts and shooting sticks, and killed many men. He tried to destroy the resistance, but he could not defeat Cansom. Armed with only his great strength, Cansom killed Fayon after Fayon. Their flying metal, their fire and their blazing lights, could not hurt him. Their strange weapons rebounded off his skin as he wreaked havoc among them. Hope of Kesaya, rebel of Planet Thirty Four, strong Cansom remained, the eternal bane of Fayon.
The day after the battle, as Cansom talked to the surviving rebels in the fields, the handsome Fayon came to visit Jilayda again. He came to her cave with morning, dressed in his blue uniform, carrying star tears in his hand.
“For you,” he said and handed her the flowers.
Jilayda had not seen star tears in years. The tiny, glistening flowers, so white and brittle, reminded her of days too beautiful to remember. One saw no flowers on Kesaya anymore.
“I do not want them,” she said. “Take them and leave me.”
“There is another bruise on your shoulder,” the Fayon said.
“I fell yesterday.”
He touched her shoulder, and Jilayda shut her eyes. His touch was gentle, and it had been so long since anyone had touched her so. She could smell his scent, like the star tears but deeper. His other hand went through her hair, and his breath blew against her face.
“Leave me,” she whispered, and kept whispering all day, as they made tender love.
When Cansom returned that evening, he stared at the star tears.
“Where did you get these?” he demanded.
“I... I walked through the fields today,” Jilayda said. “I picked them.”
He frowned. “In the fields? There are no flowers in the fields anymore.”
Jilayda looked away from him. “They were hidden. Under the branches of a cypress. I thought you would like them. I try to be a good wife to you...”
His broad, ugly face softened then, and he went to his knee. He looked ashamed. “I am sorry,” he said and took her hand in his large, clumsy one. “You are a good wife, and your love gives me strength. You know that, don’t you, Jilayda? I would be weak without you.”
She nodded, a lump in her throat. “And I without you, Cansom. I would be nothing without my hero.”
He rose and embraced her, hurting her, and his shaggy, dusty hair touched her cheek, and the smell of his sweat filled her nostrils.
#
Every day there were new star tears on the wall. Every day Cansom suspected, and every day Jilayda lied to him. And every day, when he was gone, she made love to her Fayon, moaning and shouting her pleasure, digging her nails into his back.
“Cansom does not give me such pleasure," she confessed to her lover one day. “I had forgotten what love making should feel like.”
He stroked her cheek. “Is he truly as strong as they say? They say weapons do not harm him, that he kills thousands with his fists.”
Jilayda nodded. “He is strong as they say. Even his caresses hurt. I told him once, and he tries so hard to be gentle, but he cannot help but bruise me. I have stopped telling him. Sometimes I...”
“What?” the Fayon asked when she fell silent.
“Sometimes I wish he would be like a regular man. Not so strong. So he would not hurt me, so that I would not need to fear his touch.”
“So sad...” the Fayon said. “To fear your husband’s touch. So brave you are, Jilayda. So kind to love him still, a beautiful woman with such a beast. I will help you endure him, Jilayda. Every bruise he gives you I will heal with kisses.”
Her Fayon held her then, caressed her hair, and she took comfort in his arms, and shed tears onto his shoulder. He held her all that day, until the sun began to set and he had to leave.
Jilayda cleaned the cave in darkness, and arranged the bed, and set supper for her husband, and as she worked pain sat inside her. She awaited Cansom’s return with dread, and only the thought of her lover could soothe her fear. She was arranging the star tears on the wall when she heard the howl behind her.
She turned her head quickly and saw Cansom at the entrance of the cave, staring at her with wild, frightened eyes. Blood trickled from his head, matting his hair. His arms and hands were scratched, and she could see the marks of fingernails across his face.
She took a step backwards. “Cansom...”
He whispered, “What have you done?”
“What-- Cansom, I, nothing--”
He tossed his head back then, and howled again, a cry of such pain that Jilayda covered her ears. Cansom raised his hands above him, bending his bleeding fingers. “Look at these hands!” he cried. “See these bleeding hands! No more strength is in them, Jilayda.”
She rushed toward him. “Cansom, how...?”
He lowered his hands and stared at her, stared so coldly that Jilayda froze. When he spoke again his voice was low, weak. Grieving. “My curse, Jilayda. The weakness of my blessing. So it was given to me, with this single term. Should I ever love another, and the other not love me back, my strength shall desert me.”
He turned away. "You have stopped loving me, Jilayda."
Jilayda could not move, could not speak, only stood, arms limp at her sides. She remained frozen, staring, as he stepped out of the cave.
That night there was a battle. Jilayda could see the chariots descending outside, could see them sending fire into the fields. She could see a thousand Kesayans running, clutching their wounds, a thousand of her kind fleeing.
“It has ended!” the rebels cried. “Cansom's strengh is
gone! Woe, it is over! Proud Cansom has been captured!”
Jilayda felt her heart constrict, and she ran outside into the flaming grass. She ran barefoot through the fire and smoke, running as pain tore at her. She ran from her home, from her husbands, from her sons, from her guilt and grief. She did not know where she ran. She could not bear anyone seeing her. She ran as fire descended around her in the last battle they would fight.
She would have died then, she knew, if not for her Fayon. He appeared before her in the flames, coming down from his chariot to collect her, to bring her up into his Star Palace. When he took her into his arms, his strong, gentle arms, she could not help but weep, and clutch him, and cry to him, “I love you, Opola.”
#
She married her third husband that spring, in his Star Palace in the sky, where flowers grew in gardens, where water flowed freely, where the oppressors of Kesaya rejoiced in the war they had won.
Opola did not love her. He only wanted a trophy, the wife of the enemy he had finally defeated. But Jilayda could not care; she could not help but love him. He brought her star tears every day, and made love to her every night, and Jilayda hated herself for her love, and her life became numb. She was Queen of Planet Thirty Four, and she lived in silks and jewels and shame.
They dined every evening in a great room of gold, before a great window staring out into space, staring down onto a beige, beaten planet. Jilayda sat before this window, beside Opola her husband, as they were served fowls and pomegranates and persimmons and sweets, all the foods stolen from the land below. All around her sat the rulers of Planet Thirty Four, all the Fayons who had broken the land she had once called home.
And every evening, as they sat to dine, the Fayons brought Cansom out from his prison. They brought him forward in chains and tormented him for their amusement. As they dined, they made him eat from the floor. They made him serve them. They made him like an animal. Every evening they scourged him, beating him for their years of war, for all the Fayons he had killed. And every evening, as they brought this fallen, haggard man out, Jilayda tried to meet his eyes, desperately tried to have him look at her, so he would know she was sorry. And every evening he refused to meet her eyes, even as they beat him.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” she whispered every midnight into her pillow, so silent even Opola, sleeping beside her, could not hear.
The days went by, and Cansom grew thinner, and the sacks beneath his eyes became heavier. His flesh melted away, and the lines on his face deepened. The spark of resistance left his eyes, and he was a broken man.
That summer, they brought Cansom out for the last time.
His ankles bled from his shackles. His back bled from his scourging. And he was tired, so tired. He could hardly walk. The Champion of Kesaya, the Leader, was a fallen legend, a hero betrayed. And that night, for the first night since his torment began, Cansom raised his head and looked into the eyes of his wife.
“It is my fault,” he whispered. “I have caused this, I am sorry. How I love you, Jilayda.”
Jilayda sat frozen in terror. She wanted to rise, to shout, to warn Opola of what returned to her heart. But she could not move. When Cansom broke his shackles, she sat silently in her silks and jewels, watching with moist eyes.
She loved him again. His blessing was returned. With the
great strength of her love, Cansom crashed through the window of Star Palace that night, and flew down to his home,
tumbling down in a cloud of tiny, glittering shards.
All the Fayon leaders were killed that night, as space came into Star Palace, and the pain of betrayal fell upon them. To those down on Kesaya, looking up into the sky, it seemed that the stars were crying. That night, Kesaya gained its freedom, and lost its heroes. When the skies finally settled, two new stars began to glow. The people of Kesaya grieved that night for the two gentle lights, and every night since, as they gazed into the sky, they would remember the tragedy of Cansom and Jilayda, and grow star tears for the memory.