The Tale of Urshi and the Thing With No Name

It came to pass once that there was a man named Urshi who found a Thing With No Name. Urshi was a man of the Nsayecochev tribe, which no longer exists, and their Grand House fell to dust many years ago. Back then they were a huge tribe; when brought together their herds could strip a large valley in a day, or so my grandfather said, and drink a river dry.

Urshi was a young man with skin like the loamy earth and laughing eyes when one day he followed his little herd into a stand of trees along a stream. In the middle of the stream he saw something strange, and so waded in to pick it up. It was as long as his forearm and blacker than a moonless night and he was frightened by its weight, and its enigma. He tied his head wrap around it for a sling and carried it all day, becoming more and more unnerved by its presence, until at last he brought his herd in for the night.

Once he had left them in their corral he ran to the tent of the tribe’s Wiseman, who had little magic but much knowledge and cunning. Urshi laid the Thing before him and asked ‘Wiseman, tell me, what is the name of this?’ For Urshi knew as you do that when one knows the true name of a thing one gains power over that thing.

And the Wiseman recoiled and shouted ‘It has no name!’ and then would speak to Urshi no more.

So Urshi took the Thing With No Name and traveled many miles over hill and dale to the ancient city called Morgaul’Ka, whose spires now rise white and haunting, without door or window, out of the sea southwest of Ke’Agvera. Back then of course Ke’Agvera was barely more than a collection of great houses, standing empty for three years between each convocation of tribes, on the hills overlooking Morgaul’Ka. Urshi came to Morgaul’Ka with a bundle of tapestries to sell for his tribe and the Thing With No Name, which he had carried with him, day and night, since he had found it. It seemed to him to have a strange air around it which made it hard for Urshi to breathe and also it seemed to him that it knew what he was thinking, and that it liked best the thoughts that came unbidden and made him think less of himself.

In this way he came to Morgaul’Ka, doubts gnawing at his shadow, the Thing in his arms. Urshi had never been to a city before and knew not what to do, but he was young and learned quickly despite the Thing weighing on his mind, and managed to get a good price for his tapestries, and he asked the shopkeeper ‘Who is the most learned mage in Morgaul’Ka?’

The shopkeeper looked at him askance and said ‘Of course it is Sokol.’

It was true that even far out on the plains the name Sokol was recognized. The greatest mage of the era, Sokol had long ago sworn herself to peace and learning and it was her influence that kept the leaders of Morgaul’Ka from joining in to any of the wars or squabbles going on all around them. It is said that when Sokol died the people laid her to rest in the tallest tower, surrounded by many of her books, and sealed her in, and that the very sea was so grieved by her passing that it rose up to be nearer to her, and only a kind wind blows in the Bay of Morgaul’Ka, in her memory, and whispers truths to those with the ears to hear.

Though she was three hundred years old when Urshi came to the city, Sokol’s mind was sharp. Urshi asked where he might find her, and took the directions he was given until at last and with some difficulty he came to a small walled courtyard in the middle of the city, set round with potted plants and with a simple fountain playing in its center. There he found a tiny person with a face like a walnut whose voice was a warm rasp.

‘I have come many miles’ Urshi told her, ‘in search of a great mage, for I have found a Thing needs naming.’

Sokol in her wisdom said ‘Not all needs are answered, but show to me what you have found and I may know.’

So Urshi brought out the Thing With No Name and laid it carefully between them.

Sokol examined it with no expression but a slight hint of distaste. ‘It is very far from home,’ she told Urshi at last. ‘It has no name, nor never will, for it is merely an insignificant part of something vast. I know not how it came to be where you found it.’

‘But you know what it is?’ Urshi was breathless.

‘No. I know only where it is from. A place far from here, South, in the mountains. The Lake of Glass. There maybe, it would have a name. Here it does not know itself, and is thereby impossible to name.’

So Urshi set out for the south, carrying the Thing With No Name, and he came to the southern mountains. But the people there would not welcome him, for they saw that the Thing gnawed his shadow, and they were afraid. So Urshi wandered the mountains for years, searching for the Lake of Glass, slowly losing bits of his shadow, until one day he crested a high ridge and saw it, and then he had no shadow left. And Urshi brought out the Thing With No Name and carried it down the slope into the black wasteland with its swirling eddies of snow and shards. And the bits of glass did not hurt him, and the sun shone through him, for he too had become glass, and Urshi realized that the Thing was of the plain, and that he too, now, was part of the plain, and that he and the Thing were one. And he died.