The Aspag

[Collection of the University of Aberdeen]

I am telling this story as someone who ended up where I am very much by accident, and who has been known as the Bishop among the people by a disastrous misunderstanding. If I die in this shitty country, maybe someone will find this letter on my body and be able to know my life story in my own terms for once. My name is Makarios Niwa. I am from Bestyakh, up the river Lena from Yakutsk, one of the oldest cities in the world still standing. I started this present journey from Archangel, where I went to seminary. From here in Taimiria I planned to use the summer months to make my way to Tiksi, and after wintering there sail south to home on a hired barge.
If it is not obvious to you, the reader, given the state of today's world, the plan has gone to fuckall. The Sultan of Taimiria and his entire family have perished in a flood that struck out of nowhere, some time ago. The Christian prince-satraps of the south of Taimiria have risen up in revolt, taking inspiration from the Reconquista of Spain. These petty kingdoms take up the lucrative Kheta River and Laptev Sea Channel, all the way from Norilsk to Hatanga. They are hemmed in from the south by the Putorana Plateau and to the east by the river called Anabar, beyond which lie lands belonging to the Lenese and the Sakha. Every one of these newly-independent kingdoms have developed an indelible distrust of foreigners like myself, and have closed as much of their borders as they could. The people here tell me that if I try to travel overland to Tiksi, then the Prince of Totte Muran, whose lands I must pass through, is sure to have me arrested and thrown into prison. This would be for no reason other than a belief that a foreigner is considered a Muslim spy by default.

And the Haji, who has become my guide here and is more or less in charge of my life and death, told me: you should have gone by ship! The pirates who used to maraud the Arctic coast have abandoned their thieving ways and now offer their services to transport passengers and cargo between the Archangel and the mouth of the Lena, with the advantage of avoiding the Taimir Peninsula altogether. They may be barbaric, but they are also astute enough to recognize a good business opportunity when they see one.

Allah forgive me, I did not realize this; all this is quite new to me.
In any case, I am already deep in the tumultuous heart of Taimiria, and am unable to go any distance without possibly meeting an untimely end, be it from a Muslim mob, a Christian mob, or just any random bandit coming my way.

The northern border, where we are at, has never been defined and is now hotly contested between the prince-satraps and Hakim Sultan, a pretender to the throne. The worst of the civil war has happened here and Amatodate Abbey is filled to the brim of its ramparts daily for people seeking sanctuary, waiting a few days, and returning when things seem a little quieter. I had in mind the options of going back to Archangel over one of the summers or waiting for the war to end so that I could continue on my walk to Tiksi. I do not think about either option anymore, because, apparently, I am now the Bishop.

The Taimirians have made me their Bishop; they would not let me leave!
If you are reading this and do not know me, please know that I am not a holy man of the Christian religion. I had been in doubt of my faith since finding the wisdom of the ancients in the Library of Archangel, more wondrous and all-encompassing than the inscrutable fiction that the religion offered. I was even ordained, but did ask the Metropolitan to have it nullified. No, I do not have the papers to prove it, but it does not matter. I cannot conceivably be anyone's priest or anyone's bishop.

They call me Aspag or Aspagpasho, a corruption of the older Greek word used in this country. The second one is more of an honorific, I think.
Yes, they have been calling me the Aspag since I pulled an arrow from an old tree stump on my way here, two years ago. This was one of those villages populated by Sarmyaks, people who still spoke the ancient Korean tongue. When I first approached the Sarmyaks, we could only communicate with gestures and signs. The leading Old-Man had gestured for me to pull out the arrow, and when I did, the entire village burst alive with murmuring and shouts of surprise and incredulity.

The Haji turned out to know every language, even the ancient ones that everyone else has forgotten, and he interpreted for the conversation that followed.
So the story he relayed to me was this: Whoever pulls the arrow out of the tree in Okhum (this here village), that the late Aspag Behnam fired into the tree himself, is to be the new exarch of Taimira.
I asked them why Behnam Aspag could not find and then ordain a successor on his own.
They replied that Behnam Aspag found himself increasingly under the Sultan's thumb as he grew old. The Sultan had long sought control over his position, and so ensure influence over his Christian subjects. He fancied the Aspag's son, Sikander, as the successor, because he was most easily controlled.
"So is Sikander Yasin the Aspag now?" I asked
Yes, Sikander Yasin was the bishop as far as the aristocracy was concerned, but from the time of the flooding of the capital, he has been living in Toyogarovsk, where the Christian prince-satraps have entrapped him and now elevate him as their spiritual figurehead.

With voices radiating pride and defiance, the villagers concluded: we do not trust these kings any more than we trust the Sultan, who was not that bad to us after all, nor will we take the cowardly Sikander Yasin by his word; because Behnam-ata has shot his arrow into the tree at Okhum; he will ordain his successor with this here arrow, when he yanks it — and the Sarmyaks of Okhum lifted me off my feet, paraded me around town, shouting Aspagpasho! Aspagpasho!, and slaughtered their livestock to prepare a full week of festivities for my "ordination". I tried all kinds of reasons to back up my protests, up to the fact that the proper form of ordination was not followed — but the people here only heeded their own lore: For in this country the Lore reigns supreme, and no one would listen to any Reason.

Notes
This passage is a re-writing of The Skeptic King, with major changes and embellishments to the context and the characters.

The Aspag and the Haji, as a traveling pair, first appears in The Demon of Krasnoyarsk. The same text also references the flood that destroyed Ustana Shehir, the Sultan's capital city.

The desperation and frustration experienced by Makarios Aspag in his travels unfortunately takes much inspiration from my personal experiences.