52 Project #15: The White-Haired Boy (Patreon)

They called him Alyn Ysmai, the White-Haired Boy. In the village he came from, it was said he had fallen from the sky as a child, carried on a shooting star. His skin was white as the clouds, and his hair as white as the Moon, and his eyes the golden color of wild animals. From earliest days, it was said that the Lady of the Moon had marked him for her own, for his sight in the darkness was like that of the night beasts, while the sun blackened and blistered his moon-white skin. Later it became even more apparent that the Moon had favored him. None could resist the charming spell of his words, his eyes. Like the Moon, he mesmerized. All the young women and not a few of the young men threw themselves into his arms, desperate for his love. Not a few of these killed themselves afterward, too, when he abandoned them for a new lover or cruelly rejected them.

In the 25th year of his life, he still had the form and features of a boy, but a boy so beautiful none could take their eyes from him. To men who had never before considered another male attractive, he seemed almost a woman in his beauty, and they gave him anything he asked. He was as precocious in mind as he seemed slowed in his growth; when 13, he completed his Passage to manhood by trickery, and since then had made three fortunes and become Captain of a vast Company, specializing in the acquisition and sale of information, as well as the dispatching of skilled assassins. All the other Companies in the city of Tylar trembled in fear of Alyn Ysmai, and his every word was law. Some grumbled, quietly, that Alyn Ysmai sought to make himself a Lord, as they had in some of the barbarous lands of Lysar. But they grumbled this very quietly indeed, or they vanished, never to be seen again.

In truth, the charge had teeth. Alyn Ysmai held a kind of court, where people seeking favors from him came to grovel and beg. Sometimes it pleased the White-Haired Boy to grant their requests. More often, it pleased him to shred their feelings, humiliate them, ruin them, or else steal their souls and make toys of them. Few, few women dared go to him; ever since the Captain of a rival Company killed herself for love of Alyn Ysmai, none who sought men for their night's pleasure, male or female, went to the White-Haired Boy unless their need was very great. The old and hardened, the men and women who loved only women, these were the only ones safe from loving him, and these faced other dangers of the soul instead.

There were those who said he was the son of the Lady of the Moon, one of the star angels fallen out of the night sky. Others said he was a demon from beneath the ground, with his skin that could not bear the daylight. It was people possessed of the former opinion that Alyn Ysmai surrounded himself with.

One day in his 25th year, as the White-Haired Boy held his "court", an old woman was brought to him. She had the reputation of a seer, but none of the psychic Companies would take her, claiming she was a charlatan who prostituted whatever Gift she had. Her only son had betrayed his Company and broken his bloodpaper, and so a deathpaper had been placed on him. She had come to beg Alyn Ysmai to use his influence to save her son.

His gold eyes bored into her own, and it seemed to her he could see all she desired, and more; all her pains, her tragic memories, all her deficiencies and the weaknesses in her heart. Almost, she cringed from his gaze-- she was not a very brave woman. But though she was not brave, and though she might be called a trickster, still she loved her only son. So she bowed deeply, instead. "My lord of the white hair, my humble bones groan with the honor you place on my shoulders, agreeing to lower yourself to see me. Words cannot describe my gratitude and humility..."

"Then don't waste them," Alyn Ysmai said, and his smile was as cold as ice. "I am not terribly fond of lowering myself to see gutter trash like you, old woman. Apparently you convinced my assistants that you were worth my time; either you've got a treasure unheard-of hidden in those rags, or you've a silver tongue. In which case, it would look very attractive if I melted it down and made a necklace out of it. So which is it?"

The woman quailed at his vicious words, all the more terrible for the mild, somewhat bored tone they were spoken in. Trembling, she prostrated herself at his feet. "O most noble lord, I have had a vision concerning your exalted self. Poor as a seer though I might be, still it is said that the gods may choose base vessels for their lofty messages, and who can gainsay the will of the gods?"

"Oh, you have a vision. Concerning me. No doubt, something about how I will be successful in love, or achieve wealth, or something. Since if you came with some doom­saying prophecy, you wouldn't expect a gift for it." He yawned, ostentatiously. "You have no way of knowing how tired I am of every halfwit who fancies herself a seer telling me things about my future anyone could have guessed from looking at my past. If this is another of those tedious predictions, I don't want to hear it."

"No, no, nothing like that, noble one! My vision concerns your true nature, and your rightful position among the people of Tylar. Indeed, the people of all the land of Taldyr!"

"Oh, don't tell me. I'm the chosen of the Lady of the Moon, right? I do get tired of this. Guards..."

"Wait! My lord, you don't know your true nature-- it's even greater than anyone had predicted!"

That had gotten his attention. He leaned forward slightly, gesturing to the guards to hold their places. "So tell me then, base vessel of lofty messages that you claim to be."

She dared not look at his eyes, or he would discern the truth of her message soon enough. She had to make him believe it. "My lord, as you know, four days ago was a night with no moon. It was on that night that I dreamed. I dreamed I went out into the street and looked up at the sky, and I could not see the Lady's face. I called out, 'My lady Moon, don't leave us behind! Don't leave us in darkness!'

"Then the stars spoke to me. They said, 'You fool! You call to the sky for the Lady, when she dwells on the same ground as you? Your brains are addled, old woman!'

"I asked, 'How can the Lady be on the same ground as me? Surely any ground I walk on must be too unworthy for her exalted self...'

"They replied, 'Do not overestimate your importance, gutter slime. Your actions are so totally meaningless that they can have no bearing on the Lady's actions.'

"But then one of the stars said, 'Wait, brothers and sisters. Feeble, old and unworthy this piece of human trash may be, but she may yet perform a valuable service for us. After all, she is not the only human who does not know what magnificence walks among them.'

"'That is true,' said the other stars. Then they said, 'Our Lady walks among your people, in the very streets of your city, trapped by her enemy the Sun and unaware of who she truly is. We will give you a task worthy of far better than you, old woman, and no gods shall help you if you fail it. You shall find the Lady and inform her of who she truly is, and ask her to take her position of worship. For if, trapped on Talla in the body of a human, she does not receive the worship of her loyal servants, she will pine away, and the Moon, her visible manifestation, will fade forever from the sky.'

"'But she cannot be among the people of Tylar!' I protested. 'For her loyal worshipper and chosen servant, Alyn Ysmai, would surely have found her, seeing as he knows all that transpires in this city!'

"They laughed. Then they said, 'Oh, yes, Alyn Ysmai knows everything-- except the secret of his birth. Perhaps you have forgotten, old woman, that in other countries, the Moon is worshipped as a man. As lord of desire and love, the god you call the Lady of the Moon is not bound to the shape of a woman-- she contains within her the essence of the masculine, as well. Go and tell Alyn Ysmai that he is no mere servant of the Lady of the Moon-- he is the Moon, trapped in the form of a white-haired boy on Talla, bound by his enemy, the Sun. He must know himself for what he is and be worshipped, or he will never achieve the strength to break the bonds the Sun has placed on him and return to his rightful place in the heavens. Tell him, old woman!'

"And then I awakened. I feared to come to you at first, believing my dream only the foolish fancy of an old woman. But then I remembered the legend, that the touch of the Sun corrodes your skin. There have been others favored of the Moon, but it is the birthright of all humans to touch the Sun and be warmed. If the Sun is inimical to your existence, my lord, then you cannot be human.  Your substance is of an entirely different nature, and the Sun is its ancient enemy.

"Is it true, my lord? Does the touch of the Sun truly burn your skin? Are you the Moon in human incarnation?"

Alyn Ysmai stared at the old woman, shocked to his core. Always had he believed he was touched by divinity, but never that he was divinity himself. Could he believe that? Dared he believe that? If he was not the Moon, and claimed to be, would not she withdraw her protection from him, as punishment for his pride?

Yet-- if he was the Moon, it would explain a very great deal. It would explain his power to see into the hearts and sometimes the minds of others, knowing what they felt as if it showed on their faces even when they showed no sign, and sometimes knowing their thoughts as if they had spoken them, even when they had made no sign. That was no seer's power, no psychic's trick-- that was a far greater power than the humans of Talla had, and he had it. Why? Why did the sun sear his skin? Why was he so pale, as if all the color had been drained from him, when even the babies never bronzed by the blue-white sun were born brown? All around him had black or red hair, curled tightly, loosely, or waving-- his was white and straight as moonlight. All around him had eyes of black or brown-- his were tawny gold. The men of 25 years that he knew were muscular and tall-- he was yet small and slight, with the beauty but not the strength of a woman, as if he were yet a boy. Why?

If he were the Moon, trapped here by the Sun-- oh, that would explain it all. A deity in human form could not be expected to look human. The Sun's substance would corrode the Moon's skin, naturally. And he could not grow to full manhood as long as he remained ignorant of his true nature.

No wonder people loved him whenever he wished, if he was the god of desire and love. No wonder people threw their reason away for him, lost their willpower to his, when will and reason were gifts of the Sun, if he was the Sun's ancestral enemy. It all made beautiful, perfect sense. He felt a sudden rush of warmth for this old woman, who had shown him the truth of what he was.

"Yes," he said. "Yes, it's all true. Now that you tell it to me, it's so obvious I wonder how I could have failed to see it before. I am the Lady of the Moon." He stood, and graciously helped the old woman to her feet. "You've done me a great service, old woman," he said. "Is there any service I can do for you, as a token of my gratitude?"

"If you would, my exalted Lord," she whispered, her eyes cast at the ground. "My dear and only son, the delight of his mother's old age, has had a deathpaper placed on him by the Athysuvyras Company. If you would only use your great powers to make them rescind the papers and let him join a new Company..."

"I'll do that," the White-Haired Boy, now revealed as the Lady of the Moon, told her. He took from her the details of the case, and dismissed her. Then he dismissed all those who sought an audience with him. Turning to his subordinates, he said, "You've heard what she said. Do you believe it true? Will you accept me, not only as your Captain, but as your goddess?"

As one, all of them bowed deeply. His second-in-command, a woman he had never found attractive enough to seduce but who loved him deeply, said, "We will follow you even to death, my Captain and Lady, my god. Command us, and we will follow."

"Then we all go to the temple of the Moon-- to My temple, tonight. There are a few matters I wish to discuss with My priests." Already he had shifted into the dialect used only in myths and religious services, the speech used by the gods to mortals.

***

In the temple, the Lady's priests awakened as their goddess's manifestation first began to brighten in the sky. They went about their duties as if this were a day like any other, until they heard a clamor outside.

One of the priests went to the door, and saw there the White-Haired Boy, followed by a hundred or more. It was well-known that Alyn Ysmai was the favored of the Moon, and so the priest opened the gates. "What brings you to the temple this fine night, sir?" he asked.

Alyn Ysmai looked at him with an expression of cold fire, and the priest suddenly wanted to wilt into the ground beneath and die. "You will address Me with proper respect," the White-Haired Boy said. "It has been revealed to Me today that I am your Goddess, taken flesh in the form of a human male. I wish to address all of My priests. Call them from their duties and have them assemble in the main courtyard."

Stunned, the priest managed to stammer, "Y-yes, my lor-- my Lady..." He turned and ran, to bring the news to the other priests, his mind in turmoil. How could it be that they had not divined the presence of the Lady in their midst? Something had gone terribly wrong.

The priests came out from the chambers where they worshipped the Lady with their bodies, men and women with disheveled hair and hastily-donned ceremonial clothing. Hairbrushes and makeup flew about as they tried to restore themselves to the beautiful aspect they should present, before their goddess should arrive.

Then finally the White-Haired Boy strode into the room. He had dressed in the garment of a priest himself, and was made up to be unbearably beautiful. None who looked at him could disbelieve that he held feminine essence in himself, nor could they disbe­lieve that he was Desire incarnate. His followers mingled with the priests and prostrated themselves in the courtyard, except for the bodyguards who stood behind him. In his pale white beauty he seemed to glow like the moon itself, and this is what he said:

"Listen, priests of My temple! Today it has been revealed to Me that I am not merely the favored child of the Moon. I am the Moon herself, taken flesh in My male aspect. The Sun, my ancient enemy, has trapped Me here, giving Me a male shape in a place where I am worshipped in My female aspect. But look at Me! Can you not see in Me the duality of My nature?"  His voice became seductive, his whole body sensuality incarnate. Every lover of women saw a woman in him, while every lover of men saw him as a man, and all adored him beyond belief. "Is there anyone here who does not desire Me? Who does not think Me beautiful? Who would not die for Me, should I ask it?"

"No one, Lady, no one!" the prostrated priests and followers chorused.

He beckoned to one of the followers. "Stand up and be counted!" he called to him, and the man stood. "Do you not love Me?"

"Yes-- yes, my Lady! I will do anything for You!"

"Take your knife and plunge it into your breast for Me, then," Alyn Ysmai said.

Mesmerized by the burning gold eyes and the beauty, the man did so, and died with a cry of anguish and ecstasy as his own knife pierced his heart.

As the man fell dead, Alyn Ysmai said, "From this day forth, all of you will direct your worship to Me, to My fleshly aspect, as well as to My heavenly manifestation. You will obey My every order without question, and serve the desires of the flesh I wear. If I tell you to break all your bloodpapers, to murder your employers, to make the streets run with the blood of those who worship My enemy the Sun, you will do it. And I will reward you with My presence, and with fortune in love, so long as you please Me."

***

They built Alyn Ysmai a throne in the temple, and brought him the finest brocades to wear, the finest delicacies to eat. He enslaved the hearts and minds of those who opposed him, or claimed he was no god. If they hated him too much to be enslaved, his followers and priests would compete to devise new and interesting ways of putting them to painful death. People broke their bloodpapers and murdered their employers at his order, just as he had said, and when deathpapers were placed on those who had committed the crimes, his worshippers would rise up against that company and devastate it. The streets ran with the blood of those who worshipped the Sun, or sometimes, any god but Alyn Ysmai. Those who earned his gratitude had great rewards granted them, and led enviable lives. Those that disappointed him were required to abase or humiliate themselves, or sometimes to commit horrible suicides.

And through it all Alyn Ysmai grew very bored.

He showed no sign of aging, of developing a more manly body. Worship satiated him, but gave him no mystic strength to command the heavens, or any other of the great powers that should be his by right. And his pleasures had to grow progressively more unusual to appeal to his jaded soul.

Finally, one night he had a dream.

In the dream he saw a woman, and she was mirror to himself, with long hair the color of moonlight, and eyes the color of night. Her body was perfection, and more than perfection, and he fell immediately in love with her, desperately and completely.

"Alyn Ysmai," she said, and her voice was the music of the night. "I've heard a great deal about you."

"Have you?" he asked, and his mouth was dry.

"You're very beautiful," she said. "Truly, you are favored." And she smiled at him with biting sharpness. He could not tell if her smile was a mockery, or if she meant what she said. For the first time, his gifts deserted him, and he could tell nothing about her, affect nothing of her.

"You are also very beautiful," he managed.

"Yes, I am, aren't I?" she said, and stepped toward him.  

She drew him into her embrace, and it was like nothing he had ever experienced. It was more real than any dream he had ever had-- more real, in fact, than reality had ever been. And when she took him in love, there was more pleasure than he had ever imagined, more than he could easily comprehend.

Then she faded like smoke out of his arms, leaving him unfulfilled and despairing. He called out to her... and realized that he was awake.

Desperate with unfulfilled desire, he summoned one of his priests, a beautiful woman trained in all the arts of pleasure, to his bed. But she was empty, hollow, after the woman of last night. He felt dirtied by her touch, and experienced no enjoyment, only the release of a physical pressure. His mind and soul were left as unfulfilled as before. 

For hours he lay in bed, throughout the burning day, trying to regain the dream he'd lost, but to no avail. Finally, sick to the soul, he rose with the moon, dressed, and glanced out the window.

She was standing in the courtyard below.

Alyn Ysmai was down the stairs faster than anyone should be able to move. But when he reached the courtyard, she was gone. 

"Did you see a woman here?" he demanded of a priest passing by. "A woman, with hair and skin as light as my own?" In his desperation, he forgot the terms of godly address, and spoke just as he had when he was thought an ordinary man.

"No-- no, my Lord," the man said. "I saw no one."

"Did you see her?" the White-Haired Boy demanded of other priests, searching the entire courtyard. "Did you? Did you?"

Finally one said, "I think I saw a woman like that heading out the gates, my Lord."

Like a man possessed, Alyn Ysmai headed for the gates, searching for the woman. Already he knew that he would never know pleasure, real pleasure again, never enjoy anything in life again, until he found her. Without her, his life would be empty and meaningless. And when he found her, she would become the reason for his existence. He would worship her, as he himself was worshipped, and give her everything he had, and in return she would give him pleasure far beyond the domain of mortal men.

So he went into the city, and demanded of passersby that they tell him where she had gone. He had none of his bodyguards, but the force of his need was such that even those who hated him answered him readily. It did no good. The fragments he learned indicated that she had somehow drifted out of the city, like a flower blown on the wind. He turned and left the city, hiking out into the wilderness to seek her out.

In the day he sheltered from the sun under the rich brocades his worshippers had given him, and still he searched. In the night, he drove himself without food, without sleep, crossing the wilderness alone, and still he searched. And for days and nights he searched, until days turned to weeks, and then to months, and then to years. And still he searched... for his life would not be complete until he found her again.

In the city, his worshippers tried to follow him, but found that the moon was too dim to find him by-- it clouded their vision, somehow. And slowly they awoke, as if from a dream, and realized that their goddess in male cloak would not be returning to them. So they resumed the old patterns of worship, and the life of the city returned to the way it had been, before the arrival of the White-Haired Boy.

***

In the heavens, the Lord of the Night, master of sleep and dreams, and his sibling the Lady of the Moon, stood in the palace of the sky and looked down. Alyn Ysmai still continued his desperate quest for the woman who had stolen his soul-- she who was none other than the true Lady of the Moon, herself.

"I'm not sure I should have let you enter his dream," the Lord said. "You've stolen his soul, sister, and doomed him to wander all Talla, searching for you."

"Surely you don't think the punishment was too extreme," the Lady of the Moon said, surprised at her brother. "The White-Haired Boy brought chaos to the city he dwelt in. He toyed with the hearts and minds of others, and destroyed people for no better reason than his own pleasure, or to alleviate his boredom. If anyone on all Talla could be called evil, it would be Alyn Ysmai. Surely you must realize how much he deserved his fate, brother! I did nothing more to him than what he did to countless others."

"I know," the Lord said gravely. "For what he did, the White-Haired Boy deserves a thousand punishments, and I don't grieve to see him tormented the way he tormented so many others. But I question your motives, sibling."

"My motives? Why do you question--"

"When he won the hearts of all his family, so that they spoiled him and gave him all he desired, you smiled on him. When he tricked people of their birthrights and of their bloodpapers, you clapped your hands in delight like a small child. And when he played with the hearts and minds of others, enslaving people to his desires, robbing them of will, making them his toys, you laughed and beamed down on him. He was your favored child, agent of your pleasures and your manipulations. It wasn't until he grew arrogant enough to believe himself you, to steal your worshippers and rain blood in your name, that you grew angry enough to punish him." The Lord of the Night gazed sternly at his sister. "You destroyed him, not because he was evil-- for he was evil even before he took your temple, made so by the gifts you gave him. No, you destroyed him for the sake of your own pride."

And the Lady of the Moon could make no reply, for it was true.

***

They say the White-Haired Boy lived a long, long time, and spent all that time searching for the Lady of the Moon, never finding the cruel goddess again, nor regaining her favor. Some say that he wanders Talla still, calling her by the name "Beloved," calling to her as he searches. If you cross his path, these say, he will doom you to a devastating and unrequited love, to make another share his anguish. Others say he died a long time ago. But even those turn aside when they see a pale form in the distance, on a moonlit night, or when they hear the wind crying a name.

***

Translator’s notes:

Aside from the Great Diaspora, when the people of Laon fled their original homeworld, and the world of Scamara, which according to their legends wasn’t settled by willing Laon’l, there is very, very little evidence of Laon’l space travel prior to being contacted by the Galactic Confederation. This is understandable; prior to the Diaspora, the Laon’l perceived space to be the realm of demons, while the chthonic realms of their planet’s depths were understood to be the realm of their afterlife, cradled in the peaceful bosom of their Mother. After the Diaspora, Laon’l saw space as the realm of their tormentor, the Daishenéon Emaroth (the title translates as either “Great Empress” or “Greatest of Demons”.) 

However, it cannot be denied that on the new world of Laon, the technology for space travel existed, and the Laon’l leadership has always tended to be conservative and controlling – a combination that often leads free-thinkers, iconoclasts, and members of minority cultures to flee their homes. The Laon’l leadership is known to have suppressed any knowledge of individuals fleeing Laon, in the past, but archaeologists have found evidence of attempts to build spaceships. Until now, however, we’ve found no evidence on Laon’l presence on any world other than Laon and Scamara.

This particular legend comes from the continent of Taldyr on Talla, and has been understood by the Taldyrese to be fictional, or possibly to be based on the actual exploits of a charismatic leader with albinism. However, there are certain factors that suggest that this is not the case.

- The White-Haired Boy is presented as unusually sensitive to Talla’s sun. The blue-white sun of Talla is in fact a serious problem for the rare Tallese albinos, and for humans of the “Caucasian” subgroup and Draigoili of the “anthela” subgroup, but only Laon’l are known to actually die of radiation poisoning from a full day of exposure to the Tallese sun (during summer, or near the equator, and on a cloudless day). The exaggerated sensitivity the White-Haired Boy supposedly had to sunlight in legend sounds significantly more like Laon’l sensitivity to the Tallese sun than to the sensitivity Tallese albinos exhibit.

- The White-Haired Boy, if he existed, would almost certainly have had to be psionic to demonstrate the abilities he supposedly had. This might simply be a convention of fiction – on Earth, another low-psi world, legendary figures have abilities that in reality would require powerful psi, as a matter of routine. But Alyn Ysmai is actually the only Tallese legendary figure to demonstrate abilities that seem to fall in the range of telepathy, telempathy or expathy; most Tallese trickster figures or legendary heroes have abilities that cannot be explained by psionics, such as shapeshifting, flight, abnormally high strength, et cetera. 

- “Fallen from the sky as a child, carried on a shooting star” : any version of the Alyn Ysmai legend that covers his childhood at all makes reference to this part of the legend. The resemblance to a spaceship crash-landing is obvious.

- “had the form and features of a boy”, references to the femininity of the White-Haired Boy – Laon’l are significantly more neotenous than other humanoid species, and typically have less sexual dimorphism. To a Tallese of a thousand years ago, a Laon’l of 25 Tallese years would look much more like a teenager, and would appear more androgynous than the average Tallese teenager.

- Talla’s star is visible in the sky of Laon, often during the day. It’s one of about ten stars that writings of Laon’l who believed their species should return to space spoke of attempting to reach. 

- Laon’l and Tallese are not interfertile without modern genetic engineering, and some variants of the Alyn Ysmai legend make much of the fact that he fathered no children. No variants claim that he did have children. With the amount of coitus, the number of partners the legends suggest he would have had, and the social status he had, it’s implausible that he wouldn’t have had children if he were fertile at all.

Of course, all of this is circumstantial evidence; without access to Alyn Ysmai’s remains, we have no way of proving for certain his species. However, it’s fairly strong circumstantial evidence.

Given the value to identifying evidence of pre-GalConfed Laon’l space travel, we suggest that an archaeological expedition to Talla to attempt to determine whether the White-Haired Boy actually existed or not, and to potentially recover whatever may be left of his remains, should be funded within the next five years.