Shúyu ke Fássesyu:
Water to the Wasteland
A novel in progress.
In June, 1982, a young archeologist from Maryland State University named Joan Henry inadvertently made the biggest discovery of her career—and, quite probably, of the entire history of archeology. The Mathurian Scrolls, as they are known, are the oldest known written materials ever, predating the earliest cuneiform inscriptions by some three thousand years. A coalition soon formed between Joan, Eva Moon Herron (a historical linguist), and Anu Jehuti (a professor of Near Eastern literature), and the three of them spent the next twenty years trying to decipher the scrolls. Finally, they are ready to publish the first translation intended for the public: a retelling of the Mathurian legend "Shúyu ke Fássesyu", or "Water to the Wasteland".
The legend tells of the town of Neshuyu, on the western edge of the great desert called the Fássesyu, and of the great city of Maindérai, far to the east across the waste. A pair of twin prophecies, one in each city, both claim that a Mainderwe man of true heart will cross the Fássesyu and discover in Neshuyu his true love, and that they will bring water to the wasteland. When a Maindérwe knight named Bís Retchare crawls half-dead into Neshuyu on the day of the winter solstice, everyone assumes the prophecy has been fulfilled. The town witch, Kishfar, naturally assumes that Retchar will choose her as his true love. But instead, Retchar falls for a young peasant girl named Chiyo, Kishfar's assistant, foster-sister, and best friend. Furious, Kishfar places Retchar under a love spell and heads out into the Fássesyu. But Chiyo is not so easily dissuaded; she chases the pair out into the empty desert, undeterred by Kishfar's curses, in a quest to regain her true love.
This is the legend that the team is translating, but as they assemble the first draft, the story of Joan, Eva, and Anu begins to parallel the story of Kishfar, Chiyo, and Retchar. Just as rivalries between Kishfar and Chiyo tore them apart, so too do rivalries between the different translators slowly tear the project apart. We watch both stories unfold simultaneously, through snippets of translation interspersed with emails, phone call transcripts, journal entries, interviews, and narrative.
I constructed an entire family of languages to help myself tell this story, and an entire civilization to go along with it. The legend itself came from a dream I had in the summer of 2001, and my failed attempts to write down the story were my first real attempts at novel-writing. After finishing Fear Sweeney, I finished the first draft of Shúyu ke Fássesyu as a short novella.
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