So he set off. Behind him — no one. But above him — a song that others could already hear.
At the same time, in the desert city of Ubar—long erased from the atlases—a woman in a purple shawl poured cinnamon into a bowl, watching it burn and disappear into thin air. She felt a shiver.
“He’s coming,” she said.
A man stepped out of the shadows. His pupils were like cat’s slits. His skin was as white as parchment. He didn’t blink.
“We must close the circle before it is torn out of harmony,” the woman continued. “The carnation is open. The others will awaken quickly.”
The man bowed his head.
“Then it is time to wake the Sleeping Pepper. Let the flame remember its anger.”
And that night, in one of the kitchens of Istanbul, a man woke up to the smell of black pepper seeping through locked doors.
He got up without asking why.
The song began to sound in many hearts.
And she was getting stronger.
Chapter IV. The Memory of Cardamom
In the heart of the old Bukhara quarter, where the aromas of spices lived in the bricks and the exhalations of the walls, there was a small shop, invisible from the street. Tourists don’t find it. They don’t look for it. It opens only – for those who already remember, even if they don’t know.
Inside is a woman named Leila. Her hair is the color of toasted saffron, her eyes are like dark cardamom seeds: deep within they hide a warmth and something unsettling. She doesn’t just sell spices. She heals with aroma.
When a person entered, she did not ask why he had come. She would look – and reach for a jar. For one she would put a pinch of cardamom in the palm of her hand, for another – in a glass of warm milk. Sometimes – she would simply sprinkle it at her feet. And then what moderns call “mysticism”, and the ancients – “remembrance” would happen.
Because cardamom is associated with love. But not only with joy, as we are used to thinking. It holds all the nuances: lost, impossible, unrevealed, treacherous. It reveals feelings too strong to be experienced once. It gives a chance to be experienced again — and to let go.
Leila was the Cardamom Keeper. She remembered the day she had awakened. Nineteen years ago, when, weeping over her dying brother, she had dropped a few cardamom seeds into a bowl of milk to warm him. He did not come to life. But in that moment she had seen his eyes—full of light, without pain, without fear. He was smiling. And then, when she was left alone, she felt the walls speak. The aromas came to life. The cardamom whispered, “From now on, you are Most.”
Since then she has been waiting. She knew: one day the One who will carry the song forward will appear.
And he came.
Alfredo stood at the entrance, covered in road dust, his face tired from dreams. He didn’t speak, but Leila already knew. The carnation had awakened. So her time had come too.
“Do you hear that?” she said quietly, handing him a glass.
He nodded. The steam from the cardamom milk enveloped his face. The memory of a mother’s hands caressing his head surfaced. The laughter of the girl he loved but didn’t wait. The smell of the evening kitchen, where his father first taught him to add spices to a sauce.
He cried. Silently. Hotly. Truly. It wasn’t pain—it was love that he couldn’t hold back, but he managed to preserve.
“Cardamom doesn’t cure,” said Leila. “It opens. And you are the one who opened us.”
Alfredo took out the map. The line to Bukhara smelled different now—of caramel and smoke. He marked Leila’s shop as “Place of Memory.”
“Will you come with us?” he asked.
“I do not leave the place where memory lives. I am an anchor. But when it is time for the final round, I will be there.”
He nodded. Leila went over to the shelf and pulled out a small bundle. Inside were three cardamom seeds tied with black thread.
“This is a Heart Knot. You will untie it when you forget why you started it. It will remind you. But only once.”
Alfredo left at sunrise.
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