A Story of Forever

Part 7

There was at around this time another Uzra who came to the forests and fields of Oellon. Timur was a young Uzra child, not from a renown family. She was a girl but the others all thought of her as a boy.

One day the little girl got into a training accident and died. And her parents grieved her strongly. They burned what they thought was their son and her spirit went up to Forkava, since she had done nothing in her life which would indicate that she was opposed to the Uzras. And she wasn’t. Not at this point. She simply did what she was told to do.

In Forkava she saw a great feast being prepared. The Uzras slayed a giant animal which looked like a pig. The pig screamed and cried as it died. The dead Uzras gave it to the Yemar cook to be prepared. She followed the body of the dead animal and she saw the Yemar cook work. He was very weary-looking and hollow-eyed. She felt sad for him.

The next day the same pig was there, bound to a post. The girl knew it was the same pig because she looked in its eyes and saw the same shine. The pig was terrified. And the girl came to find out why.

Again the pig was slain by piercing spears cutting through its body. And again it screamed its death-screams. Again the girl followed its body into the kitchen and saw the haunted-eyed cook. And again she felt the feeling that something was deeply wrong here.

This same pattern went on for seven other nights. The girl thought that the pig must be very tortured to be killed every day. She knew it felt great pain. And she knew that the cook felt great pain too. She did not know how the Uzra dead could do this. She had naively thought them good and honourable. But she kept her mouth quiet.

On the ninth day the cook looked at her and asked her what she was doing there in the kitchen. With great trepidation, the girl told him the story of the pig that had to suffer a death every single day and the girl who watched, horrified. The cook told the girl that she was rare amongst the Uzras, that she had a heart. He asked what the girl’s name was. And she said it was Fykll. The cook shared his own name which was Modim.

He told her of the other land of the dead, Oellon, where there were no great feasts that required the slaying of great beings. And they conspired together to sneak into Oellon. Before leaving, Modim told her of one more person they must take.

Valdri was the servant of the hall. He did all the tasks such as fetching the dead Uzras their drinks, washing their feet, and keeping the fire going. He had to work long and hard, not being able to rest until he had finished all of his tasks. Thus he was always exhausted and he knew much strife. He was a friend of Modim and Modim could not leave without him, nor did he desire to leave the girl alone in such an oppressive place.

Fykll told the other Uzras of Forkava that the cook and the servant were taking her on a tour of the place. The three of them then jumped off the very edge of Forkava and down into the land of Oellon. They landed on the bridge, for all must cross the bridge in order to get to Oellon.

Molia asked them what their business was and they explained their story to her. She then welcomed them in and they went to the council.

Fykll learned the truth of who the Uzras were and what they did. And she too vowed to fight against them.

The Uzras looked for her long and hard but could not find her anywhere.

Now it might be worthy to note that Karkion himself had a moment, just a small moment, where he was not the great king he displayed himself as.

It was after the death of his sons and daughter-in-law. He was sitting outside near the edge of the forest, at the edge of the lands he had conquered for his own people. He was grieving. In the shallow, selfish way his conqueror’s heart knew how to grieve. But still, he was grieving.

Mamon came to him and sat beside him. He did not tell them to go away. They both looked for a while at the moon, passing through the sky. And they sat in silence.

Finally Mamon told him that they knew what it was like to grieve for children. They asked him if he would like a drink of the blood-red Tzai (yes, I stole this) that the Yemars used to represent kindred. They told him that if he accepted their Tzai they would be kindred.

Surprising everyone, Karkion accepted the offer and drank the Tzai.

Later, he was very disgusted at having accepted such an offer and having made such a bid. He blamed it on the moon, which was a part of Puri as of yet unfettered. He resolved to capture and direct the sun and the moon, the way that they arced and the paths that they went.

And so he got his builders to build large iron fetters to the sun and the moon. These he chained to horses. But one problem remained. There were no drivers to drive the horses, and no Uzra who would consent to driving up in front of such burning hot bodies.

There was a Yemar couple named Cadi and Morion who had two daughters. Their daughters were very beautiful and thus they were named after the sun and moon. Sunna and Moni were sweet little infants who grew up to be strong-spirited young girls.

But Karkion saw them and he felt a desire to destroy them. Why should the sun and the moon remain out of his control? Why should Sunna and Moni be so beautiful? Why had their parents taunted him with naming their daughters after the celestial bodies?

He took Sunna and Moni and he forced them to drive the horses of the sun and moon. He forced them to drive in the paths he had set out for them and he forced them to drive on continuously without stopping or rest.

But before all this happened Mamon was walking. They were walking on the snow of winter. And it was still all around them. It was crisp and cold and silent. As still as death.

Lying on the snow there was a thin fur jacket, of the style and cut that women usually wore. Mamon picked it up and saw that it was converted in blood, frozen stiff in the winter cold.

They walked a few paces still, and saw a pile of ashes. These ashes, they knew, were the ashes of a woman burned. They held the jacket of the woman close to them and uttered a prayer.

They then dug through the ashes, looking for any sign of life. They found within the ashes a heart, red and whole and cold to the touch. The heart of the woman who had died. They brought the heart to their lips and ate it, whispering a prayer in the depths of their own heart the whole time.

And then, on the night of that day, when the moon was shining bright, Mamon found that they were pregnant. Many moon cycles later, they gave birth to the hundreds of Markavs, who were a new race of Yemars, all born from the heart of the burned woman.

Mamon raised them in secret, benefitting from the help of Manon’s companions.

———
If you like this piece check out my Mastodon my account is FSairuv@mas.to and I post about human rights, social justice, and the environment.