Elephant Pond 2:

For innocence sake

Morgan woke up to the clatter of dishes, his eye lids heavier than the night before and his mind muddy and irritated. The few hours of sleep he’d managed to get had done more harm than good. He dragged himself out of bed, intent on joining the rest of his family but by the time he’d bathed, dressed and made his way to their small kitchen, breakfast was almost over. His mother was already cleaning the last of the dishes while Tory ate oatmeal at the table silently. His father stood at the door, fixing a black formal robe that didn’t seem to sit quite right on his muscular frame.

“I’m afraid it’s a little too soon for us to go out there, Morgan. Your mother would be too worried,” Typhon said as Morgan entered the kitchen. “Besides, the Heat Basin is closed in mourning, as customary.”

Morgan was used to making harvesting trips on his own but, given the times, his father had eagerly offered to take him, as well as impart some of his own knowledge.

“Its fine, I figured we couldn’t go harvesting the day after...what happened, anyway.”

“We’ll go tomorrow, I promise. For now, I have to get going. I’m supposed to be one of Brunwin’s bearers...” Typhon said. His face was expressionless, unhindered by signs of grieving. If he’d spent the night mourning, Morgan couldn’t tell. He gave his son one last glance before turning and walking out the door.

“Are you ready to go too or would you like breakfast?” Morgan’s mother asked.

When she turned to face him, he could see she wasn’t faring any better than he was. Her dark brown hair was in up in poorly done bun, strands falling around eyes that were red and puffy from crying. Her expression had stiffened into a frown, overnight, that deepened what few wrinkles she’d had into deep cracks that gave her face a raw frailty. When she looked at him, her worry mirrored his.

“I could eat,” Morgan said, pulling a chair and sitting down at the table. “A few people were expecting you at the funeral,” he continued as his mother put a bowl of oats and berries down in front of him.

She turned her back to him again and resumed scrubbing the last of the pots. “I wanted to be there myself, but Tory didn’t think she could stomach it. We’ll be going to his Baring though, are you coming?”

Morgan hadn’t felt inclined to witness Brunwin’s Baring, especially after the toll the night before had taken on him. However, the closure the ritual offered made it worth considering, though that depended on the decisions Brunwin had made in his final moments.

“Sure,” Morgan muttered.

Shortly after, the three of them left their home and joined the many small groups of people walking along the village’s main road. It was still the very early hours of morning but token snails were already about. Their myriad of colors and patterns could be seen across the village as they clung to wooden rooftops and crawled along the grey tiled streets beside them. The rather large species of cleaning snail was one of the few creatures that ever left the Barrier Reef, cleansing every building within the village to return before evening.

Continuing down the road, to their west, Morgan saw the village market preparing to open. Tribesmen cleaned, prepped stalls and wheeled in heaps of crops from the terraced hills just outside the barrier. The lush green slopes bathed in the orange morning light reminded him of the time he’d spent playing in the hills, before they were hunted and even before his father had left.

Maya followed her son’s gaze to the hills and smiled reminiscently.

“Do you remember when you wanted to be a farmer?”

“Yes, that dream didn’t last very long though.”

“You gave up on it as soon as your father told you you’d have to spend all day in the mud, away from the sea,” his mother laughed.

“It was that and those dung flies that kept flying at me,” Morgan said and the three of them laughed.

From there they passed the Heat Basin. The tall, especially wide square tower housed the entire village’s forges and was the heart of both the village and their faith. Its exterior consisted of various shades of blue metallic patchwork that was arranged to depict the sea at its base. Alight on top of it a dark blue, vaguely humanoid, four armed statue of Avitide sat. Pale blue eyes stared down from a smooth, featureless face as they walked by.

“Brunwin was the strongest of us, who could have caught him, much less killed him?” Morgan pondered aloud.

“I don’t know, I’m not as familiar with the outside world as your father. There are few people with the skills and resources to enter and navigate the Knife Isles much less actually pursue us.”

“So you think it’s one of the other tribes attacking us? We’ve had peace with them for centuries.”

“Peace on paper is very different from peace in the real world, Morgan. It also wouldn’t be the first time that tribes have used....distasteful tactics to try to force us to make weapons for them.”

“And what did we do then?”

“We endured. We stood our ground against them and refused their demands no matter how many of us fell, because that’s what it means to be Khantani.”

Morgan had heard his mother use similar lines when arguing with her husband, but now the obstinate pride in her voice had been softened.

“We shouldn’t have to die t-,” Morgan began.

“Careful boy!” his mother snapped in a whisper. She eyed the tribesmen around as they walked; searching for anyone who’d heard him. “Don’t you dare follow your father.”

From there the walk was silent until they arrived at the northern end of the village and saw that more tribesmen than had actually attended the funeral had come to the Baring. The crowd had flooded into the semi-circular courtyard, and parted down the middle to make way for the procession, while those that couldn’t fit occupied the streets.

Morgan held his sister’s hand as the three of them made their way from the street to the very front of the crowd with many pardons till they were recognized and allowed to pass. Just ahead of them the eldest of the tribesmen, each a centenarian, stood at the forefront of either crowd. Rather than being held up by walking sticks or supported by doting attendants they stood by stoically, observing the preparations for the ritual.

Ahead of them the six bearers, three of them a side, in formal black robes stood ready around the coffin. The head Animist Taithe knelt at the coffin, in his blue and silver robe, carving the last of the runes into the now pale blue coffin with a chisel. It was custom for the closest friends and family of the deceased to bare them to the Khantani god to be accepted into paradise. Morgan recognized some of them as close friends of Brunwin, and his two younger brothers, one on either side at the head.

Brunwin and Morgan’s father, as lifelong friends had decided long ago that the first to pass would carry the other, but Typhon was nowhere to be seen, though Morgan could already guess what happened.

When the final rune was carved, the elderly man stepped back to stand beside Tallus among the other elders. The bearers lifted Brunwin onto their shoulders, and began the slow walk from the funeral stand to the barrier-reef.

When the bearers finally stood before the water, the chatter died down behind them as the Barrier reacted to their presence. The water began churning and curling into itself whiles the creatures within, large and small grew oddly still, bobbing and swaying in the water’s motion.

Innocence was the one thing Avitide demanded. It was the one condition for all of the knowledge and powers they were granted, and the cornerstone of their beliefs. They were expected to never harm another living being, even if it cost them their lives, no matter the harm that person or creature inflicted. Else they’d be plagued by an insurmountable guilt, and cast out forever.

As they waited, the same memory resurfaced in Morgan’s mind as it did the others in the crowd, the day that haunted the tense silence.

It was the first time they’d actually witnessed someone being turned away from paradise. It had been barely a month ago when Torm, an Animist barely older than he was, was found dead in the deep. He was bared to the barrier, just as Brunwin was now and rejected.

The terror and misery on his family’s faces when they’d realized, had disturbed Morgan and undoubtedly many others ever since. Or perhaps, even more so, the revulsion and grief on his bearers’ faces as they promptly dropped him, upon realizing they were carrying one of the Burdened. From then on, as more and more tribesmen were killed outside the village, there were those like Torm who chose to kill or harm before they died.

Morgan had heard many speculate that they likely fought back against their attackers in a final attempt to survive. There was a time he couldn’t imagine a life of pervasive guilt, away from Khantani ever being worth living, but now he wasn’t sure.

Finally the denizens of the Barrier reef dispersed, leaving an empty wall of water before it too followed, parting to form a rectangular opening. On queue the choir came forward, rows of men and women dressed in dark blue gowns trimmed in black, as a small lake with rich turquoise waters came into view.

Many in the crowd nodded in approval as Brunwin was accepted or breathed a sigh of relief, but those baring him, didn’t share in the moment’s reprieve. Rather they just continued walking forward, as if there was never any doubt or reason to worry.

Before them was the lake where Avitide had first appeared over millennia ago, named Angler’s Maw. The lake he’d converted from fresh to sea water, and where he took their dead into paradise, where he resided below. The circumstances around seeing the glittering lake were usually less than favorable at best, but the multicolored shimmering of the lake’s surface entranced Morgan. A contrast that always left him conflicted.

Standing on either side of the bearers the choir began singing, in a singular sonorous voice; a monophonic song.

As they entered the new passage, the earth below their feet shook, accompanied by the sound of stone grinding against stone. The choir’s unified voice rose and fell, pitching to contrast the rumbling.

When it stopped so did their song, replaced by a gurgling emanating from the center of the lake. The water began to swirl until a whirlpool formed, exposing a massive hole the water now drained into, while a pale blue light bled out.

Tallus stepped forward, smiling as if he’d won a battle. Morgan was sure he’d have words for his father.

“Brunwin, son of Orion and Tess, Higher Order Elementalist and Lower order Animist,” his uncle bellowed, “go forth and rest in peace, till we too join you in Avitide’s paradise!”

The bearers stepped into Angler’s Maw till the water reached their waists and lay the coffin into the swirling water, the runes beginning to glow.

The choir resumed in a new song now, in a higher hopeful tone, as Brunwin was lowered into the lake.

Morgan’s mother rest her arm on his shoulder and squeezed him gently as Tory clung to him holding back tears. The three of them watched Brunwin’s coffin float to the centre of the lake and plunge into the glimmering hole, as they said there silent goodbyes.