WIP by M Bae

(1 rating) Rate this Story (5 best) 1 2 3 4 5

When people die in my country, their bodies are taken to mountaintops so that eagles may carry their spirits to heavens. Once the bodies are laid at high points, the families watch from afar until the birds have come and gone, and the flesh of the dead is picked clean. Then harvest the bones and sing farewell to the spirits of their beloved. The bones are taken to the shaman of the dead man's tribe, who fashions them into many talismans to be worn by the children of the dead.

I have never seen any of this, but Aheba swears it. She says that eagles are inhouny, which means godsent, since their talons and beaks pry free the spirits of the dead at the bidding of the sky god. Those that die without friends or family to carry them to mountains become food for the wormy god, who always hungers after human spirits. Once eaten and defecated, they become gurbuha, evil and envious spirits that hate all living things.

All this and more I have heard from Aheba, although she is not of my country, and has lived in this city all her life, as I have. Still, I believe her, because she takes care of me, and because I have a talisman like the ones she spoke of. It is in the shape of a stag's head with entwined horns, white as snow except for the eyes, which are dark. It was the only thing I had when Aheba found me at the temple's steps, crying in a reed basket. She says it connects me to my father's spirit—she knows it is my father because the amulet is of a stag, not a doe—who will guide and protect me as long as I wear it. Sometimes I want to know how he died.

I think it strange that Aheba can know such things about countries and people not her own, when she, like I, has lived all her life in this city. When I ask, she smiles and says, "When one is blind, one hears things." Although her skin is black as night, her eyes are like pears—all milky white and no pupils. She was not born like so, she says, but chose to give her sight to her god so that she may understand things as they truly are. But some things, I think, one must see to know.

I have written of my people's rites of dead because I have seen many corpses today, men (and fewer women) hanging from yew trees along the road. The charioteer, Knotos, says they are foul men, robbers and murderers all. The prince says they too are victims, and that poverty is to blame for having driven them to such an end. He advised Knotos to not curse their souls. The charioteer obeyed, but spat each time we passed a hung man, with much grumbling under his breath.

A pack of crows have been feasting on their flesh as long as we have been on the road, swarming from tree to tree. They eat without much noise. I wonder—to which god do these men belong? The wormy God, the sky god, or perhaps some god or goddess of their own nations? And—do crows soar as high as eagles?

We have stopped at an inn. While we ate the innkeep joined us and told us of the dangers that lie in the southern roads, and how it is hurting his business.

"The Qah'rap of Nissa hired a pack of Roethian mercenaries to hunt down bandits, but he—(here the inkeep paused to calm his temper, lest he speak too harshly) despite his great wisdom erred, for they are worse than all the bandits together! They hunt down petty bandits—chase them like rabbits until they are bored, then hang them by the roads.