“When the nation leaders, to the Wholist audience ‘chieftains,’ meet, they attempt to outdo one another in generosity of gifts given. It’s all very civilized, really.”
“The Great Ken has no time for matters of faith,” the Speaker said, firmly. “Further, she has not summoned you, and so you have no grounds for bothering her.”
“It’s not a matter of faith!” Hexadecimal protested. “It’s a matter of governance. To say nothing of the fact that the Oozekennen themselves constitute a faith!”
“The Oozekennen are predicated upon demonstrable effects of immersion in the primordial ooze and the ideal traits of a leader. There is no element of faith.”
“Perhaps not at the surface, but talk to any lay member of the Oozekennen and you’ll find strong currents of faith in the One God—sorry, God the Endless—and I know for a fact you were listening when Dread herself expressed such sentiments to me.” For all that the monastery of Dread was not formally a church, there were certainly symbols of faith aplenty, as well as murals decorating each wall inside and out, as well as statues depicting her emaciated form and those of presumable predecessors or fellow Kens.
The Speaker crossed her arms over her chest and attempted to glower menacingly. Finally, after a few moments, she sighed and said, “I will ask the Great Ken what she thinks.” It was less than a sandglass before she returned, Dread and the Embodiment in tow. “We will all go. Though it is a blot on our spirits, we do not trust the Amonites’ intentions.” Hexadecimal wished she had the nerve to comment that the Speaker said things like that but claimed her faith was not a faith. The Embodiment stayed between Hexadecimal and Dread, so she was denied the opportunity to talk to her, but then she supposed she wouldn’t want to take up too much of Dread’s energy by engaging in conversation when she had what could well be a taxing discussion ahead.
They followed Hexadecimal up to the Amonite Temple, a state of affairs which struck her as slightly ridiculous, as surely they knew the city better than she. But Hexa was not about to oust herself from the position of middleman, as it gave her great opportunity to observe what may well be a climactic moment of an entire kingdom. She looked back and smiled at Dread, giving her the thumbs up. They were ushered in, Dread slurshing slightly on the stone floor, and welcomed to a room where Hope and several of her acolytes were already sitting.
Immediately, Hexa felt a charge in the air. Dread and Hope made eye contact, and there was compulsion there. She would even have sworn that the black drops off Dread were falling further forward, that the woman leaned towards Hope. Hope was inscrutable and gestured towards the table, but there was a jerky quality to her movement when she moved or looked away from Dread, as though she didn’t want to let the sight or closeness of her go away. Hexa let out a breath she hadn’t realized she was holding as the Oozekennen settled at the table, and it turned into a sigh. It would be much more fitting for two religious leaders to seal an alliance with a marriage than for either of them to dally with a wandering chronicler. It had been a doomed wish, Hope with her vows and Dread with her search for whatever made her incomplete. Still, she just wished there weren’t such obvious energy between the two of them. She settled at the table and let the two religious leaders—whatever the Speaker said—get down to business.
“Great Ken. I am Teacher Hope of Peace.” Dread’s head jerked at the shared matrilineal title, before she subsided back into her seat. “While I acknowledge that the Oozekennen have been here longer, we Amonites have been here… a long time, now. We do not feel that we are represented by your governance, particularly in the outskirts but also in the cities proper.” So there were limits to the expanse of the seventh kingdom. “Your people devote a great deal of time and resources keeping up their pilgrimage sites, their Kens, their monasteries. Yet you do not leave us to do the same, but tax us, putting a double burden upon the Amonite people of upkeeping our own temples as well as yours.” Hope held up a silencing hand when the Speaker began to protest. “I do not mean to call your monasteries temples, I simply mean that your cultural centers are upheld by both Oozekennen and Amonite, while our temples are upheld by our resources alone. The mere digging of tombs requires massive amounts of labor.”
Well that was a curious sentence, why couldn’t they just have an earth sorcerer move the stone? It would take a few minutes, and could probably be done a few times a day quite comfortably. A staggering thought occurred to Hexa. Had the Amonites mined out their vast temples and abodes by hand? She had a newfound respect for the industry of the Amonite people. Unable to contain herself, she asked Hope about the matter of sorcery. “It requires a great sacrifice for a priest to work sorcery. One crypt could take an entire sheep in offering, and so while the practice is not unheard-of, it is uncommon in practice.” Hexa puzzled over this as the silence drew out, before realizing—without faith in the Savior, there was no relationship to the One God except, evidently, through sacrifice.
Hexa looked over at Dread, who thus far had nodded but said nothing. Hope, too, seemed to be waiting with incredible patience. Finally, Dread started and sat up in her seat. “Great Teacher Hope, why do… you bury your people in tombs?”
“It is the way of our people. The ways preserved in the scrolls of our faith. Surely you have some ways of your own people which are traditions absent of meaning?”
The Speaker scoffed, but Dread held up a hand to cut her off. “It is possible. Once, we were said to speak to the primordial ooze. Now, we hold high the non-self brought about by immersion, but we do not speak to it. Tradition has built to cover deficiencies in our lore lost to time. But if… your tradition lacks meaning, why not adopt a new one?” Hexa noted with interest that the conference seemed to be bringing Dread into sharper focus, as she was speaking both more and more eloquently than she had with herself. Another sure sign of her interest, unfortunately.
“An Oozekennen new one?”
Dread caught the bite in Hope’s voice, and her head swiveled as if on a pivot, before she nodded. “It would free up considerable labor.” I mean, if they’re doing it by hand… moving that much stone isn’t easy for an earth sorcerer, but it’s certainly doable.
”So would the relief of the taxes of labor or resources. Are you aware that some of your finest murals were painted by Amonite craftswomen, in exchange for the privilege of living in ‘your’ caverns?”
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Even as things loomed contentious, Dread’s attention was unflinchingly on Hope, and Hope seemed almost surprised to hear from the Speaker rather than Dread, and had difficulty paying her any attention. “The taxes are necessary. We are a sorely constrained society, and the Amonite tradition of burying the dead is only furthering that constriction. You leave goods that could go back into circulation inside of necropolises where defiled undead stain and keep them.”
The phrase, “You can’t take it with you,” popped into Hexa’s mind. It seemed a valid point, if phrased combatively.
“What’s more, murals fade or are defaced with time, their upkeep is an essential part of keeping the culture of a society which, as the Great Ken said, is experiencing upheaval.” That seemed a peculiar way to put that the Oozekennen had evidently lost the knack of speaking to Creation and had built up an entire system of government built around rituals that had lost their meaning. She chided herself, her jealousy of the immediate alchemy between Dread and Hope had kept her from making note of that sooner, that the fabled sorcery of the seventh kingdom had been lost to time.
“If the Amonites want a voice in government,” the Speaker went on—Hexa really should learn her name—“they are welcome to immerse themselves in the primordial ooze and embody the traits of a good leader: selflessness, equanimity, and direct knowledge of the Endless.”
“In other words,” Hope said dryly, “If they adopt your religious practices in place of their own.” A fair point. “I was speaking with Dread. You are welcome to lend weight to her position, and to clarify where needed, but you are not the one with whom I am discussing things.” Evidently there was a line between “diplomatic” and “pushover.” And Hope knew exactly where that line was.
“If you knew the tenets of Oozekennen practices you’d realize that the Speaker is often the voice of a Ken.” Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having a selfless leader if they’re led by someone who isn’t selfless? Hexa filed that away in her notes to ask later.
“In other words, once more, an Amonite who immersed themselves in the waters of nothingness would have to work to be heard through an overbearing Oozekennen unless an entire echelon of Amonites went through your trainings and practices somehow keeping themselves.” I mean, at least there’s an avenue, but that does seem like a bit much.
“Keeping ahold of the ‘self’ is entirely what a good Ken does not do! Besides, each community follows their own Ken!” Except people go on pilgrimages to see the Great Ken, so clearly Dread holds special authority.
“But the Speakers congregate and correspond and declare the taxes of labor and resources.” I wonder what the rules regarding that forum are. Is it democratic? Republican? Does the Speaker of the Great Ken get a bigger say?
Dread then spoke up. “What of the sheep of the Amonites? They consume great quantities of feed and then are offered up for religious offering. Shouldn’t that address some of the imbalance?” That took nearly a sandglass. Dread is either a deep thinker… she’s a deep thinker.
“Thank you for speaking over your subordinate, Great Ken. I would argue that the same great quantities of farmland are given over to the making of dyes primarily used by the Oozekennen. I could get figures and we could discuss them in particular.”
“Another meeting?!” the Speaker wailed.
“Another meeting… would indeed be necessary,” Dread replied. “We both need time to consider the issues that have been raised, and gather our facts and figures. Is there anything else that needs discussion?”
“But, Ken Dread, to consider would detract from your immersion schedule! You would need to hold on to—”
“I… I hold onto many things, between immersions. Please… do not make this harder than it needs to be.” The Speaker winced, and Hexa winced too. That was quite the rebuke for one who was in constant pain from a wound to the spirit.
Hexa didn’t bear the woman ill will, it seemed she genuinely had Dread’s best interests at heart. She wondered if the Speaker bore some kind of attraction to Dread or if their relationship was religiously platonic. “You can have a copy of my notes, if you like, Speaker. After they’re done talking and I’ve copied them over.” And I’ve removed some of my editorials.
“I—thank you, Hexa. It would relieve some of the weight the Great Ken bore.” The Speaker looked a bit lost, and tired, and Hexa found herself wondering, rather than about relationship dynamics, just how old the Speaker was. Her hair wasn’t white, but now that she looked she saw strands of gray.
”We will compare figures for the farmland given over to dye production to those given over to sheep feed. I would suggest that we also procure estimates as to the value of their byproducts. Feed, from the pressed mushrooms, wool and meat from the sheep.” Hope really is used to organizing systems. I’m impressed. I wouldn’t have thought of the fact that pressed mushrooms still held value as feedstock or even people food.
Dread nodded. “Good points. We will gather the figures. I assume we can, Speaker Glurch.”
“I—yes. We can.” Good job not making Dread’s job harder.
“Good.” Dread rose. “Forgive… me, but I would keep these meetings short over having fewer of them.” She bowed to Hope, who waited for her chair to be drawn and then stood and bowed back. The two of them drew out their bows, head upturned to face the other, and Hexa once again felt the regrettable jealousy that the two most eligible women in Gargold had found each other, thanks to her. She had hoped to dally with at least Dread, whose faith so far as she knew did not entail vows of—but perhaps it did. She didn’t really know. All she knew was that Dread didn’t wear… really, she was robed in the primordial ooze, it was hard to say but it didn’t even seem she wore clothes. She needed to learn more about the Oozekennen faith, clearly.
Dread filed out of the room with the Speaker and the Embodiments. Hexa sat back from taking her notes and let out a sigh. Her writing hand had a cramp, the psyllium sheets available in Gargold took a bit more pressure from her pen to scorch clear marks on the paper.
The Speaker turned to look at Hexa, but one of Hope’s attendants touched her arm and indicted Hope. Hexa said to the attendant, “Please give the Speaker my address, so that I can give her a copy of my notes.” Then she walked over to Hope, who was dusting imaginary specks off her robes. It was interesting to see someone so self-possessed engaging in dilatory tactics. “You wanted to speak to me, Great Teacher?”
Hope smiled faintly. “Please. Hope. Or at least, Teacher. I have enough acolytes. But yes, I did want to speak to you. Not least about that absolutely fascinating writing implement you have. Ink is difficult to write with, so many of our oldest documents await copying.” She wanted to talk about pens? Not the most romantic topic, but it was a topic nonetheless, and Hexa was helpless to resist the pull of the Great Teacher. However obvious the chemistry between her and Dread, there was hope unless one of them actually declared a courtship. Which, given the animosity festering, would likely shake the Teacher off the razor’s edge she walked with her faith. Not to mention, Dread’s own position was held on the basis of her superior immersion and selflessness, both of them had a lot to lose by an ill-advised relationship. Then again, Hexa was outside either faith and likely… sigh. She was once again entertaining ideas above her station.
