The following morning broke clear with silver sunlight gazing down into the pale blue skies. Gattlin stretched, feeling the sunlight on his face from the open window, his face a dry hollow mask.
There was a knock on his door as he threw his shirt over his head.
“Hello?” he opened it.
Verdeyan stood in the doorway holding a sheet of pale blue silk fabric.
“Jonalla gave me this but I cannot wrap her in it alone.”
He sighed, stepping out into the sitting room.
Nodding, he took one end of the sheet, spreading it out on the mattress beside Asabet’s body. He pulled back the blanket from the body, and rolled it over onto the silk sheet. He and Verdeyan folded the sheet over again to cover Asabet’s face, tying the ends with two red leather strips like a large scroll.
“Tell Jonalla I have gone to find the priests,” Gattlin said. He silently leapt out the front door, his dark auburn wings gleaming red in the morning sun.
She stood in the doorway waiting, letting the sunlight wash over her as her thoughts whirled in endless loops.
He returned in a quarter hour followed by three blue robed figures.
Two men and one woman wearing trailing silk robes as they swept into the sitting room. The two men carried a set of wooden poles lashed together as a rough stretcher. They mumbled condolences first to Verdeyan, Asabet and Gattlin, and then to the four directions.
Verdeyan and Gattlin stood silently, watching them go about their ceremonial rites.
The woman lay a yellow swathe of silk over Asabet’s wrapped body, the material embroidered with the symbol of a flower and the sun, the glyphs for motherhood.
The priestess went about the room, brushing the tips of her wings against the walls, touching her heart, then holding out her hands as if to release some invisible energy.
“She was a friend of mother’s,” Gattlin whispered, pointing to the priestess.
The two male priests kneeled and bowed their heads over Asabet’s body, their hands placed at her forehead and her feet, one at her right, one at her left.
There, they began to chant ancient couplets, which Gattlin joined.
Jonalla appeared at the stairway, moving to Asabet’s feet where she knelt.
Gattlin knelt at her head.
The priestess had finished her work in the room, and stood with her arms spread to usher the presence of the Spirits.
Verdeyan sat quietly on the floor in the doorway, watching the ritual unfold.
In these positions, the five singing in low rhythms. The words were familiar, and Verdeyan found herself voicing the same words, joining them in their chant.
After a long hour of prayers, the priests rose to leave.
The priestess turned to Jonalla and Gattlin, saying, “ I shall miss Asabet as much as you. She was a mother to me. The altar at the temple will be ready at sunset. I will come to help you carry her up at dusk. Is there anyone you wish to attend?”
Jonalla tilted her head to the side, musing over the priestess’ words.
“Shakoba the matchmaker, Lesu from the village, Sasha and Tharso the healers, and perhaps our neighbors if they can come.”
The priestess nodded solemnly, motioning for the others to follow her.
The rest of the day passed in a blur, filled with heart-rending longing and the familiar rituals of faith and passing.
As the evening sun painted the treetops scarlet, the three priests and Gattlin took the pyre on their shoulders, trudging from the sitting room, out across the catwalks carved into the branches, their burden heavy on their backs. Asabet’s body lay on the lattice of poles, lifted for its final journey towards the afterlife.
Verdeyan, Jonalla and Aspen followed in a small procession, quiet, stiff faces, their footsteps sounding hollowly against the bark of the ancient tree.
As they traveled up towards the tree’s massive trunk, the procession was joined by a string of Fleirzon, a series of men, women and children dressed in the solemn gray-blue garbs of mourning, and as they rounded the catwalk towards the market square, a tall, dark-haired woman fell in line, along with a chestnut haired, orange eyed young man, followed by a tall blond who, unlike the others wore no gray-blue cloak of mourning, instead, his everyday clothing; a tree-leopard skin robe.
Gattlin only saw these people from the corners of his eyes, not having the heart to turn to look.
Then the procession mounted the staircase cut into the trunk of the tree, spiraling upwards slowly. In the trunk were caverns where Fleirzon made their homes, ledges of petrified wood where gardens grew, and all around, the quiet thrum of life in the branches.
At the end of the staircase, there was a large flat area of wood where the top of the tree had, centuries ago, been obliterated in some cataclysmic event, leaving behind a massive flat area at the top of the trunk, where the town center of Old Locher was built.
To the left was the market square, the right the homes of the Vahlein, the local royalty, and in the center, on a raised area, the temple grounds.
All around grew various weeds and grasses, rooted in the petrified wood of the tree.
Slowly, the procession traveled up the well-worn path to the temple grounds, pausing beneath an enormous wooden arch; the entrance.
The head priest in his gray silk robe met them there, his arms folded, his eyes solemn.
“May you enter," he said.
The procession trailed into the temple grounds beneath the arch, crossing the courtyard filed with the blue haze of smoke from the fires on the altars.
The priest lead them towards a central alter, a large rectangular platform of petrified wood, covered in green leaves, a pyre.
Gattlin and the three priests lay their burden on the altar, sighing exhaustedly.
The group spread, its members now completely hushed, the only sounds the rise and fall of breath and a few individuals coughing.
The individuals gathered in a crescent shape near the altar, waiting as the Head Priest moved to stand before them.
In a solemn voice, he began to speak.
“Just as the wind blows onwards on its eternal journey through this world, this Great Forest, the breath of all Fleirzon someday leaves the body. The Spirit of all who have lived and ever will live is breathed by the Keeper of the Mists, the Great One, that breathed life into all. Now, we usher the Spirit of Asabet into the hands of the Great One. May He welcome her in open arms, that she might cease to suffer, that the pain and sorrow of this world might not taint her soul.
Now, her ashes will rise into the wind, and her Spirit will go to the Great One.”
A priest approached the Head Priest with a torch in his hand.
The Head Priest lay the torch on the pyre, letting the flames spread.
The group began to chant, an ancient song, as the black smoke of Asabet’s body rose into the sky, the setting sun painting the scene an eerie red.
The procession turned away, making the way back towards their homes.
Jonalla caught sight of a tall stranger, clad in a leopard-skin robe, contrasting the gloomy blue garb of the rest of the procession.
“What do you mean to do here, sir,” she called after him, insult making her callous.
“I came with Lesu.” He shrugged.
“This isn’t some feast by the meadow commons. This is my mother’s funeral!” Hot tears began streaming down her face.
The man shrugged.
“Say, is that girl a slave? I’ve needed a slave,” he said, turning to Jonalla with interest in his face.
“Yes, she is a slave, my slave. How dare you? Doing business at a funeral! Be gone!”
“Fine madam, but I am open to buy if you happen to change your mind.” He turned away, his leopard-skin robe swishing in the wind.
After the long trek down the tree, the four settled into the dark, quiet house, lying down to sleep.
…
Thanks for reading!
~Voxina
