The Black Citadel

A parable from the Kwanu Scrolls. (~850-400 BI)

Upon the Serpentine Road I walked,
Beneath the Suns I had traveled,
But only one desire had been left in my head:
I wished to die.

Indeed I was dressed like a corpse, blanketed only in a white shroud, but for some reason whatever last wer¹ of survival left floating amongst the storm of psalms that made up my mind had told me to wear simple rags to cover my soles and a reed hat to block the sun from my marked face. Perhaps I had been a horrible sister of Kauris.

I know not how long my peregrine madness had choked me - at this point it was somewhere between a year or two - for time loses its meaning when you already believe yourself dead. In any case, I had walked out from the great shrub trees to a marsh-field and its hairs of grain. In its center stood a man dressed in a rough but bright loincloth and mantle with a scythe in his arms: a farmer.

He did not see who I was and so he hailed me as one does any mendicant; silently, with an open palm with a grain or two of silver or brass from your pouch. Upon seeing my face he gave a more appropriate greeting, holding the sign of the horns to his brow and cowardly glancing to the earth.

“Hail, o Kauris, sister of the Kaurisituw, of why have you come to this field?” His voice shook like the orange grass in the wind-season.

I told him, plainly of why I came: “I look for shelter from the Suns and the Winds. Where may I find it?”

He pointed with his free hand to the horizon. “Beyond the hills that way is Barai, where my lord lives. His house is the one with the violet drapes bearing the Washu-Bird, and he is a kind man. Mayhaps he will humor you.”

Thanking him, I set off there. I had heard of this place called Barai. They say that in Barai, the wealthy drape their homes with beautiful silks and satins. They say that in Barai, the men wear mantles over loincloths and the women wear many-layered dresses. They say that in Barai, Shala is worshiped as Kaum² and not Kaum-Uar.
Most importantly of what I knew of Barai, they said that in that city they place Men in Jars.

I knew not much of this custom, for this “truth” was spoken by the tongues of mortal men and mortal truths are only weigh as much as the silver spent to say them. Before any further musings could leave my own tongue, the gates of Barai and their prismatic banners rose upon the horizon. It was time to see how much truth these statements of Barai held.

When I had reached the gates of bright-shawled Barai, I stopped at the idol of Shala and knelt. Clasping my hands and prostrating, I spoke the prayer to the Kaum. It took me no time at all, for I had not bothered to change the name of Kaum-Uar to Shala. I did not fear Shala’s smiting and it seemed he, much like I, did not bother hismelf.

When I rose back to my feet, my eyes swept lazily to the two men brandishing pikes at the gates. I had not needed to even make conversation with them, for they fear a Kauris much as any reasonable individual would.

Striding past them, my eyes began to ebb like the suns-and-moons across the sky. Indeed many a rumor was true: the men did wear their mantles and loincloths, as did the women wear their many-layered dresses. Between the stacked, squat home-complexes there were indeed drapes and banners flying amongst the geometric family-homes of the wealthy. But yet there was one thing that was not there: there were no men in jars.

In my pondering, I had broken my first precept of total awareness, for I had crossed shoulders with a man carrying a pot on his head. At first he took me for a man, but upon my face he saw the Kauris-paint and soon he, much like the farmer I had met when the suns were high, had assumed the proper posture when speaking to a Kaurisituw: eyes to the earth and the sign of the horns to the forehead; a demon-facade to trick another demon.

The word “Hail” left my lips lazily, as did the rest of my query that flew like a creek. The reveal of whom I was seeking, one “ash-Rawakwashu Kwe”³, elicited a stiff, near-automatic response from the man in which he swung his arm off eastward and pointed. That was where this man called Kwe was to be found.