The Totem-Maker (part one hundred thirty-one)

The Totem-Maker

Chapter Twelve

A Land So Perilous

(part one hundred thirty-one)

The interpreter shrugged. The commander backed his steed and shouted. His soldiers withdrew; the workers clustered, with every appearance of nervousness, at the tunnel mouth.

“We have digging. But you are rich. Now it is, you know me…” The interpreter lapsed again, at this unsatisfying pass, and returned to pantomime. The round, buff shells of these stones might or might not conceal green crystals. Only breaking them would give proof.

“Rich and beauty,” the man said. “What the Emperor will pay, huh?”

“We can’t,” Bani’s father said. “Lotoq…”

It was an error, born of rising panic, but Rathinihama gained from it one spot of certain ground—that Lotoq’s name was not to be spoken. Bani himself, in this telling, gives his opinion that the green had aroused, in the heart of the elder, what a coveted thing will. With blame to cast, he had his excuse for removing the stones; otherwise, the act of defiling the god’s stronghold would forbid it.

Rathinihama said, to a Kale Kale trader who outranked Bani’s father, “The harm has been done. We must take these stones and break them, and have the priests’ reading, to know how the god would have us appease him.”

In this village, constructed on two sides of a deep ravine, Bani’s father and other cloth weavers and dyers were housed near the stream. The potters, too, needing water for their work, lived low, opposite the clothmakers’ bank. The stone carvers were here, for their heavy craft needed its materials loaded and unloaded from rafts.

Above were the stitcheries, where garments and draperies were made; where also were the spinning wheels and knitteries. On a level at the height of the road, foodstuffs were vended, and in the highest lofts were housed the fine arts, of tile painting and jewelry making.

Three master cutters were summoned to the meetinghouse and offered crystals unlocked from three of the stones. The other stones had crumbled under the hammer. Six halves of differing quality lay arrayed on the carpet. Allel, senior of the masters, picked as his eye discerned, not the largest of crystals, but most varied of hue. One stone cup held yellow with the green; the other, violet red.

Takel’kale chose for herself the longest and most translucent of the crystals. Mafi took what remained. And each resolved to surpass these rivals, to learn the crystals, splitting the lesser of them this way and that; then to design glorious temptation for the Emperor and his court. So enamored were the elders of this hope, of wealth beyond all knowing, that celebration and feasting followed, igniting spirits from the heights of the village to its depths, where even Bani’s father gave a pig to the spit, telling Bani his sacrifice would be twice returned in the coming time of plenty.

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Lore and Lessons

The Totem-Maker (part one hundred thirty-two)

(2018, Stephanie Foster)