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KALON
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Chapter Sixty: Riza
Galactic Quadrant: Darna Quadrant
Ruling Government: Talum Merchant Federation
Solar System: D-447
Planet: Ora
Location: Daska City, Inner city
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As I read through the pages that Riza has left behind, there is some hope slipping through the edges of my armored heart. Hope that this girl might have been taken from the city before whatever happened here. The Sage’s words play in my mind though. Reminding me not to hold on to hope.
Hope can be a powerful force, but if we build our expectations on it, our foundations will crumble in the face of despair.
“Does it have what you thought it might?” Luna asks me, almost startling me after being silent for hours.
“It does,” I say, looking back down at the journal.
There is a strange kinship I feel with this person whose pages I read. It is strange the depth one can feel from the written word, as though it is a spell, able to transcend boundaries and enter our imaginations. My fingers flip through the next few pages of her journal. I see speckles of blood on the pages. My hands grip the page tighter, wondering if the owner yet lives. Letting out a sigh, I put it back in my coat. There will be time to read it later.
“This is it.” I say, standing in front of a large ornate door with deep patterns shaped in its metal “We will have to find a way to open it.”
I begin looking around the sides of the door when I hear the metal groaning. Luna is now walking through the gap she made. Yet again I had forgotten her strength. It is curious how she can be so strong. Squeezing through after her, I take in the sights of the hall. Even though it is cluttered, the difference between the inner and outer clan halls is abundantly clear. It is a massive room, more than five times the size of Yul Clan’s assembly hall. As I look along the walls, it is strange, there are colors painted upon them, more than the black and grey of the lower city. Some of these colors I have only seen in holos. Stepping further into the room, I barely hear Luna closing the door, and barring it, my mind is enraptured by the shapes on the walls.
“What do they call these?” I ask aloud, as I approach the wall, touching the paint, my hand retracting as it chips away from the drawings. The Sage told me the word, but I have not heard it in many seasons.
“Do you mean the art on the wall?” she asks, then after a pause “Though I suppose mural would be the better word.”
Art… yes, that’s the word. Drawings depicting things in a beautiful way. Looking upon the walls, I see the deeds of those who came before. The time long passed, and the paint cracked and dulled in some areas. Yet their deeds remain long after their flesh has become ash. Nekam had something similar in the Clan Chief's private quarters, though the colors he had, were much less vibrant.
She is speaking but my ears grow deaf as my hand traces along the artwork, bringing back fond memories of the Sage and the holos he used to show Arrum and me. To see such beautiful things amongst the tragedy of this city is a strange feeling.
“Did you hear me?” she asks, though she does not seem angry.
“No,” I admit, my hand falling to the side as I look at the last picture. It shows the mines deep below the surface, and a man wearing the crest of this clan, he stands on the backs of two people wearing chains around their throats. Piles of Etherium lay at his feet, a look of unsatisfiable hunger on his face. A familiar scene. One I would not call art. The ones whose backs he stands on remind me of the brothers, Haki and Daki. I wonder where they are. I wonder if they suffer.
“Aren’t you curious what I asked?”
“No,” I say. My mood is bitter, thinking about my failings. Moving toward the Clan’s bathing area now.
She follows in close step, when I enter, I find that even this room is bigger than my Clan’s. The waters have evaporated though from the main tub where members of the Clan bathe together. Moving to the side area, I see buckets in the same area where Ulima are made to bathe. Unworthy to enter the waters of the Clan, lest their filth becomes everyone’s. The pipes here are still warm to the touch though, good, these will do nicely.
Opening it, I let it pour into the large pit, murky liquid spills out as I twist the knob. Sediment from years of not being used no doubt.
“That doesn’t look sanitary.” She says, holding her nose from the smell.
“Once it runs its course, it will be good. The deep springs always are.” I say, pulling off my coat, and beginning to take off my pants.
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“What are you doing?” she asks, her voice sounding alarmed.
My pants fall to the floor with my undergarments. Her eyes trace down, and her face flushes deeply.
“Bathing,” I say, not understanding her question, it should be obvious.
“You can’t just…” she says, turning around “You can’t just get naked suddenly, it is… it is improper.”
I remember now the Sage saying that most people would find the Kuwathi’s way of bathing together strange. It appears he was right.
“My people do not shy at nudity,” I say, looking down at the water, it begins to run clearer, so I wet a rag and give it some soap made from animal fats. Lathering myself generously.
“Well, mine do.” She says, storming off and closing the door behind her.
***
After washing myself, I found fresh clothes in the Clan Chief’s private quarters. Luna still has not met my eye since before, her face still red for some reason. Perhaps she is sick.
She sits in one of the Clan chief’s chairs now, having finished bathing in private. Her hair is wrapped in a towel. Having changed her attire to match mine, bundled in thick furs and form-fitting undergarments, designed to keep in the warmth. One of the things we must trade to get from the Arasha as we have no way of making it ourselves. The ones I wear are strangely soft, made from a material I have not felt before. Perhaps the inner clans receive different wares in the upper markets. Some of the things I have seen here, I do not understand the purpose of.
Sitting down across from her, I open the journal written by the Ulima named Riza. I can feel Luna’s gaze upon me as she mulls words to break the silence, she stays there for a time. Then, as though growing bored, she comes behind me.
“What does it say?” she asks, peeking over my shoulder, her hair brushes my cheek, causing me to move away.
“Many things,” I say, not in the mood to talk, the passage from her entries have grown darker, and I want to know her fate and what happened here.
Luna gives me a coy grin as she snatches the book from my grasp. Holding it up. I try to grab it from her, but she leaps backward, holding it from reach. I do not take the taunt. It is childish. Folding my arms, I lean against the warmth of the chair. Trying to visualize the mana tracing she spoke of. She still has not shown me anything yet.
“Her name is Riza,” Luna says, looking up from the journal and giving me a glance, trying to provoke me “The name is beautiful.” She says while jumping up to sit on the table, dangling her feet, swinging them back and forth.
“It means, Flower of Life,” I say.
Luna raises an eyebrow and holds the journal up with one hand, playfully pretending to be serious as she flips the pages, just as I did.
“She is twelve in the first entry and…” her face turns from a smile, a frown finding her as her brow scrunches. Her other hand holds the page. She reads aloud now, her voice more serious.
“Today, I met my first kind Arasha merchant, she was warmer than I expected. She did not strike me like the others. She gave me something I hid from my mother. She called it a sweet candy. At first, I did not know the flavor, but once it began to melt. It was wonderful, like the first truly beautiful thing I have ever known.” Luna says, reading from the Journal, she looks at me, almost confused as she asks “Why do they allow them to strike children? How could she have not known the flavor of sweetness?”
My mouth moves a little, unsure of how to explain. She appears to know little of my people’s plight. She does not know that I too am unaware of the flavor she speaks. She complained about the rations we were made to eat, saying that she didn’t know how we could live on such things. It is all we know, the bitterness is what sustains us.
In a way, it makes me resent her less than those who do know our suffering. She continues to read for the next hour, without speaking. Her eyes not leaving the pages as she flips through them. When she reaches the pages stained with blood, she moves toward me. Jumping to the ground.
“Have you read this part?” she asks me, pushing the journal into my hand.
“No,” I say looking down at it “You took it before I could.”
“The words, I cannot understand many of them.” She admits, pointing to the sentences in the old tongue of my people, her eyes catch mine, sincerity in her voice as she asks “Will you help me understand it?”
“Where from?” I ask her.
“The beginning,” she says, looking at me “I want to know all of what she wrote… I want to understand.”
It surprises me that a Master would care of the plights of a Kuwathi, let alone an Ulima. Again she is different from any I have known. As though she was dipped in the words of the Sage from birth, knowing only compassion and not war. How do her eyes see the world I wonder…
Beginning at the first entry I tell her of the girl’s mother, how she died after being sent to the mines as punishment for speaking against her Chief. Making the girl Riza an Ulima.
“One becomes Ulima if their parents die?” she asks.
“If they have no standing of their own, and no one to vouch for them, yes.” I say, then thinking further on it “Or if they are banished.”
“Have you known any Ulima?” she asks me, there is pity in her eyes.
I do not answer her, instead I continue reading. The first passages are tough to read. Her mother’s tribe sold her, my heart pangs at her hardships, but I find some joy in reading again, this time aloud for Luna how she managed to escape. She was able to slip the cuffs since they were too large for her small hands. She even took some of their supplies when she left. Clever Ulima. My mouth slides a grin as I read of her triumphs again. My heart feels her loss when she speaks of her friend who was lost to the changing. Blots of ink are smeared on the page, where she cried over it.
Luna’s eyes are wide as she listens, though I can see she has many questions, she does not ask all of them. Tears streak down her cheek as I read of her other friends dying in the mines.
“How can someone bear so much pain? She is only a girl, how can such a thing happen to a child.” She asks me, searching me for answers as tears strike her clothes. She does not try to hide them as the Kuwathi would, perhaps the Masters do not feel shame for them.
“She is Ulima.” I say, looking from her down to the pages “Though her story is sad, it is one that many have shared.”
“That is callous.” She says to me, looking at me, I do not return her gaze as she asks “Do you have no pity?”
Pity will not help an Ulima. I do not have the time, nor the patience to explain such a thing to her. These feelings she has, I can feel them bleeding into me as I read further. Am I callous? This is all that I know. Should I feel pity? Should I cry as she does? That is not the Kuwathi way. However, of late, I have questioned our ways.
As I continue to read, I finally reach where I left off. After she has joined a new Clan, owing to her ability to repair laser cutters and other tools. Again she is clever, Arrum and I did the same. It is a useful skill. Though, my heart twists as I think about her plight. She did not have the Sage to guide her as we did… she was alone. Yet still, she thrived. Even broke Kuwathi traditions and mourned her fallen friends and her mother… painful memories swirl in my mind as I feel my defenses falling the further I read. This little girl was more than an Ulima. She was what the Sage taught a person should be, resilient and compassionate, regardless of their station. It humbles me to read her words, though she was younger and did not have the Sage, she still learned these truths on her own. There is beauty in this.