The day after your meeting, the lord mayor of Athar is found dead in his home. Coroners state that he died of natural causes. It is forbidden to perform an autopsy on highborn Wilskenn, so this is, at best, a professional opinion. Having been prepared in advance, his funeral is held the very next day. The population of the city collapses in on itself like a dying star. Wilsken cluster in dangerous density to catch a glimpse of the impossibly ornate casket as it is carried by foot to the royal mausoleum.

As a foreign dignitary and the sole representative of Pangua in the city, you are standing among members of Edrye's aristocratic devolution at the mouth of the mausoleum. Not a single member of the royal family is present.

This is not a surprise. Most Wilskenn will never see one in their lifetime. Maybe in a painting, or on TV, but almost never in the flesh. Why a member of Edrye's royalty will be present for one occasion but not another appears to have no correlation. It was over three years into Pangua's acquisition of Edrye before it was even recognized as a monarchy. Prior to this, ruling aristocrats ran dignitaries in circles when asked for a leader. The lord mayor answered to the Daughters, who each answered to the head of their own family, who in turn all answered to the lord mayor. It was only when the Chancellor's Grand Treasurer came to Athar to invite the lord mayor to Saberttho that Prince Vabek ë Otibir was present to accept the invitation. In retrospect, the only thing Wilskenn were more afraid of than Pangua's retaliation was invoking their king who, as far as you know, has never made a public appearance.

For ten minutes you have been watching the casket slowly approach the mausoleum. Now it is close enough to make out the details. It is a combination of metal and wood. Depictions of plums, Edrye's dominant crop, are carved into every available centimeter of surface. Fixed on top is a marble bust of the lord mayor's likeness, on the base of which is a quote in Skenyan that you cannot read. The only word you recognize is 'peacemaker', the term the first Panguan diplomats here used to describe themselves in lieu of a better translation.

The casket passes by you. It disappears into the mausoleum followed by the Mourners, who will live in the windowless building for three days until they are almost dead from dehydration. The lord mayor's casket will be placed inside a sealed tube that provides the optimal preservation conditions to slow the decomposition of his body. In Skenn, flesh is believed to be ultimately finite. One day there will be no new offspring.

*

When you enter the hostel again, only room tone greets you. The floorboards under the disgusting red carpet creak as they rest. Water spills down old pipes in the walls. Rain pelts the windows and roof above. A lone plastic fan spins back and forth in the corner. There are no footsteps. No voices. You wonder how such an empty place can afford to stay open.

Upon returning to your room–to Bennett's room–you meet a significant splotch of wet penetrating the wallpaper opposite the door. You decide to look for Bennett.

You walk through the doorway behind the front desk in the foyer and come into a small kitchen. The cabinetry is yellowed, every surface appears to be covered in a film of oil splatter, dirty dishes are collecting in the sink basin, and each appliance looks to be at least a decade old. Collections of decorative plates are mounted between family photos, needlepoint depictions of birds, and an abused calendar. To top it all off, a fly strip is hanging from a dim light fixture above the island. The room is overwhelming, to say the least. As you take in the sight of the kitchen, you hear something hit the floor in an adjacent room. You venture further into the complex and find an office just off the kitchen that someone has crammed a desk and filing cabinet into. Paperwork is haphazardly strewn about the tabletop to the point that a stack has fallen off. As you bend down to retrieve the papers you see Bennett lying underneath the desk. Asleep.

Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

*

Gathyote, the great transhumance festival, begins in the evening. By now, the herds of Gathos have already passed through the streets of Athar. You see, Athar is wedged in the only significant break in a long and steep cliff face that stretches almost the entire width of oblong Edrye. When ranchers migrate their herds between the highlands and the lowlands, they must pass through the city. Old and injured Gathos are picked off and served in neighbourhood cookouts. For the particularly devout, this is the only time when meat is consumed. The celebration is almost as old as Skenn itself and occurs twice a year.

You and Bennett stand amongst a throng of locals in a courtyard, watching an old Gathos pace back and forth on the cobblestone floor. The animal is somewhere between a bison and a moose in appearance. It’s massive. The wool around its neck has been shaved in preparation for the slaughter.

“She is confused,” Bennett says.

The animal stops and bellows but receives no reply. It pulls against the rope around its neck, tying it to a lamppost.

An older Wilskenn woman approaches the Gathos. She speaks quietly to it in Skenyan and presses her forehead to the animal’s. Then she turns and addresses the crowd in their native tongue.

Bennett begins to translate for you, then pauses. “Oh,” he says. “It’s the Heretical Song of Inea ʡʼriol:”

There is not a single reply to death,

Though we all die.

And though we have all accepted the burden of living,

There is not a single life.

So when we ask our last question,

Let there not be a single answer.

The Wilskenn woman unsheathes a knife from her waistband and runs it across the Gathos’ neck. The animal stands still, facing the crowd, until it drops to the ground and dies.

Later, after you have eaten your fill, you retreat to an alleyway and empty the contents of your stomach onto the ground. The heavy, twisting feeling inside you is not eased.

*

Later into the night, the drinks you lost count of begin to have an effect. You can’t quite focus your eyes properly, nor can you coordinate your limbs quite so gracefully. Bennett tells you it’s time to go home, and ends up carrying you after only halfway. The rest you don’t remember so well. You recall being tucked into bed like a child, Bennett politely declining your drunken advances, and begging him to stay with you. Somewhere in between this you find the time to complain about the state of his kitchen.

In the morning, you find him asleep in a wing chair in the corner of the room.

*

You arrive at Athar’s city hall to meet with the new lord mayor. You are let into the office to find someone already there. A tall and strikingly pale Wilskenn man dressed in long robes is turned away from you, looking out the window behind the desk. The door creaks shut behind you. He turns at the sound and only then do you see the gold paint on his face. Atop his head rest circlets of gold and silver chains. His two animal ears are studded by many small gems and hoops of precious metals.

“I am here to sign your draft, dignitary,” says prince Vabek ë Otibir. His Panguan is perfect. He stands behind the lord mayor’s desk and produces a plum heartwood pen from somewhere under his layers of robes. You notice that he has a ring on every finger.

You waste no time in retrieving the documents and laying them out before him. As he signs on every dotted line, you take a moment to control your staggered breathing. "I'm sorry to disturb your highness," you say.

"I am often called upon to run my father's errands," he responds without looking away from the papers. He signs without pausing to read what the documents entail; how many Wilskenn lives will be sent to make up for the disaster in Humnoque; when they are allowed to rescind; what pittance they will be compensated with. After he has worked his way through every signature throughout a long period of silence, he stands up straight and looks down at you. “Is that all?”

“Um, yes,” you say.

He turns back around and looks out the window again. This is the only dismissal you receive.