A scent of cinnamon carefully entwined with the sound of waves. Hard to explain, but the tranquility of it remained. Similar to how a song’s final tunes linger in the air in the form of echoes. As the incense continues to burn, I take off my cloak. The many bones of my elders lay before me on a wooden table. Burning beeswax candles and soul gems are scattered across the table, inviting me to begin my work.
Do you remember what happened to us?
I nod. I remember as if I had lived these previous lives myself. The bones told us the stories of what happened. Inscriptions were left in our bones in a nearly extinct language. This was the work of the Ancients, for they speak only in the language of Hirseth. My people, the hanan, barely dare whisper of it. Instead, we let the pain soak in what is now an almost hollow carcass of our race. In my time, Hirseth is foreign to most of my people. Despite the subtle hints of familiarity in the verbs, it differs much from the common tongue that the hanan speak today.
“Primer Khani, they are ready.”
A small figure waits behind me in an all-too-large cloak. I turn to look at my little mer, Jhagu, and nod. He has done well with the preparations. Jhagu’s curious yellow eyes and verdant scales glint in the candlelight. “Reptiles”, humans call us as though we are easily wounded by their words of malice. “Nissa”, we call our loved ones. Jhagu opens the tent’s flaps and lets in two red-scaled servants carrying a large silver plate with pale bones. They carefully place the plate on a table near the one I was working on earlier. Jhagu lights up some more beeswax candles and begins to heat the sacred gold in a pot above a small fire.
“Who?” I ask idle-minded while preparing my brushes.
“Elder Daneem of Skoth. Four hundred and seventeen suns.” Jhagu replies, faint in voice.
“May they rest with the Ancients. It is their honor.” I say, this time paying attention to Jhagu’s words.
We do not allow burials of our elders. Like many generations before me, a Primer must read the messages inscripted in the bones. Our bones are sacred, regardless of who dies and when they die. Primers must read them and translate to the priest, called Inna, and the loved ones of the deceased. We read their life and we tell it as how it is written. Farewells, wishes, loves, or regrets… It always depends on the life carried by the bones of the hanan. If an elder dies, it is of the highest honor to have prophecies foretold within their bones, along with the story of their life.
“Paint the bones with the gold once fully melted,” I instruct Jhagu. ”Do not give them to me until the gold has dried. You know I cannot read them otherwise.”
“Yes, Primer.” He says obediently.
Jhagu picks up a brush with bristles made of arunian sheep’s hair and gently dips it in the molten gold. He softly slides the brush’s bristles over the pale bones of Daneem of Skoth. Like a human painter, he skillfully covers every vital part of the bones ensuring no part is forgotten. No gold is like our sacred gold. This too, was a blessing from the Ancients.
As Jhagu is occupied with his work, I turn back to my wooden table. The bones before me are all the bones of elders. All deciphered and read by Primers before me. I pick up the bones of Grelda the Honorable. They are light in weight and yet carry a heavy burden. So many wars were fought, and their bones tell us stories of triumph but also of great defeat. Their bones had warned us of what was to come.
A dripping red sun rising above dunes of sand and a scythe buried deep within the gold.
The Primer before me knew it was an ill and foreboding sign. The Innas, caring only to preach of the Ancients and sought no wisdom in Primer knowledge, shunned it. The hanan were in an age of prosperity, no threat inbound. One may behead a Primer, but not a prophecy. How quickly the hubris of the Innas fell once the horses and clinging swords visited our sands.
“Primer Khani,” Jhagu’s voice trembles. “There… There are no inscriptions.”
My thoughts come to a halt. I place down Grelda’s bones and turn to Jhagu.
“What do you mean no inscriptions? You must allow the gold to dry. I have told you this many times, Mer Jhagu.”
There is a moment of silence. Of contemplation. Jhagu clears his throat.
“The—, the gold has dried… Primer Khani, I swear, I—”
“Let me have a look. Move.” I shove Jhagu to the side.
The once pale bones are now covered in dried gold. I begin to inspect the bones with my bare eyes, searching for Hirseth writing. Nothing. I pick up the bones and carefully turn them around. Nothing. I dip a brush in gold and paint it once more while chanting the First Blessing of the Ancients. Nothing. I investigate every corner and edge of what was once Daneem of Skoth…
Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.
“This cannot be…” I whisper under my breath.
Jhagu looks upon me, terrified of his life. His fearful eyes say more than words ever could, a silent begging for mercy. But this is not his fault. He is only a mer. The servants brought in the bones, not him. I close my eyes and think. Perhaps there are signs of desecration on them? I must look.
“Bring me the vision shard,” I instruct Jhagu once more. He abides and hands it over.
I carefully hold Daneem of Skoth’s bones with the tip of my fingers and begin inspecting them more carefully. Never in my life have I been more careful with the bones of an elder than I have now. The shard shows me what the eye cannot see by itself, and yet… There are no signs of desecration. There are no prophecies written on them, no life stories. One can tell that the bones have carried an elder soul, but the word of the Ancients is nowhere to be seen.
The bones are blank.
I freeze.
“Summon Innas Paldi for me,” I say to Jhagu. “Tell no one.”
