Welcome Travelers. Gather around the campfire and I shall tell you the tale of the T’kiri who vanished at the whim of the gods. This tale was told to me by my father, who had it from his father who witnessed the passing of the last of the T’kiri and the coming of the stranger who would not die.
The T’kiri were the People of Iron; the first to wrest that metal from the ground and shape it to their will. They became the royal clan of the Hursi, known for their ruthlessness in war and their strength in peace…and they were known for their cruelty.
The T’kiri established the Hursi dominion over the rich lands and jungles from the mountains to the sea. They exterminated most of the other peoples, but the Corsairi they pushed to the coast and forced them to dwell on the islands in large settlements and cities. On the islands, there was not enough land to grow the food needed to feed the towns and cities, nor were there sufficient trees to build for more than a generation. So the Corsairi were forced to trade their wealth for food and materials.
The wealth of the Corsairi was extensive, but not endless and they were forced to take to the seas to pillage and plunder the wealth of other lands and peoples or starve. The Corsairi, being the Corsairi, took to piracy and pillaging with great joy and enthusiasm.
This delighted the T’kiri, for they could watch their enemies become pirates and die while they, and the rest of the Hursi could innocently grow rich through the plunder of the Corsairi.
The T’kiri grew more powerful and crueler with every passing year. They invented games where those, particularly of non-Hursi blood, would die in combat or be sacrificed to animals, or be eaten by the fire ants.
Then did Nabía, the Jaguar Goddess, grow jealous, for cruelty is her domain and she does not like to share. So she cursed the T’kiri that they should forever share the pain of others and at the next games the stands ran red with the blood of the T’kiri from wounds they did not receive, and those that fought and were tortured did not die from the wounds that should have killed them. But Nabía is merciful, and those that survived their wounds, found that they could heal their wounds, but only if they were willing to heal those others that had originally received them.
Even with the motivation of the gods; it is harder for a cruel and selfish people to change their ways then for the jaguar to change its spots. Thus did the T’kiri fall from power.
But the T’kiri were a strong people, the People of Iron, so they learned to control their curse and heal more often then die and the few survivors became healers. As their ancestors had been known for their cruelty, they became known for their gentleness. As their ancestors had been known for their strength in war, so did they become known for their strength in wisdom.
They retreated to the mountains, to escape the day-to-day pains of others, and built a city on the top of a small mountain surround by roaring rivers and giant mountains. The City of Tér’näshä became known for its beauty, its learning, its wise dreamers, its healers. When the yellow death walked among the Hursi, it was the T’kiri who came forth from their mountain retreat and healed the sick broke the back of the plague, even though they lost many to the shared pain and illness.
Tér’näshä the Fair, carved of stone and filled with life, became the jewel of the mountains. Khünô, god of storms, and Bäräkä, god of stone and deep places, each coveted the city. Each claimed it. For Khünô, it was a city in the sky, built high in the mountains that touched his domain. To Bäräkä, it was a city of stone and earth, built where the earth is strongest. Neither would listen to the words of the other and so there was conflict.
Khünô rained down a deluge on Bäräkä and Bäräkä rose up mountains and threw fire from the earth into the sky. The rains loosened stones and flooded valleys, and the mountains shook. When the Khünô and Bäräkä paused to consider their next moves, they found that in their strivings they had destroyed the city of their contention and scattered its few survivors across the land.
Then did Nabía roar to the heavens, “I will not let the foolishness of lesser gods end my game or interrupt my curse!” She stretched out her hand and plucked seven from the torrents that washed out of the mountains and deposit them on the banks of the Kos’mal near the Temple of the Bloody Mouth in Kirin-Tor.
Seven who survived were a brother and sister, a brother and sister, and a man and two women; all young bordering on adulthood, untrained, and the last of the T’kiri.
The priests of Nabía took them in and gave them shelter during the rainy season of the winter. In the spring, they joined those who would honor Nabía by entering into the Bloody Mouth of the Jaguar.
The temple to Nabía in Kirin-Tor is centered on the Black Jaguar that is carved from living stone that sticks up from the earth. The Jaguar is depicted lying on the ground on its belly, with its front paws stretched out before it. Its mouth is open wide, with alabaster fangs that gleam in the dimmest light. The roof of the Jaguar’s mouth is lined with crystals, starting with red but and one enters into the mouth and walks down the stairs to the altar in the Jaguar’s stomach, the crystal becomes varied and glow with soft light. In the night one sees the outline of the Jaguar with white teeth and fangs and outlined in the deep red glow of the crystals in its throat; thus its name: “Bloody Mouth.”
Every spring, those youths that desire to honor Nabía and receive a blessing, will dress in white with their hair uncovered and unbound walk barefoot, like brides or grooms; and like brides and grooms, they decorate each other with flowers. One at a time they enter Bloody Mouth and descend down deep inside and place their fresh flowers on the altar and return. Most enter and leave without hindrance or outward change, but once in a while, every few generations or so, the one who enters never returns and no trace is ever found of them. Then it is known that the Jaguar was hungry. Once a dead body, covered with blood was found near the altar, but it was not the body of anyone who had entered.
The mouth only will take those that enter alone and will only bestow blessings on those willing to do so. Most who have entered the mouth have some small blessing answered, so that many are willing to take the risk, even though there are skeptics that say that the luck they receive is of their own making. Avoiding the mouth is foolish, for if the Jaguar Lady wants to hunt, not entering its mouth will make no difference.
Of the seven T’kiri, four entered, left their flowers returned and passed out of history. My father’s father said that they left Kirin-Tor, dropped their clan name and intermarried into the other clans. If it is so, then there may still be T’kiri blood in the Hursi peoples but their curse and talent has never surfaced again.
Of the three that remained, there was R’vash, his sister, K’täsä the Fair, and M’lina who was alone in the world. First M’lina entered the Bloody Mouth and the mouth sparkled with bloody light and M’lina was gone.
R’vash entered with confidence as the Jaguar had already fed. He placed his flowers and returned with out incident. Then K’täsä the Fair entered and the mouth sparkled with blood light a second time.
R’vash screamed his sister’s name and ran back into the mouth and the mouth sparkled again, with such light as it almost blinded him, but he persevered and went further into the mouth and down the throat.
He returned carrying a bloody form in his arms: a young woman, not of the Hursi, dressed in greens and browns, bruised and broken as if she’d been tortured in the old games of the T’kiri. Even bloody and battered, all could see that this was a woman of beauty. While his sister had had the beauty that inspires men to shelter and protect, this woman had the kind of beauty that inspired more primal responses.
He straightened her limbs and the priests came forward to help tend her wounds, but the wounds were already sealing and fading. R’vash should have shared the wounds, but it seemed there were no real wounds to share. And then she opened her eyes, red-brown eyes that looked into his heart and stole it. The Panther goddess had taken his sister and given him a bride.
You can trust the Panther goddess with your soul, but never trust her with your heart.
Within a month, the Yellow Death touched her, but she shook it off with in a day without needing R’vash’s blessing. She was the only foreigner to be touched by the Yellow Death that would not die.
They lived apart from the other Hursi at her wish, for while the Hursi don’t particularly welcome strangers into our homes, she clearly has the blessing of the Panther goddess, and we would have made her welcome. She lived in some fear that made her uncomfortable with anyone but her husband.
They had a daughter who had her mother’s beauty. She grew up without a companion, for none could see past her beauty to see her heart and that she kept a secret more precious than her beauty. When her parents died, she left the Hursi lands and traveled to the Corsairi city called Goldport. Tradition says that she had two children: a son and a daughter. In time the Panther goddess came to Goldport and brought justice to those who were cruel and cruelty to those who were unjust. Then She Who Dances in Fires came and took them all away, after burning much of the city.
This is that tale of the stranger who would not die and the passing of the T’kiri from the Hursi, as told to me by my father and told to him by his father who was one of the caretakers of Bloody Mouth and saw it all.
Why should I tell you this tale? It is because as strangers, the Yellow Death has already touched you. I see the yellow color in your eyes. Soon you will feel his cold hand in your limbs, then your vision will grow dim, then your skin will turn yellow and then your orifices will bleed. Unless you know a T’kiri, who are no more, or are a stranger that will not die, you will be dead within three days.
So tell us please, what are your customs for the dead? We will do our best to honor them.
Copyright © 2015 by Robert W. Dills