Three
White Lily
"I know they are deadly."
The hallway to the sanctum was strangely emptied. No celebrants but the floral scent of the candles and censers, the crackle of scorching coals, and the oil they smeared over their bodies. No footsteps, no murmurs, no hums. Even on the shrine's ground and uppermost floors. The reddish rays of light were just about to perish over the horizon yet the celebrants strangely went and disappeared. Shrill chants led by Old Mili and her priests and priestesses were customarily expected to be reverberating until the first hour of the evening―loud chants and mantras welcoming the nightfall. Only crickets in the deafening silence. Balaccun's life-size golden idol suspended above Old Mili's dais was left all alone, eyeing no prostrating worshipper beneath him.
"Where is everyone?" under her breath, a shrine caretaker asked another who just shook her head. The whisper seemed to resound across the hallway.
Even the caretakers of the shrine had no idea. This midday, they could still hear Old Mili leading the chant through the doors of their gathering chamber. Then, found all of this silence when they had to perform their tasks after the midday shift. The hallways were never emptied unless it was bedtime. Hallways might be emptied but the chants were still distinct through the main altar's heavy gilded doors. Bu the three levels of the shrine were all left unoccupied. It made them all ponder and clueless. Then, they heard a gong. Against the silence, it was nearly earsplitting. It was the signaling call coming from the caretakers' chamber.
As soon as all of them were collected inside the small room of empty spaces, the overseer, without further ado, made an announcement.
"I understand that you, including myself, are all questioning. The nightfall shift is shelved until the next. Dame Mili is out of the shrine to do sanctification unto a group of culpable unbelievers. Two of them are caretakers. And the other two—forgive me, I can't verbalize."
Everyone was startled with the revelation. They scanned around, trying to figure out who were missing among them.
"Another dispatch?" an older caretaker questioned with a shaky voice.
"It is the practice," riposted the overseer.
The caretakers shifted their faces from baffled to dread. None of them wanted to see the dispatching ritual for a transgressor once again.
"You may watch the ritual if you can stand," the overseer said. "Be back for the daybreak shift."
And he stepped out of the chamber.
The last sanctification for the same misdemeanor was several years ago. Older caretakers could tell how unbearable that was while the young ones were naïve.
Jad Hen was Onil's worship capital. Encircling the shrine were homes of celebrants and the shrine's caretakers. It was also the sanctuary where lost travelers and tramps were embraced and sustained. In return, tireless loyalty in the shrine should be devoted. It was a fort for wounded warriors, as well. Pilgrims from in and out the continent were always welcome. "Devotion to Balaccun" was the primary and only rule that every one of them should enliven. While in its bounds, the inhabitants' loyalty valued more than their lives and they would be living as holy as its clergy. Anyone who would contravene the rule corresponded to a sentence of death for they merely believed that sinners should perish.
Not every resident watched Old Mili and the rest of the clergy perform the ritual for the ascertained unbelievers but the courtyard was packed. Among, early sorrows from the sinners' kin were wailing. There were four of them, kneeling on the bare ground before the stairs of the shrine where an idol of Balaccun was cemented over the expansive entryway. On either side of the top tread were poles of torches. Two of them were parents of two who were embraced by Balaccun for once being vagrants. And the other two were caretakers, familiar friends of the couple, no other kin. All of them with trembling shoulders, sniffling. Their hands were tied behind them and their heads were covered with gauzy white veil. A woman in a plain white robe was behind them, holding a tattered gilded tome. Old age was evident in her wrinkled face and sagging ears. And her grey hair, which she barely cut as a part of her exclusive devotion, was draping at her feet. Standing behind her in half-circle were five men and two women of varied ages, clad in the same garment as the old woman's, embracing the same book but in smaller sizes, and torches in their free hands.
"Tonight, every one of us will be living witnesses of a sanctified rite," the old woman, Mili, commenced the ceremony very gradually, "a ceremony that I shall not do for the mere sake of sentencing our dear brothers on their knees before the All-powerful. However, this is to awaken our core, especially our young sons and daughters, that faithfulness unto Balaccun corresponds death, and to intensify observance of our simple rule. We all die worshipping. And those who tire from—"
"Dame Mili!" a daughter of the couple, who seemed to be a caretaker, hollered among the crowd. "Please! Just spare them!"
"Those who tire from devotion shall die before any of the faithful. No unbeliever deserves salvation."
Old Mili opened the book she was holding, so heavy that she carried it with her full arms. One of the priests stepped beside her to light her readings. She riffled through the timeworn pages until she found what she was looking for. Then, she intoned an invocation. The priests and priestesses responded until the rest of the grieving celebrants recited along. The sinners wailed.
"To the noose," commanded Old Mili after her long invocation.
As the Old Mili pronounced the word, everyone cried and howled. The sinners were escorted by the priests to the dead leafless tree on the edge of an overhang of land. The branches still had remains of the last same death punishment several years ago when the tree was still thriving—cut ropes around its branches, sturdy enough to carry weight. Also, new ropes for the four sinners were entwined beforehand. Below every noose were plywood boxes to where the sinners should stand.
"O Balaccun! We offer you the lives of our defiant brethren," Old Mili prayed to the skies with arms in a gesture of supplication the minute the sinners were settled on the boxes with heads in the nooses. "Take their souls and shall be purified anew. Once again, your absolution from the deeds of these sinners we beseech through us."
Everyone, except the grief-stricken families, responded, "Let it be."
Old Mili nodded to her subordinates, cueing. With a long shaft, the priests forcefully rammed the boxes off the overhang and down the drop.
"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" at the top her lungs, the daughter bawled. Her brown eyes widened.
…
He never thought the valley would take the whole day walking and still had to cross one more short mountain pass in the morning before glimpsing the "tall golden shrine", as Old Joab described. Keogh spent the night on the tundra following the valley, reminiscent to the savannah where he stopped by after his escape from Helmdock. As empty and still. But the springtide seemed to disregard the humid place—no single petal, no single leaf. The moon was beaming enough to light his surroundings of glimmering dampness; he never risked building a bonfire to be traced by opportunistic wanderers. He was praying to Balaccun no one would attack in the midst of his coveted rest, like those Diltan men.
He was leaning on a boulder of lichens. He was trying to sleep but his mind remained wakeful. Besides the nasty feeling of the watery ground beneath him, he was contemplating things he didn't mean to—his mother, and the possibility that she might already left Jad Hen to find him or she might be dead; the Flomulie Gria; and the monstrous grey dog. The gravity of this journey would sink to nothingness if he would not see her mother to the place he was heading to. The Gria he found on the plateau—when would they meet again for her apparently unfinished business with him? But he was not supposing that the look she gave him before running away was significant or some kind of business. Joab's family seemed to threaten him overly; very effectual. Lastly, the dog and its archer. Could those be enemies? They could be everywhere with the beast's capability to jump as high as the trees. He was troubled if they saw his face on the mountain. Then, triggered by these thoughts, he suddenly considered he should see a companion this time—a friend in this journey; he could not overpower those things all by himself. He never had a best friend since then or a pet animal like what the archer had; just his parents. And the squires, they never had the same interests as his. Out of the blue, he recalled somethingsomeone. It made him smirk.
"I know you're with me," Keogh guessed, "right this moment."
He was pertaining to the Samaritan—his persistent stalker. He could sense it. His inexplicable gut feeling functioned again. He was sure he heard not only his own footsteps across the valley.
"But I know not where you are," he added. "Behind me and this rock? Or at a distance, so you could peek without my knowledge? Come on out. I think I am in dire need of some companionship for tonight —or a friend, why not?—until I get to see my mother."
Crickets. Only insects seemed to hear him.
"You must be the one who saved my life from the seas!" Keogh never stopped. "Then, I must take this moment forever to thank you. I will endlessly be thankful till the day I see you."
Still, crickets in the stillness of the evening breeze. Unpredictably, Keogh nodded off. At last.
He was awakened the next day by big stings over his face. Ants—large ones! Keogh jumped to his feet and shook his yellow hair that already leveled his shoulder blades. The red insects fell to the mud and crept away. He could feel the bites on his forehead and under his chin jutting out like boils. It wasn't hurting but itchy. Then, as he checked his things at his feet, he found something he never believed would be around the tundra and something that he knew he didn't have. The most common flower that he saw by the valley, a spotless white lily. It made him smile—slight but meaningful. He knew it was from the stalker. And now he knew that "it" was a "she". He knew it! He faced back when he had picked it up while taking a sniff. No one, nothing, but the plainness of the tundra of wet earth that would never dry under the new sun. He kept the flower in his pocket and left.
He was alone over it; only insects hovering. Seemed like this tundra was not the wisest passage for a prudent wanderer. But he found no choice, no other way. A few more kilometers and he could surpass these wet lands. To get across gave him a hard time; it slowed down his walk; the plain was awfully mud-spattered and soggy. But he was positive the place was as safe and sound as the valley. And he was as positive that he could get through before the sun set. He should; he could. Distracting himself from his struggle, he was attempting to overhear the stalker behind him; if he could perceive her feet sticking from the mud like his. But he was negative to surprise someone else behind. Would it be the gut feeling or some paranoia?
The low heavens were nearly burned ochre so as the sun started to descend when his bedraggled toes were finally overlaid with dusts of the mountain pass. It was a bald mountain rearing above a winding, manmade passageway. Slight debris would be rumbling down from above. And to the right of the pass were crags, sloping to the depth of hollow echoes of shrieking feathered creatures. One mistaken blow of gust would steer you down to the emptiness. A short mountain pass yet so unsafe and narrow enough for two men. Still, he found himself all alone but he knew this was the best and only way that any prudent wanderer would consider. It never hindered Keogh; he had taken his first forty fearless steps.
When he almost felt he had made it halfway, he could hear tread once again, trying to accord with his. But she could not. Keogh smirked as he continued his walk. He stopped. And so was she. He moved. And still, so was she. Then, he twisted back in a second. No soul. How quick! How reflexive! But there was something left. Another sprig of fresh white lily on the dirt.
As his sight locked at the flower ahead of him, dumbfounded, he ran his right hand to his pocket and he still felt the petals, now cold and delicate over time. He drew to pick the other up. When he was crouching to the plant, he felt something running over his shoulder. He turned back to see a familiar face right before his. He was pushed by his surprise onto the ground. Her tresses, brushing against his legs. Still on the ground, he was gaping at the figure before him. His heart pounded hysterically.
"I knew you were watching me," the Gria said, ogling. Her voice sounded like chimes—soothing, mesmerizing.
She was never more unclothed. She had stolen a white fabric, made a fluid robe out of it, and made a descended goddess out of it. Her yellow hair tied up neatly at the back of her head and hung down to her navel.
She continued talking; ambling towards the wordless Keogh and in her hand was another lily, "Come with me, pretty being. I know a place where we can be alone."
Running across his mind was everything Joab and his family warned and taught him. He bowed his head to hide his eyes.
"You can't trick me, monster!" Keogh stammered.
Then, he felt her fingers on his chin. Her smell, as good as rose.
"Look at me, beautiful stranger," the Gria breathed. "I know you desire of me, as well. No man of Onil has foregone the craving."
Keogh still closed his eyes shut, detaching his chin from her subtle touch.
"Don't touch me, monster," he hissed, "before I give in to my temptation of splitting your skin!"
She giggled and said, "That's what I adore most on men. Gallant. So chivalrous. And scrumptious."
Her giggle. It sounded like a blissful cherub, somewhat knee-weakening. Then, her hand stroked Keogh's leg upwards. He could hear her breathe at his ear until her lip nearly touched it. Keogh got back to his feet hastily; his hairs rose hard, and then drew his sword from his side. He saw the Gria stood slowly, leering.
"You won't love it when this blade goes into you," Keogh threatened her.
"But you will love it when you go into me," the Gria teased then did the same weakening giggle.
Her tongue was especially deceitful. Plus her eyes, a man would indisputably give in. And Keogh could hardly hold himself not to. No man could. Even to wound or bruise this woman was something premeditated. Keogh could not believe himself now; he thought wrong on the stalker. It was the wrong stalker, not the Samaritan. He couldn't believe that he could hardly hold himself not to look or steal glimpses at the beautiful perfection before him.
"I must be a frozen cadaver before I get myself into you!" Keogh spoke with so much bravery, wriggling his fingers on the hilt. "I am not like the other men you ensnared and ate alive!"
By Keogh's taunts, the Gria seemed to have a change of heart, insulted, goaded. She leveled her arm to the mountain. With hardening fingers somewhat made a part of the mountain pass rumble, fissure, and then large roots crept out of the crack, behind Keogh. Before he noticed, the roots had grabbed a hold of both ankles. Then, more crept out of the fissure to hold the rest of Keogh's limbs, losing his sword. He was now suspended and helpless and immovable, just his head and fingers. The roots clang so tough. The Gria giggled again as she walked to her captive.
"Now, look into my eyes," she said as soon as her face inclined to Keogh's.
Keogh flung his face out of her sight. But she moved it back to where she could see one handsome manly face. Keogh shut his eyes firmly.
"Open your eyes," the Gria whispered, stoking his tousled hair, "so you can watch your blade fall."
When he heard the intimidation, he hurriedly opened his eyes. His broadsword was now held by another root off the crag. It swung in the wind.
"NO!" Keogh yelled.
"Your eyes, swordsman," the Gria said again. "Lay them onto mine. You shall see your dearest mother the time you disclose your eyes for the second time."
Keogh was completely caught off-guard. Nothing could save him now but the favor the Gria was asking. His hands and legs were hopeless. He shifted his eyes to the woman reluctantly and she smirked. It only took a few seconds before Keogh was cast under her magnetism. His eyes were stuck open, stationary. The body was no longer Keogh's. Tenderly, the Gria kissed his mouth, making Keogh weak, as well as his eyes that finally grew heavy then shut. The roots snaked back to the fissure, handing Keogh to the Gria till Keogh had given in; he was now kissing the monster back desirously. He neither received nor gave such a kiss in his life.
Unknowingly, his skin was turning violet as their intensifying pleasures prolonged. Both of them were now half-naked and impartially gratified. Behold two hedonists clad in dust. The Gria paused to let her teeth grow into fangs as Keogh was beneath her. Fangs that were so long her mouth could not handle, ripping her lips apart. In dire appetite, she was salivating. The face of the divinity was destroyed, now prepared to consume her victim.
"WOOSH!"
An arrow almost struck her head out of nowhere! It sank into the hardness of the bottom of the mountain. It infuriated her, delaying her cannibalistic hunger. She got on her feet and scanned around. At her feet, white fluids burbled, vomited out of Keogh's mouth, and his body was impulsively trembling. The color of his skin aggravated, darkened. He was now envenomed by the Gria's kiss.
Along the physical transformation to her real identity, the Gria's feminine voice was replaced by animalistic growls. No more chimes or cherubs. She growled to the open spaces, very enraged. It echoed beneath the crag. Then, a roar resounded from the bald mountain, followed by one more arrow which finally hit the Gria in the shoulder. It growled louder in pain, sending feathered inhabitants to the air in panic. She removed it with trembling hands, crying with shrill noises. Immediately after the arrow was excruciatingly taken off, she summoned the roots once again to seize the grey beast round its neck. It yelped, tugging the root from the earth but its strength could not overpower. Before the archer behind the beast would pull out one more arrow from the quiver, the Gria had flown down the crag, fleeing for the second time.
She had exited but the grip of her root round the beast's neck was left entangled and tough. Its master sprinted over it. She could not detach it. And the big beast was continually yelping like a small dog in hurt. Her arrow would not work on this; the root was too thick and strong. She scanned around to see Keogh's sword on the edge of the crag. She hurdled down the rocks briskly with her long legs and picked it with no consent of the ill owner. As soon as she got back to her animal, she swished it from her back and hacked the root apart. The big animal panted, relieved. Then, the archer hurdled back down again to Keogh who had just discontinued from vomiting. His sanity was now recovered but he was unconscious, and the toxin in him looked exacerbated. She whistled to call her dog.
"Back home, Kasser," she instructed.
She plunked Keogh onto the resilient beast, Kasser, before her and they were sprung uphill.
A one-room hut made of mud, stones, and wood was just below the peak, withstanding the winds so strong. Only bluish-grey rocks surrounded it; no tree or wild grass. And surely this was the archer's house—one of her houses around the region. The mountain pass below was unclear, wreathed in thick mist from the sight above. But up there, the entirety of the continent was almost viewed, as far as how one's vision could. However, nobody could hike up there; the mountain was tremendously vertical and the winds were getting stronger towards the top. Worse would be when going downhill—truly unsafe.
Keogh was treated by the archer in her bed of wood strips. His body was surfaced with curative oblong leaves. Some of these were extracted to juice to tip into Keogh's mouth, still lifeless. She knew best of these infections for she was a woman of the forest. She knew how to handle floral poisons and animal bites. She was conversant on herbs and indigenous procedures. Very evident on how she moved her hand over Keogh's body that was looking better.
Keogh was trying to disclose his eyes. His vision was hazy. But he could recognize the planks over him, the small wooden roof, and the morning light gleaming through the walls of stone. His throat, parched, but his tongue tasted bitter.
"How are you feeling?" the archer asked coldly.
"Where am I?" he questioned huskily.
"Can you sit?" the archer asked back, discounting his question. Concern from her tone could not be found. She really spoke so cold.
Keogh pulled himself up to sit in the bed then her normal sight was restored. No more leaves on his skin. His first question was now answered; he saw himself in a small house. Standing before him was the archer he spotted on the plateau, holding the flask of medicine that Eidin gave him.
The girl was lovely. And she was years older than Keogh. Her face was tawny and smooth, as well as the rest of her body; never been burned or suntanned by the sunlight where she might always be. Her hair, shoulder-length and ebony. Small and dark grey were her eyes that looked like the moon. She was in a dark brown tunic with brown leather belt accentuating her small midriff. And in her feet, a pair of shoes in canvass with leather soles.
"I found tonics in your bag," she said. "These can help for your faster recovery."
"Thank you," Keogh said as he received the bottle and gulped it straightaway.
"My name is Yeth," the archer said when she turned her back to get another thing from Keogh's sling bag.
"I'm Keogh."
Yeth turned to Keogh again to wrap a new sepia cloth, still from Eidin's present, around his forehead with the wound still bad. Then, she started roving around her house's selfish spaces as she was preparing a humble breakfast.
"Where did you come from?" Yeth interrogated again.
"Helmdock," Keogh replied.
"Does your head feel better?"
"Can you tell me what happened?"
"You were captivated by the Gria."
"Then?" he chimed in. Eagerness was in his tone.
"You gave in and screwed her."
She giggled. He could not recall, even the sensation.
"You were poisoned, desperately poisoned. Didn't you know that a Gria's saliva could be as poisonous as bloodroot or poison hemlock?"
"I know they are deadly."
"You should be careful next time. Where are you heading?"
"Jad Hen. I'm seeing my mother that I last saw when I was twelve. How about you? Don't you have a family?"
"I have. But I don't have an idea where they are; if they're still alive or still in the same village. I've become the resident huntress of this extent or the savior of travelers who take the mountain pass after I left home. My parents thought that my lucan was grisly; then harm and slay when it grew up. Yes, I preferred my animal over them. I would never allow anyone touch it; he once saved my life. And they never considered that."
Keogh was quieted, feeling sorry.
"Are you a knight or—"
"My father is the knight. And that was his sword."
"Speaking of your sword… It saved Kasser's life. So, I never thought twice on bringing you up here to cure you."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Kasser, my lucan—the doggy outside that looks like a wolf, as how people define him. But the fact is he's more of a wolf. The Gria seized him with her radix when we found you."
Keogh suddenly remembered his conversation with Marim about Yeth—that Marim was certain she was not the Samaritan. He thought of trying to ask. She could be the Samaritan. As to herself proclaiming a "savior", she could be the salvaging stalker he was indebted to.
"Have you been on a shore or anywhere near the sea?" he began to ask.
"Lucans have strange fright on seawater," Yeth replied. "So, I never go to such places."
"You and Kasser are indeed inseparable!"
Yeth just smiled and added a very nosy question, "What about the shore?"
"None," Keogh almost stuttered and added, "Can I leave in the morning?"
"Anytime tomorrow. I myself can guess the excitement to finally meet your mother; Jad Hen is just a kilometer away from here. You can stay longer."
"I shall waste no more time. I have wasted too much of it. It just chanced that I was ambushed and it obstructed my journey."
"Here. The food's prepared."
From outdoors, Kasser caught the aroma of Yeth's salad of basil, tomato, and assorted greeneries; he barked, ravenous.
…
"Euna," her eighteen-year-old younger brother called from the dining table, bringing her out of her reverie as she stared motionlessly through the window. "Breakfast's ready."
Euna's eyes were still engorged from grieving for two nights. For two days, she was constantly gazing through the same window, thinking profoundly. She barely ate and talked to her brother. She never showed up in any of her shifts in the shrine—that their overseer empathized. Having parents sentenced to death was legit. However, losing them was a different angle of this story as a child. Until now, she couldn't believe that they were unbelievers of the god that she had been serving every day of her life; even those caretakers that were also punished along.
Each family should have at least one caretaker. As a very sensible firstborn, she volunteered to be her family's representative when she went nineteen; her father resigned, as what she would want. Mothers were not eligible; the religion believed that they were born and made for the households.
She could no longer find her life, her happiness. It was like groveling in the dark for the missing needle. Being a caretaker indeed had drawn herself closer to Balaccun. Loyalty might have been established but she could never spare the rest of her family's execution. She seemed to feel the wrong unbelieving probability tickling in her skin. How could Balaccun endure watching his people take each other's life?
Her brown eyes were up to something else. She had been contemplating on it for two days. She got off the stool and hurried to her brother.
"We're leaving," she said under her breath, holding her brother's hand.
Her brother gaped at her.
Pronunciation Guide
The following names of characters, places, etc. are enumerated sequentially according to when they were mentioned. Should there be exclusions, please refer to pronunciation guides of preceding chapters.
Mili- mee'lai
Yeth- jæө
Lucan- loo'kɅn
Kasser- kæs'sir
Euna- joo'nah