GUARDIANS OF THE WATERS
Chapter 4
Talokan was beautiful. No matter how much she missed the world of light and dirt and air, she could not deny the awe-inspiring cerulean beauty of the aquatic empire. The Talokanil did not exist in a single city. They spilled over from the Gulf of Mexico into the Caribbean and Sargasso Seas. Their capital remained in the original location they first dwelt in near the Yucatan peninsula but their population was far too vast to remain in a single location. To maintain themselves, they needed to spread out and reap from the bounty of the seas farther away.
If she was honest with herself, she would have willingly agreed to a single year of captivity in exchange for her exposure to Talokan. Now that more years followed, she might be less willing, but she couldn't help the overwhelming curiosity she felt for all she could see and learn from this secret kingdom. Hidden in the gradient blue and increasingly sapphire currents of ever-shifting waters, proud temples and palaces of rock and coral and glass glistened in the flickering shards of light puncturing the depths. Fortressed dwellings cast twinkling, blinking vibranium-powered lights from their many windows and balconies.
Parks and gardens overflowed with more ocean flora and fauna than Shuri had ever even imagined with offerings which dancing and rippled with the energy of the water and swept around the statues and carvings in their midst. Trained orcas and dolphins swam through the city, carrying their owners through the streets with graceful sweeps of their tales. Manta rays blocked out the sun with their wings as they quietly swam through the city and into the carefully protected nurseries for their young maintained outside the city only for them. Annamae and coral were artistically grown in patterns of colors growing up the sides of walls and houses, creating living murals against their rocks sides.
This was a kingdom not bound by gravity but by density. They fought against the ever-pressing clenching force of the water. The many walls and buttressed ledges could help direct the currents or ease the speed of the invisible rivers but none could truly control them. Instead, they built their habitations around them and used the currents as the basis for their transportation throughout their cities. Woven throughout and imbuing the city with power and light was its abundance of vibranium. Vibranium was everywhere. Perhaps even more plentiful than in Wakanda.
It was rare that Shuri was permitted to explore the cities beneath the waves, however she could not hide her delight whenever she saw a guard approach with her underwater suit in hand. She would have given up a month's worth of fresh papaya to get her hands on a Wakandan all-terrain suit rather than the primitive technology gleaned from one of their unfortunate underwater invaders. That clumsy, metallic behemoth of a personal watercraft made her as clumsy as a hippopotamus on land and she had already drafted four new models to create in her lab, each sleeker and lighter and more maneuverable than the last. Yet, she was grateful for the cumbersome craft all the same because it gave her access to the underwater kingdom.
Shuri was invited into Talokan for most of their yearly rituals. The sacred days when the dwellings spat out their occupants and filled the city square and gathering places into a teeming mass of movement that rivalled even the largest schools of tuna. Garbed in all their colors and finery, faces painted and jewelry donned, they gathered together to disturb the waters with their dance and interrupt the silence with their aquatic songs. While the suit interrupted Shuri's senses to an irritating degree, she could still catch echoes of the rhythmic squeaks and clicks and shrill screeches that made up their songs.
The largest festival occurred in May, or what she assumed was May. It was the month of new life, a celebration of births and fertility. It was the time when the gulf filled with spawning tuna and turtles came from the farthest edges of the oceans to lay eggs on their natal beaches again. For days, sacrifices and prayers were made to their deities in supplication for another year of multiplication and continued life. Dances and songs were sung in mimicry and honor of the sacred animal head of each of the principal clans and each clan garbed themselves in the symbols of their chosen totem.
Feasts, games, and hunts for various creatures continued for nearly a month straight, culminating in a final ritual sacrifice of each of the most honored of creatures on the main alter in the temple.
Shuri was permitted to attend each of the feasting days, though not the days of hunts. It was enough to surround her with life, with movement, with change, with color. She drank it in with her eyes, though she could neither taste nor touch nor smell any of the cacophonous riot of revelries around her. She was as isolated in the crowds as she was in her cave, separated from them all by layers of metal and glass, her only interactions transmitted through her face mask and clumsy appendages.
She was as much of an anomaly as the Talokanil were to her. Curious children came to gawk and stare and giggle at her as they swam by. Young ones brought her garlands of seaweed to wear and mothers bore platters of fish she could not eat. Some tried to teach her their games or their songs, but her clumsy suit could not keep up and her vision was far too limited to see all their movements. Still, she appreciated their welcome. She felt more of an unexpected guest than an inhuman aberration and she knew it could be far, far worse.
Somedays, she returned to her cave with a turtle shell filled with treasures – shells and corals and bits of twisted, corroded metal worked into necklaces and adornments, granted as gifts to the one Overlander in their midst. These gave her something else to look at, something else to admire, and they made her smile. Once, a young boy tried to gift her a tamed porpoise. Oh, how she wished she could have kept the creature in her cave but the silvery mammal required space to swim and play and she could only play with it for a day and then release it back to its generous owner.
Not all sacred days included an invitation to the Wakandan princess. The five day gap in their calendar ushered in a period they called "Wayeb,ʼ" and these days were the "nameless" ones, the ones between months, the ones where the veil between the spirits and the human world became thin and danger lurked behind every shadowed ocean ledge. On these days, all the Talokanil retreated to their homes. They did not eat or comb their hair or change their clothes. No one sang or made jests. For those days, the many priests visited each of the clan heads to offer sacrifices on their behalf to each of the principle deities and intercede for their souls.
Shuri despised this ritual and could hardly bear one day without food, let alone five long days in succession. Yet, there was little else she could do but remain on her bed, watch the flickering reflections of water against the rock walls, and allow her mind to drift and dream.
It was by the third or fourth day that she began to see more than just the corrugated stones and hear more than the gentle lap of waters against her feet. It was then that her vision blurred and swam, colors morphed and mingled, and memories of before and dreams of between misted through her permeable consciousness.
In her dreams, winged serpents burnt their tongues on the sun and grew plumes of feathers. Whales could speak and fish could sing and she could breathe water like the Talokanil. In her dreams, she sat overlooking Birnin Zana and watched the antelope graze on the golden grass of the savanna, the shallow blue of the sky overhead. She heard her mother's laugh, her father's songs. She felt the feel of T'Challa's coarse curls beneath her fingers and the warmth of his chest beneath his Panther Habit. In those moments, she could see herself more clearly than she ever had before and in her soul, she felt a peace descend.
By her third Wayeb', she did not hate it quite as much and began to appreciate its benefit.
The greatest, and most terrible, of all their festivals occurred in honor of Kʼukʼulkan himself. For one grand day each September, all the Talokanil from even the farthest of cities descended on the capital to pay homage to their winged monarch. He was not only their king. He was their high priest, their greatest warrior, their protector, their mediator with the divine. Most believed he was wrought of the essence of their deities in his body and spirit and he was the very incarnation of the Feathered-Serpent, granted them in the flesh to ensure the continuation and glory of their people.
In preparation, Namor underwent a week of fasting food and sleep to prove his great strength. He flew as high into the sky as he could manage before he felt unconscious and then he swam as far into the depths as he could muster before the pressure grew too strong for his delicate wings. Then, for a day and night, he danced without ceasing while all the priests and clan chiefs surrounded him and attacked him with any weapons they could muster. Spears and horns and knives and lashes were all wielded against his ecstatically dancing form until the waters turned red with his blood. The wounds they inflicted healed nearly as quickly as they had been created and it was said his blood brought the favor and protection of the gods onto the ritual and political heads of the kingdom.
Finally, when the moon cast just such a light into the appointed chamber of their main temple, all the Talokanil congregated in the many waterways and courtyards around the temple complex. They came in procession with instruments, song, and dance so loud it shook the very waves and rocks of the temple with their resonance. They called this "shaking the earth" and it was considered identifying themselves with their beloved Kʼukʼulkan, to whom the shaking of the earth belonged.
As one, they all turned to face the pinnacle of the pyramid on which their monarch waited, garbed in the drenched skin of a leopard and a tunic made of the skins of snakes. His headdress of cloth feathers floated around his head like the mane of a lion and every inch of his exposed body was covered with shell beads and paintings of serpents.
There, in the sight of all the Talokanil, he raised two silvery daggers into the watery light of the full moon and he screamed with a sound no one else in Talokan could make. It echoed through the temple complex and into Shuri's dreams with its unforgettable cadence. It was at this point that a gilded cage, elaborately forged of vibranium and gold, emerged from the temple. It opened to release a struggling, gasping, humanoid form. Long hair waved in the water around its face and struggled in vain before the strong hands that clasped around it.
By its movements, by its terror, by its completely terrified expression, Shuri's heart dropped. No blue tinged its skin. No trace of webbing showed on its fingers and toes. This was a human from the dry land, like herself. She was sure of it.
In the blink of an eye, the pair of daggers sliced through the chest and retrieved the still-beating heart from below, staining the waters around with blood. The victim slowly ceased struggling and loosely floated away, gently carried by the currents revealed by the river of blood trailing from its chest cavity. Then, with another cry, Namor held the heart before him. With a gleaming, wide grin that could be seen from even the farthest edge of the temple complex, Namor devoured the heart.
From here, the grandest and longest of all Talokanil feasts began. For days, they reenacted all of the principal battles and deciding moments of their people. They remembered each of their departed ancestors of note and gave glory to those still living. The entire city was drenched in paintings and rock art and woven tapestries depicting their history.
Perhaps, it would have been beautiful, if it wasn't so terrible. She would have avoided this feast, if she had been allowed. However, it was law that every resident of Talokan attended the feast – prisoners and guards included and so she had no choice.
In Wakanda, Shuri had always had stories about spirits. Spirits dwelt in the waters and in the trees. They took over cross roads and scarred places where unjust deaths occurred. Some spirits acted as guardians and others caused harm and destruction. The elders taught they must be respectful and not do anything to offend the spirits. It was unseemly to whistle at night or forget to put one's fingernail clippings away. If a woman climbed a tree, then the spirits would keep it from producing. If a child disobeyed, the spirits might steal them away in the night or send a sickness their way.
There were stories about the spirits that dwelt in people, too. Jealousy, anger, grief, betrayal all manifested in spirit forms that could cause illness and death. They were taught to resolve all relational conflicts and dark emotions as quickly as possible so they did not become an abode for spirits and find their hearts devoured by bitterness and rage.
The Baganda used to refer to Nyanza (Lake Victoria) as the abode of their guardian spirits, the Balubaale. These were not deities as much as intermediaries between the Creator God (Katonda) and human beings (abantu). Once, they may have been descended of regular men and women, but through the circumstances of their births, lives, and deaths, they were elevated into the Balubaale. Now, they served as the guardians of the land and waters and intervened on behalf of humans – for good or ill.
It was Mukasa, the lord of Nyanza (Lake Victoria), who was the most benevolent. He never required a sacrifice of human flesh to satisfy his cravings. The others, well, they were more demanding and to gain their favor, they would request hundreds of sacrifices be poured out before them, whether by fire, water, blade, or crocodile. The greater power required, the greater the sacrifice. To inspire the spirits to grant favor, the gifts must be worthy and to fail to appease them could lead to their wrath.
Namor carried more spirits than anyone she had ever seen. How bitterly lonely he must be. He carried the ghost of his mother everywhere, the ghosts of her people, their tears. Shuri had carried enough water on her head to know that even tears could be heavy, if enough were shed. It was as if the coffins of his ancestors were hung around his neck and arms like a yoke and he couldn't make a move without feeling their weight upon his substantial biceps. Maybe if Shuri had lived five hundred years, she would understand.
Maybe, if she had seen the King of Buganda's throngs of human sacrifices into Nyanza (Lake Victoria), she would understand. Perhaps, if she could hear the chains and tears of Tippu Tips' train of slaves to the slave markets in Zanzibar, she would feel a similar weight. If she could smell the decomposing piles of severed hands of King Leopold's Congo, then maybe she would delight in such a show of power. There was a kind of darkness, a contagious frenzy that was unleashed in the spilling of blood and wielding of violence. Power over life and death could go to a man's head like the strongest of waragi (gin) and make him forget his own name and kin.
Her father often spoke of the scars on the Kikuyu after the Mau Mau rebellion. He had seen firsthand the piles of skulls stretching up to the sky and the bloated bodies that floated across Lake Victoria after Rwanda. He knew only too well the violence inflicted by children, armed and taught to kill in northern Uganda, the Congo, and South Sudan.
Shuri had been too young, then. She had not learned true fear, true grief, true horror. Yet, her life was not yet over. Since then, she had seen her brother nearly die at her cousin's hands and heard the grief her cousin held towards their father. She had seen Wakandans poured out like drink offerings to the cosmic deities of stars and galaxies and Infinity Stones and she had watched her own brother die before her very eyes. It was Hemut Zemo's rage and vengeance which killed her father. Zemo let the spirits make a nest in his heart and then burn up the world around him, overflowing onto people who had done him no harm. It was Killmonger's rage and jealousy that burned up Wakanda. It was Thanos' loss and anger which made him lash out against the universe, self-appointing himself as an incarnation of a god of death. Their unresolve wounds festered and opened doors for the spirits to dwell within them and use them as weapons to destroy and wound others around them.
They said every time a life was stolen, the place was haunted by spirits until someone with more power came along to exorcise them. Thus, the land and water themselves were tainted by the blood spilled into them. She knew she carried her own spirits and if she did not resolve her grief, they would swallow her alive, possessing her will and keeping her from seeing anything except their darkness.
It was also well known that those who faced their wounds, who sought healing, who did the very hardest thing imaginable and chose forgiveness - those were the ones who sent the spirits far away. Those were ones who sent the darkness fleeing with their light and made everything new. It was the mother who forgave the neighbor who killed her family, welcoming him to her own cooking fire as a new son. It was the man whose machete protected the innocent and whose character was not bought by the coins in his pocket. Nelson Mandela's Truth and Reconciliation Commission and Wangari Maathai's forests helped to grow it and made space for a better Spirit, a fiercer Spirit, one which spoke life rather than death and descended with all the blinding purity of a thunderstorm.
"To remove the spirits, they must be called out and replaced with a greater Power, a greater Spirit," her grandmother had said.
There was the great Creator Spirit. Their people had many names for Him: The Greatest of Friends, The First Ancestor, The Irresistible One, The Owner of Strength, He Who is Everywhere. It was said that this was the One who created the Earth and then left it in the hands of humanity, with the guardian spirits as intermediaries. While the guardians have some limited power, they could not compare to the overwhelming strength of the Creator. Yet, there were some who claimed the Creator Himself came to Earth to set right what was wrong, to punish the evil of both man and spirit, to heal the lands broken and soaked with blood. When the Creator came, all the other guardians cowered and bowed, and the dark spirits fled back to their darkness.
In the quiet, in the stillness, in the isolation of her cave, Shuri could finally sit and listen.