IV.

Rushe-kih stood in the row across from the head magus. Keeping her eyes respectfully downcast, she stole a glance at him. Feathers stretched like a halo from just above his eyebrows into the moonlit sky. The name he’d been given when he’d become a magus was Olee-fuku, meaning “moon feathers.” His round face, caked with the ceremonial paste, resembled the full moon. The paste had dried and crumbled around his mouth and in the deep lines of his forehead. Beneath his gray tunic, his body was broad, but bony from the frequent fasts he was called on to endure. This choosing ceremony, one of the most important he would conduct during his ministry, would end a fast of forty days. Rushe-kih had also been fasting in preparation, although because she was a young girl only seven days were required. The Behrowain believed that females were innately more spiritual than males, even magi.

Olee-fuku held up the choosing staff wrapped with consecrated feathers, the tip, a smoldering ember. Slowly, deliberately he passed it over the head of each girl in the row. Rushe-kih was the third from the last, and as it passed over her, it popped. A cinder landed on her forehead, but it didn’t hurt and she didn’t rub it away. She remained perfectly still, even as the wrinkled hands of the magus rested upon her. His eyes narrowed. Closer his face came, inspecting her hair, her eyes, the palms of her hands. He pulled her closer to the fire and motioned her to stamp in the cold river clay. He knelt to examine the footprints. A long time he knelt, and Rushe-kih grew nervous. She saw her mother watching from the other side of the fire, her face pinched in anticipation.

Then magus arose with eyes full of wonder, and he spoke. But rock magi speak quietly, and his words were drowned out by a voice singing in the distance. Rushe-kih turned to see a line of rimers approaching, led by a small girl. She had purple stars below her eyes, and vamfloria vines dragged from her ankles, but her voice rang clearly in the night:

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-hiyo

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

At your feet, the dust there lies

Tells a story of the earth.

Hiding there is man’s demise

If his pride exceeds his worth!

Once Ee-loyi, God of Life

Brought the springtime in his wake.

Man-nah, too, his pretty wife—

Th’ two of them this world did make.

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

This land they made for Nono’s sake.

Nono was their lovely daughter,

She could spin the stars like thread.

Brought Rup-tinyon’s cup of water;

Took him to her marriage-bed.

Th’ bride and her ambitious spouse

Ee-loyi and Man-nah blessed,

Raised their hands and uttered vows

Bestowing earth from east to west.

Bindili-hiyi, bindili-yo

The children swore their love was best.

Seasons passed and Nono’s father

Waited for their thanks to come,

But the children didn’t bother

And instead the givers shunned.

Then one day Ee-loyi burst

Onto the field at creeping dawn,

Where once his seeds and cubs he’d nursed,

Expecting welcome in their song.

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

The God of Life was ne’er more wrong.

There Rup-tinyon proudly stood

With all the creatures he’d enlisted,

Ordering an attack for blood,

His eyes ablaze, his grim lips twisted.

Then came Nono from behind

Craving all her father’s glory,

Power-thirst in her eyes shined;

Her voice was rude, drunk with euphory

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

The children in their greed were blind.

Ee-loyi, his heart enraged,

Withstood blows from th’ ungrateful,

Then a battle he did wage,

Terrifying, dark, and hateful.

From his finger shot a beam

Which consumed the rav’ning couple,

Burned them into ash, it seemed,

Wasted there, a heap of rubble.

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

Thus began our grievous trouble.

For Ee-loyi is God of Life

And could not wield a stroke to slay,

And so transformed to seeds of strife

Th’ rebellious children were that day.

Blown by wind in all directions,

Wicked seeds hide in the dust,

Cursing all, their last election,

Proof that ruin follows lust.

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

Ee-loyi’s anger there was just.

Man walks earth once tilled by gods.

Their vengeance is not yet atoned.

Ee-loyi sent the wicked pods

An endless penance we bemoan.

Bindili-hiyi, Bindili-yo

The God of Life, death’s yield has sown.

Rushe-kih opened her eyes. The dream was swept away, and in its place she found Jezura, Oriah, and Hem peering down on her. Behind them Ahr-tyr was still humming the rimer’s vamfloria legend. Rushe-kih recognized her voice as the child’s in her dream. She smiled weakly.