The Ever Lord: Mura Prays

Ordinarily, the evening meal in House Ashtree was a boisterous affair. Ashtree was a one of the larger farms in the Barony, with no fewer than forty men, women, and children. Each had a place at the longhouse table, and they all ate together when the day’s work was finished. Even when the day had been long and their muscles exhausted, there was always a story worth telling and laughter worth sharing.

Unlike the morning meal; which had three tiny courses of egg, butter-root cakes, and thick honeyed curd to provide energy for the day; the evening meal was longer, richer, and seasoned with good company. Roasted roots and grains were mashed into crispy cakes next to thick and chewy vegetables. Honeyed fruits garnished thin cuts of meat and bread. Nothing was served that took long to prepare, but all of it would insure a deep and restful sleep.

On the days that marked the changing of the seasons, a large paper-wrapped cheese was brought out at the end of the meal to much celebration, and everyone would share a hearty slice. The children would then be sent to bed while the adults would stay awake, pulling bottles of old wines and beers out of the pantries, sharing a drink and speaking with each other about the news between local families and rumors from the other Houses and farms.

Tonight was different. Tonight, the meal was somber. Barely a single smile was cracked between the adults of House Ashtree, and the children knew well enough to remain silent rather than disturb the adults’ conversations.

For all that Mura wanted to listen, she could not tear her eyes away from the Brother of the Guild. He was rough-faced and smooth voiced, and he always seemed to have an answer to everyone’s questions. His charm was clearly working on her family, as more and more of her aunts and uncles started to nod their heads in agreement.

When Mura could bear it no longer, she left her half-finished meal and walked out of the longhouse to wait outside. She sat on the edge of the longhouse porch and let the winds of the Fourth World roll over her, tugging at her hair and clothes. She watched the sunset burn across the rolling hills and over the distant forest that was little more than a small dark strip on the horizon.

Before long, her uncle Oklan joined her.

“You feel well?” he asked, leaning against the side of the longhouse. She didn’t answer. Her head was too full of horrible thoughts. Even the calming smell of the approaching evening wasn’t enough to soothe her soul.

After a time, Oklan took a slow breath. “You’re almost a woman,” he said. “Not one more month before you’ve seen fifteen years.”

Mura felt her pace quicken. She didn’t feel ready, though it had been a long time coming. Since the age of twelve, she had made her way through the struggles and trials of becoming a woman in her body. Her mind was clearer now, having fought through the growing pains of adulthood that afflicted both women and men, and in one month she would be permitted to marry and bear children. She could leave to marry into another House if she wished. At least a third of the adults in the longhouse now had been born of other Houses. Oklan himself had been born to House Outwater.

“Are you thinking of joining another House, maybe? Starting a family of your own? That Heim is a fine lad, and he sure visits often enough…”

The boy’s face flashed through Mura’s mind, and she felt the blood burn in her face. She turned away so Oaklan would not notice. “I’ve not the time to think of husbands.”

“No?” Oklan grinned. “I remember when you were younger, and you had no time to think of anything else. You’d have the right.”

“The duty,” Mura said.

“Well, I don’t know about that,” Oklan shifted his weight on the thick support. “As I see it, you have a duty to your family, to treat them right. Not my place to say what that means.”

“Are we going to join the Guild?” The question burst from her lips before she could stop it.

Oklan chuckled as he shook his head. “Who can say? It certainly seems the wisest of us think that our future lies in that direction.”

“But the Guild is a tool of the Deceiver!” Mura recited the rumors she had heard. “It is a defiance of the Ever Lord’s perfect Empire! If we join, will our Ever Lord not forsake us?”

Oklan sniffed, staring out over the darkened farm. For a moment he didn’t say anything as his eyes watered in the firm wind. Then, “I’m no priest, but I always figured the Deceiver would never come in the shape of man or woman; it’d come in words and ideas. Now I know I’m not half as smart as your ma, and if she thinks it’s a good idea, well, I won’t bother arguing.” He paused for a moment, looking over at Mura with a discerning look in his eye. “What do you think?”

Mura looked down at the dirt of their farm, and toyed with a stone with her foot. Oklan was not particularly wise, Mura knew. Her father knew more, and her mother was cleverer than both. Still, there was something in her uncle’s gaze, something in his voice that made him so much more than just another family member for Mura. He was a rock. A compass. He may not have always been correct, but he was always true.

“What do you pray for?” Mura asked.

Oklan blinked in surprise. “Eh?”

“I try to pray,” Mura kept speaking. “Good harvest, strong family, health and clear skies…I know what to pray for, but is it enough?”

“You pray with your whole heart, then it’s enough. What’s this about?”

Mura bit her lip. She had never given voice to these thoughts before. “If it’s enough…why are we starving?”

“We’re not starving,” Oklan said, his voice suddenly firm. “We’ve got enough food for the winter, and more if we tighten our belts.”

“The Aspectured Wall was built to protect us from the many gods, monsters, and magics of the Velvet,” Mura spoke slowly and carefully. “Only our Ever Lord holds sway here, no other power. And yet the storms punish us, destroying most of an already scant harvest, and our Baron demands greater tithing than we can afford.”

Oklan nodded, waiting for Mura to ask her question.

Finally she managed to speak it; “Has our Ever Lord already forsaken us?”

Oklan took a deep breath. “Do you think we deserve to be forsaken?”

“Only,” Mura’s head sank into her hands, “if the Ever Lord hasn’t forsaken us, if this is our Ever Lord giving us our due, then how much worse will things get if we join the Guild?”

Oklan took a step forward, laying a comforting hand on Mura’s shoulder. “None of us know the future. All we can do is hold fast to the Path of Five Virtues, and so honor our Ever Lord.”

“Only which virtue?” Mura snapped. “If the Baron will no longer do his Duty, than are we to no longer be humble? If we let the Guild into our land, are we ignoring our own Duty? Are we to be Courageous and defy our Baron, or Courageous and weather the hunger? Which is the Wiser course? What is right?”

Oklan laughed, his deep voice rich and meaty in the slowly darkening air. “Dear Mura, you figure that out, you’re more than a mortal, you’re a goddess!” He lifted his body from the wall where he leaned and brushed at his clothing. “Here. I know one thing that always makes me feel better. Come.”

He gestured Mura around to the side of the longhouse, and pointed at the side. “There,” he said. “Sit there with me.”

Confused, Mura followed his urging and they set themselves on the damp dirt and grass, leaning against the side of the building. For a moment they sat in silence, before Mura realized how clearly she could hear the voices of her family through the walls.

“He said the other Houses fared no better. Do you trust him?”

“I have no idea. Trust him or not, it’d be wise to send someone to the other Houses and hear it from their own lips. He wants us to join, and even if he thinks he speaks truth, he might be blinding himself to how things are.”

“If he’s true? What then?”

“If the other Houses are worse off, we’ll share what we have.”

“And starve when the Baron’s pantry overflows?”

“If it overflows. None of us have seen inside it, and I’ll wager neither has our Brother guest.

“What do you think?”

“Seven and a ha-tin? Let me tell ye what I think of that.”

“Can you imagine? If it’s true…”

“Aye, if. Again we have more ifs than grains of wheat. I heard enough to know the man wants to sell us, and if he’s selling feathers, we need to know.”

“I won’t lie, I’m nervous. Even discussing this…we’re talking about defying our Ever Lord; becoming a bandit House.”

“Nay, the Ever Lord never asked us to starve for his bread. Our Baron’s the bandit, he’s who we’re defying.”

“It’ll come to blood. The Baron won’t like us breaking away; we’ll need to fight.

“He’ll not fight us. Greedy and murderous ain’t the same. And if he does, our Ever Lord’ll be with us. How could he be anywhere else?”

Mura leaned forward, moving her ears away from the wooden wall. Oklan watched her for a moment before resting a hand on her shoulder. “See? They have their own questions. Even the wisest among us don’t know the future.”

Mura looked at her uncle’s well-meaning face. He had honestly believed that Mura would feel better, knowing her family was as confused and uncertain as she.

She smiled. Oklan was a fool, but he was always true. “Thank you, uncle,” she said, leaning over to give him a large hug. He returned the embrace before pushing himself up from the wet ground. “Come, it is almost time for bed. Go say your prayers and wash yourself.”

Mura gave her uncle a nod and a wave as she ran off towards the small shrine next to the gate.

It was long past dusk and the Velvet shimmered and waved in the sky. The shrine’s tiny covered flame was barely enough to see by, but Mura knew the farm better than she knew her own feet. She could make her way to the House Shrine with her eyes closed.

The House Ashtree shrine was well kept and clean. Mura had heard that other Houses kept their shrines indoors, oftentimes in a small room in their longhouse. Ashtree’s shrine was kept in a small hut all its own, sturdily constructed and round shaped, to protect it from the winds and storms.

Outside the shrine, Mura washed her feet and hands in the small basin of cold water. Then, still dripping water from her fingers, she opened the shrine door and stepped inside.

It was cool and dark. Reaching into the shadows, Mura pulled a small iron box off a small shelf. She took a dry stick of hay from the top where a small bundle was tied, and flipped open the box’s shutters.

A soft buzzing filled the shrine as Mura brought the box to her mouth. Placing one end of the hay behind the small beetle that crawled on the bottom of the box, pursed her lips, and blew through the shutters. Irritated, the buzzing grew louder as the insect clacked its wings together, sparking and lighting the offered hay in Mara’s fingers.

Replacing the box, she lit the shrine’s candles from the hay. When the tiny room glowed a faint red, she moved to the small cabinet and knelt in front of its tiny wooden doors.

Behind the doors sat the iron sigil of the Ever Empire resting on top of a small metal dish with a thin clasp. A small roll of cotton cloth stood on the left while a heavy stone vial sat on the right. A thin bundle of dried ash sticks lay in front of the dish, their faint smell rolling out of the cabinet like fog.

With great care, Mura tore a thin strip of cloth from the tiny roll and threaded it into the clasp so one end brushed the bottom of the small dish. Setting the roll aside, she lifted the small vial and poured out a thin layer of sweet smelling oil.

In the dim candlelight, she watched as the oil was pulled up from the dish into the fabric like magic. Mura replaced the vial and picked up a thick cedar stick. Carefully lighting it from a nearby candle, she waved the flame over the top of the cloth until it glowed with a bright light, sending flame up and around the iron sigil of the Ever Lord.

Mura blew out the cedar stick and stared deeply into the sigil-flame. Licking her lips, her breath shallow and uncertain, she began to whisper, the flames flickering gently in her breath.

When she was a child, She had prayed for a good harvest and for a safe family; any more felt presumptuous. But now, kneeling in House Ashtree’s shrine to the Ever Lord, staring at the flames as they crawled up the sides of the Iron Sigil of the Ever Empire, she found words deep within her she had never known existed.

She prayed for her House and the Barony, for quiet storms and a peaceful season. She prayed for the other Houses, begging the Ever Lord to provide for them in their hours of need. She prayed for her mother, thinking of her sore joints and strained muscles. She prayed for her uncles and aunts, her cousins and siblings. She even prayed for the Baroner.

She prayed until her hands were sore, the flames had died, and the tiny metal dish was completely dry of oil.