More archiving of old fiction: "first journey downworld"
In two days, you leave the women, Saitha. More, you will no longer be Saitha.
Kaidu. It is your name, boy: in two days you shall be Named, son. You will be
Kaidu d'an Jairanu d'ar Zhaidukhar, you will be known to be my son and you will
be known to be a son of this clan. You know what your name is. But in two days
it shall be revealed. For no reason anymore shall your name ever be kept secret,
the jealous spirits cannot touch you now. But first you must go downworld for
the first time, you will come with me.
The letter is tucked within my pocket.
I have practiced this so many times now: first the etha'di, the black undershirt
with the narrow, long sleeves: pointed at the cuffs, with a loop coming from
each point. I pull the sleeves down, I pull the loop around each thumb. This
will hold my sleeves inside of my gloves.
I will teach you all I know, I will teach you one day to take my place.
You will leave the women, you will be known as a man and you will not live among
women again until the day you have one of your very own. Now it is a time for
mysteries, for men's mysteries. You have done well, my son.
The zhoda, the tight-fitting hood. I have pulled my hair back tightly so that
the zhoda will pull over my head easily. My hair has not been braided yet, but
it shall be braided after I am to take the Name of Nadiran manhood. I will have
a name like all of the Exiled Ones, but I also will have the braids of the Kova'yin,
the braids of my own people.
With the tight-fitting zhoda over my head, none can see I do not yet have the
braids: that I have not been Named yet.
One mystery I will begin to share with you now.
Know Downworld as well as you can, my boy: know it well. Set foot on these worlds
but return back to us, back to your freedom. We have had many worlds, my son.
We have been enslaved on all of these, all but one, and that one was taken from
us. Know that when you wear the zhoda, when you wear the etha'di, when you wear
the jadi and the zhero and the jota, you are marked, you are marked as one of
they whom the Downworlders would see driven from their skies: know also that
you alone remember the Downworlders' secrets, even as they have forgotten them.
The black jadi. My hands are lost in the voluminous sleeves of this robe. I
pull the jadi tight around me, I tie the wide sash tightly around my waist.
Your world was a world of red sands. The Veil split the lower western sky
at dawn, a shimmering band. I have not seen it, nor has your grandfather or
great grandfather but it is as close to a memory to all of us, there is not
one of our people who would not know it if we were to chance to see it again.
We know that the Veil is nothing but a band of material in our erstwhile world's
atmosphere, that the sun would set alight just before dawn, but there is Knowing
and there is a truth that is beyond knowing. And in the core of that truth,
this is a sign of the Eternal, it is this which Tau Eleh'ren saw when her ships
caught sight of this world, when we were led here out of bondage.
The zhero. It keeps my face hidden from Downworlders: it keeps my face from
the Downworld sun. Only my eyes now remain visible, every inch of skin is covered
by fabric.
And there was another sign.
On our world, my boy, we could walk with our faces naked to the midday sun:
and it is the only place, indeed, we ever have. Every other time we have burrowed
into the earth like a mole, and now we live among the stars.
The jota. The shield which fits snugly over the eyes and the skin visible between
the zhoda hood and the zhero veil. It drains the color from my sight, renders
the world around me dim and tinged in dark red.
I do not know what happens if I am to see the Downworld sun, I only know what
I have been told: that it is better that I not find out.
This is not truly an exile, my boy: for know this. It is like this, it
is as wanderers, as travellers, as exiles that we are the thing we have never
before been. Without dirt to set our boots upon, we are houseless but not homeless:
we are free. For wherever your clan is, the Varen watch and keep you: and wherever
the Varen watch and keep you, know that as your home.
I pull the jadi's draping hood over my head.
I am ready to go Downworld for the first time.