Interlude

Centuries earlier, in Fanu, upland of Del. Summer Solstice.

Danan-Kanapchak announced he was leaving the farm and joining the disciples of Mek.

Distraught, his mother pleaded with him to stay. “But, but — that’s a death cult, Dan!”

“My mentor warned me you’d say that. Mek is the Ruler of Cycles, Arbiter of Change. Sun, moon, time. Living and dying. He governs the things that matter.”

“Go, be devoted to the mountain-spirit, or the wind and sea, but not those — ” She slapped him rather than say it: blood-swillers.

This only set him more firmly on his course.

She would have me pulling tubers from the dirt as my father and his father did — halfway alive is halfway dead!

The servants of Mek traveled the hill-country, teaching about the five elements — earth, water, wind, fire, and flesh — their transmogrifications, and associated virtues and vices. They taught the people how to tame and mix animals, how to discern from celestial bodies the eight cardinal directions as well as the eight seasons of planting, reaping, and lying fallow.

Devotion to Mek offered everything he desired — learning, advancement, influence, power — so he sold what few possessions he had, bought simple white robes and sash, and shaved his head and body. Entanglements shed, kinship renounced, nothing held him back.

“The sun is red at dawn and twilight,” his mentor, a kindly old man with a red sun painted on his bald head, had told him. “By this, we know that the sun shines red in the Silent Lands under the earth. In the Bright Lands, where we are, the sun is a mountain of fire. But in the Silent Lands, it is the throne-sled of Mek, the Sun of Blood.”

“That’s what I don’t understand,” Danan said. “The blood.”

“What is a living thing made from, Danan?”

“Flesh, bone, breath  … fluids.”

“A little earth, a little wind, and a preponderance of fluid. And the principle one is?”

“Blood.”

“You can hold your breath, and you can lose your arm, but in the blood is the life, in the life is the power, in the power is the blood.”

“But why  … drink it?”

“The proper term is ingurgitate.”

“Whatever it’s called, why do it? Whoever came up with that?”

“I am a witness to some things and not others, yet everything that exists outside the circle of my view still exists. Some things I know by observation, and others I know only by reason. I see you before me fully clothed — should I assume you were born that way? No! I know you put them on before, because the working of garments is commonly understood. Still other things are mysteries that may only be apprehended through revelation.”

“The spirit world?”

“Ah! Garments are also common to the experience of infants, but they are ignorant of their function. Eventually they learn, because someone reveals it to them. What if the world-behind-the-world is common to your experience, but — ”

“I am an infant. How do we learn about the spirits when we can’t see them?”

“The same way infants do! Someone who knows more than you must teach you.”

“And you know these things?”

“Only a little. The spirit world is a higher order of existence, and so requires a higher-order being to reveal it to us. We can know for certain because we can rely on their experience.”     

“Thus the Order of Mek?”

“One link in the long chain of revelation! Mek revealed himself to the first Mentors in dreams, which led to the divinations, which led to the magic plants and their suffusions, which led to the rites and ceremonies, which led to encountering the spirits, which led to — ” He smiled and pointed to them both.

“You and me?”

“And many others.”

It took several years of devotion to the Way of Blood before Danan was ready to ingurgitate human blood. “A most potent drink,” his mentor told him. “It’ll widen your eyes far enough to split your head open.”

So he contented himself with the blood of mice and lizards, fish and sparrows, foxes and ravens, on up the great chain of living things — or as he learned was their proper name, dying things. Each time, he learned something new about that order of creatures, and about himself. Everything he learned he wrote in his journal:

The ingurgitation is a deep communication of essences, intertwining one’s own base self with the divine. The days of all dyings things are set by Mek. Without him, all life would grow old and weak but never die. By bringing death, he rids the world of sorrow and decay.

The blood is always conserved, flowing from the great vats in the Storehouse through his channels and into the bodies of dying things. When the body dies — miracle of miracles! — the blood flows back to Mek in the Silent Lands, and he pours it into something new.

To ingurgitate, therefore, is a solemn responsibility; Mek diverts that blood from another and reinvests in you.

This mystery cannot be described or explained, only experienced. How I long to experience it fully!

His mentor was pleased. “Finally, you understand! To receive blood is an honor. The only higher honor is donation, to feed your friends.”

Again, Danan wrote in his journal:

In this way, the order of Mek has made itself ancient — that is, its blood. By the process of maturation, blood moves from person to person, aging, growing in wisdom and potency, until its concentrate may be ingurgitated by Mek himself.

The Silent Lands will disappear, and all living things will course through the veins of an undying celestial being who rules over all orders, land, sea, and sky, both above the world and below!

Therefore, one must be worthy to ingurgitate, and more worthy to be ingurgitated. These conclusions are inescapable.

The morning of the solstice, Danan awoke at dawn and gathered near the circular stone patio which marked one of the sacred places, the old places, where revelations had occurred. Danan sat in a circle with twenty-eight others, all dressed in white robes with yellow sashes.

Another mentor briefed them all. “This is your first Adumbration of the Heavens,” she said. “Here we signify the celestial machinery, which Mek devised to unwind all things and make mortal things immortal. You will reenact the drama of the skies!

“There are four rings. Innermost, five zealots, around them, eight disciples, and around them, ten acolytes, and finally your ring of twenty-nine devotees.

“When the inner ring has stepped off five times, once around, the ring of eight takes one step. Once they go all around, the ring of ten steps once, and so on. Five eights make forty, forty tens make four hundred, and twenty-nine four hundreds make eleven thousand six hundred — one full procession of the heavens from pole to pole.

“We will not make a full procession, however. Four tokens will be drawn from the bag, each with a number corresponding to a position for each ring. This reveals a number of steps, whereby Mek chooses his precious ones.”

Danan and his peers stood and repeated, “Mek chooses his precious ones.”

A younger sage gave them each a bitter suffusion of roots, followed by an elder sage who dipped his hands in goat’s blood and grabbed their shoulders, staining their white robes red. He drenched a line of blocks in front of the altar, one in each ring, with the leftover blood.

The Way of Blood. Mek chooses his precious ones.

The participants assembled around the altar and its pillar in the center, each taking their assigned position on one of the stones in their ring. Danan stood on the outermost blood-drenched block and linked arms with his peers, trembling with anticipation.

The Prime Sage stood atop the altar and drew four stone tokens from a bag, each bearing a number corresponding to a position in each ring. These computed a number between one and eleven thousand six hundred, known only to the sage and the director of music.

The drummers started up a steady pulse, propelling the inner ring on its way, one step for each beat of the drum. On the sixth beat, the ring of eight advanced one step. All the participants danced in place while they were waiting to step — except the inner ring, which never stopped.

The chanters sang:

Mek! Whose seasons we regard.

Mek! Beginner of all beginnings.

Mek! Who fills the cups.

Mek! Rhythm of the Spheres!

Mek! Music of the Stars!

Mek! Who imbibes sweetest wine.

Mek! Ender of all endings.

Mek! Beating out the time.

When the machine reached the appointed number, those who landed on the Way of Blood would advance to the altar, their blood spilled and distributed to the peers in their ring.

Oh! To be among the precious ones, who do not mature on earth or fade into the Silent Lands, but advance directly to the stars beneath the world. They get to skip all the suffering of the Intermediate Zones.

Danan’s ring turned the slowest, once for every four hundred steps of the inner ring, and he had only one chance in twenty-nine to land on the Way of Blood. If not, he would have the lesser honor of receiving a twenty-eighth portion of the sacrifice.

Fervent, he prayed for Mek to choose his number. For hours he danced and sang, pumping the spirit root throughout his body. The celestial orbs beckoned him. The earth shrank to a tiny disk beneath him, then a speck. The Way stretched into the bright galaxy above and he prepared himself to ascend.

Then, catastrophe.

The machine stopped with him next to the Way, not on it. At least his mentor had been right: The one twenty-eighth share of his compatriot’s blood that he received that day as consolation opened his eyes so wide it nearly split his head. He vowed to come back again.

Year by year Danan returned, sometimes earning his way into the next ring, gaining a new sash and title: twenty-nine devotees in yellow sashes, ten acolytes in blue, eight disciples in green, five zealots in scarlet. Each promotion earned him a better chance at the Way or a larger portion of the spill as consolation.

Finally, he was standing at the center of the circle, Prime Sage, no longer eligible to participate in the Adumbration.

Now I draw the tokens, and I do the spilling.

He took the name Heliato-Mek, the precious one of Mek — not out of bitterness, but to signal his acceptance. He was precious to Mek, the years of sorrow, toil, and pain notwithstanding. One day he would reach the Red Sun; he was only taking a longer path.

The longest path.

Then, catastrophe.

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