Within Our Bones — A Short Story. A scent of cinnamon carefully entwined…
By: Catrys Mercier
Tags: Storytelling, Bones, Short Story, Fantasy, Novel

A scent of cinnamon carefully entwined with the sound of waves. Hard to explain, but the tranquility of it remained. Similar to how a song’s final tunes linger in the air in the form of echoes. As the incense continues to burn, I take off my cloak. The many bones of my elders lay before me on a wooden table. Burning beeswax candles and soul gems are scattered across the table.

Do you remember what happened to us?

I nod. I remember as if I had lived these previous lives myself. The bones told us the stories of what happened. Inscriptions were left in our bones in a nearly extinct language. This was the work of the Ancients, for they speak only in Hirseth. My people, the hanan, barely dare whisper of it. Instead, we let the pain soak in what is now an almost hollow carcass of our race. In my time, Hirseth is so foreign to many of my people. Despite the subtle hints of familiarity in the verbs, it differs a lot from the common tongue that hanan speaks today.

“Primer Khani, they are ready.”

A small figure waits behind me in an all too large cloak. I turn to look at my little mer, Jhagu, and nod. Jhagu’s scales are of a dark green color with yellow eyes. Reptiles, humans call us. Nissa, we call our loved ones. Jhagu opens the tent and lets in two servants carrying a large silver plate with pale bones. The servants place the bones on a table close to the one I was working on earlier. Jhagu lights up some more beeswax candles and prepares the gold.

“Who?” I ask.

“Elder Daneem of Skoth. Fourhundred and seventeen suns.” Jhagu replies, faint in voice.

“May they rest with the Ancients. It is their honor.” I say.

We do not allow burials of our elders. Like many generations before me, a primer must read the messages inscripted in the bones. Our bones are sacred, regardless of who dies and when they die. Primers must read them and translate to the priests and the loved ones of the deceased. We read their life and we tell it as how it is written. Farewells, wishes, loves, or regrets… It always depends on the life carried by the bones of the hanan. If an elder dies, it is of the highest honor to have prophecies foretold within their bones, along with the story of their life.

“Paint the bones with the gold.” I instruct Jhagu. ”Do not give them to me until the gold has dried. You know I cannot read them otherwise.”

“Yes, primer.” He says obediently.

Jhagu picks up a brush with bristles made of arunian sheep’s hair and gently dips it in the gold. He softly slides the brush’s bristles over the pale bones of Daneem of Skoth. Like a human painter, he skillfully covers every vital part of the bones ensuring no part is forgotten. No gold is like hananian gold. This too, was a blessing from the Ancients.

As Jhagu is occupied with his work, I turn back to my wooden table. The bones before me are all the bones of elders. All deciphered and read by primers before me. At the time, none knew what the prophecies meant. I picked up the bones of Grelda the Honorable. So many wars fought, their bones tell us stories of triumph but also of defeat. Their bones had warned us of what was to come.

Dunes of sand.

A sun rising above an hourglass.

A scythe and a skull.

All primers tried to understand what it meant. Even the Innas, who only preach about the Ancients, tried to learn and predict only for it to be to no avail. To read prophecies makes you a prophet, but a prophet who cannot understand their own prophecies… Is one without a head. Grelda’s bones at the time had made no sense. The hanan was in an age of prosperity, no threat in-bound. By the time we heard their horses and their clinging swords it was too late.

We should have known.

“Primer Khani,” Jhagu’s voice trembles. “There… There are no inscriptions.”

I stop in my tracks and place down Grelda’s bones.

“What do you mean no inscriptions? Of course there aren’t. You need to let the gold dry. I have told you this many times, Mer Jhagu.”

There’s a moment of silence. Jhagu clears his throat.

“The… The gold has dried… Primer Khani… I swear… I…”

“Let me have a look. Move.” I shove Jhagu to the side.

The once pale bones are now covered in dried gold. I try to inspect the bones with my bare eyes, searching for Hirseth writing. Nothing. I pick up the bones and turn them around. Nothing. I dip a brush in gold and paint it once more while chanting the blessing of the Ancients. Nothing. Even looking in every corner and edge of what was once Daneem of Skoth…

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

“This cannot be…” I whisper to myself under my breath.

Jhagu looks at me, terrified of his life. His facial expression says enough, and my guess is he is hoping for mercy. This is not his fault. He is only a mer. The servants brought in the bones, not him. I close my eyes and think. Perhaps there are signs of desecration on them? I must look.

“Bring me the vision shard.” I instructed Jhagu once more. He abides and hands it over.

I pick up Daneem of Skoth’s bones and begin inspecting them more carefully. Never in my life have I been more careful with the bones of an elder than I have now. The shard shows me what the eye cannot see by itself, and yet… There are no signs of desecration. There are no prophecies written on them, no life stories. One can tell that the bones have carried a soul, but the word of the Ancients is nowhere to be seen.

The bones are blank.

I freeze.

“Summon Innas Paldi for me.” I say to Jhagu. “Tell no one.”