The Colourless

Kandrina stirred, woken gently by the early morning sunlight filtering through the curtains. Her little sister, Enkarini, snored softly in the other bed. Kandrina threw back her covers and tiptoed across to the wardrobe. She could hear her father speaking to someone downstairs – probably scolding her older brother Perlak for staying out all night again. Kandrina smiled faintly to herself. Much as she adored her big brother, it was always nice to hear other people being shouted at; usually she was the one being told off. Most of the time, it was because she had said or done something that her obsessively religious father disagreed with. He had become highly devout after her mother’s death seven years ago, and had forced it onto all three of his children ever since.

At first, Kandrina didn’t mind, because there were wonderful stories of a glorious afterlife; she had often imagined her mother looking down on her from a beautiful green meadow, keeping her safe. As she got older, however, she had begun to wonder why the gods had taken her mother away. Looking for an answer, and finding none, she began to question the faith. Her father had already been blinded by that point, and refused to listen to anything that contradicted the temples. Perlak had been more willing to talk about it with her; the two of them had often rebelled against their father by refusing to dress properly when they attended sermons, or by sneaking out of the house so that he couldn’t find them. She smiled at the memory of one incident last year, when they had run off and spent a day out on the plains with the hunter Perlak had been apprenticed to. The master hunter had even given her a chance to shoot a few arrows at a target tree. She hadn’t been very accurate, but she’d enjoyed it a lot. She made her way down to the kitchen to begin the breakfast preparations, still smiling to herself.

She found a few slices of bread and some cheese in the pantry; that would do for her and Enkarini. Her father and brother preferred meat for breakfast though, so she lit a fire, dug out a pan and a largish ibikona wing, and began cooking it. As the pan heated up, she went to listen by the door. Her father’s voice was quiet – that was odd. Maybe he was just keeping his voice down because he thought she and Enkarini were still sleeping. She shrugged and went back to the meat. It was starting to sizzle, so she took the tongs from the side and turned it over. More sizzling as the uncooked side hit the hot pan. It smelt good; she decided to put another wing in for Perlak. Though if he had been out all night, it was more than likely he had already had breakfast before coming home. Quite often he would go to visit one of his lady friends instead of coming home after a late night hunt. She heard a few words drift through from the other room; judging by the tone of voice, it sounded as though her father was upset rather than angry. Wondering what Perlak could possibly have done, she took the pan off the fire and poked her head round the door to see what had been going on.

Automatically, she raised a hand to wave at Perlak over her father’s shoulder, like she always did when he came home in trouble. He always grinned at her when she was being told off, too. Sometimes he pulled silly faces as well, making her laugh and frustrating their father even further. Looking into the room, she couldn’t see much beyond her father’s broad back. He stood in the centre of the room, leaning heavily against the high-backed chair he usually sat in. She couldn’t see Perlak anywhere, but another man was speaking, an unfamiliar voice. Wondering who it could be, Kandrina pushed the door open a little wider and peered around her father. A sandy-haired, bearded man stood just inside the open front door, a sympathetic expression on his face. She vaguely recognised him after a few seconds; the Chief’s scribe had clearly come to deliver some news. She looked back at her father, who had collapsed onto the arm of his chair with his head in his hands. Something was obviously wrong.

“Father?” she said hesitantly, looking over at the two men. “What is it?”

Harndak looked at his daughter. “Kandrina, I’m sorry...” He ran a calloused hand through his dark hair. “Perlak…” Words seemed to fail him; his lips moved but no sound emerged. He lowered his head again and began to sob quietly.

The scribe looked over at her. “My deepest condolences. Your brother Perlak was taken by the Demons last night. I will have his remains returned to you later today, so that you can begin preparing for the funeral.” He inclined his head and left, closing the door behind him.

Kandrina stood frozen in the doorway. Waves of emotion crashed over her, each one obliterating the one that had come before. Disbelief, anger, despair, pain, disbelief again. Her head span, she couldn’t take it in. Was this just some awful nightmare? Would she wake up in a moment, safe and warm in her bed, in time to hear Perlak sneaking upstairs to his room? The sharp pain in her heart told her otherwise; no dream could ever hurt so much. First her mother had been taken, years ago; now her beloved older brother. Slowly but surely, the terrible Demons were taking everything she loved away from her. Somehow, she found herself standing by her father’s chair, tears running down her face as she looked into his eyes. “Why? Why would they take him?” she cried.

Harndak stood and held his oldest daughter tightly, his own tears running down into her hair. “I don’t know, Kandrina. Nobody knows,” he said, stroking the girl’s hair. “At least Perlak is with your mother now.”

Kandrina sobbed into her father’s shirt. “It’s not fair, they shouldn’t keep taking people from us,” she said, her voice muffled by tears and shirt. “Why doesn’t the Chief do something about it?”

“He prays to the gods to stop them, just like we all do,” Harndak reminded his daughter. “There’s nothing else we can do. After sending an entire battalion to their deaths a few years ago, Chief Jindar is reluctant to send out any more soldiers. The temples tell us they cannot be destroyed, that the only way to keep them at bay is to pray.”

Kandrina pushed away slightly. She did not believe that anything was completely indestructible, and could not understand the attitude most people had towards the Demons. “Father, there has to be something else they can do. We have been praying ever since Mother was taken, and still the Demons came back to us. What of the people who pray every day, and still lose family and friends?”

“Kandrina, why must you harbour such misgivings?” Harndak asked in exasperation. “You know the Demons are called closer to our lands by the words of non-believers, and the priests are always on the lookout for those who doubt. Why do you cause friction?”

Attempting to remain calm, though her temper was beginning to rise, Kandrina tried to explain once again to her narrow minded father. “I don’t intend to cause trouble. But I simply can’t see why everyone is so hopeless about this. Surely if everyone pulled together, maybe if the Chief sent some mages out…”

“As I just said, Kandrina, the temples say there is no way to vanquish the Demons. If there was a way, don’t you think they would have done something by now?” said Harndak, holding his daughter’s shoulders at arm’s length. “Perhaps the Demons returned to our family because we weren’t praying enough,” he said, looking into her eyes.

“Oh, blast praying, and blast the damned temples!” Kandrina cried, her temper getting the better of her at what she took to be a subtle accusation. “We pray for everything, and it makes no difference! Every spring we pray for good rains to make the crops grow, and every year it doesn’t change anything; the rain comes or not, as it wishes, without a care for our prayers.” She pulled herself away from her father and began pacing. “Why are you so afraid, Father? The holy books talk more of acceptance and peace; why do you blindly obey everything the priests say about sin and damnation? What if they’re wrong, and the old religions were right?”

“I will not have this argument with you again, Kandrina. Not now, and certainly not while your sister is upstairs sleeping,” Harndak said, quietly but firmly. “You know perfectly well that the holy books were written years ago, at the time of the merging, when peace and tolerance were the most important things to preach. The gods speak directly to the priests, and to us through the priests. And the old religions are all false truth, as well you know. The Manak faith is the only true religion.”

Kandrina stopped in front of the cold hearth and turned slowly to face her father. “If all the old religions are false truth, Father, then why do the temples acknowledge some of the old gods? Dranj-Aria was first worshipped by the Tewen tribe; Aikra-Lora came from the Astator religion. We only have shamans because of the nature-worshipping Wirba tribe. If the faith of the Manak tribe was the one true path to Paradise, why would they have altered it so to incorporate gods from other faiths?”

Harndak stared at her, and she could see him closing off, shutting his mind and refusing to accept the sense of what she was saying. “How do you know all of that? I expressly forbade your tutor from telling you anything about the old faiths. They are irrelevant heresies, Kandrina,” he said.

“I read of my own accord, Father. There is a wealth of information in the library, if you know where to look,” she replied sarcastically. Her mother had insisted she be taught privately, away from the temples’ influence, and Kandrina was eternally grateful to her for it. “I find the old religions make a lot more sense; they speak of gods who prefer not to interfere much with mortal life. Those are the gods we seem to have, not the prayer answering, ‘vengeful yet forgiving’ gods preached about in our temples,” Kandrina said.
“Kandrina, stop! This is heresy, and I will not hear it spoken in this house,” Harndak said sternly. “Now go and wake your sister. We have a funeral to begin preparations for.”

Kandrina turned and stormed back up the stairs. Grief at her brother’s death now mingled with boiling hatred of her father’s blind faith. She loved her father, but hated that he had been so easily frightened into believing fanatically in the temple doctrines. As far as she was concerned, the priests had taken advantage of his grief after her mother’s death.

Harndak shook his head. “I knew having that girl educated would create problems,” he muttered to himself, watching her go. “I just hope she doesn’t speak her mind outside of her mentor’s house.”

“Enkarini,” Kandrina called softly as she entered the room she shared with her younger sister. “Wake up. Father needs to speak to you.” She gently shook the younger girl’s shoulder.

Enkarini stirred. “What’s wrong?” she asked muzzily. Enkarini was the exact image of her departed mother. Long, wavy brown hair, startling green eyes, and flawless alabaster skin. Kandrina looked into her sister’s eyes, wondering what Mother might have said, how she might have broken the terrible news to her little girl. Since Meradina had died when Enkarini was still a baby, Kandrina had been more of a mother figure to her than an older sister, yet she still found herself wondering if she was leading the little girl wrongly somehow. Alone of the three children, Kandrina had inherited their mother’s independent mind, which was why she had been sent to a private tutor rather than the temple-run schools. As she watched her sister rubbing sleep from the corners of her eyes, Kandrina felt a sudden, overwhelming urge to protect her sister from indoctrination, whatever it took. Discarding the notion of sugar-coating the truth, she blurted it out quickly.

“It’s Perlak, Enkarini.” She didn’t need to say anymore. The sisters held each other for a long time, silently coming to terms with their brother’s death.

~~~~~

Fakro-Umdar’s priest sat quietly behind his desk, watching the black candle wax dripping slowly down the holder. The temple of the death god was always a quiet place; the acolytes took a vow of absolute silence, which cut out a lot of noise. Also, there were very few visitors to the temple, outside of those with family members about to join the spirits on the other side. As he sat watching the candle burn down, he wondered why they had to use black ones. There was no reason he knew of; black wasn’t overly associated with death, no more than any other colour. Certainly less so than red, anyway. Besides, a little colour might improve the place somewhat, he thought.

The door opened, hinges creaking loudly in the silence and interrupting his thoughts on buying a pack of red candles just to see how people reacted. A silent acolyte entered, holding out a small scroll bearing the Chief’s seal. He took the scroll, but refrained from dismissing the acolyte. “Say, what would you think to getting a few red candles for the altar?” he asked the boy. “I’m a little tired of black, I’d like to see some colour around here for a change.” The boy stayed silent, only looking bemused. Not having been dismissed, however, he had to stay. A red weal on his cheek bore testimony to that lesson.

The priest opened the scroll, finding news of another death caused by the creatures known to most of the People as Lightning Demons. “The blacksmith’s son, I see. The body is to be buried on Seventh day. Specifies he should be buried on the family plot, next to his mother... well, well,” said the priest, rolling it back up and resting it on a small pile of similar scrolls, each bearing details of upcoming funerals. “That family doesn’t seem to have much luck with the Demons. First the mother, now the son. Perhaps someone has displeased the gods. Or they may simply be cursed.” He sat back, staring across the desk at the opposite wall. “You may go, boy. Oh, and fetch some red candles from the market. Bring them back to me; I want to see how they look.” He waved the acolyte out. Yes, red candles alternating with the black ones, perhaps. That could look quite effective. Or I could arrange them in a pattern, a star or something, just to see how long it takes the others to notice.

Distracting himself from the vital subject of red candles versus black, the priest took up a handful of scrolls from the pile, reminding himself of who he was burying later. Two deaths from old age, one child who had died of illness, and a woman who had been staked out for heresy three nights ago. He sighed deeply, reading the details of the heretic woman. She had left four young children behind, the oldest of them only twelve summers. Why would the woman have gone around speaking blasphemies, he thought, when she had that many children to care for? Didn’t she realise they would be left alone in the world when the foul Demons came for her? He picked up a quill and made a small note on the back of her scroll. He would go to check on those children after the funeral; make sure they had not been corrupted by their mother’s heresy.