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  1. Káffashuerthal son of Iasmáshfa son of Tuérvali lay on the ground in
  2. front of the tea-house for half an hour before anyone found him, as
  3. it was the festival of Ótshimai[^1] and all were enjoying the kavvára-tea
  4. traditional at that time. This was one of the Hígal frontier towns, near
  5. the shores of the great seas, and it was common for unruly sailors to
  6. pass idly through the town, stinking of uilímvie-wine and the smoke of
  7. faraway lands; so when someone saw the body, the patriarch Sávv of the
  8. East shouted, "Curse the sailors! Let him be; as long as he is disorderly,
  9. let the Three Deaths taunt him in his stupor."
  10. [^1]: Ótshimai is the Hígal deity of the winds; his festival was traditionally associated with the drinking of _kavvára_ steeped in warmed vradmiór-milk, which was a mild stimulant, and various dances and traditional songs. It was a relatively minor festival, and not all celebrated it, choosing to work instead.
  11. Young orphan Náfa dashed out anyway and looked at the body, despite
  12. Sávv's brazen shouting. "It is Káffashuerthal!" she shouted, and all,
  13. including the patriarch, ran out to see what was the matter. Náfa, with
  14. great effort, pushed him over and looked at his face.
  15. "His eye is dead!" she shouted.
  16. "Kewedjjí," Sávv said in the tongue of the East[^2]. "Ridiculous. How can
  17. an eye die and leave its owner behind?" But he saw that it was true; one
  18. of his eyes was a beautiful, bright green, but the other had faded to
  19. a sphere the color of wet stone, cloudy and empty.
  20. [^2]: Sávv is clearly a Malakéd immigrant of some kind, who was elected patriarch for a period of some years (as most Hígal towns do.) The tongue of the East is Malakéd, and the word _keweddjí_ actually refers to the shedded skin of native birds, and is roughly synonymous with a slightly more appropriate form of "bullshit."
  21. The priestess of the town spoke some words in the Old Language and all
  22. bowed. Káffashuerthal began to stir, and the patriarch knelt by him and
  23. spoke to him.
  24. "Káffashuerthal," Sávv asked, "where have you been? And what has happend
  25. to your eye?"
  26. Káffashuerthal blinked and turned to the patriarch. "Where have they
  27. gone? Where is the red-bearded man?" he grasped the shoulder of the
  28. patriarch, and fell back on the ground. The people brought him to Hermit
  29. Bezén on the edge of the town, who was (for all intents and purposes)
  30. the guardian of Náfa, as she was constantly there despite his
  31. half-hearted attempts to convince her to live at the temple instead. She
  32. led the way with a purposeful march as his body was moved on a wooden
  33. cart to the courtyard and laid on a pile of dry grass under a tree.
  34. Bezén, who was a Heretic[^3], walked outside his house and hobbled on a
  35. polished wooden stick whose handle had been worn down from years of
  36. use. His head was uncovered. "Who is this man you have brought, little
  37. fly?"
  38. [^3]: A Heretic (_ashbuárku_) is, in modern Hígal, synonymous with 'atheist,' but at this point it would have referred to anyone who does not observe orthodox Nekhnévenal. Given Bezén's attitude later in the story, it is clear that he is not an atheist, but believes in some derivative, personal form of the Nekhnévenal religion.
  39. "This is Káffashuerthal, the grocer," Náfa said, "and he has a dead
  40. eye. He fell down outside of the tea-house and asked for the
  41. red-bearded man."
  42. Bezén regarded him closely, and knelt in front of him. "His hair is of
  43. a golden color; he must be from the West Across The Sea."
  44. "He was born in the village," the patriarch said, being careful to
  45. stand outside the entrance of the courtyard. "He is more Hígal than I."[^4]
  46. [^4]: At this point in history, ethnic membership was often determined by birthplace and not physical features; failing accurate information, most people determined a person's ethnicity by their accent.
  47. Bezén disappeared into the fabric that covered his door, and returned
  48. with a cup filled with boiled léshtra-water[^5], and put it to
  49. the sick man's lips. Much of it ran down his neck and onto his cloak,
  50. but he did drink some and moaned. Bezén nodded. "I shall take him in,
  51. then, until he is clean to visit the village once again."
  52. [^5]: Léshtran (singular _léshtra_, dual _léshtral_) are berries with relaxant properties. They have a great deal of natural hydrocolloids—a substance known as the Trindúrian pectin—and as such were often used to create a thick, sugary drink called léshtra-water.
  53. The patriarch stood with his hands crossed over the symbols displayed
  54. on the chest of his cloak. "You, Bezén, are welcome also to visit—"
  55. "No." Bezén stood. "Go back to your gods. I will stay with him. You
  56. too, little insect," he said to Náfa. She stuck out her lip but
  57. walked back with the patriarch to have more tea.
  58. It was several days until the people in the town heard again of the
  59. man with the dead eye; Náfa ran into town from the hermit's hut,
  60. telling them all of Káffashuerthal and that he walks once again.
  61. "For a day, he would not move, and only stirred on occasion, to ask
  62. where the red-bearded man had gone. But the next day, he sat up
  63. and spoke to Bezén, and asked for Shimákhts grains and water, and
  64. Bezén brought them from his garden and asked him what had happend."
  65. "What happened to him?" people crowded around to ask. "Why did he
  66. get a dead eye?"
  67. "Bezén made me leave," Náfa said, "and I did not hear all of it. But
  68. I heard him say that he was in the woods on his way to Suráv to buy
  69. medicine when he was stopped by a red-bearded man who was trying to
  70. find the Diufázza[^6]. When Káffashuerthal said that word, Bezén made
  71. me leave."
  72. [^6]: This word resembles the Vérdash word _juhfáshah_, which means 'unclean.'
  73. The people were confused, as they had not heard that word before;
  74. but Sávv the patriarch nodded and climbed the hill outside of the
  75. town to speak with the Heretic and Káffashuerthal. Náfa ran behind
  76. him, but even her running could not keep up with the long, swift
  77. strides of the old white-bearded man.
  78. "Náfa told me of Káffashuerthal's story, or what she heard of it,"
  79. Sávv said once he had been welcomed in to the courtyard. Káffashuerthal
  80. was sitting in the shade, and he clasped an older walking-stick in
  81. his hand, but he no longer appeared ill, and color had returned to
  82. his face. His eye was still a dull gray.
  83. Bezén stood by the tree with a mortar and pestle and was
  84. mashing grains into a pulp for flatbreads.
  85. "I sent her away after he mentioned the Diufázza," Bezén said.
  86. "I have heard that name," Sávv said with a slow, measured cadence. "I
  87. have never heard good said of it."[^7]
  88. [^7]: Traditional Nekhnévenal myths do not mention a Diufázza anywhere. It is most likely an interpolation by the author.
  89. "There is no good in it," Bezén said, and nodded to Káffashuerthal, who
  90. began to speak quietly, after Náfa had been sent to the village to
  91. buy fruits.
  92. "I had not heard it before I saw the red-bearded man," Káffashuerthal
  93. said. "He and I found an inn on the way to Suráv and stayed, and he
  94. asked me what I knew about it. I told him—truthfully—that I did not
  95. know what it was, and he told me that he was a man of many evil things.
  96. He told me that in his youth he joined a gang of thieves and murderers
  97. and that his crimes were so many that they eventually forced him to
  98. leave.
  99. "He also told me that he invoked the gods constantly during this time
  100. and that his prayers fell of deaf ears. The gods, he said, would not
  101. grant him favors, and if his prayers came true, it was because they
  102. had come true anyway. One night, when he had been arrested and was
  103. lying alone in a flooding jail cell in the summer rains, he cursed
  104. the gods so much his voice became hoarse.
  105. "Upon waking, he found two beasts in his cell, beasts he had never
  106. seen before. One was old and sickly and its skin hung like curtains
  107. from its shaking bones, the other was strong and muscled and twitched
  108. when it moved as though it could not bear the thought of not striking
  109. the next moment. Both circled him for a time, and then they leapt at
  110. him—both, even the sickly one—and he recoiled, and then opened his
  111. eyes to find them both gone."
  112. Káffashuerthal began to cough, and Bezén and Sávv brought him in to
  113. the Heretic's house and sat him down on a bedroll and waved scented
  114. bags near him, and his coughing began to cease. He continued.
  115. "After that point, whenever he would pray, his prayers would be not
  116. unanswered, but actively thwarted. If he prayed for rain, the sun
  117. would shine; if he prayed for sun, it would rain; if he prayed for
  118. a woman, none would appear; if he prayed for solitude, all would
  119. surround him. If he prayed for something he did not desire, his trick
  120. was seen through by the gods—they would peer into his heart and see
  121. what he truly wished, and send whatever that was not.
  122. "He told me this had happened twenty years ago, and that he constantly
  123. wished for death, which of course would not happen as long as he wished
  124. for it. He had decided to find the Diufázza, which he told me was the
  125. one place that one could be severed from the gods."
  126. He stopped here, and his lone eye seemed to fail to focus, and he mouthed
  127. words to the air, as though speaking inaudibly to a being none of them
  128. could see. He turned back to Sávv and continued.
  129. "I agreed to accompany him on his journey, and we walked over three
  130. of the ranges of the midlands to find this place, which he said was
  131. a temple older than any building in this land. We finally came across
  132. a stone structure, round and covered in writing I did not understand,
  133. and he stood in front of it and shouted to the skies, demanding that he
  134. be granted an audience here.
  135. "I turned and two beasts surrounded me—one gaunt, and one muscled,
  136. just as he had described—and glared at him. He fell to his knees and
  137. asked, and then demanded, and then begged, to be released from whatever
  138. curse plagued him. The beasts shook their heads. He asked if he needed
  139. a sacrifice, and they shook their heads.
  140. "'I'll sacrifice whatever you'd like!' he said to them, 'I'll sacrifice
  141. this man here, the only man to pity me in my life!' And he took a knife
  142. from his belt and lunged at me, shouting, 'You will see death! You are
  143. my sacrifice!' And then he stumbled and fell, and the beasts stood on
  144. either side of him and devoured him, beginning with his feet and ending
  145. at his neck, leaving only his head. And yet he did not die; his head
  146. turned to me and cursed me, saying, 'This is your doing! Sacrifice, if
  147. I had cut your throat, it would be you being devoured in my place!'"
  148. Here he stopped for a long while and sat, looking away into the distance,
  149. as though thinking quite painfully. Then he continued.
  150. "The beasts turned to me as the red-bearded man continued shouting,
  151. and they spoke to me, although I do not know how. The gaunt one said to
  152. me, 'You have been named as a sacrifice. By the laws of the land, you
  153. must see death. It would be best that you close your eye.' And at this,
  154. I became unconscious; when I arose, I was alone at the stone circle,
  155. and I could not see out of one eye.
  156. "I perceived that it was somehow closed, although my eyelids were
  157. clearly open; I felt as though some part of my soul was keeping it
  158. closed. As I walked back, deliberately not seeking out the
  159. red-bearded man, I tried to open that eye, but only a bit, as I
  160. recalled—as though an awful dream—the admonition of the beasts. When
  161. I was sleeping in the woods, barely half a day's walk from our
  162. village, I awoke and became overtaken with curiosity and finally
  163. opened the eye."
  164. He muttered to an unseen interlocutor, and continued. "I cannot
  165. describe what I saw, but I shall say that I believe it to be the
  166. foundations of our world. It was not unlike the backstage of a play;
  167. and while we in the audience see palaces and hovels and all manner
  168. of places when we look, backstage a multitude of forms are made
  169. apparent, and things are seen to be flat and insubstantial. It was
  170. the death and life beyond the truth of the world, and it was as though
  171. all the truth of your life had been stripped away, and all those
  172. close to you had been shown to be merely actors following a script for
  173. your convenience, except that the universe itself was this way. I
  174. had seen death."
  175. They were silent for a long time. Sávv spoke again. "Is your eye now
  176. open?"
  177. "No," Káffashuerthal said. "I do not believe I can open it again and
  178. remain here, for it would shape my spirit in such a way that I could
  179. not remain with my body and mind intact. I shall attempt to keep my eye
  180. closed for as long as I can. I have seen death once; perhaps I can
  181. avoid seeing it until it cannot be put off."
  182. Sávv and Bezén shared tea with Káffashuerthal for a bit and spoke only
  183. of pleasant, idle things, and then Sávv returned to the village to
  184. help Náfa bring things back. Káffashuerthal regained his strength
  185. gradually and began to return to the grocery, working slowly and
  186. methodically carrying goods and no longer taking the trips they used
  187. to ask of him.
  188. A few months later, neither Sávv nor Bezén were surprised when he
  189. disappeared.