Written By: Thomas Kmec
There was once a farming village named Tŕne. To its East and West there existed amiable communities of more significant sizes not a half-day’s journey by foot, yet Tŕne was utterly alone without a single road or dirt track to connect them to it. To its South was a graveless cemetery in which only old swords stabbed into the soil preserved the memory of each buried body. The dead farmland of Tŕne surrounded smooth, pristine stone battlements tall enough to shield a castle, which protected the three barracks in which all the villagers lived.
The first barrack was the smallest of them and housed the oldest villagers, all dressed in gray; grandmothers and grandfathers with old and unmarred skin who had held their swords, rusted to black, worn to chips, and locked in their grips, for decades.
The second barrack was the largest of them and housed adults, some budding and some wise, all dressed in burning orange. All of them, from those who were used to the weight to those who still needed twine, quickly learned to hold their sword.
The third barrack was the rowdiest of them, joined to the second barrack by a narrow corridor, housing the children. They were all dressed in verdant green. Their hands were free, for they could not yet understand the burden of living.
There was one, clad in new ember robes, whom the villagers loved as most filial and dutiful among the children. When there were no Parents to watch the children, he would care for them. When there were no Farmers to manage the fields, he was plowing. And when there were no Stonemasons to tend the battlements, he was mending cracks, smoothing imperfections, and restoring what was broken. Surrounded by the Elders and children, he knelt before Eldest to complete the rites of adulthood and enter the second barrack.
“Youth! Your compassion for your fellows is not lost to us,” Eldest began, “It is our order that you divest this compassion to our predecessors, to those who have passed in service of our lifelong burden.” Eldest turned away, carefully received a spotless sword by the blade from an elder with his free fingers, then faced the young one once more. “Henceforth, you are sculptor. After you have understood our duty, enter the mountains and pay homage to those before us. Receive this sword and become a man!”
He held out the sword to sculptor which was taken unhesitantly. As Sculptor’s fingers brushed against the hilt the world revolted in cacophony then resolved into a vision. He turned to look through the portcullis of the village walls, beyond the dying farmlands and across plains, staring in horror at an army of thousands of eternal enemies. They marched with footfalls so wide and measured that a minute would have Tŕne overrun yet they seemed stationary, never trampling the grass of the plains, flattening the miserable roots of the farmland, or toppling the wall. He saw the farmers in the fields, glancing up at the looming presence while uprooting weeds, the militiamen on the walls, staring hard, and the Elders beside him, spines bowed from tension. Tŕne gazed at a horizon writhing.
“You understand,” Eldest said, securing the sword to Sculptor’s hand with twine. “Rise and go, now. Waste no time.”
Sculptor obeyed, departing immediately.
To the North of Tŕne was a chain of three long mountains, rising from the earth to grasp the sun yet catching only clouds.
The first was gray and barren, the smallest of the three mountains. Its peak hooked forward as though a great weight were pushing it down from above. The fossils within its body were remnants of a long-enduring, inexorable virtue. The second was the tallest of the three mountains and glinted like embers under the noon sunlight, yet was tested endlessly by inexhaustible rains and terrible storms. The third was the most crowded of the three mountains, wreathed from scalp to foot in verdant oaks and blooming daffodils. Its soil brimmed with such vitality that a heart seemed to beat deep within it, enquiring the pure world of its mysteries, yet buried beneath a hundred thousand years of human triviality.
Surrounding the base of these mountains was a forest a hundred miles thick with foliage that, known only to the elders, shaded a small cottage stocked with fruits more succulent than any Sculptor could remember. This would serve as a small workshop for his duties. A shrine through which Sculptor would pay homage stood beneath the gray mountain.
Sculptor did not delay, taking up a pebble and bringing it to his workshop. He secured the pebble between his toes as best he could and began to chisel away awkwardly with his free hand. After many tries a small figurine was made, sitting ready on its knees with a sword laid across its lap. He took it to the shrine and added the figurine to the thousands already sitting within, bolstering their number, yet another for the eternal battle. He continued the next day, eating, paying homage, and then resting. He continued for a week, eating, paying homage, and then resting. And much the same for a month, eating, paying homage, then resting, until a stranger made themselves known.
A man riding a horse appeared from the brush. Clad in marked armor, an emblem of an olive branch was plastered across his chest and shield, sword secure at his hip. Sculptor felt his chest swell with tightness.
“Sir,” Sculptor said, “I hope you do not mind an intrusive question, but, why is your hand free of your sword?”
The knight scoffed, “Allow me to return a question: Why is your sword in your hand?”
“It is a part of my people and me.”
“Indeed? Tell me, did it grow out of your palm? Pop out from your mother with you? Certainly not,” the knight snickered, “No, the sword is a tool of terrible consequences. When in hand people will be maimed, it is inevitable. Yet when sheathed and hung at the hip all that remains is the notion, not the action. Never the action, if it can be helped.”
Sculptor thought of enemies, fumbling. “I-I’ve held my sword for weeks now and have yet to maim anything, let alone a person.”
“There’s more to people than the sword can reach, young man,” the knight replied, “Yet they are cut anyway.”
Sculptor glanced at the calluses forming between his toes and felt the tightness in his chest loosen.
“Is it impossible to both wear and bear it?” Sculptor challenged.
The knight stared at Sculptor in a moment of silence before a giddy giggle emanated from beneath his helm. He laughed and laughed and laughed until he began to catch himself.
“You would look far better in green.” The knight said, chuckling. “What you seek is unknown to me, but I can set you on your path. With this, farewell, young man.”
He tapped Sculptor’s rigid sword hand as he trotted away through the forest. Sculptor’s feverish heart leaped into his mouth as he dropped his sword and it sank blade-first into the ground. The unrelenting cacophony the sword wrought died instantly, the army of the horizon vanished, and the sounds of the hissing canopy, nesting birds, and whistling winds revived in his ears. Stirred by the knight’s scandalous words, Sculptor fashioned a scabbard of bark and sheathed his sword at his hip.
Sculptor continued to pay homage, taking up two pebbles and bringing them to his workshop. He held one still in one hand and chiseled away with the other. Soon, two small figurines were made in half the time, sitting ready on their knees but now with a sword sheathed at their hips. He took both to the shrine and added the figurines to the thousands already sitting within. In an instant, the head of each resident figurine, noticing these newest additions, gawked in terror.
“What insolence!” A bleeding roar shook the shrine. Three figurines, who had not been among the soldiers a moment prior, appeared from its depths like the wind. One was Stone and rounder than the sun. Its surface was unblemished by time and its scrunched face oozed fury. The second was Amber, broad, and silent. It took each step forward carefully, for fear of moving too far out of its form, as though every footfall had been preordained. Despite its sheer focus on its movements, Amber’s eyes flickered imperceptibly to Sculptor as it knew Stone would not notice in its rage. The third was Emerald and tiny. It scurried in and out between ranks of soldiers, examining grim faces, gestures, and swords. It studied the deviant and its sheath for a long moment, then hid behind Amber.
“This is no warrior,” Stone spat. “Why are they unarmed? Why are you unarmed, youth? Unfit for your cycle, the two of you are!”
Sculptor fell to his knees: “Honorable One, please tolerate me one moment so I might clarify my intentions.”
“Do not speak, lest I break myself in laughter. Who are you now, having betrayed our trust and the solemnity of your great duty, to request tolerance from me?”
Sculptor knew that so long as he remained in the presence of the Honorable One he had a chance to show him the vision he sought. He had to persuade him.
“Honorable One, I believe our people enter and leave this world with two hands. They complement each other. To burden one with the sword, for a calamity that may never come, is to cripple Tŕne itself. I am sure you have noticed my work; the newest soldier of your ranks took me half as long with half the effort to create. Think of what that will entail for the Parents, the Farmers, and the Stonemasons of Tŕne and the prosperity that will come when both hands make our common work meaningful!”
Stone remained silent. Its presence before the youth-man was mandatory, but its attention was not. Thus, Stone waited patiently for the noise to end without complaint. Amber nudged Emerald with a covert foot, who then promptly vanished elsewhere.
“Eldest,“ Amber began, “the unit from the fourth cycle was found wielding knives. Shall we investigate?”
“Indeed,” Stone replied, turning on its heel and moving away. Amber turned with it, looking over its shoulder at Sculptor, smirking, then looking forward once more.
Sculptor hardly felt something nudging the end of his shoddy scabbard as he watched Stone and Amber walk away. He eventually turned around and found a monstrous pile of sheaths made of roots behind him. He was dazed and barely caught a glimpse of something green prancing past his feet and into the shrine. Perhaps, just perhaps, there was something left to prove.
Having gathered all the sheaths and secured them to his back with the twine that had once bound his sword hand, Sculptor began walking South.
Full of fire, Sculptor returned to Tŕne, spotting the Elders and children surrounding one uneasy youth, who was clad in new ember robes. His eyes were affixed beyond the portcullis to where the land met the sky, though Sculptor chose to see nothing.
“You understand,” Eldest said, beginning to secure the sword to the man’s hand with twine. “Rise and—” He stopped, glanced at Sculptor, the sheaths, and began to move toward him without process, just motion.
Stunned by Eldest’s aggressive reaction, Sculptor instinctively grasped the hilt of his sword and pulled it halfway from his hip to defend himself when a thought came to him. Eldest, and the Elders who now moved with him, did not aim to cut flesh but to cleanse a blight at its roots. Sculptor glanced at the children, who were now beginning to cry. To the nameless one in orange who turned his wet eyes from the portcullises to Sculptor and back, again and again, panicked and confused. They would never forget the choice he would make, the smog he had wrought upon Tŕne. They would reminisce when they donned their orange clothing, and inevitably, the grey ones, They would wonder when they become Eldest and passed down the sword. Only some would question, and that would be his gift to them. His sword sighed as he eased it gently back into its sheath.
Sculptor did not move when Eldest and the other Elders stabbed their blackened swords into his body. Some dull blades barely broke Sculptor’s skin, some blades emerged out the other side, and all the blades cracked like dry bones without exception.
“Bury the boy in the North, where he shall not pollute the resting place of our great fathers and mothers,” Eldest said, pulling out his sword and cleaning what was left of it on the body, “May the ancestors heal his treacherous soul.”
All the villagers of Tŕne walked to the forest in the North and found a spot for a grave. Some of the adults and more of the children lagged behind. Ensuring that all the villagers could see, Eldest tossed the body in and sealed the grave with sheathes instead of soil. Done with, they set off to complete the nameless boy’s rites.
Only those who had one would notice the few sheaths missing from among the numerous ones packed into the grave. Fewer of them knew when donning one would go unpunished. None would come to know the time when sheaths would mark Tŕne’s graves.