GENDER IS NO OBJECT - AN ANALYSIS OF THE TROPE

 I immediately fell for Dorne. And Altavia. And for at least the council of Aritsar... for all of those cultures due to what TV Tropes calls "Gender Is No Object;" in these country-esque, hinterlandish, quaint fantasy lands there are -paradoxally-  completely equal opportunities regardless of gender or sexual orientation.

This can be a Justified Trope, especially in futuristic settings where advances in technology have made physical differences like gender more or less irrelevant for soldiers. In medieval or early modern or gaslamp fantasy settings, authors may introduce some form of safe, reliable Fantasy Contraception, or the existence of inborn magic powers can be portrayed as making differences in size and strength less relevant, or there may be other social pressures encouraging gender equality (although all of these may or may not be convincing, depending on how well they're handled). Perhaps an abundant lifestyle permits more egalitarian views, if a territorial state has enough resources and is at peace. If the setting is not Earth and/or the characters are not normal humans, they may just have less sexual dimorphism. On the other hand, there are also plenty of cases of lazy or thoughtless worldbuilding, as well as cases where the author simply felt they needed no justification beyond Rule of Cool.

There are a wide variety of possible reasons for this. Sometimes it's pure Author Appeal: the author thinks thinks this setting is simply more awesome. Sometimes it's an Author Tract (or, in the best case scenario, a case of Some Anvils Need to Be Dropped), with the author trying to make a point about how gender restrictions are bad.

A LES MISÉRABLES ARITSAR / RAYBEARER AU? WHY NOT!

 Oluwan and Swana bring his drum; nse, nse 

Dhyrma and Nyamba bring his plow; gpopo, gpopo 

Mewe and Sparti see our older brother dance— 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect! 

Quetzala sharpens his spear; nse, nse 

Blessid Valley weaves his wrapper; gpopo, gpopo 

Nontes and Biraslov see our older brother dance! 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect? 

Djbanti braids his hair; nse, nse 

Moreyao brings his gourd; gpopo, gpopo 

Eleven moons watch our older brother dance: 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect?

 

Eleven danced around the throne, 

Eleven moons in glory shone, 

They shone around the sun. 

But traitors rise and empires fall, 

And Sun-Ray-Sun will rule them all, 

When all is said-o, all is said 

And done-heh, done-heh, done...

Arit folk songs.

 

The title of StrixAlluka's newest AU/crossover is still to be debated - Eleven Moons Aligned or Eleven Moons Eclipsed - it's most likely to be the Eleven Moons Diptych, with each half sporting either title... but anyway, while waiting for her Aritsar take on the cast of Les Mis, here is a little dramatis personae:

The Oba's Council - noteworthy members:

Oba ???? - ruler of the Arit Empire, Raybearer. Currently comatose with his council as regency until he finally dies and his son becomes the next oba - or not?

High Priestess Nadia Satrinava - Dhyrma, death by contagion / hallow of seeing visions:

High Lord General Connor McLeod - Mewe, death by bleeding / hallow of invulnerability:

(Late High Lady General Morga Eirsdottir - Biraslov, death by mauling / hallow of unmatched speed):

High Lady Magus Yan Lin: Moreyao, death by hexes / hallow of bilocation/astral projection:

High Lady Ambassador Cvetka Akulova (here Crown Prince Enjolras' mother) - Biraslov, death by suffocation / hallow of creating cold and ice:

High Lady Archdean Klytemnestra, my OC Elena the netmender's twin sister (Spare Prince Montparnasse's mother) - Sparti, death by organ failure / hallow of summoning fire and explosions

High Lord of Harvests Jean Valjean - Nontes, death by battery / hallow of superhuman strength:

High Lord Judge Javert - Nyamba, death by drowning, hallow of forcing people to tell the truth

High Lady of Castles Aidana (single mother, drunken as an analogy to bonding sickness) - Quetzala, death by poisoning, hallow of "insanity" / seeing the worst in other people

The Crown Prince's Council:

Oloye/Crown Prince Enjolras; son of the oba and High Lady Ambassador Cvetka, heir to the throne, raybearer

High Lord Archdean Combeferre - Djbanti, death by poisoning / hallow of eidetic/photographic memory

High Lord General Courfeyrac - Nontes, death by battery / hallow of optimism inducement and happiness inducement

High Lord Laureate Grantaire - Sparti (cabin boy), death by bleeding / hallow of slowing down and taking away entropy (which works like the Stand Crazy Diamond)

High Priestess Cosette Valjean - Biraslov (half-Nontish half-Biraslov isoken), death by gluttony / hallow of singing to create illusions based on the lyrics

High Lady of Castles Éponine Thénardier - Swana (one-quarter-Nontish one-quarter-Blessid half-Swanian isoken), death by burning / hallow of lie detection

High Lord Judge Marius Pontmercy-Ghàilenor - Mewe (half-Nontish half-Mewish isoken), death by drowning / hallow of giving/taking away hallows

High Lord Ambassador Feuilly - Quetzala (realmless -ie stateless- orphan isoken dreamcatcher maker, origins unknown), death by suffocation / hallow of speaking and understanding every human language

High Lord Magus Jo-Lee Lin - Moreyao (born in Songland, Redemptor adopted by the Lins), death by contagion, hallow of healing illnesses and injuries and transferring them to himself

High Lord Treasurer Lesgle "Bossuet" - Nyamba, death by organ failure / hallow of giving good luck at the cost of suffering bad luck himself (he does so by shaking hands or having a kiss blown his way, alluding to the lyrics of "Chim Chim Cheree")

High Lord of Husbandry Bahorel - Dhyrma, death by mauling / hallow of unstoppable righteous anger-trance (think Cú Chulainn or the Incredible Hulk)

High Lady of Harvests Jehanne Prouvaire - Blessid Valley (half-Nontish half-Blessid isoken; trans girl), death by hexes, hallow of making plants grow by petting them and singing to them (her power is even seen to affect fungi, but half as much as plants).

The Ghàilenors of Faye's Crossing

Lleu Ghàilenor - the clan patriarch, Marius' maternal grandfather

Arianrhod Ghàilenor - Marius' maternal grandmother

Aoife Ghàilenor - Marius' maternal maiden aunt and tutor

Saoirse Pontmercy, née Ghàilenor (deceased) - Marius' mother, died in childbed due to heavy bleeding, married to a Nontish commander allegedly "killed in battle" at Gaelinagh as a volunteer

The Satrinavas

Nasrin Satrinava - Nadia's mother, governor of Dhyrma

Namar Satrinava - Nadia's father, consort of Dhyrma

Nafizah Satrinava - Nadia's firstborn sister, next-in-line governor of Dhyrma, a mystic

Nazali Satrinava - Nadia's secondborn sister, a powerful healer

Navra Satrinava - Nadia's thirdborn sister, a life-of-the-party

Nahara Satrinava - Nadia's fourthborn sister, a badass

Nasmira Satrinava - Nadia's fifthborn sister, a nurturer

Natiqa Satrinava - Nadia's sixthborn sister, a chatty cathy

The Lins of the Silver Dragon Inn (and a certain young woman from Songland):

Chen Lin - Hay Lin's father and son to Yan Lin

Jo-An Lin - Hay Lin's mother and in-law to Yan Lin

Chou Khan - Jo-An's father, wealthy tea merchant, against marriage to the Lins, still stern and a tad at odds with Yan

Hay Lin - foster sister to Jo-Lee, a creative and eccentric, artistic soul

Ye-Seul (Jo-Lee's real mother from Songland) - a high-ranking Songland court lady, unwilling to send her child to the underworld

Others:

Elena the netmender - Sparti (islands), R's (Grantaire's) biological single mother, unhallowed, outsider since her own shipwreck-widowed-mother Leda died

(Lucio Montagu Morgasson - deceased commander, Biraslov; son of Morga and her consort, husband of Nadia, killed in estate fire - a sociopath who physically, verbally, and emotionally abused his wife)

Montparnasse - spare prince of Aritsar, son of the oba and High Lady Archdean Klytemnestra, prospective usurper - hallow of giving entropy (not the same as accelerating already existing entropy, which his mum has!)

Clovis and Hannah Prouvaire - Jehanne's parents, an average though interracial couple in a semi-nomadic village society in a campsite in Blessid Valley

Sgt. and Mme. Thénardier, Azelma and Gavroche - Éponine's parents and younger siblings, innkeepers on the outskirts of a Swanian market town by a clear lake, a salt lake where lots of flamingos stop on their migration

THUS SAUNTER WE SO GRADUALLY: BELLMAN'S DANSE MACABRE

 THUS SAUNTER WE SO GRADUALLY: BELLMAN'S DANSE MACABRE

The following essay is a translation by Yours Truly of both the song and its analysis by Carl Fehrman. -

In 1787, the year the author's second-born Elias Bellman died, the latest edition released of Fredman's Songs added the lyrics where once more the symbolic worlds of hourglass and drinking glass collide; ie the grand Fredman's Song number 21. In an afterthought on hourglasses and drinking glasses, these lyrics must of course be the core text.

The psychological complexity of the Bellman characters, that often and rightfully has been questioned, is at least in this case consequent. Here he is the usual philosopher of wines and vanities:

Thus saunter we so gradually

from revels loud and bountiful,

when Death comes calling: "Come to me, 
thy hourglass is full!"

You, elder, lower your bâton, 
and you, young man, my law partake:
The fairest nymph who smiles at you on
in your arms you shall take!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire,

why not take a draught of liquid fire?

Then another, a third, make it four, make it five...

and you'll feel more alive!

The original title itself is "Mealtime Song." Sondén has added a subtitle like those of the Bellman Epistles: "During the feast, in which the author places Death before the eyes of the guests." In image after image, the lyrics present the stark contrast between the revels loud and bountiful of life and the deep darkness of the grave. Death comes calling: "Come to me, thy hourglass is full!" In older vanitas literature it has often been said that one's "hourglass has run out," and Bellman had used this crystallized fixed expression both before and after Song 21, both as narrator and having his characters utter it. In Song 21, "Thus Saunter We So Gradually," the words are not said, however, by any mortal person, but by Death. The Reaper himself, gaze fixed on the lower half of the hourglass, is the one to give the verdict, maybe with an ironic innuendo-thought that the narrator himself had generally preferred full glasses to empty ones.

"Thus Saunter We So Gradually" holds a unique place not only in Bellman's production, but also in literary genre history. It is Bellman's Dionysian take on the ancient death-dance or danse macabre motif. The medieval visual and literary convention of Death meeting people of diverse ages and ranks was still alive in the printed penny dreadfuls of the eighteenth century, during whose second half two different danses macabres were released in penny dreadful format in Swedish. The first one is a translation from the Danish (intermediate translation) of the originally German Natanael Schlott's modernised version of the traditional lyrics to the classic Lübecker Totentanz. It was released in Swedish, with a title that translates to Conversations Between Death and People of Diverse Ranks, in between 1760 and 1850. The second, released in between 1777 and 1858, was translated directly from the Danish; known from its publisher and illustrator as the Borup Death-Dance, its much longer official title being The Vanity of Human Life, or Conversations Between Death and People of All Ranks. In the last of these two penny dreadfuls, a whole little booklet with 38 woodcuts, the old parade of ranks has been expanded and diversified, adapted to eighteenth-century Scandinavian society. But the Reaper is still skeletal in black hood, and has not changed his ways the least since the days of the Black Death. He bows low before the queen and kisses her hand, he plays the cello for the music teacher, he defeats the fencing teacher in a swordfight with rapiers, he takes all the money from the innkeeper, and so forth, until he snatches the crutches from the old beggar.

The hourglass is a commonplace emblem in this danse macabre: the Reaper holds it often in his right hand to his victim, whenever his hands are not already busy.

Bellman must have known the danse macabre in one or another of its eighteenth-century iterations; it was also frequently depicted on coffins at the close of the century, in serially produced printings from the renowned Lundström printing press of Jönköping. In previous lyrics, Bellman had already directly represented the death-dance scenario when, in his musical world, he made Death strike a tune:

Around all what you see, where'er you take a glance,

the Reaper's silently ambushed to play a tune, to dance.

But Bellman's own grand variation on the danse macabre, "Thus Saunter We So Gradually," is more than a pale echo of these lines. It is a Dionysian paraphrase of an originally religious and moral motif. You may go the extra mile and say that Bellman, that great master of literary and musical parody, has written a travesty of a danse macabre. Memento mori, look at the time on the hourglass, was and is the message both ostensible and latent of traditional danse macabre. Memento bibere, memento vivere, carpe diem, let me the canakin clink, is the content of the Bellman-style death-dance. Fredman's Song 21 is more than just a parade of vanities; it is also an elegant mealtime song, which ends in a charming skål for the hostess.

How does Bellman do when he translates the danse macabre parade into his Dionysian lyrics, and which characters does he present in the stanzas in quick cavalcade? Right from the start, he has left the conversational-dramatic pattern of the real danse macabre genre, where Death shows up before each and every person with the command to follow, and gives the living a chance to reply. Bellman's lyrics are however more of a soliloquy, and the speaker, at least in the first stanza, partially also in the others, is supposed to be the Reaper himself, who in an old-fashioned way comes calling: "Come to me!" However, the singer who performed this roll-call or dramatis-personae song in real life was the author, C.M. Bellman. This complicated metafictional situation lets, as the lyrics unfurl, to add glissandos into each and every stanza.

In turn, the narrator turns to each and every of the different representatives of professions or character types, as if that person were literally present in the room. This gives the poem dramatic concretion. But one should pay heed to the fact that Bellman not only adds people from the catalogues of ranks of the medieval or Rococo danses macabres, but also a list of more actual character types. After the elder, the young man, and the nymph, who represent the ages of life (old age, youth, and midlife at least), the ones who come the closest are the Dionysian votary (the lush) and thereafter the braggart with his chest full of medals:

You, th'one with apple-ruddy cheeks

and tricorn hat cocked to the side,

soon your procession dressed in black

is forward seen to stride!

And you, who speak of poppycocks,

with medals rife your overcoat...

I hear carpenters make your box

and rattle in your throat!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire... etc.

The ruddy face is one of the emblematic attributes in the Bellman world. The gentleman in the cocked hat in Song 21 is best understood as the innkeeper or restaurant owner himself. Right after him, Bellman names the great braggart, actualized in the theatre of that decade, the bombastic noble-blooded courtier or politician; Bellman is not as ordered in the list of ranks as the authors of real danse macabre. But his skill for concretion is admirable: he presents impending death in vivid symbolic images, ie the funeral procession and the carpenters making the coffin.

More of the stock character types of eighteenth-century theatrical comedy does Bellman replace the old parade of ranks with in his own character gallery. We have already mentioned the bombastic braggart; well, the lazy people-hater is another. And, by the side of the people-hater full of laziness, we find another actual type of the inflationary Gustavian Stockholm, the decadent aristocrat:

And you, who, chanting titles' clank,

deck your bâton with gold each year,

which barely gets, for all your rank,

a shilling for your bier!

And you, who, cowardly and irate,

curse the cradle that once you held,

yet, at the glass's second half, they relate,

each day by strong drink felled!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

It is a fresh and elegant move made by Bellman to renew the old cast of characters in the danse macabre, which had partially lost its staying power in the society of his days, by adding the character types of comedic drama and satire. For him and for his era, these character types were as living as the personality type schemes (Myers-Briggs, Enneagram, the zodiac...) of our days. Boileau in his fourth satire, Molière in his comedies, even Shakespeare had all taken up their casts from Plautine comedy and commedia dell'arte, from which these character types all descend.

But Bellman has not completely left the old pattern of danse macabre. Here the warrior is present, as well as the lover and the scholar:

You, who in blood-stained shirt forth strode

whenever Ares played fanfare,

you, who in the arms of Fräulein Bode

are weak and toss and flare...

...and you, with books inlaid with gold,

raising your head at church-bells' knell,

clever and learned, to wage war told

on ignorance and hell!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

Also here these that Bellman present are more types than individuals; the whole song constantly gives beautiful proof of his typifying human depictions, as Afzelius so finely characterized this in Myt och Bild (Myth and Picture).

At the end of the poem, the parade of both types and ranks disappears out of sight, and the character of the lyrics to a merry party song surfaces through and through. The old convention in drinking songs of offending and slandering the killjoys who won't partake in the revels is something that Bellman has variated with mastery:

But you, who as if honest shine,

offending your friends constantly,

and slandering them once drunk wine,

as if a joke, I see...

And you, your friends do you not defend,

in spite of all the drinks you've shared...

You could as well stick a carrot up your rear end!

What d'you say? Have you cared?

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

But you, upon returning, the most

times French leave took! What did you think?

Not pleased at all is our dashing host,

though he commanded: "Drink!"

Tear such a guest apart from the feast,

thrust him out with his whole entourage,

then, with a mien of fiend or beast,

tear the cup from his visage!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire, etc.

Death had called: "Come to me!" The host commands now: "Drink!" Both give commands that must not be questioned. Not returning a toast was then seen as a particularly offensive insult, a token of hate itself.

In the Bellman song, this stanza, the second from the end, has a special function. It links associations in a new direction: it revolves around courtesy towards the hosts. And the coda is written as a speech of gratitude from the guests to the hosts, especially the hostess; thus, the character of the lyrics as drinking song with friends at a celebration table is guaranteed:

Say, are you pleased? What do you say?

Then praise the host now at the end all!

If we're all heading the same way,

we'll follow each other! Skål!

But first, with our wines red and white,

we bow before our hostess! Arr!

Slip freely into the grave in the light

of Venus, th'evening star!

REFRAIN:

If you think the grave's too deep and dire,

why not take a draught of liquid fire?

Then another, a third, make it four, make it five...

and you'll feel more alive!

This is one of the most whimsical stanzas, where Bellman moves across different levels simultaneously. If the guests are all heading the same way, they usually follow each other; this is the shallow, ostensible meaning of the third and fourth verses. In vanity literature and sacred texts, it is also spoken of that same way that everyone has to go; ie towards the afterlife. This innuendo gives the words their double meaning.

Venus, the evening star, has begun to shine; this element of nature is both literal and symbolic. Of the path "from tavern to grave" underneath the starry skies has Bellman spoken quite often, including in the parody instructions for his own funeral, but seldom with such a carefree phrase as "slip freely into the grave!" Dead drunk, many of Bellman's Dionysian knights had reeled; this grave is deep and dire... of the "dark dire deep" of both intoxication and death he had earlier spoken. Dying in peace was the traditional wisdom of the sacred texts. Dying and feeling alive is Bellman's Dionysian and whimsical variation on the religious wisdom of preparing for death.

In spite of this last stanza tying into the previous ones and carrying through the song's twin themes of death and drinking, it has overall a merry and whimsical character, as does this simultaneously pleasant and tragicomic deathly promenade polonaise, sung to the tune of Naumann's March from Kellgren's opera Gustaf Vasa.

Bellman has also used the same tune twice more; interestingly, both other times in drinking songs, both of them also written around 1787.

Hourglass and drinking glass; one could at last see these symbols as emblems of two poles in Bellman's personality. The hourglass stands for melancholy, gravity, and sadness; the drinking glass for the excessive elation, for the Dionysian ecstasy.

PS. Interestingly, I had already put it into words that this is a danse macabre: 

One of the Åkerström covers of Bellman that have struck me, and many a Swede, to the core is his rendition of Fredman's Song number 21, one of the finest in said compilation.
There are no proper names said in the lyrics of this song, because the ensemble cast of guests at this death-dance of a feast consists of archetypal stock characters: the womaniser, the warrior, the scholar, the upstart, the very important person, the wicked friend whose jokes prove painful... People that, in both Gustavian Sweden and in the present day, anyone may recognise from both their day-to-daily life and fictional universes (compare the cast of the Wizarding World or A Song of Ice and Fire or Les Misérables or the CLAMP shared universe, not to mention every Shakespearean tragedy!). And the master of ceremonies is the Grim Reaper himself, driving home the point of death as the Great Equaliser (or, to say it in Valyrian, "valar morghulis"). All people must die, no matter their rank, their ideas, or their personality. Yet there for all the valar morghulis in the fate of the guests in the stanzas, the refrain and the final stanza, aside from the chipper tune, give a bright counterpoint of carpe diem, or hakuna matata. Yes, all of us must die; so why not make the most of the lives we have left, drink and be merry, enjoy, live as if each and every day could be our last? That is a definitely Enlightenment, Epicurean, and optimistic solution to the existential concerns about mortality and the dark side of reality. A solution that Yours Truly supports with all her heart and soul, and what better way to hammer it home than in the lyrics of a drinking song? This Bellman song could as well have been Iago's "Let me the canakin clink clink," if Iago were a more creative, sensitive person, and if he at least had more time to sing something longer and more complex than a simple limerick.

AT LAST MANGA CLASSIC OTHELLO IS COMING!!!

And not only that, the characters by Julien Choy are gorgeous...compare to Ryuta Osada or Nemanja Filipovic designs or my own mental images of the charas (all of them elsewhere on this blog), for Desdemona and Cassio and Emilia look just as they did in my mind's eye more or less, AND IAGO LOOKS DOWNRIGHT AND OUTRIGHT PSYCHO ON THE COVERS... Observe the master of the strings!!

All right, this is a fanart made with a dollmaker of the cast of Othello as I saw them in a dream, and this is how I saw them in my mind's eye until now...

Left to right: Bianca, Cassio, Othello, Desdemona, Emilia, Iago, and Roderigo.

I mean, I have nothing against blond Iagos or Roderigos -the latter always looks like Snape or Pushkin dressed as a fop in my mind's eye- but the shonen hero hairdo like Bakugo or Goku in Choy's depiction contrasts very nicely with the Snape face in Roddy's case - I think he's wearing a wig to look tougher...

I have nothing either against Bianca being made a ginger by Choy -I mean Des is blonde and Em is dark as they have always looked in my mind's eye, so they had to complete the trifecta- and her expression here looks just as kissed by fire as her hair. A textbook tsundere.

I also luved Choy's design of Cassio, different from Osada's shota boy and Filipovic's Rule 63:d Snow White and far closer to my own depiction of the faithful lieutenant. I can't wait to see him hand-kissing, getting wasted, and getting crippled. Just for the fun of it. I also love how the layout of this page placed him in the centre of the dramatis personae, as the sole survivor and the one caught in the crossfire.

I also want to see more Iagothello dynamics, especially here when you have basically Jason Momoa against a blond Raito Yagami (the latter without the deathnote). Just consider Choy's Othello being a towering man with rippling limbs and scars on his face from years of battle - he looks like a veteran warrior who has always been surrounded by the din of battle and is completely new to peace and domestic life. This portrayal with this battle-scarred face makes the character both believable and quite scary when he turns to the dark side, as well as contrasting with the petite, smooth-skinned, fragile-looking, golden-haired Desdemona and Iago in this version - the former warm and kind and the latter icy and ruthless, but both equally fair of hair and skin, and competing for the general's favour.

Hats off for Julien Choy and I cannot wait for this to be released in Spain (if the Science Fiction Bookshops in Sweden don't get some issues of this treasured book)...

RAYBEARER, PART 1 - THE PREMISE

"For every brow you anoint with the Storyteller's oil, you will gain immunity to one of the thirteen deaths. Choose well, Emperor—for to the world, you will be as a god, but to your council, you will yet be a mortal man."

Eleven danced around the throne, 

Eleven moons in glory shone, 

They shone around the sun. 

But traitors rise and empires fall, 

And Sun-Ray-Sun will rule them all, 

When all is said-o, all is said 

And done-heh, done-heh, done...

 

Oluwan and Swana bring his drum; nse, nse 

Dhyrma and Nyamba bring his plow; gpopo, gpopo 

Mewe and Sparti see our older brother dance— 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect! 

Quetzala sharpens his spear; nse, nse 

Blessid Valley weaves his wrapper; gpopo, gpopo 

Nontes and Biraslov see our older brother dance! 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect? 

Djbanti braids his hair; nse, nse 

Moreyao brings his gourd; gpopo, gpopo 

Eleven moons watch our older brother dance: 

Black and gold, isn’t he perfect?

......

Perfume thickened the air, and children tossed petals from the battlements, a flurry of gold, red, and white. Griots beat shakers and drums, and to the rhythm, the townspeople of Ebujo sang a new version of Aritsar’s well-known folk rhyme:

Tarisai brings his drum; nse

Sanjeet and Umansa bring his plow; gpopo

Kameron and Theo watch our older brother dance—

Black and gold: Ekundayo!

Mayazatyl sharpens his spear; nse

Kirah weaves his wrapper; gpopo

Thérèse and Emeronya watch our older brother dance—

Black and gold: Ekundayo!

Zathulu braids his hair; nse

Ai Ling brings his gourd; gpopo

Eleven moons watch the sun dance:

Black and gold: Ekundayo!

So I recently saw Dominic Noble rec Raybearer --- and thought upon my first perusal... there is a fortress on a cliff with a village at its feet, there are counterpart cultures, there is a world as diverse as Westeros, there are hallows which are inborn powers much like Quirks in Boku no Hero (or, more recently, gifts in Encanto!), there is courtly intrigue... this is a setting comparable to Westeros or Hogwarts and definitely right up my alley!!

So maybe a Les Mis AU set in Yorua Keep and Village by StrixAlluka is coming soon? Of course the whole cast has NOT to be Nontish (counterpart French) because the laws of the court and the premise of this world compel it to be ethnically diverse. One character from each region - though some might be immigrants who moved from one region to another, or of interethnic backgrounds (so-called isoken)...

 

Long ago in a faerytale world, on a hollow planet with a sun and eleven moons, there were twelve islands scattered across a super-ocean, each with its own ethnic group/phenotypes, climate, culture, lore... (also, all of them were counterpart cultures) - Unfortunately all of these islands were prey to demons and other creatures of the hostile underworld, that also houses the afterlife, at this planet's Core.

Until the day a founding father used magic to fuse all islands together into a super-continent, becoming its saviour and ruler and spearheading the good fight against the powers of darkness, ultimately unifying all regions in the land through either warfare or diplomacy - except the Songland Peninsula, that became independent. This was Enoba the Perfect of the Kunleo dynasty, the first raybearer or oba (the royal imperial titles) of Aritsar, the diverse Arit Empire.

(Songland is an independent peninsula, ruled by its own royals and far more equal-opportunity than Aritsar with its discrimination of women and queers  --ONLY THE COUNCIL IS ALLOWED TO BE DIVERSE!!--, as well as enchanted sowanhada warriors --sowanhada (soo-AHN-ah-da): A powerful language unique to Songland that permits the user to control various elements. ONLY sowanhada have the hallows that allow them to fly and to control elemental forces...-- think East Asia meets Dorne! Within Aritsar: Blessid Valley is a nomadic desert region of herders and artisans who put emphasis on storytelling and wear cinnamon-scented veils called prayer scarves as a token of devotion to the Storyteller deity - somewhat like the Genesis-era Holy Land. Mewe is the Celtic region of green, craggy hills - the Mewish herd lots of sheep and wear tartan. Nyamba is a subtropical realm known for its astrologers.)

 

Decades and even centuries have passed by and ostensibly nothing has changed, from the snowy arctic peaks of Biraslov (from which the southerners import large blocks of ice) to the booby-trapped rainforests of Quetzala and the coasts of Sparti teeming with fishermen and poets - through the cold, gray realm of Nontes with its lacemakers and rose gardens and apple orchards - or gold-domed royal palaces and sprawling mansions in the district of Ileyoba located in Oluwan, the multicultural capital. Towns with markets, lakes in the woods, frozen tundra... people with milky white skin and Celtic- or Slavic-sounding names and eyes of icy blue or emerald green, or almond eyes and raven hair, or russet skin and the scent of cardamom and eyes the colour of long-stooped tea... There are also isokens, isoken people being those from interracial and interregional parentage; the crown rewards inter-realm families for each isoken child born of their union. Aritsar mirrors our world except that it's magical. Generally, human people are born with special gifts or quirks called hallows (think of them as the quirks in Boku no Hero or the gifts in Encanto), though some are born unhallowed. Healing while singing, super strength, elemental control, seeing the physical or emotional weakness of others, the ability to fly or to induce moods in others... the sky is not the limit for what capability the stars have shone down upon you.

When every oloye, ie crown prince, of Aritsar (born unto the patrilineal Kunleo dynasty) turns 11 - eleven other eleven-year-olds, all of them hallowed like him and of diverse social ranks, join him in the Children's Palace of Ileyoba. Let's say a Nontish demoiselle, a Mewish lad in a tartan kilt, a storyteller girl from Blessid Valley, a young Quetzalan, the list goes on. Not only one child from each region, regardless of gender (and, as they mature, of sexual orientation), but also one child per form of premature death; poisoning, contagion, organ failure, mauling by wild animals, by hexes, suffocation, bleeding, battery, gluttony, burning, drowning. These Eleven, once he has used his power upon them and anointed them with a special heavenly oil, if ruler and ruled are at least close friends with one another, will be his trusted courtiers when he comes of age and inherits the throne to become oba or raybearer. 

 The final resting place for deceased souls in the Aritsar afterlife is the aptly-named Core, a paradise at the very center of the Earth, even deeper than the underworld.

A cluster of men and women sprawled on divans and high-backed chairs, murmuring softly. Matching gold circlets gleamed on their brows. Their accents were as different as their complexions, but they gave the impression of a family, or something closer.

Only a Raybearer’s Council of Eleven may kill him. Such is the divine protection of heaven. It allows them to join eleven minds to their own. And none shall thwart it.

And thus the Children's Palace is a replicate, meant for the underage, of that of the reigning raybearer his father (who has adult Eleven, childhood friends of his own) - mock throne room and all.

The Children’s Palace is secure, isolated from the outside world.

We crossed the room to a gilded set of doors behind Olugbade’s Eleven. My hand in hers, we entered a place that made me dizzy from gazing.

“Welcome to the Children’s Palace,” said Mbali. “The happiest place in Ileyoba.”

Sunlight streamed into a high-domed chamber of blue and gold. Rays glinted off a mountain of toys and a menagerie of rideable wooden animals from every Arit realm. Children on zebras and tigers scooted past me, jeering and screaming in chase. Servants in brocade wrappers bustled about, holding fruit trays and water pitchers.

We left Kirah and passed through the brightly painted halls of the Children’s Palace. It was a miniature version of An-Ileyoba’s central wing, Mbali told me, and in one room, the floor was a giant marble checkerboard, where giggling children stood in place of the pieces. In another, dining tables brimmed with oranges, fried plantains, sticky fig cakes, and mountains of treats I couldn’t name. The wing even had a mock throne room—a chamber with mirrored ceilings and twelve child-size thrones. At last, I lingered in a large, airy room with a dais in the center. Murals of long-dead councils glittered overhead, depicted as flower-crowned children, smiling beatifically as they danced in a circle.

“This is the Hall of Dreams,” said Mbali. “You will conduct much of your training here during the day, and sleep here at night.” Rolled sleeping mats lay stacked in neat piles against the walls. Tied‑up mosquito nets hung in gauzy festoons from the ceiling, and embroidered constellations shimmered in silver and blue across the netting. When the nets were let down, they would look like the heavens, tumbling to the bodies of children below.

“At night, a screen separates the boys from the girls. The prince (Ekundayo or Dayo for short) sleeps there, in the middle.” She pointed to the raised platform. “Someday, his council will sleep close beside him.”

Lofty unglazed windows sank into arches along one wall, shielded by white damask curtains, which glowed with sunlight and shuddered in the breeze.

...

To Kirah from Blessid Valley, I gave dreams of her mama and baba, who kissed her cheeks and stroked her hair, and said they weren’t angry about her leaving them. For Kameron, Dayo’s rugged council brother from Mewe, I fabricated a pack of hunting dogs, nipping cheerfully at his ankles as he tracked a boar in the forest. Dreams of blooming roses were for Thérèse from Nontes. Adoring crowds were for Ai Ling from Moreyao, and handsome swains for Theo from Sparti. To Umansa, a blind weaver boy from Nyamba, I gave new patterns for his tapestries, swirling them around him in a brilliant prism. Finally, to hard-faced Emeronya from Biraslov, I gave flurries of sweet-tasting snow and a wizened woman who wrapped her in wool, humming a dissonant lullaby. (Then there's Dhyrmish Sanjeet and Tari from Swana.)

No place made me feel more distant from Dayo than the Children’s Palace throne room. I stood, invisible among the other candidates in the chamber of mirrored ceiling tiles and wax-dyed tapestry. A platform of twelve wooden thrones rose before the candidates. As Dayo, Kirah, and the other Anointed Ones took their elevated seats, I scanned the room for Sanjeet, but the towering pillar of his head and shoulders did not appear.

“By the power of Ray within me,” Dayo began, tapping a plain wooden scepter on the ground, “I declare this court in session. Approach the throne.” He smiled over the crowd, pulling uncertainly at the rings on his fingers. The Children’s Palace acted as a microcosm of An-Ileyoba’s true court, preparing Dayo to make decisions as emperor.

After a murmuring pause, a Djbanti candidate named Zyong’o stepped forward. “I have a complaint, Your Imperial Highness.” Dayo nodded, and Zyong’o bowed, then crossed his arms. “When Djbanti are paired with candidates from Dhyrma, we always lose the timed logic puzzles. They slow us down. I think”—he continued over enraged objections from the Dhyrmish candidates—“I think every member on a team should be from the same realm. Why mix figs with mangoes? Why should we Djbanti, hunters and scholars, be dragged down by empty-headed merchants?”

Dayo winced at the now-unruly crowd. Djbanti and Dhyrmish candidates stood at opposite sides of the throne room, yelling and cursing each other, while Swanian candidates jeered at them both. “Silence?” Dayo said. “Order?” He sounded like a nervous farm boy, tossing seed to quell chickens. Surprisingly, the crowd quieted, though venomous looks still volleyed across the room.

“I am grieved by your complaint, Zyong’o,” Dayo said, choosing each word with care. “I am sure it’s hard to feel that your strengths are compromised. But I doubt your problems are the other candidates’ fault. I’m sure Dhyrmish people are just as smart as anyone.”

I shook my head in admiration of Dayo’s patience. I would have snapped at Zyong’o to either work with his Dhyrmish teammates, or take his haughty rear end all the way back to Djbanti.

Imperial testmakers, the passive men and women who administered most of the candidate trials, stood in crimson robes along the wall. Brightening with an idea, Dayo gestured for a testmaker to approach.

“Lady Adesanya,” he addressed her, “you help keep track of test results, don’t you? Please share how Dhyrmish candidates perform compared to others.”

The testmaker nodded, producing a thick tome from beneath her arm and opening it to the middle. “According to my records,” she droned, “on average, candidates from Dhyrma consistently underperform behind their peers in logic, weapons, and science. They show equal capabilities, however, in god-studies (mythology/theology), griotcraft (history/storytelling/oral literature), and statecraft.”

People from Dhyrma were not stupid. Zyong’o was wrong. But Lady Adesanya had no reason to lie.

Pound, pound.

The Dhyrmish candidates failed at logic, but excelled in statecraft. That made no sense. Something was off: a rent in the pattern.

“The Council of Eleven reflects all realms and social classes. When the Eleven fall, so does the Arit empire. We aren’t just being tested on our skills. We’re supposed to learn how to work together.”

It was the sleeping mats. It had to be.

Candidates from Swana and Djbanti were likely to have names later in the Arit alphabet, while Dhyrmish names occurred earlier. The sleeping mats were arranged by name. Candidates with names that came earlier slept farthest from the doors in the Hall of Dreams, making them last to reach the banquet hall. Running on virtually no food, those candidates would be exhausted for every trial administered before lunch: logic, weapons, and science. God-studies, griotcraft, and statecraft occurred after lunch and supper—so in those trials, they performed well. The solution was so simple, it almost felt silly. Dayo always invited me to eat with his Anointed Ones, and so I had never been affected.

**************************

When the Council of Eleven is complete, the royal's own hallow, inherited from his father and grandfather and so all the way up to Enoba the Perfect... no harm can befall the royal except death from old age and betrayal from at least one of his Eleven; also all twelve people are linked together by empathy and telepathy.

This Council is a group of eleven people, each with a different Hallow, who are connected to the Prince and to each other via the Ray – a magical bond closer than blood. If they are too far from each other, they feel pain; they can telepathically communicate, they can share their feelings, and each Council member also provides a unique magical protection for the Prince. The Ray is said to be a gift from Warlord Fire himself, the god of war and the Sun. Once the Council is fully anointed, the Prince cannot be killed by anyone except a member of that council. The
Council and their king always have each other, as True Companions. It 
is this psychic-heightened unity, more than gold or prestige, that 
attracts many people to the role.

 Also: The final resting place for deceased souls in the Aritsar afterlife is 
the aptly-named Core, a paradise at the very center of the Earth, even 
deeper than the underworld.

 
There are so many great ideas in that premise alone that it would have been enough for a great story, but it doesn’t stop there. The world of Aritsar has even more to offer, both in terms of politics, lore, songs, and history, that there is always something new to discover.

The differently-coloured rays in the crown of the raybearer each represent a region and a way to die that has been averted by making friends with a person of said region. The link formed thus through the royal family hallow also binds all of the Eleven and the Raybearer together for life, bonded for life; otherwise, if any one of them is alone, that person gets the council sickness: "When you’re anointed, the Ray binds your body to the council. So if you ever get separated—or abandon the council—you get sick. Sweating, fever. Eventually you go mad. That’s why no council has ever committed treason. And that’s why the Eleven are always together, touching and kissing like that. If they stay apart for long, they get the sickness.”

“Don’t talk like that,” I said, eyeing the mask warily. Nine stripes colored the obsidian mane of the lion-mask-crown, jewel tones glittering in the moonlight. For each person Dayo anointed, a new colour would appear, representing the immunity that Dayo had gained, in addition to the one with which he was born. Raybearer princes wore the mask around their necks, hiding it always beneath their clothes. They showed it to no one, lest an assassin discover the kinds of death to which they were not yet immune. Only when a Raybearer’s council was complete did he wear the mask openly, displaying his deathless power to all the world.

Three colours were missing from Dayo’s mask—one for a Djbanti candidate, one for Sanjeet, and one for me.

“Orange, purple, and red,” Dayo murmured. “Gluttony, contagion, burning.”

“Shh!” I hissed, slapping his knee. “You want all of Oluwan hearing how to kill you?”

Dayo didn’t answer; instead he stared longer at the mask before replacing it on a gold chain that hung around his neck and slipped it beneath his tunic to rest beside his vial of anointing oil.

Hear the duties of the future emperor’s sacred council: The Eleven must wield their titles of power fairly and without bias. The Eleven must serve the emperor first, then the empire, and then their realms of origin. Outside the council, they must form no attachments. Inside the council, no attachment may outweigh their loyalty to the future emperor. Carnal relations are prohibited, except with the future emperor.

Hear the duties of the future emperor- His Highness is not permitted to marry. Instead, His Highness must anoint and protect a trusted council, through which he shall serve the empire. His Highness must select his council sisters with special care, for they will birth all future Raybearers.

The council positions are High Priest/ess (in charge of liturgy/organised religion), High Lord/Lady General (frontline commander), High Lord/Lady Judge, High Lord/Lady of Castles, High Lord/Lady Ambassador (in charge of interrealm trade), High Lord/Lady Treasurer, High Lord/Lady Archdean (strategist), High Lord/Lady of Harvests, High Lord/Lady of Husbandry (as in animal husbandry), High Lord/Lady Magus (medium who contacts gods and spirits and regulates the practise of sorcery), and High Lord/Lady Laureate (in charge of the creative arts).

“My father’s council has long deliberated over the imperial positions my council will inherit. Today, it is my sincerest pleasure to read their decisions.” Silently, he sent each of us a pulse of affection through the Ray.

Ready? Kirah Ray-spoke, and eleven voices echoed in my head. You’re kidding, right? … Don’t care which one I get … Can’t wait … As long as we finally get to move out of that cramped Children’s Palace …

Dayo cleared his throat and unfurled the scroll. A grin split his face, and so I knew the first name on the list was no surprise. “As her heir apparent to the title of High Priestess,” Dayo said, “Anointed Honor Mbali of Swana has selected Kirah of Blessid Valley.”

The temple rang with cheers, and Kirah stood, hazel eyes shining. “I accept my title as High Priestess Apparent,” she croaked, and glowed as the imperial secretary came forward to place a gold circlet on her brow.

The next declaration was also no surprise. “As heir apparent to the title of High Lord General,” Dayo said, “Anointed Honor Wagundu of Djbanti has selected Sanjeet of Dhyrma.”

Sanjeet stood, accepting his title and circlet without expression. 

Tari of Swana becomes High Lady Judge, and then: 

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur. A smug Mayazatyl of Quetzala was appointed future High Lady of Castles, head of defense and civil engineering. Ai Ling of Moreyao, Hallowed with formidable powers of persuasion, was appointed future High Lady Ambassador, in charge of interrealm trade. Umansa of Nyamba, who could read vague fortunes in the stars, would be High Lord Treasurer, and Zathulu of Djbanti, with his bookish head for facts, would be a competent High Lord Archdean. Thérèse of Nontes, our Hallowed green thumb, was destined to be High Lady of Harvests; and Kameron of Mewe, who had routinely snuck dubious animal rescues into the Children’s Palace, happily accepted his future as High Lord of Husbandry. Mysterious Emeronya of Biraslov would regulate sorcery as High Lady Magus, and as future High Lord Laureate, bleeding-heart poet Theo of Sparti would curate the art and music of all twelve realms.

When all of us were crowned, I allowed myself to relax. Our exhausting journey of diplomacy was almost over. Dayo would conduct the Peace Ritual with the continent ambassadors. Then our council would whisk away via lodestone to Yorua Keep, with nothing to do but study scrolls, play house, and throw sumptuous parties for decades to come.

Priests swept the four corners of the temple, ritually cleansing the chamber. Dayo, the eleven Arit ambassadors, and a royal emissary from Songland came to stand at the altar. A child choir of acolytes sprinkled myrrh around the marble platform and harmonized in rounds:

Sharp and cold the world received you

Warm with blood it sends you home

Back to earth, to holy black

Dark to dark:

Beginning and beginning.

On the altar rested a gourd flask and an ancient oval shield, which had once belonged to Enoba the Perfect. In one year, the thirteen continent rulers would travel to the capital and spill their blood into the shield’s basin, renewing humankind’s vow with the Underworld to uphold the Redemptor Treaty. In today’s ceremony, the Peace Ritual, Dayo, the ambassadors, and the emissary would spill water instead of blood, a good-faith promise that their realms would participate in the official renewal.

“To beginnings,” cheered the ambassadors as one by one they spilled water into the shield, sealing their commitment. First to approach were the ambassadors from the center realms—Djbanti, Nyamba, and Swana—then those from the north—Mewe, Nontes, and Biraslov. Ambassadors from the south, Blessid Valley, Quetzala, and Sparti, and from the east, Moreyao and Dhyrma, were next in line. Then came the emissary from Songland.

He was a bent old man in a sweeping, high-waisted robe who grimaced as he poured into the shield. “To beginnings,” he wheezed. “Songland shall participate in the Treaty Renewal. May it bring peace to our world. And may the parents of the lost children be comforted.”

The onlookers squirmed uncomfortably. The last words had not been scripted into the ritual, though no one dared chastise the emissary.

The Imperial Guard warriors broke ranks. Instead of manning the cannons that might have saved us all, the panicked men and women scrambled to protect their own kinspeople. Warriors from Nyamba ignored shrieking wounded Spartians to help Nyamban courtiers. Moreyaoese warriors stepped over a bleeding child from Djabanti, ignoring him to help a woman dressed in Moreyao silks. Oluwani commoners, who had found cramped shelter behind upended chairs and tables, hissed away people from Nontes and Dhyrma seeking refuge. As the cannon fire stopped, the beasts wheeled overhead, and then dove.

***************************

Mayazatyl had recently designed the weapons outfitting the temple walls. The sleek cannons were powered by fire, but armed with balls of ice—frozen holy water, stored in chambers deep beneath the temple grounds. The Imperial Guard warriors, burly recruits from all over the empire, formed a chain, passing up ammunition to the warriors manning the cannons. With a crack, the first round ignited, and orbs of splintering ice collided with the flying beasts and hurled six to the ground.

Mayazatyl cheered and warriors roared in response, loading the second round. Then the ammunition line broke as clouds of flies dove for the warriors on the ground. My council tried to escort Dayo to safety, but crowds of screaming courtiers stampeded for the exits, creating a lethal jam. A Djbanti woman cried out in her native language as she was trampled on the ground, causing a Djbanti cannon warrior to turn and look. The cannon misfired, and the ball of ice sailed into a crowd of Nontish emissaries. One fell and did not get up.

“Fool,” screeched a Nontish cannon warrior, seizing the Djbanti warrior by the lapels. “You killed the ambassador!”

“I didn’t mean to,” hyperventilated the other. “I’m sorry, I—”

“Typical of you Djbanti! Lazy head in the clouds, never at your post—”

“Leave my people out of it,” another Djbanti warrior snarled, punching the Nontish man in the jaw.

“No,” Mayazatyl rasped. “No, no. This is not the time …”

“Man your stations,” Sanjeet boomed up at the fisticuffing warriors as they teetered precariously on the wall. “We’re in the middle of a battle! People are dying, you idiots; I said man your—”

***********************************

Then the prince and his Eleven, once all of them are anointed, are sent away from court to Yorua Keep; they will only return to the capital in the rare event that the crowned father dies and needs a successor... and form a chaotic, disorganised teenage family in the meantime.

When there’s twelve of us, they send us from the Children's Palace to Yorua Keep, a castle by the ocean. It's a coastal, highly-guarded fortress that houses the Crown Prince's Council. We’ll live there all by ourselves, and train to rule Aritsar, and go on adventures.

In Aritsar, it was bad luck to refer to the death of an emperor. Instead, we said that a deceased emperor had “gone to the village, and would not be returning soon.” Most emperors did not go to the village sooner than eighty years of age, which meant that Dayo could be well into his forties before our council rose to the throne. Until then, we would live at Yorua Keep, the sleepy fortress in coastal Oluwan where all crown princes lived after completing their council. Once the goodwill tour ended, we would move straight there.

...."I’m not supposed to show favoritism to any of Father’s council members. I call them all ‘uncle’ or ‘auntie’—even my mother. It’s best for diplomacy. There are lots of rules here at the Children's Palace, but don’t worry. If you pass the test, we’ll make our own rules. Far away, at Yorua.”

Then our council would whisk away via lodestone to Yorua Keep, with nothing to do but study scrolls, play house, and throw sumptuous parties for decades to come.

......

The freedom of Yorua Keep paralyzed me at first. The old fortress, located on a perennially sunny cliff at the coastal tip of Oluwan, had no trials or testmakers. No drums to make us dance from prayers to meals to lessons. No painted facades, hiding eyes that watched our every failing. Strangely, I missed those eyes. In the weeks after the disaster at Ebujo, freedom had lost its romance for my council.

We crept through the airy, salt-scented halls of Yorua Keep in a whispering huddle, ghosts of our own castle. Shyly, we asked for schedules from our new servants: peasants from the village below our cliff, along with a chef and steward from the palace.

“When should we report to dinner?” Dayo asked the head steward.

The man blinked in confusion. “Your council … reports … to no one, Your Imperial Highness. Meals are at the times you schedule them to be.”

And so week by week, the ghosts of Ebujo began to fade, making way for the numbing addiction of running our own household. Our council reserved mornings for prayer and meditation, and then trained on the beach, conducting drills on sand shaded by palm trees. We bathed in the sea and returned to lunches of roasted fish and palm wine. Then we scattered to our favorite crannies of the keep—always in pairs, to stave off council sickness. We studied for hours, anxious to practice the imperial roles we would someday fill.

Ai Ling and Umansa usually took to the fortress turrets. She yelled diplomacy speeches at the clouds while he wove tapestries on his loom, charting prophetic constellations that only his sightless eyes could see. In the courtyard far below, Kameron kept a caterwauling menagerie, treating beasts for rare diseases as Mayazatyl drew diagrams for weapons and defense towers in the dirt beside him. Thérèse tended her sprawling orchard while Theo plucked chords on his zither, coaxing her plants to grow with griot stories and love poems. Emeronya and Zathulu sealed themselves in one of the keep’s dusty studies, murmuring over scrying glasses and essays by budding Imperial Academy scholars.

I spent most of my days on a shady balcony with Kirah, fretting over my court cases, while she scowled at her theology scrolls. To my disappointment, Sanjeet was often called away, and Dayo joined him, leaving the keep to lead the Imperial Guard on its peace campaigns. When Dayo was home, he had the formidable task of learning all our disciplines. He shadowed us for hours, taking voracious notes during the day and informing his father of his progress with long, formal letters at night. I began to wonder if he ever truly slept. Then again, none of us slept well after Ebujo.

Our favorite distraction came once a month, when peddlers were permitted in the heavily guarded keep courtyard. A glut of luxuries—embroidered wrappers, jewel-studded bangles, roasted kola nuts, and pots of flavored cream—were spread before us in a maze of stalls and blankets. The miniature market was for council members only, and musicians and tumblers entertained us as we shopped and made sizable dents in our generous imperial allowance.

The fortress had twenty pristine bedchambers, and we used every single one for storage. Sleeping separately, after all, meant eight hours apart, and the resulting nausea of council sickness was too steep a price. Instead we slept on the floor of the keep banquet hall, rolling out pallets as we had in the Children’s Palace and snoring together in a sweaty pile.

The banquet hall floor was a mosaic of the Kunleo sun and moons. Prince Dayo lay in the golden center, with the rest of us scattered among the eleven pale orbs. Sheer curtains hung from floor-length, unglazed windows, screening us from the warm night air. As moonlight glowed across the tiles, we could hear the Imperial Guard warriors changing watch and the crash of the Obasi Ocean, churning on rocks hundreds of feet below.

I was fast asleep on my pallet. Thaddace routinely sent me cases from the capital, and today’s collection had been particularly exhausting: everything from village disputes over cattle to housemaids reporting their masters for rape. I frowned into my pallet, burying deeper into the down pillows as a hand jostled my shoulder.

Braiding parties were sacred: No studying was allowed. Once a month, the strict security of Yorua Keep lifted for beauty artisans to visit from the palace. Their deft fingers would comb away our weeks’ worth of tangles, styling our hair in the Oluwan court fashion: hundreds of braids, interwoven with soft wool yarn and burned at the ends so the plaits wouldn’t unravel. The style took hours to complete and lasted for weeks.

 Their expressions remained placid, and hardened yellow wax glistened on their earlobes. Any commoner who waited on the Prince’s Eleven was required to seal their ears so our affairs would remain private.

As Crown Prince, Dayo had the authority to dictate our schedules at the keep, though it was unlike him to wield it.

Two of the Emperor’s Eleven visited Yorua Keep every month, overseeing the studies of the heirs who would replace them.

My sleeping chamber in Yorua Keep scarcely deserved the name. It was used only to store my possessions: my spear, piles of handmade gifts from commoners, and a daunting collection of tunics and wrappers.

Water still beaded on my skin from the keep bathhouse, where my council had freshened up for Nu’ina Eve. In a marble chamber partitioned by gender, we had scrubbed with cocoa ash soap and swum in orchid-scented pools, careful to keep our yarn braids dry. Over a wall, I had heard my council brothers splashing and roughhousing. My ear had tuned to a voice deeper than the others: a laugh that rumbled like thunder across the echoing marble tiles.

I ran agitated fingers over gowns and wrappers. I told myself I wanted to impress villagers at the festival. A future High Lady Judge should be seen at her finest. 

“The wine at the festival is filled with tokens,” I told Emeronya, knowing what it was like to feel left out. “The tokens are shells, bits of bone, things like that. Some are bad, some are good. If you find a good token, you can trade it. A cowrie shell is worth … a favor.”

“Theo wouldn’t kiss you,” Ai Ling informed her. “Last time I checked, he was still writing sappy love poems to farm boys in Yorua Village. Besides, council members can’t trade our cowrie shells. We’re not allowed to fall in love.”

I rubbed my skin with shea until it glowed. Rainbow beads stacked in towers on my arms and neck, in the Swana style. Most Arit fashion mixed elements from all over the empire, but Anointed Ones were encouraged to represent their home realms through their clothing. 

The Nu’ina Eve festivities would be conducted by priests of all four Arit religious sects—including priests of the Ember. I shuddered, steeling myself in advance for copious displays of fire. Unable to extinguish the thought of flames from my mind, I held up a wrapper of red and cardamom yellow. I had designed the pattern myself; the Yorua village women had taught me how to make my own wax-dyed cloth. In the keep courtyard, my council sisters and I spent hours using beeswax to draw patterns on yards of fabric. Once we finished, we plunged the cloth into vats of dye, and then into boiling water. The wax would melt away, leaving our intricate designs behind.

My council had arrived at Yorua Village in a parade of palanquins, guards, and liveried servants. The villagers had welcomed us with drums and palm leaves, flinging the branches across our path as they sang that ancient folk rhyme:

Eleven danced around the throne,

Eleven moons in glory shone,

They shone around the sun.

In return, we had brought food enough to feed the village for a week. We held the festival in an oceanside valley, beneath the glittering black quilt of the Oluwan night sky. The air smelled of cayenne and thrummed with talking drums. Spilled goat’s milk and honeywine ran ruts in the red earth. Rice and pepper stew rose in savory mountains on each table, and children’s faces glowed with grease and cream. My council watched the revelry from cushions on a narrow dais, piled high with the villagers’ gifts of herbs and good-luck carvings. Thaddace and Mbali had their own dais, and after Mbali blessed the Nu’ina festival, acolytes from the temples of Clay, Well, Ember, and Wing began their holy dances.

All four religious sects in Aritsar worshipped the Storyteller, and believed in the basic catechism of creation. But People of the Clay revered Queen Earth above all else. Many lived in rural realms like Swana, Mewe, and Moreyao, and they refused to eat meat and opposed the clearing of jungles and development of settlements. In contrast, People of the Well criticized Earth for her fabled infidelity to Water. Many of these believers lived in coastal realms, like Sparti, Nontes, and Djbanti, seafaring people who discovered islands and continents beyond Aritsar. But the most devoted inhabited the rainforests of Quetzala, praying at lakes and underground rivers. People of the Ember—the most popular religious sect in both Oluwan and Dhyrma—credited Warlord Fire with Earth’s wealth, and showed their gratitude by mining jewels and precious metals, and forging tools and weaponry. Finally, fastidious realms like Biraslov and Blessid Valley appealed to People of the Wing, who worshipped only the Storyteller. They covered their heads, spurned other gods as distractions, and embraced a life of simplicity, piety, and sacrifice.

In the center of the festival, a vast pit gleamed with ominous red light. From within, firebrands and white coals made heat ripples in the crisp night air. Villages dug the pit to represent the Storyteller’s journey to the Underworld. If a reveler found an unlucky token in their honeywine, they were considered cursed until the next Nu’ina festival … unless a champion crossed the pit on their behalf. A single wooden slab lay across the pit’s mouth, making a laughably narrow bridge. It was only for show. Most festivalgoers would sooner brave a year of bad luck than have a friend cross that deadly oven.

******************************

"What’s Enitawa’s Quiver?”

Mayazatyl batted her lashes innocently. “Why, it’s only a tree. With smooth waxy branches that grow straight up, like arms twisting around each other. Warriors used to make their quivers from the wood, because it’s flexible and it sings.” She took another long sip from her chalice, relishing our anticipation. “When the wind blows, the branches hum like flutes. Loud enough to cover up any noises that a pair might make in Enitawa’s shadow.” My sisters giggled nervously. “The tree grows beneath a cliff north of Yorua, barely a mile away. Rocks block the spot from view. Council members have been meeting there for centuries.”

I tried to return to my council’s dais, where my siblings were busy accepting gifts and blessing the village children.

We passed through an arbor of hanging wisteria into the keep garden, lit on either side with more bright torches. The garden gate opened to a sandy incline, tumbling down to the Obasi Ocean.

Night had aged into the indigo hours before dawn. Our feet crunched on white gravel as we passed beneath the wisteria again. Sanjeet was too tall for the arbor; violet petals tumbled down his bare russet shoulders. Somewhere in the dark, an owl cooed. I let my fingers pass over the wisteria vines, and my ears rang with lisps and giggles: the whispered conversations of council siblings long ago. Generations of Anointed Ones had frolicked where I stood, unaware of the eavesdropping branches overhead.

Nestled between orange trees, a wooden shed stood in the shadows, and Thérèse’s herb garden sprawled around it. When healers were unavailable from Yorua Village, Sanjeet, Kirah, and I practiced medicine here, using our Hallows to treat our guards and servants. Sanjeet would scan a patient’s body for ailments, and if the problem was physical, Kirah would attempt poultices or a healing chant. But if the problem was mental, I extracted memories and reshaped them, setting old demons to rest.

The medicine shed was long and narrow, lined with shelves of bottles and bundled herbs. 

“You’re good at this.” I turned my wrist, admiring his handiwork. “Do you ever wish you could be a healer full-time? Instead of training to be High Lord General?”

Sanjeet gripped the edge of the damp stone bench. “Dayo will inherit the Imperial Guard and the entire Army of Twelve Realms. He will need help commanding a force that large.” In the hollow of his chest, sweat glistened from when he had wrestled the shovel from Dayo. “I will be what he needs me to be.”

Several minutes outside Yorua, a mile from the village, to where the Obasi Ocean lapped at the mouth of the valley.

When I arrived, the tide was low, revealing a patchwork of pools that winked with shells and sand dollars. The waves crashed like soft cymbals. Blue sprites hummed in the balmy night, winking.

“Why do we give village elders so much power, anyway? What right do they have to say who you are—who anyone is? It’s a dumb tradition.” 

High Judge Apparents were granted a coming-of-age ceremony called the First Ruling: a way to foster the empire’s confidence in the young new judge. In the palace Imperial Hall, the High Judge Apparent would hear a controversial case, weigh the evidence, and bestow an official ruling. By imperial law, a High Judge Apparent’s First Ruling was irreversible—even by the emperor. Thaddace had written to Yorua Keep, asking that I review court cases backing up the pipeline and pick one to consider for my ruling.

Aritsar will — all in the name of further uniting the twelve realms of Aritsar — succeed in his plan to destroy the cultural practices and products of the realms and foist values and manners considered to be representative of the empire on them. What is more, with the manipulation perpetrated centuries back by Enoba the Perfect, Songland will continue to pay the prize for peace by sacrificing hundreds of its children to the spirits of the Core Underworld as contained in the Redemptor Treaty. This is notwithstanding the fact that Songland does not benefit from the economy of Aritsar.  Having refused to be a part of the empire, it has a trade embargo placed on it, but has also been the only realm producing Redemptor children sacrificed to the Underworld.

 Songland was a poor peninsula nation on the edge of our continent. Their ancestors had refused to recognize Enoba as their ruler—and as a result, the tiny realm was excluded from Aritsar’s bustling trade. A jagged range of mountains cut Songland off from the mainland. Aritsar might have ignored Songland altogether, if not for the Redemptors. Enoba the Perfect had bought peace for our world at a steep price. Every year, three hundred children were sent into the Oruku Breach: the last known entrance to the Underworld. In exchange for this sacrifice, the abiku spirits refrained from ravaging human villages. These children, known as Redemptors, were born with maps on their skin, meant to guide them through the Underworld and back to the realm of the living. Few survived the journey. As a result, some families hid their Redemptor children at birth. But for every missed sacrifice, the spirits would send a horde of beasts and plagues and natural disasters, and even set realms against each other, to raze the continent. 

Redemptors were supposedly born at random, to any race and class. But for some reason, every Redemptor in the last five hundred years had been born in Songland. No one knew why. But guilt-ridden Arits, relieved from the burden of sacrificing their own children, had plenty of theories to help them sleep at night. The Songlanders had offended the Storyteller, they guessed. The Redemptor children were punishment for some historical sin of Songland’s. Or perhaps, Songland was blessed by the Storyteller, and their children were saints, chosen to sacrifice themselves for the greater good. The greater good, of course, was Aritsar.

In addition to power tussle, gender discrimination, oppression of common people, and other themes which the novel touches on...

 Raybearer is woven of multiple plotlines, storylines; there isn’t just one goal, one easy win, one clear and simple battle to be fought. It’s about family, and what that means; it’s about misogyny and tradition, the value of history and the dangers of censorship; it’s about cultural identity versus unification. It’s about the different ways to be strong, and to be good. It’s about idealism and how hard the status quo will work to quash it; it’s about whether it’s right or wrong to let the fires of idealism go out. It’s about believing in your own worth, and demanding the world recognise it; it’s about claiming your personal power and your place. It’s about race and identity, magic and friendship; it’s about so many different kinds of love. It’s about the value of human life, whether that human is a loved one or a stranger, one of your own kind or some other.

Anyway, my favourite hallow would of those from the Songland. They can fly and changed forms. How cool is that?