On the fifth cycle of the larger moon, in the seven hundred and fortieth rotation of the planet, the Kingdom of Nari erupted with an unprecedented anger.
King Uri Baldesh, the seventieth royal sovereign from the exalted Baldesh line of monarchs, was not to see his eldest son, Uri Doh, so seamlessly and lovingly put upon the throne by the people of Nari.
The King was left bemused and surprised a few rotations ago when riots in the holy city of Ghan had broken out almost immediately after the grand moment during which he had announced on the public wall-screens and from the circling rooftop horns that he had decided the name of his possible successor.
But just as the teenaged Uri Doh Baldesh was being congratulated by the royal lady, Queen Sareen, his brothers and sisters, all nine of them, and by the King’s men, foreign dignitaries, proud aunts and uncles, rich men and middle-men, musicians, jesters and blue and green and purple-green talking parrots, the King was inside the Tension Room with his generals and main advisors, watching on a ceiling screen pictures transmitted by the State Screen Projectors of the riots in Ghan.
The pictures were only for the King. The rest of the Kingdom was being entertained through the wall-screens by the shimmering images of the national party taking place in the capital Thara's main palace.
At Ghan, they had burned the King's effigies and attacked wall-screens and the circling rooftop horns. Ya Hal, The Wise & The Strong Who Connected With The Ways of the Lords of the Crimson & Dark Blue Skies, denounced King Uri as being master of corruption and immorality and accused the Baldesh line of kings of ripping the soul of beautiful Nari from the meeting points of the Lords, leaving the people of the land exploited and spiritually bankrupt.
The King was surprised. His royal ancestors, and then he had given the people of Nari such new ways of the world. Alas, after Ya Hal had refused to meet him, and the King had ordered the crushing of the riots, only a few rotations later, the rioting erupted again, cutting across and around Ghan, and then finally reaching the capital Thara.
Ya Hal bellowed from the circling rooftop horns snatched from government buildings and now hung from the pointers and tips of the Junans - the places of worship - by the agitators: "The new ways of the world have stolen our people's respect, morals and dignity," Yal Hal announced. "The good people of Nari do not want the new ways of the world. They want the deep ways of the Lords."
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On the fifth cycle of the larger moon, in the seven hundred and fortieth rotation of the planet, the Kingdom of Nari overthrew its King.
Rotations-long old symbols of royal pomp were washed aside and away in one tidal gush of the blood of the King and his entire family, and of his men and his women, his admirers and his henchmen.
Followers of Yal Hal in their millions screamed and shouted over and over again that the ways of the Lords of the two-coloured skies were here.
Ya Hal nodded from a room at an ancient Junan in Ghan: "Our faith, the Rowal, taught to us millions of rotations ago by the Lords of the two-coloured skies, is breaking out from where it had been pushed back to stay and rot by the monarchs. It's pouring out from the places of worship, from our homes and our hearts and out into the open, on the streets, in the markets, the schools, the colleges, the wall-screens, everywhere, like it was supposed to. Indeed, my people of Nari, the new corrupting, exploitative ways of the world are being replaced by the deep ways of the Lords."
Alfa Yum was the youngest son of a struggling peasant who had found some work in King Uri's court as a banjo player. Yum's father and mother were great admirers of Nari's village songs and music and used whatever money they could make and save as peasants and singers to send their two sons to the village school.
It was during the time when Yum's father managed to bag a place as a banjo player in the King's court that he was able to send his eldest son, Calfa Yum, to a college in the capital city of Thara.
Calfa was studying to become an engineer but instead he became a rebel. He routinely took part in demonstrations that the banned Folks Party of Nari held at colleges and universities against the monarchy.
Every time the monarchy ordered a crackdown against the party, Calfa would slip away and take the long bus ride to his village where he would stay until the crackdown passed over.
Calfa's parents were believers. But not staunch. Nevertheless, the mother worried that one of her sons was chanting slogans against the same king who had given a job spot at the palace to the father.
“At least don't denounce the Lords of the two-coloured skies, son,” the mother used to plead. “The Lords have given us enough to send our sons to schools. Look at most people in our village around us. Starving, their children naked, and yet they sing beautiful songs praising the Lords of the two-coloured skies.”
“Fools!” Calfa used to respond. “Singing songs for the Lords and the Kings, while their children go hungry all day long. But not for long. The invisible Lords and the visible King will be wiped out by the Folks. A new moon and new set of songs will rise over Nari. Of equality and humanity.”
Alfa Yum was four rotations younger than Calfa. He enjoyed sports, his school books and both the traditional songs of the village, as well as the glitzy ones that were often transmitted from Thara theatres to the village over the circling rooftop horns. He also loved the Lords of the two-skies.
When Calfa used to come home with a fresh round of awkward ideas about the Lords and the King, Alfa went through book after book at the library of the village's largest place of worship so he could hold a debate with his brother.
The debates, however, would only take place in young Alfa's head. But as his knowledge of the Lords and their faith grew, he began to resent his brother for not only rejecting the mercy and sensitivity shown by the Lords towards his father, but also because his brother’s anti-King politics were jeopardising the father's job at the palace.
Alfa may have been a deep believer of the ways of the Lords, but he was no fan of the King. Most of the nineteen books of the Lords had no mention of a king. The true believers were to run Nari as servants of the Lords and according to the many teachings of the Lords that were spread across the nineteen books.
Alfa soon became one of the youngest scholars of the Rowal faith at the library and his mentors there gave his parents the good news that Alfa, at the age of just twelve rotations had been gifted a scholarship to study at a faith school in the holy city of Ghan.
On the fifth cycle of the larger moon, in the seven hundred and fortieth rotation of the planet, Alfa was excelling in his school of faith in Ghan, when Nari erupted and toppled its king.
Unknown to Alfa, the respected Ya Hal's admirers in Alfa's village had attacked and executed his parents for being in the service of the corrupt, exploitative King, and for polluting the minds of the humble, believing people of the village with songs that instead of just mentioning the Lords, mentioned the King, women and odes to cow milk.
Alfa took part in some demonstrations against the King in Gaun, but mainly stuck to studying his faith books, still debating with his brother in his head.
After the fall of the King, Alfa asked one of his holy mentors that he be allowed a visit to his parents at the village. The mentor had replied: “Your parents are good people. The Lords of the two-coloured skies will take care of them.”
“But my father was in the service of the corrupt, exploitative King,' Alfa had bemoaned. “The Lords would like me to save his life and soul.”
The mentor convinced Alfa that his parents were alive and well.
“And my brother?” Alfa had asked.
“He's a strong lad,” said the mentor. “We know he does not have much faith in the Lords, but men and women like him fought alongside men and women like us against the corrupt, exploitative King. I'm sure he's fine and happy.”
Alfa, along with some other bright lights of the faith school in Ghan, was taken to a much larger faith school in the capital Thara.
Here, they were told that to even come close to the wisdom and enlightenment achieved by men such like Yal Hal, they will have to adopt their immediate mentors as their new families and let the memories of their biological families be just that: memories.
In the next five rotations when Alfa reached twenty rotations, he became a junior Rowal scholar, and a certified preacher of the faith in places of worship.
But he continued his studies. Mostly as a way to keep at bay memories of his parents and of his brother, or of a life in which he would sit and listen to his father sing, or to the glitzy songs that used to be transmitted from the theatres of Thara over the circular rooftop horns.
The theatres were now gone, and the rooftop circular horns now only ran audio snippets from Yal Hal's speeches and quotes from the nineteen books of the Lords of the two-coloured skies, and sirens to announce that it was that time of the cycle for the multitudes to stand in prayer at the ever increasing number of Junans.
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But Alfa was puzzled by the expressions of most of the people that he saw if ever he decided to step out from the faith school, where he now was also a teacher.
"They still look sad," he used to think. "Is not Nari the abode of the Lords and of their ways and teachings? Why aren't people appreciative? So much blood was spilled to rescue Nari from the corrupt, exploitative clutches of the King."
One day he decided to talk to someone who was not a scholar-teacher like him, or a mentor. For the first time in many rotations, Alfa spoke to a common citizen – a fruit vendor who used to sell apples and pears and watermelons just outside the faith school.
"You look sad, brother. Aren't the Lords to be thanked for this bounty and the bounty that you make selling the Lords' bounties?" Alfa asked, picking up a ripe, red apple.
Noticing that Alfa was wearing a blue cloak and a crimson headset, the vendor, a middle-aged man, was humbled: "Lords be praised. A scholar of the Lords and their teachings has decided to talk to a citizen like me. Indeed, I am blessed, great teacher. Your address to me is a sign of the blessings of the Lords upon my family of one wife, three sons and two daughters."
"But citizen, I've seen you and those around you for many rotations, and I see sadness on your faces. Did not the Lords side with the common believers and destroyed the corrupt and exploitative King so men like you may pray to the Lords freely and openly?" Alfa asked.
"Yes, teacher, the Lords did. My sadness only has to do with the folly of my wayward mind that can't keep some memories away. I was a malefactor before the Giant Revolution. I drank fermented pumpkin water at the theatres and the canteens; I lived unmarried with a woman, and I ..."
Alfa stopped him: "Memories of a flawed past are ways for the Lords to test our faith in them. I have troubling memories too."
"You, teacher?" The vendor was genuinely surprised.
"Yes,” said Alfa. “Memories of a distant past when I was lost. You were lost too. Tell me, repenting citizen, how were you found by the Lords?"
"I just was, my teacher. A little over a rotation before the Giant Revolution when the woman I was erroneously staying with died of a grave sickness. That was a sign. The Lords had punished her even though I too, was equally punishable for our collective sin. But then a scholar-teacher like you told me that my punishment was greater because I had to live with the memories of my sin and the guilt of how this sin made the Lords take away the woman I loved."
"Do you love your wife of today?" Alfa asked.
"I just love the Lords, my teacher. She just loves the Lords. My children just love the Lords. I destroyed the theatres and jugs of fermented pumpkin water during the Giant Revolution. But my sin was only washed away when I spilled the blood of those who stood in the path of the Lords’ ways ..."
"And yet you look so unhappy ..." Saying this Alfa slowly walked back to the school of faith to bury himself in his books, prayers and debates in his head.
After spending eleven full rotations at the school of faith, Alfa finally got the call so many young scholar-teachers waited for but didn’t always get.
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A call from the Second-Mentors in the main House of Rowal that after the revolution had been renamed as the House of the Giant Rowal Revolution.
In one of its seventy-seven rooms also resided the wise and mighty Yal Hal. Only the Second-Mentors, some sixty of them at the House, and all hand- picked by Yal Hal himself, were allowed to meet him.
Though for almost two full rotations Alfa remained a student of various Second-Mentors at the House, he never saw Yal Hal. But he did get his first taste of how things were being done to run the post-revolution Nari.
Ya Hal was the all-powerful, unquestionable figurehead who picked from an assembly of Second-Mentors from across Nari, a Principal Minister and Second and Third and Fourth Ministers after every three rotations.
Laws were to be made and imposed according to the nineteen books of the Lords of the two-skies based on interpretations of the books by Yal Hal and three senior Second-Mentors.
Alfa was impressed. But what shocked him was when he also learned that blood was still being spilled so many rotations after the tidal gush of blood that had wiped out the monarchy.
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During a learning stint and curve with a Second-Mentor at the House who was also a judge, Alfa was baffled by the fact that almost after every two to three cycles of the larger moon, people were being executed for opposing the ways of the Giant Revolution.
One day Alfa, now twenty-six rotations old, gathered enough courage to ask the judge a question outside the confines of the nineteen books.
“Dearest judge, my mentor, my teacher, I have for you a question that you may think is unworthy of a scholar-teacher like me to ask a wise mentor and pillar of faith and justice like you. May I?"
"Do you want to get married?" The judge smiled. "I will arrange that for you. It is time. No need to feel embarrassed."
"The question is not about my possible marriage, great mentor. It is about those people that you in your unmatched wisdom order to hang and die. Why do they oppose the deep ways of the Lords? Why are they not thankful that the Giant Revolution has created a Nari in which the ways of the Lords rule supreme and in which they can freely prepare themselves for a pleasing life in the two coloured skies of the Lords after their souls leave their bodies?"
The judge smiled again: "You should be thinking about marriage in this age of yours. Nevertheless, it is my duty to answer the puzzles of bright and loyal scholars like you."
He sat Alfa down and stared for many micro-cycles into Alfa's inquisitive hazel eyes before answering.
"Young scholar," the judge began, "memories of a flawed past are powerful things. For some reason the Lords have engrained them into our souls, maybe to test us, or maybe to continue reminding us of what selfish, spiritless savages we once were, not only during the seventeen Kings, but also before the Lords found us millions of rotations ago. Some people are feeble and succumb to the savage charms of these memories because they delude themselves into thinking that if these memories become living material again, they will be free from the disciplined ways of the Lords. Such people are weak in faith, lazy in prayer, and possible cases of savagery like fornication without marriage; or songs that ignore the praising of the Lords; and the drinking of pumpkin water that makes them fornicate, sing and ..."
Alfa politely interrupted: "Apologies, dear mentor, wise judge, for this rude and uncalled for interruption, but somewhere in your insightful talk here you mentioned something about possible cases of savagery. Do you in your wise judgement also punish those who have yet to commit a sin because your wisdom tells you that one day they will?"
"Dear young scholar,” the judge continued. “Books four and ten of the nineteen books of the Lords clearly suggest in chapters nine and fourteen respectively, that those who have studied deeply the ways of the Lords gain an insight unlike others and from this insight they can clearly see a man who is likely to indulge in an act of savagery against the laws of the nineteen books and the ways of the Lords. Surely you being a bright scholar of the faith should know this. "
Alfa immediately replied: "But, wise judge, my study of these two chapters made me understand the Lords giving insights to the deep students of the book so that they could dilute and ultimately banish savage memories and instincts from within."
"Yal Hal has taught us what I tell you,” said the judge. “He is the ultimate interpreter of the books, is he not?" The judge asked, now in a slightly irritated tone.
"Absolutely, wise mentor. Who am I to dispute his interpretations? Mine was an act of savagery as well. I deserve your wise judgement, my mentor. I am willing to be punished."
The judge changed the topic back to marriage: "Time for a wise obedient wife for you, young scholar. A faithful, pious partner. You will need one because soon you are to reach a special period of spiritual maturity. In two cycles you will be meeting Yal Hal ..."
"Mentor!" Alfa was taken aback. ”What is it that you are saying? I'm a savage, wise judge. How is this to be? How was this to come?"
The judge smiled again: "Hold there, young scholar. After every two rotations three of the brightest and most loyal and pious scholar-teachers are chosen by a group of Second-Mentors to have an audience with the First-Mentor. You along with two more scholar-teachers will meet him after two larger moon cycles. Prepare and pray."
Yal Hal in his deep blue cloak, crimson headset and four long, apparently soft and thin hairs hanging from his slightly raised chin looked younger than his full sixty-nine rotations.
The three young scholar-teachers were to keep their heads down and quietly listen to three brief commentaries on the nineteen books of the Lords given to them by Yal Hal.
The commentaries went on for three larger moon cycles and the three young scholar-teachers were not allowed to speak to Yal Hal. Only he spoke.
On the forth cycle, Alfa noticed one of the three of them was missing and now there were only two. On the ninth cycle Alfa sat on the carpet in front of Yal Hal’s pulpit alone, waiting for the second but he never came. Yal Hal arrived and asked Alfa to raise his head. Alfa did just that.
“Your father was a peasant, was he not?” Yal Hal asked, while running his eyes across one of the nineteen books of the Lords.
“He was, First-Mentor,” Alfa nervously replied.
“He sang for the King in his palace?” Yal Hal asked his eyes still fixed on the book.
A troubling sense of shame sprinted across Alfa’s soul: “He did, First-Mentor.”
“Where is he now?” Yal Hal asked.
“I haven’t seen him ever since the Giant Revolution fourteen rotations ago, First-Mentor.”
“Did you not love him, young scholar?”
“I only love the Lords of the two-colured skies, First-Mantor.”
“But you do get perturbed now and then by his memory and the memory of your mother, do you not?’
“I do, First-Mentor.”
Yal Hal rose, book in his hand, and strolled towards the large curving shelves of books behind the pulpit. Then while placing the book on the shelves, he spoke: “Yudh, the Second-Mentor and Third Minister of Consensus and Citizens tells me, your parents are dead.”
Alfa’s lower lip began to tremble, his eyes swelled with tears. Was it sadness, or was it anger, he thought? He fought hard to fight the tears back.
“They are both,” Yal Hal announced, turning to look at Alfa.
“Both, First-Mentor?”
“Your feelings,” Yal Hal said, moving back to sit at the pulpit. “They are both of sadness and anger.”
“You can see through the soul, the heart and the mind, First-Mentor.”
“True believers lynched your parents during the revolution,” Yal Hal announced, opening another book.
“The Lords had ordained it, First-Mentor.” Alfa had fought back the tears, his lip not trembling anymore.
“You had an elder brother too, did you not?” Yal Hal asked, now looking straight into Alfa’s eyes. Alfa slowly and softly hung low his head: “Yes, First-Mentor. Not much of a believer was he.”
“Yudh told me he fought against the King’s henchmen during the revolution …”
“Yes,” Alfa answered, raising his head to once again meet Yal Hal’s stare. “But he did not fight for the Lords, First-Mentor. He and his likes fought for the clay and the mud that we walk upon.”
Yal Hal nodded: “Let’s begin today’s lesson. You have a long way to go to become a Second-Mentor.”
Yal Hal glanced at Alfa again: “You want to know, don’t you? What happened to your brother?”
“I do, First-Mentor.”
“He is now a memory,” Yal Hal said. “Treat him so. It will be for you to decide whether the memory was savage or not. Let’s begin today’s lesson. We will start in detail with the meaning and wonders of book one of the nineteen.”
Within six rotations, Alfa, now thirty-four rotations old, became a Second-Mentor. He mastered in the laws of the Lords enshrined in their nineteen books, tutored personally by Yal Hal, and considered to be a favourite of his.
On his thirty-fifth rotation, he was chosen as a Third Minister and tasked to the Ministry of Law and Good Morals.
Alfa did well to implement laws and morals according to the interoperations of Yal Hal of the ways of the Lords in their nineteen books.
But no matter how hard and harsh he tried to implement these laws, he just couldn’t keep down the number of men and women being sentenced to die by the judges for breaking the laws of the Lords.
Not satisfied by explanations given to him by the judges, Alfa decided to talk directly to some men on death row – a first for a Second-Mentor. Yal Hal gave him his blessing and praised him for his ingenuity.
Nath Khun, a Fourth Minister and head of the Thara Moral Police Collective, was given the duty to accompany and accommodate the Second-Mentor Alfa’s trip to the jail.
Nath Khun was forty-one rotations old, a short, stocky man, who had been a free agent at a gambling club before the revolution, but had repented and fought in the streets against the King’s henchmen, killing more than a dozen with his bare hands.
He had risen fast to the position of the head of the Moral Police Collective in the revolutionary regime.
He escorted Alfa to the jail and then to a cell that held a middle-aged prisoner who had been on death-row for twenty rotations now.
The cell was tiny, dirty, dark, dinghy, wet and stank of rotting flesh and human faeces. Nath Khun handed a silky handkerchief to Alfa: “Here, wise mentor. Put this on your blessed mouth and equally blessed nose.” Alfa did just that.
Alfa pushed half of his body from chest up forward to look closely at the prisoner: “Why have we not hanged him for so many rotations? Why is he being kept alive? Is he not a savage who went against the ways and laws of the Lords?”
“He did, wise mentor,” Nath explained. “He fought against the King’s henchmen during the revolution. I remember him well. We were both young and strong then. But after the King’s fall and death, this man and his likes, turned against us. They did not fight for the Lords. They cursed the Lords and fought instead for the clay and the mud that we walk upon.”
“He was a Folk, was he not?” Alfa turned to ask.
“You are wise and insightful, mentor. Your grip of hidden history is unmatched. You remember those unLordly rascals,” said Nath, handing Alfa a glass of cold watermelon juice and a freshly baked biscuit.
Alfa was not interested in the juice and the biscuit. He ignored the offering and stared at the prisoner again: “What is his name? Is it Calfa, by any chance?”
“Lords be praised!” Nath exclaimed, the baked biscuit in one side of his mouth. “Indeed, wise mentor, it is. Calfa the Folk.”
“Why did you bring me here to meet this particular prisoner?” Alfa asked, his lower lip trembling, his eyes swelling with tears. This time it was just anger.
“Great mentor, I did what I was asked to. The Fourth Minister of Prisons asked me to. He was asked by the Third who was asked by a Second who, I am told, was asked by the First-Mentor himself.”
“Why is this prisoner still alive?” Alfa asked again.
“My mentor, the mercy of the First-Mentor wants this particular prisoner reformed. Many Second-Mentors and scholar-teachers have tried in these twenty odd rotations, but have failed. This beast rots but does not repent. Maybe the First-Mentor in his limitless wisdom knows that it is his favourite, brightest, most beloved and insightful Second-Mentor who can reform this beast?”
“Open the cell,” Alfa ordered. And the cell was opened. A cushioned chair was brought in for Alfa to sit on, facing the chained and half-dead structure of wrinkled, dirty, smelly skin and of lice-infected grey hair from head to toe.
One of Nath’s assistants sprayed the area around Alfa’s chair with a perfumed disinfectant.
Alfa asked Nath to stand outside.
“Calfa,” Alfa whispered. “It’s Alfa, Calfa. Your younger brother. Do you remember? Because I do. Your memory is still with me. It has tormented me, like you tormented our parents and made the Lords angry. Calfa, this is Alfa. Can you hear?”
Calfa slowly but painfully straightened his tilting, rotting head: “Alfa?” He whispered.
“Yes, Calfa. It is me, Alfah.”
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“Alfa? I have your memory. Where are our …” Calfa’s head tilted to the right again, and he seemed to have passed out.
“Calfa. Speak to me,” Alfa said, straightening Calfa’s head again, using the silk handkerchief to touch it.
Calfa painfully let out a soft snickering sound: “Thank you. Alfa, my brother. Are you a prisoner here as well? How many rotations has it been?”
“Over twenty, elder brother.”
‘Twenty. Are you a prisoner here as well?
“No, brother. I’m a Second-Mentor and a Third Minister.”
Calfa finally managed to open his eyes as much as his energy (or lack thereof) would allow. He looked at Alfa: “You are seated. Are you afraid to be in contact with the clay and the mud and the ground upon which we walk and upon which I lay here to die?”
“Calfa, is that what you want? To die? The Lords have a plan for you. It is the Lords’ that have kept you alive. They see something in you. They see a good man who lost his way. The Lords are not cruel, Calfa.”
“Have you ever seen any of them?” Calfa whispered.
“The Lords are not to be seen and can’t be seen by mere mortals. They are to be felt …”
Calfa softly interrupted: “… in the heart.”
“Yes,” said Alfa. “In the heart too.”
“No, just in the heart,” Calfa said, trying to raise his voice, but failing. “Not on the roads, the streets, in the ministries, on wall-screens and theatres …”
Now Alfa interrupted: “The theatres closed down twenty rotations ago.”
“So, the Lords like being on the streets and in government ministries and on wall-screens but not in the theatres?” Calfa snickered, painfully.
“Do you feel the Lords in your heart?” Alfa asked.
“Don’t you, brother?” Calfa said, looking at Alfa again. And before Alfa could answer, Calfa continued: “Father ploughed the clay, the mud and the ground so he could grow food to feed us …”
“That was the Lords’ bounty and mercy …” said Alfa.
“Calfa continued: “Father then kept down the plough and headed to a muddy Junan in our village to pray and praise the Lords …”
“He was a believer,” said Alfa.
Calfa continued: “In the evenings he took the long bus to the King’s place and played and sang beautiful songs for an ugly king …”
“That was his folly,” said Alfa.
“ … That was the Lords’ bounty and mercy!” Calfa now managed to speak louder.
Alfa did not respond.
Calfa continued: “Father’s Lords were in his heart. In his beautiful songs. In the ground that he broke to grow whatever he could on and in it. Where are your Lords?”
“Father’s Lords were the same as mine and yours,” Alfa replied, his voice also rising.
Calfa continued: “And yet, you ripped the Lords away from his heart and from his songs, and paraded them on the streets, in government ministries, on wall-screens, turning them into monotonous voices on the circular rooftop horns, and into tyrants that looked just like you in blue cloaks and crimson headsets. And you say the Lords can’t be seen?”
“The father is no more,” said Alfa. “Neither is mother. It’s now just you and I. Live for me. You have found the Lords in your heart. You can keep them there. But, brother, Lords can’t be hidden from the world that they created. They have to rule it for the betterment of their creations.”
“For the betterment of tyrants!” Calfa replied, his voice rising again. “You sully and smear the Lords with your power politics, let them loose with sticks in hand so they can empty the hearts of those who keep them there, to inflict fear and violence, and call it discipline and morality, and yet it is people like me whom people like you ask to repent?”
Alfa was quiet. He bent forward and kissed his brother’s sweating, wounded forehead: “Goodbye, brother.” Tears began to form in his eyes again. This time it was just sadness.
Calfa was hanged two cycles after the meeting.
Five rotations after Calfa’s execution, Alfa had grown in stature and influence. He had become the most powerful and respected Second-Mentor in the country and had gotten even closer to the aging Yal Hal.
In these five rotations he had gradually promoted Nath Khun to the rank of the Main General of the Nari military. Due to his rugged ways, Nath Khun was a popular General.
One cyclic day Alfa called the General to the House of the Giant Rowal Revolution. Nath, who was leading the military at a skirmish with a neighbouring country, rushed back to Thara to meet Alfa.
He was taken to Alfa’s private library in the House where Alfa waited for him, sitting cross-legged on a carpet: “Ah, General. So nice of you to come.”
The General hastily touched Alfa’s crimson headset and then his own heart: “Always at your service, great mentor.”
“Sit,” said Alfa, and then poured the General a glass of cold watermelon juice: “Tell me General, how are the children and the wife?”
“With the grace of the Lords and the prayers of wise, pious and insightful mentors like you, they are all well.”
“Good, good,” Alfa replied, and poured some more juice in the General’s glass: “General, tell me, wouldn’t you like it if this juice was pumpkin water?”
The General froze: “My mentor. Pumpkin water? There is no pumpkin water in whole of Nari anymore, wise mentor. I made sure of that.”
“Come, come General,” Alfa smiled, “We are both adults. I do know about your little side enterprise. You do run a dozen or so pumpkin water distilleries on the north Nari-Saani border don’t you? And I know you enjoy drinking some as well.”
The General lowered his head: “Wise mentor, am I to be hanged?”
“On the contrary, my General, you are to reign,” said Alfa.
“Mentor?”
Alfa now turned serious: “Yes, Nath, you are to rule Nari. I have gone to great lengths and intrigues to put you where you are today. And Lords be praised you have answered your critics by becoming a robust, loyal and popular General.”
“Thanks to you, my mentor,” said Nath, excitedly pulling up his head. “And, of course, to the Lords …”
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“Of course,” replied Alfa. “Now tell me Nath. I’ve known you for five rotations. And the insights granted to me by the Lords tell me you are a man who keeps the Lords in his heart, right?”
“The Lords are everywhere, great mentor …”
“Yes, in a manner of speaking, but don’t you think they should be where they really belong, in men’s hearts? Hearts of men like you?”
“I’m just a rough man, a sinner; the Lords are repulsed by my crooked heart, great, wise mentor.”
“Look at me,” said Alfa, cupping the General’s hefty face with his hands. “I am a senior Second-Mentor, second only to the wise Yal Hal. I have the power to ask the Lords to absolve you of your sins. Grant you great victories in the battlefield. Do you agree?”
“With all my heart and soul, mighty mentor.”
“Now hear this then. Ten larger moon cycles from now, at midnight, when all of Nari, especially Thara, will be glued to their wall-screens, praying collectively with Yal Hal, you will pull your army into Thara, take over all State Screen Projectors, the circling rooftop horns, police stations and finally attack the House …”
“The House?”
“Yes, General, the House. You will become the new ruler of a new Nari, and I shall become the new First-Mentor.”
“But wise mentor, you are already tipped to become the First-Mentor. Yal Hal is extremely old, he will not last.”
“Just do as I tell you.”
“But why are you doing this, wise mentor?”
“Let me worry about these things. But remember, you will not attack any Junans. Because there is where I plan to take back the gracious Lords. Away from the streets, the ministries, the House, the wall-screens …” Alfa stopped. Tears began to appear in his eyes. “ … Away from this rot … and back into our hearts.”
Ten larger moon cycles later, at midnight, as a very old Yal Hal stood in front of a projector praising the Lords and the revolution and the Second-Mentors and the scholar-teachers, and the pious people of Nari who for over twenty-five rotations had forgone the need for ready food and joy and wishes and instead struggled to keep Nari as the bastion of the laws and ways of the Lords of the two-colured-skies, Nath rode into Thara with his large army.
He had to crush and muzzle a number of small mutinies a few cycles before the invasion, executing officers and soldiers who refused to take part in the invasion, calling it a coup against the Lords.
Military men rolled in on tanks, horses, lamas, elephants, and ostriches, booming balloons, with guns, cannons, tanks, swords, spears, bows and arrows, rockets, boulders …
One after the other police stations fell, some without a fight, the circular rooftop horns were silenced, and after a small battle, the State Projection Centre too was taken. Yal Hal’s address rudely went off the transmitting towers.
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People hid in their homes, as the military men now began to take over faith schools, allowing scholar-teachers and students to pour into Junans that were then sealed.
Then, the moment came when the General led a large force of his most well-trained and loyal officers and soldiers as they marched towards the House of the Giant Revolution.
The House was protected and surrounded by an elite force of two hundred well-armed ‘Lords’ Guards’ who only took orders from the First-Mentor.
Alfa had been in a nearby Juana, praying. But he walked out when fighting erupted between the solders and the Guards.
He approached the General and asked him to order his men to ceasefire. The General told him that it would be next to impossible to take over the House without fighting for it: “People will die, mentor. This is the price we both decided to pay.”
“No!” He shot back. “Yal Hal must not die. Tell your solders to stop firing. Let me talk to the Guards.”
“But they will cut you down, mentor …”
“That is for me to worry.”
The General ordered an immediate ceasefire. Alfa, in his cloak and headset, began approaching the House. The Guards all pointed their guns at him.
“You will shoot a servant of the Lords, and the pupil of the wise Yal Hal whom he raised and taught as a son?” He asked the Guards.
The Guards did not move. Their guns were still pointed at the slowly approaching Alfa: “I come with nothing. No weapon, but only with the love of the Lords in my heart. Will you shoot me through it? The Lords are not in the House, brothers. In the House are just men like you and I. The Lords are there, in the Junans. In the clay and the mud that sustain us. In the beautiful songs that our dead fathers and mothers sang to us to make us forget our hunger. The Lords don’t come looking for the lost in cloaks and headsets. With sticks and wagging fingers. Through rooftop horns and wall-screens. They come looking for a place in your heart …”
Saying this Alfa threw down his cloak and headset and continued walking towards the House. The Guards’ fingers inched ever so closely to the triggers of their guns …
Five and a half rotations later …
A terribly old Yal Hal lay in a small, yellowing room on a straw bed. He hadn’t stood up for over three rotations. Alfa sat beside him reading from one of the nineteen books of the Lords.
“I haven’t been able to stand up for prayers in ages,” Yal Hal complained.
“You are ill and old, mentor,” Alfa casually replied.
“Every micro-second I ask myself,” Yal Hal said, “was it the right thing to do? To keep your brother alive?”
“Every cycle of the larger moon you ask this and I keep saying yes, it was the right thing to do,” Alfa replied, keeping away the book.
“You would have been the First-Mentor, Alfa after my death. You could have reformed what you didn’t like. Why did you have to shed blood? Why need a second revolution?”
“I did it for you, mentor,” said Alfa. “The second revolution helped me bring you here in this room of an old Junan. When I bought you here, it was like bringing the Lords back to their favourite abode. And I wanted you to see it for yourself.”
For the first time in many rotations he helped Ya Hal get up, and he slowly and cautiously helped him walk towards the small balcony of the room. As both men stared out in to the horizon, the circling rooftop horns had just played the siren for prayers, and shortly afterwards, began to play songs of love, joy, romance and odes to cow milk.
Some men scampered towards the Junans for prayers, some walked briskly towards the canteens for some pumpkin water and laughter, many men and women walked up and down the streets buying and selling stuff.
Around the Junan where the room was, stood some four armed policemen. Not for the protection of the two former Mentors, but to make sure that they stayed in.
“That rascal General …” Yal Hal coughed.
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Alfa lay him down again. And then he spoke: “The General ordered my release today. I will be leaving you in the hands of the Lords.”
Yal Hal remained quiet.
Alfa unlocked a creaking tin suitcase. In it lay his cloak and headset. He looked at them for a bit. Then closed the suitcase. He opened a rubbery blue bag. From it he took out a medium-sized, only diary. A diary once kept by his brother when he was a Folk at the college. He flipped through the pages and then kept the diary in his shirt's front pocket.
Next, he picked from the rubbery bag a tiny plastic container. In it was the mud of his village. He stuffed the container somewhere inside his trousers. Finally he picked up a shovel lying in a corner. He turned and looked at Yal Hal and began humming an old village song that his father used to sing. He forgot the words, but remembered the tune.
“Where will you go?” Yal Hal finally asked.
“Out. For a possible third.” Saying this he left.