DESERTION OF NEMURA

Uvi rika mustika

I never asked to be born under the blue sky of Meredith, nor did I pray for living a longer life, but Zeus gave me them both. I longed to get only some air of justice, yet Themis was averse to hear my prayer.

The time had come. It would be the fifth time in my life when I must run an everlasting honor. Yes, it was an honor for the fainthearted, but for me, it was no more than fatuity. Yet I just could do nothing more than taking the orders, because I had no more life to live but a thing they told me constantly from the first time I was endowed with ears. I did remember how it’s whispered, “It is not a command, it just has been destined. You’re born to be Nemura the fourth.”

Nemura, a clan of deathless guards, providential to protect heaven and earth of Meredith, those were what Belva oracle told me and what she engrafted in everyone’s thought.

The oracle was a very essential person in the empire. Belva had been standing in that position from the first period of Meredith in the reign of Lord Bernessa. She was irreplaceble, despite the empire had been dethroned to Feretrius, son of Bernessa. She wrote and portrayed her visions on a long parchment that was used as the only guideline by the people in Meredith. What a peculiar to know a woman with her unsubstantiated words had stronger controlling power than the ministry.

My eyes were on a woman who was standing next to the window of my room. She was the daughter of Austrin, the head councilor of ministry. Her name was Phalosa. Her ageless face was the only beauty I’d ever seen. However, she had never let it touched by any man.

“How does it feel?” asked her.

“What?”

“When you go up to the altar, standing in front the scourger and feel every single whiplash touches your skin,” she explained her question vividly.

“I’m still here. When I go back and get better, you can ask me after while,” I answered.

“No, it’s been five years from the first time you were enthroned as a real Nemura, so you have been going through this four times before. How did it feel?” she forced me to remember.

“I don’t really remember,” I saw her waited for my further explanation. “I just remember my only prayer before I went up to the altar.”

“What was that?” asked Phalosa again. Her face seemed so curious, but her eyes were still too deep to be read.

“I wish there would be a whiplash by the scourger’s hand that could take my life away,” I said.

I guessed Phalosa could get what I was trying to explain. What I felt was much terrifying than people used to think. If Meredith cursed itself by sacrificing a mean birth child every year to Poseidon for keeping its naval force strongest in the eastern earth, Nemura was the other curse.

When I was a child, I only knew that I had no father, mother, even a name. They just called me Nemura the fourth, son of Meredith. But I never settled for it. My name was and would always be Logan. It was a giving from Phalosa when I was nine. She thought that name was really reflecting my hollow eyes. But view days ago, she said that I didn’t have them anymore. It might be the time which had opened my mind and eyes, so I could see the world through a wider sight. But how could that be? I didn’t even see the world for five years long.

People might think that my life was perfect. Sumptuousness, private dwelling in a part of the palace, manna, and glad rags, I might have them in my life but it made me no more than an inmate. It felt like serving a whole life sentence without standing a chance to know whether I was guilty. My life was taken completely five years ago when I reached nineteen, they ceremonially enthroned me as a real Nemura. It was the first time I learned about two great afflictions. The first was self-restraint, when no word with anybody except to the courtier, no walk outside the royal court, no future else but Nemura. The last one was pain. Every year, in a day that people called invulnerability ceremony, the scourger gave me whiplashes no less than my age number. I always remembered every single scratch of the steel rope on my skin, but it didn’t kill me no matter how much blood I dropped when they brought my body to my bed in my unconsciousness.

“What will you feel when you die?” asked Phalosa again.

I said, “I’ll feel so relief.”

She asked me why by her questioning look.

I always felt hard to figure out what was hiding behind her spoken words, but I was sure that Phalosa would never ask an empty question. I asked her back, “I will never die, will I? Why your question sounded rhyming to me?”

“Only death itself will show you the way,” she toned down.

“I hope,” I saw her defiantly and continued, “At least, there will always be a goddess who eases my wounds away.” It might sound like flattery, but it was real. She was a goddess who always saved my life, the only one who cured and took care of me thereupon the useless ceremony passed through. I needed her to know that everytime I got conscious from my dying in pain, all my wants to leave this life just disappeared when I saw her in my side.

 “Phalosa!” called an old lady whose face was very familiar ending up my discussion. Her presence was like a wind. We didn’t even hear the sound of her steps. “Your Father’s looking for you.”

Phalosa went out of my room without a word. Somehow I thought she didn’t really like most of the courtiers, including that woman.

“What brings you here, Belva?” I tried to hide my displeasure.

“You do know who you are. Do not try to cross your destiny!” she didn’t answer my question but I knew what she meant. She warned me about one of Nemura’s laws, never been touched by desire and affection.

I had nothing to say. Her words sounded like spell that locked my lips.

The oracle came closer to me and whispered, “I got a vision last night. This will be your last invulnerability ceremony. I have seen some premonitions toward a newborn of the next Nemura.”

“Who else would be a sacrifice?” I was sick of keeping my perversity.

“You mean ‘an honor’?” she interrupted. Her sharp eyes forced me to think the way she thought. “He will be born tonight, when demon star’s showing itself in the southernmost sky,” she continued and then walked out my door then.

I didn’t know what to think. It was a common law when a new Nemura was born, the former one would move to Olympus, a great temple on west hills that was built by Meredith as a libation. All the former Nemuras lived there and kept an eye on the empire. I should take that chance with a pleasure, for living in Olympus would be wonderful with no more restraint and annual tormenting, but I was thinking of another thing. I didn’t even believe in the immortality of mine as a Nemura. It had to be ended right there, right then.

“Have you been ready, Logan?” somebody asked me.

I knew that voice. No one called me that name except Phalosa. She brought me a robe to be worn in my last ceremony.

“Yes.” I answered. “Isn’t it wasting time to wear this and then remove it on the altar?”

Seemingly she paid no attention to what I said.

“Did Belva say something?” she was so serious in asking me.

“Yes, she told me that she has found the next Nemura,”

Unexpectedly, she held me in her embrace and dropped so many tears. I didn’t really know what happened. She might be filled with anguish because I would not live in the palace anymore. I comprehended what she felt. She had been mothering me since I was a baby and being the only one who knew me most.

“No, don’t cry, Phalosa!” I begged.

She let go of me ploddingly and told me that she could not be present at my last ceremony.

“I must go to get all I’ll need to salve your wounds,” said her afterwards.

She didn’t have to do that if only she knew what I had planned. She left my room when two empire guards came to bring me out to the ceremonial place at the heart of town.

***

“Welcome to the invulnerability ceremony of Nemura! It’s the fifth time of Nemura the fourth to prove his immortality in front of us. We must be grateful to our beloved emperors, Lord Feretrius, and his late Father, Lord Bernessa. In their wise leaderships, Meredith has already had four Nemuras to protect this empire till the end of time.”

I heard every word that came out loudly through the protocol’s mouth among the solitudes around the altar. And when he stopped, the people threw their plaudits with big enthusiasm in their mind.

“All of you, including people from the outer of Meredith, are welcome in this ceremony! Come, come and see this with your naked eyes then let your friends, families, and your beloved emperor know how deathless Nemura was made. And now is time for Nemura the fourth to have his own honor!” the protocol continued his speech fervently.

I would remember every step I took that led me to the altar that day. It would be different with the former ceremonies I had ever been through, for people and I would see and find out how deathless a Nemura was made.

The scourger seemed longing to see me. I stood right in front of him and turned around. My back was ready to meet his whip again.

“Splash! Splash! Splash!...” I had felt fifteen whiplashes on my back, yet I still had enough strength to stand up on my feet.

“Splash!” I got down on my knees at the sixteenth whiplash. I couldn’t really see the light, but I still had enough power to get up until the twenty-sixth whiplash scratched my neck. Then I was lying down.

I took out something that I carried on my footgear and gave it to him. It was a dirk.

“Use this to try me!” I gave him command,

“No,” he pushed it aside.

“You do believe that I can’t be dead, don’t you?” I tried to convince him.

“I… I believe,” the scourger was shuddered.

“Thrust it on my chest! Now!” I shouted.

He took back the dirk on the side part of the altar and finished me. Everything turned to dark and people sounded like storm.

***

I thought the sky was closer than it used to be. It made me see where the field of peacefulness lied. I felt an unspeakable pain on my chest. Then slowly an angle touched me by the hand. Unfortunately, the light was blurring my eyes from her beauty.

I hadn’t had enough strength yet to hear her spoken words. I closed my eyes again. The journey to nirvana felt like a deep sleep.

“Wake up…!” The voice of an angel awakened me. I thought she was the same angel who I saw before.

“Wake up! It’s been thirteen days, Logan. You slept too long,” 

I heard she breathed my name. I recognized her face, “Phalosa?”

“I am.” she whispered.

I forced my body to get up when I felt my chest was so much better, then I sat on the ground. I looked around and realized where Phalosa and I were. We were on the top of west hill, at the yard of Olympus. Then I understood why I felt closer to the sky.

“It’s a miracle! Zeus blessed you,” Phalosa was so grateful. “I still have much Aloes to salve your wounds,” she talked to me.

I was wondering why I was still alive and why Phalosa could always find a way to save my life. There were too much questions in my head and she should have the answers for me.

“How could you save me?” I asked.

“I knew what was in your mind, Logan. I saw what you hid on your footgear,” she answered. That was why she went somewhere to get Aloes in the day of my last ceremony, for it was the only nostrum for curing stub wound. “I told the courtiers that you have died. And by the command of Austrin, the ministry helped me to get your body out of the empire,” she continued.

“I need to know how it began. Tell me everything, Phalosa!” I insisted her.

She sat next to me and did what I asked.

“Do you know who was Nemura the third?”

“Iris,” I answered.

“And do you know who’s Iris?” her look changed into fierce.

I shook my head.

“My sister. She was my old sister,” said Phalosa. Her eyes seemed holding back the tears. “She’s just a woman! I saw her dying…” she cried.

I would never know it if she didn’t tell me. “Why did your father let it happen?” I thought her father who had the major power in ministry could guard his daughter against Belva’s divination.

“Austrin is not our father. We came from Assyria. Our parents were dead in a civil war. Iris, only her I got left. I was eight when fate led us to Meredith. Austrin took care of us and gave us love like a father, but he had no enough power to refuse Feretrius’ command,” said Phalosa.

“Unbelievable. A Nemura wasn’t born in Meredith?” I was really confused for all I knew, Nemura must be a son or daughter of Meredith.

“No, Iris was only a sacrifice. Nemura the third must not be her, but Quintina!” She didn’t look like whom I used to know. There were a lot of furies that I never saw in her deep eyes before.

“The Princess?” my confusion was getting more and more.

“Yes. Feretius couldn’t do anything but accepted when the oracle told him about the divination for his daughter. He wanted to refuse, but he couldn’t. Till a day before Quintina was enthroned as a real nemura, Feretrius didn’t have enough strength to see his only daughter in pain. He went begging to Belva, asked her to save his daughter’s life. His wish was granted. Belva went asking apologies to all of people in Meredith and said that she was wrong in seeing the premonitions of who was foredoomed as Nemura the third, and easy to let her forgiven. Then Iris was chosen to replace the princess’ position,” she tried to be strong in telling me.

It sounded like calamity. “Why didn’t Feretrius just order Belva to end up foredooming nemura? He could do that,” I had a notion.

“He was fright. The emperors of Thorac and Honuran have been bowing down under Meredith’s control for several years because they were afraid of the immortality of Nemura. Feretrius couldn’t imagine what would happen if they knew that they have been befooled all along.”

“You mean Nemura is only a hokum?” I tried to conclude her explanations.

Phalosa did not straightly answering that question, but she explained, “It’s all begun at one’s ambition. Bernessa. He wanted to take over the whole eastern earth. He ordered Belva to create a great divination that could symbolize the regalia of Meredith. And the oracle created a clan named Nemura that means immortality. People would believe her, for Belva oracle was renowned in the eastern earth and she was good in planning everything. She held the invulnerability ceremonies to convince people that Nemura could not be killed.”

Thus I had a reason to dislike her all along. “All her visions were only lies, weren’t they?” I said then to clarify.

“Belva does have those visions. In her restrictiveness, she sees what would happen in the future like birth, disaster, and death. When her vision toward somebody turns to dark, she assumed that death was above his head. Do you remember the last thing she told you?” asked Phalosa.

“A new Nemura will be born.”

“That was the same thing my sister heard from her before she executed her third invulnerability ceremony. Then she died. At the same time, she used all her vision to look for a strongest newborn man or woman in Meredith to be the next Nemura, and she found you.”

Then I knew why Phalosa cried over me when Belva told me that thing. She thought that death was above my head.

“How could you know all of this?” I was gaping at her.

Phalosa took something from her backside. It was a parchment.

“I stole this from Belva. All people use it as their guide, but no one ever read it. She wrote everything in this parchment, including her pleasure to place Nemura’s ashes in Olympus,” said her.

It all flabbergasted me. I could not stop thinking how it could happen. My thinking was broken off when my ears caught uproar. It should be coming from Meredith.

Phalosa stood up to see it. “Look over! The time has come,” she uttered.

I followed her and saw what happened in Meredith. “The cavaliers from Thorac and Honuran. They’re coming to judge Meredith.”

“Two doves have brought the messages,” Phalosa threw a smile.

I really knew what she talked about. She should let Thorac and Honuran know the truth by sending a messenger to each emperor.

She seemed so blissful to see Nemesis answered her prayers. She said, “I love to see the world from here. I love to see fire on Meredith’s sky.”

“I’d love to live and die beside you, Phalosa,” I told her following her rhyme and looked at her eyes at the same time.

She looked me back and said nothing. Then she took my palm and placed it on her cheek.

I read something on her deep eyes, she would follow me to whatever ends.