A Formal Inquiry into the Existence of Magic

Chapter 5 - The River Festival (cont.)

I'll get back to the River Festival in just a second, but first let's talk about our great mystery from last week: the etymology of veins of gold.

I asked my linguistics professor about it, and he said that the phrase actually came from Marinthian mythology rather than Anumite. I didn't dare ask for any further clarity lest I arouse suspicion that I have an interest in flimflam, but I sure wanted to. The Marinthians and Anumites both believing their gods had golden blood is a most interesting coincidence. In my very first entry I mentioned that there were similarities in tales of magic from cultures thousands of miles apart. Now we can add golden blood to that list.

I'll explore that more later when I have time to delve into the full mytholgy of Marinth, but for now, let's pick up where we left off with the golden bracelets. Yes, they symbolized Tukamen's golden blood. But they also had long-lasting consequences for those involved in the festival.

If they were fake...well, that was one of the highest crimes a person could commit. It simply wasn't done. But on the few occasions that it was, the perpetrator was promptly branded, castrated, and sent to the mines.

So yes, they definitely had long lasting consequences for those criminals. But the real ones did too. To illustrate their importance, allow me to share a passage from the Keshat's One of Ankti's One Hundred:

The festival of Ankti stretched into its third week. The canal had still not flooded, and with every woman that ascended the temple stairs, the crowd grew more and more restless. The smell of date mead and the specter of famine hung heavy in the hot summer air. Over the past few days, the mood around the canal had quickly shifted from revelry to revolt. The women parading down the street dressed as Ankti had become an afterthought...

...until she entered Alqari's Canal. The giant scorpion pulling her chariot was twice the size of any I'd ever seen, and the chariot was made of solid gold and adorned with enough gems to buy three armies of slaves. But the beauty of the chariot was nothing compared to the beauty of the woman riding on it. Her hair was spun with gold and pulled into a tall mohawk, her ears were adorned with the finest sapphires, and her white linen dress was impossibly thin and delicate. I heard one woman nearby remark that she would not be surprised if it was Ankti herself. Indeed, the flawless features of the mask of Ankti had never looked so natural on a mere mortal.

For a moment the entire city went silent at the sight of her. Then it was chaos. The drummers beat their drums with a vigor that had been absent since the first week of the festival. Young men yelled boasts of how they would get past this monstrous scorpion. Loudest of all though was the bookies. How many bracelets would she earn? How many men would succeed? How many would be Tukamens, and how many would be Nairos? Would the river rise during her dance? You name it, there was a bookie there willing to give you odds on it and take your money.

As the woman danced on her golden chariot, gyrating her hips to the drum beat, my pulse quickened. Was this my moment?

I had been preparing for the festival for years. I had spent countless hours studying statues of Tukamen and trying to craft my costume in his image. The mask had been supplied by the temple, of course, but the rest was my own creation. I had measured and cut the linen for my skirt. I'd gathered rocks and stuck them to my shoulder with date palm sap to make Tukamen's iconic stone shoulder. And I had even paid the goldsmith to let me hammer my golden bracelet into a perfect circle.

Practicing to get past the giant scorpion had taken even longer. I felt like I was ready, but I had only practiced evading normal sized scorpions. Giant scorpions were an entirely different beast - forgive the pun. Their claws were the size of a man, and rather than a painful pinch, they'd snap your leg in two. Or if you were really unlucky, they'd get you with their stinger and send you on an early trip with Katra to the afterlife.