by Ilil Arbel
The Marradian phrase is peysha kan-ti chazzari: “The world is just what it is.”
Until Cimric found his mother.
Imperial Academy officials half-hoped that the volatile Cimric would have a final meltdown and insist an Anunnaki kneel before the God Cimric. That would end his career, probably his life, and give them an excuse to lodge a complaint and demand some form of reparation. Between the two cousins, life was sacred. Marradians would kill easily, but never an Anunnaki. Fear, respect, some ancient connection of their blood, made their relationship fundamentally different.
But instead, Cimric thrived aboard the Orbiter 8. As he would later write:
Something about being near Nibiru touched something deep within me that I couldn’t quite sort out. A vague reassurance swept into my twin heart chambers. When we’d be visited by Anunnaki officials, I wasn’t angered by their arrogance and haughtiness. If anyone else had treated me like that, I would’ve rammed my sword up their dayrab. I didn’t understand, even as a God, what was going on, though, as a God, I knew I would.
As part of scout duty aboard the Orbiter, the younger officers like Cimric were periodically assigned to visit Nibiru. The Anunnaki were and are quite transparent in dealings with the outside world; they don’t think non-Anunnaki are capable of grasping their ideas anyway. An official calmly led the Marradian surface detail through the capital city. Outside a spice delicacy shop, Cimric was suddenly unable to move.
Truly frozen, he could barely speak, his lips the only ambulatory part of his body. His mind, however, swirled with impulses he couldn’t understand.
What kind of God are you?
The Anunnaki Minister Avvazert immediately used a mind grasp to pull Cimric out of this spell, but failed, setting off alarms.
No one cast magic on Nibiru but the Anunnaki.
Look at you.
A detachment of Anunnaki impulse bearers tried lifting Cimric, but he wouldn’t budge.
If you are who you are then be my son.
Seized by the jolt of pure unfamiliar emotional adrenaline – affection – Cimric collapsed.
Immediately returned to the ship in case the Anunnaki attempted trickery under the guise of medical assistance – implanting emotional trackers called Latish was common in those days of the mutual suspicions – Cimric tried processing the experience.
It could only be one person who contacted him. His mother. That foul Jessupian plow horse who had abandoned him. The nerve, the effrontery to question his holiness. He was the God Cimric. How dare she?
Cimric roiled himself into a rage. He would go back to Nibiru. He would find that three-pronged sand slime and show her what a God was.
The Birth of the Schlem
With travel strictly regulated, Cimric needed a viable excuse for both his Marradian superiors and the Anunnaki. He insisted the Anunnaki had interfered in his Schlem, the Marradian meditations. Now few Marradians meditated. For many, it was a joke; how can you waste time on such a passive act when there were inferior beings to conquer? Yet the Schlem had existed since time immemorial, believed part of an earlier tribal world which didn’t survive the greatness of The Boot.
Even Cimric’s ranking officers were a bit baffled by this claim, debating whether to bother going to a bureaucratic war with the Anunnaki over something barely registering as a slight. Cimric scolded them bitterly for their cowardice, nearly coming to blows and, for a day, dividing the ship between those who would defend Marradian honor over an ancient ritual and those who would rather bow their necks.
Cimric prevailed. He demanded the right to pilot his own ship to the surface, where he was met by a bemused Anunnaki low level official curious to see how a Marradian handled introspection; to the Anunnaki, that a Marradian could ever muster an intelligent thought was startling.
Now Cimric had absolutely no idea what went into the Schlem. Fortunately, no one else did, either. He would unwittingly create the first prayer of his deity.
Cimric brought down a packet of Waz tea leaves and a fistful of Delvecchian radishes, which he scattered on a thin yellow mat he’d stolen from one of the bodily waste sheds aboard ship. As the Anunnaki official watched, Cimric knelt on the mat and chanted gibberish. The Anunnaki edged closer, Cimric gaining in feverish obeisance before sagging forward, forehead to the ground, very still.
Curious, the Anunnaki poked Cimric and received a blade across his throat. Cimric started out the door and then froze again.
Is that how a God behaves?
This time, Cimric kept calm, his mind a long, barely lit tunnel.
A God decides how a God decides, he transmitted. Laughter danced in his mind, infuriating Cimric.
That is not a God. That is a child.
Yours, I believe.
Yes, my son.
My only parent is the blood of my people.
Cimric doubled over from the intensity of Eezeat’s laugh.
So arrogant, so stupid, so disappointing.
For the first time in his life, Cimric held his tongue. Perhaps you’d like to see just how disappointing I am.
I already do. But that is not the same as seeing you.
There have been numerous versions of what happened next. Cimric initially painted a glorious picture of fearless bravery, skirting the pursuit of the Anunnaki until he found his mother. As Cimric aged, his story warmed and he gave Eezeat more credit. The beloved Janna Bedub, believed the greatest of Cimrician scholars, offers a more subdued and balanced story in The First Book of the Schlem.
Cimric panicked by killing the Anunnaki. He was an untrained soldier in his first situation where force might be required and instead of bargaining or simply ignoring the official, he reacted like a common cadet. Now that he’d taken a life on Nibiru, about as serious a violation of Anunnaki law as an outsider could commit, he had two choices: escape back to the ship or continue to Eezeat.
That Eezeat could be just another voice in his crowded symphony of mental sounds never struck Cimric. Everything burnishing his image was immediately accepted. He opened his mind and allowed himself to dash down the back streets, avoiding detection until he came to a thatched hut. Clearly something was guiding him. Cimric would later claim he had mastered a version of Anunnaki tracking, which is possible. More likely Eezeat knew the secret from living amid the Anunnaki.
Eezeat wore a simple cerulean blue dress, frayed at the shoulders. Her single knot of grey hair dangled in a pinna, the traditional Marradian hair gathering. As Cimric entered, Eezeat continued preparing a shank bone of a Jessupian plow horse, braising the wisps of meat with juice, over and over again.
Cimric’ first words to his mother were, “You gave me up so you could make a stew of bone?”
“No, my son, so you could.” Eezeat handed him the large shank and began chopping greens. Cimric disdainfully threw the bone across the room.
“I am not your servant.”
“Nor am I, yours.”
“At least if you were a servant, you would be something to me. Look at you.” Cimric darkened, embarrassed as if the entire crew of a battle cruiser were watching. “You’re disgusting.”
With that, Cimric tore down half of Eezeat’s dress. The old woman paused and continued chopping. Incensed, Cimric ripped the other sleeve. Eezeat chopped.
“You have nothing to say for yourself?” he shouted.
“Other than my love for you?“
“What love? You gave me up. You didn’t want me.”
“No, my son. I couldn’t care for you. I am not well. I never was. Your birth was an accident.”
That admission infuriated Cimric. “An accident. Like dropping food?” He swept away the greens onto the floor.
Eezeat sighed sadly and slowly gathered the vegetables back onto the table. “Yes. Life is that frail.”
Cimric stared a moment. “I killed an Anunnaki. I know about the frailty of life.”
“Frailty is not death. That’s a part of it all. The single moments that we forget, that is the f
railty. You cannot understand that because of your anger and pain. When you can, then you will be a real God.”
Cimric pressed the blood-stained blade against Eezeat’s throat. “Perhaps you should become part of it all now, Mother.”
Eezeat shrugged. “I was no use to you before and I am no use to you now. I saw what you are. It saddens me.”
Cimric pressed the blade and blood dripped down Eezeat’s throat. “What do you know of my pain?”
“Everything. Every time you cry, I feel it. Every time you rage, I feel it. It has aged me, but I hope someday you will smile because I would like to feel that.”
Cimric swallowed. “What do I have to smile about?”
“Only you can answer that. Until you do, you can’t understand yourself. If you can’t understand yourself, you can’t understand others. How can you expect them to follow you, to listen to you, to believe in you?”
Cimric moved the blade from his mother’s throat. “What if I do, and they still don’t believe?”
“Then you’re not a God.”
Cimric had no answer. His great fear, his insecurity, lay exposed. Eezeat returned to chopping the greens. Cimric picked up the shank bone.
“What do I do? Or am I not a God if I ask a question?”
“You’re just not a cook,” Eezeat said with a smile, Cimric slowly joining in before he resumed his brusque shield.
When Cimric formalized the religion twelve years later as Chancellor, he came to the ceremony in a simple cerulean blue dress to honor his mother, and atone for his wretched behavior. The wearing of the Eezeat by Marradian males became a tradition.
The Birth of Kiluna Kalana
Cimric returned to the ship a changed man. The arrogance was still there, the anger, disdain – a Marradian didn’t lightly discard such traits. But seeing his Mother had given him a sense of direction, a sense of destiny outside himself.
And he took to wearing simple blue dresses. After a day, the exasperated officers aboard ship threw Cimric into the holding cell when he refused duty in traditional uniforms. A couple fellow inmates tried abusing Cimric for his new clothing and he promptly beat them senseless. When the ship landed back on Marradia, Cimric was hauled before the Tribunal for disciplinary action.
Of all the stories of Cimric’s rise to glory, this is among the most delightful. Again, let Janna Bedub tell it from The First Book.
The Tribunal consisted of three old and tired soldiers bitter that their days of glory had come and gone. All they had left was tormenting young officers. If someone were unfortunate enough to be tried for an infraction, it was commonly expected he’d receive a disproportionate punishment.
No one had ever been brought back from Nibiru orbiting duty in a holding cell for wearing a simple blue dress. Try as the Seniors did, they found no guiding precedent. A missing button or dully shined shoes didn’t quite make it. In a way, this gave the nasty old Keluvian curs’ vicious latitude. They could pretty much decide whatever they wanted.
Cimric sat quietly, unusually so, as the charges were recited: Failure to wear proper uniform; disobedience to superior officers; jeopardizing ship’s security, along with about a dozen other violations. When the Seniors, who took turns listing the charges, were finished, they asked Cimric if he had any explanation for his behavior.
All he said was, “Kiluna Kalana.”
Now this quite threw the Seniors, who frowned and muttered while Cimric smiled and adjusted the strap on his dress.
“What does that mean?” Barked one of the Seniors.
“Kiluna Kalana means just that. Kiluna Kalana.”
“Which means?”
Cimric sighed with smug patience. “What is meant.”
“By what?”
“What is meant.”
“Meant how?”
“Just meant.”
The Seniors grew even angrier.
“Are you mocking us while sitting there in a dress?”
“It is called an Eezeat. After my mother.”
The Seniors grew into the opinion that Cimric was quite insane.
“So you Kiluna Kalana in an Eezeat as an officer in the Imperial Marradian Fleet?”
Cimric shook his head at the Seniors’ stupidity, which only infuriated them. “Regulation 32.”
This gave the Seniors pause.
“Would you like me to recite it?” Cimric asked.
“Yes,” one of the Seniors said, sneering.
Cimric shrugged. “Regulation 32 says that a junior officer may, on his own initiative, create a system for consideration to supplant or complement existing systems, which must be considered by senior command.”
The Seniors were very unhappy. One asked: “Are you suggesting that Marradian High Command should consider allowing officers to wear dresses. Pardon me, Eezeats?”
“No,” Cimric said as if the Seniors were Marradian sand slime. “They should be allowed to think. When was the last time anyone submitted an idea under Regulation 32?”
The Senior didn’t know. They didn’t care. They just wanted to canoodle Cimric.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I have some earrings to buy.”
Cimric strolled out of the room while the Seniors gaped, astonished.
Cimric spent nine months in jail before being released back into the Fleet. He never wore a dress on board again. But his reputation slowly spread. He had taken on the Seniors. He had voiced a different thought. It was un-Marradian, yet if it was courageous and daring and a bit impulsive, wasn’t that the definition of a Marradian?
Or Kiluna Kalana?
Cimric developed a following among the junior officers. While many traditionalists dismissed him, overlooking brutal hazing that cost Cimric his left earlobe (which would eventually produce the fabled phrase “Cimric’s Earlobe”), his fame grew. He was a different Marradian, part warrior, part priest. He saw something others didn’t. This time it was a point outside his own arrogance. Not that he suddenly developed gentle manners. He was still an officer in the Imperial Marradian Fleet. He still believed himself a God.
Now, others did.
The Turning Point at C’ara Tov
In the recent recorded Marradian history encompassing the past 15,000 Earth years, the Empire, indeed, the Marradian people, have encountered three true crises that threatened their gains if not, ultimately, posed a threat to their very survival.
The first was the break with their cousins, the Anunnaki. To use familiar fictitious comparisons, the Marradians and the Anunnaki are like Vulcans and Romulans, biological cousins. Marradians and Anunnaki are different physically, the Anunnaki far better looking and more robust.
But once, they both lived on Nibiru. The Marradians, named for an ancient tribal leader called Marrad, chafed at the superior elite class that comprised the cult of Anunnaki and openly revolted for, ironically given their penchant for despotism, more freedom, a form of democracy if you will.
The Marradians lost and were banished from Nibiru, sent to a distant planet called Kushlev, where millions of them settled and began again. However, the Anunnaki had other ideas and, using their vast fleet, laid siege to what was now Marradia, determined to continue the oppression.
As the Marradians steadily starved to death, refusing to return to second class status, they were stunned to learn that there was a revolt on Nibiru. Factions there were appalled at the brutality laid upon their cousins and the overall corruption in their world. The dictators were overthrown and what we now know as the benevolent, cerebral Anunnaki race evolved.
The siege of Marradia ended and the Treaty of Gabillah was signed. The Anunnaki had not, overnight, quite become that magnanimous and insisted that, should Marradia ever cross the line and become a threat to Galactic peace, they had the right to institute a guardianship over the planet. The phrase “threat to Galactic peace” was broadly applied given Marradia’s ruthless Imperial Empire and the many races they crushed.
The second grave threat was the War over Earth some 4,000
years ago. Battling to control the uncivilized humans and establish alien primacy, Marradia and Anunnaki clashed over the skies, using nuclear weapons and destroying several Earth cities including Sodom and Gomorrah. The war spread back to the native planets, with an exchange of fusion bombs exterminating a number of Marradian colonies as well as one of Nibiru’s moons.
Another peace was found, barely staving off inter-Galactic war.
The third crisis involved Cimric. Rather, made Cimric who he became, along with the religion, the mythology, reshaping Marradia forever.
C’ara Tov had always been an unruly colony. A succession of barbaric tribes had often attacked the Marradian outposts, which earned the people bloodthirsty retaliation. The cycle of uprisings, reprisals and uneasy calm continued for centuries until the rise of Sacha Nan Conn. A beautiful and brilliant young woman with startling purple hair cascading down to her waist, Conn united the 18 tribes of C’ara Tov and, after a brief, concerted assault, drove the Marradians off the planet.
Despite the surprising defeat, the Imperial High Command was confident of taking the planet back and eradicating the troublemakers once and for all. Now a Second Commander posted on Varnishka K at the edge of the C’ara Tov solar system, Cimric had a very different view.
He and his inner circle considered Conn a genuine threat. He understood her religious fervor on an emotional, if not entirely intellectual level.
Conn and her people believed in the Koinu, or United Self, a vision which fundamentally believed that all energy in the Universe could be channeled through the individuals if they subscribed to the acceptance of the Greater Knowing, their God, Poinu.
As someone who believed he was a Poinu, without any of the doctrines and rituals or even justifications, this was fascinating. Cimric knew the power of belief; Marradians were too contemptuous. A fervor which could oust the powerful Imperial Fleet from one planet could do so on many worlds.