On the first work platform was a selection of tree limbs, and on the other a pile of obsidian. Asil feigned the pulling of a bow, and when finished, held up three fingers with a smile. Ott thought back to the three men at Asil’s hearth earlier in the day and understood. It was tools and bows in return for food and the dwellings. When Ott looked back to Asil and Ece, they were both smiling. In one day, a bond had been forged.
With the smell of burning hearths floating on the afternoon breeze, Asil gave a final wave in the direction of each dwelling. He and Ece turned to depart, but after only a few steps Asil pulled to a stop and stared ahead in thought. He walked back and faced Ott. With quiet deliberation, he extended his right arm and rolled his hand over, palm facing up.
Ott stared down at the lemniscate. Excitement and confusion meshed in his mind as Cha, Graf, and Yaan gathered in front of Asil and exposed their palms. They all understood, but it was Ece who galvanized the shared revelation. She exposed her marked palm and in a voice barely above a whisper said, “Barjeen.”
54
Days turned to weeks as Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan settled into the rhythm of life within the city. They crafted bows, arrows, and assorted hand tools and knives that quickly became some of the most desired and traded items. The entire city existed and thrived on agriculture and domesticated animals, but gained even more wealth from trade with other villages and cities along the southern coast. Within the city, everyone traded among themselves in a common barter system, and as time passed, people showed up to trade with Ott and the others. They brought grain, fruit, nuts, and meat to trade for the tools, arrows, spearpoints, and especially the bows crafted by Ott. Even though the domesticated sheep, goats, and cattle were the primary source of meat, hunting was still required to guarantee enough meat for the entire city without depleting the livestock.
Ott and the others spent more and more time in the company of Asil and Ece, often conversing in Kalpeoni. Although shrouded in mystery, their bond was common and fully realized. With the language barrier overcome, Asil and Ece explained that they had lived and grown to adults in a village somewhere on this very plain. They knew this because their earliest memories were of the same smoldering volcanic peaks that loomed in the distance. They had worked the fields and tended the herds back then, but the village was small. All the dwellings were on the ground, and predators were a constant threat. It was after they had accepted each other as mates that they were first taken to what Ece called the place above. When they were returned to the village, it was considerably larger, and dwellings were being constructed on top of each other above the plain. They came to realize, like Ott and the others, that they were different, and as generations passed, they remained the same. They lived on as the city grew larger and higher.
Ece pointed to a section of wall that faced the hearth. On its surface was row after row of a strange symbol. The etchings were shaped like triangles with the representation of a face in the middle. Ece turned her gaze to the symbols for a long, silent moment, and then looked to Asil with an enigmatic smile. Asil nodded, and with everyone’s attention, Ece explained that the symbols were a method she and Asil had devised to mark how long they had lived in the city. She gestured to the symbol at the highest point on the slab. Shortly after they had been returned to the city, a child was born. As was custom, the parents carried the baby through the city for everyone to see. As the parents approached Asil and Ece’s hearth, they held the child high, and the gesture had sparked an idea. They would mark the birth of the child as their own time of arrival. That day, Asil had created the first symbol on the slab. They had watched that baby grow from a child through adolescence to adulthood, and finally age to become one of the city elders.
Ece paused, looking contemplative as she stepped closer to the wall and brushed her hand over the symbols. “All of these markings represent people Asil and I have known from when they were born until they died of old age. This is the first symbol Asil made.” She pointed to the etching at the top. “When the man represented by this symbol died, the next symbol was etched with the next new birth in the city. Each of these symbols represents a lifetime Asil and I have lived in Catal. Here they are symbols on a wall, but to us they are people we have known and lived amongst for their entire lives. I can put a name and a face to each of these etchings, but like you,” she pointed to Ott, “I know we will continue as we always have until Barjeen returns.”
Ott and the others stared at the slab. It was emblazoned with over thirty symbols.
Ott fully understood the reverence the city held for Asil and Ece. From the youngest children capable of understanding, to the oldest living elders who had witnessed it, Asil and Ece had always existed and never changed. They represented the enigmatic embodiment of a living myth passed from generation to generation.
Several weeks later, Ott was fashioning a bow at his work area. It was a sun-drenched morning, and the city was buzzing with the usual activity of people walking about as craftsmen busied themselves at their work areas. In larger areas, women and girls worked at looms weaving sheets of cloth for clothing and trade with other cities and villages. Outside the walls along streams and ponds, men produced mud bricks for the ongoing construction and repair of the ancient city.
Breaking from his work, Ott stretched and stepped to the parapet at the edge of the wall. He looked out over the rolling plain, where he spotted two men tending a herd of goats. As he watched, one of the men pumped a staff over his head in greeting. It was Graf, who had been learning the ways of the animals for several weeks. With a smile, Ott waved back and then looked down to an area closer to the wall where men, women, and older children were working in walled garden areas full of vegetables and other edible plants. Adjacent to the gardens, several acres of wheat and other grains shimmered and waved in the gentle breeze. As Ott peered out over the bounty of the city, he thought back to the other places and other times. He realized this place was the best he had ever known.
Ott was snapped from his thoughts by a commotion behind him. A small group of people was weaving across the walkway. Everyone greeted them with smiles and laughter. A man and women led the group, and the man carried an oblong basket containing a newborn child swaddled in bright red-and-white cloth. The man and woman were announcing the newborn child to the people of the city.
As the procession approached Ott, Cha emerged from their dwelling and joined him. The man stopped in front of Ott and extended the child. Ott smiled and nodded as Cha placed her hand on the child’s chest. She wondered if she would ever have a child of her own. The infant grasped her thumb and held tight for a second before letting go with a squeal. As the group broke with laughter and continued along the walkway, Ott thought for a moment and then retrieved a scraping tool and climbed down the ladder to the dwelling. He stepped to the far wall and began etching. In a few moments, he had fashioned the shape of the basket with a small face in it. As with Asil and Ece, the symbol would mark the first generation of people he and the others would know in the city of Catal. The next symbol would not be etched until the infant they had just greeted had lived its entire life and passed in old age. Ott stared at the symbol and wondered how many more he would put with it.
55
Time passed quickly as Ott and the others immersed themselves in the activities of the prosperous city. Ott crafted bows and arrows and, along with Graf, took part in the regular hunts for wild game that augmented the supply from the livestock. Cha spent time with Ece learning how to prepare various plant and root medicines, while Yaan perfected the use of the loom to a point where each day she turned out clothing for their own use and extra for trade.
Except for joining Asil’s trade expeditions to outlying villages and the coastal towns farther south, Ott and the others lived in the city’s everyday rhythm. With quiet appreciation, they realized they had been brought to this place to learn more of what Barjeen had called “the way.”
The cooperative nature of the people of Catal was woven into the
very fabric of their society by an unspoken communal ethos that had evolved over millennia. The entire population worked and lived in a unified accord that benefited every individual and the city. Specialized skills were honed and passed from generation to generation within family units. Food was plentiful due to the temperate climate and the skill of those who tended the herds and raised the crops. No gods by name or image were recognized, praised, or worshipped, but certain events were revered and celebrated. Family processions weaved their way through the rooftops to present newborns. Feasts were held at planting and harvest times, and at special times like the arrival of trading parties from the villages and coastal cities.
Of all the ceremonies, celebrations, and rituals Ott and the others experienced at Catal, the burial ritual came as the biggest surprise. It was unlike anything they had ever seen. Although they became accustomed to it, the first time they witnessed it remained profound to them.
They had only been in the city for a few weeks and were seated around their large hearth on a warm morning. As usual, the work areas and common areas were busy, but as Ott looked about, he noticed people lining up along the main walkway that started at the very front of the city and wound its way to the distant far end. Curiosity piqued, he made his way to the edge of the walkway and asked a woman what was happening. The woman explained that a man had died during the night and his body was being brought through the city to the place where his spirit would be freed to the sky and his remains prepared for burial. As the procession came into view, Ott recognized the woman at the front. It was Ece, but she was adorned in a way he had never seen her. She wore a white, ankle-length tunic, but draped over her shoulders was a cape of iridescent black feathers. The cape was shaped to give the appearance of shrouded wings. Directly behind Ece, four men shouldered a platform carrying the body of an old man. The body was shrouded in a white cloth with only the head exposed. Behind the men carrying the body walked friends and relatives with somber faces and saddened eyes. Out of respect, many others joined as the procession moved forward.
Wherever it passed, people became quiet and activity ceased. By the time they reached the far wall, the entire city was draped in an eerie silence. In the quiet of the moment, two men carrying large, hide-covered drums made their way to the front and stood at the sides of the walkway. As Ece stepped forward, the drummers began a slow cadence, and everyone moved ahead in reverent silence. Ece continued as the walkway angled down to the lowest level and opened to a wide area that ended at the farthest end of the city and the parapet that rose above the wall. She stepped out to a wooden ramp that angled out and down to the plain below. With the drums beating and the crowd trailing behind, Ece led them over a well-worn path that led to an area of low, isolated hills.
They reached the first hill and followed the path around to a place obscured from view from the upper reaches of the city. Rounding the rim of the hill, the procession came to a large, rectangular building that rose in the center of a wide, circular clearing. The building was constructed of the same material as the city and gleamed a pale yellow in the bright sunlight. The walls were four times the height of a man and solid, with no windows anywhere. In the center of the wall facing the procession was a large opening with a heavy slab door pushed to the side. The path led to the entrance, which Ece led the procession through.
Ott stepped through the entrance and swept his eyes over the interior. It was empty except for numerous rectangular slaps that rested on short leg supports at knee height. The floor itself consisted of a thick layer of rust-brown sand that appeared to have been raked smooth. Most of the interior was bathed in bright sunlight that flooded in from the open expanse above. The building had no roof whatsoever. As Ott peered out at the sky, he noticed it was dotted with black-winged vultures wheeling and swirling on the thermals that rose from the plain.
A steady stream of people flowed into the building and positioned themselves against the walls as Ece and the men carrying the body proceeded to one of the slabs near the center. They removed the body from the platform and placed it on the slab jutting up from the sand floor. The men ran strips of hide under the slab and over the body and carefully knotted the strips. With the body secure, the men retreated to a place on the wall, leaving Ece standing alone over the body.
As the drummers resumed a soft, low cadence, everyone in the building uttered in low voices personal remembrances and words of respect for the dead man. When they finished, everyone remained still. Only the sound of the drums continued, steady and low. With everyone watching, Ece knelt while raising the feather-covered appendages of her cape above and then lowering them to cover the body. She held that position as everyone filed out of the building.
When the last person stepped out, the drummers stopped and Ece rose and looked up. The entire upper edge of the walls was ringed with vultures, while others circled above in a spiraling descent. Ece lowered her eyes and walked to the entrance. As she stepped out, the door was slid into place and the vultures flapped down to the sand. Heads bobbing and squawking through curved yellow beaks, the birds fluttered around the body. By midafternoon, nothing would remain but bones and the blood soaking into the sand.
Days later, when the bones had been picked clean by the vultures and bleached white by the sun, they would be secured in a folded woven mat and placed in a shallow hole in the floor of the dwelling in which the deceased had lived. The hole would then be plastered over. From the deepest, now empty levels of the first dwellings of the ancient city to the current sprawling rooftop, every dwelling contained bones. The remains of everyone who had ever lived in the city were preserved in the city to be respected.
And so Ott, Cha, Graf, and Yaan began to learn the way of Catal. It was a city of people who celebrated life, venerated their ancestors, and lived with a common thread of respect that connected everyone. The fact that Ott and the others did not age was accepted the same way it always had been with Asil and Ece. With each new generation, the children and younger people viewed them as respected adults, but as those younger people grew into adulthood, they looked to Ott, Cha, Asil, Ece, Graf, and Yaan with heightened respect tinged with confusion. And as each generation neared the end of their lives, they thought of them with a sense of unknowing wonder and quiet envy.
56
Many years later, the rising sun glinted above the eastern horizon with the promise of another warm day. Ott and Graf were making final preparations for their journey to Antakya, the city by the sea to the south. They would be traveling with the large group assembling on the plain beneath the front wall. Cha and Yaan would not be traveling with them. They had left the previous day with another party to trade cloth and clothing with a smaller city to the north. Ott and Graf had traveled to Antakya more times than they could remember, but they always enjoyed the experience. The sea city was large and consisted of hundreds of one-story plaster-and-wood structures clustered together in the hills overlooking the common areas and structures that sprawled below closer to the shore. Ott and Graf looked forward to the customary feast held to welcome the traders from Catal.
Of all the goods obtained at Antakya, one thing was most desirable to the people of Catal: salt. Its value as a food preservative and essential nutrient made it indispensable. The precious mineral was abundant in the dry tidal basins in and around the coastal city, but scarce in any amounts on the plains. Salt was responsible for the regular visits. What the people of Antakya wanted most in exchange was the grains grown in the fertile soil of the northern plains. The grain could be stored for long periods, and the breads and flat cakes made from it were a welcome addition to a diet consisting mostly of fish and the few vegetables that could be grown in the seaside climate. But, aside from its use as an additional food source, the grain was desired because from it the people of Antakya concocted a heady fermented brew that was enjoyed at all celebrations. The grain was as desirable to the people of Antakya as the salt was essential to the people of Catal.
Ott stepped down the la
dder to the interior of the dwelling to retrieve a second bow and a small pouch of additional strings. He pulled the bow from where it leaned in the far corner and glanced over the symbols he had etched to represent the generations that had passed since their arrival. They now totaled twenty-two.
With pouches packed and bows slung over their backs, Ott and Graf made their way to the front of the city, climbed over the parapet, and scurried down the ladder to the ground, where the trading party was fully assembled and rippling with excitement. At the head of the caravan, people chatted and examined each other’s trade goods. Farther back, men and boys flanked a large herd of goats. Behind the animals stretched a long procession of more people standing three and four abreast, each carrying multiple pouches. Next in line came a herd of more than fifty cattle, each secured with multiple sacks of grain. They would plod along guided by men leading them with straps attached to nose rings. At Antakya the grain would be emptied into storage bins and the sacks refilled with precious salt.
Ott and Graf wound their way through the milling people to the front of the caravan to wait for Asil. A few moments later, he appeared on the parapet and twisted onto the ladder. He climbed down, and the caravan quieted as everyone turned their attention to him. With waved greetings, the crowd parted to give Asil a clear path forward. After greeting all the men at the front, he quickly walked to where he could see down the entire length of the caravan. Satisfied everything was in order, he pointed to a large group of men who stood off to the side midway down the caravan. The men stared back as Asil waved his outstretched palm. At the signal, the men pumped their bows above their heads and dispersed along the entire flank of the caravan, where they would keep pace while watching for predators and any animals that might attempt to break from the caravan.
The Way of the Seed_Earth Spawn of Kalpeon Page 18