Chapter 38: Day 37

Day 37,

Got up on time today.  I think.  Kala did a good job with these alterations.  They fit well but still maintain that antique academic aesthetic that the old archivist seemed to have embraced.

 

I thought I’d be going back to the house tonight, but it looks like that won’t be the case.  Judging by the current moon phase, it will probably be a mist night soon and the Archivist needs to be on hand when to record funeral proceedings.

But I’m getting ahead of myself again.  Let us return to chronological order.

I’ve already spent much of my day doing the official recording of the race between the feuding siblings for the archive, so I’ll spare the detailed retelling of it all and stick to my personal experience of the event.

There was already a crowd when I got there this morning, but I was recognized enough that people let me through and pointed the way to where Pat and Vernon were going over the agreed upon rules one last time with the siblings.  A footrace starting and ending at the Village docks making one full widdershins circuit along the island’s main road.  No fighting or otherwise physically interfering with one another.  Witnesses stationed along the road to watch both for foul play (whether in the form of interfering with one another or cutting through the center of the island) and for the health of the runners, providing food and water (the race was expected to take several hours).  The sibling to return first would inherit their father’s artifact.  If either sibling was found to be breaking rules they forfeit their claim.  If both cheat, the artifact goes to the Catacombs with their father when he passes.

Another man in a dapper coat like Vernon’s was there too.  His mentor.  Martin, I think his name was.  That said, this seemed to be Vernon’s “case” so to speak so he was letting the younger man take the lead when it came time to address the crowd explaining the point of the race, who the siblings were, wishing them both luck, and more importantly, peace and satisfaction once their dispute was settled no matter who won.  Come to think of it, Martin didn’t talk much at all the whole day, maintaining an unbroken visage of the professionally detached observer; an air of deliberation surrounding a man who doesn’t speak unless he has something important to say and only after he knows he’s right.  An intriguing contrast to his apprentice.

Speech over, Vernon gave the signal and the siblings were off with a cheer from the crowd.  As they got out of sight from me, I could still hear more calls in the distance as they passed onlookers in the winding streets of the Village proper.  For about an hour or so afterward it was a bit like a party of sorts with the crowd continuing to hang around gossiping, speculating on who would win, cooking and distributing food, playing music, etc.  And then it started to set in that there wasn’t actually going to be anything else to see until later in the day and people started filtering out and going back to their regular day-to-day, leaving just me, Pat, Vernon, Martin, a few dedicated gawkers, and those who normally spend their days at the docks anyway.

Seeing as I now conveniently had three people knowledgeable of town workings and official channels, I brought up that the crystals in the archive we going dim and inquired about who I needed to talk to for replacing them and expressed my interest in joining whomever it was on a trip to the crystal cavern for recharging and gathering.  Martin was actually the one who answered, and said that he’d pass word on to the crystal collectors about it for me.

Not too long after the crowd started to disperse, the first of the witnesses arrived and I took their commentary for the official record.  And then a little while later, the second, and then the third.  That third happened to be Cass, and her mother, Antigone, to whom I finally had the opportunity to introduce myself.  If there’s one word that comes to mind in describing her it’s “forceful”.  Not so much in the sense of forcing her will on others as having a strong sense of purpose and strength behind every word and action.  The sort of woman who can run a household of fourteen and bring all her children into line with a word and whose hands and arms bore the calluses and muscles of a lifetime working the land.  At any rate, Cass’s usual level of smug sass was toned down in her presence.

Still, not a hard or joyless matron either.  She seemed genuinely proud of Cass’s assistance in transcribing race witness commentary and laughed heartily when old Pat started reminiscing about a similar contest between siblings back in his day that ended with all parties involved publicly making fools of themselves in an incident involving an impromptu makeshift catapult and a net full of fish.

And of course I brought up the prospect of taking Cass with me to observe the recharging and gathering of crystals.  There were a couple of uncomfortable moments of her scrutinizing me, but eventually she judged that Cass would be fine coming with me on it, despite it taking a couple of days to get out there and back and being on the more wilderness-covered north half of the island.  Especially since the actual crystal collectors would be with us.

As the day wore on the time between the witnesses arriving extended, as expected if the siblings were maintaining a relatively constant pace since each witness had to travel further to get back to the Village.  By the time the siblings passed the halfway point, I suspect they’d be beating the remaining witnesses back to the Village.  But all of them painted a consistent picture at least.  The siblings both maintaining a good pace.  Both seemingly in high spirits.  No signs of foul play.  The younger sibling had a slight lead, but wasn’t taking any water breaks.  That last part was a little worrying, but then again, that’s the sort of thing one might save for the second half of the course I suppose.

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And then, a couple of hours past noon, we got the bad news.  A pale, bespectacled man with greying once-black hair and a somber expression approached the awning that we had set up under.  The others all recognized him as Huan, the Village doctor (once introduced, the family resemblance to Lin became more apparent to me).  The father of siblings who were currently out running their race had just passed away.  Turning to me, he related to me the deceased’s name, age, and exact time and circumstances of death, which I dutifully took down as the Archivist.  Bartolome.  Preceded by his wife, Sofia, and survived by his sons Ettor and Ynigo.

Lin, it seems, had stayed behind to pack up the medical supplies they’d been keeping in the patient’s home, clean up the old man, and prepare him for his funeral.  Fortunately, we looked to be close enough to a mist night that not much would need to be done in the way of embalming.

This news affected the mood of everyone present as you might expect.

An hour later, there was still no sign of the brothers, which was concerning given their reported pace up until this point.  Half an hour later still, a villager ran up to us reporting that the brothers had been injured but were refusing help, both of them still determined to make it to the end on their own feet.  We soon heard shouting, no, cheering from the direction we expected the racers to be coming.  Huan took off, grumbling about dumb kids doing dumb things, and I abandoned my post at the finish line to follow.  Things had obviously gone not as planned and I ought to be there to record it.

It didn’t take us long to find them.  The brothers were now leaning on one another to walk rather than racing.  They’d drawn an ever-growing crowd of followers, cheering them on, shouting encouragement, and moving in to catch them every time either brother stumbled, only to be angrily waved away.

Huan got the same treatment from the brothers when he tried to approach, getting called “old man” and being told he can patch them up when they’re done.  He called them fools and started to say more – I suspect to tell them about their father – but cut himself off, catching sight of Pat shaking his head.  It seems the eldest elder is surprisingly spry when he wants to be and had managed to catch up.

And so we joined the crowd, following the brothers as they passed the finish line together.  Huan was probably the only reason the two of them didn’t get picked up and tossed into the air by the celebratory mob.  Things calmed down temporarily as Vernon called for everyone to settle down so he could congratulate the brothers for their feat and declare a winner.  Before he could get much further than that though, the brothers interrupted, telling him to call it a tie and let the artifact go to the Catacombs.  This got even more cheering from the onlookers, and Vernon was able to spin off from there into a speech about how their actions were an inspiring display of brotherly love and reconciliation.  And really, the two of them – I’m still not sure which by looking at them is Ettor and which is Ynigo – appeared genuinely happy as they finally took a seat and allowed Huan to make his ministrations.

As to their condition, it took me and Cass the rest of the evening taking statements from witnesses, official and unofficial, but eventually we got it down to the following:

• The younger brother had managed to get a fairly significant lead toward the end.
• Just out of sight before reaching the last witness station, the younger brother collapsed from heat and exhaustion, having pushed himself too hard all day.
• Upon catching up and seeing his sibling on the ground, the older brother started running faster and didn’t notice the loose cobblestone (or pothole, the details conflict a bit) that he tripped on and injured his ankle in the fall.
• Limping over to his brother he managed to get him some water and started trying to carry him.
• The younger brother started to recover a bit and the two of them leaned on one another the rest of the way for support.
• Their reduced pace let the previous witnesses they’d left behind to start catching up to them, forming the beginnings of the train of people we saw.

Once the brothers’ immediate problems were taken care of, we (Huan as their father’s doctor, Vernon as their mediator, and me as the Village’s official voyeur) took them aside from the crowd for a measure of privacy and told them about their father.  The two of them were understandably devastated.  They said something to the effect of wanting to tell him they’d made up was part of what kept them going so doggedly at the end.  (From what I’d heard of their father’s condition I’m not entirely sure if he knew they were fighting, but I held my tongue.)  At this point Martin cut in and, apologizing in advance for coming across as insensitive, pointed out that with the next mist night due in the next few days, possibly even tomorrow, they needed to make funeral arrangements now or else risk keeping their father’s body in their home for two weeks waiting for the next time the shades would appear.

As I said, the details of that emotionally-draining discussion are in the official record and I don’t care to record them a second time.

And so now, here I am, writing the day’s events down for essentially the second time because I can’t sleep.  Partly because I’m still stressed from the crowds today.  Partly because I’m emotionally drained from the funeral talk.  And partly because I’ve spent so long writing all this that now it’s late enough at night and I’m tired enough that the existential dread is kicking in and I’m questioning just how perfect the whole thing seemed to play out with the brothers both getting hurt in their competition and painfully symbolically leaning on one another to get through things, learning their lesson, and mutually giving up their claims on the material object that tore them apart in the first place.  And then even the tragic irony of their contest leaving their father to die alone without his family nearby in his last moments to really hammer home that moral point.  Or maybe I’m the one who’s not right.  Maybe I’m starting to lose my grip and attributing story elements to people’s lives to reinforce the lurking fear that there’s something fundamentally wrong or artificial about everything since I washed up on that beach.  What if the fact that I’m even considering that is a sign that my own mental state is deteriorating so that I’m having trouble seeing those around me as real people?

Okay, need to stop all that right there.  I’m obviously staying up too late right now and the sleep deprivation is getting to me.

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