PART THE FOURTH
Chapter the First of Part the Fourth
In which the narrative recounts acts from the life of Polnar in Rekkmerr.
Each day, the people coming in for the morning and evening sacrifices were more tense than they were the day before. Animal sacrifices were increasing to the point that, even in the morning, two or three pigs and sometimes a cow were sacrificed along with several chickens and other birds. The stifling hot air trapped in the temple, the anxious faces, the near total absence of vegetable offerings, and the beatings inflicted on Polnar and Passenell, were further signs that the drought continued unabated. After a morning sacrifice when Polnar had to space out the chant, even singing some of the verses a second time, before the offerings were slaughtered, the bearded Devoted One entered the Devoted Singers’ room right after the boys had been served their heaping share of the meat.
“The reading of the animals’ entrails tell us that tonight is the time to offer the Great Sacrifice,” the Devoted One announced. “It is well that you, Polnar, have learned the chants. It is particularly well that you have learned well the chants for the Great Sacrifice. You are the one who will have to sing them. Passenell, your time as a Devoted Singer is coming to an end. You will be released when Polnar sings the chant and proves that he has learned it properly.”
“Where will I go? What will I do?” Passenell asked the Devoted One.
“Do not worry about these things,” said the Devoted One. “You will be fully provided for.”
With that, the Devoted One left the room. The boys each picked up a meaty bone and ate with little appetite.
“The Devoted Singer before me was released the night I sang the chants for the Great Sacrifice the last time it was offered,” said Passenell.
“Where did he go?”
“I do not know. I never saw him again. I did not miss him. He beat me for every failure to sing the chant properly.”
“What will you do?”
“If I am truly provided for, I will find my way back home. I miss the sea-borne air of my own village as much as I miss my family and the clan.”
Polnar felt happy for Passenell but he could not prevent a stab of sorrow from striking him at the thought that there was no village and no family for him to go back to and he would not likely find the traveling musicians he sang with when he was released himself. Perhaps he would find his way to Merithwell and one of the boys would take him to his world the way Danzigger had taken Tel Arman and Pir Min.
“I fear that you will be beaten once again if I do not learn the chant fully this day,” said Polnar.
“I fear you will have to work all day at it.”
“That is my fear as well.”
Polnar sang through the first part of the Great Sacrifice Chant. The one thing that helped make it possible to learn it in a short time was that it included much of the chanting for the ordinary sacrifices, only with more complicated turns in the music. The first time Passenell sang the Great Sacrifice Chant for Polnar, he was horrified by those turns but Passenell showed him how just a few turns were used over and over again and that he only needed to learn a few and then he knew them all. Still, the quick, sliding notes were difficult and Polnar had needed several days’ practice to make his voice do them at all. Once he started getting much of the chant right, Polnar felt the beauty of the music sinking deeply into him, more deeply than the usual morning and evening chants.
“You have most of the singing of it,” said Passenell. “The phrase for ‘Righthand sliced the first soldier and formed the hills’ is one phrase you have not the right of as yet.”
Passenell sang that line and Polnar repeated it.
“You almost have the right of it,” said Passenell. “Do you know where you lack the rightness?”
“I think so,” said Polnar.
Polnar sang the line yet again, correcting the mistake he thought he had made.
“You have the right of it now. Sing further in the Great Sacrifice Chant.”
Polnar spent the full day practicing the Great Sacrifice Chant over and over. From time to time one or more of the Devoted Ones would enter the Devoted Singers’ room and listen anxiously. If Polnar made the least mistake, Passenell was struck hard on the shoulder blade.
“Everything about the Great Sacrifice must be absolutely right,” said the Devoted One with a severe glare at the boys. “The very lives of the people depend on it. It is not enough to be nearly right. Practice the Chant until everything is exactly right and then practice the chant to make sure that everything remains exactly right.”
Polnar sighed when that Devoted One left. He thought that Passenell might beat him this time for his failure but the older boy did nothing of the kind.
“You are doing the best singing you can,” said Passenell. “Beating you will not make it right. Singing it again will.”
As the day wore on, Polnar practiced the Great Sacrifice Chant again and again until he thought he would collapse with weariness. By the end of the day, not even the Devoted One who most liked to use his stick could find sufficient fault to beat Passenell.
As the sunbeams coming through the temple door whenever it opened grew longer and took on a twilight color, one of the Devoted Ones came for Passenell. Startled, Polnar wished his friend a hasty good-bye, wishing he could say more now that he would never see him again. As soon as Polnar was gone, another Devoted One entered the room.
“You will come out before the altar and take your position now,” the Devoted One explained. “Remember what we have told you: everything about the Great Sacrifice must be perfect or it will not be accepted and our people will die. You must keep everything about the chant in your head and sing everything that you have inside your head, leaving out not the slightest, smallest note. One more thing that is essential for doing the Great Sacrifice perfectly: You are the Devoted Singer. The Devoted Singer is not allowed to look upon the Great Sacrifice itself. You will have the altar at your back when you sing. You must not turn in the slightest to look at the altar during the entire time that you are singing the Great Sacrifice Chant. If you do turn back to look, the sacrifice will not be accepted and our people will die. Am I understood?”
Polnar nodded. He could not help but think that what the Devoted One meant by “our people” did not include Polnar and his people nor Passenell and his people.
“Yes, you are understood,” said Polnar.
“That is good. Come out now and position yourself on the top step to the altar.”
Already, many people were crowding into the temple. Their faces showed fright and anger not unlike what Polnar saw in his fellow villagers when they attacked him and almost killed him for causing the plague. Polnar desperately reviewed the Great Sacrifice Chant in his head, noting every spot that had been difficult for him, and wishing the Passenell would be sitting next to him with his encouraging presence. He did not understand why Passenell should have been taken away just because he was going to be released before his voice broke, but Polnar knew better than to ask questions of the Devoted Ones. More and more people poured into the temple until there was hardly room for any more. People squeezed against each other and there were extended pushing matches and a few flying fists over position. The doors were pushed open and kept open so that the people who could not get into the temple could get a glimpse of the sacrifice that Polnar, close to the altar as he was, would not be allowed to see.
The tension of waiting had become almost unbearable by the time the wooden gong was sounded, the signal for Polnar to begin the Great Sacrifice Chant. Polnar said a prayer to his village gods and plunged into the chant. The difficult turns fell into place as if no effort were needed to sing them and Polnar relaxed into the beauty of the music. He noted, with satisfaction, that the people in the temple also seemed to relax a little, the chant having a calming effect on them. Polnar went on to sing of Righthand and his huge army fighting the great battle with Lefthand and his huge army. He sang of the clashing of forces and then of Righthand slaying his brother Lefthand. Many times, during the evening sacrifice, Polnar had sung of Righthand slicing out Lefthand’s heart and throwing it into the sky so that it became the moon. This time, however, Polnar felt the moon forming as he sang the more ornate version of the music with its extra lines of story about how the moon was, at first, just a slice in the sky and then it grew into a full circle so that it gave the light to the people by night. Polnar went on to sing of Righthand’s carving up Lefthand’s belly and throwing it into the sky where it blazed into the sun to give all people light by day.
It was at this point in the chant that the worshipers became tense once again and they leaned forward eagerly in the direction of the altar behind Polnar. Polnar began the next verse of the Great Sacrifice Chant. Righthand cut off Lefthand’s limbs and formed the earth out of them. Then Righthand poured out Lefthand’s blood and they became the rivers on the earth. Righthand threw the tears shed by the slain Lefthand and threw them into the sky where they turned into rain to water the earth. The chant became so haunting at this point that Polnar felt his own heart melting, but the tension of the worshipers only increased to what felt like a breaking point.
That was the moment when everything flooded Polnar’s heart and practically knocked him over: the dismembering of Lefthand’s body, the dark burning in the eyes of the worshipers, the prohibition against turning to see the Great Sacrifice, the release of Passenell. Polnar pushed himself to sing the next line of the chant while forcing himself to continue facing the worshipers so that the sacrifice would be accepted and the people would live. But it is not my people who will live! Polnar thought to himself and neither will Passenell and his people live if the sacrifice is accepted. When that thought struck Polnar, he stopped singing in the middle of the line and whirled his head around, knowing that he would see Passenell stretched across the altar and the High Devoted One raising a knife to sink it into Passenell’s heart.
“And then the High Devoted One took a knife!” Polnar sang, his voice rising to notes higher than he had ever sung before, “and the High Devoted One threatened to slice the innocent body of the Dedicated Singer!”
Polnar could sing no more as a Devoted One clamped a hand over Polnar’s mouth and the voices of the shocked worshipers thundered through the temple.
Proceed to Chapter the Second of Part the Fourth