322 - Kahara mya, Arko

Of course I couldn’t keep hiding my eyes.  I had to see.  “Sin-im-as!”  Even hiss/yelling at me, Gan got my alias right.  Bless him.

“No, He’s fine… Just… just watch, all right?”

Chevenga’s chest heaved as He took a huge breath and turned toward the High Gods.  Since the Fenjitza’s re-discovery and the priestesses came back into the Temple, Selinae’s statue had been moved.  Even though Muunas still held highest place, She now stood at His right hand, instead of across the Temple.  Strangely enough, it was obvious that She had been there originally, once you saw the arrangement.

I could still look into the Goddess’s face, barely.  She looked less serene now, and more sad but maybe that was just me.  I should be ashamed even to be here.  How could I think I would be welcome before the Gods at all? I didn’t deserve their regard. Even to witness this is a desecration of something sacred. My chest was tight and full and I could hardly breathe.  It had been hard enough to watch with the lesser Gods, but Selina… and Muunas… had been my Gods, the Gods of my own caste.  I had grown up thinking They were my Celestial parents.  I could not bear to raise my eyes above the tip of Muunas’s beard.  They approve you, Chevenga.  You just have to dance through this one.

I bit down on the inside of my cheek.  Gannara hissed “Min-- Sinimas, are you all right?”

“I’m fine.  Watch…”

Chevenga turned His face to Selinae and the look of ecstasy came back.  Naked, before all Arko and no one cared.  Everyone could see Him harden and soften at the God’s whim, completely with no shame.  His member stood firm again.  He was, if anything, high as a boy.  His face… it looked like the joy He felt was almost too much to bear.  Someone in the crowd made a crooning noise in her throat, a loving, sensual sound, but soothing.

                             

The murmur was picked up by some others and suddenly I couldn’t help myself… my own groin tightened and I wept this time because I was hard too.  It was a supportive sound, loving.  I found myself sobbing because I… I’d never known… The Arkan men all around me were weeping and the women sang Chevenga on to Selinae.

Kyriala… she would be here.  Her voice would be part of this… she would not hold back.  I remembered her face when she held the women’s part for Binshala’s burial rites.  Beautiful, full of sorrow and joy too.  Joy like this, on Chevenga’s face.  I sobbed and unashamed for once, most of the men of Arko… all those in the Temple… wept with me.

“Oh…” I said though my tears.  “She is coming to Him.”  There was light all around him, brighter than fire, brighter than the other Temple lights, silvery… I could see Him turn in place, raising his arms up as if to show Her every thumblength.  As if She already didn’t know Him, inside and out.  It was hard to see him do the formal steps for Her, humble before Her.

Exactly between the Two, Chevenga knelt.

“What’s he doing?  He looks like he’s making love to someone but there’s no one there!”

“It’s Her.”  My groin ached, unaccustomed.  My voice full of tears, wild joy, terrible shame in my heart all jumbled together.

Then the Light descended and bright golden light merged with the silvery sheen from Selinae.  Muunas came down.  It was too bright to see Chevenga between the two High Gods but we could hear Him.  He moaned, almost a scream.  But it was ecstasy.  I could vaguely make Him out in the light, blurred and quivering in my streaming vision, rocking between the Gods as They took Him, made Him the connection through which They made love to Each Other.

My mouth was open I was crying out with Him, panting, Ili was laughing, I could feel his tummy vibrating against my head and I had to keep him from drumming his heels against me. All around me, men and women both together cried out in ways one would only hear in private, in the bedroom if at all.

If this didn’t stop I wouldn’t be able to stop myself… I’d shame myself right here in the Temple.  My vile organs… it almost hurt.  It was pain, it was too much.  I closed my eyes on the glory of light in the middle of the Temple and bowed my head.  But I couldn’t close my ears.  The music from the loft and from the Temple itself grew wilder and wilder, merging with Chevenga’s yells of pleasure as if He could not contain Himself.  Oh, Chevenga, be strong, don’t let your heart fail you.  Your body is strong enough.

“Nine Ten! Nine Ten! Ten Ten! Ten Ten!  Muunas! Shefenkas! Selinae! Oh Gods bless us! Bless us!”

I’d bitten my bottom lip bloody, but swallowed the sharp-tasting blood, and went to my knees.  Ili had gotten down and we had our arms around each other, he laughed and sang in my ear.  I could feel his chest vibrate but his piping voice was lost in the cacophony of joy filling the lofted hall.  This was what I was meant to do, and am too damaged. My tears were as much full of sorrow as ecstasy and shame.

“SHAI CH'VENGA!  SHAI!  SHAI!  KAHARA TENESA!  KAHARA KRINAE TENESA!” Gannara was yelling with the other Yeolis.  I could hear their voices mixed in, the Yeoli, in the sea of Arkan.  “Joy, Chevenga!  Joy!  Joy!  Kahara is with you... Kahara is SO with you!”

It’s all right, Chevenga.  Arko loves you. The Gods love you.

“I can't look, it's killing my eyes!”  Gannara yelled.

They love you, Chevenga. He shrieked his pleasure when He came, flames roaring from the floor all around him.

“OH FIK CH'VENGA CH'VENGA CH'VENGA!!! VIYA SA, CH'VENGA, SIVYA VIYA SA...”

“Gannara, He'll live through it… They love Him.”

“KAHARA!” Chevenga almost screamed it.  “AIIII KAHARA!  KAHARA, HARA MYA!”

Everyone was on their knees now, hands raised. The foreigners were the last to realize, the last to kneel, but even they were overwhelmed. “TEN TENS!  TEN TENS!” The cry mixed with the beginning of the Temple chant “Yesterday! Today! Tomorrow!”  I could even hear a Mahid voice or two adding their part of that chant “FOREVER!” The sound was too much to hear, one could only feel it.

The Temple boomed over us all.  “Zyztah min ititah.”  Then there came a single word, solemnly intoned, out of the flames before Muunas and Selinae.

Kahhhh Haaaa Rahhhh

The Yeoli word thundered out of the Temple rolling over us.  The whole building said the word Kahara.  We were prostrate, on our faces, silenced before the Voice of the Temple.

And in the profound quiet afterward a song rose from somewhere… a Yeoli harmonic singer… mixing with the sound of Arkan glass bells.  “Oh, my ancestors… that singer…” I whispered, murmuring with the rest of the crowd as we realized what it was.

A Yeoli voice, a harmonic singer… singing the names of the Ten.  Chevenga stood, facing us now, in the midst of the dying flames, head flung back, arms outstretched, open to the widest he could throw himself, quivering with aftershocks of ecstasy, as the singer finished the names of the Ten… then added ‘Kahara’, the rising double note fading away to a new silence.

We dared raise our heads from the floor without permission, watching Chevenga.  My gloves were soaked with my tears but I, unlike a lot of people, had managed to not add my semen to the dampness.

The ending bells, light, high, and sweet, chimed ten times.  Then once more.  Chevenga’s head tipped forward, His eyes opening to all of us on the other side of the flames and it was as if He could see us for the first time since the ritual started.  He smiled and stepped through the fire as if it weren’t there, past his healer and his guards and the priests, came into the midst of us – he passed in arm’s length of Sera Eren -- and knelt down.  

“I’m here,” He said quietly, equal to equal, speaking to all of us. “It’s all right.”