A knot of Zyraii surrounded them, but despite the presence of humanity, Alemar and Elenya felt the loneliness and desolation of the land, a sensation that had not truly left them since they had separated to observe the first section of thepulstrall. The beauty and the terror of the wasteland once again stole their equilibrium.
They had reached the end. They had spent their time alone and had all returned, some worse for wear, but alive, to endure the other tests. They had proved their knowledge of the blade and rope; they had broken oeikani; they had recited the laws of the So-de'es from memory. Now on the eighth night, one ritual remained.
At a word, the youths were formed into a long line. Ahead of them stood the Menhir of T'lil, flanked by three large fires. Wood fires. The stone was something of an enigma, a chunk of rugged, convoluted rock possessing glints of metal ores. It reached shoulder height, half as wide as it was tall, nestled in the midst of the fine sand that bordered the palms and grasses of the oasis of Shom. No rock of this type existed elsewhere in Zyraii. It was the most valuable of all T'lil relics. The oasis was the center of their territory; no member of another tribe would be permitted here while a T'lil lived to defend it. Alemar knew this was no boast. The menhir, in a sense, gave this Zyraii tribe their everlasting souls, and there was no physical object more precious to them.
Wilan took to his position directly in front of the stone, facing the line of boys.
"Ai Nannon!"Wilan cried.
"Ai Nannon!"the boys echoed.
Behold God! A phrase spoken only on Dark Night.
"Nannon welcomes you to the Bu," Wilan said. His voice carried such impact that it rode over the detachment Elenya and Alemar normally felt listening to the Zyraii language. Even words that they scarcely understood moved them. "You have all done well. It is time for the final acknowledgment of your new status."
The old man looked down the line – about twenty boys, all afraid. The adults took up stations at either end of the line. The youths eyed them nervously.
One of the priests stepped to center stage. He reached to a tiny scabbard on his belt and withdrew a shiny, very wicked-looking instrument. The blade was shorter than the handle and was shaped like a fork. The outer edges were dull; only the insides of the prongs were meant to cut. The man raised it above his head and waved it once, slowly, across the boys' range of vision.
A boy next to Alemar hiccupped.
"Take off your clothes," Wilan ordered.
The boys hesitated. Although it was not considered immoral for males to bare themselves before other males, once past toddler age Zyraii usually disrobed only within the confines of the home tent, among immediate family. It was a practical custom – in the desert, one did not expose one's skin unnecessarily to the sun. The men merely waited, and one by one the boys began to obey.
They threw their bundles of clothing a few paces behind them. Alemar felt the isolation of his light complexion, but the sensation vanished as he noticed the many furtive, and some open, glances at Elenya. One or two of the boys stifled smiles, more of them displayed anxiety. They had known she was there, but suddenly it mattered. They looked to their elders for guidance. The older Zyraii merely avoided looking, but some of them, for the first time since thepulstrall had begun, stirred nervously.
Elenya held her chin high, chest out. But a trickle of sweat worked down each side of her torso.
Wilan alone looked her in the eyes. "Nannon forgive us," he breathed. Then, full-voiced, he demanded of the line: "Hold out yoursheys."
The blood flushed Alemar's cheeks as he complied. Down the line, knees weakened. Elenya stared at her pubic hair for several moments, shrugged, and kept her hands at her sides.
The Ah-no-ken with the surgical knife waited where he was. Two other men walked over to one end of the line. The first carried a small earthenware pot, suspended from a hemp net, which had recently been heating over one of the fires. The other held the severed tail of a oeikani, the hind end smooth and whiplike, the tip heavy with its knot of hair.
The pair stepped in front of the first boy. The priest with the oeikani tail dipped it into the pot. The brush of hair emerged dripping a thin, greasy liquid, which the man rubbed over the boy's penis. This procedure was repeated down the line.
To Alemar, it felt like the fluid would burn away his skin. Soon it cooled, then numbed. Within a few moments, he could scarcely feel the area where the ointment had been applied. He felt bereft. He glanced at Elenya. She raised her eyebrows and looked repeatedly at her companions, much to their dismay. The anointers had skipped her.
Alemar doubted that she minded being left out, just this once.
They heard a cry at the end of the row, and turned. The man with the knife stepped away from the first boy, blade dripping. The boy was shaking, but it was apparent that his outburst had been one of shock, not pain. Directly behind the surgeon, another priest collected the foreskin on a stone plate, and a third removed something from a basket he carried and helped the boy to wrap it around his wound. The boy was pale.
The second boy obviously would have liked to run, or at least twist away, but he did neither. One look at the knife, and the man who wielded it, made it clear that he should stand absolutely still. This time, everyone watched closely, though they held their places.
The surgeon wasted no time. While a fourth man held a lamp near, he grasped the foreskin, pulled it taut beyond the end of the glans, and cut swiftly downward. The newly circumcised man jumped after all, but by then the affair was cleanly and efficiently accomplished. The surgeon did not smile or otherwise react; he concentrated on the task at hand. He could not afford to make mistakes.
Alemar wondered if his heart could really beat so quickly. He watched the boy ahead of him, seeing clearly for the first time that the basket contained leaves of the husura – broad, soft fronds found at the edges of the oasis pond. They had been soaked in a milky, pasty concoction.
Then it was his turn.
It ended before he could consider the various ways to retain his composure. Like most of the others, he jumped after the knife descended, but it had not hurt. It felt like a glove being removed. He watched dumbfounded as the last man helped him wrap the leaves around. The odor of the bandage curled his nostrils, but its touch soothed his fingers.
The surgeon stepped in front of Elenya and knelt down. For the first time his meticulous, methodical routine faltered. He stared between her thighs as if he had forgotten momentarily that she was in the group. She faced him squarely, although perhaps more nervous than any of the young men. She read in his expression his internal conflict. He had, quite possibly, been performing this duty for more than ten years; by now, his opinions regarding the ritual were chipped in rock.
She surprised herself. She felt no anger, nor even defiance. The emotion was embarrassment. She wished she could do something to ease the man's difficulty.
In another moment, the knife descended, severing a tuft of pubic hair. The second man, nonplussed, took the hair and added it to the plate, now almost covered with foreskins. The sight made Elenya a little nauseated, glad for the darkness. The third man didn't bother to reach inside his basket.
In what seemed like both seconds and hours after it had started, the surgeon reached the last boy. He cut.
"Oops," he said, pulling back his knife.
The boy fainted.
The surgeon burst into intense laughter, so hearty that he almost dropped the foreskin as the Ah-no-ken with the plate reached for it. All the grown men immediately joined in, some with tears springing from their eyes. One by one, the initiates understood, and began to chuckle and guffaw. The priest who held the lamp pulled smelling salts out of a pocket and woke up the stricken one. When he came to and saw that he was whole, his laughter swamped them all. They were all whole.