791.II, 10 Berelii: The Cult of travelers

791.II, 10 Berelii

Today I have enough strength to sit upright in the caravan. I've taken my notebook out of the sack, and am writing for yesterday's day as well. I don't know why I'm still writing, maybe part of me is still scared that I won't make it to the village?

Anyways, it's kind of hard to write with only one hand, but at least the one intact is my good one. We had to stop for the night, as the hoomas were exhausted. Berthon and Astrid spent most of the night trying to scare the ryn away who had stopped only a few cords from our campfire. Watching them swinging firebrands at a motionless stack of stone away in the dark was a fun picture, to me at least. The rest of the crew, Frank and Maham, were not as brave. thew stayed close to the firepit, mumbling prayers. They are still doing so today, because the ryn has started walking closer to us. Astrid stays at the back of the caravan because she still hopes to be able to scare it away, so Maham is the one right behind me. We chat a bit about these events, he is convinced that I owe my survival to his prayers. I don't know if the gods really did something, maybe they made sure that I'd be found in the end. We caravaneers have a dangerous life, so we rely on their good omens quite a lot, do they help? do they even care? do they even exist? I don't know but in the desert, we gladly take whatever help we can find. We have our own ways of faith I guess. Our prayers are more mondane and to the point, and we don't have specific preferences as to whomever we send our words to. Sen, Caeia, Paal, or just Kalendos, in these lands they probably don't care about the churches' scholars, theories and translations. They probably do as we do, pass through and maybe leave a sliver of a trace for the sand to engulf and wipe away.

So we celebrate the gods, but not in the kalendic way, or the rebaari way. Our prayers don't give them names, we don't ask for guidance but we sure hope they don't make us lose our heading. We don't ask for pardon but we certainly wish that incoming sandstorms will go easy on us.

We don't make large offerings because we have nothing to spare. In the desert even our sweat is precious, and every step, every cord we advance is in an of itself a little sacrifice of life.

I love the spirituality I found here on the trails, in the caravans. It's so far from the high and mighty ceremonies of the cities, with those huge temples covered in gold and frescoes. It's so much closer to life and struggle, the very essence of the gods' imprint on the world and on us. There are no candles but the flickering lights of stars, There is no priest professing his lessons because the lesson are taught by nature itself, by the gods themselves.

And maybe this is the right way, not that I think any other way of faith is wrong, but there sems to be no place closer to the gods and their manifestations than the vast emptiness of the desert. From magic winds, to visions, even to the few people who had the chance of seeing elementals roaming the dunes in the winds and clouds. Giant silhouettes of sand and rock, of air and mist, the direct offpring of divine substance who guard the world from mysterious darkness. I sigh, surely one day will come for me to cross paths with one of them, what wouldn't I give to shed light on their secrets...

"Far from the fastuous, gilded relics and statues of temples, far from the zealot crowds of worshippers, far from the codes and ceremonies, our faith grows simpler, and maybe closer to the truest forms of holiness. I could see the gods in all that is and all that isn't, or maybe the heat and dehydration makes me delirious?"

Joh Latour's personal notes, circa 720.II