To recap, I’ll be writing 500 words of a story every day in November, specifically using this opportunity to flesh out my Space-Realmgard seating that’s still pretty tenuous and ill-defined.
To recap what I’ve got for Space-Realmgad itself so far: Kathryn is Space-Kat, Dunstella is Space-Dunstana, and Amarantha is Space-Amara.
Copyright J.B. Norman
Since emerging from metamorphosis at the end of his adolescence, Professor Blellutherius Prft’Noy, Grand Curator-Exarch of the Academiarchy of p’Taa Minor has devoted the majority of his centuries-long imago stage to to restoring the plundered ancient cultural patrimony of his homeland and ensure their safety within the fortified and climate-controlled halls of the Supreme Academy, the gleaming jewel of p’Taa City.
His eight eyes – four natural eyes and two pairs of corrective lenses – first gaze intently the strangely geometric artifact, then turns to Kathryn Starstone, the freelance pilot to whom he owes the presence of the artifact on his desk.
“Why?” Kathryn asks cautiously.
“This is one of the Seven Thousand Obelisks of Am-U-En,” he answers, as if that explains it.
He looks gravely at Kathryn. “The folklore of my people hold that the Obelisks are cursed.”
With a yelp, Kathrtyn leaps back from the Obelisk, several multangular shapes stacked on each other in ways that don’t quite make sense to her senses of understanding of Math and Physics.
“Why didn’t you tell me that first?” she cries.
“And I suppose the accounts of Nrft’Poy the Astrologian were correct after all,” the Professor continues, “and you found the Obelisk within the astrochalcum mines of the fifth moon of Hivernus IV?
“Why?” Kathryn asks cautiously.
“We believe the mines are also cursed,” the Professor says.
“Why didn’t you tell me that first?”
“However, the faculty of the Academiarchy has prepared for such an eventuality,” the Professor says. “It would be ungenerous for us to repay your efforts in retrieving such a priceless artifact of our species’ history by leaving you at the mercies of our ancestors’ unquiet shades.”
“Yeah,” Kathryn mutters. “Thanks.”
“As such, we are prepared to enact the Rite of Gwillimon.”
Kathryn blinks. “The what-now?”
“It is the most powerful exorcism known in the faith of my people.”
“So, uh” Kathryn asks. “Do I take it orally, or is it an injection?”
Professor Prft’Noy presses a button on his desk, the door to his office slides open and a long procession of ornately-dressed p’Taaeans enter the office. They march towards Kathryn, beating drums, ringing bells, and chanting in a language Kathryn doesn’t understand.
They start processing in a circle around her. She flinches as they start throwing handfuls of something at her.
“What are they doing?” she asks the Professor.”
“The salt drives away evil spirits.”
“O-okay,” she says uncertainly. “I guess that’s not — Gah!”
One of the p’Taaean exorcists stops in front of her and starts hosing down her face.
“The holy water is even more effective at driving away evil than the salt,” the Professor explains.
Content that she has been thoroughly saved from their ancestors’ unquiet shades, the p’Taaean exorcists bow and process out of the room.
“Thanks,” Kathryn mutters, brushing sodden strands of hair out of her face.
“And, of course,” the Professor says, pressing another button on his desk. “Your payment.”
The communicator on Kathryn’s wrist beeps and the display lights up to indicate that the payment has been received.
Drenched and still tasting salt, Kathryn trudges back to the ship. The Alvaraean princess Amarantha is waiting for her on the loading ramp.
She opens her mouth to speak.
“Not. one. word,” Kathryn says.
Now, most people hear “exorcism” and automatically think “Catholic” – and, for that matter, automatically think “possession.” In fact, at least in the Catholic context, an exorcism is really any prayer against evil – compare and contrast, for example, a minor exorcism to the kind you’re thinking of.
Aside from the holy water, the exorcism ritual I wrote actually has a lot more in common with the shamanic rituals I remember reading about in my undergrad, and really just the fact that “loud scares away evil” is a pretty widespread belief.
In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, which was yesterday but still more or less, kinda-sorta on my mind, that basically played out like a “The Frogurt is also cursed.” scene, which wasn’t really the intention. I just wanted to make a “sequence of bad, worse, worser” joke…
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