The Admonishments of Kherishdar
M.C.A. Hogarth

SUICIDE

eker [ eh KAIR ], (noun) — shame

      When you live in the capital it's tempting to ask for Shame's assistance; I have talked with my peers, and we all feel it, that urge to let him ease our duty. So when my most favored pair of Noble servants began acting erratically, I observed and, when I thought necessary, I Corrected. They apologized, they made an effort to change and then they relapsed. I continued to work with them, because Shame was always the last option and we loved and trusted one another, we three.
      I heard about the fire first. I was moving before the messenger finished, out toward the thick column of smoke, the ash stinging my skin. I rode into the middle of chaos and for hours there was nothing but the work.
      And then... I found out. They had chosen death together and nearly taken their House with them with a spilled candle. Sweat-streaked, my chest aching from smoke, I fell on the edge of the grimy fountain. Then I stumbled to my feet and croaked out my next order. I kept moving.
      I kept moving into the next week because the sudden death of a Noble destroys so many relationships, professional and personal, upsets so much business and administration that I couldn't stop. They had to be replaced and their successors needed help with the transition, lacking the long apprenticeship that would have prepared them and the district for the transfer of power. I had explanations to make: to my peers, to my subordinates, to Thirukedi. And there was the funeral for the unfortunates from the accident.
      He was there. Across the bier he met my eyes, his body distorted by the rising flames.
      That night, he opened the door for me. We didn't speak. I needed... Spirit preserve me. I needed, and couldn't name it or ask. And when he looked at me in the intimacy of the shrine's darkness, I saw a mirror of my shame. We had failed. We had both failed.
      There was no formality. No careful separation. Only violence. We were united in our madness. We strove for the abnegation that my Nobles had achieved... and failed in that as well.
      We punished ourselves for that failure also.
      At last, at the end, amid the plangent dripping of blood, Shame whispered, "I'm sorry."
      I rested my brow against his until the footsteps of his servants echoed in the hall. They were running. I thought that well, for the world seemed very distant.
      A bloody kiss, sticky and saltwater-sour. Then nothing.

      I don't fool myself into thinking that night a Correction. I also know better than to believe myself Shame's intimate because of what we'd shared. But seeing him blame himself illustrated for me how suicide makes victims of us all, abetting a crime we wholeheartedly reject. I miss my Nobles, but I no longer hate myself for their deaths.
      I have seen Shame in passing since, and there is no grace in him; his guilt taught me but mine gave him no peace. Perhaps that is why he is Shame and I am merely one of Kherishdar's Regals.
      When I light the incense for my own, I pray for him.


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© 2007, M. C. A. Hogarth