The Keeper

Ulegu was paralyzed with shock. Maybe shock mixed with a bit of fear. The shock was quite understandable; he was, after all, in the presence of his dead brother, of whose death he had no news of until this very moment.

Finding out this way was definitely shocking, not to say, unwelcome and rather sad. And yet, Ulegu was almost sure that this was the way he would find out about his brother’s death, if he was ever to receive the news at all.

The fear was however, a strange sensation. Ulegu had not expected to feel fear upon his brother’s death. But upon consideration, fear was after all not unwarranted.

Nobody, absolutely nobody, knew that Ulegu had a brother. And nobody could ever find out.

“This is the last of the Warriors”, said a voice. Ulegu turned surprised and his heart skipped a beat.
“Is everything all right, Keeper?” The man speaking to Ulegu was a General, and yet his tone was appropriately respectful for one addressing the Keeper of the Dead. But Ulegu saw a suspicious glint in the General’s eyes; he had been staring at his brother’s body for too long. He was an anonymous soldier of no importance, and Ulegu knew that he should have paid him little attention and instead concentrated on the great Warrior Parakel, whose body rested on another table only a few feet away.

Ulegu knew all this, but the shock and the fear had paralyzed him the instant his eyes had recognized his older sibling, his only family left, the one he had not seen for so many years.

He made a gesture of grandiose elaboration and pronounced in a pompous voice.

“Not everything is all right General, so many of our children have come back to us in eternal sleep… it saddens me that I now must take care of them all.”

The General was slightly taken aback, but gave Ulegu an understanding smile.

“The war has been crude”, the General said. “And many of our warriors have given their lives so that our Kingdom may flourish and grow, especially Parakel. Oh Keeper, he deserves your magic and your care more than any other we have brought to you tonight!”

“Do you mean to tell me my art?” Asked Ulegu enraged. He wasn’t mad at any transgression on the General’s part, though one had occurred. He was mad that the appropriate thing to do was to ignore his own brother altogether as if he was nobody. He would not, he could not…

“Forgive me, Keeper. It was not my intention…” The General trailed off, he was positively alarmed as he bowed deeply and then continued apologizing profusely.

“Leave me to my matters!” pronounced Ulegu and with this, the General and his soldiers left the Chamber of Preparation and closed the doors behind them. Nobody would disturb the Keeper now, no one would come knocking for any reason, no one would dare interrupt the rituals of preparation that the Clerics of the Kingdom had to perform on the recently deceased, even less when a figure of the importance of Parakel the warrior was one of the departed. In many other occasions, an underling would do these complicated and mystical rituals, but this time, given the importance of the warrior, and the historical relevance of the battle in which he had fallen, the Master himself, the Keeper of the Dead would perform the rites.

“There is neither class nor status that will keep me from being” Ulegu whispered to himself as if chanting a mantra. Then he started crying.

He cried for what it felt like an eternity, Ulegu cried until he felt he would run out of tears. He cried for his brother, for the lifetime that separated them. He cried for his father, who gave his life for both of them so many years ago. He cried for his mother, who had chosen to suffer quietly so that her two sons would have a chance in the world.

Ulegu knew that if anyone saw him right now, prostrated at his brother’s lap, they would suspect strangeness and questions would arise. And even though he had been very careful to conceal his past, a thorough review of his life was certain to uncover facts that must remain hidden.

Among those facts, clearly, was Ulegu’s relation to this warrior in front of him. But there was also the fact that Ulegu had not been born a Cleric, or that his brother had not been born a Warrior.
They had both been born servants; they had both been born dirtmouths.

There wasn’t much to do when one was born a dirtmouth, that was what one would be until death. The mandate imposed by the Kingdom was clear: You are what you are from birth to the last trip; pray you have a good life so that the spirits on the other side have compassion on your soul.

Ulegu had never believed. His brother had never believed. They both had learned to not believe in the lies the Kingdom told to all the peoples, they had been taught well by their father, for he always said: “There is neither class nor status that will keep you from being who you want to be”.

Ulegu had been a young boy when fate had proven his father right.

Servants as they were, they always found themselves at the mercy of the higher classes. And if it was their whim that they should starve, then starve they would. And starving they were. Ulegu’s father was sick on the bones and could not properly serve, and his mother as a maid was more abused than rewarded. Both Ulegu and his brother were still too young to work the mines and were used as errand boys by an aristocrat who had a knack for hitting them both with a cane.

“Fate will provide something better than this” his father always said. He kept on saying so until the day he died.

Ulegu remembered as though it had happened yesterday, it was a day of summer and the heat was scorching. The Aristocrat had brought his two new protégés from a far land, and as a welcome gift he was going to give each a personal slave.

And so they had come to see Ulegu and his older brother, in their fine clothes and their snobbish manners, pointing at the poverty and the precarious houses that surrounded them and laughing; laughing at the dirtmouths and their cursed existence.

Then, Fate struck.

Ulegu had never been in an earthquake before, much less one so strong. The ground shook and heaved, and the rage of the planet came upon them all.

Ulegu and his family survived. The same was not true for the Aristocrat and his two protégés. They very structures they had been mocking came tumbling down upon them. Their young faces still had expressions of hilarity as they lay there, in the middle of the chaos that ensued.

Ulegu’s father came to them and said: “There is neither class nor status that will keep you from being someone else, someone with a better life, are you ready?”

There had been very little time to do all the things that had to get done, and each step along the way weighed heavy on Ulegu’s heart.

They had stripped the two boys of their clothes and their jewels, and they had said their goodbyes, and they had prayed to never be discovered in this, the biggest crime one could ever commit against the Kingdom.

When the Guards came looking for survivors, for they had received news that some where in these parts, they found a young Cleric apprentice and a young boy born as a Warrior; both whom had come from far away lands and were injured, dirty and confused, after a house had collapsed on top of them killing their mentor and protector. Only the fortune of those born in noble crib had saved them.

The Guards also found that a dirtmouth had burned the bodies of his two dead sons, which was a grave crime. Disposing of the dead, helping them in the last trip, giving them departure from this world lest they stay trapped here forever: that was the work of a Cleric.

It didn’t matter that the two dead were simple servants. Naturally, the Great Keeper would not be preparing them himself, but rather one of his lower underlings. Still, for a dirtmouth to have burned the bodies to ashes was a transgression of the code punishable by death.

And so the execution had been carried out, and a servant woman had been left to mourn the death of her sons alone. It was said that she never spoke again.

Ulegu had taken the place of the young Cleric, for he was of more agile mind and could learn refined manners. His brother instead, was broader on the shoulders and more fit for the field, so he became the Warrior.

That day, after dishonoring the dead bodies of two young boys, Ulegu had said goodbye to his family. He knew he could never see them or seek them again.

More tears shed out of Ulegu’s eyes as he remembered all of this. He missed his mother, the wonderful woman who had made him promise he’d never try to find her again. Ulegu had broken this promise, though it would be many years before he managed it.

The high classes had taken care of the young Cleric that had survived the earthquake. A new mentor had been found for him and the things he had forgotten after his trauma were taught to him again. He was an avid student and before too long he became an underling to the Keeper and started learning the arts of the dead.

After many nights spent sending souls on their last trip, the Keeper had deemed him his apprentice, an honor so unique that it gave Ulegu a higher status among his peers.
The first thing he did with his new status was to request a servant. Using his contacts, his connections and the respect he had earned by others in the Kingdom, he had procured himself an older woman who had gone mute the day she had lost her sons in a catastrophe almost forgotten.

For Ulegu, this had been what had made it all worth it. To be able, at last, if only in the privacy of his quarters, to give his mother the care she always had for him. She was old and tired by then, but she had smiled every day she spent in the company of her son.

They spoke often about the choices they had made, and she always repeated the words that Ulegu’s father had taught them all: neither class nor status could keep him from being who he was.

When she died of old age, happy and well fed, it was Ulegu himself who prepared her soul for the last trip. It had been Ulegu’s most perfect ritual.

Ulegu cried for her mother once more, and evoked a prayer so that her soul would make it through the long trek of darkness and find peace at last.

Ulegu had also used his connections to try and find the Warrior that had survived with him that fateful day, but was never able to hear news of what had happened to him. He had been sent to far away camps where letters didn’t arrive and responses never came back.

But now he had his news at last. His brother had not been as fortunate as he had. Starting as a Warrior, he had never raised himself above that status. A nameless warrior he had remained his whole life.

Ulegu could easily deduct how the end had come for his brother. At some point, he had been assigned to the great Parakel and sent to battle in the name of a Kingdom that would see them live in misery and laugh at them. And now here he was, with no rank, with no name, next to the acclaimed Parakel, who would be honored for all history, the great Parakel who would be embalmed tonight and preserved as a hero among the people of the Kingdom.

Ulegu stopped crying suddenly as an idea formed in his mind. It started as a small thought, but it had soon rolled down the crevices of his brain gaining speed like a snowball. He looked from his brother to Parakel, noticing the similarities in build and height, noticing that the famous warrior had his legendary sword by his side, the one that would accompany him in his honorable place among the greatest of the Kingdom.

Ulegu considered the implications of his idea. If the truth was ever found he would be sentenced to death and his body would be tossed aside so that he’d never make the last trip. But if he succeeded… it would be his last act of rebellion against the Kingdom that never gave him a chance. This deception was greater than any other he had ever planned, and he had become a master of deception in his time.

Ulegu laughed at his own daring, and his laughter bounced off the walls of the chamber in a resounding echo that none but the dead could hear.

Fate had struck again.

It had been only weeks since the previous Keeper of the Dead had taken his last trip and Ulegu had ascended to the post. It had been the natural progression of things, as he was the highest apprentice at the time and therefore it was his duty to become the Master of the Clerics. He hadn’t given this much thought, he had simply done what must be done. But now, he felt as though fate had put him in this place so that he may do exactly the thing he was planning on doing.

All the dead in the chamber be damned, Ulegu took the sword from Parakel’s side and lay it next to his brother. A long night waited ahead. He would have to do much preparation and reconstruction. He would have to draw Parakel’s tattoos in his brother’s skin and change hair and eyes, and he knew how to do all these things, he was the Master of the Clerics, the Keeper of the Dead, none but him could take a body and make him look young and in all his glory again. He had done this many a time for Kings that wanted to look powerful in death, or Queens who wanted the beauty of their young years before the last trip.

He would do it this time, for his brother, so that he may have a name that would last forever, so that his soul would be revered as a warrior who had done nothing different than he had. Ulegu thought this would be a lie, but then again, so it had been his whole life, just like Ulegu’s own.

Still laughing at the absurdity of this world, he chanted the old mantra to his brother: “Neither class nor status will keep you from being Parakel”, and set himself to work.