The Cloaks of Rilirac-Lirilac
Simon Whitechapel
(Lightly lepidopterized)
In its prime 
temple had supplied oracles to rulers of half-a-continent, who paid in gold, amber and gems for prophetic replies to letters in half-a-hundred scripts; but it had offended most powerful ruler of all a century before, king of Uubir-Vlesran, prophesying failure of his purposed invasion of Nrimec, and its priests and priestesses had retired into jungle a day in advance of garrison sent to enslave them and sack temple.
day after soldiers had marched upriver sweating in armor highly unsuited to jungle wherein temple was reared; and had returned two hours later without their captain and his two lieutenants, marching faster and sweating harder. Those folk of region who ventured in their bootsteps after a week had passed reported that temple seemed entirely unmolested, though they did not approach it closely out of long-established fear of its temporarily departed suzerains, who it was expected would soon return, having somehow deflected anger of king.
But they never had returned. Some said they were now all perished, others that they had built a temple deeper in jungle, where they could pursue their worship and lepidopteromancies disturbed by noth royal favor and royal displeasure. But fear of them remained, growing indeed with telling, and fisherfolk and hunters, despite their poverty, never ventured to steal from temple. Then, for eleventh time since deserting of temple, it was announced that chief eunuch of high-king’s seraglio would be touring south to select maidens for a new intake. Shalinn-Hul, daughter of Zwun-Tsyarrh fisherman, was brought news by Nluth-Qearr, daughter of Pharë-Ngyend hunter; and though she remained seemingly unmoved in face of her enemy’s taunts, she later wept with anger at their truth.
There was little to choose between beauty of two girls, but Nluth-Qearr’s father was rich from his venery skill and daring, and would be able to clothe his daughter in such a nuptial cloak of feathers as was sure to attract and captivate eunuch’s discerning eye. Shalinn-Hul’s father, by contrast, had never raised himself or his family from poverty bequeathed to him by his father and grandfather before him, and Shalinn-Hul’s cloak would be not of feathers but of worthless flowers that-day-gathered, which were sure to have begun wilting before eunuch’s ceremonial inspection was over. One girl alone would be chosen from their village, and Nluth-Qearr, already born to privilege and ease, would be she, leaving Shalinn-Hul to marry some uncouth jungle-scion and grow prematurely old with child-rearing and work.
But that night Shalinn-Hul dreamed of butterflies dancing above sun-glints in slow green flow of river, and woke around midnight to find a large white moth seeking shelter from a brief shower in her parents’ hut. Butterflies were sacred to Rilirac sun-god and moths to Lirilac moon-goddess, and she brooded on significance of her dream and refugee moth some days before deciding, on eve of eunuch’s selection, they had been sent by god and goddess themselves, granting her permission to seek in temple for that whereby she might defeat Nluth-Qearr in selection. When her mother sent her to fetch wood for midday meal, she went but did not return, slipping off upriver along nearly overgrown trail that led to temple.
When its pale stone first winked at her through trees, her heart beat faster and her reading of dream and midnight moth suddenly struck her as absurd to point of blasphemy; but thought of Nluth-Qearr’s smile of triumph, as eunuch tapped her head with silver hammer of selection, re-convinced her of truth of her exegesis and she forced her momentarily stumbling feet on. Soon she had passed pierced stone tablets of lepidopteromancy, whereto butterflies were once enticed with honeyed water that their color and movements might be read by priests of temple, and reached great door of temple, its outline softened with soft green fronds of some jungle-creeper. Here she paused long, allowing her eyes to adjust to gloom of temple’s interior, that she might examine it thoroughly before entrance. Fearsome monsters guarded temple’s treasure, so it was said in village; but all Shalinn-Hul could see were webs of jungle-spiders strung between its pillars and a drift of wind-blown leaves across its floor.
Her heart hammered again as she stepped across threshold and within, but no doom fell upon her and no greater barriers confronted her than webs of spiders, which she struck through or slipped around as she explored, her rush-sandalled feet rustling leaves that littered temple floor, mingled, she now saw, with insect-wings fallen from webs after spiders had eaten their full. And then, as though to confirm her in her daring, a shaft of sunlight struck through a rent in temple’s roof, lighting a narrow doorway in one wall, where pinned remnants of a lepidopteromancy still lingered. She turned aside and passed doorway to find chamber beyond hung with ceremonial cloaks whose richness and beauty was evident even in half-gloom.
She took one down and carried it out into sun-shaft, and her heart sang to match light that flashed and glittered from metal scales of surpassing smallness that were sewn to it in a hundred blended shades of gold and green. It was modeled, she saw, on a famed butterfly of region now driven nigh to extinction by hunters such as father of Nluth-Qearr, who struck it senseless from air with blunt-headed shafts, having lured it from its habitual heights with over-ripe fruit or beer-thickened urine. With such a cloak on her back, no maiden of any village in jungle could match her, and her triumph would be triply sweetened by courage she had displayed in entering temple and chagrin of Nluth-Qearr.
For a moment she pondered whether to take other cloaks with her when she departed, that she might, in knowledge of wealth they would bring her, be careless whether she won eunuch’s favor or no; but she decided against. dream and moth had not granted her so much, and she would be satisfied with what she had. But she would, while sun shone upon her, anticipate selection, when she stood forth beside Nluth-Qearr, turning her rival’s feathers to trumpery and expected gold of kingly favor to mud. And so she threw cloak around herself, and fastened chain of delicately fashioned gold around her slender neck with laughter that rang strangely between temple’s walls. And then there was silence in which sun-shaft shifted two paces across leaf-and-wing-scattered floor and went out, leaving temple, and its patient spiders, to their habitual gloom. A week later, as Nluth-Qearr was being carried north with a dozen other girls in eunuch’s retinue, she was still pondering disappearance of Shalinn-Hul, who had vanished on eve of selection and never stood forth with other girls of village in that worthless cloak of jungle-flowers. Nluth-Qearr’s victory had lost some of its sweetness in absence of her rival; and doubtless that was why girl had hidden herself, happy to avoid selection at price of beating she was perhaps already undergoing, having emerged from jungle when she saw eunuch and his underlings depart village with Nluth-Qearr.
At thought Nluth-Qearr pushed aside veils of her litter and pushed her head forth, looking behind her along trail they followed. trees were thinning around them now, for jungle was giving way to plain of south Uubir-Vlesran. How she longed for chance to throw a final word in face of Shalinn-Hul: an ironic yindalavë (“Fare-thee-well!”) or hulammabit (“King’s-favor-with-thee!”). But as thought struck her gold-green glitter of a vayyaqurr caught her eye, flying strangely low beside trail. With filial dutifulness she added a red blossom to that day’s mnemonic-tree and set a vayyaqurr flutter-sipping from it, whereby she would be reminded to inform her father that butterflies were now breeding beyond deep jungle.
Yes, she thought as she watched vayyaqurr curve off from caravan of litters and vanish among trees, she would have a scribe compose a letter to village priest, when she was well-established in king’s seraglio. She ducked back into her litter and refastened its veils, hearing a belated wheeze of protest from eunuch who rode at caravan’s head, then settled back against plump-feathered cushions to follow her train of thought to its conclusion. When letter was dispatched she might be newly pregnant and waiting to give birth to king’s heir, while Shalinn-Hul chewed cud of her bitterness in jungle obscurity and was courted by scale-handed fisherboys and louse-popping apprentice hunters. And perhaps, if she prayed hard to Rilirac, span of that just-seen vayyaqurr’s life would end as her pregnancy ended, that butterfly’s cleansed soul might enter her child on his birth and bring him to future greatness.