The Drums from the Deep - session diary 4

Previously: In Search of a Pilgrim - session diary 3 part 2

You certainly noted, today’s cover picture isn’t LLM-generated but painted by my unskilled hand. I’ve considered generating it, but the idea of what to generate was so simple that I’ve decided to paint for once. Why am I trying to paint when I’ve spent years making photography, and most of my posts here are about photography?

I have a trauma from my elementary school - watercolours. I’ve spoken to various people in my generation about their elementary school experience, and they were almost all, to varying degrees, traumatised by the artistic classes and their teachers.

I decided to get rid of this trauma about a year ago and give it another try - and I really enjoy it nowadays. True, I don’t paint as much as I watch other painters, but I’m trying. It’s quite possible there will be more posts accompanied by my pictures in the future, and I might even write about the differences I see between photography and painting.

Klio had been with her parents all week, and she was watching them the way you watch something you’re trying to memorise. Because you know, you’ll be missing it soon. They were doing the same to her. All of them were enjoying every interaction more than ever. Seven days of her family rediscovering each other. It was different since they’d returned from Mount Koimas, and she knew that she was about to leave soon.

She still hadn’t told them everything. She hadn’t told them about Anax, about the voice from the pedestal, about the healing touch she used on her father’s hand - he believed his god had healed him. She told herself she was protecting herself; she was protecting them.

The academy in Heliopolis was real — she did need to go, did want to go — but it wasn’t the only reason she needed to move. Anax had spoken of an ancient priest, buried in the middle of the island, who could teach her things no living person remembers. She had no idea how you learn from a dead man, but trusted that Anax had a plan.

But she needed a reason to travel across the island first, before reaching Heliopolis. A reason her parents would accept. She was still working on that.

She found Dorian cleaning the pigsty; there was always something for him to do, and he did it without complaining.
“I will go to Heliopolis,” she said. “Not sail. And not by the shortest road. Want to travel the island with me? I’m sure it would make my parents feel safer.”
He didn’t look up from the rake. “Your parents would need to agree.”
“I know. I’m asking you - if you’d like to come. I’ll probably go through Midas, your birthplace.”
It took him a while to answer, and then it sounded reluctant: “Nobody would remember me,” he said finally, “if they remembered me, they’d rather not. I killed one of them.”
She’d heard the outline of the story — a tavern fight, an accident — but she never heard any details and certainly not from him.
“What happened?” she asked.
He finally stopped working and looked at her, then looked away at the pigs. “He raped my sister,” he said. “I wanted to hurt him. I did hurt him. His head wound got infected, and a week later, he died.” A pause. “He was the elder’s son. If Óó’s laws hadn’t protected me, the crowd would have finished me on the spot.”
Klio didn’t say anything - she never expected something like this.
“I assume they think I’m dead,” Dorian said. “I assume they’ve forgotten. That’s easier.” That said, he went back to his work, “If your parents say I should go, I’ll go.”
She went to the pigsty expecting some sign of what he actually wanted, hoping for some enthusiasm. Now, leaving, she only felt frustration at his lack of it.

Later, at breakfast, Klio raised the topic again.
“I’ve been thinking about the walk to Heliopolis,” she said.
Her mother looked up. Her father put down his bread.
“If I’m going to spend years learning how to be useful to people, shouldn’t I know them better? I thought about walking the island, not sailing, and taking the longer roads.”
Her parents looked at each other. She watched them have the conversation that happened entirely in the space between two people who have been married long enough to hold whole arguments in a glance.
“We’ll feel safer if you travel on land. I don’t know how we’d respond to seeing an empty boat again,” Dafne said, looking at her husband.  
“We’ll worry anyway,” said Teofil.
“I can send messages, like before.” She paused. “You could send Dorian with me.”
Another glance between them.
Suddenly, as breakfast continued, a knock sounded at the temple doors. Loud, uneven — the knocking of someone in need.

It was the local potter, Kleitos, who looked like he hadn’t slept for a week. His clothes were dirty, his hands hanging open at his sides, and his eyes were making him a hunted animal.
“The drums,” he said, before anyone had welcomed him in. “I need Óó to stop the drums.”
Teofil set down his cup. “Come in, Kleitos. Sit. Tell us.”
“I don’t have time to sit.” But he sat. “Two nights. For two nights - the moment we close our eyes, they start. Getting closer, from the west, from the sea. I’ve stood on the shore in the dark, and there’s nothing there — nothing I can see — and they keep getting closer.” He pressed his hands towards his ears. “I didn’t break any laws. I’ve been trying to think of what I did, and I can’t think of anything.”
“Has anyone else heard them?” Klio asked.
“Just my wife and me.” His voice dropped. “We’re being punished for something, I’m sure of that.”
“Don’t be so sure yet,” Klio interrupted him, as gently as she could manage. “Let us come and look.”

Shortly thereafter, they arrived at Kleitos’ house. Kleitos lived close enough to the shore that you could hear the water from his doorway. His wife was sitting outside, not watching the sea, not doing anything — like someone who had stopped expecting the morning to improve. When she saw the priests coming, she didn’t even react.
Dafne and Teofil went in with them. Klio stayed outside.

The sea was just the sea. Flat, calm, early light on it. To the west, the headland of the Axios peninsula on the horizon, and Klio found herself looking at it. “Anax?” she thought. Nothing came back.
She almost walked past the shells. What stopped her was that they weren’t spread the way shells are scattered by the sea and the wind — not the usual distribution of things that wash up. These were put there; while observing them, she could almost feel a meaning from their arrangement, then lose it again. Some lines, maybe. Or columns. She crouched and turned one over with her finger.
She had no idea what she was looking at. She looked at the shells and felt the absence of meaning, at least meaning to her.
Then she saw the footprint. Three toes, webbed, pressed deep enough to know it wasn’t accidental. She looked up at the empty shore. The water moved. Nothing else did.

Still without answers, she returned inside, questions gathering in her mind.

Inside, Dafne was asking whether anything had changed in the days leading up to the drums beginning. Kleitos was frowning in the concentrated way of a man trying to be helpful and finding his memory uncooperative.
“Nothing. Not since the last new moon, at least. Nobody else has been troubled — even that damn Nikomedes looked fine when I saw him sailing into the bay.”
“The fisherman?” said Dafne. “You have trouble with him?”
“No, not really a trouble. More of an annoyance. He dragged his nets too close to our house, broke three of my best amphorae, and when I saw him after, he looked through me like I wasn’t worth acknowledgement.” The old irritation moved across his face, briefly, then exhaustion reclaimed it. “Forget Nikomedes. Can you help us?”
Teofil offered purification for them and the house, as well as a night at the temple. Watching the relief move through both of them — Kleitos and his wife.
Her parents could offer a ritual and a bed, and might help these people, but she was convinced that whatever was leaving three-toed footprints was not going to be dealt with by a purification ceremony.

As they were leaving the house, Klio spotted a figure by the workshop. Someone was trying not to be noticed, but failed.
“Hey,” Klio said. Not a shout. Just a word. The figure stopped.
He turned slowly, as if not sure it was directed to him. It was Nikomedes — they all knew him; it was a small village. He was holding something wrapped in an old cloth against his chest, in both arms.
“I wasn’t in the workshop,” he said.
“I didn’t ask,” she said. “What are you holding?”
Dafne appeared at his shoulder more quickly than the realisation of his own mistake. Nikomedes, his face betraying him more than his words, set the package down and began unwrapping it.

Klio had been trying, since arriving at the house, to name the sensation she kept almost catching — that impression of depth, of cold dark water beneath the ordinary surface of things. Now, looking at what Nikomedes had been carrying, she understood it.

The figurine was roughly the length of her forearm. The colour of things that had not seen light since before anyone alive could remember. The workmanship was alien — not exactly wrong, but not meant for humans. The tentacles — yes, they were tentacles, she was sure. She made herself look at them directly — it wasn’t an animal feature. It was something unnatural. Stone carved by someone who believed something Klio had no framework for.
She was aware that she should say something. “Where did you find it?” she managed.
“My net,” said Nikomedes, still kneeling. “It destroyed my net. I’m taking it to Elanomoi.” And then he stopped, as if he’d said something he hadn’t intended to.

Adrian Elanomoi. The richest man on the island, known for buying the past. Some said he owned things that predated Óó.

The sound came from the water.
Not drums. A sound like speech run through deep water and brought up — bubbled. They all turned.
The figure was standing on the beach. Scaled, carrying a spear with an enormous claw at its tip, pointing toward Nikomedes. Moving slowly, the way people moved when they were not yet sure if they were safe.

Nikomedes made a sound and ran. Klio heard him shouting “Monster, monster!” but she was watching the fish-man, and the creature was watching the statue on the ground behind her, and she suddenly understood.

“Step back,” she said to her parents, making the gesture small and calm so it couldn’t be seen as aggressive to the creature.

Dafne stepped back with the rigid composure of someone prepared to react at any moment. Teofil moved to her side.

The creature looked at them. Then it looked at the statue and started to move towards it. Then it set down its spear — slowly, eyes still moving between them and the statue — and knelt. Klio watched a being she had no name for, slowly bow to the piece of stone and begin to sing.
That was the only word for it. Bubbles and resonance, but there was structure in it, repetition, something that suggested a melody.
She had grown up in a temple. She knew what worship looked like. This was worship. Of something, but certainly not Óó.
The creature gathered the statue in both hands, rose, retrieved its spear, and began walking backwards into the sea, facing them the whole way. Already waist-deep, it raised the spear and made a slow arc with it — pointing west, past the Axios peninsula, past Anax, past everything she knew, they all knew. It sang one more phrase. Then it fell backwards under the water and was gone.
Klio and her parents stood on the shore.

The noise reached them before the crowd did — a specific murmur of people who had been told something alarming. Then they came: men with pitchforks, a boat hook, one person inexplicably carrying a fish.
Dafne looked at them.
Just looked. The particular look she had when she was deciding which approach would be fastest.
“What is going on?” she asked.
“There is a monster!” shouted someone.
She turned around, looking. “Who told you so?” she said.
Heads turned. Nikomedes was at the back; two men near him stepped away as if they were never there.
“He did,” someone said.
Dafne considered Nikomedes with the expression that wasn’t asking for answers, “Was he sober?”
The crowd murmured. It was already losing its shape — not because she’d argued with them, but because she’d reminded them of what they already knew. They realised who was talking to them and who had let them here. They knew the worth of both parties’ words. They’d come because the story had sounded urgent, and now they were standing on a beach with pitchforks, slightly unclear on what its purpose was.
“Go home,” said Dafne. Not unkind. Just final. “There’s nothing here.”
They went in the way of a crowd that had decided to stop being a crowd. Nikomedes was left at the back, looking at Dafne, lost in thought. She put her hand on his shoulder in a way that was not at all comforting and guided him toward the guardhouse.

Kleitos and his wife, whom everyone had forgotten, stood there, silent and motionless, since Nikomedes had started unpacking the statue. Klio helped them back inside their home.
She was still hearing the creature’s song in some back part of her mind — the structure of it, the grief or devotion or whatever it was. Her father was beside her, thinking, considering what just happened.

“What was it,” asked Kleitos, “what was it really? I’ve seen things I don’t understand. Explain it to me! I’ve been hearing drums for two nights and now seen this… this fish-men and that thing - what was it?” The urgency in his voice was mixed with desperation, pleading - he needed the world to be the old world he knew.

Klio already knew the world is different from what the church teaches, but was this the right moment to speak about it? Were these the right people? Would her dad, a priest of Óó himself, understand that the teachings of his are faulty, incomplete or possibly a lie?

“I think it’s clear that there are beings on this world, we had no idea about. Living their lives in the depths of the sea. So deep they may never have seen the light of Óó in its pure form, even,” slowly replied Klio, still considering it herself.
“Or they did, but it was distorted before reaching the deeps, and might have been twisted in his absence even more,” added Teofil.
“I believe the drums will stop now, when the statue is back there, wherever that is,” Klio continued, “Nevertheless, you’re still welcome to sleep in the temple tonight.”
“Óó be praised”, they’ve replied automatically, the relief in their eyes was visible, and their backs straightened a little, as if a heavy weight was lifted from them “Thank you all. I knew I had come to the right place, asking for help.” Kleitos added with a tired smile, unconsciously grabbing his wife’s hand sitting next to him.

Everybody turned their heads towards the door that had just opened. Dafne stepped in. “It seems to me that everything is dealt with.”
If they could turn their heads more towards her, they would. Seeing their eyes, she continued, “Nikomedes confirmed what he told us and more. After he took the thing home, he himself was hearing the drums as you did. Hid it in your workshop, to annoy you, while arranging for its sale.”

“Can we talk about my trip to Heliopolis and having Dorian accompany me?” Klio asked above dinner. She spoke to him again after they got back. Again, he told her that he would do what he’s told, again explaining that his life belongs to Óó and not to himself. Suggesting there might be different points of view, as even the temple didn’t know everything, helped little. He himself felt the need to be punished this way; the temple indoctrination worked flawlessly on him - Klio realised.
“I know he’s doing a lot here, but maybe you can pay some people to help with his jobs?” she added when her parents were just looking at each other without replying to her.
“We can, Nikomedes will do most of it anyway, as his civic duty to avoid harsher punishment. Besides, I need to send a report of what happened today to Heliopolis, and Dorian is reliable.” Dafne turned to Klio, smiling. “I will tell him to pack for two after dinner.”

“The statue - do you really think there was Óó behind that statue?” asked Teofil, when Dafne left.
“Who knows, it was old, ancient, could it predate Óó? We were told this is the last land to the west, but that fish was pointing to the west.”
“True.” he replied very slowly, “Be careful in what you say, especially in Heliopolis.” then he took a deep breath and continued “When I first arrive there, they were just burning a man for heresy - and he just asked why do the temple need to insist that Óó is the only god, if they there weren’t any other.”

Continue reading: Ilsig - session diary 5