A Student Asks St. Oramyn the Learned Once-Footman Why We Honor the Ancestors and their Spirits
ca. 525 CEA student said, "Instructor, you say that after death our spirits are formless and boundless. Why do we trouble ourselves with honoring our ancestors, if their experience after death is so unknowable to us?"
St. Oramyn began to tell a story.
"Once there was a man who worked high in the service of a wealthy and powerful House. But despite all the good fortune that had befallen him, and all the wealth and power that he had received through his hard work, he dishonored his ancestors and their spirits. His
rûntunbo was neglected and fell into disrepair, though he filled the rest of his home with tapestries, rugs, and expensive candles and incense.
After he had worked in the service of this House for many years, he himself became an old man. His children and grandchildren, learning from his example, did not honor his living memory. His wife died, and he lived alone in his large mansion. His kin never visited, and even the other men who worked for the House asked him to do his business outside his home, as its lavish emptiness bothered them.
At times he felt cold, with a low mood. Things that brought him joy as a younger man were felt pointless to him. He felt anxious, and often neglected to eat. Though any
seliferra would tell him that these were symptoms of soul sickness - that his ancestors no longer guarded him or aided him - he refused to see one of these priests. 'I am just getting old', he said.
Eventually, one day, he angered a noble of a rival House over comments about his daughter. The noble sent an assassin to kill the man. As the assassin walked by the neglected
rûntunbo, a guardian ghost appeared in front of him. He was dressed in ragged armor and patched clothes, and carried a rusted sword.
'I will not fight for this man, who neglected the memory of his ancestors.' the ghost said. 'When you kill him, tell him he must make amends with his family in the beyond if he is to be allowed to share space with us in our family's death-house.'
The assassin, honoring the request of the guardian ghost, told the man what he said, and then he killed him. When the man's family entered his home to inter the body and clean the place, the
rûntunbo had been restored. Miraculously, though cobwebs hung on the ceiling of his house and dust collected on every surface, the shrine was perfectly clean and arranged.
The family, puzzled, asked a
seliferra to examine the shrine and conduct a Communion with the Dead. She said, 'your father once disgraced his ancestors and neglected their memory. To punish him, they left his side in life. He got soul sickness, and became depressed and anxious. When an assassin killed your father, he made amends with his ancestors and was admitted to their death-home. The restoration of the
rûntunbo is a sign to you, and they ask you to always remember your foremothers and fathers lest they give up on all of you completely.
Though the ancestors are far and distant from us,' she said, 'They remember what it was like to be mortal and still feel attachment to what once was. Like nostalgia for a place from your childhood. But if mortals like us neglect their memory, they become hurt. They don't want to associate themselves with a hurtful place. They stop interfering in our lives. Perhaps if your father had cared for the ancestors he wouldn't have gotten soul sickness. Perhaps his guardian ghost would have killed the assassin.
But he made amends after his death, and for this reason the ancestors have decided to bless your family once again. But they ask that you do not stop honoring them, and that you remember this lesson.'"
"Did the family do so?" the student asked St. Oramyn.
"Yes," he said. "Years later, during a Ozian pogrom, this family rallied the village and fought the Ozians until they left. Undoubtedly their ancestors, including the once-disgraceful House retainer, played a large part in their victory."
The village of Lla Sanaset was far enough off the main Rastianav-Traval road that it had been nearly two years since an Ozian patrol had found its way into the hamlet. Even then, it seemed too small a town to even bother stealing from. A few pots had been knocked over, yes, and a goat or two had been killed, but for a group of Ozian soldiers to come and go with such little hell-raising was rare indeed.
Sinnamsi's father remembered the day well; horses galloped from farm to farm, men with booming voices warning their neighbors of the coming squadron. Many were ridden nearly to their ankle-bones. A formation of women, armed to the teeth with pike and sword, had been spotted from the town crier's tower marching on the unkempt dirt road leading to the village square.
Llarassour could tell his family was scared, and urged them back inside the house. It would be a day's fieldwork lost, but they could hardly do anything out there anyway with their teeth chattering. Even as scared as they were, though, he found the whole affair suspicious. There was nothing of value here, and no recent Myrorian rebellion to get revenge for. The group had likely got lost walking back to Rastianav. The foothills of southeastern Myroria were easy to get lost in. They were covered in forest except for rare patches of farmland like those in Lla Sanaset, and even in these times would swallow an army whole.
Sinnamsi remembered her fear more than the actual events that followed. The toppled pottery specifically belonged to the farm further down the road from theirs. Through their house's open windows, Sinnamsi could remember hearing the ceramic shatter. Or perhaps it was a bird's cry - or a child's scream.
Bervaso, on the other side of the village, had his goat killed. It ran in front of the column of women, and in a few minutes its carcass was attached to a wagon lagging behind the formation.
Today, Sinnamsi was a young woman and she often told herself that if another patrol came through she would stand in front of her family house and give them the evil eye. She could handle a pitchfork at least as good as either of her older brothers; often she thought that if her complexion wasn't so pale - and if she wanted to betray her people - she could join the Ozian army.
The fields still needed tending though. Her family wasn't wealthy, but they owned their farm in their own right. That made it all the more important that it was kept impeccable - lest some of their less fortunate neighbors grumble that they were unfit to own so much land.
Sinnamsi spent most of her day bent over, whether it was sowing seeds or picking the plants that grew from them. Her two older brothers were to her left, and her father - himself getting a bit too old to stay bent at the waist all day - was to her right. Beyond him was the rest of her family. For a moment her back felt stiff, so she stood upright, placed her hands palm-outstretched onto her lower back, and leaned backwards. In the distance she saw figures dressed in work clothes like her family, but they seemed to be of an older fashion. The people themselves seemed bright - almost as if they reflected the midday sun.
Sinnamsi looked to the left and to the right. No one else seemed to notice the figures. She stepped forward, feeling half-compelled, and walked towards them.
