Normally, Iris would skirt conflict, defuse the situation to avoid any violent ends. Yet this one felt different somehow, as if giving up ground meant giving up a part of himself. To surrender an inch would lower him in the engineer’s regard even further. “Tread carefully, engineer Yan,” Iris said slowly, still keeping his tone polite, professional. This was as blunt of a warning as he would allow himself. “There may come a time when I will be the one to speak burial rites over you.”
“Is that a threat?” Yan’s lip furled into a crooked smirk.
“An observation.”
Iris expected Yan to escalate, to vent his pent-up anger with a flourish, but instead the engineer gave him a long, solemn look. His features softened as he sighed, waving his hand as if to say,I don’t know what you want me to do.“Whatever. We all have jobs here. Get yours done and keep out of our business, and we won’t have problems. We don’t need your sutras and your burial rites here.”
“As you’ve already been kind enough to inform me.” Iris couldn’t resist.
“What a great memory you have, Vessel,” Yan said and sauntered back down the corridor, no longer stomping his boots on the moss.
Once Yan was out of sight, Iris set his duffel bag on the floor outside the cargo bay and ventured inside. Past the threshold,the air hung heavy, weighed down by the hundreds of lost souls now bound to this space. An old smell permeated everything, one of moisture and lost memories and ancient death. A smell that had increasingly become comforting to Iris in his years of practice as a Vessel. A smell of endings, of the changing seasons, of crumbling dust on the windowsill when the setting sun struck it. It had long eaten its way into his robes, and no matter how much Iris washed and starched them, it would not leave. Under his nails, it had made a home as well, having moved and touched death as many times as he had.
Perhapsthatwas the reason people avoided him.
Feet stepping lightly on the floor of the cargo bay, Iris crossed the vast room and lowered himself to his knees in front of the monstrous pile. Against the dark moss, the bones glowed the same soft white of his robes. How similar he’d grown to death, orderly and silent. The work would be gruelling and restless and, above all else, necessary.
Between two hundred and six and three hundred bones in each skeleton.
Between two hundred six and three hundred unique bones he would identify and place in their correct positions to form a single person, to remind the cosmos that they existed, to let them rest after an arduous journey.
Iris would never find which of the bones belonged to whom. But he would work with what he had, and what he had were scattered pieces of people that he could, with some work and some prayer, assemble in wholes and send off to the One Beginning. It was the thought that counted.
Or you can just say that you did and take a vacation.
Iris smiled serenely.You’re supposed to be helping.He could pray first, or he could start with a pelvis. He couldn’t go wrong starting with a pelvis. With one final bow, Iris rose to his feetand pulled a relatively well-preserved piece of bone from the pile. He wiped it with the corner of his robes and lay it flat on the floor. It was a small piece of bone, much too small to have belonged to an adult. “My friend, rejoice, for there is no you, and there is no me. The Light is your flesh as it is starlight,” Iris muttered softy and reached for a femur. This one was adult sized. It would have to wait its turn.
Many hours would pass before he had a complete skeleton. Many weeks before Iris would make good of this mountain of remains. Not to worry. He knew this work well. It was the only work he’d ever known, and as such, it was as natural to him as the rhythm of his breath, as predictable as the cadence of prayer. A proper thing to do, and the proper thing could never be rushed. It was the only thing he could do for these people now.
It was the only thing he could ever do.
3
If there is no wrong way to be, if I am just as right as the starlight and the rising of the suns, then why does each day come accompanied with such shame? If I am just as right as the turning of the tides, then when will I embrace myself just as I do the natural movement of all celestial bodies?
Why do you ignore my pleas, O, Light?
From the unabridged diaries of Vessel Iris, Volume Four
Another droplet fell an inch from Iris’s face.Drip.He’d been watching them plop closer and closer, but he was far too sore to move from their path.Drip.He lay flat on his back, arms outstretched, staring aimlessly into the tall ceiling of the cargo bay. The heavy silks of his robes did little to cushion the pinpricks of moss along his shoulder blades, the fabric itself already tattered and muddy at the edges from the rummaging he’d been doing. Giving the bones a languished look-over, Iris groaned through clenched teeth. The mountain appeared unchanged in quantity and volume despite hours of work.
You should eat, VIFAI said for the fourth time.
Iris ignored it for the fourth time and reached out to pick out a thin fibula from the pile, identifying it by touch alone. He held the bone high above his head, blocking out the dim lights. One rough flexion of the fingers and it would easily splinter.Living people had the ability to put up more of a fight, but even they were far more fragile than they cared to admit. With a rough shake of the head, Iris shied away from the thought. Such violent leanings were unbecoming of a Vessel. He was taught better, knew better, he chastised himself. There were few things truly inexcusable for the Starlit. Violence for the sake of violence was one of them. The one cardinal and unredeemable sin a Vessel could commit was the taking of a life before its due time.
A polite cough saved Iris from further ruminations.
Someone’s here,VIFAI said, two seconds too late. Unable to ignore both the owner of the cough and the echoing voice in his mind, Iris placed the fibula down and sat up.
The man in the doorway could have been in his late sixties or on the rougher end of forty. He had the face of a kind and brilliant man, only briefly touched by madness; his beard and the remains of his thinning hair on his head were grey-speckled and unruly. “My name is Dr. Ora. Ishtan Ora,” he said nervously, avoiding Iris’s eyes, and poised in a stiff half bow. “I’m the archaeologist Riyu must have mentioned. You don’t have any use for my professional titles.Oh, just call me Ishtan, Vessel. Can I call you that? I’m sorry. I’msorry. Yan said we had a Vessel with us, and I—well, he didn’t usethosewords.”
Iris couldn’t help but beam at the doctor’s charming awkwardness. He smoothly rocked to standing and bowed low to the man. “What words did engineer Yan use?”
Ishtan winced. “I believe, and I am paraphrasing here, he said the gravedigger has set up shop in the cargo bay, and he was hoping the garbage would get cleaned out by the end of the week. He can be—”
“He can bequitearticulate.”
Ishtan laughed. He stepped into the room and bowed to Iris again.
