Earth Stone Mining

“He was testing you. He sensed the power of your anima,” Kilo said, not unsettled by their tales of woe.

Kilo had never properly explained what he meant by anima but he hadn't needed to. They felt it every time they harvested. They measured their improvements by the amount of bodies between themselves and the distance Kilo had crossed on every village assault.

“You reacted well, Nala. Fortunate you didn’t depend on Eil, otherwise you’d have been scarred,” Kilo added. Eil looked suitably ashamed because, for once, he was. He did not turn to look at Eil but it was clear he was addressing his eldest present nephew. “The proctor will arrive tomorrow. You’ll pass their test, Eil. And you’ll leave us. Beyond that, as with all of your cousins, your survival depends only on you. I’ll have done my part.”

“What happens after the test?” Nala asked in Eil’s place.

“You’ll find out in due time. I’ve given you what none of the other children of Kasai have. If you fail and die, then you never had a chance to begin with. You should have been born in another time or another place, where the weak are coddled and protected. If you survive and live, you should know it’s not because you were gifted, it’s because you were fortunate to have been born in the tribe you were born in. You should not take that for granted. The world is a cruel and dangerous place, and the moment you begin to think you are better than you truly are or that the gods are on your side, is the moment you’ve died.” He pushed open the tent and smiled, “Now, who wants some mangos?”

In the tent were their younger cousins: Ves, a boy of seven - soon eight - years, Lina, a girl of seven years, Niel, a boy of three years, and Od, another boy of three years, freshly arrived through their tribe’s machinations and schemes. Of the same parents: Ves and Niel were brothers, the first two of their parents; while Nala and Lina were sisters, the last two of their parents. Just a year before, Nala and Lina’s older sister Fee, had passed the test. They did not know whether she was still alive or not. Eil, on the other hand, was the only son of his parentage, and so was Od. They were told all of this by Kilo, their early memories long vanished. Most of them could barely remember their parents now, and they simply took Kilo at his words. Kilo only received news from the rest of the tribe when someone new was placed under his care, he too was isolated, only his isolation was permanent.

The children rushed for the mangos but knew better than to take a bite. They all sat in a circle and Kilo sang a prayer to the god of death, Ohm. The level of mumbling as they joined the chorus varied between the children. Eil did not sing at all, there was enough mumbling now to mask his own voice’s absence, and Kilo’s closed eyes ensured he did not have to fear a physical retort.

When the children finished praying and eating, the four oldest headed to the mines. Using pans and water, the distinct pebbles fell to the bottom of the pan while the rest were tossed aside. That’s how it was done across Leonaise. There was no overseer to ensure the proper work done, the threat of not mining enough was in of itself assurance that they would. The Buffoneese were confident that the Leonaisian miners wouldn’t know what to do with the pebbles should they even be tempted to keep it for themselves. Any such knowledge of the pebbles worth was kept within the Leonaise’s noble tribes and animist circles, and such noble tribes were ever under the watchful eye of King Paulus’s agents; they preferred not to risk their secrets beyond their kin.

For Ves and Lina, they were forced to use traditional means to recover the pebbles. As Kilo had advised, they secretly absorbed every fourth pebble they found - these pebbles were the source of their growing anima, these were earth stones. Absorbing pebbles were the extent of Ves and Lina's knowledge on harvesting.

Eil and Nala were knowledgeable enough to sense the earth stones by this point and recovered them with much greater ease than anyone else in the village barring Kilo who never mined to begin with. Having once been looked on suspiciously for the amount they found, Eil and Nala had taken to absorbing more than Kilo’s recommendation, at-times sharing with their younger siblings. In Eil’s case, slothing had caused him to simply reduce his efforts in general, but this wasn't far off from the rest of the Kasaians.

Kasaians had become used to their inability to gather enough earth stones and few bothered putting in much effort in the gathering. They begrudgingly valued Kilo’s capacity for violence, and his assured success in any future venture on their neighbors ressources to recover the necessary amount they’d been negligent in mining themselves.

Nevertheless, that did not stop the village chief’s daughter Halia from eyeing Eil and his cousins suspiciously whenever they did mine. Halia was Eil’s age, along with a dozen more who would be taking the exam this year too. None of them took too kindly to the children under the care of Kilo. Occasionally, having forgotten what happened to the last child to attempt an altercation with Kilo’s care, they would attempt to prove that Kilo’s children were not as special as they made themselves out to be. They thought little about the possibility that their special status in the village was not just a result of random ostracization. That often ended with Kilo belittling the child’s parent for daring to complain about their child’s bone broken state. They shouldn't have bothered his care in the first place.

Eil, especially, had not shied away from altercations with other villagers. He took pleasure in it for the sport more than the violence. They weren’t often invited in the games the other children played, so he was content in raising his fist anytime someone had ill words for him, more often than not against those a few years older than him. At the very least, he had the restraint to stop when they begged for mercy not long after a couple of strikes.

Whenever Halia would glare their way, Eil would eagerly hold up the ample amount of pebbles he found knowing well that Halia would have a tenth as much. She’d be further humbled if Nala had the desire to highlight how many she’d found. Still, when they would all bring their collections to the stockpile, Eil would conveniently have far less than he’d showed off.

“Do you think you’ll die?” Lina asked while they mined.

“Everyone dies,” Eil said.

“Don’t say that,” Nala added.

“If I do die, you probably won’t know for at least six or seven years. You’ll be twice your age.”

Lina made a face like she was trying to compute it and gave up. Instead, she tried to compare how many pebbles she had to Ves’s.

“Do you think anyone else will pass the test?” Nala asked.

“Halia will. Maybe we’ll become best friends. Then get married.”

“You wish, she hates you.”

“When we go to the school, we’ll be equals. She won’t have to be jealous of me anymore, so she won’t have to hate me anymore.”

“I don’t think so. She’ll find out how you made it, and she’ll think you’re a cheat. Maybe she’ll work even harder than you once she knows the truth, and she’ll get back at you.”

“If I help her, she won’t be as mad at me.”

“I don’t think so." She moved on. "Who else do you think will make it?”

“No one here.” Eil frowned. “It’s not really fair.” He hated to admit that the guilt of his advantage bothered him.

“Kilo says it’ll change one day. We’ll rise up and kick the prefects out.”

“Kilo says that to convince himself he’s not wasting away here. What are they waiting for? We're going to grow up, get another Kilo, maybe I’ll be the next Kilo, and we’ll do the same thing with our kids.”

“I think I want eight kids.”

“If you have eight kids, you’ll lose eight kids, you know that?”

“Kilo will raise them well, and they’ll be hard workers like me. Once they get to the school, I’ll make sure they keep working hard.”

“Eight is a lot. I think Kilo would get tired having that many to take care of. I’m not going to have any kids.”

“What if Halia wants kids?”

“What’s that to do with me? She hates me.”