a chapter from the autobiography “The Travels of Sésílía”, as written by Sesílía, the 11th Fourth Witch of the Unbroken Wilderness 
– 824 Second Dawn (763 CY) –

Revised and translated by Lethe, Baroness of Sharanasíl, Mírésia
– 243 Third Dawn (598 IY) –

We met the Shech^[1] peoples of the desert to intense trepidation, as the forests gave way to the great sand oceans of the Sewaragi. Our Shech guide informed us of the peculiar virtues of the fantastically clad peoples who resembled beasts not unlike the man-eaters encountered in the depths of Balaí. 

It was the ‘Bastet in the Words of the Fire’, the life-path of oral traditions, she said, and it was not written, nor could it ever be. It is the path of life in the dry ocean; and to stray from the path is to invite death. The Bastet is said to be as shifting as the sand above and enduring as the stone beneath it.

All said, our journey from the great-forest and into the great-sand crucible was a trek of 24 moons^[2] before we met with the oceans again in the east, amongst the stone halls of ‘Zish’ahkir’, at the very edge of civilization. 

And I have afterwards set down to ink portions as remain in my recollection; for chronicling it to text such at the time of its revelation would have been to risk my imminent peril.

It was a long journey across the blistering grit before our encounter with the outcroppings of lithified sand where they had made their habitation. How could one have navigated the shifting ocean bereft of tool or chart? A query answered solemnly by our Shech companion: by the bones of the lost and the Sanded.  

The clan embraced our caravan with an unvarnished and rudimentary hospitality, such as it was, and every tribal amenity was extended to us within their meager means. The following tenets were shared over flame and roasted meats that night as tales regaled in shadow and smoke; for without such knowledge would invite certain death in the merciless light of Istanu^[3].

Strength is the truest virtue. It shall not betray you in times of need.
Respect within the tribe is earned through strength of body and mind. Weakness invariably endangers the tribe.

The mother’s heart is as the beat of the desert. 
Life in the Sewaragi flows through the women as through the desert’s springs.

Temper your loyalty to be an unbreakable iron chain.
Loyalty binds kin to tribe, tribe to matriarch, matriarch to the Sisters, and the Sisters to kin again in an incorruptible coil.

The children are gifts that belong to all.
The young belong to the tribe, and not to the progenitors alone. They are as gifts, trained and reared by the collective.

Every dune is a Lesson. Heed its voice on the wind and in the sky.
By day, Istanu teaches strength and ferocity. By night, Ninkigal^[4] teaches wisdom and cunning. To honor both is to remain whole.

The Sacred Ordinance

Though they may be characterized here as laws, they are found in no codex, nor enshrined on stone. Nevertheless, our guide maintains that the ordinances here are somehow observed with singular devotion among the disparate and sundered clans with whom many have never made congress with each other across the wastes. That they should adhere to the same Bastet was a fact which elicited the wonderment of our entire expedition.  

Inheritance is by matrilineage.
All wealth, authority, and honor pass through the female line. Inheritance is by matrilinege. I could scarcely reason as to why, but to our companion, it was obvious and warranted no explanation. 

The Law of the Mated Pair:
A tribal woman chooses her mate for procreation. The bond lasts until gestation, though a rare few choose to persist in the union thereafter. The mated pair is a fascinating exploration of connubial rites absent the fetters of tenure or stratum; where survival and the perpetuation of one’s species is the prime objective: barbaric and primitive in its essence, but riveting in its efficiency.

The Wanderer’s Return
Central to the growth of the tribe is the Wanderer’s Return. A woman who takes the Pilgrimage of the Wanderer is bound to secure a worthy mate or suffer the deprivation of honor among her kin. The earlier accounts of modern civilization’s first encounters with the Shech people were now known undoubtedly to be of those taking the Pilgrimage and seeking the Wanderer’s Return; the practice of which is designed to introduce vigorous mates into the tribal collective.

The Law of Veils
Within the clan, truth is inviolable and sacrosanct. To deceive one’s kin is treachery.

The Trial by Endurance
Disputes may be adjudicated by ordeal, be it hunger, pain, or journey. Endurance proves providential favor in the face of the Sisters. The ordeal itself as a method of penance is not without precedent, and in the estimation of this contemporary observer, it is perhaps an echo of one’s own tribulations before the gods, whether embraced willingly or compelled to endure.

The Sacred Water
It is in abundance in our world, and yet in the Sewaragi the learned student understands that water is a commodity like any other. To our host, it is held in higher esteem than any coin or object most precious. One only needs to witness this oppressive land bereft of water-ways or standing pools with which to draw sustenance. I was led under the cover of darkness one night to a grotto concealed well within the stone formation, where the slow distillation of vital moisture seeped freely from a fissure in the wall, as if the desert itself wept for the tribe. And I knew then that this sanctuary would be defended with their lives. To squander a drop would be a transgression inviting a swift reprisal, a betrayal of the land’s own sorrow.

Communal Judgment
It is a tenet often espoused in more refined places that one should offer praise in public and pass castigation in private. But I would contend that the tribal approach of communal judgement is more effective in rearing progeny that are meant to endure. Let it be a lesson to the observer; collective judgement is collective erudition, a syllabus of communal wisdom. Praise and punishment are enacted before the presence of the whole. 

On Rites, Ceremony and Circumstance

In continuance, the tribes possess many curious rites and ceremonies, and most of which are requisite for subsistence in such a land which seeks to steal away your very Breath as you live and breathe. It was many nights of our equipage soliciting with the sweet treats of our homeland and prejudiced exchanges of precious water and moka tea, which surely must have been an out-landish luxury for them having never had the grace of a cup at a teahouse, but I digress. 

In hushed whispers the observances and solemnities documented here were uttered to mine ears alone by our Shech companion, for the revelation would not be understood as merely an academic pursuit to be held indemnified, but as of treachery equal to the reprisal accorded it: a ritual Sanding. 

The Adornment of the Sun and Moon
Regarding my inquiry on the eccentric markings and inscriptions about the face: At their thirteenth year, the young endure rigors designed to ensure they have realized their aptitude for survival and earn the right to adorn permanent markings on their face in patterns with some significance to the individual. The marks on the right side signify the virtue of fortitude as the covenant and living prayer to Istanu; the marks on the left side signify the virtue of subtlety as the covenant and living prayer to Ninkigal. Not one member of the tribe is spared the adornment. 

The Pilgrimage of the Wanderer 
I should look no further than the guide to our expedition, who I shall not name here. Encountering a desert-borne Shech in the wider world invites a singular and scholarly course of inquiry: for which of the two mandates has she departed her kin? Our own guide, a young woman in the spring of youth, departed her tribe in search of a companion of merit and will invoke the Wanderer’s Return to conjoin with her tribe again. May providence be a guide in her endeavors. 

The Matriarchal Challenge 
Soon after we had settled with the tribe, in whose primitive and archaistic company I found a singular, if misplaced affinity, the manner of challenge was recounted to me. That any kinswoman may contest the matriarch through victory by wit and by strength prompted my thoughts to invariably wander toward flights of fancy: that I may be a woman who may lord over a tribe, in graceful benevolence and utter adoration. It was reiterated that the rite is a privilege reserved exclusively for kin; and so I conceded softly to myself with the fantasy subsided and elucidation unveiled. And in that moment I was ashamed.

The Sanding Ceremony
To betray the tribe is to be consigned to the oblivion of the wastes, a reality made manifest by our guide. The Sanded are marked by the scars of the condemned, named for the last time as exiles, and cast into the desert alone. The punitive significance of the rite was obvious, grim and absolute: it offered the condemned a final prospective absolution, that their desiccated bones should act as hallowed way-markers in the shifting sands.  

The Vigil of the Throne
I have found the tribe is one that maintains a ceaseless vigilance toward the firmament, as if they were drawn to it by some unseen and occult attunement that evades the awareness, the senses and the protective interest of the developed mind. Our guide and steward once unriddled the nature of this celestial preoccupation during a night of interlunation when the moon and the land were surrendered to a veil of shadow, and all present had fallen into silence, fasting and purging of their weaknesses. Ninkigal roams the sands on these days, she whispered, the goddess leaving behind an empty throne as a glowing ring in the heavens. I knew the truth of the matter: that the luminous face of the moon had merely turned away and the faint glow was but an eccentricity of the light in the aether. Yet, I dared not speak. 

The Silent Journey
A child was born in the height of summer, to the sound of unbridled revelry and jubilant fanfare, and I mused then that to be a part of the tribe is to forever be in the embrace of the collective. How curious then, that scarcely had the Istanu-rise occurred on the child’s first breath that a solemn and somber mood had come upon our hosts. I inquired to the matriarch as to the predicament, but with effortless condescension as a mother to her child, was dismissively consigned to our guide who was astute enough to observe our perplexity and in hushed tones apprised us that an elder had chosen to walk the ‘silent journey’ under the cover of night. Her face gave silent testament to my suspicions that the elder would not return. In the Sewaragi, life is welcomed in communal embrace, but death is a lonesome and solitary passage.

Songs of the Sisters
I was roused peremptorily at dawn’s first light on the second day, abruptly startled with an unsettling undulation of sung and spoken word sweeping over the ridge. Stepping out from our expansive carpeted desert pavillion and onto the crisp, biting sands of the morning I beheld them: the tribe ensconced in sequence on woven furs all along the crest. It was there they sat, raving and chanting choral orisons to Istanu, welcoming the harsh light of day. And they repeated the custom with considerable ceremony at the dusk’s last gleaming, in celebration of the Sister of the Night.

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Editor’s Notes:

[1]. ‘Shech’ is the old Atirinil word for the Sekh people, and has been left as the original translation and pronunciation.

[2]. The original text was written when the lunar calendar was in use. 24 moons is approximately three years.

[3]. Istanu is the goddess of the sun and the literal sun for the Sekh people. Across modern Alcrést, Ishara is the name of the sun, and Íshíon is known to be its god personified.

[4]. Ninkigal is the goddess of the moon and the literal moon for the Sekh people, better known across the world as Séléné, the moon and Goddess.