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Notes: (Maupas, 2020-12-08)

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“

“Work on that skin, lil'chap, it's not clean enough for my taste!” said the master tanner, spitting in the river with an ungraceful gesture.
“And hurry up, lil'chap, we don't have all day, for kamis sake! The last thing we want to see now would be one of these good-for-nothing Tryker thugs to come and kick your butt by stealing your dappers…” he mumbled as he walked away from the water hole.

It was a beautiful day beginning. The cool morning foreshadowed a hot afternoon under the oppressive heat of the desert, which favored my work as an apprentice tanner from the Water Breakers tribe. But heat meant thirst, and the herbivores would soon arrive in droves at the water hole. And herbivores mean predators lurking around… But for the moment, it was enough not to think about it. I worked for more than two hours on the same skin of varinx by rubbing it with chips of tama wood. At the end of those two hours, not only was the skin not as "perfect" as the master tanner wanted it to be, but my daily supply of chips was almost exhausted, not to mention the splinters I collected in the palm of my hand. As for the water of the oasis, it was getting more and more dirty and would be soon unusable. So, when the call for a break sounded, I had a moment of panic: after the break, the master tanner would come back to see me and, noticing my task had not progressed a bit, would take a malicious pleasure in tearing a strip of me.
It had been two weeks since we had received the order from the imperial palace to redo the room of the little Dexton. Bedspread in varinx skin. But not the standard model, nor the basic model, of course. And, when it was not orders for very luxurious products like those we had been asked to produce this time, the Empire ordered heavy armor from us. But, that morning, many sighs escaped me as I looked at the state of the dirty skin that had fallen on me. I was achieving absolutely nothing with these varinx skins, not to mention the grease stains on the coat. And all this for a mission to be accomplished quickly. The whole tribe had been busy for two weeks. Drapes, clothes of all sizes, various carpets... It was necessary to do everything for a being who one day would be the Emperor of the Fyros people, our Emperor. And each day, the water was a little more dirty, brownish, and the air a little less breathable... the wind did not help. Some people said that the storm was about to break. I'm still waiting for it.

The afternoon, as expected, was hot and burning. But nothing could have prevented me from finishing my painful task after the violent correction graciously offered between two snags by the tannery master. Generous of his blows, he was! I finally managed to clean the skin properly, as it should have been, and, proud of my work, raised my head to watch the herds of herbivores drinking at the water's edge. But nothing there. Nothing at all. Not the shadow of a herbivore. Yet the star of the day was high in the sky and the beasts should have been there. Yes, but no. Later, I will be surprised that I didn't see any predators either. Strange…

“Hey Xerc!” said my matis friend, two Jena years my youngest “Did you notice? Three days we haven't seen no grazer nor bodoc-eater! I bet that the Ma-Duk, well, he's going to fall down upon us soon!”
As the young, enamored fool I was, I stupidly smiled at the little homina with a face burned by the desert sun while chewing my stinking pittance. “No time!” the master tanner had say: we had to be content with hastily swallowing filthy, almost military rations if we wanted to finish the imperial order on time. And the absence of herbivores did not make things any easier. I sighed again, without paying attention to the whispers that were spreading through the tribe's camp. After a while, the whispers suddenly fell silent. Intrigued, I took my head out of the disgusting dish we were forced to eat... and almost choked on a particularly ignoble bite of my ration.

”Is good your job, tanner, but not respectful Nature. Necessary is to stop polluting activity your, 'cause animals drinking in Oasis Oflovak no more can and dying desiccated in desert are. Kamis saddened are by deaths these by hundreds! You understand? Should you!”
••••
Two sentinels stood majestically before the very pale and not that proud master tanner of the Water Breakers. The purple eyes, reflecting an unfathomable immensity, were staring at the homin with an unattractive coldness.
− “But, ... We have very short deadlines imposed by the Palace of Pyr, and ...”
− “Silence you do, homin! not good for life water is. No life, not you on Atys. Your work stop you must until the water good and drinkable is too. Otherwise, Ma-Duk punish you decide will. ”
    The poor master tanner was losing consistency like forest snow under the desert sun. I almost felt sorry for him, but I understood that if he decided to stop production, we would risk losing the market, our reputation, and much more. Shortly afterwards, the kamis left, not without a reminder of our hominid duties towards them.
    The day passed in a slow rhythm, each one wandering from one workbench to another. The presence of the kamis did not bode well, and half-voiced confessions were running through the camp, as if they were waiting for a divine judgment. In the evening, the master tanner gathered the tribe by the glow of a campfire and announced his decision: they would not stop the river work, that the waters would purify themselves and that the herbivores would eventually return, stupid beasts that they were. Some people swore, prayed, cried, but the master was the master.

    I was among the five members of the Tribe to stand up against the master tanner. All of us claimed the right to fight him to see if he was still worthy to lead the operations. If one of us won, we could do what we wanted, and the tanner would be banned from the tribe. The opposite would also work. The other four had all failed and were pinning their hopes on me. If I won, they would stay. If I lost... We would be exiled. The whole tribe was watching the struggle. It didn't last long. I slipped on some kind of tanned skin on the ground and dragged my already tired opponent down with me, and Ma-Duk knows how, I found myself on top of him. Above all the members of the Tribe. Humiliated, the master tanner ran away and my first decision was to stop all river work. Too bad if we were late, the Kamis do not have to be annoyed.
    Eventually, the order was fulfilled with only a few weeks delay and my tribe was amply rewarded. Since then we have been maintaining an excellent relationship with the Imperial Palace in all matters relating to leather. I hope that my son Boeseus will be my worthy successor.

  in “Memoirs of Fyre”, by Xercus Xalon, of the Water Breakers tribe.

Portal of the Atys Chronicles • 2485 - 2525
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