City of Libations

You must never call it a necropolis, for it is no such thing. It is merely the city where the dead dwell. No memorials, no tombs, no graveyards are to be found there.

The dead dwell there, and have a sense of obligation to the living. At set intervals through the year, therefore, the dead make offerings to them. Shrines radiate out from the city like the spokes of a wheel, set at the end of long roads of white stone. Before the shrines are gardens and covered arbours. The shrines themselves vary in ornament and detail, but not in form. There is a broad double door at the front, facing a back wall with a shallow stage. In the left and right walls are small doors, facing one another in line with the stage. It is usual for a bench to run along every wall other than the back.

Each shrine is associated with a village or the quarter of a town. The people of the region go to their shrine, which they furnish and decorate with painted patterns, geometric motifs and local symbols. Sometimes they sweep out leaves or cobwebs, but the shrines themselves remain curiously free of decay. 

On the days when the dead make their offerings, everyone in the village is meant to come. It is known that the very ill cannot or should not, and that women heavy with child may not - no stigma is attached to this. The misfortune of illness, the laborious necessity of childbirth and the empty gap in the year's cycle is considered burden enough. The wayfarer is not compelled to come, neither are they told what day is coming. A resident outsider, as a foreign merchant, may in time become part of the ritual. 

In the early morning, the village will rise, dress and march the long miles to the shrines. There, they do two things before entering. In the gardens before the shrine are set long troughs of rainwater, with which they wash hands, face and feet. Then, they sit to eat at long benches. The food varies with season and locale - but it is generally both portable and plentiful. Often it is cooked on fires in stone braziers. Flatbreads are not uncommon. 

Aside from the usual business of the daily meal, this has two functions. Firstly, it prepares the villager for the effects of a libation. The wine of the dead is strong and it is largely considered best to have something in your belly before you imbibe. Secondly, the wine of the dead is not of the living; it is otherworldly. Therefore, it is best to face it with a ballast of the mundane within you. There is the tale - invariably passed down from the teller's grandparents - of a lean season, and men eating balls of clay before entering a shrine.

When they have eaten, all enter. Those that tire readily are seated on the benches; most stand. The main door is closed and the shrine is lit only from high windows. after some time, the side doors open and the dead enter. A prominent villager stands nearest the stage, holding a large bowl. Unseen, the dead cross the stage, and moisture is seen condensing on the bowl. Eventually, the last of the dead passes by. In local tradition, this may be the newly departed, the oldest in recollection, the famously tardy, the notably dutiful or something else entirely. The bowl is now full and the side doors close.

Within the bowl is a strong, pallid wine. The taste has been compared to plum brandy. Villagers each extract a small travel cup from their clothing and advance to take a measure. Slowly or quickly, they drink and leave. It is consider well-mannered to pause briefly outside and see how your companions are doing, but this is not a place for conversation. The last out will close the doors and clear any remnants from the garden.

Curiosity is expected of men, and this includes villagers. It is quite common for a youth to walk a ways down the white stone road where the dead walk - but not generally on the day of a libation. Some eventually become brave enough to enter the city itself. 

Those who do report back on two things. Firstly, the white stone which makes up the roads is used for the houses as well. Secondly, the lack of any of the patterning and motifs that artisans would employ in houses or clothes or other worked items in the village. Third, the half-silence that moves in a slow bubble around them as they pass through the courts of the city. Fourth, the cypherbirds. Cypherbirds are seen outside of the city as well, but clearly make the city their home. From a distance they appear to be peafowl of a sort of drab cream colour. Those who actually make into the city have seen them fan open their tailfeathers, displaying inscrutable symbols on a pallid screen. No-one agrees quite what these mean; to the bold, they are pictograms of courage and strength - to the splenetic, they show spite and insolence. To the fearful, they confirm each contradictory fear.*

Those that go the deepest into the city report a taller building with three arched entrances at the front. No light can be seen from within these, nor any sign of a door or side passage. Some have thought this a vault; some a great meeting hall, some a temple. Faded glyphs cover the outside, which may be the same as those on the cypherbirds. 

Curiosity is expected of men, and this includes those not from the villages. Bandits, treasure hunters and bravos have long assumed that the city of libations has within it fabulous wealth. So, they attempt to cross the walls, avoiding the open roads of white stone and the shrines. They find themselves confronted by dense walls of cut thorn, rather like those reported on the savannah. However, these thorn branches appear to be petrified.  

If they can safely cross these, they must climb the walls, and then they must navigate a crowded cityscape of toughly-built homes and high walls. Further thorn clumps are found within. They will be followed - by the cries of cypherbirds, by swarms of insects, by dull roaring that may or may not be the wind, by footprints - and by the open eyes of the dead. 

You must never call it a necropolis, and tomb raiders are unwelcome. 

*   'To the melancholy this sound is melancholy and to the hysterical it is hysterical. To me it has always sounded like a cheer for an invisible parade.'
Flannery O'Connor writing in 'The King of the Birds' on the peacock.