Highlights from This Year's Festival of Undying
by James Beamon
The Festival of Undying begins as it normally does, with the Pushing of the Wizard. Virtually every one of the eighty villagers trots out their own effigy of Deranged Blomssaft, many of them beautifully crafted with colorful robes, polished stones for eyes and sheared sheep's wool for hair. The villagers gather at the edge of the village and upon the sounding of the ram's horn, they release their individual Blomssafts. While the seventy-seven effigies fall silently to disappear as specks into the distant landscape miles below, the crowd emulates the desperate last screams of Deranged Blomssaft. And then they cheer.
Next comes The Eulogy, given by the village mayor in the town square. This year it's Leymin Draft, a portly man who looks like a chubby cheeked, happy baby when he smiles.
"I believe I must commend Rina Brineswell, whose screams were both panicked and piercing. And the Bellmans really outdid themselves, didn't they? They made a Blomssaft so beautiful I didn't want to see it go."
Rina blushes and the Bellmans wave as townsfolk applaud and congratulate. Mayor Leymin waits for silence to claim the crowd before he addresses them again.
"It is important to remember the Grand Wizard Blomssaft, for both his works and the sacrifice we helped him make. He plucked us from the war, famine and death of the world below and set our land to drift among the clouds. Today marks the one hundred and thirty-seventh year since any of us have seen death and while we wish it hadn't been our resident wizard, we are ever thankful for this place of perpetual magic he provided. So let's celebrate!"
Cheers go up and the overwhelming bulk of the crowd descend into the fair to play various games. The swordfight is especially gory, with a good third of the village getting hacked out of a civilized state. Rina Brineswell is disemboweled and the Bellmans are dismembered, bringing real credence to Farmer Harp's theory that getting the mayor's attention during the Pushing of the Wizard is no way to enjoy the rest of the festival.
For those villagers who are more pain averse or otherwise disinclined to spend the time having their flesh reconstitute itself, there are various cooking contests. Gran Garda handily wins for her mutton curry. She claims the secret is that "it's made with love" but her neighbors agree it's because she cleaves the meat off the sheep while the flesh is actively regenerating.
"Only way to get those mangy old sheep to taste like lamb," Delruy Smote says. "Besides, I can hear the sheep bleating its head off at night as she slices away on it."
Lori Vell wins the "Just like Egg" Contest, but not without something of a scandal. While all the judges agree that his soybean curd, softened then fried then seasoned with a highly sulfurous rock salt is the clear winner, the losers quickly point out that one of the judges, Ulia Vell, had been only eight months old at the time the village transitioned so she had never even eaten a real egg--and she's Lori Vell's cousin.
Near dusk the town enjoys the show, "The Elevating of Heavensward." They get to see one lucky villager play the wizard Blomssaft. It starts off with him in his laboratory, musing over notes and parchments.
"Dismiss me from the castle, will she?" he says to no one in particular. "Her highness lacks vision, they all lack vision."
