Duru Gintanamihan (A Tale of Tarot #10, As Written By The Fool)

There are many stories of a people reclaiming their homeland. Among the humans, the most famous are the Yishiva who spent seven hundred and fifty years retaking Ershen Ziophel, “The land of Ziophel,” from the Yishiva-hating pogroms of the Kurgzadts, the For, and the Galaamites. For the demons who emerged from Hell to build homes on the surface, they speak of Gorroma, the Promised Land of the Mordai, and how they fought against the mighty Medjay legions and transformed swamp and desert into a lush oasis and paradise for all demonkind. There is little to say about the angels who live contentedly in Heaven, though it would be years until some of them would go rogue and create the Autonomous Automaton Area in the North Pole. 

Yet the nymphs, the stewards of nature, are a species that have little cause to reclaim a lost land. Unlike humans and demons who can easily relocate elsewhere, if a nymph’s land should be lost, then the nymph and its whole cluster dies. Nymphs with no land, no cluster for them to take root and connect to the mycelium network underground, become aimless creatures, scattered like seeds to the wind and waiting to land on more fertile soil and regrow and repopulate.

Except, in the rare case of the island of Dilanaya, there were nymphs out in the world who remembered their former homeland and who desired to see it again.

These nymphs, specifically, were living in a cluster and a land called Naya-Nayang. It was surrounded by the human territory of Castallona and was subject to the king of Castallona’s tyrannical rule. For three decades, the king and people of Castallona have kept the nymphs of Naya-Nayang alive because they were a scrumptious and addictive source of food and euphoria. Whenever humans ate of certain nymph species or prepared their meat right, they experienced the same ecstasy when digesting magic mushrooms. More importantly, nymphs tasted much better than chickens and cows, and in those days some humans waged wars and built empires because of a want for flavor.

The Castallonians, one of many human groups who reveled in nymph slaughter, kept “domesticated” nymphs in animal pens for food processing, and those with sports and games in mind hunted wild nymphs in the dense woodlands of Naya-Nayang. The Castallonians had no qualms in killing the nymphs by the thousands. After all, would a human consider a non-anthropomorphic animal with a mushroom for a head anything but an animal?

Yet the nymphs were creatures with thoughts and dreams, and much of their ruminations turned toward escape. The nymphs of Naya-Nayang would never have dreamt of their old home of Dilanaya if they were not persecuted and processed by the Castallonians. But because they were hunted and devoured, they shared stories of how their god, Strength, ferried them from Dilanaya when the island vanished in a massive tsunami caused by the Moon, the goddess of tides and oceans. They did not despise Strength for making them put roots down on Castallona, for the Naya-Nayang nymphs were ardent believers of Strength and believed he had good plans for them. And they shared a hope that one day they would return to Dilanaya and plant their roots and hyphae deep into the island soil once more.

Hope became a seed, and for three decades of human pogroms the seed was kept sheltered in the dark underground caves of Naya-Nayang. It fed on the faint rays of sunlight whenever it could, drank from trickles of rainfall that seeped into the earth. Soon, hope had a name and a purpose: Duru Gintanamihan, the first of its species.

The Duru was a species of leader-nymph—a needless rarity among a race with a utilitarian biodiversity of species. Nymphs never needed leaders in the past. They functioned well as a eusocial, caste-based democracy. If a problem or a crisis should arise, then certain nymphs would be born with specially mutated traits and genes to combat the issues, and those genes would either die off if they were no longer needed or be passed down to new generations to maintain the safety and progress of a cluster. Unlike humans or demons who were lonesome individuals in a band, nymphs were like cells in a body—individualized, yet part of a bigger individual whole.

In the case of the Duru, however, the nymphs needed a mind. A cunning, perceptive mind to resolve a complex, political problem. The nymphs of Naya-Nayang have had to throw an array of speciated arsenal at the Castallonians in an attempt to break free from their regime and locate Dilanaya. Yet brawn was insufficient. Even when some nymphs did break out, they did not know where Dilanaya was, and ended up lost and afraid or slain by other humans outside Castallona.

Now they turned to brains, and that brain’s name was Duru Gintanamihan.

At first, Duru Gintanamihan did not yet understand the purpose and problems to its existence. It did not understand what humans were. It did not comprehend the meaning of death and suffering. It didn’t even appreciate the humans’ monotonous physiology or limited dichotomy of sex and gender since, as many know, nymphs often had multiple sexes which accompanies a myriad of genders—although all of them are capable of sexual reproduction with a suitable mate.

But from the mycelium network which stretched throughout Naya-Nayang, connecting nymphs with one another as trees are connected to the earth, Duru Gintanamihan began to perceive events and knowledge from the viewpoints of its kin.

Genocide! That was one of the first words Duru Gintanamihan learned from the humans. Slaughterhouses operated with religious zeal and fevered fanaticism bordering on insanity. And names, the Duru also learned: Father Tamias edn Tortura, whose infamy was renowned for using nymph entrails for rituals and nymph hides as carpets and curtains for the Castallonian Temples; and Jalondoni edn Ruhin os Senalmalta, who whipped architect-nymphs and cutter-nymphs and other labor-species of nymphs into building monuments for Castallonian history; and then there was the greatest butcher of all the Castallonians whose name was Havorino Desmerentes, the architect of the nymph slaughterhouses in the town of Bannio.

Genocide—a machinery perfected by humans to grind the nymphs into digestible and palatable meals. To the Castallonians and dozens of other human societies that consumed nymphs, they believed the slaughterhouses justified. After all, the nymphs were naked, uncivilized beasts. They did not have eyes for humans to peer into their souls and see pain, nor mouths for humans to hear cries and complaints.

If only Strength, who created the nymphs, had given them mouths to speak to the humans or any means of communication. But nothing the nymphs did to tweak their genome produced a voice that could strike a dialogue with the humans. There were things in one’s nature that simply could not be changed.

But Duru Gintanamihan was born to make change. So it listened and learned of the genocide brought by the Castallonians. It learned of hundreds of thousands who were herded to buildings where bodies dangled on hooks and butchers with machetes and axes cleaved with emotionless efficiency. And it learned of the nymphs that tried to fight back and were shot with arrows and skewered with swords, and of the massacres in towns like Grailorra and Rondola and Poledo.

The Duru learned of how nymph oils and body parts were made into soaps and lanterns and waxes, and nymph extracts for perfumes for the monarchy and nobles of Castallona. Humans would pluck the sweet-smelling pheromone glands from the nymphs which the Duru’s kin used to spray messenger spores at each other, their means of language and speech, and mash and knead the glands into powders for various alchemical pursuits.

The Duru learned of Baron Mandrias edn Manchurias, who specialized in strangling nymphs barehanded and who held soirees to carve up nymph flesh while they were still alive.

The Duru learned of Hermitanio os Lamplora, a blacksmith who tested his newly built weapons by hacking and slashing on nymph species with hardened or soft carapaces.

It learned of Duke Cialego edn Zarasuarez, who hung nymphs on his castle walls or impaled them on every crossroad in his land.

It learned of the Lord and Lady of Taravon, a couple who threw juvenile nymphs into the air and competed to see which one of them shot the most with crossbows before the juveniles hit the ground.

There were Castallonian knights who spitted nymphs on campfires, and Castallonian merchants who pickled nymphs or drowned them in salt, the most hated element among the nymphs.

Then the Duru learned of Prince Hamilario edn Reial os Castallona, the son of King Hamilar edn Reial. He was a musician who’d composed the “Death Orchestra” when liquidating nymphs into soups and broths for his soldiers. And he was also a hunter and a man of “progress” who conducted torture sessions on every nymph species he could get his hands on. The prince poisoned them, starved them, held several autopsies to determine the limits of pain a nymph can endure or how to easily kill a nymph.

How many nymphs have perished in the slaughterhouses in human towns where human families laughed and played and made merry? How many humans have dined leisurely on the organs and meat of nymphs, and how could the humans stomach the eating of intelligent and hopeful creatures? Were humans cannibals to themselves that they were comfortable in the genocide of a sapient species? Would they have eaten angel metal if they could or hacked the red skins of demons if they got away with it?

The sword and axe! Fires and salted earth!

Lashes, chopping boards, hooks, slings!

Genocide!

Duru Gintanamihan’s first minutes of existence were melancholy and despair. But out of desolation sprouted a resolution to set the Duru’s people free. The Duru knew now the purpose of its existence, and embittered by the Castallonian’s pogroms and invigorated by its ilk’s pleas, Duru Gintanamihan conceptualized a great plan to liberate Naya-Nayang from its oppressors.

The Duru first studied the Castallonian language. It commanded spy-nymphs to gather as much writing material from the humans and to eavesdrop on conversations between Castallonians, from the paupers to the wealthy. For a week it digested all the information about Castallona’s grammar, syntax, rhetorics, jargons, and alphabets. It studied from the feeble attempts other nymphs had made to write in Castallonian in an effort to prove their sentience and civility.

Once the Duru mastered Castallonian and other pertinent human tongues in the region, the Duru then studied Castallona’s politics and the politics of the kingdom’s neighbors.

When the Duru learned enough, it ordered the scientist-nymphs to produce several nymphs capable of writing literature. After a year of failed experiments, the scientist-nymphs showed the Duru a pair of writer-nymphs, the first of their species as well.

Duru Gintanamihan tasked the duo with an important role. One writer was to produce anecdotes, plays, comedies, and satires ridiculing the Castallonian monarchy and inspiring a revolution for the human peasantry. The other writer was to forge false documents, missives, tariffs, and reports between the Castallonian nobility. These fake messages would create scandals and vendettas among the nobility. Human agents, sympathetic to the nymphs, would be the ones to circulate the writer-nymphs’ literature throughout Castallona.

When the Castallonian peasantry watched memorable performances in their theaters, they never considered these insightful and enlightening plays were the work of five-fingered mushrooms. And when the Castallonian nobility pointed accusing fingers at each other for crimes innumerable, they never would have guessed it was the beasts which they’ve caged for years who were the masterminds behind their woes.

With the despicable shrewdness which kings and princes praise, Duru Gintanamihan incited a civil war in Castallona. It required thirty years of careful planning and maneuvering, though, and up to two million nymphs vanished into the bellies of the Castallonians before the Duru’s masterstroke could come to fruition. But now thousands more humans were dying out of petty grievances and social upheavals. As Castallonians murdered Castallonians, the nymphs made good their escape.

Duru Gintanamihan was aware that if a civil war broke out, the nymphs would nevertheless be the focus of an angry mobs’ vengeance and an angry monarchy’s disdain. No literature could protect the nymphs from a race whose members were barely sympathetic to each other. To prepare, the Duru ordered the revival of the Mandirigma, the warrior-nymphs. The Castallonian king had outlawed the existence of the Mandirigma, threatening Naya-Nayang with total extinction and more slaughter if a single Mandirigma was sighted. But in secret, the Mandirigma multiplied beneath the bowels of the earth where the Castallonians never found them. And when towns and cities in Castallona were entrenched or sacked or rioted, the Mandirigma sallied from the earth and carved a vicious path out of Castallona. They shepherded the nymphs of Naya-Nayang all the way to Castallona’s coast where the Bajawan Ocean gleamed. And the human sympathizers awaited with four galleon ships at the harbor.

Four galleon ships were all the sympathetic Castallonians could acquire, and four was not enough for all of the Naya-Nayang nymphs to board. But the Duru had thought of this issue since the beginning, and for years it had studied the maps of the world in search of the fabled island of Dilanaya until it pinpointed a likely island in the Bajawan Ocean. Given the population of nymphs still alive in Naya-Nayang, the distance from Castallona to Dilanaya’s possible location, and the four available galleons, the Duru calculated it would take two years for all the nymphs in Naya-Nayang to escape Castallona’s sphere of influence.

Hence the need for the Mandirigma. The warrior-nymphs erected fortifications around the harbor. The nymphs now put down a new mycelium network on Castallona’s coast to keep them all connected and comfortable. Then the first batch of nymphs boarded the four galleons and set sail. The ships carried with them the farmers, the navigators, the builders, and the scouts who would see if the island Duru Gintanamihan assumed was Dilanaya was indeed the promised island. If they did reach the island, their task was to remake the island to what it once was, and the nymphs remembered well the image of Dilanaya which they passed down from generation to generation.

All the nymphs from Naya-Nayang were relocated to the harbor in preparation for their exodus—all except Duru Gintanamihan. It couldn’t be moved. It was a massive, brain-shaped mushroom with hyphae connecting into the entire mycelium network. The Duru was Naya-Nayang.

Duru Gintanamihan knew well from the beginning that it would never see the promised island of Dilanaya. But trust in the plan and have faith in the god Strength and your own strengths, the Duru communicated to its kindred. Weep not for my passage, but rather cheer for yours. For you shall taste of the fruits of Dilanaya once more.

By the time the four galleons returned after five months out in the Bajawan Ocean, the Mandirigma lost a quarter of its population to Castallonian infantry. The monarchy was winning and setting grotesque examples to the peasantry. Now the Castallonians were becoming aware of the Naya-Nayang nymphs and diverted their legions to their food sources’ recapture. Duru Gintanamihan, back in Naya-Nayang, was killed when the Castallonians burnt the whole forest down.

The few returning nymphs in the galleons brought good news: Dilanaya was found, though it was a shallow atoll rather than a bountiful island. Still, the news renewed the Naya-Nayang nymphs. The Mandirigma put their roots down deep against Castallonian cavalry, archers, swordsmen, and catapults.  

Then, two months after the second exodus commenced, the Castallonians pulled out of their siege against the nymphs. As the Duru planned, a vicious plague concocted by the scientist-nymphs was running wild throughout Castallona. Already Prince Hamilario edn Reial was slumped on his bed, and King Hamilar feverish for a cure. Out of anger, the Castallonian king ordered his army to fall on the Naya-Nayang nymphs, yet few soldiers were capable of even lifting an arm.

The nymph pox lasted for a year. Thousands of Castallonians perished, and less than half of the Naya-Nayang nymphs were all that remained in the harbor town. The nymphs there ate the messenger spores of the returning nymphs in the four galleons, and when the capsules unraveled and sent images into their brains they beheld the growing beauty of Dilanaya. It was these images that kept the remaining nymphs determined to withstand the Castallonians, who now renewed their siege on the nymphs.

Then Duru Gintanamihan’s final playing card was revealed: the kingdom of Lithya declared war on Castallona. Castallona, weakened by plague and by King Hamilar’s poisonous hatred for the nymphs, was overwhelmed by the Lithyans. By the time the Lithyans reached the coastline, the nymphs were all gone.

But Duru Gintanamihan could not have anticipated everything, especially when it concerned divine intervention. As the four galleons made one final exodus back to Dilanaya—restored, renewed Dilanaya—the Moon appeared on the promised island of the nymphs. She was enraged by the Naya-Nayang nymphs for manipulating her subjects, the Lithyans, into a war. She raised her silver arms and a great tsunami rose. Yet before she could smite Dilanaya once again, the nymph’s god, Strength, pounced upon the Moon. They brawled on the sand until Strength scared the Moon back into the sky.

Strength then vowed to the Dilanaya nymphs that never again would the Moon threaten the island. And so when the four galleons arrived with their final cargo, the nymphs celebrated Dilanaya’s redemption and resurrection with the Hando-Haliyan Festival, an annual event in the Month of Aquarius to ward off the Moon from the sky. To this day, a wooden statue of Duru Gintanamihan, made from the remains of the four galleons, stands at the eastern shoreline of Dilanaya—a memorial of the lost being found, and the forgotten always remembered.