Spiral Tone - Benbhub"s Journal

Thirteen winters in

The flies found me today.

I was checking the new waste pit someone dug too close to the settlement—stupid place to put it, I could have told them that—and they came in a cloud. Hundreds of them. Landing on my arms, my face, crawling through my hair.

I tried to wave them away at first. But there were too many. So I just stood there and let them crawl.

And I noticed something.

They weren't random. They had patterns. Where they swarmed thickest—that's where the waste was freshest. Where they moved in streams—that showed air flow, which showed how gases were venting. Different kinds of flies in different spots.

The flies were reading the waste. And I could read the flies.

When I came back to the settlement, Mother took one look at me and made a sound. Not quite disgust. Just... disappointment that I'd managed to get myself covered in flies again.

"Semnos," she said. Using my real name. The one that means "He Who Brings Together."

But by evening, the other children had a different name. They sang it in that cruel way children have: "Benbhub! Benbhub! The Fly-Lord speaks!"

It was supposed to be a joke. A mockery. Lord of the flies. Lord of filth. Lord of nothing.

But I heard it and thought: yes. That's exactly right.

Someone has to rule where no one wants to look.

Fifteen winters in

The sickness came.

Started with the children near the central well. Fever, cramping, the flux that empties you from both ends until there's nothing left. Two children dead in three days.

The elders gathered. Tried everything—new herbs, different grain stores, prayers, offerings. Nothing worked. The sickness spread.

I spent three days mapping it. Where each sick family lived. When they got sick. What connected them.

The pattern was obvious: they all drew water from the same well.

But wells don't make people sick. Everyone knows water from deep earth is clean. That's what the elders said when I tried to tell them.

So I kept looking. Found the new waste pit someone had dug uphill from the well. Two moon-cycles old. Too close.

The flies showed me. Clouds of them rising from the pit, moving downslope, clustering around the well. Following the underground flow I couldn't see but they could sense.

I ran to the elders covered in flies, desperate. "The waste pit! It's too close to the well! The bad water is traveling underground—"

They stared at me. At the flies crawling on my arms. At this strange boy who spent his days digging in filth.

"Waste doesn't travel," one elder said firmly. "It stays where you put it."

"But I can show you—"

"You've seen fifteen winters. What do you know of sickness?"

A few people laughed. Not cruel, exactly. Just... dismissive.

That's when I heard the child's voice, singsong: "Benbhub! Benbhub! The Fly-Lord speaks!"

The outbreak killed seventeen people before it subsided. Eventually people stopped using that well. Never knew why. Just felt wrong.

I was left with a name I hated and knowledge I couldn't share.

So I started digging. Learning the invisible kingdom on my own.

Seventeen winters in

I've spent two winters digging test pits. Hundreds of them.

Different depths. Different distances from water sources. Different soil types. Watching them fill with rain, watching them drain, tracking where the water goes.

Nobody understands what I'm doing. They think I'm mad. "Benbhub digging his holes again." "What's the Fly-Lord looking for this time?"

I'm looking for the rules. The patterns that govern the invisible kingdom.

Because there ARE rules. Water flows downhill, yes, but not just on the surface. Underground too. Through cracks in rock, through loose soil, through layers you can't see but can learn to read.

The flies help. They're drawn to moisture, to organic waste, to the places where underground water meets surface contamination. Follow the flies and you find the flows.

I've stopped trying to wave them away. They're my teachers now. My guides through the invisible kingdom where most people never look.

Found an old well today. From a settlement that came before ours. The timber lining was rotted but you could still see the craft. See the knowledge.

They knew. The ancestors who built this—they knew about contamination. About distances. About underground water. They built their wells far from waste. They understood.

But that knowledge was lost. When our settlement grew quickly after the innovations started—the goats, the vessels, the colors, the beads—we just expanded. Built fast. Forgot the old rules. Or never learned them.

I'm rediscovering what they knew. Through flies and dirt and endless, patient digging.

Alone.

Twenty winters in

There was a child who used to watch me work.

Twelve winters in then. Intense eyes. Too many questions. The other children avoided her the way they avoided me—uncomfortable with people who see things differently.

Serapnenh. The question-keeper.

She'd sit at the edge of my test pits and ask: "Why do you dig there? What are you looking for? How do you know the water moves?"

Most people asked those questions like I was crazy. She asked them like she actually wanted to know. Like she was testing her own understanding against mine.

So I told her. About the invisible kingdom. About how water travels underground in patterns you can learn to read. About how the flies show you what you can't see directly.

She listened. Really listened. Then asked: "Why don't people believe you?"

"Because they can't see it," I said. "The flows are underground. Hidden. People only believe what they can see."

"Then you need to show them," she said. "Make the invisible visible."

She was right. But I didn't know how yet.

That conversation stayed with me. A twelve-winter-old girl understood something the elders didn't—that seeing requires showing, and showing requires making the hidden visible.

Three winters later, I'd get my chance.

Twenty-three winters in

The Great Sickness returned.

Same pattern as before but faster. Stronger. Children dying within two days. Elders following quickly. The settlement panicked.

They tried everything. Wenh's medicines—didn't help. Threyenh's fermented preparations—no effect. Serapnenh's questions—nobody had answers.

Fifty people sick. Then seventy. Everyone who drew from the central cistern.

I knew immediately. Same pattern as eight winters ago. Someone had dug a new waste pit. Somewhere uphill. Contamination traveling underground to the cistern.

But this time I didn't just tell them. I was twenty-three now, not fifteen. I'd spent eight winters learning to think like the invisible kingdom. And I knew they wouldn't believe words.

So I showed them.

First I mapped the sick families. Marked each household publicly. The pattern was obvious—radiating from the cistern, strongest closest, weakening with distance.

Then I followed the flies. Found the hidden waste pit behind a storehouse. Clouds of them streaming between pit and cistern, following underground contamination through air currents I couldn't see but they could.

Then I did something no one expected.

I started digging. Right there in the middle of the settlement. A trench from the hidden waste pit toward the cistern. Three feet deep.

People gathered. Thought I'd gone mad. "Benbhub has finally lost it!" "He's tearing up the settlement!"

But I kept digging. Forty paces. And at three feet down, I hit it—contaminated seepage flowing through loose gravel toward the cistern. Underground. Invisible from the surface. Exactly where I said it would be.

I called everyone over. "Look. LOOK."

You could see it. The contamination. Dark water moving through gravel. Underground. Exactly where the flies had been clustering.

Everyone was silent.

Then Wenh spoke. "He sees what you cannot see. He has been trying to tell you for eight winters. Are you ready to listen now?"

The invisible kingdom became visible. And everything changed.

Twenty-three winters in—three moons after

They call me by name now.

Not Semnos—the name my mother gave me. Benbhub. The mockery-name. But it's not mockery anymore.

Now when children say "Benbhub," they say it with respect. The way they say "Wenh" or "Weiknos" or "Yemotos." A name for someone who sees patterns others miss.

The settlement asked me to design new waste systems. Brick-lined pits that prevent seepage. Minimum distances from water sources—fifty paces, more if ground slopes toward water. Gravel drainage layers that control flow. Maintenance schedules so pits don't overflow.

And I told them: this work needs people. Not just me. Others who understand the invisible kingdom. Who can read the signs. Who can maintain the systems.

They needed a name. These workers who would follow the path I'd found.

The Benbhuben. The Followers of the Fly-Lord.

The name that was meant to mock me became the title they carry with pride. Six workers now, trained in the protocols. Maintaining the pits. Watching the water. Reading the flies.

I should feel vindicated. Proud. I saved lives. The settlement is healthier. The invisible kingdom is visible now, maintained, honored.

But I keep thinking about that first outbreak. Seventeen people dead because nobody would listen to a fifteen-winter-old covered in flies.

Would they have listened if I'd been older? Better spoken? Not permanently stained with the smell of waste?

Or did seventeen people have to die before the invisible kingdom could be seen?

I don't know. And not knowing is worse than the flies ever were.

Thirty-five winters in

The Benbhuben are becoming separate.

Not by my design. Just... it happened. Twelve workers now, all trained in the protocols. They maintain the waste systems, monitor the water, keep the invisible kingdom functioning.

Essential work. Necessary work. Work that keeps six hundred people alive and healthy.

But.

But people step carefully around us now. Not just me—all the Benbhuben. They respect us. Honor us. Need us.

And keep their distance.

We eat separately. We have our own shelters at the edge of the settlement. When we walk through the market, people make space. Not hostile. Just... apart.

Necessary. Honored. Apart.

One of the young Benbhuben—maybe nineteen winters in—asked me yesterday: "Will I ever be able to marry outside the workers? Have a family with someone who doesn't... smell like this?"

I didn't know what to tell him. Because the honest answer is: probably not. Once you're marked as someone who works in waste, who lives in the invisible kingdom, who keeps your hands permanently stained... people don't see you the same way.

They see the work. The necessity. The service. But not the person.

I created a profession that saves lives. And trapped everyone who follows it in a role they can't escape.

Just like the guilds used to do. Just like the hierarchies we thought we were avoiding.

The Benbhuben are becoming a caste. Necessary. Honored. Untouchable in both the good and bad sense.

And I don't know how to stop it.

Forty-four winters in

I stood at The Great Rest today and told my three stories. The Great Sickness. The experiments. The moment I made the invisible visible.

The pattern was marked on the wall: Chaos → Confusion → Clarity.

Thirty-five notches. Thirty-five witnesses who validated that the invisible kingdom matters. That infrastructure enables everything. That someone must rule where no one wants to look.

It should have felt triumphant. Validating. Proof that my life's work matters.

Instead I kept thinking about the young Benbhuben who asked if he could ever marry outside the workers. About how the profession I created to save lives has become a prison.

After the ceremony, Weiknos found me. Sixty-two winters in now, still smelling of goats, still moving like prey. He sat beside me and said nothing for a long time.

Then: "The goats chose to stay. But their descendants never got to choose. They're born tame now. It's all they know."

I looked at him. He understood.

"The Benbhuben," I said. "They didn't choose this life. They were born into families who do this work. It's all they know now."

"We create new ways to live," Weiknos said quietly. "And then the new ways trap people just like the old ways did."

We sat together for hours. Two odd ones who'd spent our lives seeing things others couldn't see. Who'd created innovations that saved lives and trapped descendants.

The flies circled us in the firelight. My constant companions. My teachers. My mark.

I used to hate them. Spent winters trying to be free of them. Now I can't imagine myself without them.

Lord of the flies. Lord of the invisible kingdom. Lord of the space between life and death where waste travels and water flows and infrastructure keeps everyone alive.

Necessary. Honored. Apart.

Forever.

Sixty-three winters in

The Benbhuben are hereditary now.

Forty winters since I validated the pattern. The workers' children become workers. The workers' grandchildren know no other life.

They're respected. Essential. The settlement couldn't function without them. But they eat separately, live separately, marry mostly within their own group.

A caste. Not by law. Not by force. Just by the slow accretion of separation. The inevitable drift from necessary work to necessary people to separate people to other people.

Serapnenh predicted this. Twenty-one winters ago when I validated my pattern, she asked: "What happens when the Benbhuben become hereditary? When they're a caste? When they're untouchable?"

I didn't believe her then. Thought: the work is too important. People will always honor those who keep them alive.

And they do honor us. But honor from a distance is still separation.

A young Benbhuben came to me yesterday. Fourth generation—her great-grandfather was one of my first apprentices. She asked: "Did you mean for this? For us to be born into this work? To never have a choice?"

I wanted to tell her: no. I never meant for that. I just wanted people to understand the invisible kingdom. To maintain the systems that keep everyone healthy.

But intention doesn't matter when the result is a caste system.

I created this. I saved lives and trapped descendants. I made the invisible visible and created invisible walls between people who do this work and people who benefit from it.

The flies still find me. After fifty winters, they still recognize me as one of their own. Lord of the flies. Lord of the invisible kingdom.

Lord of nothing I meant to create.

The systems work. The water is clean. The waste is managed. People live healthy lives because of the invisible infrastructure the Benbhuben maintain.

And the Benbhuben live separate lives because I made them necessary.

That's the cost. The hidden cost. The thing you can't see until forty winters have passed and children are born into roles they never chose because their great-grandfather followed someone covered in flies into the invisible kingdom.