Galvarino: Eclipse of the soul

Galvarino: Eclipse of the Soul

There was a peculiar calm in the air. Even the chattering sparrows had fallen silent. A deer crouched beneath a quiet brook, even the river seemed suddenly frozen. The three men hunting noticed the animal’s stillness, and then they too felt a sweeping blankness, a reverent silence pass over them. Mirroring the shadow that dimmed the light of the sun.

Not a single thought passed through their minds as they waited. The sun was swallowed whole—its light blocked by the moon. The forest transitioned into night in the blink of an eye. The hunters fell to their knees and wept, praying for their lives as a never-ending mantra. In their tribe's philosophy, it was forbidden to witness or be exposed to an eclipse. It was said to be the divine cleansing of spirits—and deadly to the living as they may be mistaken for the dead.

Yet the fourth man hunting remained standing.

Galvarino gazed at the eclipse, entranced by its morbid beauty. He saw something of himself in it. He imagined his loved ones’ piercing voices crying out:

“Galvarino, come home, my son. The divine mother bleeds like a roaring tide that rips the roots from the earth.”

He responded aloud, "If simply witnessing her creation is enough to take me, then so be it. Take me, Mother."

He brought his palms together in reverence, removed a fragrant pouch from his sack, and offered moist crushed tobacco to the wind with a kiss of gratitude.

The moment was quieter than any he had ever known—no speech, no motion, just Galvarino and the unmovable stones off the coast. He noticed one of the stoic pillars moving—an unfamiliar floating mountain inching toward the land. He watched its slow approach throughout the eclipse's tempering of light, measuring its pace by the star's ambiance above. It would arrive by nightfall, or by morning he thought.

He performed a final ritual bowing to the four directions for allowing him to witness this omen, then turned home. Journeying a short distance through countryside following the dispersed trees on the dirt path that wove through towering jade grasses.

He passed through the tribe’s stone gate, it was open but just wide enough for one person. Villagers were beginning to emerge from their homes for the evening gathering. But before Galvarino could meet a single gaze, he was seized from behind. With a cloth placed delicately over his eyes.

Once it was removed, he was in darkness, the absence of contrast made him question if his eyes were actually open. A bundle of herbs glowed softly, the aromas of Damiana, and Verbena filled the air, its smoke thick and sweet. With each breath, he felt his skeleton release. Although his limbs were tightly bound, unable to move more than a few centimeters in any direction.

Her voice softly commanded the abyss, the elder woman spoke after reciting a short mantra that served as an introduction to the unseen presence in the hut.

“You cannot leave. You cannot feel, smell, or taste. You are lost to the world, and until you are found, you must remain here.”

And with that, she vanished into the smoke and shadow.

Galvarino sank into silence. The moist soil beneath him became his only companion. He listened to the quiet movements of centipedes, the soft push of roots growing beneath him. Eventually, he felt as though he had become the soil, the life within it entertaining his vacant psyche in timeless stillness.

Without food, sleep, or water, he began to dissolve from existence.

Then—a flash.

It was too brief to light the room, yet like a spark it blinded him for a moment. Suddenly he remembered the floating mountain, making its way gracefully under the eclipse.

Next came a sound—a screeching, ripping noise. Small beads of light began to appear on the hut’s walls. The straw door was finally torn from its foundation, allowing a handful of people to rush in. Two men cut his bonds. While women and children crouched in the corners, trembling.

“Galvarino!” voices cried. “War! Sickness! Death!”

A young man spoke poetically, describing a calamity that sounded almost supernatural. Galvarino’s heart seized. What monster had emerged from the eclipse to punish his people?

Tears streamed down his face. The young men helped him catch himself, supporting him as he stumbled into the daylight.

Thick smoke filled the village, flames piercing through the fog like crimson spears. Galvarino ran, desperate to find his soulmate and their child. He found his home intact but ransacked—signs of struggle everywhere.

He uncovered a bundle of rolled leather, revealing small daggers and his tomahawk. Gripping it, he sprinted back into the chaos.

Then he saw them.

Men in gleaming silver-plated armor, sashes bright with color, and gemstones crusted into their garments. The invaders. The monsters from the depths.

The noblest of them—wearing a massive, jeweled hat—locked eyes with Galvarino. At his feet were Galvarino’s partner and child, bound and bloodied.

Enraged, Galvarino charged with his tomahawk. They clashed. The armored man drew his sword, and they exchanged blows. But then the stranger pointed his blade at Galvarino’s family and spoke in his native tongue:

“Stand down.”

Galvarino dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, embracing his loved ones. Yet the captain quickly raised his blade and struck him with the hilt of his sword. Immediately Darkness returned.

When Galvarino awoke, he was bound but this time with the other men of the village. Women and children sat around them, encircled by armored sentinels.

A man with yellowed teeth and a thick mustache stood in the center, holding a jeweled leather-bound book. He bellowed, “Heeriye! Heeriye!”

Next to him stood a man resembling one of their own, though scarred and disfigured, wearing similar attire. He began translating.

“We come in the name of the one true God, His Majesty Jesus Christ.”

Behind them, a man held a banner depicting their deity. The captain continued:

“Our God has commanded us to destroy false gods and convert their worshippers. It is better to redeem you than judge you ourselves. Amen.”

Then he added:

“But the Devil finds work for idle hands. All who resisted us shall lose theirs.”

He pointed to Galvarino’s young son.

“One must die today for the soul we lost.”

Galvarino screamed and fought to rise but couldn’t move. He sobbed into the soil, helpless, yet not broken.

The man continued, “I will take the boy’s mother as my wife, a tithe for her new life.”

He wrapped his hand around her waist, resting it above her womb. She stared at the ground, bloodshot eyes wide, and filled to the brim with impending agony.

Galvarino lay on his side, glaring through tears. Focused on his pale liver-spotted hand on her stomach gripping into her core. He was so fixated that he didn't feel his own hands being cleanly severed from his wrists. Screams echoed through the village as horrors unfolded—women brutalized, children terrorized, men maimed all for a holy name.

Life was never the same. Women were forced into servitude and violated at will. Men were used as pack animals or tables for their tormentors to slam boots upon.

Galvarino never saw his soulmate. He suspected the captain kept her aboard the ship offshore. He imagined her dizzy and disoriented tossed about by the tide. Rage festered within him, but with no hands, he felt powerless, yet he could feel his balled fists their weight like stones.

He lay on the soil, once again, somewhere between life and death, decay and resurrection. Whispering into the earth:

“Mother of all, I’ve heard of your contracts. I offer you everything—my body, my soul, my will. Make me your vessel. Let me drive them back into the pit they came from. Whatever I must do, whatever I must become, whatever I must sacrifice, take it, I am no longer, all I am is yours.”

A moon cycle passed waxing and waning, the tides rose and passed away. The invaders moved on, leaving behind a shattered village, picking their teeth of the tender feminine flesh with the fragile bones of pinky fingers.

That night, under a moonless sky, the tribe gathered in silence. One by one, they began to moan—first the elder released a guttural tone mimicking a howler monkey. The next oldest moan was more like a wind tunnel, the non-verbal dialogue continued, each voice's tone joined in a chorus of mourning.

When Galvarino’s turn came, he let out a blood-curdling scream. Causing all in the congregation's eyes to shoot open from their half-opened daze.

Beasts fled, birds scattered, and the ground trembled.

Tearing off his shirt, revealing a muscular, mutilated body, he shouted:

“I have given myself to our warrior goddess. I will make them pay.”

Some men scoffed in a hissing chuckle, “With what? You’ve lost everything.”

Galvarino turned to the elder and asked, “You know what can be done, don’t you? You know how to consecrate me.”

She nodded and produced a rolled leather bundle. Galvarino’s constant stoic impression changed into a wide grimace. Inside were two massive, hiltless blades, both curving toward one another like the necks of swans combined with scorpion stingers.

Galvarino laid before the fire on a straw mat. Plumes of smoke were blown into his face. He drank a bitter tea of dogwood and helichrysum to numb his senses. Each of the blades became red-hot from their moments of fusing with the embers. The blunt shafts of each were then plunged into a thick, herbal solution of comfrey and plantain. Their heat immediately caused the water to boil, then combust filling the air with steam.

Endless echoes of gut-wrenching agony painted night as the blades were hammered into the stumps of his arms. Glowing iron was met with rich cooked hemoglobin. Silver bonded to bone, and fastened with turquoise stones and wooden screws. Finally the ritual was complete as the sun began to rise, a dark panther hide was used to bind it all in place. Its fur now seemed to grow from his hand, yet instead of claws he had two viper fangs. Pulsating with the venom of his retribution.

He awoke at dawn the next day in his hut. His soulmate was there, holding him, sharing eyes as they used to do. Their embrace was wet with tears, bittersweet. As she was no longer with him, and he was no longer a man. Now a work of fiction, a story to be told to skeptic onlookers, a legend with breath.

With a heavy heart Galvarino effortlessly climbed to his feet, kneeling on the blades for support, and began walking to the coast. He sat on the cliff, watching. And sure enough, that night under a sharp crescent moon, the colonists returned. Fog had crept inland, as their horses prodded along the beach. Their glimmering iron caught Galvarino’s attention.

The large group of men laughed loudly, mocking the land of the Mapuche, smelling of piss while praising their God. As they approached the path that led to the village, the horses suddenly stopped. The captain stepped down, confused. He saw nothing in the way, pointing his torch in the direction he surveyed the environment.

Lightning flashed in the sky striking near a nearby tree.

His massive blade-arm struck like lightning, cleaving the captain’s helmet in two pieces.

The invaders panicked. One lunged with a spear—Galvarino snapped it, impaling the man. He charged the group, slashing, whirling, a storm of vengeance.

Bodies fell.

Dozens lay broken in the sand, crimson soaking into the tide.

Only the captain remained. Silent, pale, shaking. No words. Only fear.

Galvarino did not speak. He dragged his blades through the sand.

Not a man—but a creature of divine wrath. A myth born in blood and eclipse.

The captain screamed until he couldn’t anymore. He wept under the moon, praying to a god that never answered.