by James Comins
"Pafaul, do we have anything that cures blindness?" the Mystic said.
"Again, I hesitate to say it, but I'm not the herbalism expert here."
"Right you are. Eyebight, perhaps!" he exclaimed, extending a long pair of left hands to the corner of the room and waggling them. The flouse retrieved a smallish bowl and handed it to the Gelfling, who swallowed from it.
"Didn't help," the boy murmured, sounding . . . well, the Mystic thought he sounded sad, but that was hardly his area of expertise.
"Not to worry, m'boy, blindness can be a blessing! It can teach you to rely on others, to develop other skills and senses, and my, but it heightens your sense of smell! Especially when you have a flouse to help you. Yes indeed . . ."
"I don't want to be blind," the Gelfling said. Sadly, the Mystic thought. Definitely a sad tone.
"Oh, but think of the data we have now! We've located the definite origins of the blue light! A cure can't be that far away now. Granted, it might not be here in this room, but . . ."
"But you can't open this room for at least a week. A week of blindness . . ."
"You're not dead, at least," Pafaul said encouragingly.
"Exactly," said the ur-Mystic. "Since none of us are dead, let's sit in a circle and ponder. When you hear the tree go tut-tut-boing, that'll mean it's ready to open again, and then we'll find my sibling urIm. He'll make you right as ruttidge."
The Gelfling sat, accepted the furry paw of Pafaul, and joined urNol in pondering.
After some time of pondering, the boy said, "The future is gone."
* * *
"Greetings an' salutations, your superiorly-intelligent majesty," the bug was saying to him. Odd that semi-intelligence apparently granted one the ability to recognize superior intelligence.
SkekTek wrapped the new robe around himself. It was a quite fine fit, a quite fine fit indeed. The Grand Emperor was pleased with skekTek's work. The Ornamentalist's embroidery was very nice. SkekTek burst with recognition.
"Er, not to be indiscreet, your wisdom, but is there anything for dinner?"
SkekTek's gaze did not stray to the insect. Still too much to learn. The new slave's one white eye and infested nose were still twitching. Curse that Chamberlain for shattering the lens, it could have been divided to create a matching pair. Did the unprocessed eye retain normal intelligence? Well, vivisection should provide the answer. SkekTek ordered the slave to bring the scalpels to the operating table and to lie down beside them.
"Have you a moment to spare for a poor merchant who might be able to acquire for you a, ah, variety of irreplaceable items?"
SkekTek's eyes flicked to the smashed smidgen of lens in his hand, then to the bug.
"This came in with you," skekTek said to the bug, holding up the glass.
"After a manner of speaking, granting me more of wosscallit, agency, seeing as I myself brought it," the bug replied. "With my partner, of course. Pity that fat Skeksi was so clumsy as to smash it so small, I was just saying."
"You could find me another one," skekTek murmured.
"Acourse I could, acourse I could. Not from here, obviously, I'd need to be, er, at my liberty."
"Partner," skekTek said. "You say you have a partner. What's your partner look like?"
The bug seemed to shudder slightly, but recovered and said, "Bit like the fella on the table, only dressed in, shall we say, a number of less-than-pristine coats. Used to carry a cart, but that's gone now."
SkekTek ignored the resentful tone. Tone was immaterial.
"Your friend will trade a second full-sized lens--no, two of them--for you." SkekTek did not pitch the words as a question.
"Sure he would, sure he would--"
Lurching out of the room, skekTek summoned a pair of Gelfling guards with recurve bows and ugly attitudes and ordered them to search the Skarith chaparral and the main road alongside the swamp for a Podling in less than pristine coats. Saluting, they departed. He returned to his laboratory and strode toward the processed slave lying on the operating table.
"Er, your precision, could you find me something to eat? Nuffing too fancy, mind--"
A long pin that had of late held a pair of hæmostatic forceps against the wall was easily pried out and stuck through the bottom of the twig cage.
"You'll be fed," skekTek slithered, "when I feed you. Now. Silence."
He tore a piece of his old, non-honorific robe off, flung it over the cage, and tied it around the pinhead. A vague quiet sobbing came from under the robe.
SkekTek went to the operating table, secured the slave's hands and feet, pinned his eyelids open with more pins, and began.
* * *
"Dig up the gardens. Take off the first layers of topsoil. Expose all the roots. We need to find them."
The two Worshipper warriors standing at the center of the dwelling saluted and spun. They flanked a very old Podling in a bark dress. She held a scepter of wood strips woven together and sat on an upturned root-end like a splintery throne. One of the warriors departed through the open door to spread the word. The other remained, guarding Loora.
"Raunip's not a spy. Neither is Cory. And Cory WON'T be hiding under your garden," Loora said.
"That, my poison-tongued infester, is exactly what spies say when confronted," the Podling on the throne said.
The old Pod woman was more gnarled than the root she sat on, Loora thought. She also thought: This diplomacy business did not suit her. She hoped Aughra would make it down here soon, and wondered how Raunip had kept pace when Loora had flown down the mountain.
"I promise you, you won't find anything."
"So strongly you protest. I begin to think we may find something after all. Earthworks, sappers, soil-salters . . . You're all trying to wrest our Sacred Tree from us. Poisoning us with your Gelfling diseases. Invading our pods. Desecrating our air." The ruler of the Worshippers curled up around her scepter. "The sorrows of having so much rightness concentrated in one place. Everyone wants to take it from you."
"Honestly, keep it. Just help me find Cory and let me get back to Aughra."
"That name." The Worshipper queen (or whoever she was) began squeezing the scepter with two veiny hands. "Abandoner," she muttered to herself. "Deceiver."
She drew her legs up and sat on them, becoming even smaller and yet younger-seeming, like a little girl with a wrinkled face.
"Yes, I remember the stories of Aughra. 'Mother of Thra.' 'Protector of nature.' Such pure and special lies." The Worshipper cradled the scepter and rocked it like a mother's child. Her eyes did not turn to Loora as she spoke. "Do you know the stories of the Mother of Thra, young thing?" The queen (Loora decided she must be one) did not wait for her to respond before continuing: "Here is one story. I may tell it to an innocent and sweet spy like you."
Loora sat crosslegged and listened, setting the meditation globe beside her, covered carefully. The warrior abided.
"A time they tell of, the one named Mother Aughra officiated a wedding between Land and Sky. Every mindful being attended the wedding. The flowers of the world each produced one new bloom never before seen on Thra. The stars dropped from their attendant posts and danced for the wedding party. The mountains bowed and the seas sang. Mother Aughra orchestrated everything.
"For ten days and ten nights the procession carried Sky forth toward the wedding. At a set time, out from behind a veil of cloud did Land reveal herself. And Aughra spoke the words of union, and Land and Sky consented and declared their love, and all things celebrated the meeting of Land and Sky.
"But Mother Aughra, seeing such pure happiness, found herself invaded by a new feeling, a sick and venomous dream--a dream named Envy. For Aughra herself had no one and nothing for herself but herself. Buried in her dream of Envy, Aughra's judgment fell clouded. She plotted to take from Land and Sky the very happiness she had granted them. If she could not be happy, why should they?
"Thus did Mother Aughra dream a fog and rain so wide and deep and long that Sky could not se
e Land, nor could they meet as they were accustomed to. Sky despaired. Desperate to reunite, Sky threw into the fog and rain pieces of herself, in hopes the pieces might reach the Land. But through her subtle powers, dreamsick Mother Aughra caused the pieces of Sky to be swallowed up utterly by the fog and rain. For ten days and ten nights did Sky plunge into the fog and rain, to no avail, until Sky had thrown all of herself down, and was gone utterly. And Land was alone utterly.
"And Land called to Mother Aughra, asking where Sky had gone. And Aughra told her that Sky had left her forever, that Land was abandoned, as no married one should be. And Land tore herself once, twice, three times, until the scars were so deep they could not be undone. This was named the Great Sundering, and every mountain and valley on Thra was born from it.
"And when Mother Aughra's fountain of Envy was spent, she dismissed the fog and rain. Even when released, Sky was gone--no longer a mind and body and face and life, but an emptied expanse. And to this day, Land mourns and cries for her wife, and to this day she finds no solace, and the rivers bleed into the sea, and wells well with tears, and the Land weeps with each breath. All from the Envy of Aughra."
The warrior Podling wiped a tear away. Loora rolled her eyes. Folktales.
"That's such a dumb story," said Loora. "She's just a nice old lady. The sky never had a face. It never happened."
"Did," croaked a voice at the door. As they turned, Aughra shuffled in and leaned too heavily on Loora's shoulder. In the old woman's other hand were bundles of plucked healing herbs. "It was long enough ago that the memory grows dim. Gelflings were not more than animals then."
"Gelflings were never animals," Loora said.
"And the urSkeks had not visited, nor become as they are now. And a great deal of learning was still to be done."
"Mother Aughra passed from this world a thousand cycles ago," the Worshipper queen murmured, smiling and gripping her scepter with both withered hands. "Thus you are no more than an evil vision brought upon us by the enemies of the Tree."
The Pod warrior drew his bow. "Then a spearbolt will fly right through her!" he exclaimed in a voice too fearful and high-pitched. His hand shook on the draw of the bow.
"Ah, let us trust it would. Have you not faith in the work of the Sacred Tree, and know that its enemies cannot defeat Her?" The aged Worshipper queen relinquished a hand from her staff, leaned girlishly over the edge of the root and gripped the spearbolt. The warrior let her take the bolt from the bow, though he stared mercilessly at Aughra as she did. "Let us hear the honeyed words sure to drip from her vaporous, insubstantial mouth."
"I know you. What've you done to these Podlings, Pressela? I can feel their confusion trors outside the village," Aughra said.
"You dare speak that name," the Worshipper queen hissed. "I've relinquished it, ghost. My name is Brin now, and I'm Great Priestess of the Sacred Tree. See how outsiders lie to us, my warrior?"
The Podling warrior nodded vigorously, his empty hands itching to draw his bow.
"Now, let us find the remaining two intruders and pass appropriate judgment on them. If we cannot bury them, for fear they should swim through the soil, then perhaps they will inhabit a cage suspended from the Sacred Tree's branches. One for each, do you suppose, or one large cage? No reason to burden ourselves unnecessarily on a sentence of death. Warrior, prepare one large cage for our guests to starve in."
Glum yet determined, the warrior nodded vigorously and departed, abeying briefly to ask whether Brin was certain she'd be safe by herself. She waved him away. He was gone.
"They are so pliable. Trusting. Believing," Great Priestess Brin said when he was gone. Loora felt ice on her neck, though there was nothing there. She rested a hand on the meditation globe's stem. After losing herself to that song of darkness, the globe was not especially reassuring.
"You know I'm not a spy," she said to Brin.
"I keep that one around--" Brin indicated the departed warrior--"because of his enormously trusting nature, his willingness to do strange tasks without question--and his very useful tendency to gossip. In an hour, the village will know he has seen Aughra, and will therefore refuse to believe Aughra even exists. As for you? I'll hear your last rattle of a gasp on your last day on Thra."
"Why?" whispered Loora. "What have I done?"
"I've long told these folk that the People of the Boughs are the only ones left in a desolate world. They live their lives believing there's nothing else, no other way. So they stay, and obey, and kill or banish intruders, and sweat over their little gardens, and from their breath and their sweat comes essence."
"Essence?" said Loora.
"The essence of life," the Great Priestess continued, curling up again comfortably. "Every living thing possesses a drop or two, but these Podlings contain a very resilient regenerating dose. Merely breathing their exhalations and eating their cultivated eflic berries and turblaroots will slowly, slowly prolong my life. It isn't much, but it's enough. Stories of friendship with the Gelfling will encourage them to go off." Brin's hand fluttered toward the door. "Away. Out there. Looking for Gelfling friends. And one by one, my sources of essence will flit off on stubby feet and I'll not have enough to live on. And slowly, day by day, I will die."
"Hmp! Not much of a life. Pretending to tell them the truth. Draining them of their ability to think on their own," said Aughra.
"They're Podlings. They prefer not to." Brin flicked her last wisps of aqua-blue hair and chuckled.
"Who are you, really?" said Loora.
"Aughra can tell you the story before you die."
"I'd rather hear it from you," Loora said.
Brin adjusted herself and laid her scepter across her lap. "You'd rather hear it from me. Close the doors and windows and come closer. They'll know to knock. I'd rather they did not overhear."
Considering this, Loora rose, closed off the room, and sat before the Great Priestess. She was nearly taller sitting on the ground than Brin was on her root throne.
"Closer," said Brin.
Loora looked over her shoulder. Aughra stood patiently, looking over her white metallic beak, and nodded lightly. Loora scooched closer to the throne, so close that Brin could whisper in her ear. The root pressed against her knee.
"The story," the Great Priestess began. "I was once a sea creature. I separated the water in a small space, about this very size." She indicated herself. "I was not very intelligent." Brin chuckled again. "Less intelligent than a fish, if you'll believe it. But I lacked the fear that drives fish to flick their tails madly. I was a creature at peace, in the light of the ocean. Until the sky broke open and a beam of light came down into the Great Crystal."
"The Conjunction," Aughra murmured.
"Through the beam came many things from other worlds. Vibrations. Beings called urSkeks. And terrible, terrible dreams. Deep dreams, which no sane person could ever conceive. Thrilling and impossible."
Loora felt her breath go thin as fear crept over her.
"Yes, feel fear, my Gelfling. When a wild dream pursues you, swim how far you may, there is nowhere to escape to. I could not escape, though I felt it coming for me. It followed me through the water, whispering its mad-wise gibberings, until I lost the strength to run the more and gave in. It took me." Brin touched Loora's chin, just as Aughra had led Cory with a finger.
A flood of images rushed into Loora's mind. Colors, frightening colors spattered with insidious meaning--eyes and eyes and teeth, and strong, screaming emotions--desires for safety from the crawling madness of the outer reaches--desires for centrines upon centrines of stable mindlessness, an eternity of a thousand sunsets--stasis and the safety to dream hideously--flew through Loora like a tamtail through piles of fallen leaves.
Brin withdrew her hand.
"You can dreamfast," Loora said, shaken.
"No, dear Gelfling, I cannot. Only a dream can dreamfast. For that is what dreamfasting is--one dream touching another. And every Gelfling is born from a dream, and bears the dream i
n her heart." A finger nudged Loora's chest. "And so I cannot have Gelflings coming and going beneath my tree, lest my dream grow polluted with another's. Pity you must die; you're quite a good listener."
"Will you really put us in a cage until we starve?"
"Oh yes, we must. My dream grows disquieted at your breath already, and at the touch of your skin. And the Podlings must be taught to fear the Other."
From inside the wisened Podling face, a blueish-green watery slime poured, nose and mouth, forming a faceless tentacle. From its center cracked a mouth.
"Yes, sweet Gelfling. You will die."
* * *
The Storyteller leaned into the firelight.
Let us speak, my audience, of the creature named Crabbit. Wisest and most loving of all insects, the Crabbits have long since advanced past the stage of digging tiny tunnels through sand, past the stage of mindless obedience to a queen, to a more developed state. In their elaborate mud caverns among the architectural roots of the titanroot tree, the Crabbits raise families and live in peaceful society. The Crabbit is a fountain of warmth.
The only great irregularity of this mindful beetle is its inability to dream. Imagine, yes. Sleep, yes. But Crabbits have no dreams, nor the ability to see images or hear sounds as they sleep. A Crabbit sleeps in a coma, and wakes wide-eyed and refreshed. A quirk, perhaps. Or evidence of the wisdom of Thra. By virtue of their dreamlessness, Crabbits are never misled. Their eyes see all things clearly. Intentions, purpose, meaning--all are clear to the Crabbit. The Crabbit knows only truth.
The Storyteller hummed a single tone and permitted a pair of lovewings to alight on her upraised arm. She cooed to them, and away again they departed, leaving behind one faintly-pink feather.
To dream, as each of us knows, is to live briefly inside our own crazy minds for a time. If we do not let our insanity out, it boils slowly over, a kettle lowly simmering. Only a creature with no madness in its soul at all may go for a lifetime without dreaming. And between lifetimes? Let us not speak of between lifetimes. No doubt we all dream our deepest dream in death--even Crabbits. But within our lives?
Clarity is the world of the Crabbit. Clarity like pressed ice.