A Talent...

(This is Part 1 of A Talent for Binding Things Together)

Gentle, cool rain falls off of Jin-Kalys' scales in rivulets. Spring in Griolsa territory.

But he doesn't notice the rain, except to note that it is making him sluggish. Sol is hidden behind glowering clouds, promising more precipitation. About thirty reaches ("meters", the Cheldrun measurement he's learned, rises unbidden to his mind) distant, a trio of massive Gogajin are huddled together, speaking softly, glancing at him periodically. Nearby there is a pile of stones.

Upon reflection, Jin is reassured that no one is trying to eat or maim him. Gogajin are vegetarians, of course, but perhaps he should amend the thought. No one has tried to main him yet.

Perhaps it is a compliment that Adana Griolsa herself is the one who hunches down and lifts one of the stones off the ground, over her head. She tenses, and heaves.

Jin feels his cloaca clench.

The off-white stone sails into the air, turning ponderously, making its way to him. Its motion appears to slow, the raindrops on his scales becoming a periodic typmany. Its arc is true, and it is heading straight for him.

No...no, the arc is off. Its parabolic path is bent, the exponent increasing erratically. Something is wrong. Gravity is constant. The mass of the stone must be constant. What is the variable?

The wind is at his back, pelting him with little drops of rain. The wind. Of course. Trust. The Gogajin are concerned with trust. If it were warmer, he would have seen it immediately.

Jin opens his arms wide to receive the stone, grinning to himself as it shatters on impact, showering him with moist globs of some kind of plaster, already falling apart in the incessant rain. The Gogajin cheer, and he wipes himself off assiduously. Trust indeed. How very quaint! If Jin were a mammal, he imagines that the feeling would warm his blood. As it is, he blinks sleepily as the Gogajin come stomping over, shouting.

The embraces will hurt far more than the stone did, but Jin accepts them quietly.

***

Varissa does not fare so well, and is relegated to the edges of the village. She is instructed to avoid contact with any roving adolescent Gogajin she might encounter. Its been a hard winter, and they'll be closer to the village than normal, hoping for occasional gifts of food from concerned family members. Left at a careful distance, of course. She spends the night up a tree, growling to herself.

***

Thanks to his breathing exercises and powers of concentration, Jin is able to make the room stop spinning. Briefly. Long enough to feel vaguely ill. And to ask "Could you repeat that, please?"

Adana grins, takes another drink of mead (how can they drink this?), and says in clear, unslurred Gogajin "As I told you, you're not the first uncommon visitor we've had of late. There were another couple of groups been by; one Cheldrun with a Zipsum guide - city Zipsum, mind - and the other the strangest we've ever seen. Three Cheldrun, three Karians, headed up to Ben Hamor to meet the gods."

"How many Cheldrun in the first group?"

"Three Cheldrun - and they brought back our Angus! - and there was the Zipsum. Now, one of the Cheldrun is dead, eaten by a Jevumm if you can believe it, then other when we were attacked. A second, big metal fellow, left on his own with the Zipsum, headed home I guess. The last one, Reeyoo No Sookay was his name as I recall" there are scattered nods at the strange sounding name "broke the hearth law, then disappeared."

Jin feels it is appropriate to touch the mead to his lips again, blinks at the way it makes his nose burn to smell it so close. "Broke the hearth law? How was that?"

"Stabbed another Cheldrun, up on this very roof, when the mad Zipsum attacked." Those gathered in the longhouse grow quieter now, looking down, thinking of the past. Jin waits what he thinks is an appropriate amount of time.

"Yes. You spoke of them, and there are still...marks which winter has left behind. The eyeless Zipsum." There is another long pause, as Jin touches the mead to his lips and then sneezes, spraying mead out of his horn. It is an incongruous moment.

"Ah, so...would you tell me more of the other...six visitors you had? The three Cheldrun and the three Karians?"

And she does, with eager additions from the others there. Some stand to drunkenly re-enact the battle; others have rendered parts of it into bawdy, roaring songs. Jin gleans a great deal from all that they offer, and a feeling grows in the pit of his stomach. It has been growing since he arrived, since he learned of the many strangers who have passed this way already, of the apparent visions of the gods on Ben Hamor. He learns about the blade, which explains a great deal that he sees no reason to try to explain now.

Why did they move on? What are they thinking? Where are they going now? Do they know who they are -

"...and that's when the eyeless Zipsum came at us, in waves!"

The answer is there. Wait for it. It is...something. Jin sees the branches breaking apart, settling, bending into new forms -

"...was huge! Like a great house of a machine-man, swinging his arm like a mattock..."

No. Not nine branches. Nine trees. Nine trees! Each tree stretching out, twisting in response to the pull of unpaired loci -

"...stabbed him on the roof, the bastard, but then the Vorax got him -" "...a Vorax! Still can't believe it..."

Nine trees stretching upwards from the eccliptic into the future, roots reaching downward into the past, branching potentiality, tendrils of causal precipitate-

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I have to go. Do you have a piece of slate I can use? Very sorry. And some chalk? Mine us used up..." Caught up in the story, the Gogajin hardly notice that the audience has excused himself.

Hours later, he has an answer, a new algorithm, and shortly after, a name.

2 comments:

Aric Clark said...

Awesome. I love to hear about the PC's through the eyes of NPC's. Way to weave these folks back into the fold.

Incidentally, not all the eyeless from the Riverswift Tribe were killed. When their Oni (The-One-Who-Rots) was destroyed the remaining eyeless were cut lose and they wander randomly about the jungle now killing.

Douglas Underhill said...

Cool, I'll add something about that (probably)


Ruins

Cities