#72 - I Suppose He's Feeling Better

Pelahir settled on the cleaned bench at the turn-off to the hay barn.  In this village it belonged to the Elector, who was mostly off in Innéthel, to be in her seat when the Hand called for discussion.  As such it was called ‘Elector’s Lane’ and touched the White Road just outside the village.  It was the furthest out the gas lamps came, the last one along the road and two just outside the barn doors.

The road lay, still half plowed and Teel sat on the bench already, his notebook open, breath steaming as he sat, warming his pen inside his mittened hand so that the ink not freeze and crack the reservoir.

Just visible down the hill was the local Goddess grove, neatly laid out stones all shoveled clear, ringed by gas lamps at all the cardinal points.  Invisible, behind the central stone, Teel had seen Ahrimaz sit with the young priestess.

“We’re just going to let a dangerous maniac sit alone with one of our holy people?” Teel asked Pel as he sat down.

“She’s holy enough to defend herself, if she needs to, and he’s broken enough to not attack other people at this point, Limyé says.” Pel folded himself into his furs, beat the snow off his fur boots and tucked them up, cross-legged, under his gakti, the Cylak name for their heavy fur coat.  “She’s trying to point out to him that him killing himself pays for nothing.  Especially not in this world where he hasn’t sinned.”

“The priestess’s name is Mara?  Named for her grandmother, the old priestess I understand?” Teel licked the point of his pen.

“Yes.  Mara the Elder is apparently a priestess at the Veil now.”

“Hmmm.  I should get one of my colleagues to go talk to the lot of them at the Veil.”

“You should.  According to Mara –“ Pel shrugged when Teel looked at him.  “I talked to her last night to tell her our shaman wouldn’t be able to make it from Riga… something otherworldly going on.” The clouds were finally beginning to break up and the snow kicked up by the light breeze began to glitter all around as the sun came out.  “According to Mara, there’s a lot fewer people trying to end their lives at the Veil and at other Goddess shrines all over the country.”

“Really?”

“Finding out that there is another world seems to have jolted a lot of people out of their death spirals,” Pel said.  “Buron, my shaman, sent a letter along and he mentioned that the spirit world is much troubled of late and there is upheaval everywhere.  There’s been a Fire Tiger seen and more people brought from that other world, apparently by the will of Aeono.”

“I… see…” Teel’s pen scribbled across the page.  “I’m going to have to hire people all over the world to keep up with these stories!”

“But more people are buying your broadsheet because you’re the ones telling everyone what’s really going on, instead of making up fantasy stories.”

“Hmm.” He made another three or four notes.  “These other people?  --“

“Two men,” Pel interrupted him.  “Couriers, I believe, from that other world, but that’s all I know.  Outside of Riga States… in the middle of our herd-track.”

“Thank you for telling me,” Teel said.  He looked up and around.  “Where did the Ambassadors go?  I saw them leave just a while ago.”

“Didara is fascinated by the inkworks here.  And the paperworks.  She’s still being mobbed by children wherever she goes so that has to be settled first and then she’s going to look at what she can see of the factories.”

“And Jagunjagun?  I hope he’s still being careful, with his rec—“

Pel interrupted him with an upraised hand.  Teel could see his grin even through his scarf.  There was a rumble, a thunder building. He turned to look down the road to see an enormous bow-wave of snow curling up and billowing off to either side of the road.  “What?”

“He was thinking about the snow-plows we use and saying that oxen are terribly slow,” Pel said and started chuckling.  “Ologbon modified a plow and…”

Teel and Pel both ducked, Teel tucking his book fast under his coat as the vertical wall of fluffy snow billowed over both of them, curling up and away from the road and from the trotting elephant.  Ologbon, heavily covered in snow spray, sat on the elephant’s neck chanting to him as he pushed the modified snowplow along the smooth military road.  The little man waved merrily as they roared by, Jagunjagun’s bright red earmuffs flapping, his tail sticking straight up out of his coat.

The rumble of their passage had faded by the time the snow wave settle enough for Teel to dig himself out of the wall of snow. Shovel crews recruited from the Horse Guard came rattling behind and began digging openings in the laneways.

“Heya, Staglord!”

“Holya, Albin!”

The shovellers quickly had the bench dug out and left half a dozen people to dig out Elector’s lane.

Teel stood on the newly plowed road, marveling it had happened so quickly.  “I suppose that Ambassador Jagunjagun is feeling much better.”

“I think that too.  I would not want to be the person trying to stop him in what he wishes to do.”  Pel was still grinning and beating snow out of his furs.

“No. Considering the weight of that plough he was pushing, and the weight of the snow… at speed.”

“It is impressive.”

“Indeed.  I wouldn’t want to go to war with their country, ever.”