#61 - This Scorching Antique!

Teel clutched his mug of steaming hot tea and squinted at these horribly active young men and women as they broke camp, but left their bags piled on the ground sheets for a short round of target practice.

Once the Horse Guard stopped for the night it was too dark for any such thing and they did their training in momentary increments in the morning, around breakfast and breaking camp.

Teel’s own kit was already to be strapped behind his saddle but the Captain was beckoning him up to the line scratched in the snow.

“You have a musketoon, M’sieu?”  How polite.

“My uncle’s, M’sieu.”

“Would you be willing to lend it to His Honour Ahrimaz?”

Ahrimaz looked startled at that.  Of course, as Emperor he’d never had to think of buying or inheriting a weapon.

“Certainly, Captain.”  He drew it and offered Ahrimaz both it and the powerhorn.

“Thank you, M’sieu,” he said, not at all absently, and took it.  “What do you want me to shoot," he asked the Captain.

A man-sized paper was being tacked to a tree close by and the Cylak, all with their bows, leaned back against their packed bags and just watched. The Captain waved a fur mitten at it.  "That."

Ahrimaz expertly rammed a charge home, raised an eyebrow at being offered a ball as ammunition and set the round home, raised the short barreled carbine across his forearm to brace it.  The flint rasped and the gun boomed, the hole in the target in the left abdomen.

It is astonishing that he hit anything with a strange weapon, especially a muskatoon.  The Captain hid her astonishment well and then clamped her jaw tight as Ahrimaz thrust the empty weapon back in Teel’s direction and snarled at her.  “So you’ve hazed me and found I can fire an antique like that.  Give me something that my grandfather wouldn’t recognize!”

“M’sieu,” Teel said mildly.  “That is the finest weapon out of the gun shops of Innéthel and I’ll thank you not to impugn my family’s bequest to me!”  The finely carved walnut stock and the tooled brass bit into his hand, even through the palm of his mitten as his hand clenched.

Ahrimaz stared at Teel and then at the Captain who nodded at her soldiers -- who presented arms with a ‘crack’.  He stared at the snap locks and flint locks and matchlocks, flared muzzles and 'tulip-stem' barrels... stared at them all.  “You don’t have smokeless powder?  What the scorch are you doing?  You distill mineral spirits don’t you?”

“Smokeless powder?  What are you talking about?”

Teel ran the cleaning cloth into the barrel of his weapon, quite glad that his own marksmanship wasn’t being called into question.  “I believe that there might be some difference between the worlds when it comes to military invention, Captain.”

Everyone looked at Teel, who shrugged.  “It makes sense.  Empire.  Wars… lots of military spending.  Here our last war was nearly fifteen years ago.”

The Captain shook her head.  “Scorch my precious pink ass.  Gunsmith!”  The man presented himself with a snap of his bootheels.  “We’re setting out now, you lot,” she snapped.  “Ahrno, you ride next to this Ahrimaz of ours and ask him everything he knows about carbines and musketoons in his world.  Scorching antiques? All day if you have to.  All tomorrow or as long as he knows ANYTHING you don’t, clear?”

“As ice on the river, Cap.”

“Good.  We don’t really have time for this nonsense." Ahrimaz bowed to the Captain and to James, both.  "Teel, I did not mean to insult you or your family.”

“No insult taken.” He coughed and holstered his carbine in its saddle holster, swung up on the borrowed horse.  “If you need, this antique is at your service, M’sieu!”  He resolved to ride just behind Ahrimaz and the gunsmith in the hopes of hearing their conversation.

“Teel…” Ahrimaz stared at him and Pel clapped him on the shoulder to encourage him to move.  “Later.  We have leagues to go today.”

“And several days thereafter, M’sieu.  Look, Ahrimaz, just keep telling us about this stuff from your world, all right?  You don’t need to take it personally that we haven’t developed the same things at the same rate.”

“Blast.  You’re right.”

The coronshion thundered ahead into scouting position and everyone was now mounted.  A whistle and they moved.  “Urgent,” Ahrimaz said in an almost dazed voice.  “This is urgent and it’s why we’re freezing our nethers off in this snow!”

“Introduce me when we meet them, hmmm?”

“Ass.”

“Thank you.”

#60 - Much Hurried

On A Mission to Greet Ambassadors

- By Teel James, Raconteur for the Chronicles of Inné and Innéthel and their environs, Late Winter

Your intrepid raconteur is currently mailing his stories from White, a town that most Innéans living in the Thel only see in the summer, more rarely in spring after break-up, or fall before freeze up.

The river, our Lady’s gift, has frozen hard behind our barges as we have been incredibly lucky.  I am currently with Liryen Carbine Horse Guard and the Cylak King Stag and his coronshion, under the direction of Ahrimaz.

We have trusted information that the Ambassadors from Rummammalos, very large and very lavishly ornamented courtiers, are under a dreadful threat to their lives and are tasked with intercepting them and escorting them safely to Innéthel.  Our informant tells us that the Riga Cities did not give the Ambassadors sufficient escort.  In this world this might be different but Inné cannot afford to risk this.

Rummammalos are willing to trade their tooth-ivory in exchange for made goods and they also have amazing makers, specializing in jewelry.  Their gem stones are very rarely seen on this continent, another trade commodity.  They are fantastic creatures that dwarf the Cylak great stags and might be willing to exchange apprentices for their lapidary industry and for our great works projects.

As I recounted in one of my earlier stories, we were nearly frozen in at the military dock and were prayed free by our Hunter Priest, with assistance from Ahrimaz.  Yes, the other Ahrimaz, who apparently has as strong a connection to our most precious and terrifying Goddess Liryen as our Ahrimaz.

It is on the Hand’s recognizance that Ahrimaz Kenaçyen is here, and in charge of the Horse Guard.  The family, though cognizant of all the startling differences between the differently raised men, are acknowledging him as their own, as I have also said before.

Apparently these Ambassadors were also present in the world of the Empire and were attacked and injured for their jewels.  One, a ‘Curious’, or inventor/researcher by the name of Didara, died and the survivor went home in grief, vowing to cut off any travel between their country and ours.  In this world, Ahrimaz insists there is a chance to save the Ambassador Didara and to save the connection, the friendly and potentially lucrative exchange of ideas and goods with the Rummummalos.

White, in the winter, is very representative of its name.  The marble it is known for and built from is white, the roof tiles are white and just after snow fall it all but vanishes.  The Horse Guard, with silver shining armour high-blue greatcoats and gold braid, multi-coloured horses, and their silken banners blazoned with the flowering apple tree are a wild splash of colour, while the stags of the Stag, Cylak King Pelahir, throw up sprays of snow beside the road, the fields safely frozen under their shaggy feet, their antler bells ringing as they outrun the horses.

We have seven days to meet the Ambassadors in the hope of rescuing them from this prophesied attack.  Seven days in the depth of winter, with the road-clearing crews much bogged down, we will be moving a military force across the country to the edges of the Grim Quagmire, in all its frozen leagues.

The Horse Guard laugh and say I should keep my carbine dry, since the Captain has decided that I should not only have my sword to defend myself but that I shall train with fire-arms, along with the rest of her Guard, firing at smaller and smaller targets in the snow when we stop for the nights.  

I am sending the story back to White with my Broadsheet courier and the next the 'Sheet will hear is whether we have succeeded or not, as we tear through snow and cold and ice and slush, to the edge of the biggest patch of muck in all the known lands.

The call comes for me to be quick, to mount up.  I pull my mitten back on with my teeth and hand off my missive to the courier waiting on her shaggy, rough pony.

I am, your much-hurried raconteur, Teel James.

#59 - Thank The Greater Sky

Teel tucked his notebook away and sat down on a bale of hay, just watching Ahrimaz on the bow of the barge.

The Hunter priest came out of his prayers, when he hit the end of them.  They were timed so that a priest didn’t burn himself out getting lost in the Divine.  He rose, and stretched, the fire on the altar burning itself out.  Then he looked at Ahrimaz, apparently lost in speaking to the Goddess, ice riming the edge of every hair, every hem.  He sat in a pool of water that ran over the boards and into the gunwales then on into the river.

“We need to break him out of that, or She’ll kill him with kindness,” Pelahir said and took off his massive fur mittens.

“Kindness?  I’ve never found Our Lady to be very kind, in this mood, at this time of year,” Teel said.

“Oh, you mainlanders!”  Limyé pushed between them, horseblanket in his hands.

“Wait, wait!  You’ll just get it all wet.  Let me help!”  Pelahir strode over to Ahrimaz, knelt next to him and put his hands up before his face as though blowing feathers off his palms, whistling a little heat into the moisture.

The Hunter priest nodded and held his hands up so that Pel could blow across them, too, a tiny flame, like a match glowing on his fingertips.  “Be careful,” Limyé said.  “You’re already tired.”

“Yes, Healer but it’s not a lot of heat that he needs.  Just a little.”

The water pouring off Ahrimaz suddenly billowed up into a gust, a swirl of snow and blew away as his cheeks suddenly went from pallid to rosy.  Limyé flung the blanket around him and both he and Pelahir wrapped their arms tightly around him as he began to struggle.  “No, no, She’s willing to let me die now, for all that I’ve done.  The other Ahrimaz has saved the Empire and I’ve done enough of what She wants.  She’s willing to freeze my heart.  No, don’t warm me up!”

“Shut up, Shit Head,” Pel said firmly.  “We still need you and you were desperate to save your friend from that world in this one, weren’t you?  Didara?  Is that her name?”

The setting sun broke through the clouds and the light sparkled on Ahrimaz’s eyelashes and face as the ice sublimated and blew away as vapour and his eyes opened.  He stared into Limyé’s eyes for a long moment, reading the resolve there to not let him die.  Then he twisted in the blanket to look into Pel’s face.  “Why are you doing this?  You don’t even like me.  You can’t like me.  If I die I’m becoming convinced that She will bring your lover back to you.  She’s not as cruel as people are.”

He buried his face down into the blanket and between Limyé and Pelahir they lifted him up and took him back to the cabin, feet staggering, slipping.

Teel shook his head and looked over at the Captain, who shrugged.  “Goddesses and Gods are not my purview.  But he just doesn’t seem to understand that he’s just done a miracle to get us moving again, taught a young priest something about how to pray, and connected to Herself, all at once; and now he’s despairing and wanting to die?” She shook her head.  “I read a story or two of our own Ahrimaz who had a tendency to demand too much of himself, because we demanded too much of him.”

He shrugged back at her.  “That Ahrimaz is just learning how hard it is to be a good man and he’s punishing himself for having been a monster.”  He pulled out his notebook and scribbled down the Title ‘Paying for it: Having Been A Monster’.

Charles, the Hunter Priest, took off his stole.  “He’s a good teacher,” he said quietly.  “I hope he teaches himself a thing or two.”

Teel couldn’t help but laugh.  “Like most good teachers he’s finding out that some students are pretty scorching stubborn about not hearing.”

**

Jagunjagun sent out a happy thrum that resonated well below the iti-igi ‘throat-singing’ but found that it was a harmonic for that.  Didara flapped her ears and added another level.  The human’s eyes grew round as their sound was reinforced and the ground began trembling slightly in time with their song.

“It’s good,” Ologbon said quietly to one of the lesser Stag people who wasn’t singing with, just sitting and clapping along.  “It will take their minds off being shut in.”

“It’s good,” the man agreed.  “Storm should break up tomorrow.”

“Oh, thank the Greater Sky!”

#58 - Throat-Sing and Liryen, Destroyer

It was shelter. It was safe from the storm that was now muffled as the snow built up on the half dome.  But it kept getting smellier all the time with the deer and the horses and the elephants and the people, though there was a stone lined trench for a latrine that lead outside under the hoop wall.  The problem was the sheer quantity that both Didar and Jagunjagun produced, even if it was herbivore dung and there was only so much liquid water to help the feces flow away especially once the weight of snow pinned the flap down and blocked anything from flowing anywhere.

Ologbon and the Cylak spent some time shoveling from inside and then threw ashes over the worst of it.

“If we had enough meltwater we could just spray it away,” Jagunjagun said.  His trunk was curled tight into his muff where he had a dried apple studded with cloves to smell.

Didara, ears folded back tight with her flaps tied firmly under her chin, rocked back and forth the mirrors on her hat and the gems in her tusks glittering in the lanternlight as she moved, eyes closed, distracted.  “Hmm?  What?  Jagunjagun please leave me alone, I’m right in the middle of the precis and I’m trying to express it correctly!”  She thrummed crossly and all across the shelter a dozen people turned to look at her.

Ologbon gazed around at them.  “Look at that!” he said.  “So many foreign iti-igi can hear you when you speak properly!  Women and men both!”

The Cylak captain pulled a blanket up over her shoulders and edged between two of her riding deer and past the knot of warriors.  “You sing?” she asked Ologbon.

“Sing?  No… it is speaking for my partners.”

“Perhaps we should sing for you.”  She turned to her group and with much laughter they arranged themselves in a semi-circle in front of the two elephants.  “We call this throat-sing.  Pass some more time before we sleep.”

**

The black haired girl child is sitting next to the young priest and I.  But her hair isn’t black any longer.  It is the colour of icicles in the night and her eyes are white and her skin.  There are shards of ice in her hair and her eyelashes, clinging to the hair on her skin so she has razor chips glittering at the corners of her mouth and on the tips of her ears.  Her bare hands are bone white and her long, long nails are black and colder than the ice and snow that make her flesh.  I can feel the radiant freeze and when she smiles at me the inside of her mouth is black and her sharp teeth glitter like new fallen snow against that darkness.

I fear her. I love her. I know Her.

“So you can only welcome me as Lover when I am Destruction?  How cold!”  She laughs and her laughter falls from the sky whipped by the howling wind and runs before us.

“Lady…” I try to swallow and it feels as though the saliva in my throat is freezing as it goes down.  “I know You.”

“Not really.  You know the Fire of Destruction.  My Husband is the One who can engulf worlds in his Fires of Rage.  He breaks all of Creation down and when all the fire is leached out it comes to me.  I am the Darkness between Stars and Aeono sheets his Flames through me and yet does not touch the heart of my coldness.”

“I have seen you in my mother’s eyes.”

“Rutaçyen in your world, not Wenhiffar.  She will die of Me, soon and welcome her death.  Her life in your world has been torture.”

“Can’t the other one save her?”

“He will.  He will let her die, as you could not.  And I will cool and sooth the burns your father scorched into her soul.”

I can feel the tears freezing on my cheeks and the water that flowed from my hands become thick slush and then columns of ice flowing from my fingers over the floorboards.  I cannot let Her freeze us all.  “Liryen, Destroyer, thank you.”

“What, for letting another part of Me help you?  Because you asked properly?”

“Yes.”

She stares at me, then flings her deadly laughter in my face and I can feel it sting as my tears crack.  “Good.  You needn’t fear my husband’s heat any longer, child.  See?”

She draws a clear mirror in front of me and in it I can see the young priest’s fires dancing, glittering and frozen.  My scars don’t ache, seeing them, even the brand on my chest.  Her cheeks flush a faint pink and suddenly I’m hard.  I want Her.  “If my sex offends I’m sorry,” I say, terrified.  “But You are beautiful.”