Part One
Chapter 1
INTRODUCTION
eftebraegan moved as fast as she could through the passages. She could move pretty fast. She was good at dodging, ducking, climbing and shoving past obstacles - that is, other Traeppedelferes - looming suddenly out of the darkness. The Traeppedelferes were many and industrious, but their tunnels, while long and deep, were none too large, making work of any errand of haste through them.
Apart from her errand, Seftebraegan had her own reasons to hurry. On her last turn of duty she had displeased her superior, somehow, and she was determined this turn to restore herself to favor. Haegtesse the Wrencanmodor was harsh, demanding and powerful, and Seftebraegan's post of morwemodor carried reflected prestige and power in its own right. It was not a position she would care to lose, despite the rigors of serving Haegtesse, and there was no shortage of antunges like herself ready to replace her at a moment's notice. So, as she shoved and twisted her way through the corridor, she tried to think of what she might have done or said to annoy the Wrencanmodor - but in vain.
That made her nervous. She couldn't be sure she wouldn't make the same mistake again.
She edged her way through the crowd waiting at the door of Haegtesse's chambers, and gained entry by whispering her errand to the stolid attendant. The waiting crowd implied even to Seftebraegan's preoccupied mind that Haegtesse had not made herself available for some time. She immediately shrugged off the thought. It was no concern of hers.
Once past the attendant, she strode through the dark dryge Wrencanmodor's Hall, the huge antechamber to Haegtesse's tiny den. It was nearly always dryge, that is, empty, except on occasion when the Wrencanmodor would open it to her supplicants, to placate them or to amuse herself.
Seftebraegan's footfalls echoed through the thick darkness. She was sure Haegtesse would hear her coming. As she approached she could see that Haegtesse's door was down. A weak lamp-glow from within struggled out through the doorway and fell across the door. The door was never down when Haegtesse was in, as far as Seftebraegan could remember, and this increased her state of nervousness. Haegtesse must be in - the attendant at the gate would surely have known that, if nothing else. Seftebraegan was unsure of the situation but determined to follow stict procedure, so she bent down and rapped out her code on the horizontal door just as if it had been up in its proper place.
Almost immediately she was answered by a sharp smacking sound that she could not quite place, closely followed by the hissing of a convulsive intake of breath. She peeked in.
Haegtesse sat hunched on her unkempt cot. Her unseemly features were frozen, contorted, gruesome. She was gripping her staff with one hand and rubbing one leg just above the joint with the other. Confused but fascinated, Seftebraegan silently watched for long moments before Haegtesse exhaled again. Haegtesse did not see her; she seemed to be dreaming, somehow. Without moving her eyes, Haegtesse raised her stick above her head, removed her hand from her leg, and struck again with a smack. Seftebraegan saw the blow this time: it was brutally cruel. Haegtesse gasped as the bolt of pain seared its way through her, and her whole body stiffened in convulsive resistance to it. Moments later, when the Wrencanmoder resumed breathing, Seftebraegan thought she could see a trace of a smile exploring the unfamiliar locale of Haegtesse's face. Again, the stick went up, and came down, and again Haegtesse lurched into catatonic ecstasy.
Seftebraegan waited to hear a breath, then spoke. "Haegtesse," she called softly, then louder, "Haegtesse!"
The old Wrencanmodor made no sign that she had heard. Again her stick went up.
Seftebraegan was very uneasy. She had a duty to perform which prevented her from simply leaving (which she very much wanted to do) but the Wrencanmodor obviously did not want to be interrupted.
Smack! Hssss!
Seftebraegan's errand would not wait, a life depended on it, the Wrencanmodor was needed. Any delay ordinarily infuriated Haegtesse; she had often berated the morwemodors on the absolute necessity for haste.
Smack! Hssss!
Seftebraegan began to tremble. She was anxious and afraid. She saw no way of both performing her assignment and pleasing Haegtesse at the same time. But she had to do something, and soon. Haegtesse, still heedless of her, raised her stick again.
"Wrencanmodor Haegtesse!" Seftebraegan rushed crying, pleading, into the chamber. She seized the stick with both hands before Haegtesse could strike again. Haegtesse tried anyway, trance-like; and, with a strength that caught the bewildered Seftebraegan completely by surprise, pulled the stick and the morwemodor down onto her lap with one hand.
The sensation produced by this blow was not the same. It was different enough to register even through the void to that distant place where Haegtesse had transported herself: that distant, wonderful, keenly sensual place. The old antunge felt herself returning - why, she did not know at first. She only knew that all sensation was draining away again, the vibrant heat which seemed to unite her body and soul and make her feel as nothing else could was leaving, drifting off. The cold shell which she wore would soon be dryge again, and that thought enraged her, half-conscious though it was.
The first thing Haegtesse's returning senses could make out was that there were three hands on her staff. Seftebraegan was gently trying to break Haegtesse's death-grip on it and get it away from her.
"No!" Haegtesse screeched at the top of her lungs. She ripped the staff from Seftebraegan's grasp and glared menacingly up at her face.
The morwemodor leapt backwards, startled at the sound of Haegtesse's voice and surprised by her sudden strength. She looked for an instant - only an instant - into Haegtesse's eyes, and knew immediately the seriousness of her transgression. Haegtesse's cold eye was infamous; a Traeppedelfere who attracted its peculiar glare could not forget it. And indeed when Seftebraegan tried to lower her eyes she found she couldn't.
Haegtesse jumped up from her cot as though uncoiling and leapt over to a pile of rubbish heaped against the far wall, never taking her eye off Seftebraegan. The old Wrencanmodor, moving with an agility she had never been known to possess, stuck her hand into the pile and effortlessly pulled out a pointed metal rod about four hands long with a great clatter, all the while facing the trembling morwemodor.
"You!" Haegtesse spat, never relaxing her stare. "You know what you did?" She slowly moved toward the morwemodor, her face crinkling into a mocking leer as she came closer.
"Um," she rasped, answering her own question, in a quieter but no less intense voice, a voice which seemed to Seftebraegan to surprisingly echo out from deep inside herself, somehow, a voice uniting with the sneer and the stare to become a permeating force. "Um, you know."
The voice spoke, dark and insinuating, to Seftebraegan's fear. She most certainly did not know, in her conscious mind, what she had done. But the voice resonated some way straight into some unknown and vast part of her that now vibrated in sympathy with it.
Suddenly an unfathomable chasm opened before Seftebraegan's new inner eye. On one side there was just herself and Haegtesse's voice. On the other side, far, far away, she could just make out two figures. One was Haegtesse! but she was changed, she was different. She seemed to be talking to someone, to the other figure on the far cliff. Seftebraegan watched as the distant Haegtesse turned away from the other figure and looked across the chasm toward her. Their eyes met even at that distance: and instantly the gulf disappeared and she saw Haegtesse right in front of her, within reach, and she could tell, now, how she was different. Haegtesse appeared youthful, smiling, soothing, appealing; her voice had revealed itself in this new form. Seftebraegan was overcome with a rushing sense of relief, even of joy. She felt suddenly fulfilled, whole, with an intense desire to reach out to this Haegtesse, to touch her. It was an impulse she could not deny, and she did it gladly and without hesitation. But when her hand touched Haegtesse's, Haegtesse was cold, bitterly cold. A chill swept up Seftebraegan's arm and through her in an instant, completely through her - and then she knew. She did know. She understood. The young Haegtesse was gone. The chasm had reappeared, it had always been there, and she was hopelessly frozen on one side, and the now lone figure on the other side was gazing helplessly across to her. She knew now who that was, too. That other figure was herself, the part of herself that did not know, that innocent part of her that could not recognize her now.
Because now she did know. She dazedly realized she was touching Haegtesse's hand, and slowly let her own arm fall away.
"Um," Seftebraegan heard herself saying. "I know."
Haegtesse did not break her stare, but somehow it seemed to relax, as if in reward for Seftebraegan's confession. And then, to Seftebraegan's amazement and confusion, Haegtesse smiled at her! A real smile, a warm smile. Seftebraegan felt the chill rush out of her as quickly as it had rushed in. She eagerly returned Haegtesse's smile. It seemed as though she had just awakened; she was refreshed, and indeed the dream - it had to have been a dream - was almost forgotten already. Seftebraegan felt a great contentment in the basking glow of Haegtesse's smile which almost overwhelmed her. And the feeling seemed so familiar, so recent; but she could not place it, and passed it off.
To be in Haegtesse's favor! it was more than she had hoped for, and more rewarding that she had dreamed it could be. She now remembered her duty, and finally began to report her message without further delay.
"Wrencanmodor Haegtesse," Seftebraegan said, smiling confidently, "I come -"
In the blink of an eye, the point of Haegtesse's metal rod slashed upward through the soft underside of Seftebraegan's chin, nailed her tongue to the roof of her mouth, plunged through the soft yielding mass and exploded through the top of her head with a splattering crunch. The shape that had been Seftebraegan an instant before now dangled dancing with twitching limbs and bulging eyes, lifted off the floor by the force of Haegtesse's thrust, held there as if weightless, while Haegtesse savored the warmth gushing down her arm.
Haegtesse closed her eyes and inhaled, not in a hiss this time, but slowly, calmly. Warm again. This, this was real, this was something.
"Um," she mumbled aloud to herself, as if to hear her own real voice with her own real ears. "Life is good."
She lightly tossed the offending corpse aside, picked up her staff, and hobbled out of her chamber.
A commotion arose amongst those waiting in the corridor when the Wrencanmodor called the attendant in for instructions.
"Get new attendant for door," she commanded. "You go out. Send new morwemodor to me at forges. Tell widucippian bring cask here."
She punctuated this by poking the floor with the tip of her staff, which she then waved to indicate that the session was over and the attendant should let her pass into the hall.
When she came out, the crowd immediately quieted. The waiting Traeppedelferes suffered too much fear of and respect for the mighty Wrencanmodor (on top of an almost blinding anticipation) to risk uttering a sound in her presence. The only sound heard now was the fyrstan lamps sputtering in their grottoes. The meager light they cast was enough for the Wrencanmodor to recognize the antunges and twatunges before her.
"Um," she assented, nodding, pointing her staff at the first couple before her, to their great and obvious pleasure. "Um," she said as well to the next, with the same result.
As soon as she gave a favorable verdict each pair would scurry off together to find some spot suitable for becumanfisc. "Um. Um." Gradually the crowd diminished (it had grown quite large), and finally the hall, which had been enlarged at that point to accomodate such crowds, became dryge except for the presence of the new attendant, who had just reported in.
"I go to forges," Haegtesse informed her. "Widucippian bring cask, put inside door." She punched her staff at the floor.
"Um, Wrencanmodor. Forges. Cask."
Haegtesse cast her a contemptuous glance from the corner of one eye, then turned her back and, leaning heavily on her staff, slowly made her way down the corridor.
As she passed through the rough-hewn hallways of the cave the air became warmer, the clink and rumble of the mines grew louder. Echoes of raised voices occasionally reached her ears, mixed with the muffled roar of the forges. The forges issued a lot of heat, and smoke, and fumes. What escaped the vent-shafts drifted into the corridors. The keen, if distant, ring of hammer on anvil, and the nearby acrid scent of the fyrstan lamps fought their way through the teeming passageways.
Haegtesse made her way with all deliberate haste, licking scaly lips with a dry tongue, thinking about the task at hand. There was, after all, only one possible message that the unfortunate Seftebraegan could have been carrying: yet another fisccild was ready for birthing. Haegtesse had birthed uncounted, numberless hordes of fisccilds.
That was the Wrencanmodor's duty: approving the mating, birthing, and remembering of the Traeppedelferes.
She entered a small chamber, hard on to the forges and smithies of the main works of the mines. It had been delved to her instructions, furnished with living rock cut to serve a particular purpose.
Another morwemodor was already inside, readying things for the ceremony. She diverted a stream of water from a chiseled trough along one wall into a groove in the floor which led to a gouged-out basin at the foot of a low, smooth, stone birthing chair. Poised and tense in the chair, the sliefenumen waited with obvious impatience.
"Why so long?" she barked at Haegtesse with none of the regard she would ordinarily have been careful to display, as the Wrencanmodor hobbled up to the foot of the chair.
At the sound of her voice, Haegtesse's eyebrow twitched in recognition. She glanced askew at the sliefenumen to be sure. "Wem," Haegtesse lied, just to give an answer.
The sliefenumen exploded. "Wem! Wem? I have wem! My wem make numb, my wem stop becumanfisc! Wem!" She spat to punctuate her contempt.
Haegtesse shrugged indifferently. Sliefenumens! Such impatience. They know nothing. So hard for them, to wait two hands hand-days for becumanfisc! Haegtesse was wise in the ways of the Traeppedelfere. That desire for becumanfisc always results, and always would result, of course, in more fisccilds, and more complaints. She had heard it over and over again.
The floor and the walls of the chamber were always warm from the nearby forges, warming the water flowing into the basin at the foot of the chair. The Wrencanmodor put her hand on the stomachs of the sliefenumen, and then into the water in the basin, comparing the warmth of each, until they were the same.
Signaling with a nod, she glanced up at her helper, who began by lifting a wriggling truhthalig out of a small cask of water in the corner and slipping it into the basin. Haegtesse began to chant just loud enough to be heard over the distant din of the mines:
"Oh truhthalig, so cold, too wise To feel the feel of warm unknowing. Give fisccild the gift of wanting Becumanfisc, the joy of being."
She repeated this several times before the morwemodor joined in, and the sliefenumen strained to prepare herself for the sudden push.
When Haegtesse felt the moment was at hand, she nodded again. The morwemodor extinguished two of the three dim lamps in the chamber. The muffled roar of the forges, the mesmerizing drone of the chant, the close heat of the chamber and the murky light drew a drape of mystery over the ceremony.
The sliefenumen panted; the air had become heavy and stale and hot; she was sweating easily. Insufferable moments passed: then, with a violent practiced lunge, Haegtesse pushed down on the sliefenumen's stomachs.
There was a cry, of surprise more than of pain, a splash, and the snick! of meshed teeth.
The sudden release of the fisccild unleashed a flood of sensation through the recently numb torso of the antunge, and she writhed with a rekindled and overwhelming urge.
"Wait!" commanded Haegtesse. "Not done." She crouched at the foot of the chair, straddling the pool, where two beings were now idling in the water.
Haegtesse reached down and lifted the wriggling truhthalig out of the pool and placed it on the stomachs of the antunge. It flopped - once, twice - and heaved itself out beside Haegtesse in a wide arc toward the floor. In the dim light neither the antunge nor the morwemodor noticed Haegtesse subtly slide into the truhthalig's path and deflect it back toward the chair - back into the basin of water. "Not onto floor, into water!" Haegtesse noted solemnly, according to rite. "Not miner, hunter." The morwemodor correspondingly opened not the small shaft leading to the underground nursery, but the other one leading, eventually, out the side of the mountain to the wellemodors' camp and the hunters' nursery. The truhthalig was returned to its cask, and the water from the basin in the floor was drained, with the fisccild, into the open shaft.
The antunge was quivering in the chair. "Wrencanmodor?" she pleaded.
"Um, you have done well," Haegtesse said, uncoiling her leathern tongue. "Now, borenlatost." The dimly seen face smiled.
The antunge was relaxed and calm when the purging was at last complete and Haegtesse stood, dripping. "Get up now," Haegtesse snapped. "Go. You work. I rest." She turned to the morwemodor and belched, "more fisccilds?"
The morwemodor answered, gulping, "No, Wrencanmodor."
"Good. I rest now." Haegtesse took up her stick and struck it against the floor, and creakily made her way into the dim hallway.
The tiny fisccild, meanwhile, was sliding with the warm water out of the quiet pool into a tunnel sloping gently down. The sensation of speed as it swooshed through the smooth cool tube was frighteningly exhilarating. As depth of experience measures relative age, the slow slide lasted an eternity to the tiny Traeppedelfere. Not yet aware, yet not unaware, either, the fisccild swam and slid and rolled blithely along with the rush of the warm water.
Gradual changes in its surroundings began to impress themselves on it subliminally, as the water cooled and bubbled noisily. The fisccild began to feel, physically, emotionally, a vague jumble of urges. The dizzying, massaging motion of the cascade thrilled it with a quasi-adolescent sensuality; the loss of warmth grieved it with a not only physical, but also spiritual, chill. Instinctive reflexes sluggishly awoke, unsure, disoriented, craving unknown sustenances, testing untried talents.
The fisccild's eyes opened, as if to ascertain its whereabouts; its tiny fingers groped at nothing. Sudden infinitesimal secretions jump-started a fragile, barely-formed pump, and still the swirling waterway bore the fisccild on, until slowly, gradually, a light appeared, and grew.
Then suddenly, before the fisccild could close its eyes again, it shot out of the end of the tube and was blinded by a light of painful intensity, and splashed to a halt in a pool of cold, cold water. An irresistible burning in its little torso inspired an instinctive, perfect kick; and the newborn unknowingly but quite intentionally swam to the surface, then to the rim of the pool and, clutching frantically and kicking wildly, opened its mouth and for the first time sucked in a great gasp and loosed a plaintive yet triumphant wail.
"Hsss, twat!" chided the wellemodor, as she reached down and drew the struggling infant from the water. "Good," she muttered to herself, inspecting it closely. "Strong. Hungry, I hope. I near to burst!" With that, she swaddled the cild (no longer a fisccild) and thrust it unceremoniously to her bosom.
The little future hunter displayed an innate talent at seeking out and securing sustenance, and he attacked with gusto. The metamorphosis was complete.
The other wellemodor approached, hauling a kit of swaddles. "Twat, you say?" she queried.
"Um," the first sighed, "Twatunge. How he goes!" She sighed again.
It was a glorious day on which to be born. The sun shone like a poke in the eye, repainting everything with a yellow palette, and the air was strangely refreshing and crisp. A slight breeze rippled across the few swaddles yet to be gathered from the stones where they were laid out to dry, and with but two other infants to care for, and their own meal some time off, the wellemodors could relax for a while. The nurse looked down at the slurping cild without emotion, and then gazed out at the panorama before her.
The Traeppedelfere were the mountain race. The slopes were sheer around the seat of their population, the caves, which allowed for a fine view of the nested valleys zigging off into the clouds below, but occasionally caused a deadly fall or landslide.
Despite the incline, the roots of the tall and strong sceadutreows held fast, delving into the hard mountainside, and spreading wide through the rich but thin layer of soil. Their leaves were open now, flat against the sunlight heating and energizing their dark green skins and thinning their clear blood against the coming cool of night, when they would tightly curl to retain moisture. The slopes and dales were covered with the sceadutreows as far as the hunters had wandered, except where, like apparitions, the blowantreows had found space to root.
The blowantreows were much sought out by the Traeppedelferes. They had smooth blanched boles and branches, and white cupped leaves which opened to show deep purple interiors to the sun and collapsed to tear-shaped bulbs at night - but their beauty was not their attraction for the Traeppedelferes. The race had no appreciation for, or indeed conception of, beauty. What attracted them were the huge white blossoms which burst out from time to time, exuding an intoxicating fragrance which could render them nearly comatose. These blossoms would in season produce a bulbous, dark purple fruit with sweet white juicy meat, which would, if eaten while ripe, put one into a slumber from which there was no waking. But the Traeppedelferes had discovered a technique of squeezing the cider from the fruit, and drying the pulp, and storing both in sealed casks. In these forms the blowanslaep, which is what they called the fruit, could be consumed without danger.
The hunters remembered well the locations of the blowantreows, for the game of the high forest was also fond of the sweet fruit, and could eat it without harm. The hunters could set their traps and snares nearby, hidden in the weodasur and weodhwit covering the ground, and be confident of success when the blowanslaep was ripe. Thriddahypes were always to be caught in this way, and possibly a huge oxagrete would unwittingly meet its fate - although its strength usually sufficed to ruin the heaviest Traeppedelferean snare, or break the strongest trap.
The blowantreows were in full flower and a trace of the petals' sweet scent was wafted to the sensitive taste of the wellemodor as she nurtured the cild. Far below she could descry the source of the fragrance: a small white puff almost lost in the deep verdure. On the facing lower slopes were more widely scattered white specks, throughout the forest as far as she could see. Nearby, the mountainside was blanketed with the blue-tipped shoots of the weodasur, sprouting wherever it could catch a hold on the rocky slopes. Down below a thriddahype, unaware of the quiet nursery far above, grazed on the blue leaves and strolled the hillside with its awkward-looking three-legged hobble.
The nurse whispered to her ward, "Look! Someday you kill, Traeppedelferes eat."
The little twatunge, exhausted from his labors, his newly-filled stomachs bulging, turned away from the fount as if he indeed was trying to see the beast. His head lolled back across the arm of the wellemodor, but he was so very tired and content that he could not raise it up again, and he fell asleep instead.
As the wellemodor placed the infant in a nap-sling, and hung it from a hook in the open-walled cabin, her co-worker brought in the remaining swaddles, and the two set to folding and storing them away.
"What name?" asked the second, who was about to go into the caves for supplies. "Give name?"
"Name," absently repeated the first, reaching for another swaddle. "Hear name Stanstrang?"
"Um," the second nodded. "Mines."
The wellemodor who had first nursed the new cild, and was therefore obligated by custom to name him, stopped folding swaddles for a while to better concentrate. She had liked the name Stanstrang, but if it was taken... Her head itched. She scratched it. She idly inspected the still-red marks left on her by the nursing cild. "Stranggalan?"
"Um, forges." Another pause. For inspiration, or perhaps for no reason at all, she looked toward the cild, who was sound asleep, swaying gently in his nap-sling. "Waetanswefn?"
"Um!" her companion cried in alarm. "Yldra!"
"Oh! um, um, um," she shook her head, seeing her folly. She always had trouble thinking of names, she now remembered. She hated having to think of names. It was the worst part of being a wellemodor. Names. Waetanswefn was Yldra, um, Waetanswefn... swefn...
"Swefnmon?" she blurted out without thinking.
When they imagined a grown twatunge named "Swefnmon" they burst out laughing together. "No, no, no!" they exclaimed. Neither one of them could collect their thoughts for quite a while after such a ridiculous suggestion. "Swefnmon!" one would giggle. "Swefnmon!" the other would answer, grinning. But eventually the wellemodor regained control of herself and lapsed again into what passed with her as thought. She leaned forward and stared at the ground at her feet. Swefnmon intruded into her thoughts again, and she smiled in spite of herself. Mon, Swefn, Mon, Mon...
"Monwyrt?"
They both paused a moment, and squinted upwards. Neither of them could remember having ever heard that name before. "Tell Wrencanmodor," she said with a sigh of relief, "name is Monwyrt."
|