Part One
Chapter 7
RUMBLINGS
P ipasefte's shoulders drooped. She was tired. Even though the Great Banquet was an eagerly anticipated event, it did take its toll on its participants, and was especially wearying to those whose job it was to see to the preparations and the reparations.
Pipasefte was glad to think that a whole season would pass before another Great Banquet would be celebrated. That thought would never have occurred to her only a few short seasons ago. She was getting old.
Nevertheless, she had duties to perform, and among these was helping with the clean-up of the Great Hall, an odious chore. Two days after the event, there were still a few revelers sleeping here and there about the hall, and one pair of spent but enraptured Traeppedelfere were yet locked in becumanfisc, oblivious to the passing of time and to the wisecracks of the inwardly envious workers. Pipasefte began to collect the trenchers and pelts, grumbling to herself about the mean, stooping tedium of her caste, now that she had become (they said!) too slow and weak to be a hunter any more. The trenchers were heavy and bulky and awkward to handle, and would have to be rinsed and stored away. The pelts and skins were also rather heavy, and would have to be shaken vigorously to rid them of those tenacious coecil crumbs which cling to everything. The antunge looked slowly around the cluttered Hall and sighed. This would take a while.
As she worked, she moped about her lot in life. She cursed the caprice of fate that made her a hunter, a rigorous, subtle trade not suited to the infirmities of age. But on reflection, she knew that the stancippians and maciantols and all the Traeppedelferean trades relegated to their older members the less strenuous but invariably more tedious tasks. The more she thought about it the less fair it seemed, and her mood worsened, and her self-pity became more satisfying. Pipasefte felt certain, without looking (conveniently forgetting that she had scanned the Hall a little while ago), that the few others working there that instant would all be of her age. She stiffly unbent and looked around her.
She was not disappointed. There was not a single youthful face to be seen among those cleaning the Hall. But while looking at her fellow drudges, she recognized the face of Goffe across the way, supervising the disassembly of the dais. As she rubbed her aching back, piling pelts onto an already overflowing cart, Goffe (relaxing in a chair, yet!) directed ten workers with an imperious wave of his hand. Pipasefte seethed with indignation at this arrogance, even though it wasn't directed toward her, and she began to recall some of the words and events of the past few days.
It occurred to Pipasefte, as it had occurred to many others if the truth must be told, that the life of an Yldra must be somewhat (infinitely!) easier than the life of any other Traeppedelfere. As mysterious and lofty as the Yldras' duties might be, Pipasefte was confident that she could master them, judging from the obvious incompetence of several Yldras she could think of then. The real trick, though, was to be named an Yldra in the first place. The appointments were for life, and only by the unanimous agreement of the entire Yldramot, or of the three Maegenyldras. But Pipasefte had the idea blossoming in her head that she might extort some influence out of Goffe if only she could piece together this strange business about Smaelaer. Something there was not quite right, and Goffe was in it, somehow...
"You call for me?" Niwesliefe timidly asked Waetanswefn. The young antunge stood just outside the doorway to the Yldra's chambers. He smiled his warmest smile, and beckoned to her.
"Um! Come, come," he said, pointing to a stool, "sit! Talk to gemaed twatunge."
Waetanswefn was one of the eldest Yldras. He had a constant, sharp sense of humor which was appreciated at any gathering but which created the impression in everyone that everything he said was frivolous. For this reason, he was not very influential in his seat at the Yldramot. But what few of the other Yldras realised was that this reputation of naivety (some said senility) was exactly the one that Waetanswefn encouraged and sought; achieved and nurtured by a deception he had honed through long seasons of practice. By seeming so innocently jocular in the arena of the Yldramot (where a stray remark could brand you cnawannawiht in the stub of a toe) Waetanswefn had survived many purges and coups. His secret strength was in his private interviews with other Yldras, where he had developed the knack of planting his ideas and schemes in their minds by casual hints and calculated implications. Eventually, they would bring these ideas to the Yldramot as proposals of their own, where they would be accepted or rejected at no risk to Waetanswefn. In this way he had not only brought to fruition a good deal of his own personal agenda but had succeeded in censuring many unwitting opponents, by excoriating in open Yldramot proposals he had previously suggested to them in private. Hence, it was not by accident that Waetanswefn had been an Yldra longer than most.
The present interview, however, did not arise from such a devious intent. He had summoned Niwesliefe in an attempt to assuage his curiosity about the bizarre speech of Smaelaer at the Banquet. She had spent a day and a half with the hunter, Waetanswefn had reasoned, and perhaps she had heard something; something to explain those puzzling references to the Waeccelang that Smaelaer had muttered.
A full Yldramot was scheduled to be held prior to the embarkation to the Great Bazaar with the Mocwalwians, as it was every season. The topic of Smaelaer's miraculous hunt and enormous celebrity was sure to come up. Waetanswefn was, as were many of the Yldras, envious of Smaelaer's popularity and afraid of the power which that popularity could give him if he were to choose to grasp it. Revolts had flared in the corridors before, and some of them were right bloody ones, even though none of them could boast as strong a leader as Smaelaer could become.
Niwesliefe sat down warily. She was quite young, but ambitious, and had set goals of her own. She remembered Waetanswefn from the dais at the banquet, urging her to stay with Smaelaer as though he knew she was considering dropping him. She remembered the keen, piercing, commanding look in his eyes at the time, and how it had clashed with her prior assessment of him. She was unsure of the reason for this interview, and was determined to be on her guard (you had to be, when talking with an Yldra), but she hoped that she could turn it to her advantage one way or another. Of one thing at least she was certain: ever since she had decided to attach herself to Smaelaer she had gained attention and notoriety that had been out of her reach before. The entire tribe had seen her at the Banquet, and now this Yldra had called her to his chambers.
"Well, little antunge," began Waetanswefn, "you like Great Banquet?"
"Um," she answered demurely.
"You very young," he observed, "this first Great Banquet?"
"No, not first."
"Drink cider?"
"Um."
"Get saelig, may be?"
"No! I mean, no."
"Eat weodthuf?"
"No."
"Thriddahype?"
"No."
Waetanswefn was beginning to wonder if he should pursue a different line of reasoning, and also whether Niwesliefe was shy, sly, or just stupid. "You not eat, you not get saelig, but like Banquet! How?"
"I like oxagrete," she volunteered.
"Oh! um, I forget oxagrete," Waetanswefn lied. "You like, also, oxagrete hunter?"
"Smaelaer?" she said in feigned surprise. "Um; he very strong."
"Um, um, that was name, Smaelaer," Waetanswefn repeated it to himself as if trying not to "forget" it again. "Smaelaer very saelig at Banquet."
"May be." Niwesliefe knew he was coming to the point.
"May be?" Waetanswefn arched an eyebrow. "What mean, may be? He almost fall down, he say strange things, he - " Waetanswefn hesitated - "he see things not there!" The Yldra studied the antunge intently. "You," he said with a conspiratorial smile, "know what I say!"
Indeed she did. "Smaelaer can be great leader if he choose," she communicated directly to the Yldras' fears, "or not, maybe, if we choose!" She stressed the word "we" in a way that Waetanswefn did not fail to note.
"Well, little antunge," he said, smiles all around, "we have, may be, something to talk about, um?"
Smerian sat up slowly. Some disgruntled old thriddaglof had yanked the pelt he was using as a pillow out from under his head, which then bounced neatly on the hard floor of the Hall. It was not the way he would have chosen to have awakened. His tongue explored his mouth for a moment in search of a little moisture, with no success. Smerian began to look for his cider-bladders. He found one, which was empty, and the other was nowhere to be seen. "Moc!" The casks left in the Hall were dryge on their sides, so Smerian stood (with an effort) and made his way to the storerooms at the end of the Hall.
"All dryge," the cook exclaimed sorrowfully, waving a hand at the long line of casks waiting to be rolled back to the press room.
"Moc!" Smerian swallowed sand.
"Um," the cook commiserated, licking his equally dry lips. After a moment of thought, he turned to Smerian with an offer: "I must stay here in kitchen until all is done, but you can roll new cask here from low storeroom, then I fill water-skin. Um?"
Smerian weighed his thirst against his desire to roll the heavy cask all the way up from the low warehouses, without resolution, until he got an idea. Turning to the cook, he cheerfully assented. "Um, um! What word to give warehouse keeper?"
The cook licked his lips again. "Say, Fodacoc dryge!" he whispered with a wink.
Smerian, of course, never intended to roll that heavy cask up to the Hall. Once he gained access to the storeroom, it would be an easy matter to fill his skin, and his stomachs, too, at his leisure. He was still congratulating himself on his cleverness when he finished the long walk down to the warehouses near the Low Entrances.
"Fodacoc dryge!" he said to the guard, wiggling his eyebrows. "Cook sent me to fill cider-bladder." The huge warehouse-keep rolled his eyes as if to say "what else new?" and waved Smerian on through.
The Low Warehouses were a vast network of large chambers and small niches in which were kept the articles of trade with the Mocwalwians, both imports and exports. The foodstuffs were stored together in one area, and Smerian noticed several empty bins. "Good thing Bazaar soon," he disinterestedly remarked to himself. Finding the chamber of cider casks, he quickly gave himself up to his errand, which he performed to his own satisfaction, if not to the cook's.
Snecchen fidgeted nervously in the corridor. Ever since her conversation with Smaelaer about Goffe sending him to hunt the oxagretes she had burned with resentment toward the Maegenyldra, and with anxiety for herself. She didn't want to cause trouble for anyone by asking prying questions, but she had to find out who was right and who was wrong.
To her, this meant first satisfying herself on the point of whether Smaelaer was cnawannawiht or not. If he was, he would be taken care of, and she could forget his story of intrigue. If he was not, however, she would have to reassess her opinion of the Yldras in general, and of Goffe in particular.
Snecchen was a quiet but firm believer in the distinction between right and wrong; an idealist, in a way. As a hunter she lived with the ultimate justice of the food chain every day; that was real, and if it was not fair it was at least necessary. But in the class system of the caves she was almost nauseated by the implicit discrimination of the division of labor, among other things, and by the haughty condescension of the Yldras.
To satisfy her doubts about Smaelaer, then, she felt she had to ask some questions. As the strongest evidence against his claim to sanity seemed to her to be the inexplicable comments made on the dais of the Great Banquet about the Waeccelang, she had determined to learn more about the Waeccelang herself. And no Traeppedelfere was more knowledgable in ancient lore than was Leornian, whose door she now hesitated before.
At last she knocked. After a moment, a young twatunge slowly lowered the door without making a sound, motioning to her to enter. She told him that she had come to ask Leornian some questions, which was true enough, but declined to comment, when asked, on the nature of those questions. He shrugged his shoulders, and told her that Leornian was engaged just then, instructing his pupils, but that she was welcome to wait where she was if she wished, and that he would inform Leornian of her presence. With that he left the room, disappearing into a further chamber.
Snecchen reviewed the sum total of her knowledge of Waeccelang lore in about the time it took her greeter to leave the room. Dim legends of that forgotten race, related by old, ignored wellemodors or potty twatunges like Leornian, were the last remaining vestiges of what once could only be described as the great Traeppedelferean religion. Elaborate rites had been practiced, solemn oaths had been sworn, lives had been dedicated to preserving and perpetuating the faith. But that was long ago. The Traeppedelfere had slowly matured, succeeded, as a race; had questioned to what end they were pursuing their beliefs, and whether those beliefs, carried down from ages already long past, were valid any more... And now, not only the rites were lost to memory, but much of the lore, and virtually all of the faith.
But not all, not all. A few pockets of conviction remained, chief among them Leornian's small clique of students, (or morwegiestranweards). Leornian was the Giestranweard, the loremaster. In former times the Giestranweard was the principle leader of the tribe, guiding the Traeppedelferes as much by deservedly revered wisdom as by spiritual example. Now, long lifetimes after the ascendancy of the Yldras, the Giestranweards strove merely to maintain such history and myth as had come down to them despite an age of apathy.
For many agonizing seasons Leornian had despaired of finding a pupil to prepare for his own replacement, and he was tormented with the thought that the heritage of the race might die with him. But, happily, interest waxed in a few youths of the tribe who heard his lecture at the previous season's Great Banquet, and now Leornian engaged them in long sessions of lectures daily, hoping to transmit to them in the time remaining to him the accumulated knowledge of a long lifetime. For Leornian was very old indeed.
Snecchen sat patiently waiting, and at length she could hear the short shuffling tread of Leornian as he approached from the inner room. Snecchen jumped up when she could see him approach, and offered him her arm in assistance, but he waved off her offer with a look that at once conveyed pride and appreciation. "No need," he said with a smile, and dropped both hands toward the floor, palms out, and explained, "No steps!" He deliberately and gingerly made his way across the floor to the bench Snecchen had occupied and, after courteously motioning for her to join him, he carefully sat himself down.
"So," he started, once she had reseated herself, "you wish to become morwegiestranweard." It was not a question, but a statement, with almost the force of a command. It caught Snecchen entirely by surprise. She was a hunter!
"No! Why you say?" she asked, "I wish only to ask questions."
"Ah! All who visit Leornian, all who ask questions of Giestranweard, are students of lore!" answered the old twatunge. "So few now ask questions, so few want answers. All Traeppedelferes fill heads with emptiness, to not be named cnawannawiht, which only means empty-headed! And same empty-headed Traeppedelferes say they are wise to be so empty-headed! What you say?"
Snecchen looked at Leornian's face. It was not the face of a wrung-out life, but a vital, expressive face, and his eyes in particular were clear and probing as he returned her gaze. Was this the decrepit carcass she had seen bodily lifted onto the dais at the Banquet? She wondered.
"I say," she answered, "that if empty-headed Traeppedelferes can name you cnawannawiht, it is wise to become empty-headed."
"No! you are wrong!" Leornian exclaimed. "There is no wisdom in that! To be empty-headed to live is to live to be empty-headed! That not wise."
"Then you say you can only be wise by gathering lore?" Snecchen refuted him. "Then there are few wise Traeppedelferes."
"That is very true. Very few wise Traeppedelferes. Um. But gathering lore is not enough for wisdom. Wisdom is not only lore, no!"
"What is wisdom, Leornian? You say empty head is not wise, now you say full head is not wise; what is wise?"
"Such a question! Such a question! Um, will you understand answer, I wonder? For you must be sure you will understand answer, before you ask question, or both question and answer you will lose!" Leornian looked at her quizically. "You said, I was told, that you had question for me. We should start with that, I think."
Snecchen had all but forgotten her intent to "gather lore" about the Waeccelang, and was now interested in the line taken by the present dialog. She did not follow everything that the old twatunge had said, but was fascinated by it nonetheless. "Um, I have question," she said, "but first say to me: what is wise?"
"I will say one time. If you do not understand answer, do not ask question again. But try to remember." Leornian sighed. "To be wise," he said, after thinking a moment, "you must know what you do not know, and know that you do not know what you know."
"To be wise," Snecchen repeated slowly, rolling it around a few times in her mind, "is to be not unwise. Is that all?"
"You are asking again!" admonished Leornian. "I will say this to you: you are part right, but do not have whole in your head. You could be pupil. Then your questions would be answered. So say, what are questions?"
Snecchen had to break away from her attempt at unraveling his confusing definition of wisdom to recall the purpose of her visit. "I want to learn more about Waeccelang," she said.
"More," mused Leornian, "more than what? than whom? - no matter." He looked closely at her face before speaking. Then he said, to her surprise, "Um, a new pupil." He belaboredly stood up, and with that same painstaking shuffle made his way across the chamber toward the doorway he had entered through. Without turning to address her he said, "Come, morwegiestranweard, talk with me. I have much to say, and you have much to hear. Such wants are not to deny. We must begin. Follow."
To her own amazement, Snecchen followed.
In the Great Hall, Pipasefte was finishing up with her chores. Even though she was more fatigued than she remembered being the year before, it seemed that the work had gone faster, somehow; and by the time she was in the storeroom unloading the last cartload of pelts she had figured out why. This season, for some reason, there were no coecil crumbs to shake and beat out of the nap. Individually, it was no big deal to snap a pelt once or twice and send the pesky scraps sailing, but multiplied by the number of Traeppedelferes at the Banquet, the maneuver became tiring and time-consuming.
The fact that there had been no coecil to eat at the Banquet finally dawned on Pipasefte. A few had noted the absence of the staple at the time of the meal, but they didn't pay much attention to it, and soon forgot all about it in the carnival atmosphere. Now, however, Pipasefte was not distracted by any revelry, and a meal without coecil took on new significance. This was one more bit of information to sort out.
Pipasefte packed away the last skin, and made her way into the galley to begin rinsing the trenchers, which awaited her in several buscarts. Fodacoc, the cook, made a convincing show of being busy, with much hand-waving and shouting of directions to whomever passed through his domain. He cast an "it's about time!" sort of look at Pipasefte as she started to clean the platters, and rushed off to direct the removal of the empty casks. A sleepy-looking widucippian was undertaking to roll out five casks at once (which he was very good at doing and had done many times before), and Fodacoc hurtled around the counters and stoves to tell him that what he was attempting was impossible, he had better roll only three casks, and make more trips. The widucippian, who had made more casks than he could count, and could handle them in his sleep, calmly debated in his mind whether to stuff Fodacoc into one of the barrels, or stuff one of the barrels into Fodacoc, while the excitable cook ranted in his face.
Pipasefte ignored this confrontation as much as she could, and thought about Goffe and the Banquet. She tried to organize the clues, as she saw them, in her mind, as she absently handled the rinsing of the trenchers.
First, Goffe asked about two hunters, Hefighon, who had been killed by an oxagrete, and Penigsaec, who had returned with many thriddahypes (and Goffe had been surprised and angry!). Second, when the morwetraeppe Fleotanfot told of the approach of a hunter with three oxagretes, Goffe knew, somehow, that hunter was Smaelaer. Third, now, there was no coecil at the Banquet. Why not? She knew that Goffe was in charge of the Banquet, and oversaw the hunters...
While Pipasefte had struggled with the pelts, and Smerian was unburdening a cask, and Snecchen was instructed by Leornian, Niwesliefe was finishing up a very interesting conversation with Waetanswefn. Try as he might to play the fool for her, his pointed questions and sharp glances had given away his craftiness, and she was determined to make him an ally, though she had not yet decided whether she wanted to be an ally of his. She trusted his discretion; it was obvious to her that he was not one to put his own neck on the block. She hoped she could so effectively entwine her own advancement around him that he could not succeed in cutting her off without injury to himself.
Waetanswefn was firmly and comfortably entrenched in the status quo. Consequently, he viewed any potential change in the Yldra membership or leadership as personally threatening, and even the remotest chance of an antagonistic uprising was not to be tolerated. Even though couched in the most ambiguous language he was capable of, his disapproval of Smaelaer's ascencion was clear to Niwesliefe. She, then made every effort to agree with him, to prove her loyalty to the Yldras. Privately, though, she resolved to test Smaelaer's aptitude toward leadership, that is, whether or not he could be induced by some means to lead a revolt, or at least issue a challenge to the Yldras' authority.
She left Waetanswefn's chambers to seek out Smaelaer, and smiled. Waetanswefn had sent her to spy out the enemy. She would of course do just that, while also encouraging him. By playing each end against the middle, she reasoned, she couldn't lose. This was working out fine.
Waetanswefn, after glowingly showing Niwesliefe to the door, stepped out himself, dropped his mask, and gloweringly trudged off to find Goffe. They did not have one new menace only, he feared.
Leornian paused. He had been lecturing an attentive Snecchen for some time now, and he suddenly realized that he was tired. "Must stop now," he explained. "Leornian old twatunge. Gave long lesson to morwegiestranweards before you come. Must rest now. Snecchen rest, also; think, remember. You come next day." And without another glance at Snecchen, he eased himself onto a pelt on the floor at his feet, and fell directly to sleep.
She looked at him. He was dozing so peacefully, with an untroubled mind; yet he materially contributed no more to the tribe than those old stories he had made it his life's work to pass down. Even the Yldras, she realised with a shock, must not be so sure of things that they could permit a complete break with the past, and so they allow Leornian and a few others to preserve those preternatural and legendary answers to the basic spiritual questions that the Yldras can not allow themselves to ask.
Leornian had spoken of many things, abstract things, difficult to communicate in the limited Traeppedelferean tongue. Nevertheless Snecchen had recognised many of the themes, not from previous conversations but from unspoken feelings and convictions of her own. The old twatunge had seemed to ramble; breaking off from one history to pursue a new line of thought, or leaping back and forth through long lifetimes of Traeppedelferes in what was to Snecchen a bottomless chasm of ancestry. Yet now that he had stopped she was left with a sense of continuity of theme: honor before betrayal, the inevitable triumph of open truth over enforced ambition, the salvation and renewal of life that can only be brought by death. Over and over his anecdotes would stress (and he gave many illustrating histories) that nothing changes, really; lives come and go, rock and races are moved from here to there, and back, but once life was gone, it was all for naught. Life itself, then, was the only measure, and if that life, that individual life, to you, was less than satisfactory, that was the waste, that was the shame: to be given all that there is, life, and not to be satisfied. The only thing worse than this was to make someone else's life worse for him, to mar an otherwise contented life: that, Leornian stressed, was the only real crime deserving of retribution.
He had not directly answered her questions about the Waeccelang in depth. No Traeppedelfere had ever seen one, that he had heard of. No legend or lore foretold their return. He repeated the story of the common dream he told of at the Banquet, and Snecchen had the impression that that story was the extent of the known lore. She was disappointed; this did not help her much in her assessment of Smaelaer.
But she did not feel that her visit had been wasted. Leornian's histories fascinated her, and his contentment and obvious relish for life impressed her. She would be back tomorrow.
Now, though, she did not feel like resting, despite Leornian's recommendation. Perhaps the best way to judge Smaelaer would be to speak with him herself. With the stealth of the accomplished hunter that she was, she let herself out of Leornian's chambers, silently closing the door behind her so as not to disturb his rest, and turned down the dim corridor towards the hunters' chambers.
Smerian swallowed hard, and sighed that slightly sorrowful sigh one sighs when one knows when one has had enough, and that that was many swallows ago.
He was no longer thirsty.
He had just refilled his water-skin with cider, but he could drink no more; that hard swallow had told him that. So, he resolved to go back to his chamber, which was near the maciantols' forge and warm, to sleep. His head bounded crazily from the floor to his shoulders as he stood, and the casks suddenly closed in on him, and he found it difficult to find room for his feet on the path toward the corridor. The flickering lamp across the hall from the door jerked with an orange smear all over the wall on which it was hung, and the floor of the corridor, once he was on it, was unaccountably uneven. Luckily, despite all these symptoms, Smerian knew he wasn't really saelig, and, just to prove it, he crossed his arms on his chest and hopped on one foot, then on the other, through the warehouse. Suddenly the roughness of the floor, or something, caused him to nearly lose his balance, and he fell on his shoulder with a thud in a bin just off the main corridor, arms still crossed.
"Moc!" He looked around. Someone had walled off the hallway! No, wait, wait. He was on the floor; he had fallen asleep in the cider-room. Wait! They've stolen the casks! Moc! So what? The bladder was full, and he wasn't thirsty anyway. So what? So big what, so that's what! He got up on all fours and turned to crawl back to the corridor. Where's that lamp over there? There it is, it was moved. Who moved the lamp? His hand came down on a couple of small round things near the door, and he held them up to his eyes to make out what they were in the dim light. Kernals. Kernals? Puzzled, he sat down to free his hands to scratch his head, and saw not the doorway of the cider-room but the gate-slots of the kernal bins. How did he get there in his sleep? His cider-bladder had slipped off in the fall, and as he reached for it he realised again that this bin was empty. Kernal bin dryge? That ought not to be. He lunged to his feet with a push that brought him out of contact with the floor, and he was forced to land on all fours again, but the next attempt was more controled, and successful, and he swerved out into the hall and around the corner to look into the other bins, just out of curiosity. They were dryge as well.
This was bad. This was wrong. He shook his head, and the floor ahead of him blurred, and he made his solemn way out of the warehouses. The keeper looked at him with disgust as he approached. "So there you are! Did you remember to fill Fodacoc's skin, at least?"
"Fodacoc? Fodacoc!? Oh, um, um, see?" Smerian held the bladder out at arm's length to show him, nearly pushing it into his face. "Something bad in warehouse. No good."
This got the huge keeper's attention. "What mean?" he demanded. "Say to me! What you do, you saelig twat?"
Smerian was offended, but considered the purely circumstancial evidence against him and the size of the guard (mostly the latter), and decided not to press the issue. "The kernal bins," he explained hastily, and then lost his train of thought. "I mean, kernal bins, bins..." He looked up into the warehouse-keep's face for help.
The anxious looked faded from the guard's face. "Um, um, kernal bins dryge. Dryge long. I know."
But Smerian's anxiety was renewed, now that he had been reminded what he was talking about. "Kernal bins dryge long? Very bad! No kernals, no coecil! Traeppedelfere eat coecil. Traeppedelfere need much coecil!"
"I was told not important, not worry," said the guard, "I not worry. You go, take skin to Fodacoc." He shooed him away like he would a grunddwellan, stirring the air of the cave with the backs of his hands.
Fodacoc! What a genius this guard is! He could take this skin to the cook, and at the same time tell him about the kernal shortage, and at the same time pay back the favor of telling him how to get into the warehouse, and at the same time be almost back to his chamber! Smerian was stunned by the brilliance of this idea, and he stood in his tracks admiring it, until the keep gave him enough of a shove to clear him off the premises of the warehouses, and get him started on his way.
On fire with a spirit of civic responsibility formerly unknown to him, and with another spirit only too well known to him, Smerian doggedly made his way, cider-skin bouncing, back toward the Great Hall. It's a good thing he wasn't saelig, he thought to himself, or he wouldn't be doing this.
Smaelaer awoke with a head full of questions and knots in his stomachs. The days since his return from the Haunted Lands were a blur to him. He couldn't escape that eerie feeling, and the hope, obviously vain but there anyway, that it had all just been some kind of dream, some saelig hallucination. He knew, however, that it had been no dream. The oxagretes, the Banquet, the Waeccelang... How could it be that, out of all the assembled Traeppedelferes, he was the only one who could see or hear the Waeccelang? The only one! "You are not of your time... You are the first." Smaelaer didn't want to think about it any more, but it was impossible to ignore.
What was he supposed to do? He tried to remember all that the Waeccelang had communicated to him, and found that it all, every word, was burned into the very forefront of his memory. "You, Smaelaer, will go back to your mines, and the routine of your days will resume." The routine of his days? He was a hunter: he could only take that to mean that he should go back to being a hunter. That thought was reassuring to him. He was itching to get out of the caves again, anyway.
But so much more was not reassuring. "A great deal is asked of you, and expected from you, though you will seem to profit little... you shall travel the paths untrodden for many, many long aeons, and are doomed to be misunderstood by both the present and the future." And most troubling of all: " ...to fulfill your promise you must be as one of them for a time..." What promise? What promise? He racked his brains for a clue. What had he promised? He could remember nothing.
For now, though, he could at least prepare to go outside again. He began to gather up his few items of personal gear, but he needed a skin to bundle them in, and he had to pick up some traps, and foodstuffs, before he could set out. He strapped his knife onto his leg, and set the spearcastan, snares and other hunting tools on the floor, ready to be packed up. He stepped into the corridor, pausing a moment to allow his eyes to adjust to the feeble light after being used to the pitch black of his small chamber. He pulled the door up, started down the hall, and froze. He could hear the footfalls of a Traeppedelfere echoing up the corridor toward him, no, two! one nearly inaudible even to his trained ears in the hard hallway (obviously a hunter), and the one he first heard, flapping sharply in comparison.
He suddenly did not want to meet anyone. He didn't feel like carefully choosing his every word, or explaining anything, or even engaging in a passing greeting. He knew as if by premonition that whoever was coming was coming to see him, and he strained his ears to estimate their distance, and whether he could duck into a side passage ahead without being detected. He decided to try it. He silently trotted down to the next branch (the approaching hunter would have keen ears, too), and moved far enough into it to remove himself from sight of the main corridor. Smaelaer crouched motionless in the shadows, and waited for the two to pass.
They finally reached the side passage (these cursed stone walls make every sound reverberate as if it was made right in front of you) and, sure enough, they turned up toward Smaelaer's chamber. Smaelaer gave them a moment to walk past, then he quietly paced up the hallway that they had just passed through, and proceeded on toward the upper storerooms, where the hunters' equipment was kept.
"Goffe! I have big problem." Waetanswefn approached the Maegenyldra, still seated on what was left of the dais.
"Waetanswefn, what you say?" Goffe turned towards him.
Waetanswefn looked around, as if to determine whether they could be overheard. The workers noticed this, of course, and pretended not to, while listening all the more attentively. An Yldra with a big problem! Goffe smiled to himself; Waetanswefn acted embarassed. "Great Banquet," he said to Goffe in a stage whisper, nervously glancing from side to side. "Becumanfisc."
One of the laborers coughed. The image of ancient Waetanswefn in becumanfisc was rather ludicrous. Goffe calmly went along, "Um? So?"
Waetanswefn raised his finger to his lips and said, looking sidelong into the distance, "First becumanfisc in long time."
Several titters escaped at this, but Waetanswefn pretended not to notice. Goffe did not smile. "Um, why you say?"
Waetanswefn was up on the dais now, bending close to Goffe's ear, but still whispering loud enough for the others to hear, "My ruttetunge. It come off."
What?! The widucippians turned their backs and some held their breath, straining to stay silent. Goffe rolled his eyes, but indulged in a half-grin.
"Completely off. It gone!" Waetanswefn confided in a pleading whine.
The Traeppedelferes near the dais were in a panic. They dare not laugh at an Yldra, and although this was almost certainly a joke, still, Goffe looked pretty serious. Waetanswefn wasn't through. Goffe repeated, "Why you say?"
"Help me!" Waetanswefn pleaded melodramatically. "I am old twatunge; I wake up, I want look for antunge, I can't remember which! Please, Goffe, we must search all antunges! Now!"
All hope of decorum was abandoned. The laborers, overdue for a break anyway, exploded. The duller ones finally realized at the end that it was a joke, and laughed as much at being taken in as at the absurdity itself. Even the antunges listening thought it was funny (silly old Waetanswefn!), and Goffe smiled, too, in spite of the delay it was causing. Waetanswefn winked at the workers.
Under the cover of the general mirth, he stooped to Goffe's ear and whispered in earnest, "Smaelaer." Goffe's smile dropped a notch, and he nodded. Issuing a terse order to get back to work, he rose and left the dais with Waetanswefn. The two of them spoke together in low voices, and looked for a more private part of the Hall.
Niwesliefe and Snecchen stopped in front of Smaelaer's door. They had met quite accidentally on the way, and until that moment neither knew that their destinations were the same. They recognised each other only from the events of the past few days (Niwesliefe had watched Snecchen slay the oxagretes from the entrance to the caves), but both were involved in their own thoughts, and had not spoken in the corridor. It was necessary to speak now, though; they both wanted to talk with Smaelaer in private.
"What you do here?" Snecchen asked coldly, as she knocked on the door.
"Must talk with Smaelaer," Niwesliefe answered, rapping the door herself. "It important!"
"You with Smaelaer long at Banquet," Snecchen said, knocking a little louder, "why not say important thing then?"
"We say little at Banquet!" Niwesliefe retorted, hitting the door with her fist. "Why you here?"
"Not any care of yours!" Snecchen sneered, pounding.
"Oh, no?" (bang!)
"No!" (boom!)
"I sent here by Yldra!" Niwesliefe's voice was getting loud. She attacked the door the way she felt like attacking Snecchen.
Snecchen thought, "and I was sent here by Waeccelang!" but she stopped short of saying it. The argument was cut off at this point, anyway, as the door, under the fury of Niwesliefe's onslaught, surrendered, and slowly began to fall. They watched as it gathered momentum through its quarter rotation, and jumped as it slammed into the floor. When the dust cleared they realised that their bickering was moot. Smaelaer was not there.
They went in. The thin yellow light of the corridor lamp was enough for their sensitive eyes to be able to make out the features of the hunter's spartan chamber. Snecchen at once saw Smaelaer's gear made ready to pack, and knew from that where he was then. Niwesliefe saw it too, but paid no attention to it, not being a hunter herself.
"Um. Yldra sent you, you wait for Smaelaer now," Snecchen told Niwesliefe, "I go."
Niwesliefe thought, "that more like it!" and sat down on Smaelaer's cot. "Um," she said aloud, "good. I wait."
Snecchen immediately left the chamber, and headed for the upper storerooms. "Little fool!" she thought to herself. Then other, more troubling thoughts came to her. Why would the Yldras send a messenger to Smaelaer? And why this messenger? The Yldras must have already named him cnawannawiht! She would have to warn him! She began to run through the hallways.
Later, Snecchen would look back at this moment as the precise time that she made up her mind about Smaelaer, about the Yldras, and about becoming a morwegiestranweard, a student of lore. At the time, though, her thoughts were only on giving Smaelaer enough time to get out to the hunt, away from the caves. She would be going out herself soon, and she resolved to track Smaelaer down, and discuss his peril with him in the privacy of the forest. First, though, warn Smaelaer...
"Fodaca, ucka, uh Fodacoc!" Smerian shouted, stumbling into the galley. "Fodacoc, you mocsaec! Fodacoc! Here is cider bladder!" He whipped the skin off of his shoulder with an exaggerated flourish, put his hand out to catch the balance he lost, aiming for the edge of the counter. His hand missed the counter, but came just close enough to catch the handle of the metal pot that was sitting there, and flip it flying across the room where it landed on the floor with a great clatter. Fodacoc, Pipasefte, and every other worker in the galley whirled from their chores with alarm at the sudden noise, while Smerian beamingly picked himself up from the floor.
Fodacoc rushed over to the maciantol, waving his arms and cursing him wildly. "What you do? What you do? Quiet! Quiet! Saelig flotasaec!"
"Here," said Smerian, handing Fodacoc the bulging bladder, "your cider!" He grinned idiotically while the cook skeptically took the skin. "Here," Smerian laboriously tapped his head, "your secret!"
At this, the galley workers pricked their ears, although Smerian was practically bellowing and no one could avoid hearing him.
"What secret?"
"Bad thing," Smerian yelled. "Bad, bad, bad! Kernal bins dryge! All dryge! No kernals, no coecil, no food, no Traeppedelfere!" And to the amazement of all, Smerian, the sturdy maciantol, slumped down onto the floor and wept like a cild.
"Gemaed twatunge!" Fodacoc had heard enough. "Get out! Get out of galley!" He pushed the blubbering seated figure with his foot.
Pipasefte, however, had taken a sudden interest in Smerian's secret. She could hardly disguise her excitement as she volunteered to help him out of the chamber, thereby getting a chance to prod him further about this matter. She consoled the bawling drunk as best she could, and led him toward the corridor in tiny steps.
...but Smaelaer great hunter! He kill oxagretes!" Watanswefn and Goffe were debating.
"Um," said Waetanswefn. "That mean Smaelaer dangerous fighter with knife. You hear Traeppedelfere praise at Banquet? Never cheer so great for Yldra!"
"How Smaelaer bring oxagretes?"
"He say go to Haunted Lands!"
"He say Waeccelang in Haunted Lands!"
"He say Waeccelang in Banquet Hall! But nothing there."
Goffe added to himself, "He knows about the dryge kernal bins, too." To Waetanswefn, he said, "There only one possible reason."
Waetanswefn nodded. "Only one possible verdict." They looked at each other in comprehension.
"Cnawannawiht!" they whispered together, and left the Hall to alert the Yldras of their decision.
It didn't take Smaelaer long to gather the necessary items together, even in the nearly total darkness of the upper storerooms, close by the Great Hall. He knew where the things were stowed, and inspected the traps, skins, and ropes by feel, and the dried foodstuffs by taste (smell). He loosely wrapped the things in the skin, threw it over his shoulder, and drew his knife to cut a good length of thong to use in binding the pack once he had loaded up his gear back in his chamber. He looped the thong around his waist and, knife still in hand, walked out into the corridor.
Both hands' paces down the corridor, Smaelaer heard approaching footsteps, suddenly nearby. There was no time to duck back to the storeroom. He could only hope it was someone who would not recognise him, because he had that feeling again that he should avoid... something. Simultaneously five Traeppedelferes entered the corridor through three different doorways: furthest from him on the one hand, Smerian and Pipasefte, from the galley; a little closer and on the other hand, Snecchen, from the hallway to his chamber; and directly in front of him, stepping suddenly into the corridor lamp-light from the Great Hall, Waetanswefn and Goffe.
The Yldras saw Smaelaer standing there with his sharp knife in his hand and blanched. Turning with wild eyes, they spied the others down the hall, and implored to them with the Yldras strongest oath, and the word that was just on the tips of their tongues and ready to use. Pointing at Smaelaer, they loudly called out "Cnawannawiht!"
"No!" Snecchen cried out, "not know that! Smaelaer! Sheath knife! Run!"
Pipasefte immediately let go of Smerian (who responded by falling asleep on contact with the floor), and rushed to Goffe's aid.
Smaelaer did not run. Cnawannawiht! He stood as one in shock, and the knife fell from his numb fingers, but he sighed as if a great weight had just been lifted from his shoulders. Cnawannawiht! That explained everything: the oxagretes, the dreams, the Waeccelang, the Haunted Lands - why hadn't he thought of it himself?
Snecchen pushed past the others and came up to Smaelaer. "What wrong? Go! Run, leave the caves! You great hunter, you not hunger, go!"
But it was too late; she was too late. The Yldras had named him cnawannawiht, and Smaelaer had accepted it; not only because of the long indoctrination of all Traeppedelferes that demanded it, but also because something snapped inside him, and he himself believed he was insane. When nothing makes sense, everything makes sense, and his mind was at ease. He closed his eyes. "No, Snecchen," he whispered. Then, in an afterthought, he picked his knife up again. Waetanswefn backed up the hall and Goffe pushed Pipasefte in front of him.
"This knife kill oxagretes," he said to Snecchen. "I not use it again. You take." He handed her the handle.
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