The Green Lands
٤٢ Gerstesykli: ١٤ Days after the Red Storm at Westsong
Methias came to a stop, his horse Mezofel following suit beside him. The horse stood easy, paying no heed to the blond boy on his back. Up ahead and to the right, a stand of trees and bushes jutted up from the dark green grasses.
Methias turned, meaning to look up at the boy he’d ransomed from the Hollow Ones. “Do you want help getting down?”
…Apparently not. It was hard not to smile, watching him slide from the saddle and onto the ground with such ease. He seems to have recovered nicely, so that’s something.
“You’ve been kind to me. I thank you, my Lord,” said the boy. He was smiling again, which was a good sign. He then bowed rather formally, as he’d clearly been taught. The cut of his clothing, his cultured speech, his ease in the saddle…
He’s noble-born, then. No surprise, I suppose. For all of its fear and hatred of the Weave, there are very nearly as many casters in Venzene as there are on Nausha. The nobility tends to be the most accomplished, too, despite their oft-vaunted condemnations.
The boy would expect … what manner of response? A kindly, sagacious nobleman seemed the best fit. Methias made his posture a touch stiffer, keeping his voice neutral at first. “I bid you as safe an evening and as uneventful a life as you’re able to find.” He ended this neutral formality with a courtly bow to match the boy’s own. As he righted himself, he made a conscious effort to adopt a more affable air. “Keep careful watch over your power when you’re memorizing rites, or they’ll call you the sleeping sorcerer.”
He appeared to have chosen the right combination of stance and speech pattern. Though no reply was spoken, the boy favored him with a genuine grin and a nod before running off toward the green grove. A moment later and he’d gone through to meet his mistress on the other side—wherever that was.
“Fare you well, boy … while well still waits.”
Methias laid a hand along Mezofel’s silky neck, combing his fingers through the charger’s mane. He’d made up his mind to stay afoot for the time being. Turning toward the road again, he chuckled.
“No, not unless you’re desperate to bear my weight just now.” It was to Mezofel he’d spoken as they resumed their walk. The horse kept pace with him without prompting. “Hmm? No, I’m certain you’re right. No doubt he’d have made an excellent apprentice.” He paused, trying to sort out the thoughts as they came, taking care to separate Mezofel’s from his own. “No, indeed. Apprentices do not, in fact, grow on trees.” He laughed, albeit mildly.
Silence fell for a dozen strides or so. “There’s a fine line between fate and fortune, I think. If I see him again without directly seeking him out, we can call that fate.”
In reply, the horse tossed his proud head, whickering warmly as they walked on.
Methias allowed his mind to lapse into un-thought. The Wilds, as he’d been taught to call them, were a far cry from Skolf, but he’d not been afraid here since he was, well…
Since I was that boy’s age, I suppose.
This thought started to lead him, naturally enough, toward memories of his own apprenticeship in Nausha. He’d always found the City of Towers to be impressive, but in the sterile way sculpture or paintings were impressive. They captured the imagination for a moment, but they rarely rolled around in your head or woke you up from a dead sleep. With time and either distance or familiarity, the sense of wonder and awe the great city evoked simply … faded.
The wilds were more … omnipresent? That was as close as he could come to finding a word for it. They were like poetry, story, and song. Not the versions written and archived for posterity, but the mundane miracles of raw, living performance. There’s something comforting in the savage actually allowed to be… well, savage. The wilds are unbound, perfectly imperfect. They’re—
His musings were cut off by a single, intense word scraping against his mind’s ear.
“Methias!” The sense wasn’t that of a shout but of a cracked, rusty whisper seemingly from inside his own skull. He stiffened, acknowledging the voice—making the mental shift to accommodate the speaker’s presence.
I could ignore him, of course, but that would only delay the inevitable. I’ll need to speak with him eventually.
He ordered his mind, preparing himself. It would be disastrous if he were to allow his face or stance to betray a hasty reaction. I must be measured in all things. His good will is genuine, but… It’s spider silk—strong, but impossibly delicate.
A moment later—a heartbeat, maybe two—and the wizened, alien form of Ramud Ayumbra faded into existence before him. He floated in the air, seated upon nothing at nearly eye level, and waited. His expression seemed remote and imperious, looking down his nose at Methias’s helmeted head.
Ramud Ayumbra was a Meoli… was, it was said, the first Meoli reported or recorded. Now he was among the willingly tethered spirits that served on the Borr Gezeol Xec—the Night Song Council of Xecses Merai.
Meoli was polysemous—a word with more than one meaning, dependent on context from speaker or scribe. Most commonly it meant the get of a human and a dwarf. Its second meaning was far kinder. If the “e” were emphasized, the meaning shifted to the impossible made manifest… made real. It meant, in other words, miracle.
Meoli were either substantively shorter or taller than most dwarves. Ramud Ayumbra was the former. His flesh was a deep, sunbaked brown, like the folk of Northern Shesh. His hair and beard were long, wild, and white like summer clouds—or bleached bone, depending on his facial expressions. His teeth, too, were dazzlingly white, his eyes yellow stars in a clear night sky. He wore a pleated white kilt and grey leather sandals, the coils of which stretched up over his calves. His upper body displayed bare, dusky-brown flesh, save his enormous left arm.
From Winter’s Maw to the Singing Sea, smiths across Skolf could be identified by the telltale asymmetry of their arms. Many smiths kept their arms bare whenever work or weather permitted. It was a way to silently display their oft-honored profession. Ramud Ayumbra, first Meoli, seemed unsatisfied with that meager presentation. He’d covered his bright arm in a series of overlapping leather plates of a deep, dark grey. These were reinforced by what looked to be ivory bars along the forearm. The harness ran seamlessly into a well-oiled leather glove of the same dark grey at one end and a bone pauldron covering his left shoulder at the other. This piece was bound to him by means of a wide band of colorless leather across his chest, under his dim arm. The overall effect was both magnificent and disturbing.
Not for the first time, Methias was left with the distinct impression that the fellow took deliberate pride in cultivating his image as something … other. It wasn’t that he thought the man should conform to meet his view of normal. Far from it. Methias was human, after all. Ramud Ayumbra is … not. No, it was simply that he seemed to accentuate the most jagged aspects of everything from his hair to his heritage. While there was certainly nothing intrinsically wrong with that…
But it serves to bait the trap. You demand respect in every way, yet in every respect, you seek to force a reaction. And if I yield—as others, apparently, have before me? Then you’ll gleefully throw up your hands, say that you tried, and leave another age to fall to the King of the Dead.
Methias stopped walking entirely, knowing full well Mezofel would do the same without needing to be asked. He stepped back and offered a deep nod of his head, fluttering his bright hand to touch his belt, the area just below his ribcage, his lips, and finally his forehead in succession as he righted himself.
How to greet you in this place… The Dwarven tongue would be more forgiving, but the Sheshik ones? The various languages and dialects of Shesh were far more exacting. Because they’re all tonal… and I’m an ill singer. Combining them? While that task would be less than intuitive, he thought it would be his best course. “Ramud” was Aqdna, the eldest of the Sheshik languages. “Ayumbra” was Eydzul, the lone Dwarven tongue. Better to acknowledge both in respect, rather than presume he reckons one more important than the other.
“Rah-mood Ay-oom-bra.” Methias took pains to roll the first R but only emphasized that single syllable: oom. He shifted briefly into Aqdna. “Naum saamreghbel lev mor tiil.” Then back to Dwarven. “Gimilxec.”
This was a formal greeting if a touch on the warm side. If taken literally, the Sheshik portion translated to “You I desire that fairness should hunt for.” Sheshik was, however, a poetic language with much of its meaning lost on the casual student. In actuality, its translation was closer to, “It is my desire that fairness should hunt for you—that great god who is the sun should protect you from the unscrupulous in all things.” The brief return to Eydzul, the Dwarven tongue, offered a simple sign of respect for the Meoli’s station, translating to master, teacher, or mentor.
Ramud Ayumbra remained cross-legged in the air for a long moment, his face an unreadable mask.
He’s leaving me rope to hang myself—testing to see if I’ll speak further… before he replies. If I do—other than to show weakness by seeking assurance that I have not offended in some way—I break the tenets of both Sheshik and Dwarven courtesy. He resisted the urge to fill the silence.
Ramud Ayumbra, at last, bowed his head, closing his eyes for perhaps a three count.
“Meth-hyoos Ar-thod…zet oal ayom ahg hol Akhdir la Yantahi.” The Meoli kept his voice formal, his words carried on a low, stony baritone.
He spoke in Calyari… save his use of “Akhdir la Yantahi.” I can hardly fault him for using this place’s Sheshik name.
(You have come to the Endless Green.)
Methias nodded. Now that the greetings were properly seen to, it would be safe to revert to the trade tongue. “As you say, and as you instructed.”
“I do not instruct, Meth-hyoos. I merely advise.”
“As you say, Ramud Ayumbra. I ask that you advise me further, now that I am here.”
Ramud’s response came without preamble. “You will walk to the ring of Hollow Ones you see atop the hill there.” He raised his hand to gesture over his right shoulder, though his focus remained on Methias’s eyes. “Pass beyond them and you will find what I promised … and its guardian.”
Methias nodded, saying nothing. He would hold his questions until Ramud Ayumbra invited him to ask them. He didn’t have long to wait.
“Speak, while my patience yet wakes.”
How to respond… What does he want me to ask? I can’t ask what I’ll find there. He’ll tell me that he’s already said, and he has. I cannot ask what he wants me to do. He’ll only tell me that I asked him for knowledge that could aid me, and he led me to it.
Methias’s mind was swift and agile, which was good. He was able to consider his options at a speed that made others see him as calm, collected, and in control at nearly all times. If his mind worked at the same speed as most seemed to, they would see the truth. It was all a mask.
Most folk observed the way others acted and interacted in their early childhood, and so learned how best to do the same. As they grew, that knowledge developed into a kind of unspoken intuition. Its use came automatically, to one degree or another, just like walking. Most people didn’t consciously think about putting one foot in front of the other to cross a room. They simply walked. For Methias, and more than a few of the other casters he’d known in Nausha, communication—social interaction—was anything but automatic.
“Apprentice,” his master Emil had said, “conversation is like drawing a draught of fresh water. Most people live near a creek or river. For them, they walk over, dip their cup or even their whole damned head in the flow, and are sated. You don’t live near a creek or river. You live near a deep well. If you need water—if you want to understand and be understood by others, you have to use a force pump, fighting to pull that water out with an act of will. It’ll always be work for you. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”
And oh how that’d hurt hear. The description was near enough the mark, but the idea that there was nothing he could do… But then Emil had grinned at him—a grin that said plainly that there was more to his tale.
“…Alright then, apprentice. As you know you’ve work ahead of you, make that work easier. Learn all you can about culture, language, art, and architecture. Learn all that you can about as many things as your head can hold. Use that knowledge to ever improve your arm and the mechanism of your pump. Drawing water will always take more of an effort for you than most, but if you do these things, that effort won’t always have to be such hard work or take quite so long. Sconces on the wall…”
So, what did he know about Ramud Ayumbra? He was, or at least presented himself as, a smith. Yes, but the materials he’s used are from animals, not minerals. He’s shown that he forges flesh and bone, not just iron and silver…
“Am I here to gather, or am I here to be made useful?” He paused, then amended. “Made into something useful?”
The Meoli’s brows rose in surprise at the question. He dipped his chin as he lowered them again, offering a species of nod before he spoke.
“An … unexpectedly astute question, Meth-hyoos.”
I’ve made him revise his opinion of me, at least. Well, no, he may just be trying to find an answer that fits within his intentions. At least Ramud appeared surprised, rather than angry or disgusted with him. That was something.
“My answer is both. You will gather supplies, certainly. How you proceed once you’ve seen and heard what lay beyond the Hollow Ones may forge you into something useful.” He paused, offering a smile that not only failed to reach his eyes but actually seemed to steal the light from them. “Do not forget that a tool may be used by an enemy as easily as by an ally. I look forward to seeing what you make of this place … or what it makes of you.”
Methias took that in, considered for perhaps ten seconds (which was very nearly an age for him), and finally nodded. “Will you be here when I return?”
“If you return, I will await you in the Sculptor’s Hall in Xecses Merai that was.”
Methias bowed his head. “My thanks, Ramud Ayumbra. If I should fail, may you find someone more worthy soon after.”
Again came that look of genuine surprise on the Meoli’s face. It was dispelled swiftly as he bowed his head in turn. As soon as he’d completed the motion, he winked out of existence.