THE SHERIFF OF HNUT / CH. 16: DIRAK NO-MILK

HNUT, 5PM, MOTHERDAY, 6TH OF WINTER

“Sithini, welcome! How are you?” Lenepoli asked.

“Today I started off the afternoon in the company of Keldi, Lanthi, and journeyman watchmaker Quif. Lanthi bought herself a watch from what turns out to have been a seller of fraudulent and rubbish watches.”

“So more legalities?”

“Yes. Very different ones. But it's just ended up with Quif praying for me, which was very nice.”

“I heard a 'because' in there,” Dirak said.

“Yes. Well, it ended up that he prayed for me in both senses of the phrase.”

“Eh?” Dirak asked, “He prayed that God would help you, and he prayed on your behalf?”

“Oops, that's a third sense. But yes he did that, too.”

“Then what other sense?” Dirak asked.

“Do you mean 'Please God let me have Sithini'?” Lenepoli asked.

“He wasn't quite that blunt. But pretty much.”

“And you said Amen to that?” Dirak asked.

“I prayed that God would help us know what we feel and not hurt each other.”

“And how do you feel?” Lenepoli asked.

“He is kind, he loves interesting gadgets, he makes beautiful watches.”

“And you always did like watching watches. This is Quif who accused you of cheating by using trigonometry, yes?”

“Yes. He almost accused me of cheating for saying I didn't position gears by sight but by pushing them together. But then he called be a genius for suggesting a friend of his might want to think of involute gears, so I'll let him off.”

“What's an involute gear?” Lenepoli asked.

“It's got differently curved teeth.” Sithini said, “They're not as strong, and making it is a bit easier, as long as you can get the curve right, but getting the spacing not quite right isn't nearly as disastrous, which is his friend's problem.”

“So, you've got a suitor?” Lenepoli asked.

“Not formally, but we're both thinking it'd be good to know each other better.”

“You're going to upset some people in the village,” Lenepoli said.

“Please feel free to pass the word round that I was green when I hatched from parents who were green when they hatched, and I'm entirely green at heart, just like Quif, and my dad was a watchmaker too.”

“So you're staying in-colour and in-guild. That will make sense to them, I'm sure.”

“I hope so. You can also tell them that I've known him a long time.”

“So, Sithinilakiina, who gets the privilege of giving you two parental blessing?”

“Good question. I've still not met my dad's parents, you realise? But which hatchlings are we going to search for?”

“Tricky one that.” Dirak said. “Trum's wife has no idea which of the two she was caring for came from which crate, and I'm actually tempted to go for the the other twins.”

“Because?”

“Because they're twins, and Yalinth says they're constantly thinking something that's pretty wordless but she understands as 'Where's mummy, can you hear mummy? No, can you hear mummy?' back and forth to each other, and when she thinks to them, they think 'that wasn't mummy, where's mummy?”

“OK, that must be heartbreaking.”

“I think so too,” Dirak said. “Yalinth says it was at first, but it's also getting annoying.”

“Do the others respond?” Sithini asked.

“Sometimes things like 'No mummy, Big angry coming. They've all decided Rangar is 'big angry'. Yalinth is 'big little'.”

“Go on,” Lenepoli said, “Tell Sithini what they call you.”

“I'm 'No-milk', apparently. And Lenepoli is 'little-granny'”

“Because of your feathers?” Sithini asked.

“It makes sense, I suppose,” Lenepoli agreed. “But food is ready.”

“I'm learning something very important about Lenepoli.” Dirak said.

“What's that?”

“She cooks such delicious food that I'm going to have to ask her to marry me or my taste-buds will rise up and strangle me.”

“Oh, its your taste buds is it?” Sithini said, “I didn't think your taste buds were up there. Have you had any time to think about house plans?”

“Not really.”

“Want me to share some of my idle thoughts over dinner?”

“I love my little sister. She's got this wonderful over-powered brain, and as well as planning her own future she's had time to think of ours too.”

“Well, I assume that I'm going to get asked to hatchling-sit from time to time, so I've got to make plans about where to put the moss buckets, don't I?”

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

----------------------------------------

A VILLAGE UPSTREAM FROM REQIQ, MOTHERDAY, 6.20PM

“I'm Zerker Dirak, wizard-at-large and sheriff of Hnut.” Dirak said, “My girlfriend Zerkess Lenepoli and friend Wizardess Sithinilakiina.”

“I am Zerker Chelf.” The male said.

“Have you heard of the change in the law?”

“I have. It is too late, though.”

“In what respect?”

“My father sits in parliament; I heard of the hool. He guesses tha the tale my mother-in-law told of the growlers eating my daughters is a lie. We all guess that. I also guess you are here to tell me father-in-law's name is in the records. It is... possible but unlikely that he did anything, as he has not been able to speak since he clubbed himself in protest at our marriage.”

“And your wife?” Lenepoli asked.

“Come and meet her,” Chelf said, with tears in his eyes.

“She is ill?” Sithini asked.

“She decided two weeks ago that half a year of waiting was too late, that our prayers had not been answered. Now she will not eat.”

“You have not starved yourself though?” Dirak asked.

“I am not as brave as her.”

“Or perhaps you have more faith?” Lenepoli said, as she looked at the bed where the young red mother lay, asleep.”

Chelf shook his head. “No. I too have stopped praying.”

“Perhaps it is time to start again. Has your wife continued to drink?”

“Yes.”

“Pray for your wife Chelf, two weeks without food is a long time for an adult.”

“How can I pray to a God who does not answer prayers?”

“How can you say that God does not answer prayers,” Sithini said, “when we came here led by a device that found you by the scent of two half-starved winterborns who desperately want their mother?”

“It is impossible!”

“With God, all things are possible, Chelf.” Dirak said.

“Tanepoli, do you hear?”

“Do not try to trick me, Chelf. I go to join my daughters.” she said quietly.

“Then you'd better eat something,” Lenepoli said, “because they're a hungry pair by all accounts.”

“I go to them in heaven.”

“Well, thank you for calling my home heaven,” Lenepoli said “And I admit its nice, but really, I think God won't be letting any unbelievers into heaven, so since we've got a few you're over-stating things a bit. Have a bit to eat before you try travelling.”

“I don't know who you are, but you can't trick me to eating any food.”

“Tanepoli, wife of Chelf. My name is Sithinilakiina, daughter of Ranthilakiina, descendent of Zalakiina. I am green-turned-red, the peace-loving hope of the greens. Will you, who call yourself noble, turn aside from the risk of taking a bite to eat and the risk a journey to the village of Hnut, to see if two little winterborns barely out of their shells, so starved that their tickle-fluff has fallen out and must be fed by a tube, might possibly be yours? Two little winterborns who, according to the six-year old winterborn in Hnut think nothing but 'have you heard mummy? where's mummy'. Will you take the risk that your daughters live?”

“You can't trick me, whoever you are.”

“You will not face the risk, then? You are too broken? Too scared that your daughters' minds might have suffered? You would prefer that they had been left in that evil hool with the four thousand for whom it was too late? You are too scared to think that God would answer your prayers?”

“You can't trick me.”

“You are already deceived Tanepoli if you think God will accept a suicide who refuses hope. You have been tricked by the evil one, into believing God has not heard you, and into leaving your children to die. Or is it that you condemned them to that fate yourself? Did you conceive them only to regret it? Is that what you would have me believe? Are you so evil? Are you so heartless a mother?”

“Do not mock my pain!”

“Then eat something, and go to your children!” Sithini ordered “You are too weak to stand, they are too week to travel. How will you see them if you do not eat? Or shall I take you to see them as you are now, with you unable even to crawl to them in response to their cries of longing when they see you? Will you expose yourself to such mockery in the eyes of Yalinth's great grandmother, lady Yanepoli of Hnut in whose care they are? Or is it that you do not want to see them? Are you are such a coward that you cannot face the evidence of their suffering written on their tiny fluff? Is that it? Are you too full of pride and too much a coward to accept that you need to repent of your lack of faith?”

“Do you challenge me?” Tanepoli asked, struggling to rise.

“I'm green-turned-red, princess of the Tan, I am heir to the southern throne, heir of the line deposed by you usurpers. I will not challenge you to a duel, but I challenge you to live and be a mother, yes, and if you need calling a coward before you accept that challenge then I call you a coward. I am a wizardess, I designed and made a device that finds fathers based on the pheromones of their children, it found your husband. The crate the starving fluffballs were in was sent from this village and put in the hool half a year ago. I say they are very likely your children. Prove me wrong if you dare.”

“Sithini, that might not have been the safest thing to say.” Dirak murmured as as Tanepoli got out of her bed onto unsteady legs.

“I may be weak but I will pluck your mocking feathers if you are wrong.”

“As long as you promise to eat something first, so you do not collapse of the journey and I do not have your death on my conscience as I try to run away from you even while throwing up at the thought of being plucked as my ancestress was, and as long as you promise to thank God for hearing your prayers and for my bravery in challenging you if those fluffballs are yours.”

Tanepoli sat back down, and Chelf handed her a bowl of soup; he made some each day for her, hoping that she would eat something.

Tanepoli sipped it and rested against him.

“If they are ours or not.” Chelf said, “I will name my next daughter after you, green-turned-red who does not back down.”

“You think I return fully to life, Chelf?”

“I think you will see helpless fluffballs, my love, and even if the wizardess cannot count and has confused my brother's lost son with our lost daughters, you will remember the joy of motherhood, not just the pain of loss.”

“You know me, husband.” she said then turned to Sithini. “I have eaten, persuasive wizardess. Let us go first to the grieving family of my brother-in-law, assuming your wizardry can carry so many. His son was taken much more recently than our daughters.”

----------------------------------------

HNUT, YANEPOLI'S HOME. MOTHERDAY EVENING

“Well, what are we waiting for?” Tanepoli asked impatiently.

The door flew open, and Yalinth said “They heard their mummy! Great-grandma, their mummy's here! They'll stop annoying me! Come this way, please, now they're screaming 'I heard mummy! Where's Mummy?'”

“Come in, whoever you are,” Yanepoli said from inside. “Yalinth's obviously decided that this is no time for decorum.”

“I am named Tanepoli, lady Yanepoli of Hnut. And I had given up all hope,” Tanepoli said, as she was dragged towards the little crib by the fire. Then she needed dragging no more and she flew to her fluffballs. Scooping them up she said “This is Talinth, and this is Tagelah, who hatched first. They will both, I hope, find themselves yellow husbands, and just as godly Saleth did, bring another generation of thought-hearers, and I pray that the house of Tan will forever be led by godly yellows, as unafraid as Sithinilakiina who named me the coward that I was, not daring to hope, not daring to live. Thank you, father God for hearing my prayers.”

“I knew your grandmother, Tanepoli,” Yanepoli said, “and I'm surprised that young Sithini still breaths if she called you coward.”

“I was scared of life and determined to die, and had not eaten in two weeks. It took that goad to move me from my bed, and get me to eat. It was well aimed; I do not doubt I'd still be there otherwise.”

“Tagelah thinks 'Mummy must eat! Hungry! Milk time!'”

Yalinth interpreted, and then turned to Chelf's sister-in-law, and said, “I don't know. The others are with Big Angry. Sorry, that's what they call Rangar.”

“Yalinth, as you have noticed, has not yet learned to hide what she can do.” Yanepoli said, morosely. “It's my fault, lady Yanepoli. I thought a question to her, hoping against hope that my son also has been found.”

“My sister-in-law, Zaheln,” Tanepoli said.

“Yalinth, guide Zaheln to Rangar and Nathlin, and remember your manners.”

“Yes, great-grandma,” Yalinth said.

----------------------------------------