Ch: 20 The Heart of a Poet
“Do you think Shai looked upset when I put her to sleep?” Tawny asked, peering at her slumbering friend. “We had never really been close, before Gary that is. I only knew her through my work at the orphanage.”
Ivy whistled through her teeth softly. “Shai is tough, but she hangs all her feelings right out there, she will let you know.”
The two women were sprawled across the ridiculous bed, with plenty of room for Otho the dog’s massive redgold form. “We’ve never really talked, you and I,” Ivy began. “we don’t seem to have much in common.”
“Pish, we have friends in common, and your contributions to the group are vital. Our shared goals alone are enough to bridge any silly rank difference…”
Tawny ground to a halt, watching the other woman’s face move from amusement, to annoyance and back to long suffering patience.
“I’m an Adventurer and an orphan, your rank is meaningless to me because everyone outranks me. You guys all think you have huge swinging dicks granted by the gods, yes even the women.”
Ivy scoffed at her mortified friend. “Sleepover talk gets real Tawny. It's lucky these two hellions are out cold, they would have ripped you to pieces over ‘silly rank differences’ for the next month. I’m only going to bust on you till they wake up”
Ivy scooted closer, pressing Tawny against Otho’s massive wall of mutt. “We are all orphans, you think you understand, but you never will. We don’t get choices, we don’t get freedom or a home to welcome our return.”
Her blue eyes were startling, almost animal in the dim light of the bower. “Hanging out with Gary and Shai is starting to shine a light on some very dark corners Tawny, maybe some of those songs make more sense than we thought they did. Maybe…”
“What exactly are you suggesting, Ivy?” Tawny asked. “My sister pledged herself to an orphan and moved into the craft ward, she now lives in the commons, is that not enough? Why must I prove my credentials to every orphan in turn?” She snapped, more fiercely than she intended.
“Jennah betrothed an orphan Adventurer and was forced to move to the craft ward.” Ivy scoffed.
“Now she waits, like every orphan’s spouse. If Eskan dies before his five years are up, she goes back to the noble quarter a widow, if he lives she becomes one of us.”
She almost sneered at Tawny. “I think you know exactly what I am talking about. I think you are here, hoping for a miracle, so you can steal your boy from the clutches of the cult of War.”
A chill settled over the room, making even the unconscious women curl together for warmth.
“Perhaps.” Tawny said, her voice crystalline and frosty. “Perhaps I will follow my sister in linking myself to one of War’s orphans, perhaps not. Why pray tell, must I prove myself to you?”
“Because they are my family, even the weird ones, even the new ones, even the ones adopted out. My family, not yours. I know that only one in ten of us makes it to the end of their five years.”
“That's simply not true, Ivy, I am in the cult of Healer, I get the casualty reports, War cultists overwhelmingly survive and re-enlist. The current mortality rate is under fourteen percent.”
“Oh, that’s nice for War cultists, what’s the mortality rate for just Adventurers?” Ivy sat back, waiting confidently for an answer.
When none was forthcoming after a while, she rolled off the bed. “I’m going downstairs with the boys. Otho will watch these two for us, come on. You need to hang with us when Gary's not around being weird.”
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Gary emerged from below, holding a tiny, frail boy in his arms. He had white blond hair and luminous pale skin, draped over a frame so fragile he seemed too delicate to live.
“Guys, meet the god Knowledge, he's been away for a while.” He hugged the thin form close.
“Don’t worry, you’ll always be Secret to me.” Gary said, with a wide, insane grin.
“Gary, what do ye be thinking, ye kinnae just be dunking gods in yer pool and dandling them on yer knee, tis unseemly!” Shai complained, with Thirp backing her up in annoyed tones.
Becky waded through and past them to the pair and stuck out a hand. “Hi, I’m Becky, I think I can work with you, kid.”
He reached out slowly, his thin, pale hand taking hers. “Marduk, god of literacy and Knowledge, I hope to work with you too, sergeant Becky.”
“Wait! I am not done scolding you!” Thirp sang, as he became immaterial to the waking trio. They vanished with a soft sound of waking yawns.
He turned to the tiny godling floating in Gary’s bath. “Well I guess we have some work to do.”
#
The three woke together in the fanciful bower of fanciness, watched over by Otho the dog.
“It seems your faithless lackeys abandoned the realm as soon as you were asleep. Victory for the boys side!” Gary gloated at the groggy ladies.
“Or maybe you were just too annoying, and they stored you up here with us?” Becky asked sweetly. “Like some hideous piece of old furniture that might come back in style someday.”
“Becky, that do be a double edged blade in yer mouth, best ye wake ere ye wield it.” Shai snorted. “Fer surely thou hast not come into full fashion yet?”
“Yuk yuk Shai, let’s go down stairs and find the others, Gary’s buddy is messing my insides up. I need to go for a run.”
That was how they found themselves running in the darkest hours of the night, making a full circuit of the town before trotting back in through the market gate. There was a curfew for commoners in the uplands, so the market gate had to do.
The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.
The guards at the gate waved and gossiped happily as they ran by, preparing to add a new tale of late night weirdness to the already well fueled gossip engine.
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Back in the pool, the Bathers were relaxing, preparing to interrogate the as yet silent Becky.
Gary shattered the mood by cheerfully declaring: “Guard Olan’s armor and spear sure looked spiffy Shai, you did a great job!” He leaned in and whispered very loudly. “Some people slack off on a discount job, I’m so proud of you.”
Shai’s expression was priceless.
‘Gary is good for those, especially with Liam, Tawny and Shai.’ Dannyl thought as he watched. They were his three favorite subjects.
Right now Shai was flushed with a fine mixture of anger and frustration. Even exhausted from a late night run, she was so clearly in love with the madman beside her it was painful to watch.
Dannyl spent a lot of time watching people, partly because he found gossip boring and people fascinating. The other part was that he loved to draw people, as he saw them in their unguarded moments.
His secret sketchbooks were filled with the tiny joys and tragedies that befell his friends and siblings every day. Beloved faces, captured in real moments of emotion.
Dannyl filed that away to be sketched later, tucking it into the corner of his mind where his only active gift lived. What a gift! It sprang up a few days before, allowing him to summon any image he had ever seen and draw it exactly and with supernatural speed.
‘If only I could get a Contract too…’ He thought, feeling guilty while feeling jealousy and feeling guilty about his jealousy.
Once Shai finished berating Gary over some strange trifle called ‘coopinz’, the gang settled down and Ivy asked what they were all wondering. “What happened?”
“Well.” Becky said, holding the pause for a breathless time. “I woke up in Gary’s weird soul house, the other one, not this one.” The group nodded, accustomed to his weirdness by now.
“So Gary cornered his poor god and bullied him into getting into the magic bath, not this one the other one, and poof, he became a cute little boy...”
She gasped in a breath, preparing to continue her assault. “You are missing a lot of context there Bec-...” Gary tried to begin before being trampled.
“So naturally I couldn't leave this innocent kid alone with Gary, I’m not a monster… that you know of.”
They turned to Gary for an explanation, as though they were one entity, even Becky and Shai. He sat on the curb of the pool, pulled out his guitar and began to strum thoughtfully.
After a long few minutes of silent contemplation he sat up straight, clapped his hands together, vanishing his guitar and said:
“Yup, that’s it. Good night all. See you for monster smashing in the morning!”
As he wheeled on his butt to stand and leave, hands grasped his wrists and he was dragged back into the pool, kicking and struggling all the while.
When the others were brought up to speed, Shai and Becky dug their heels into his flanks and took the reins. They were merciless with the crop as well.
“So how did you know he was some other god?” They were still adjusting to the sudden pantheon shift. “What made you think that?” Ivy demanded.
Gary sighed. “It’s like I told Thirp, the spider guy, the cosmology made no sense. You have all the right gods, except you have writing, printing, paper making, even porno novelists… but no books? No real libraries? I’m not buying it. I can name four gods of knowledge off the top of my head from my world… and we don't even have gods.”
“Even his portfolio made no sense, Secrets? He was always complaining that most people's secrets were garbage!” He grumped, rising to his topic.
“What is a secret if not knowledge that has not been shared, the smallest and weakest form of knowledge? And he has no cult? No followers? Can't touch the living world?” He snorted with derision.
“Somebody tried to murder the god Knowledge. They almost got away with it too!” Gary stalked the pool, leaving a turbulent wake, almost as though the water was moving aside for him.
“When we find out how and who did this there will be a reckoning. This is all of a piece, I can feel it. We are going to crack this case wide open.”
“Is this another one of his fits?” Ivy asked quietly.
“Nae, tis some truth wrapped in some madness, as is his way.” Shai answered. “Some foul plot be afoot, an we must root it out an we are able.” She stalked about too, with the same effect in the water. “Tis summat frae outsiders, though Master Thirp do say there be summat happening here, tae help them.”
Her eyes lit up with fury. “An we find these, we smash them tae flinders. Agreed?” There were nods all around, some more enthusiastic than others. “Aye wait till ye see one o the things, or their hideous zigg-rats. All meaty and vile, abomination be too weak a word.”
Gary hopped onto the edge and addressed the group. “Knowledge is super weak right now, but Tallum, if you are interes-...”
The giant had a hungry look in his eye.”Tomorrow night?” he blurted out. “Can I sign up tomorrow night?” He turned to Becky. “Gary is dumb, do you think I can Contract tomorrow night Becky?”
“I don’t know, he’s not much of a god yet and I only just Contracted, can you give me some time to sort it out?” Becky looked excited and a little out of her depths. Shai hugged her and glared daggers at her near brother.
“Dinnae push ye big lout, did ye nae learn better manners than to loom o’er these wee folk? Great mountain that ye are, naught but gristle twixt yer ears. Yer feet do shake the earth causing the small creatures no end o fright! None might ever see the sun for the shadow ye do cast. Let less be said fer yer hygiene, the stenches do vie wi a grown trapdoor fer rankness…”
Tallum withdrew before Shai’s ultimate technique. Her stream of half baked insults would keep tumbling out in a singsong torrent.
She once kept it up for an entire day after he accidentally walked in on her in the privy.
Fleeing to the mage’s side of the pool, there was a complex discussion going on. They had left the realms of his feeble magical education some time ago, he was lost at sea in terrible depths.
“So this ring forces harmonic resonance in the soul, that alone should do little.” Otho thought aloud. “Though it would make for a fine pair of wedding rings… Sorry, that will be a side project, remind me of that later Gary.”
“The wearer needs to have some compatibility with me for it to work, and they are completely in my power when in my soul house, so I’m not too worried.” Gary soothed the ruffled old priest. “I’m surprised the ring is the first thing you wanted to talk about.”
“I dare not even contemplate the theological turmoil currently sweeping the heavens. My lady Joy has been quiet these last hours. Certainly that is not unusual, yet I am troubled.”
He stared at Gary in uncertainty. “The things you have said make me wish to don this ring and put you to sleep. Though that would be foolish indeed, your soul has seen too much traffic already.”
“Do not become some interplanar hostel, that would demean your soul.” Otho’s usual broad wink came back to visit.
“Enjoy your journey, when you return perhaps we will know more.”
#
They waited for the last of the elders to finish their morning bath, even though some seemed to be delaying their departure deliberately.
Old Hannah was malingering, taking her sweet time with every step, as though she had not scampered into the pool like a spider monkey when the last of the older teens departed. First elder in, last one out.
“But I’m going to miss Mikkel for two whole weeks, I don’t know how you can take him away from an old woman… young rascals!” She leaned on her cane, trembling as though on her last breaths. “Taking an old widow’s last comfort away like that…”
Liam took the tiny old woman in his arms and rocked her gently. “Mikkel is not coming with us on this trip, your husband is alive and well Hannah, he’s waiting for you right over there.” He spoke softly and gently, as though to a lost child.
“I know that you young monkey!” She whacked him with her stick, right across the knees. “Old Mikkel is staying here but without your magic bath, you might as well take him with you.” She walked off briskly, collecting her one legged husband from the crowd.
“Best we make hay while the sun still shines, you old goat.” She grumbled.
The whole crowd of well wishers and chilly elders waved goodbye, while mocking old Mikkel ruthlessly.
As their home evaporated behind them, a pair of older orphans trotted forward and began staking out and roping off the courtyard they had just left.
“That’s the new vegetable garden, I saw what you did to that hilltop down on the edge of the craft ward.” Ivy said with a wide smile. “When we get back, you are moving onto my old vegetable garden… for a while.” She declared, changing their address by sheer force of will.
They marched out in fine fashion, playing a joyful local tune called ‘A Morning For Sleeping’. It was fun and frisky with a simple toe taping beat.
Shai had the violin out and her swinging backside playing in counterpoint somehow, harmonizing with her own instrument.
As they strolled out, Tony waved and fell into step with Tawny, speaking softly.
“My aunt Helene is planning on attempting more mischief while you are away, is there any part of your friend’s home that I can secure for you?”
“I think you will shortly discover two things Tony,” Tawny replied. “First, Gary is now also your friend, and that comes with a certain amount of chaos in your life, learn to enjoy it. Second, lady Helene is going to receive an education in dealing with disappointment. I recommend you go along on her outing to enjoy the results.”
“Disappointment can teach some of life’s most valuable lessons…” Gary said, standing close enough that Tony could feel the warmth coming off him in the cold morning.
Somehow that mad boy had slipped up to them, completely unnoticed, despite playing that strange instrument all the while. “...and chaos reminds us to remain open minded. You should try some childlike wonder, it’s good for you.”
He dashed off a quick riff to salute his big new friend.
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