All The Little Monsters
Two days later Taylor, Mila, and Milo stood around a grid of shallow holes in the ground. Each was a tenth of a cubic meter, filled with compost borrowed from Dagono's heaps. They were the trial subjects of his compost experiment, and things were not going as expected.
"Someone's coming," warned Milo, "a hunting party. Do you want me to send them away?"
"No," sighed Taylor, "we don't want to act like we have something to hide."
Mila sounded ill. "Maybe you should hide this. It's disgusting."
Milo sounded more interested than ill. "Did they monstrify?"
"Are you going hunting, young Phillip?" Amadis and his pack of hunters rode up to him on their appalons. "Morufu's middle finger! What is that!"
A few men made gagging sounds and tried not to vomit. Appalons trumpeted in distress.
"They're moving!"
"Monsters!"
"I've never seen anything so horrible!"
"Burn it all!"
The process had seemed simple enough. Taylor took samples of Dagono's compost, at several stages of progress, and put them under a microscope Thalia had brought with her from Red Tower. He had isolated thirty different bacteria onto slides, grouped them, and named them. All his observations went into his paper logbook. When he felt he had a grasp of the "wee beasties" feasting on Dagono's waste, he had set up his grid of experimental mini-piles of compost.
There was one control pile and fifteen experimental ones. Each experimental pile had received magical treatment. He had accelerated the bacteria's growth while using different quantities of spirit. He had used a youngmeter to verify the amount of spirit applied. He had been meticulous.
Creating magical effects without using a system like the Book of Prayers was hard work, requiring deep levels of concentration, and it took nearly an entire night to do all fifteen sections. Now, on the next morning, it was all a disaster.
The least-awful sample resembled a pile of grubs the size of his smallest finger, if he didn't look too closely. On closer inspection, all thirty denizens of the compost were represented. Part of him wanted to scoop them out, sort them, and count to make sure. The rest of him didn't want to touch it.
The other sections of the experiment were worse. So much worse.
There were snaky bacteria as long as a man's arm covered in waving cilia. Hand-shaped bacteria pulled themselves around by their six fingers and clubbed each other with mace-like thumbs. Others were shaped like wheels but hadn't learned to stand upright — yet. They wobbled on the ground and traveled in irregular ellipses. The round blobby bacteria seemed the least, awful until he saw them spear the neighboring cells with needle-like appendages. A u-shaped type turned itself over and over, escaping the melee into nearby plants, which they began to digest with gusto. Mobs of overgrown bacteria infested the area around his testing site.
He hadn't been meticulous enough: he should have found a rocky area devoid of life. He should have dug a pit and lined it with dense rock.
On the plus side, all the plant material they touched turned into excellent dirt.
Taylor and Amadis watched in horror as some of the bacteria grew even larger.
"Uh, I could use your help here, Amadis. Can you round up the ones that escaped? You don't have to touch them, just use your spears to fling them over here, and we'll deal with them. Or spear them in the nucleus. That's the big dark spot inside of them."
"And you want us to keep this from the women, am I right?" Amadis lept off his mount and slapped Taylor on the back. "You owe us drinks!"
Taylor used Purify Water to separate water from the bacteria, compost, and soil around the testing site. Hunters gathered dozens of the escaped u-shaped bacteria and dumped them into the dehydration zone, where they shriveled under his magic and went dormant. Some of the monstrified germs resisted him, until Milo speared them.
After all the abominations had been reduced to dehydrated husks, Taylor had them covered in oil and burned. He took extra care that none survived.
Anisca
While Taylor was disposing of his failed experiments, Anisca was in a darkened room kept cool by thick layers of mud-and-coir brick, putting on a show for children. Calique children all attended school in the afternoons, just after the resting period. Theirs was the only culture in Tenobre that had anything resembling universal education, though the lessons were mainly learning songs and not written. The children knew their letters and numbers, but few would learn to read fluently unless they were destined to be tablas or have regular dealings with merchants. Francisca suspected regular classes also gave parents a chance to work without their offspring underfoot.
"And this is what wood looks like." She replaced the slide on the microscope with another from her neatly organized box. Light came up from beneath the glass slide, through a series of lenses and mirrors, and was projected in a huge circle on the white plastered wall. The children made appreciative noises for her as neat cells of lignin came into focus, stacked like tile work.
She had caught Taylor using the fantastic device to study the living organisms in compost. He was drawing pictures of them and assigning the most ridiculous names. They were long names with multiple parts, used phonemes that weren't natural to the Unity language, and were mind-numbingly systematic.
She had disturbed his work with a hundred questions about what he was doing, all tinged with ire. Of course, she had her own microscope made by the Farrs (Taylor's personal fabricators) but it was nothing like his. They were supposed to be working together, so why did he keep such wondrous things to himself?
When the school asked her to speak to students, she used the excuse to purloin the fantastic device and show it off. Every slide brought a new round of exclamations from the room. Even some adults had come to see what the clamor was about.
"Where did you get it? Is it an ancient device?" asked one excited girl. "Did you find it in a ruin?"
"Oh no, this is very, very new. Brother Phillip and Sir Farr made it, using natural law and just a little bit of spiritual arts. Who wants to see the animals that live in the compost heap?" A cheer went up from the class. She had told them at the start about the creatures, too tiny to see, who lived inside the heaps and ate all the wood and plants to turn them into dirt. Now they would finally get to see some.
The first slide revealed a crowd of tubular creatures who formed strands by using their hooked tails (Or perhaps those were their heads, who could tell?) to hold on to a neighbor. A few loose ones squirmed under the light, startling the children. These animals were alive!
"What should we call these little guys?"
"Hook trains!"
"Creepy hooks!"
"Grabber Grubs!"
The winning name 'Grabber Grubs' was selected by popular acclaim.
"Who wants to draw a picture and put the name on it for me?" Volunteers appeared, and one was given a board and chalk to do their work. Francisca headed off the pouts by promising there were many more animals to come.
The next slide showed several kinds of microbes, eliciting a range of emotions from her small audience. Not all of the tiny animals were pretty.
"Rock thumb!" shouted one boy, and it was obvious which one he was talking about. Some of the bacteria looked like six-fingered hands with a swollen, faceted knob where the thumb should be.
Francisca kept the children working through the afternoon with a skillful combination of praise, snacks, and the unreasonable promise that Brother Phillip would write a song for them. By the gathering hour, she had a stack of thirty boards with pictures and names. Maybe the names weren't systematic, but people could say them and would remember them.
One of the newly discovered species was a tiny round thing that clumped in groups forming delicate patterns like snowflakes. The children called that one "Anisca's Lace," and she was very pleased by that.
Taylor
A week after they arrived in Dagono, Taylor debuted his speed-compost art. Circle members from Dagono, Pashtuk, and Bitter Spring rode sedately behind the morning compost parade. Wise Uzan herself was with them, mounted on a rather old appalon plodding peacefully behind the children. Taylor rode next to her on Ben, and Anisca on her other side.
The children did their usual tasks, but instead of the typical five carts, they pulled ten carts of finished compost from the pile, proof that the compost had been accelerated. After the carts were loaded they stood in pairs on the rims of the pits facing each other, and started their new stick song. The song had been Anisca's idea. She had picked up on their learning songs from the work in the Pashtuk camp, and discovered the best ones involved clapping each others' hands in complex rhythms or, even better, clacking sticks together. Thalia had gathered an entire book of the songs as payment for Red Tower's work, most of it from girls. Anisca had even arranged for the children to demonstrate some songs for Taylor.
Using a song instead of a prayer was a good idea, in that it marshaled a vastly reduced amount of spirit. It was easy to find people with enough spirit to be song leaders, and the requirements to anoint them were far lower than it was for disciples. If enough gardeners were made into song leaders then there would always be someone to lead the children and accelerate the compost.
You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.
The children chanted, "Ready? Go!"
> Mari had a bloodvine
>
> She loved it leaf and stem
>
> One day it died, Mari cried
>
> and threw it in the bin.
>
>
>
> Grabby-Grup
>
> Rock Thumb
>
> Seven Headed Rope bug
>
> Hy-dra, Slime Face
>
> Claw Foot, Annie's Lace
>
> The micro-friends had a feast
>
> and ate up all her friends
>
> Mari spread 'em 'round the plants
>
> and life begins again!
Mari, it turned out, had several plant and animal friends, all of whom died in turn and had to be given over to the micro-friends' feasting. She had enough beloved (if doomed) items to fully enumerate all the critters the children had named. Finally, Mari herself died, was feasted on, and her dirt given to the garden.
The children beat sticks at each other as they sang, to mark the rhythm of their song. The first version of the song featured clapping, but the stick game was judged more entertaining and more suitable for the slightly older children who pulled the carts. The younger children complained at being excluded but practiced often so they could take a place as soon as possible.
On the way back to Dagono, Taylor rode next to Doyenne Uzan feeling confident in a job well done. Uzan seemed to think differently, given her silence. He was sure she had been told about the microscope, the bacteria, and the children's naming of them, so the day's success wasn't a surprise. Anisca rode with them, too. The rhyming song was born out of her contact with the children, and Thalia's discovery of the kinds of songs they liked to sing. Given the Caliques' use of teaching songs and the need for a low-spirit approach, it was just obvious.
And yet the doyenne rode silently, almost sullenly, in her thick white robe. It was a hot day already, and her cloak was deployed to catch breezes while fending off the sun. When the sun got high enough, and the air became hotter than skin, she would wrap the cloth around her to insulate herself. But they would be inside Dagono by then, sheltering in the relatively cool garden.
Anisca realized she would have to take the initiative.
"I believe that should be satisfactory, Wise Uzan. With the addition of a few disciples, you should be able to double the garden's harvest without any long-term consequences. The children can handle the compost, but you still need disciples to speed growth in the garden. When may we staff the shrine?"
For a while she didn't answer. Taylor began to think the heat was too much for the old woman until she said, "You two bring change. Strange knowledge, strange music, and you would put the temple nearer the center of our lives. We are pious people who know the lay prayers, but we have always kept Enclave at arm's length, in Sand Castle, where they could not harm the gardens. But now you want to give the children songs of power, teach them your powerful hymns, embrace the young gardeners in your church, and make them song leaders. You heal those who would otherwise die. You give permanent shelter to refugees. You wipe out a third of Satoma's strength on a whim. The changes you bring can't be tabulated.
"The circle does not want you here," finished Uzan.
"And yet we have a contract," said Taylor. He should have expected something like this. Some of the people had warmed to him. Many others, especially the old, had kept their distance.
"We assumed you would fail this task and could be sent away quietly. Your efforts are admirable, but you are not wanted here."
"Darkmaw is wiping out your civilization, and you're afraid of change?"
"Ah, well," the old woman looked at Taylor guiltily, "you're still going to hunt it and kill it, aren't you? That's who you are. You can't leave the beast alone any more than you could ride past the Pashtuk without healing them. But we will not have you live among us, no matter what you do. Perhaps Darkmaw will kill you and the circle's concerns will be removed that way.
"Our way of life is hundreds of years old, young Phillip. It has preserved us in times of famine, storms, invasions, and worse. We won't abandon it over something as transient as a single monster."
Taylor slowed Ben's pace to open space between them and the regular compost crew ahead. As soon as there was enough room, he put up a privacy shield. No sound would carry past their little group.
"Your way of life as you know it is ending. Far greater changes are coming to the gardens than having to live next to disciples and priests."
"Are you threatening us, now you don't have what you want?"
"Are you being serious right now? Is that what you heard?" Taylor's tongue felt like a knife in his mouth, ready to cut. What had Souzane said? Ask questions? Think beyond the moment? At this moment I want to give her a piece of my mind, he thought.
"Let's pretend Nexus leaves today, never to set foot in the desert again. And let's pretend Darkmaw will wander off and leave you alone. Do you think your gardens will be safe? Kashmar will invade this winter, while you're weak, but let's assume you somehow defeat them. How many men will you lose? How many gardens? And what then? Darkmaw isn't the outlier you think it is. It's a harbinger, a mere sample of what's to come. The monsters will get bigger and more dangerous until they reach scriptural proportions. The peak of that cycle isn't for hundreds of years from now."
"It is forbidden to speak of such things!" spat the doyenne.
"How close to the precipice must you get? Is there ever a point at which you would say to Nexus, say to anyone, 'help us. We will do whatever we must to survive as a people!'?" Have you considered the very likely danger that our response will be 'Sorry, our hands are full. Who should die that you may live, you who wouldn't prepare when you had the chance?'"
"You must stop this! Someone will hear."
"I put up a privacy barrier. They can't hear us."
The doyenne's eyes were flint and anger, directed at the young man, barely more than a boy, who would explain such things to her. Didn't she hold a thousand lives in her hands every day, count out their sustenance and shelter and water and births and deaths? Who was this boy with his one hundred souls, compared to her?
"It is forbidden to speak of such things."
"Why is it forbidden? If you're worried about Enclave punishing you for forbidden knowledge, you won't have to keep your secrets for much longer. Will you loosen your grip after Enclave is gone?"
They rode for a while longer, at a slow walk behind the daily work group as Dagono's wall grew taller. Taylor looked to Anisca, but she made it clear she wasn't going to talk to the doyenne. He was in this mess by himself. She made a hand sign. Soothe her.
Taylor couldn't think of anything soothing to say. He was too angry. When he didn't talk, Anisca signed again. Say something nice. Well, he could do that much. Probably.
"When I look at the Calique, I see so much to admire. The way you balance your material lives with what the land can produce. The way you provide for each other and educate the children, no matter what family they're from. Most of the world isn't like that. And I'm a little bit in awe of the way your circle can tabulate things.
"And that leaves me in a very confused place, Wise Uzan. How can a people who see everything so clearly, who understand the web of life that binds us all, not intuit what's coming and try to plan for it?"
"Perhaps we are more prepared than you know." Her admission there was something to know was practically a victory by itself.
"I hope that's true. I really like your people. I want them to live. I want their grandchildren to live. But I hope you're not counting on the ancient machines underground to keep you alive." The doyenne's eyes widened.
"Before you tell me about what's forbidden," Taylor headed her off, "I'd like to talk a second about scripture. Surely a priest is not forbidden from talking about scripture. Can we agree on that?"
The doyenne nodded, and Taylor continued. "The book Chosen says Neuman Battani came up from the ground 'with thousands of people to greet the sun'. They abandoned their old life underground and found themselves in a world full of monsters and intense weather. That's why he made the Book of Prayers, so people would have the arts to help them survive in a hostile world. But lately, I keep wondering why the ancients came to the surface when they did. If they had waited sixty years or so, the world would have been much easier to live in. But instead, they take their chances with 'monsters taller than the hills who swallow fifty men at a breath'. Why take that chance?
"But then I read another account from the first generation who came to the surface, and this person said they had problems keeping the old machines working. They knew how to cannibalize parts from one machine to another, but they had no way to make new parts. They had completely lost all ability to remake the old machines, even fairly simple ones.
"I have also seen recorded memories that indicate the underground fortresses date to at least four thousand years ago. It's hardly a surprise the machines would break down. To keep them running you would need manuals, knowledge, and a material culture that, frankly, I don't think anyone in Tenobre possesses. Especially after the church went on a hundred-year book-burning spree."
They were almost to the gates when Uzan spoke. "A church that embraced such knowledge would be something few of us recognize." She was acting docile, but Taylor didn't think she was going to bend.
"Hence my difficulties with Enclave." Taylor shook his head, thinking of the church and how badly it had gone wrong. "Somehow, Enclave got caught up in its rules and hierarchies and power struggles and privileges and forgot that it was created to serve a value system. Leadership threw out the value system and kept everything else. Now we're stuck with their messes. We're on the upswing of a thousand-year cycle of destruction, and I don't think we're ready for it."
They arrived at the gate but kept themselves at a distance so they could remain in their protected bubble. They knelt their appalons and dismounted, and turned them loose in the mischus.
"I hear you, Brother Phillip, but the circle in Dagono will not change its mind any time soon. You must leave."
"I hope you're wrong, and they do change their mind. Until then, I'll follow the old healer's adage: sometimes healing is a matter of opportunity."
"Did you catch that?" Taylor asked Anisca as soon as they were back at the chapter house. They didn't delay but started packing right away. They were going to abandon the place.
"Not all the gardens agree. Who do you want to talk to?"
"All of them we can reach. Satoma is out, naturally. The Pashtuk are the first to talk to. We can touch base with Saluja later. And then there's Bitter Spring." Taylor piled baskets of food by the door. Their clients had given them more than they needed as thanks for their help. Nexus hadn't brought much, but they had accumulated gifts of baskets and pottery from grateful patients, and a generous quantity of food which they stored in the gifted containers. Some of it could be used to feed the Pashtuk refugees.
"Phillip, I'm sorry about how this went."
"We knew it was a possibility. It just means we know who we're dealing with next time we get involved with them. Most of what we lost was time." He cinched one of his saddlebags closed and started packing the next. "We talked about this when we first met the circle."
"That was more of a theoretical discussion. I didn't believe it was likely to happen. I thought she had better control of her circle. I wonder what they have over her?"
"She's not a queen; They probably just voted. For whatever reason we weren't able to convince enough of them we were needed here, and they voted us out. That's democracy for you." His tools and clothes disappeared into another saddlebag. They still had some Satoma appalons that hadn't been taken to Red Tower yet, which was fortunate. The animals could carry all the goods they had accumulated.
Anisca was busy rolling her clothes into bundles. He couldn't explain why, but it made Taylor smile to see her packing her own things.
"Were you being honest about ending Enclave, or was that bluster? Because even if you had all the Calique hunters for an army, it wouldn't be enough to invade Dace."
"When it comes down to us versus Enclave, we won't need an army. With a season to finish training the people we have, we can crush Enclave with one hand."
"You're overconfident. Enclave is ancient. You've said yourself you don't know enough about them or their true power structure."
"It's the politics I can't predict. I don't know what the families will do, or if Enclave will stay dead. They could still claim to be the true church even without disciples. When it comes down to an application of disciple power, I can break them and ensure they will never anoint another practitioner. Ever. When people need healing or protection from monsters, Nexus will be their only choice."
"If you don't need fighters, why recruit from Pashtuk?"
"Because they're starving, and I'd like to save the few of them I can. We can't hold them all, but for every one we take … "
"The handouts from Dagono will stretch farther." Francisca tossed her head in mock annoyance. "You really have a thing about helping people, don't you?"
"It's not pure philanthropy — it's mutually beneficial. If we can get gardeners, circle-trained women, and hunters to join us, even temporarily, we can build out our facilities. And we haven't tested any of the Calique for spirit yet. There could be a lot of talent out here that nobody's thought to tap yet."
"You're going to exceed your limit of three hundred at that rate." The idea didn't seem to bother her.
"If they break their agreements with us, I don't feel bad about doing the same to them." Taylor tossed his full saddlebags to the front door. His bulwark were all packed, and Alice and Otavio were scanning the house for anything forgotten.
His last act as he left the chapter house was to remove his mark from the sign. The happy futobel faded and was gone. He left the polished plaque and its words in place, as a reminder to their neighbors of what should have been. If they wanted to erase him, they'd have to use a chisel.
Taylor suddenly felt despondent. "It always comes down to power, doesn't it? The ones who have it do whatever they want. And I'm going to end up being that guy."