11.8

Jewel walked with Tsulogothulan as they spoke of the mourning world around them.

“Those that don’t know better call it a death curse.”

It seemed odd to be so casual about speaking of this here on the road where the goatherds and other pack drivers for the Gryphon caravan could hear.

But if a Weird did not seem concerned with mere men hearing sorcerous secrets then Jewel had little reason to dissuade them.

“And those that know better?”

Tsulogothulan was quiet as they walked and when they spoke there was far less word and voice in them then there was wind in reeds, croak of frogs and the shifting of gloopy mire and slow water.

Maybe a bit of the hum of heavy rain at a distance.

“One day, I will either die or sink so deep into my truth that I will neither speak nor think in any way but my waters and my mud and its reeds and little swimming, flying and crawling things does.”

Jewel watched the Weird.

The way they moved, there was a hint of a knee pressing against the robe only every other step or so, despite them ever sliding forward beside Jewel.

There were not really any footprints left behind. But a kind of sodden living moistness in the road where they had been.

And Jewel could hear the chirping of frogs, the sound of strange bird cries and the rattling of dry reeds.

“If I should perish before I find my way fully into my waters I can tell you Uloghai will be in such a terrible wroth and fury the likes of which no living thing not of it could safely pass its skies or step on its earth. And not even Fizzbunches could touch its waters and leave unscathed.”

Jewel blinked at that. Then she looked around, feeling the ache of loss but there was nothing like the fury described.

The Weird noticed her craning neck and laughed like a frog. Or perhaps croaked amusedly in a manner resembling a human.

“We are nowhere near the dominion of Veoul, but even if we were, his way is much kinder and more civil than mine. Fortresses are made things, meant for men and like Fizzbunches and Ghergeintat even in its sorrow, I doubt it will turn its hate to anything but an enemy set on siege.”

The Weird nodded as if they had convinced themselves.

“Not any more than the anguish of Uloghai at my passing would harm a single tadpole in its waters or a heron in its fog. It’s not what I’d want for it. But anyone else? Striding through the waters without me there to care for them? I trust that my bog will drag their corpses deep and pickle every last one of them. Unto a hundred years or more if it can help it. Good send off, that.”

Jewel could only stare at her friend.

To want that to happen?

But then what would Jewel wish for her family or Alexander if she had to fall?

Jewel was unsure, she’d never put much thought into it. It was not a musing children were supposed to make.

But still this endless keening pain all around her was something the Weird understood. It made sense to them.

Maybe they knew how to stop it?

“And... how would I make the pain stop? I mean... if it was you, what could I do to ease the suffering of your domain?”

Tsulogothulan tripped to a shuddering and deeply unnerving stop.

Jewel was absolutely certain for most of their march the Weird didn't even have legs.

But somehow the undulating indeterminate mass of slick black which was as likely mud and reeds as it was cloth stumbled.

“Ease the suffering... you’d do that? You could do that?”

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That single eye was fixed on Jewel and though they had tripped, stumbled and even stopped now it was as if Jewel was somehow dragging the weird along by their eye.

Jewel for her part nodded hard at the silly question.

“Well of course, if just the rocks and stones and air who barely knew him are so hurt by the loss of Veoul I can’t even imagine how much Uloghai Bog would miss you. Is there anything that could help?”

The Weird was silent. Blinking slowly once, twice, pausing still and then three more times. Staring at Jewel in a kind of baffled wonder.

The wake of moistness was getting a bit deeper, more water and muck and speckled with weeds.

Jewel slowly moved their path to the side of the road so that the soldiers would not have an unfortunate surprise.

The Weird for their part kept the position relative to Jewel through the process but did not speak for enough time the sun shifted across the sky.

Finally after Jewel had thought that would be the end of it a quiet, whispery voice rolled free.

It was rounder than any Jewel had ever heard from Tsulogothulan before. So round and soft voweled that the words were not really the same at all. But Jewel had spoken to a Wizard that could only convey meaning in autumn wind and this was so laced in the whispering of sorcery that she practically knew it before she heard it.

“When pa didin’t get better we tied him up in fetherflax and painted his brow on with the woad brew. We each zoulthoag and me and little itzy and ma and dama all cried hard and yelled at the smoke and the fog one after ‘nother then all together. Just like old witch whithoulga did afore when her son drownded.”

There was a shudder and something more like a child’s sob then any noise Jewel had ever heard from Tsulogothulan. It was not a boggy sound, it was a human sound.

But somehow so wet and thick in the lung it made Jewel worried for her friend’s health. There were bubbles in it popping with the words.

“Then, after we put him under the water with stones on his chest and in his shoes and mouth. And everyone yelled again. He sank deep into the wight water where your na s’posed tae drink, fish or frog around. Even if some the biggest shoals swim there.”

There was a nod there and finally the eye turned away. But Jewel could not say what the Weird was actually looking at.

“And then we had a big fire, and drank from a brew with ma and dama and even little itzy. We all talked about pa all night. We cried some bout what he did that was sad now. But more we laughed and we sang a song of him and Zoulthoag danced so hard and fast she fell over and was sick from spinning but Dama told tale of how pa had done just the same afore when he danced first with ma.”

There was a shudder then, a wet squelching sound and a clenched eye closing so hard and deep it sank all the way into Tsulogothulan’s featureless scythe of a nose.

There was a deeply swollen silence there.

Then the eye emerged from the side looking away from Jewel with an especially wet plop and a black shrouded hand coming up to rub at it.

“If ye-”

There was a wet cough that sounded like bone was coming loose from something meaty and then Tsulogothulan was speaking round but familiar words again.

“If you would drop some stones in memory of me in the waters where I-”

Another disturbingly wet almost tearing sound.

“Where my home once stood. And light a fire for me, speak of me as you knew me with others that... with the other wizards. For a night by the fire with good food and drink. I think that might soothe Uloghai in its sorrow.”

Jewel nodded to her friend and turned her attention to the keening in the wind.

To the sobs in the earth.

To the brittle near cracking grief in the stone deep beneath.

Jewel nodded again, harder and with a flame now building in her heart.

She spoke gently.

“If you should perish before finding your way deep into your waters I promise I will. And thank you for telling me my friend.”

To which the Weird stared at her. Twisting their head around so the eye which seemed far more red rimmed then Jewel had ever seen it could stare in confusion.

“Thanks for what?”

Jewel flexed her wings and plotted what she would do when they reached camp.

“For showing me what I must do.”

She would need to arrange a meeting with Count Thurzó to start.