9.6

Tsulogothulan did not react how Jewel had expected.

Taming a river certainly sounded like a great and onerous undertaking to Jewel. Although admittedly she was not even sure of the exact wildness of the Ogien or more than the word that along its path the walk was between two and four days from the city to where it joined with the Vah.

That definitely sounded like a great inconvenience when Jewel had received the request, She had brought it to her friend, her father’s sworn Wizard with care.

And the full preparation that it would either be too difficult or more likely too bothersome for Tsulogothulan to perform the requested task no matter how much it helped Jewel secure her domain.

That seemed sensible to Jewel.

But instead of having to plead and bargain with the Wizard for this act of tedious sorcery Jewel had needed to do everything in her power to keep them from rushing off to complete it immediately.

“An Entire river! Nearly sixty miles of it!? To be dragged into slowed waters and stilled banks! Split out over the land?!”

That single eye had shined at the prospect. The reflection of storm clouds and flashing lightning roiling around a half obscured sun prominently in the massive orb.

Their voice was excited, delighted even, the tone was practically hungry.

Tsulogothulan, who Jewel had just about gotten used to over the years being at most bemused, was now fervent and wild. Like a child watching a plate heaping with a tower of sweet cakes and fresh berries brought right to their own seat.

There was a glittery shine of wetness to the normally mostly dry looking imitation of cloth and garments that made up the strands of black flesh of the majority of their body.

Jewel’s tone took on one of great concern.

"Yes, the lord of the Ogien promises to rally the rest of Viznove to my banner and secure alliance and allegiance for this service to him.”

The Weird’s eye rolled in its socket, not looking all around in a wide circle, no it rolled, it spun like a cart wheel around in the pale fleshy socket on one side of that hatchet-like face. There was a chittering of happy frogs from late spring starting to hum around the bog wizard.

“Lady Jewel, my friend, the most wonderful subject of my study, You of course told him yes?! You haven’t? This will not do! we must secure this task immediately! Oh you very silly girl, what possible world is there that anyone would turn down the deal offering an entire river to widen and spread into slowness!?”

Jewel had to hiss to stop the Weird as she felt the working to pull them down into the stones of the floor.

Undoubtedly to accost the poor lord immediately. Or possibly all the way to the Ogien to start work on what apparently was the absolute sweetest of honey for a Bog Wizard.

“Tsulogothulan! Please, I am glad that you will enjoy the service and that it is in fact something you relish to begin, but it is offered as a bargaining coin with the barony of Ogien. If he sees you being so over eager he may demand more from me!”

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And that at last seemed to still Tsulogothulan. At least until their voice emerged in an even rounder and wetter tone.

Dripping with hope and chirping with the whistle of reeds.

“D-do you think he’d ask me to gentle the rest of the river?!”

Jewel stared at her friend.

The tone had a whispered fervent desire in a way Jewel had never even imagined a wizard let alone a Weird could ever sound like.

It was almost brittle.

Jewel felt bad about what she had to say.

“I will see what I can do, but I think he actually would prefer that those waters north of his immediate demesne are kept wilder and rougher so that the path of goods remains moving mostly south to at least his portion of Viznove.”

Tsulogothulan’s eye went from wide, pleading and shining with a ruinous storm of flashing lightning to a slowly narrowed glare, nearly a slit. And Jewel thought the clouds had calmed, but also rolled over entirely into an overcast gray in the light that she could see past those overlong lashes.

“Tell him something, like- ah! Tell him slowing the waters further upriver of the place he wants it calmest and most gentle will make the working more stable and permanent, that should work.”

There was a sneaky tone there, like when Alexander was trying to get away with something foolish years past.

Jewel raised a brow.

“Is that actually true my friend?”

The wizard continued to glare, but not at Jewel, to the east. Voice burbling like a croaking frog.

“Far close enough to what most would believe. Almost everyone knows less than piss and shit about water and rivers. It’s not entirely true but it's close enough to it for some fool lord that would ask for what he did.”

Jewel nodded, this entire interaction not turning out at all how she had expected.

However, it was nice!

Honestly it was an entirely pleasant surprise amidst everything else, to find out what she thought would be in imposition was in fact by all appearances an incredible gift that delighted Tsulogothulan in a way literally nothing Jewel had ever seen before could.

“Well I will keep that in mind and bring it up with the Lord of Ogien this evening. And Tsulogothulan?”

Her friend’s glare cleared away as that wide eye settled on Jewel. The sky reflected in them neither thunderstorms nor overcast, but a speckling of rain giving flurries and bright sun with a hint of rainbows.

“Hmm?”

Jewel smiled and dipped her head.

“Thank you for this, it will take such a weight from my mind.”

The Weird scoffed and blinked hard and wet, eyelashes clashing in a rasping almost buzz and watery fluid squelching past the clenching lid.

It opened with a softness to the gaze and a sunset warm and pale yellow red.

“Oh not at all Jewel, This labor is going to be my absolute pleasure to perform. But I need to make some arrangements to prepare. Tell the lordling that it will begin before he departs and finish by this spring.”

Jewel smiled, just utterly taken up with the strangeness of it all.

And then with that her friend was gone.

But at least there was not any dampness or other damages to the stone.

It had taken years to fully explain why that was a problem.

So another matter settled!

Things were turning out better at last!

Yet as she considered the future the Countess of Viznove sighed.

There was still so much to do.