Searing 27, 122
It had been several days since the embarrassing disaster of Initiation, and Imogen Ward was well and truly recovered from the sickness which followed. Truth be told, once she’d been coaxed back into full awareness of self, she’d slept for only about a day, and was on her feet three days later.
She’d been told that it could take quite a few tries before she attained the synchronicity necessary to understand the lemurs, and that she would simply need to endure their mocking “whaak-whaaks” until that was done; but it didn’t matter. She was this close to the end of her quest, and she was hardly going to run home now, tail between her legs.
Speaking of which.
Imogen had one lead on the lemurs.
Technically she had more than one lead. She had spent the last few days while bedridden listening to the Chief expound upon the lemurs. He professed to be no expert, but that still, somehow, translated to hours of discourse. She wasn’t sure she could talk about swords as much as he had held forth on the subject, and she was the one with a sword (and lemur?) grafted to the shape of her soul.
But importantly, she had one lead on the location of the lemurs- the nameless shrine in the jungle, where the monkeys filched offerings to the gods. Including, it would seem, the statuette she had crossed continent and sea to barely miss.
She followed the path which Fioh had showed her a few days past, winding across the north bank of the Gihah before winding up to an overgrown hill, shadowed by golden-leafed trees. Things felt a little different from the last time. Not only was Imogen alone on her trek this time, the walk itself had changed.
The long white lemur tail left as a remnant of her strange transformation in the initiation ceremony trailed in the air behind her, the tip describing arcs in the air as it followed where she had been a second ago. Just as she’d written in her letter, the odd motion provided a surprisingly effective, instinctual counterweight, making her movement feel oddly free, as though her body were merely gliding above the earth and not stomping along on two legs.
“The totem placed within your soul will make it feel ordinary, as though you were born with a tail” the Chief had warned her, “but you must pay attention. All of your other instincts will ignore it. It may take some time for your swordsmanship to adapt.”
She thought this concern to be somewhat exaggerated. When you trained with a sword the size of yourself, a few pounds difference on your butt was hardly going to register. Still, if she chopped off her own tail, her uncle would probably petition the Captain to have her banished from the order for the shame alone.
Not that it mattered today. She was here to negotiate with the sifakas today. Charm them. Bribe them, maybe. But definitely–definitely–no fighting.
Unless they started it.
Lemur-tailed Imogen ascended the winding path through the gold-crowned forest until she reached the first weathered stones marking the old and battered shrine. None of the villagers, even the Chief, had been able to explain its provenance to her, but she didn’t feel as though she should tread upon once-sacred ground without some display of piety.
”O, to whomever this shrine once honored, permit me brief entry to your home.”
Did they hear? Could they hear? Impossible to know. Imogen could almost hear the voices of the baritones in the Pfenning, reciting the words of the old screed against the divine:
No, no. No, that wasn’t right. One couldn’t trust the ‘wisdom’ of the Zaichaeri on this matter, not even in Zaichaer, and especially not in Ecith.
”In Ysadrin’s name, I request entry. Uh, thank you.” She had never been any good at ending prayers.
Formalities concluded, Imogen stepped into the shrine. It wasn’t much of a transition; if the shrine had ever borne a roof, there was no sign of it now, nor did any of the external walls survive beyond a meter or two above the ground. Some of the internal structures had slightly more luck, but all of the stone was worn smooth by the passage of time and the gentle rain. Instead, the golden trees stretched overhead, casting shadows across the broken boundaries of the sanctum.
Ahead, however, the altar-stone was unmistakably whole. It was devoid of decoration, of course, but what must have once been humanoid figures were worked into the sides, and the top was, mysteriously, whole and gleaming, as though it had been polished. Imogen supposed it had been; when Orkhan hands had ceased to tend to the ancient altar, the wind and rain had continued to bless it without fail.
Probably there was some kind of parable in that, but Imogen’s job was retrieval, not philosophy.
”Hey! Sifakas!” Imogen shouted, except she didn’t. Her perception grew hazy as her mind split, the language of her upbringing generating in her conscious mind before sublimating into her own aether and transformed into hoots and shouts and tail twitches.
The golden-crowned lemurs ordinarily did not show themselves within the shrine until devotees had left, preferring to remain invisible in the leaves above. Now, however, one of the Ork visitors was speaking as a lemur might, calling their name. This had never happened before, and the monkeys waiting above stared at each other in silent concern for a moment.
”I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to talk!”
More communication they understood! And while they had no reason to believe the girl hooting at them from below, sifakas were too curious to permit it to pass without further investigation.
“Who?” shouted one of the younger males, running down the tree. “Who? Who is it?” More of the sifaka joined him, and soon the entire colony was spiraling down the golden trees to get a better look, the bravest going all the way to ground and climbing the short walls. “Who? Who are you?”
”I’m Imogen!” She wasn’t sure names would mean anything to them (or, indeed, exactly how her name translated to lemur-speak), but it made her feel better to say it. ”You have something I want, and I want to trade you for it.”
The sifakas all began chattering at this announcement, turning to one another and rapidly debating the merits and risk of this strange proposal.
“A trade? I like trades. What can we get?”
“A trick? It could be a trick? What if it’s a trick?”
“What does she want? Not my rock, she can’t have my rock, I love my rock…”
“Why? Why do you want it? Why?”
The last comment seemed prevalent, so Imogen chose to reply. ”You stole something which belongs to… a friend. I’m not mad, I just want to get it back.”
She wasn’t sure how readily they’d grasp the concept of theft, or if it might offend them, but she wasn’t about to lie while in the middle of a church. Even if it was ruined. Even if they were lemurs.
“I think” a new voice interrupted her, cutting through the chattering, “You also stole something from me.”
Imogen blinked, looking around for the source of the voice, and-
Directly above her stood a golden-crowned sifaka, giving her an intense, hostile stare. He looked much the same as the other lemurs except…
The lemur waved to the short stub of his tail, less than half the size of his fellows. He waved at Imogen’s tail, long and white and natural as if she’d been born with it.
”Oh.” said Imogen, ”Uh. Oops?”
The lemur with the cut tail stared down at Imogen, and his orange eyes burned like Judgment itself. His tufted head was framed by the high afternoon sunlight, beams cutting through the gold-leaf trees to cast him in a single brilliant shaft, like a pint-sized avenging angel. The sense of offense in the air was palpable.
”I can see,” Imogen Ward said, somewhat lamely, ”How this might look bad.”
The half-tailed lemur regarded her silently. “Looking bad” was not a concept which translated well to lemurs. Even as she said it, Imogen realized that it wasn’t the right sort of sentiment. She shouldn’t try to ingratiate herself to the lemurs socially; they were too insular and focused for such an effort. Instead…
”At any rate, Halftail, you stole something from me, too.”
It was a risky ploy, to remind the lemur of the injury she had done, but she saw the sifaka’s chest puff as she addressed him formally. To be a monkey in a colony of monkeys was a hard thing; they sought to distinguish themselves from the other lemurs, which was no easy feat. To be given a title was worth something, even if it was an unusual one.
“The shiny box and the paper box.” Halftail was still angry, but he seemed to consider her words seriously. To her sensibilities, no maiming injury could be fairly compared to petty theft, but to sifaka, such distinctions were less clear. They had both taken something from each other, after all.
“It is not equal.” Halftail eventually decided, “Orkhan have many such nice boxes. I have only one tail.”
It was a reasonable reply, by any standards. Furthermore, it offered her a way forward.
”But it was worth something, yes? I can trade you more, shiny things or tasty things enough to last you for many, many days.” The lemurs had a very strange conception of time, so Imogen opted against trying to go into greater detail, ”What is it you would like?”
Halftail and the other sifaka stared at Imogen, and she realized that they had no real conception of what resources she might even have to offer them. It was on her to figure out what they would want.
So what did they want? The little creatures were omnivores, but they mostly ate seeds, and she could hardly promise them a continual supply of those. Besides, they were quite capable of finding food themselves. Perhaps a supply of shiny things would entice them, but the compass they had stolen was over a month’s wages for her, she could hardly afford to buy enough.
…but then, she didn’t need to bribe all the lemurs, just Halftail. And she had already seen what he wanted, hadn’t she?
”There is one thing, Halftail, which I think will be more than worth what you have lost. It is hard to explain, but if you agree, will you show me where you have taken the thing I have lost?”
The lemur cocked his head at her, curious.
As Imogen Ward returned to the village from her meeting, she found Fioh waiting at the entry to the Gihah, practically bouncing on the tips of her toes, plainly overcome with curiosity. Imogen waved to the girl as she approached, then waved with her tail too, causing Fioh to burst into giggles.
“Well? How did your meeting with the monkeys go?”
”Well, for one, I strongly suspect that they are not messengers of the gods or, if they are, they are extremely bad at it.”
Fioh laughed again. “Unsurprising, Imogen. I have long thought this myself. But did you reach an accord? Are you now ambassador to lemurs, as you dreamed?”
Imogen pulled a face at the Ork girl. ”Fioh, I am a professional. I have worked with clients more demanding than lemurs on a weekly basis. Naturally I came to an accord, and I shall have my prize.”
“Okay, and what did they want?”
Imogen grimaced. ”That is a matter of professional confidentiality. I would never carry tales about my clients. But….”
“But?”
”Do you know if anyone in the village would take money to help me, um… build a treehouse?”
The people in the northern section of the Gihah turned as the sound of Fioh breaking down into sobs of laughter pealed throughout the forest.
It had been several days since the embarrassing disaster of Initiation, and Imogen Ward was well and truly recovered from the sickness which followed. Truth be told, once she’d been coaxed back into full awareness of self, she’d slept for only about a day, and was on her feet three days later.
She’d been told that it could take quite a few tries before she attained the synchronicity necessary to understand the lemurs, and that she would simply need to endure their mocking “whaak-whaaks” until that was done; but it didn’t matter. She was this close to the end of her quest, and she was hardly going to run home now, tail between her legs.
Speaking of which.
~~~
Searing 27, 122
Dear Carina,
Well, I have a tail now.
It is white and longer than you would have thought. After some practice, I can move it around without too much trouble, but it is not strong enough to hold anything; neither strong nor deft enough. On the plus side, it seems to instinctively move around to improve my center of gravity. I have some hope that I can use that in combat, though it will take a lot of practice before I’m confident that I will not simply cut the thing off with an errant swing.
Apparently the Animus initiation went about as badly as it could have, and the Chief seems largely relieved that the aftereffects are not worse. He has told me that I will require much remedial tutorage before I try any significant transformation again; I have tried to tell him that I successfully returned to lemur-form shortly after convalescence, but I think he misunderstood me.
Speaking of the transformation, it is a very curious sort of action. After years of training, I have a fairly complete understanding of the basic principles of the art of Reaving- you take a weapon into yourself, into the aether within yourself, and preserve the ideal of the weapon in your soul, filling the idea with your own aether to make it manifest. A simple notion, perhaps, but hard to understand on a level deeper than the waking mind, where the spirit lives.
Transformation of the body is not like that. The body is always fluid, in motion, growing and shifting. Animus feels very much as it does when I align body and soul to waken my dragon’s scales and claws, only it is more total. Changing my hands or feet, or growing fur, is all a sort of motion through the Rune, it just takes a full awareness of your own body. Transforming entirely into a lemur, however, is another matter entirely- it takes a lot of energy, more than any of my usual Reaving. Still, I expect I will grow more efficient at the trick with practice.
A little bit stranger than the tail, if you ask me, is what the Chief calls Echolalia...
Dear Carina,
Well, I have a tail now.
It is white and longer than you would have thought. After some practice, I can move it around without too much trouble, but it is not strong enough to hold anything; neither strong nor deft enough. On the plus side, it seems to instinctively move around to improve my center of gravity. I have some hope that I can use that in combat, though it will take a lot of practice before I’m confident that I will not simply cut the thing off with an errant swing.
Apparently the Animus initiation went about as badly as it could have, and the Chief seems largely relieved that the aftereffects are not worse. He has told me that I will require much remedial tutorage before I try any significant transformation again; I have tried to tell him that I successfully returned to lemur-form shortly after convalescence, but I think he misunderstood me.
Speaking of the transformation, it is a very curious sort of action. After years of training, I have a fairly complete understanding of the basic principles of the art of Reaving- you take a weapon into yourself, into the aether within yourself, and preserve the ideal of the weapon in your soul, filling the idea with your own aether to make it manifest. A simple notion, perhaps, but hard to understand on a level deeper than the waking mind, where the spirit lives.
Transformation of the body is not like that. The body is always fluid, in motion, growing and shifting. Animus feels very much as it does when I align body and soul to waken my dragon’s scales and claws, only it is more total. Changing my hands or feet, or growing fur, is all a sort of motion through the Rune, it just takes a full awareness of your own body. Transforming entirely into a lemur, however, is another matter entirely- it takes a lot of energy, more than any of my usual Reaving. Still, I expect I will grow more efficient at the trick with practice.
A little bit stranger than the tail, if you ask me, is what the Chief calls Echolalia...
~~~
Imogen had one lead on the lemurs.
Technically she had more than one lead. She had spent the last few days while bedridden listening to the Chief expound upon the lemurs. He professed to be no expert, but that still, somehow, translated to hours of discourse. She wasn’t sure she could talk about swords as much as he had held forth on the subject, and she was the one with a sword (and lemur?) grafted to the shape of her soul.
But importantly, she had one lead on the location of the lemurs- the nameless shrine in the jungle, where the monkeys filched offerings to the gods. Including, it would seem, the statuette she had crossed continent and sea to barely miss.
She followed the path which Fioh had showed her a few days past, winding across the north bank of the Gihah before winding up to an overgrown hill, shadowed by golden-leafed trees. Things felt a little different from the last time. Not only was Imogen alone on her trek this time, the walk itself had changed.
The long white lemur tail left as a remnant of her strange transformation in the initiation ceremony trailed in the air behind her, the tip describing arcs in the air as it followed where she had been a second ago. Just as she’d written in her letter, the odd motion provided a surprisingly effective, instinctual counterweight, making her movement feel oddly free, as though her body were merely gliding above the earth and not stomping along on two legs.
“The totem placed within your soul will make it feel ordinary, as though you were born with a tail” the Chief had warned her, “but you must pay attention. All of your other instincts will ignore it. It may take some time for your swordsmanship to adapt.”
She thought this concern to be somewhat exaggerated. When you trained with a sword the size of yourself, a few pounds difference on your butt was hardly going to register. Still, if she chopped off her own tail, her uncle would probably petition the Captain to have her banished from the order for the shame alone.
Not that it mattered today. She was here to negotiate with the sifakas today. Charm them. Bribe them, maybe. But definitely–definitely–no fighting.
Unless they started it.
~~~
Lemur-tailed Imogen ascended the winding path through the gold-crowned forest until she reached the first weathered stones marking the old and battered shrine. None of the villagers, even the Chief, had been able to explain its provenance to her, but she didn’t feel as though she should tread upon once-sacred ground without some display of piety.
”O, to whomever this shrine once honored, permit me brief entry to your home.”
Did they hear? Could they hear? Impossible to know. Imogen could almost hear the voices of the baritones in the Pfenning, reciting the words of the old screed against the divine:
When he shall read what is written
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods.
So plain in clouds and clods,
When he shall hunger without hope
Even for evil gods.
No, no. No, that wasn’t right. One couldn’t trust the ‘wisdom’ of the Zaichaeri on this matter, not even in Zaichaer, and especially not in Ecith.
”In Ysadrin’s name, I request entry. Uh, thank you.” She had never been any good at ending prayers.
Formalities concluded, Imogen stepped into the shrine. It wasn’t much of a transition; if the shrine had ever borne a roof, there was no sign of it now, nor did any of the external walls survive beyond a meter or two above the ground. Some of the internal structures had slightly more luck, but all of the stone was worn smooth by the passage of time and the gentle rain. Instead, the golden trees stretched overhead, casting shadows across the broken boundaries of the sanctum.
Ahead, however, the altar-stone was unmistakably whole. It was devoid of decoration, of course, but what must have once been humanoid figures were worked into the sides, and the top was, mysteriously, whole and gleaming, as though it had been polished. Imogen supposed it had been; when Orkhan hands had ceased to tend to the ancient altar, the wind and rain had continued to bless it without fail.
Probably there was some kind of parable in that, but Imogen’s job was retrieval, not philosophy.
”Hey! Sifakas!” Imogen shouted, except she didn’t. Her perception grew hazy as her mind split, the language of her upbringing generating in her conscious mind before sublimating into her own aether and transformed into hoots and shouts and tail twitches.
The golden-crowned lemurs ordinarily did not show themselves within the shrine until devotees had left, preferring to remain invisible in the leaves above. Now, however, one of the Ork visitors was speaking as a lemur might, calling their name. This had never happened before, and the monkeys waiting above stared at each other in silent concern for a moment.
”I’m not here to hurt you, I just want to talk!”
More communication they understood! And while they had no reason to believe the girl hooting at them from below, sifakas were too curious to permit it to pass without further investigation.
“Who?” shouted one of the younger males, running down the tree. “Who? Who is it?” More of the sifaka joined him, and soon the entire colony was spiraling down the golden trees to get a better look, the bravest going all the way to ground and climbing the short walls. “Who? Who are you?”
”I’m Imogen!” She wasn’t sure names would mean anything to them (or, indeed, exactly how her name translated to lemur-speak), but it made her feel better to say it. ”You have something I want, and I want to trade you for it.”
The sifakas all began chattering at this announcement, turning to one another and rapidly debating the merits and risk of this strange proposal.
“A trade? I like trades. What can we get?”
“A trick? It could be a trick? What if it’s a trick?”
“What does she want? Not my rock, she can’t have my rock, I love my rock…”
“Why? Why do you want it? Why?”
The last comment seemed prevalent, so Imogen chose to reply. ”You stole something which belongs to… a friend. I’m not mad, I just want to get it back.”
She wasn’t sure how readily they’d grasp the concept of theft, or if it might offend them, but she wasn’t about to lie while in the middle of a church. Even if it was ruined. Even if they were lemurs.
“I think” a new voice interrupted her, cutting through the chattering, “You also stole something from me.”
Imogen blinked, looking around for the source of the voice, and-
Directly above her stood a golden-crowned sifaka, giving her an intense, hostile stare. He looked much the same as the other lemurs except…
The lemur waved to the short stub of his tail, less than half the size of his fellows. He waved at Imogen’s tail, long and white and natural as if she’d been born with it.
”Oh.” said Imogen, ”Uh. Oops?”
~~~
The lemur with the cut tail stared down at Imogen, and his orange eyes burned like Judgment itself. His tufted head was framed by the high afternoon sunlight, beams cutting through the gold-leaf trees to cast him in a single brilliant shaft, like a pint-sized avenging angel. The sense of offense in the air was palpable.
”I can see,” Imogen Ward said, somewhat lamely, ”How this might look bad.”
The half-tailed lemur regarded her silently. “Looking bad” was not a concept which translated well to lemurs. Even as she said it, Imogen realized that it wasn’t the right sort of sentiment. She shouldn’t try to ingratiate herself to the lemurs socially; they were too insular and focused for such an effort. Instead…
”At any rate, Halftail, you stole something from me, too.”
It was a risky ploy, to remind the lemur of the injury she had done, but she saw the sifaka’s chest puff as she addressed him formally. To be a monkey in a colony of monkeys was a hard thing; they sought to distinguish themselves from the other lemurs, which was no easy feat. To be given a title was worth something, even if it was an unusual one.
“The shiny box and the paper box.” Halftail was still angry, but he seemed to consider her words seriously. To her sensibilities, no maiming injury could be fairly compared to petty theft, but to sifaka, such distinctions were less clear. They had both taken something from each other, after all.
“It is not equal.” Halftail eventually decided, “Orkhan have many such nice boxes. I have only one tail.”
It was a reasonable reply, by any standards. Furthermore, it offered her a way forward.
”But it was worth something, yes? I can trade you more, shiny things or tasty things enough to last you for many, many days.” The lemurs had a very strange conception of time, so Imogen opted against trying to go into greater detail, ”What is it you would like?”
Halftail and the other sifaka stared at Imogen, and she realized that they had no real conception of what resources she might even have to offer them. It was on her to figure out what they would want.
So what did they want? The little creatures were omnivores, but they mostly ate seeds, and she could hardly promise them a continual supply of those. Besides, they were quite capable of finding food themselves. Perhaps a supply of shiny things would entice them, but the compass they had stolen was over a month’s wages for her, she could hardly afford to buy enough.
…but then, she didn’t need to bribe all the lemurs, just Halftail. And she had already seen what he wanted, hadn’t she?
”There is one thing, Halftail, which I think will be more than worth what you have lost. It is hard to explain, but if you agree, will you show me where you have taken the thing I have lost?”
The lemur cocked his head at her, curious.
~~~
As Imogen Ward returned to the village from her meeting, she found Fioh waiting at the entry to the Gihah, practically bouncing on the tips of her toes, plainly overcome with curiosity. Imogen waved to the girl as she approached, then waved with her tail too, causing Fioh to burst into giggles.
“Well? How did your meeting with the monkeys go?”
”Well, for one, I strongly suspect that they are not messengers of the gods or, if they are, they are extremely bad at it.”
Fioh laughed again. “Unsurprising, Imogen. I have long thought this myself. But did you reach an accord? Are you now ambassador to lemurs, as you dreamed?”
Imogen pulled a face at the Ork girl. ”Fioh, I am a professional. I have worked with clients more demanding than lemurs on a weekly basis. Naturally I came to an accord, and I shall have my prize.”
“Okay, and what did they want?”
Imogen grimaced. ”That is a matter of professional confidentiality. I would never carry tales about my clients. But….”
“But?”
”Do you know if anyone in the village would take money to help me, um… build a treehouse?”
The people in the northern section of the Gihah turned as the sound of Fioh breaking down into sobs of laughter pealed throughout the forest.