8th Harpy, evening.
Dear Kree,
We've left port and civilization on a
two-masted ship. The weather is fine and we're making good time, but
it's still a long way to the colony. My comrades and I have passed
the time getting acquainted.
Ashtolisstiklassendreshalia you
remember; the young girl raised by Mboloke's child. It sits on her
shoulder like a parrot and hisses at me. I may have prodded it once
or twice with the wooden fountain pen you gave me, and I may now have
a slightly scorched fountain pen. Actually not scorched, exactly.
Glassy, and faintly imploded. I'll show you on my return. I'm sure
you'll have some ideas about it. I wish you were here now to ask
questions of the girl and her ward/warden; I'm sure you'd think of
something I haven't, and when we get back it'll be too late. I
wonder what the girl thinks about that.
Our wilderness survival guide is a
tree druid called Rivers. She's brought the grigri bags for the
matter from the 12 hills. She's from the northern sanctum that
protects the Hyllywyo prophecy. You remember that, I think, and if
you don't it's in 89.787 (Prophecies (geographic)). It was unusually
detailed about what to do now that the situation it details has
arisen. She has a reserved air about her; it remains to be seen
whether there's much going on beneath that stillness. Still, she
seems like an educated person. I look forward to longer
conversations with her.
For muscle, we have the Red Sun's
disgraced scion. I know rumor and scandal has never held much appeal
for you, but in this instance it may prove pertinent. Balomere's
father, the patriarch of the Red Sun, was put under some kind of love
spell a decade or two back and sired a child upon an orc. He took
the child in, although why is not obvious; he subsequently hid the
child from sight and denied it access to his person as he sat at
court. He sent young Balomere to be trained as a knight; the child
acquitted himself well, and won several honors. We're fortunate to
have such a capable defender. He certainly looks sturdy enough.
And, moreover, he has a gentleness, a concern for others, that is
unusual in children as ill-treated as he must have been. I can't
help but hold some fellow-feeling for him, as I am myself the child
of miscegenation. My mother loved me and spoke well of my father.
But for a stroke of luck, I could have been in Balomere's shoes.
Balomere is accompanied everywhere by
his war dog, Calix. That noble beast has not yet found much reason
to love me, but I hope he won't let that influence his behavior on
the battlefield.
Listen to me. Why do I assume there
will be any battlefields? For all I know, we'll just walk up the 12
hills, deposit the godling on a Salyagam pillow and turn home.
Perhaps I've been spending too much time in 203.43 (Fiction (ripping
yarns)).
It's different out here than anywhere
I've been. No windbreaks or causeways, only smooth ocean for miles.
There is at once a dizzying sense of freedom and a mind-numbing
boredom. I pass the time pestering the sailors and looking over the
rail. I mean to ask the captain for the use of a stick and some net,
that I might survey the denizens of the deep. You may be sure that I
will relay what I find to you, old friend.
Kaz
17th Beholder
Kree,
When I left you I had no idea what I'd
find. The wonder, and the terror, are almost too much- but let me
start at the beginning.
The taint is worse than any of the
books can say. The sea is blood and ink, true, and the air is
colorless and leeches the light from the sun, yes, but more than
that, the colors are wrong somehow. As if the landscape is painted
in colors I can't see, and what I perceive is an unfaithful echo. As
if bright lights are flashing under my skin. The wind speaks in the
voice of a madman. I spend more energy than I can afford raising the
wind, trying to blow the foulness away. There is nothing to replace
it. The colors are wrong. The wood of my bunk is spongy and pus
seeps from it. But I'm beginning to understand.
This afternoon, a sailor from the
drowned Maiden's Hope gave us all fingers of jade from his own
precious cargo. The Haino believe that jade is a pure element,
formed from the breath of one of their gods, and as such it is proof
against the taint. At least for a while. That he would part with it
at all, let alone enough of it to supply our whole party, is a sign
of the feeling the taint inspires. We cling to each other in the
face of it.
I had a notion, based not a little on
the 4th volume of Porphyry's journals in Pesh, to make the wind into
a barricade around the ship. I think I must have attracted
something, though, for no sooner had I done that than several dozen
small hard-shelled, hymenopteric creatures popped into existence
above decks and began attacking us. The sailor I mentioned and
myself began to confine them in nets, but when we had finished, they
lost their solid character and built themselves into something new.
It is hard to describe.
Their shells rolled from their backs
like beads of mercury and extruded tendrils which hardened again.
The muscles of their bodies broke free from their insertion points
and found new homes. The bones, left visible, reached for each
other, knitted together like too many roots in too little ground.
They became, in short, something new. Every net that had held these
creatures now contained a hulking humanoid creature, bristling with
spikes, the largest no less than fourteen feet tall. They burst
predictably through the nets and came for us.
If before I had entertained doubts
about the ability of our company, I entertain none now. Balomere and
the druid sprang instantly into action, Balomere with his mighty war
club and the druid with her crossbow. I made a guess about the
nature of our foe, and the taint, and called out to Balomere to knock
his opponent into the water; this he did with alacrity, but the
creature got hold of Balomere's foot somehow and it took the druid's
intervention to free him. When the creature hit the water, a huge
wave answered it, and bore it up some tens of feet into the air; it
also dissolved the creature's fascia and swamped Balomere in a deluge
of viscera. Mboloke's child chewed on one and Calix, his teeth
coated with jade, bit it. A sailor, killed by the creatures and
risen anew, was similarly dispatched by the druid with her jade. I
set myself the task of distracting the last, so that the druid could
have a clear shot. In so doing, however, I came face to face with
the creature.
They are more intelligent than we give
them credit for. I had taken it for a voracious beast, but it spoke.
Clear reason burned in its sputum-colored eyes. It brought its face
down close to me and offered to share with me the knowledge of that
land.
Old friend, I have neither heard or
read of anything like this. The taint is something entirely new. I
will write in detail what I learned and send it to you separately.
Sadly, however, I was unable to finish
my education. When I realized the creature had information to share,
I interposed my body between it and the druid's crossbow, gambling
that she wouldn't shoot me to get to it. I was right about that; she
kicked me in the knee, and when I fell, she shot it in the head. I
swear, it was right in the middle of a sentence. Closed-minded,
ignorant, bloodthirsty zealot. You remember her kind, old friend.
Book burners, witch burners. The reason the free city rose. I'll
see the back of her. Unless I could, just, teach her why her way is
wrong.
Enough. My lecturer flapped off, and
the zealot went back to her silence. I summoned a shower for
Balomere and peace returned. I've attached what I learned. The rest
remains to you.
Kaz
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