Green silken curtains blow open as
Story Spinner Izon storms out of Avatar Dashe's Temple on the top
level of the Pax Fleet Aviary Tower. Avatar Dashe, her Commanding
Acolytes, and the assembled ambassadors from Federation member
cultures laugh in their ceiling hung swings and loose draped lace
court garb at the raven nitrated curmudgeon. Humiliated by Sloegr,
the oil feathered new Forecaster General of Pax Command, Izon's
professional critique opposing Viceroy Floret's fool war was laughed
down by effect of the ill aimed excrement of a half blind old bird!
That carrion breathed fowl was promoted
to Forecaster General two moonspans ago, ending a triumphant career
on the 3rd fleet flagship Dusk Lit Gossamer. Scouting the
winds for the skyship and guiding then Captain Floret during his most
promoted crusades. Never doubt Sloegr was a genius of rare talent on
the wing, with storm forecasting skills already legion in the songs
of warriors and Acolytes alike, but it disgusted Izon greatly to see
Sloegr, and her war thirsty viceroy, in a place of honor at the
Aviary of a fleet which was once founded to promote peace amongst the
city states and land-races of the Organic Paca Federation. Now she
has reduced Izon's critique of Floret's private war into a gross
joke.
Bounding down the stretched cloth
hallway which wraps around the Tower's huge mycelium grown trunk Izon
turns down five complete rotations of the slanted hall to his
personal chamber, along the way ochre robed young Dashe incarnation
candidates back out of his way fearful of the thunderous tension
twisting at his brow. Pushing through the wall flap and pulling it
tight behind him he is alone at last.
Breathing in the solitude of the small
chamber subsides the rage from these war debates. He steps along the
springy floor to pour some water from his chamber basin and wash the
bird waste from his long gray hair. A few more deep breaths and the
dark clouds of his rage begin to part, rays of clear thought shine
through. Floret's scheme to capture a culture of webworms from the
Nauskwa will be open for review for another three moonspans, today's
outrage may still be overcome with a more rhetorically spun critique.
Avatar Dashe is the so called
manifestation of Chronicled Wisdom. Sadly her last few incarnations
have been more interested in unspeakable pleasures and the
accumulation of morbid curiosities from the catabolis of the Later
Oshkosh Culture rather than actually learning anything from SolDashe
library about the follies which made the curiosities of that
city-state so morbid. SolDasha's library is perhaps the finest
collection of Chronicles ever composed. It is distressing that rather
than mind Izon's compositions warning against military expansion
during societies under going a 'seed casting phase', she would laugh
enraptured by Sloegr's so normal humor. At least until Sloegr's
distracting presence in the Temple became common place this
incarnation has been finessable before, though it takes much strength
of listening and patience, and usually a few vivid historical
parables. Izon decides he will need strong tea to consider his next
story.
As the phlogiston stove of his chamber
heats water for ginkgo tea Izon looks out his window, greeted by one
of the finest vistas in the know world. So tall is the Aviary that
even five turns below Dashe's crowning Temple, Izon's chamber window
has a view 8 turns above all the remaining canopy of SolDashe.
Another 21 turns from there to the long flooded ground level canals
that carry supplies to the city's 75025 citizens and uncountable
residents.
Izon smiles, taking in the beauty of
his city, though fairly matched in trade and wealth with Inner Bay of
the Mikinz Delta far over the Dusk horizon, no city this side of the
Central Ocean can be compared with SolDashe in terms of beauty or
history.
Its city center a tight canopied forest
of towers: green rooms hang like silk leafs on structural mycelium
trunks. Connected by many paths like jungle vines pulled taught
between the towers bracing each other stable against monsoon winds,
floors. Dawnside of the window is the shore of Hud's Sea and pleasant
waters open to the Central Ocean beyond. On that shore stands a
religious Wonder, though now dead, the tallest known sea flooded
Shintry Cathedral, of intergrafted trees grown to an irreproducible
proportion, matching Aviary Tower's height! Killed by salted roots
during the most recent sea flood many incarnations ago, preserved as
a monument to the religious diversity of Paca history. Beyond the
verdant city core extend hinterlands for a days ride in any
direction, stocked with modest bermed houses amongst food forests and
content, agreeable residents. Beyond the bike trails of the
hinterlands is a great ginkgo forest planted by the same Shintry
missionaries as the Cathedral itself before the Old Paca Empire even
expanded to these then barren lands.
Izon looks out on faithful citizens
walking across on the wind swayed translucent paths stretched between
the many lesser towers of the city canopy. He then looks deeper down
beyond the canopy paths at the canals and heavy built foundation
levels where barge merchants and local craft people trade to support
this 'Suspended City'. Between the foundations and the canopy the
middle layer hosts crafts people working the shipyards. Silk tailors
are refurbishing phlogiston bladders, or perhaps retiring over worked
cloth to make more suspended rooms, awnings, or paths. Fire warders
paint their green quartz jelly on the fabric rendering it safe from
sun and fire, and impermeable to phlogiston. Bamboo twisters are
weaving expandable frames to support Skyship bladders or build
structural supports for, ship decks or canopy rooms.
“No doubt those workers would be
happy for the calling of orders should Floret's proposed 3rd fleet
retrofit go through.” Izon muses to himself, recalling that there
is more than Temple degeneration and birds hungry for the spoils of
battle which now has a taste for war. Over Izon's life shipyards have
expanded considerably and produced the most skilled work of all the
city's charities. Pax Fleet has added many ships to its fleet over
his career, but thus far the expansions have been argued for to
defend the Organic Paca Homeland of the Great Lakes in the outer
territories from Soma incursions. Floret's proposal goes further,
raiding the distant Nauskwa culture which produces these vast
supplies of silk, stealing a culture of their webworms and breeding a
Paca industry of websilk to expand the fleets.
Izon pours a bowl of tea. He blows on
it looking out on the beautiful miracle built by these foolish war
expenditures; 'beauty and foolishness are so dear to each other' he
muses the old saying. SolDashe thrives with the calling to build
these fleets, yet many other Cultures grow sick of paying road dues
to purchase so much websilk. At the same time, none are willing to
surrender the Organic City of SolPaca, and most likely the entire
Lake Territory, to the toxin sired Soma of the Mispi rain forest.
Above head float 8 skyships over the
city, including the Dusk Lit Gossamer.
All returning from the front lines for get general repairs and more
fragmentation grenades for their crusades. “Another pointless
battle” thinks Izon, turning back to the stove to pour more tea.
“Living in the thick Jungle, what matters the droppings of clumsy
birds.” Izon gazes into the clouds as a new thought comes to him,
“ambassadors sick of paying websilk may be easily swayed by the
Viceroy Floret's fool headed scheme to build a greater war machine,
but only because they can think of no other way to fight the Soma.”
Part
Two
Taking
the bowl of tea away from the window's view, Izon looks at his
tabletop and decides to spin a story for insight on the Soma. Candles
are lit around the room, the doors of his curiosities cabinet are
opened, prayers and the offering of a burnt ginkgo leaf are given
before these artifacts and Source Books. Izon sits at his tabletop
story spinning wheel, glass beads in hand. He spins the central disc
Sunwise and casts the colorful beads moonwise. The beads bounce and
skip until they find a resting place around the disc edge. Bead
positions tallied, they start to draw on old yarns and call forth
story patterns memorize during Izon's long apprenticeship. Emerald
beads in the 13th position and the 3rd, that draws on a yarn older
that 987 years. It feels scary fitting that the wilting era of the
Old Paca Empire would come up.
A few
spins more and much weaving of old yarns and Izon starts to be drawn
into the plot of General Lunbada's long chronicled conquests. Izon's
legs feel the ache of the cyclist dragoons that dominated those
ancient battlefields; teams that rode across frontiers further than
the settled territories of the current era; as far outwards as
Vulginy Jungles and inward to the coasts of the Central Ocean; from
the Dawn Coasts over deserts, planes, mountains, and forests to the
Dusk Coasts. Beads skillfully cast narrow the scope to the Battle of
Savage River, where General Lunbada's conquest came to a mysterious
end, and the Paca culture learned to fear the Soma. Izon takes out
from the shelf the Source Book of Huten, and scans its bead charts,
and lens drawn images.
Entranced,
Izon could smell the reek of swamp and fear passed down from that sad
quagmire. Deep in the meditation Izon feels himself as Yeoman Huten.
Too enmeshed in the story now to be concerned with the fool politics
behind this long past offensive, Izon casts beads now only hoping
that Huten might get back to his home in SolPaca from this dreary
campaign. Izon forgets even the beads, the many colored disc, and his
own spinning and counting, as the story of Huten fills his
imagination.
Ugly
wet trees, cloudy skies, and bitting bugs define the scene. Soft
hilly ground make Huten's war-bike nothing more than a cart to be
pulled over puddle filled ruts, it carries his pack and weapon, then
is left leaned in a stack of bikes as he tries to find a dry spot to
set up his tent. Sir Tellir, his team leader, marches around the
muddy camp site, listening to the terrifying beauty of the Soma music
which emanates from every deep dark nook of the fall-out cursed
Plutoned forest. “The vile animals are mad to be happy in this
corrupted waste!” Tellir yells out loud. “Born of outlaws who
defied the Organic prohibition of entering the Plutoned forests, they
have lost their humanity, they speak no more in any community
tongue.”
In
evening light the team leader turns his back to the forest and swells
up to inspire his team. “None of us like to approach these dark
places, not even I. Be it best such beasts keep their polluted
habitat, but then at least then they should leave us to our habitat!
Nay, their siren sows have seduced away foolish lads from SolGwall.
Few salvaged from the Soma are ever the same, and none who stay a
over the dark night of the new moon in these ever roting woods again
live an Organic life with the Elements as we do. That darkness, and
whatever Plutonic mysteries fill it, turns them into something more
Soma than Paca. Any one of us, if consumed by this forest, might in
years time be found by next years expedition amongst their
madness-dart slinging hunters, as Artificial as they are.”
Seeing
fear in the teams faces Tellir continues. “At dawn we enter their
domain, our armor halts their tiny darts, and our pieces can drop
their bark clad hunters at 55 strides. Be present, and trust your
team will pull you out of this forest should a dart find your flesh.
They have an encampment not far from the forest edge, and our
observation balloon has mapped the brood where the SolGwall lads are.
You will know them because they won't have the Soma forehead scars
yet, they may resist your attempt to separate them from their siren
captors, but we have tranquilizers if needed. If you see those scars
on any face, as otherwise umber and rich as it may be, you are
looking at a Soma, and you are to cap it.
Huten
listened to Tellir and could feel the huge eyes deep and dark of the
Soma radiating their gaze at him. The Soma never attack a clearing,
but anyone who steps under the forest canopy does so in fear of their
darts, which corrupt the mind of those struck. If not taken from the
forest the victim will surly taken by the forest. Huten prepares for
a long night disturbed by their haunting music.
Izon's
trance loosens slightly as he stokes his courage for what visions
long past the spinning wheel might spin from the Huten Sourcebook.
With
Dawn the music quiets, and Sir Tellir prepares his team to enter the
forest. A rear guard holds the camp, and several other commanders
join Sir Tellir at General Lunbada's command yurt. Yeoman Huten's
team is the first to enter the forest, in a few strides the clearing
is invisible through the thick under brush. The sounds of Soma
movement is all around, none can see further than ten strides in any
direction. The tracker hounds are scent blind in this rotting forest,
and sensing movement about the hounds panic. Darts fly in through the
thicket, and drop down from the canopy far above.
Izon's
beads land in a strange way, the composition which tallies as 'lust'
looks back from his spinning wheel through glass eyes deep and dark.
In
Izon's trance Huten stops cold, captured by fear as a song comes from
all the forest, it sings in voice of Soma calls and twisted remains
of once Paca words. A great terror fills the team, and they begin to
run back to the clearing, busting caps into the target less forest.
Huten barks “take the fallen, we can't leave them!” picking up a
young squire over his shoulder turning back to the clearing. As he
turns he sees crouched on a large branch a Soma siren, wearing a
cedar bark skirt and cowl. Scared forehead, deep round eyes, large
hands, cheek folds, and long breasts, her beauty horrified Huten and
Izon equally. Huten lifts his piece toward her, and sees embedded in
his wrist a dart.
Izon
casts all Hutens beads that he might escape that fabled song which
has tormented the Paca soul for all the years since the scattered
half mad remains of General Lunbada's campaign first composed this
Source Book so long ago.
As the
beads jockey for place in the discs groves the trance is shattered
“Krrrrawwwwk-raaa ak.” interrupts Sloegr standing in Izon's open
window.
Good story so far. Be sure to let us know when its finished and I'll add it to the story link list on the Green Wizard website. Best of luck.
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