Heyna's Tale Chapter Four
Lurmunduan
Mrs. Plesh was at the door of the Arbor of Restraint. Arbor of Restraint, it was a gentle Quetz phrase. Erda would just say cage. Heyna huffed and slapped her tail. Cage it was.
Unlike other arbors, this one had tightly woven lattice walls, shot through with Gryphish steel. It was dusty from lack of use. Heyna sat in a corner, defiantly wiping her glasses.
“I’m sorry,” said Mrs. Plesh with a pitiful whistle to her tone, her expression unutterably sad. Heyna put her glasses back on slowly, making sure the elastic sat securely and comfortably.
“So am I, Mrs. Plesh,” said Heyna coldly. “If I abandoned my daughter, I would be sorry too.” She stared at Mrs. Plesh, who burst into tears. Heyna crumpled and burst into tears herself. “I’m sorry,” she blubbered, “Mrs. Plesh. That was cruel… I’m sorry. I… I miss Xico.”
“So do I. But I am at a loss as to what we can do.”
“We can fight!” said Heyna, but Mrs. Plesh was shaking her head.
“That is not possible. That is not our way, and even if it were, it is a roll of the dice that could lead to failure so dire, our entire way of life could be swept away. I won’t let that happen.” Heyna nodded.
“I know that’s true, logically, but…”
“But you don’t want to give up,” Mrs. Plesh said quietly.
“I can’t give up. I can’t. Will I spend the rest of my life mourning? Regretting not doing everything that I could? No.” She slapped her tail making the arbor ring with her anger.
“By the Trees! I will spend the rest of my life trying to free Xico and Jaz. They killed my mother. They killed my father. They killed your friends, kidnapped so many chicks and kits. We have to get those that were taken returned at least.”
“I understand that you are determined. But to resign? Normally, that would mean deportation, but you can stay with us. I won’t see you deported.”
“Thank you for that, but no. I want to be deported. I want to go to Beoford and see if there is anyone who would help me try to get Xico and Jaz back.”
“I shouldn’t indulge such a crazy fantasy, but I thought you would say that, so I’ve arranged a little help for you. Come with me.”
Help was in the form of money and a steamer ticket. What she really wanted were weapons, but she knew Mrs. Plesh wasn't going to provide those, nor was she likely to be able to find any for sale anywhere in Paititi.
“Here’s two years wages and a few other things that you might find useful.” There was a vial of shaping gel, a sharp loma (a tool for ironwood carving), and a vial of what looked like gray powder.
“Is that…”
“Gernu.” It was a vial of Gryphon forging flux, essential ingredient in Gryphish armor, and worth a small fortune. It’s composition and manufacture was a closely guarded secret. Heyna was shocked. She had never before seen more than a pinch of it.
“That’s too generous,” Heyna sputtered. “I can’t take it.”
“Nonsense,” was all that Mrs. Plesh said.
*
The steamer, Fortitude, was much smaller than the Rapture, but much faster and heavily armed. The crew was only Gryphon and Erda. They all sported side arms and at least rudimentary armor. A single mast amidships was obviously for emergencies as the engines made excellent headway without the wind. Heyna’s eyes widened as her gaze took in the cannons on swivel mounts that stood fore and aft and the large deck gun hidden under sail cloth behind the the mast.
“We’ll be sailing in pirate waters,” someone said behind her. Heyna looked around at her fellow passenger. He smelled rich. He was a handsome Erda, well groomed, with a polished Gryphish silver gorget and Quetz jewelwood bracelets and girdle. Not a servant, Heyna thought. He turned and offered a slight bow.
“Alvertos, at your service.”
Okaaaay, Heyna thought. A little too fake courtly for an Erda. She nodded.
“Your a little young to be traveling alone on a trip like this. What do your elders think?”
Something about this Erda didn’t smell right. She could tell that he was Oak Clan, but he was wearing perfume that hid deeper analysis. No one did that unless they had something to hide.
“They don’t think anything. They’re dead,” she said, her voice edged to put him off, but he seemed more interested.
“Well, well, on your own, then. I think we are going to be great friends.”
Heyna had a ton of questions about their passage, their crew, the ship and their destination, but this Erda raised her hackles. She looked around for other passengers, but they were the only ones on deck.
“Just us, darling.” Alvertos chuckled and moved to touch her shoulder. She flinched and he drew back.
“Your going to need some grooming before this trip is over kit. We might as well get to know each other better. He waved at an Erda crew member who rushed over and dropped his head in a quick bow.
“My Lord,” he said. Lord? Erda didn’t have lords.
“Lord of what?” Heyna couldn’t help asking.
“Just an honorific my dear. The kind that comes with money. Bring us some svella bark and fresh water.” He tossed a steel coin to the crewman. “And tell the Groom that she has a customer.”
“Keep your charity, My Lord,” she bowed deeply. He laughed, a long genuine, body laugh. She laughed too, in spite of her suspicion. “Okay, Lordy, what are you up to? I’m way too young to mate. What do you want?”
“You mistake me, Kitty Kitty. If we are to travel together, I need to protect my nose. You smell like, well… Anyway, please accept my, ‘Charity.’ I assure you that it is purely selfish.”
She did stink. She knew it. And she was starting to like this male in spite of her mistrust. He laughed again at her hesitation and her hackles went up again. She turned away and started for starboard. He touched her arm and spoke quickly.
“Wait! Heyna, I’m sorry. Mr. Plesh asked me to chaperon you on the trip. Please forgive my lame subterfuge.”
Heyna turned and flashed angry and menacing, claws out and fur on end, Alvertos jumped back, lowering his head and raising his arms in submission.
“Chaperon?” Heyna shouted.
“I’m sorry. Dannu… er, Councilor Plesh didn’t want to tell you before we boarded. I guess he knew how you’d react. Seems he was right on that score. He just wanted me to look out for you on the voyage. I was going to Beoford anyway. Please, don’t be angry.”
“Dannu, is it?” Heyna asked, only slightly mollified. “On a first name basis with a member of the Quetz High Council? Dannu Plesh a personal friend or something? What kind of Erda are you?” Her voice was harsh, accusatory.
“Okay, Kit,” he said.
“And call me Kit one more time, and…”
“Okay,” he said again, heaving a sigh. Now I know why Dan didn’t fill you in. I apologize. We thought it would be best. Let me properly introduce myself. I am Ambassador Alvertos of the Beoford Erda, Lake Clan, Oak Clan, River Clan.” He bowed slightly. “At your service.”
Lake, River, and Oak! That accounted for his quirky smell. It occurred to Heyna that a hybrid as ambassador made a lot of sense. But her hackles were still up, and she stood there staring so long that he laughed again.
“Okay. Okay. I’ll be in my cabin if you have any questions.” He turned and walked toward the stairs.
“Wait, your majesty!”
“No need to be disrespectful.”
“Okay. My turn to apologize. I know Mr. Plesh was just trying to be helpful. I’m sorry. Yes, you are right. I have a lot of questions.”
“I’m sorry too. Can we start again, please?”
“Of course. I am Heyna, Servant, River Clan. Well, formerly Servant. I guess I’m nothing now.”
“Nothing! Far from nothing! You are Heyna, the Survivor. Everyone’s talking about you. They also call you the Fighter, because you faced the giant arachnid and survived. They also call you the Climber, because you traversed BelowLight from ground to canopy. The Erda are amazed. Even the Quetz in their fancy salons whisper in wonder at your… audacity.”
Heyna was also amazed. Erda were not famous. They were heads-down workers. Almost no one noticed them, not even each other. She was quiet so long that Alvertos sighed again, and started to turn. She touched his arm. Her hackles came down.
“Thank you,” was all she could manage before she burst into tears. Alvertos instinctively moved to groom her head, and, instinctively, she let him. Mama, Papa, Jassi, Xico, memories flooded her, and in her grief, she let this stranger comfort her.
*
“You know, we’re not going to help you,” Alvertos said, snacking on a chip of svella tree bark. Heyna looked up from the table where the groom was working on her tangled and matted fur.
“Wow! Here I am sailing all the way to Beoford, and before were a day on the way, you burst my bubble. I thought you were a diplomat.”
“Just doing what a good diplomat would do, setting your expectations, Heyna. I think you’ll find the Beoford Erda are different than you are used to. They don’t know much about the people outside their own community, and care less. They care about… business, I guess you would call it.”
Heyna felt her heart sink.
“I have to try! I have to do something! What would you do if this happened to your family?”
“Um… Actually, it did.” Heyna just stared, wondering if he was mocking her.”
“Your parents were killed, your best friend and your brother kidnapped?”
“My sister…” he started, then stopped and looked down. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to bring that up. I don’t want to to talk about it. Suffice it to say that Paititi isn’t the only city, town or home that has been raided.”
“By Dragons,” she said.
“By Erda,” he said flatly.
“What? Erda?”
“As I said, the Beoford Erda are different. And, yes, we are not all perfect little busy bees, minding our own business. Some of us are pirates and rogues. That’s your first lesson. You must be wary. We are not all worthy of your trust.”
“What about you?” He laughed.
“Especially me. Prevarication and subterfuge are diplomatic arts.”
“Wait! Trust you, not trust you? What are you saying?”
“Confused? That, too, is a diplomatic tool. What I am saying is that you are young, and where you are going things may not make sense. You may run into some nasty characters. Just because someone acts nice, doesn’t mean they won’t cheat you, or worse.”
Heyna thought about that a while.
“Okay. Tell me. Why won’t you help me get my brother back? He’s Erda too.”
“I could try to explain, but to really understand, you’ll have to see for yourself.”
“You sound like Xico.”
“Maybe I have lived too long among the Quetzalcoatl.”
“So do you have any information that could help me, or not?”
“In your mad quest? I don’t think so. My advice is to settle in Beoford and move on with your life.”
“Not. Going. To. Happen.”
“What I can do, is introduce you to the right people. Folks are excited to meet the famous Heyna.”
Famous Heyna! Well, if her reputation opened doors for her, she would take it.
*
At dawn on the seventh day, Heyna had her first view of Lurmunduan, the continent of the Gryphons. What she saw was a torn up carpet of bright green, scattered on the surface of the water. The scraps of lime extended as far as the eye could see. In the distance, to the North East, the green darkened and solidified, and as the Fortitude steamed onward, Heyna saw that the green was grass. It seemed to float on the surface of the water.
Their way ahead became a silver ribbon, rippled by the wind, flanked with more and more solid vegetation, taller and taller grass. Rotten trees dotted the not-land.
The ribbon was the great River Yann, meandering from the mountains far to the North, where the fabled Suizpirituak, the Fire Spirits, melted glaciers with their hot breath spreading life-giving water over the lands of Lurmunduan.
The Yann blinked the reflected morning sunlight into Heyna’s eyes. Gradually, the river became more defined. Her banks became solid ground, with tall grass and gnarled trees bowing over the water. Her breadth, at first more than a mile, gradually narrowed to something less than that. It was still majestic.
Her scent on the breeze became less salty and sweetened. The scent of the land was clean compared to Tototlan, more life than decay, more of birth than death. Heyna smelled a thousand new smells, but had no reference to categorize them against, so she just let them wash over her and hoped that she could make sense of them soon. It was intoxicating and disorienting after the sameness of the spume and salt of the sea and the stink of burning coal from the steam boilers.
The Fortitude’s engines whined up against the stronger and stronger flow as the tide ebbed. Then, she smelled something familiar, something delicious. Svella trees! Her food, fresh and alive. Growing wild along the banks, a king’s ransom. Heyna’s mouth watered. It was all she could do not to jump overboard and swim to the feast-ladened banks.
“I know, right!” Alvertos said. With her nose full of Lurmunduan, he’d snuck up on her. He was there beside her at the rail. “It never gets old.”
He laughed his hearty, happy laugh, and she laughed with him. He handed her a chip of the dried svella bark. “This will have to do for now. We’ve got six more days steaming on the river, but wait till you taste fresh svella! We’ll get some soon. There are towns and settlements all along the way. We should be stopping before nightfall, and I’ll get some for you.” He looked at her oddly for a moment, and she felt a tingle in her tail. What a strange creature he was.
“Can’t wait,” was all she said.
*
The wildness of the river delta gradually gave way to cultivated land. Svella trees stood in rows between fields of grain, in stripes of green and gold, that followed the contours of the land, all the way to the horizon. Here and there, Heyna could see gray stone farmhouses, star shaped with steeply angled roofs. They vaguely resembled svella blossoms. They had a stern beauty, but the idea of living on the ground was strange, and living in stone structures even stranger. What about bugs? How did one stay clean in contact with the dirt all the time?
“How do the farmers stay clean when they are in contact with the dirt all the time?” Alvertos’ laughter was explosive.
“Ah, Kit… I mean, Heyna. How do you stay clean? You wash, right?” And he laughed long enough to make Heyna very embarrassed.
“I… I just… I just never thought about how other peoples live. I guess I have a lot to learn.”
“Now that’s a very wise attitude to cultivate. Keep your eyes open. Observe everything. Record every detail, up here.” He tapped her skull. “You’ll need your wits about you, even when you think you are among friends. Especially then.”
“Patronizing, as always.”
“But not wrong.” Alvertos chuckled and Heyna laughed too. In the days of the journey, she had grown to like the ambassador. Did his advice about not trusting friends extend to himself? Was he even a friend? She watched the riverbank, enjoying the unusual contours of the land. In Paititi, you couldn’t see those contours underneath the canopy of the rain forest BelowLight where darkness and the giant insects reign.
The towns and settlements along the great river were all Gryphon. Heyna didn’t see any Erda, or any other peoples. The steamer docked every other night to take on fuel and provisions. Heyna had her first taste of fresh svella bark and the explosion of flavor made her swoon. Alvertos watched her closely and laughed as usual, but this time Heyna didn’t mind. By the trees! She wished svella grew in Paititi. Plantings there had been tried, of course, but the bugs and heat always ruined the crops. But here it was, as much as she could eat. Yum!
When they steamed around a bend in the river and the stone metropolis of Merkataritza-hiria hove into view, Heyna gasped. Giant Gryphon statues, fifty meters tall, flanked the river and formed a gateway to the city. Heyna could see that great chain nets were slung beneath the guardians, slack now, but could obviously be raised for defense.
The buildings of the city were wide and ponderously solid, and none appeared above five stories. The guardians on the river were the tallest structures. All the roads and streets were paved with stone. The great river, Yann, flowed through the city squeezed between massive stone embankments, which were cut here and there into sluices to allow water to flow into races turning water wheels, which in turn fed stone aqueducts that stretched out like a web into the city.
The streets were straight lines, with dark stone pavers that looked black in contrast to the pale granite and marble of the buildings. It was nothing like Paititi, where straight lines were considered gauche, a thing to demonstrate to chicks how not to create. It seemed that Yann, herself, was a sinuous silver brooch adorning the severe breast of Merkataritza-hiria. The buildings, too, were ornamented in the monumental styles favored by the Gryph. Blocky animals and stylized plants, flowers, grains, trees, and abstract patterns stood in solid poses on the walls, solid as the Gryphon themselves.
As the steamer came abreast of each street, Heyna could see between the buildings to the horizon, port and starboard were the same. The streets were laid out sharp and straight as the lattice of a salt crystal.
The city teemed with citizens, for that is what they called themselves. Heyna could see thousands of people going in and out of the buildings. There were shops everywhere. Heyna could smell the peculiar scent of baked grasses, bird shite, and… rats! She sniffed deeply, sifting and categorizing the scents. She saw that thick moss grew on every roof and in the creases of the building ornamentation, that gave the designs an extra dimension.
“Ah, the moss,” said Alvertos. “Tries to cover the smell of the shite, and the rats. It also keeps the sun from baking the city and in the winter and acts as insulation. The Gryph pups have a game called harrapaketa. Rat catching. They eat them raw.” He laughed when Heyna shuddered.
She also smelled a strange scent like stone, but with something… lime? She wrinkled her nose and squinted.
“Ha! You smell it? That’s concrete. The Gryph use it everywhere in their buildings. It’s handy. They mix it up from…”
“Lime?”
“Limestone. Yes, and calcium silicates and other compounds. As with many Gryph recipes, it’s exact composition is a secret.” Alvertos laughed.
The ivy which grew up between the stone flagging of the streets had a sharp tang, unlike that which grew on the massive trees trunks of Tototlan.
The Fortitude docked at a stone pier in a marina near a cluster of official looking buildings. They were taller, wider, more intricately decorated. They were adorned with writing in the blocky script of Gryphish. Heyna could only make out a couple of words. Her Gryphish was passable, out of a schoolbook, but the font here was strange. She could only read, “Gobernu,” and the city name.
There was a huge obelisk in the plaza by the harbor. It was covered by more Gryphish script in an older less readable style carved into the stone. Heyna could make out only a few words. In the boldest letters, in the center of the base it said, “The Written.”
“The Written are ancient laws that are revered by conservative Gryphon.” Alvertos said. “Modern Gryph argue and quibble about these laws. It is a popular activity. ‘Are the laws still valid? Should they be amended. Do we need to follow rules set down thousands of years ago? We’re a democracy. We have the right to craft our own laws that relate to contemporary life and mores.’ And so on.”
The steamer glided to a berth. Sailors jumped onto the dock and threw the bow and stern lines over huge cleats.
“Well,” Alvertos said. “Here’s where I get off.” Heyna felt a stab of panic. Alvertos read her expression and took her in his arms. It felt so good to be comforted. “Don’t worry, Kit. You are strong. Remember to always trust your instinct, and you’ll be fine. Take people as they are, not how you think they should be. Don’t get your hopes up about the Beoford Erda helping get your brother and Xico back. You have your whole life ahead of you. Try to get along and make a decent living for yourself. Good luck, Heyna.” Alvertos pushed a small packet into her hands and walked off the ship.
Heyna took a deep breath. She knew that Alvertos was trying to be helpful, but her determination burned in her breast. She would get help from Beoford, or she would go alone. She looked down at the packet. She didn’t have to open it. She could smell the svella. She would eat it later. Now, she watched the Gryph going about their business on the dockside, and wondered at the wide world.