Heyna's Tale - Chapter Four (cont.)
Disappointment
Heyna felt violated. Registration and other fees had cost her six months wages. When she told the clerk that she preferred dry lodgings, the price doubled. She just couldn’t imagine sleeping in the river lodge, swimming to her room, sleeping with others on a mud floor. She had to keep reminding herself that nothing else mattered but her mission. Find Xico. Find Jaasi. Rescue them, or die trying. But do it dry? If possible.
Now she looked around her, “dry,” lodge. She stood in a room of a one story, sagging wooden structure. The slum sat on a stone platform barely above the water line. The ceiling was low and dripped from the rain that was still falling. Outside the river lapped at the footing and splashed against the walls threatening to turn the whole structure into driftwood.
She was exhausted and demoralized, but not defeated. She needed rest. She looked around for a hammock, and then laughed at herself. Maybe she could start a business selling the handy devices. She wished she had thought to bring one of her own hammocks, but there was no way that she could have imagined this… this squalor.
She curled up in the driest corner, tied her carryall tightly about herself, and immediately fell asleep and dreamed she was BelowLight. She smelled the bugs. Somehow, she could see them swarming. They were devouring something, crawling and chewing. She saw a flash of her mother’s face in the swarm, and she started awake with a squeak of terror.
It was still dark, and she was still exhausted. She forced herself to close her eyes again and managed to sleep with no more nightmares.
*
Her breakfast was meager, registration fees having taken half her fresh svella bark. At least the sun was out and warmed her damp fur. Mist rose off the river. She wiped her glasses on her only dry cloth and looked about. People were everywhere going about their business. Heyna had gotten directions to the Beoford City Hall (for a copper) from one of the clerks. She hated the idea of swimming there. What she wanted to do is lie down and enjoy the warm sun, and process all the unfamiliar scents.
Not far to the West, Heyna could see a verdant bank lined with Black Willow trees decked out in their pale green blooms. She knew about seasons, how some plants only bloomed at certain times of the year, but to experience it was strange. In Tototlan, far to the South, greenery and blooms were ubiquitous year-round.
She decided that she would just observe and relax until the mist burned off the water. Erda passing in the water just a few feet from her all gave her a glance. None greeted her, until she heard one mutter, “dead wood.” Heyna laughed. Avaricious AND judgmental. Beoford Erda, what’s not to like?
Across the way, on another platform, people were active and loud. There was a log jam beside a stone platform. A team worked at sawing and stacking the timber. Another team lifted the huge logs from the water with a crane onto a type of half-moon bed, which was part of a larger mill. The log spun and the bark was stripped away, then the log moved through a series of parallel band saws that rendered it into planks in one smooth action. The first team picked up the planks and stacked them in neat piles. The whole apparatus was powered by a large water wheel which turned beside the mill.
Heyna noticed that there were almost no structures made of such planks in Beoford. Her little guidebook said that lumber was one of Beoford’s chief exports. She could smell that the fresh cut planks were fragrant pine. She watched the work for a while. She let herself enjoy the scent. She relaxed.
“Hey! Dead Wood! Want shavings?” someone was shouting from the water. Heyna was confused, and it showed. “Need work?” he repeated. “Got a job?”
“No, thanks! I got work.” Saving my people.
“Don’t see no shavings? Just sitting? That look like work, don’t think so?”
“Okay, what work?”
“Muck out lodges. Good pay.” Heyna laughed imagining what cleaning an Erda lodge would be like compared to a Quetz arbor.
“No thanks. Been there, done that, in Paititi. Didn’t come all this way for that. But thanks for asking.”
“Okay, Kit. Your loss,” he said and swam away.
Heyna was still tired and sore from her ordeal yesterday, but she decided it was time to get going. She looked with trepidation at the water and sighed. She opened her guidebook map, then stowed it in her carryall. She looked around to get her bearings, and dove into the flood.
She swam slowly, as other people darted about her. Underwater was easier than over, so she began taking deep breaths an holding as long as she could. Her glasses were a drag, so she stowed them during one of her frequent breaks. No one seemed interested enough in her to do more than stare. She kept her distance from the natives, remembering her experience with the kits the day before. Were they all thieves?
When she got to the City Hall, which was an ancient stone structure that looked to be of Gryphish construction, it was the same round of petty bribery to get inside and get an interview with a very minor government functionary.
“I beg your pardon?”
“Rescue, yes? That’s what I said.” Heyna did her best to hide her exasperation, but she knew that it was coming out in her scent. “Who can I speak to? I’m sure that the leadership would not want this insult to go unanswered. If the Ryujin can do it to us, they can do it to you.”
“Um… Yes. Well. I’m not sure…”
“Well let me speak to someone who is sure.” Heyna put a steel fiver on the desk. Administrator, what was his name, looked pleased.
“Of course, Miss. I’ll be right back.”
The next person was Administrator, something or other. She didn’t care to remember. He was more definite that speaking to the mayor or the city council was out of the question. That is until Heyna plunked down three steel fivers. The administrator smiled and took Heyna to a large waiting room. It was here that she found that she had been overpaying.
The room was full of people waiting their turn to see the mayor. A secretary sat at a large desk before a large ornate wooden door set into the massive stone walls. As each name was called, the person advanced and dropped two coppers on the desk. Not all the people appeared to be citizens. Heyna determined to be less generous in future. Beoford was proving to be a massive drain on her funds.
Her fellow supplicants were a closed mouth bunch, but Heyna gleaned from whispered conversations that people had financial grievances or business opportunities to discuss with the mayor. Everything in Beoford seemed to be about the coppers. After hours of waiting, the secretary spoke up.
“Business hours are over. If you wish to hold your place for tomorrow, approach the desk.” The desk was immediately mobbed, and the secretary began exchanging numbered tokens for coppers. Heyna waited until last. She was learning to penetrate the Beoford bureaucracy. She approached the desk and dropped a steel fiver.
“Give me token number one.”
“Of course,” the secretary said, and handed her a wooden chit with a large one carved into it. Heyna hoped that her funds would hold out. But at least she wouldn’t have to wait all day tomorrow. And she didn’t.
*
Mayor Carerra was an odious character. She was small and old and she smelled of perfume. Heyna figured that she had something to hide, or just wanted to mask her reactions to the supplicants. She started to tell her story, but the mayor interrupted her.
“Heyna, of the Paititi Erda. Please forgive me for not meeting you at the ship yesterday. I had a message from Ambassador Alvertos, but by the time it arrived, you were gone. I sent out officers to look for you, but you were in none of the visitor lodges.” Her voice squeaked slightly as she finished each sentence. Heyna couldn’t scent her veracity because the perfume overpowered everything.
“Of course, I understand. Thank you for your consideration. I am here…”
“I know? I know?” The question-tinged accent was confusing in this context. Was the mayor saying that she knew, or that she didn’t know?
“My brother, Jaasi, and my friend, Xico…” she began again.
“I know? I know? Alvertos has explained, yes?”
“Please. What did he say?”
“He says you want help, no? He says you are obstinate. He says you are determined to throw your life away in a doomed rescue venture. He asks me to convince you to stay here with us, yes? He asks me to set you up in a business. He offers a substantial sum, which is a most appetizing inducement.”
“But…”
“I know? I know? You are determined, no? But you must know that what you ask is not possible. It is not our way. We are not warriors, and even if we were, how do you imagine that we would mount an invasion of the Ryujin citadel which lies many fathoms beneath the sea?” Heyna couldn’t speak. The weight of her desperate desires crushed the breath out of her. The room spun and she grabbed the desk lest she fall over. “I know? I know?” the mayor was saying over and over. Heyna’s anger flashed and her hackles went up.
“You don’t know! How could you know? You and your whole greedy, stinking, muddy mess of a city. How could you possibly know what it’s like to watch your city on fire over your head, your home burn, your parents ripped apart by ravening sea snakes! How? How?” Heyna imitated the Beoford accent with a sneer. “Tell me how?” The mayor looked unperturbed even though Heyna had stood up and was leaning over the desk.
“I do know. The ursae tore my brother and son to shreds not twenty leagues from here. Fire ravages our forest camps every summer. Tragedy is a common affliction. Do you think that you are the only one who suffers?”
“I…”
“Alvertos is a dear friend and I have promised to help you in any reasonable way, but Heyna, this quest of yours is insane, no? The world is the world and you are still a sapling, yes? What you want to do requires power that you do not possess, that no Erda in the world possesses, certainly that I do not possess. I speak to you candidly, as I would speak to my own kit. Give up this mad endeavor. Please?”
“I…” was all she could say before she broke down and wept. The mayor looked on, still unperturbed. When she composed herself, she said in a firm voice. “I can’t. I won’t give up. I will find a way if it kills me. Is there any help that you, leader of the Beoford Erda can give me?”
“No.” There was no lilting question in that flat statement. “Here.” She handed Heyna the vial of gernu. “We should not have confiscated this. And here.” She gave Heyna a small purse of coins. “Alvertos wanted you to have this. It’s enough to start a business and settle down in Beoford, if you would be willing to do that?” Heyna shook her head. “No? Well, I wish you luck, Heyna of the Paititi Erda. Here is one more gift, which I offer freely, though I’m sure that it will not profit me in the least.” The mayor handed her an ironwood token. “Show this to anyone who asks for a bribe while you are here. Goodbye.” Heyna took the token and left the office without another word.