Chapter 1: Awakenings
Chapter 2: Errands
Chapter 3: Dry-day
Chapter 4: Far sight
Chapter 5: Others
Chapter 6: The spy
Chapter 7: Honey
Chapter 8: The gift
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1. Awakenings
First, there was nothing, which can never be experienced, and is therefore impossible to describe.
This probably went on for some time, but itâs almost impossible to know for how long.
Then darkness filled the void, growing and spreading like an inky black canvas onto which anything can be painted, absolutely anything at all.
Meanwhile a sound grew gradually more distinct, the pitter-patter of light rain falling onto a tin roof.
Foon slowly began to awaken. During this long and gradual process, his subconscious cherished both the darkness and the sound, and the accompanying lack of concern, or sense of purpose. He lay there inanimate and unaware for an indeterminable period, his psyche wallowing in the reassuring warmth of oblivion. He existed only as an ethereal, fully immaterial being, one which could only possibly reside in such a dark void, shielded from possible intrusion by firmly closed eyes, and a blissful lack of physical or spatial awareness.
Eventually, consciousness did arrive, returning from wherever it goes to when unneeded, and gently but persistently knocked on the door of awareness. After being ignored for a while, it became impatient, and so began to trickle and then flow under that same door. His mind was now like a metaphysical pot, one that was gradually being filled with the unwanted stew of sentience. This threatened to eventually expose all the various details of his physical reality, which could come flooding back uncontrollably at any time.
This seemingly inevitable flood of realisation, although darkly anticipated somewhere down in the recesses of his subconcious, did not arrive. However, in its place, a cloud of confusion and uncertainty formed and spread, lacking any tangible shapes which could be discerned or otherwise focused upon. Curiosity inevitably and invasively took shape however, and questions began to form which naggingly needed answers. He slowly opened his eyes, willingly exposing himself to cold reality, and whatever dreaded baggage that may bring.
Awake, and with eyes now half-open, the ceiling swam into focus. After laying there and looking up at it for a while, he turned onto his side and supported his upper torso with one arm. He blearily took in his surroundings. They seemed familiar at least.
He was lying on a simple cot with a rudimentary, but acceptably comfortable pillow, and he was partly covered by a thin woollen blanket. The bed was placed up against a wooden wall inside a very modest square room, exclusively constructed using very tightly-fitting sturdy wooden planks. Although it all looked quite well built, it was very sparsely furnished, and starkly utilitarian. The roof was made of plain, lightly coated thin sheets of metal, and the interior ceiling this provided was completely unadorned. Against the opposite wall, stood a small wooden table with various knick-knacks carelessly scattered upon it, and beside the table, on the floor, leaned a simple backpack, made of sturdy canvas and secured by buckled straps. Nearby, on a hook on the same wall, hung a slightly worn green raincoat, quite long and with a more than adequate hood attached.
He sat up in his cot and planted his feet on the floor, and stared at the slightly dusty wooden boards for a while, dreamily examining the grain of the wood, and its various knots and features. Next to the bed stood a simple pair of well-made boots, which also looked well-used, but comfortable. He now fixed his stare on them instead. He was perhaps waiting for some, or any, form of enlightenment, but it was not forthcoming. A dense fog of confusion filled his mind, and did not allow for moments of clarity, it seemed. He combed the fingers of one hand through tousled brown hair, and decided that affirmative action was the only way forward, and perhaps the only way to reliably provide answers to all the growing uncertainties.
He was already dressed, so he carefully pulled on his boots, which were damp and lightly caked with mud on the outside, but quite warm and dry on the inside. The interior of the hut was also quite warm, although there was no apparent source of heat anywhere to be seen. He stood up too quickly, and immediately felt dizzy, so quickly sat down again. After allowing his head to clear, and the feeling to pass, he stood up again, more carefully this time, and approached the small wooden table which stood against the opposite wall. On it lay an eclectic selection of items; a short knife with a long round wooden handle, a loosely coiled length of wire, a sheet of paper folded several times, a small handful of perfectly spherical shiny metal balls which seemed to be attracted to one another, a few large red pine cones, a flat wooden amulet shaped like a bee, a slightly stained tall narrow cup half-filled with clear water, and a pair of broken spectacles.
He picked up the cup and sniffed the water, then took a small sip. It tasted fresh enough, so he swallowed some more, slaking a thirst he didnât realise he had. He picked up and unfolded the paper, which revealed randomly arranged inked symbols and scribbled texts, but he understood none of it, and after a short while, folded it again and put it back down on the table.
He went over to the hook on the wall, lifted off the long raincoat, and began to put it on. It fitted perfectly, and felt comfortable and familiar. He looked down at the backpack, and gathered it up and opened it, by unbuckling the straps on the front. It was completely empty, but quite spacious inside, and it looked useful. He buckled it again, and put it on over his raincoat, and it also felt instantly familiar to wear, the supporting straps perfectly adjusted to fit his frame. Turning to leave, he walked the short distance to the door and opened it, stepping outside. Feeling the raindrops on his face, he raised his hood, and the sound of the rain immediately became more amplified and intimate, as it gently battered off the smooth, waterproof material that covered his head.
The small construction he had just exited was situated on a gentle, elevated slope, which gave a good overview of the situation further below. There was a small outhouse located nearby, which was also quite well constructed, and presumably built by the same builder. A rain barrel stood next to the hut, which was gently overflowing. Leading further up the slope was a narrow rocky path, which led to some unknown destination that currently lay out of sight over the brow of the hill.
He looked down and saw a small town (or large village) in the overcast grey light, which was mostly a very loose scattering of buildings that surrounded a much more dense central area. Many of the buildings were of very odd design, and completely non-uniform, and were somehow confusing to look at, especially all at once. The village itself was located on a vast, flat, kidney shaped, unnatural looking flat plain, which protruded from, and closely hugged, the steep side of a tall mountain, which loomed overhead directly to the north. In the distance in the other direction, lay the outer edge of the plain, which suddenly dropped into a steep slope, and was therefore carefully lined by a sturdy, tightly-boarded red wooden fence, presumably to prevent anyone from accidentally falling to their doom. Much further below that unfolded a vast, dense forest comprising of various types of huge trees, which spread out seemingly without end into the mist.
There didnât seem to be anybody around, at least not nearby, and apart from an almost imperceptable rhythmic low hum, which was coming from some unknown direction off in the distance (and the sound of the rain on his hood of course), things seemed quiet and peaceful. He suddenly felt his stomach rumble, which gave him an immediate sense of purpose, so he looked instinctively down towards a nearby long, low building at the bottom of the slope where the town began. It had bulging walls, a rounded off thatched roof, and many circular windows along its length. Deciding that this was the most likely place to find answers, or sustenance, he began to traipse down a well-trodden path which led towards this destination, thus embarking on a short and uneventful journey.
Upon arriving, he approached the unlikely carbuncle of a building, and opened the flush bowed oval door using its ring shaped handle, and stepped inside.
In here it was also warm, and once again without an obvious heat-source, and a very long dense sturdy wooden table with matching equally solid chairs stretched out along the centre of the room on a reddish stone floor. Some light shone through the many circular windows, but the environment was otherwise illuminated by several bright orbs which hung suspended from the ceiling, and which provided a warm, steady glow. There were a few wooden counter tops and tall or short cabinets lining the walls, but little adornment or decoration had been indulged in otherwise; the place was more functional than decarative.
At the far end of the elongated room, a slightly plump but well-postured woman with her jet-black hair in a loose bun, busily tended to a large black iron stove with many pots of varying sizes bubbling or simmering upon it. The resulting aromas were irresistible, and he felt the pangs of hunger growing and becoming more urgent. The woman abruptly stopped what she was doing, turned around, placed her hands on her hips, and regarded him with an inquisitive, slightly concerned gaze.
âYouâre here. All the others left a while ago, but then again, they know what times food is served, and they surely all have a very busy day ahead of them, as will you, I suspect. Sit down if youâre hungry.â
Foon nodded, understanding what had been said, but having no words of his own to offer. She nodded once in response, and turned back to the pots. She continued selectively stirring them, suddenly swapping two of them around, and tasting the contents. He walked towards the far end of the table, near to the end wall where the stove was located, and pulled out a chair, then sat down and eagerly awaited whatever was on its way. The woman deftly filled a nearby wooden bowl with carefully selected delicacies from various pots on the stove, and retrieved a metal spoon from the drawer of a large cabinet that stood adjacent. She placed them before him, giving him a curt nod before returning to her work.
Foon dug eagerly into the bowl, but was slowed down considerably by the steaming hot contents. The food was simply wonderful though, a flowering of flavours and tangy tastes, and he eventually ate every morsel. He then leaned back in his chair, now finding relief in the satisfaction that only a full stomach can bring. The woman approached him again, and swiftly retrieved the now empty bowl and accompanying spoon, and dropped them somewhat haphazardly into a large, fat, shiny metal cylinder which was located against the wall behind him, and closed its thick lid. Strange whooshing and gurgling noises started emanating from it shortly after.
He realised that he didnât know her name, although she seemed familiar, but suddenly, on cue, it popped into his mind, and he felt like he had known it all along; âLoraâ. He sat for a while and digested his meal, looking out of a rain spattered round window directly across from him, and wondering what he should do next. He glanced expectantly over to Lora, who seemed to be instantly aware of this unseen attention, because she turned from the stove again, and stood staring at him with hands on hips again, and a slightly furrowed brow.
âGo and visit Arkit, heâs bound to have things for you to do. If you bump into Simon on your travels, give him this.â
She bent down and pulled out a small package from a niche somewhere in the body of the stove, and handed it to him. It was neatly wrapped in shiny brown paper and was quite warm, but gave off no scent to hint at its contents. Foon took the package, placed it into his backpack, and stood up and put it back on again. He wanted to thank Lora for the meal, but was again lost for words. He nodded towards her, to at least show that he had understood her instructions, and turned around and headed towards the exit. On his way there, he heard her say something further.
âDonât open it, just hand it to him. Heâll know what it is.â
Foon turned to show acknowledgement, but she was already busy again with her pots. He left through the door, closing it behind him, and once again heard the pitter-patter of rain against his hood.
He ambled along a more substantial cobbled stone path that led towards the main village. He eventually entered a quite narrow, gently winding, but unruly street of buildings (perhaps houses), which were much more similar to one another than the others he had seen in the distance up on the slope, but still of very unusual design. They looked somewhat like tall, top heavy round wooden barrels, with narrow pill-shaped windows located in a seemingly random arrangement around their walls. The buildings had ribbed, green metal domed roofs, each with a thin central spire, constructed using the same type of metal.
A young man and woman stood outside the entrance of one of the buildings, needing no raincoats, because they stood directly underneath a round green awning that was attached to the front of the building by a single pole, which jutted out directly above the arched entrance. This kept them both perfectly dry, but mysteriously, no water dripped from the edges of the awning, despite the constant rain. They both wore neatly tailored light brown clothes, much finer in appearance than Foonâs own, graments which were obviously created by some artisan of great skill.
They were conversing with one another quite enthusiastically, and taking turns to point at a nearby irregularly shaped garden, which was formed to fit neatly between this, and the neighbouring building. It was populated by various unidentifiable, but seemingly healthy crops. It was completely covered by a perfectly contoured, highly transparent, low bubble, which was made of some unknown material, and upon which the raindrops didnât seem to settle at all. When he got closer to the two, they both stopped talking and looked over at him, carefully watching his approach. They didnât look to be in the mood for small talk (which he seemed to be incapable of anyway), so he walked past them and they quickly resumed their animated dialogue again shortly after.
He walked further down the street, and many strange but similar buildings later, it opened up to reveal a modestly sized, but neatly paved round plaza, circled at the perimeter by alternating thin trees and short wooden benches. At the centre of the plaza, was a very tall, thick, shiny metal pole, which rose vertically out of a very broad, flat, perfectly circular solid stone plinth. This plinth was surrounded by identical embedded dull metallic stones, spaced at even intervals, like the hour indicators on a clock face.
Suddenly, a bright unruly arc of electricity flashed violently and loudly between one of the dark stones and an erratically shifting point on the central mast. Foon froze instantly, fully fixated on the area where it had occurred. He waited for a while in anticipation, staring wide eyed at the stones and the pole, but no further events were forthcoming, for now. He waited for a while longer, and eventually, another arc did materialise, from a different stone this time, but it was much less violent; weaker and more short-lived. For some reason, he found himself to be fascinated by this turn of events, but eventually grudgingly turned away, and continued on his journey across the plaza to see Arkit.
From a wider street at the opposite side of the plaza, a man emerged, wearing a thigh-length dull red raincoat with the hood impractically lowered, green shorts, and carrying several long, thick, and heavy looking beams of dense dark wood on one shoulder, bound together by several sturdy straps. The man strode confidently on thick bare legs, and was seemingly unaffected by the load he bore. He was quite tall, and looked strong and capable, he would have to be to carry all of that wood at once. His skin and short cropped hair were both very dark, but his eyes were a vivid bright green, and he looked directly at Foon before strolling across the plaza towards him, then stopping just before him, before giving a knowing look and a subtle smile. Once again a name flashed in Foonâs mind; âSimonâ.
âHello Foon,â he said, his face forming friendly creases. âYou off to see Arkit?â
Foon nodded, and then remembered the package he carried with him. He removed and opened his backpack, took out the package, and offered it to Simon. It was still warm.
âThank you,â said Simon, taking the mysterious item without question with his free hand, and carefully putting it into a large pocket in the side of his raincoat. âYouâd better hurry on over there, the morning is almost done, and he will surely be even more prickly than usual, if thatâs possible!â
He rolled his eyes, then smiled warmly, and patted Foonâs shoulder with his free hand, then continued on his way, amazingly still showing no signs of fatigue.
Foon closed his backpack and put it back on, before heading towards the exact street where Simon had come from. It was quite straight and neatly paved, but the buildings were now of highly irregular design and not at all consistent with one another. Some of them resembled abstract wooden box shapes, which had been carelessly and randomly stacked to create an unlikely whole. Again, the whole ensemble was just confusing to look at, especially when regarding the entire street all at once.
He intermittently encountered other people on his way, of varying shapes, sizes and raincoats, but again, none of them looked like they wanted to say âhelloâ, and hurried on past without looking up. Continuing further down the street, he eventually arrived at a large, looming, rectangular whitewashed building on his left with green mould spreading intravenously over its walls. It had a smooth black sloping roof, and was flanked by broad, straight, smoothly-paved alleyways which led to wide, accessible portals located on either side of the building. It didnât appear to have any windows at all, and looked all the more intimidating for it.
He headed towards the main entrance, which was centrally located at the front of the austere construction, opened the heavy black door by pulling a cold thick metal handle, and feeling a slight sense of trepidation, stepped inside.
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2. Errands
There are certain extremely rare parts of our universe which simply shouldnât exist, but they do. Places that show you the what, without ever justifying the why, or often even the how. Places where patterns within patterns form and anomalies thrive.
It is as if the Creator has turned a blind eye to such anomalies, allowing the rules to be bent as far as they possibly can be. But those places continue to persevere and poke at reason, going completely unnoticed by most, but sometimes fulfilling a useful purpose for the few that understand how to utilise them.
Out there somewhere, very, very near to one of those places, sits a short, heavyset man with straggly unkempt hair that exists mostly on the circumference of his scalp. He dons a bushy black moustache, which is largely untended, and thick framed spectacles rest on the bridge of his nose which he frequently has to push back up into place.
He knows much of such places, but has no idea why they are allowed to exist either, so he simply doesnât give the matter any more thought, because he also knows that sometimes things are best accepted the way they are. He is also well aware that some of the way-points that he has discovered might cease to exist at any time, and if so, then there really wonât be anyone to complain to about it.
He is currently surveying a very large, broad flat screen, which displays varied and detailed information, information which is constantly scrolled in a steady never-ending stream of characters and symbols. The display is split arbitrarily into many different cleanly divided, if not equal, sections. In one of those sections, instead of the endless symbols, a young man is shown, wearing a backpack and entering a large white building, before closing a heavy door behind him.
The man leans back in his chair, and carefully strokes his moustache with finger and thumb, before hastily pushing his glasses back up again with a forefinger. He then briskly stands up out of his chair, and heads over to a very strange, egg-shaped machine, which has various tubes and coils protruding from its surface, and which would not have obvious purpose to anyone, besides perhaps himself. He starts pushing various buttons and adjusting dials and sliders with purpose and skill, but in seemingly random sequence. After a while he stops, and strokes his chin, then nods once, apparently satisfied. He then heads over towards a steaming pot of coffee which is sitting on a metal plate that is inset into a smooth counter top, and pours a cup. He takes a sip, and a wry smile slowly spreads across his face.
Itâs very good coffee. Some of the finest in the universe.
Foon entered a very bright, spacious area with a smooth green floor and many walls for storage.
It was very, very quiet. He looked up at the arched ceiling. There were retangular panels along it which gave an even white light, everything in the store seemed to be illuminated by it.
The walls had a patchwork look to them. They were divided into larger boxes by thin orange dividers that kept the contents insulated from the neighbouring box. He noticed that most boxes were divided further into even smaller ones with green dividers. A tall, thin man with excellent posture and impeccable white clothing stood in front of a section cupping his chin with one hand.
As the man stood looking at the boxes in front of him, the storage areas on the wall immediately began to rearrange themselves, quickly and efficiently. Every section shuffled into a new position, one at a time, swapping places with a neighbour. At first this was all seemingly very random, but it soon became apparent that there was a clear purpose. The boxes stopped shuffling, and the larger box now directly in front of the man began to shuffle itâs sub-divisions into a particualar configuration instead.
A new configuration was settled upon. The box in front of the man was sub-divided several times. It was into such a sub-division he reached and pulled out a very shiny metal disc about the size of a spread hand. The man placed the disc onto a flat pad on his forearm and strode briskly to a counter area to the left of the store.
Foon had a strange realisation. There are never any empty spaces for the boxes to move into, he thought. So how do they shuffle around like that? He felt his head start to spinâhe really didnât want to think about the boxes on the walls too much, so he stopped doing it.
He approached the spartan, neatly organised counter-top and the man who now stood there watching him. He wore a long-sleeved white jacket with a short banded collar, and it fitted his tall thin frame perfectly.
âThe morning grows late, and now people must wait.â he said in a very clear voice to Foon.
The man stared at him, his expression immutable. His thin angled face was deeply lined around his mouth and eyes. His short silver hair perfectly parted on one side, and not a single hair seemed out of place.
But the most intense thing about this man was undoubtedly his eyes. They shone with an intelligence and awareness that made them both burn like twin blue suns. Those were the kind of eyes that analysed everything they looked at, and recorded whatever needed noted. There was intense thought at work behind those eyes, and it showed.
Behind the man was a smaller version of the box-wall, and some of the boxes were divided so much, that it didnât seem possible to be able to retrieve their contents, at least without special instruments. The man turned to face the wall, and these boxes began to rearrange too, all making room for one another until the configuration was complete. He reached into the shoe-sized box directly in front of him, and one at a time, nimbly pulled out three spring shaped objects and placed them on the pad on his arm. He turned to Foon and held the pad flat in front of him, offering the objects to him.
Foon opened his backpack, and one at a time, took the items from Arkitâs long outstretched arm, and carefully placed them inside. They looked like broad, shiny stubby coils or springs, which against all logic, seemed to spiral up and down in both directions at once without ever intersecting. It twisted his mind just to look at them, so he was relieved when they were all finally packed away out of sight. He looked back up at Arkit, who was still looking directly at him, and whose frozen expression revealed absolutely nothing.
âTake those to Lawrence at the Fabrik. Go directly there, and do not dally.â He continued to gaze at Foon, who began to get the impression that everything had now been said, and suddenly he wasnât sure why he was still standing there.
Foon couldnât look into those twin blue suns for any longer anyway, so he turned to leave, which definitely seemed like the most sensible course of action given the circumstances.
After leaving the store he began to march further down the street, more briskly this time, towards the far end of the town, and the Fabrik.
The afternoon was now in full effect, but the buildings cast scant shadows in the grey-green, wet gloom. He passed by several other people, but was invariably ignored, which was something he was becoming quite used to. The street narrowed and became more crudely paved, and he passed by some unkempt buildings with narrow alleyways between them, and wondered what, or where they led to.
As he marched along, a movement at the edge of his vision caught his notice. He froze in place, and now found himself staring at a strange small creature directly in front of him. It had a flat twitching nose with large eyes and round pink ears. It had long whiskers, and there was a noticeably blue hue to its fine fur. A long, hairless pink tail extruded from its hindquarters. It stopped, looked over, then stood on hind legs, staring straight at him and tilting its head to one side, making strange clicking and chirping noises. Foon smiled, amused by its antics, and after examining it for a while, began to carefully approach. But when he got close, it hissed loudly at him, showing many sharp teeth, before quickly darting back between the buildings again.
Foon stared after it, and began to continue along his way, but suddenly a nearby door burst open and a very angry looking woman marched out, and began to berate him in a language that he didnât understand. She then pointed towards where the creature had disappeared, and vigorously shook her head, then said something else incomprehensible, visibly annoyed. She then stood there, glaring at him for a while, before shaking her head dismissively, turning on her heel, and heading back into the building that she had emerged from, loudly slamming the door behind her.
Feeling even more bewildered than usual by this turn of events, Foon shrugged and continued further along the street for a while, which eventually ended the buildings becoming more sparse, and the far end opened up to reveal a wide area, and some distance ahead a large, circular, green mossy field, with a path that led to a sizeable low circular domed building in the middle of the same field. The reflective metal roof was rotating, the speed occasionally varying at unpredictable intervals. The entire building was wrapped in very thin bands which glowed faintly, and there were several rectangular doors located around its circumference. He realised that this was where the constant hum, which he had otherwise mostly learned to ignore, emanated from, although it was mysteriously not that much louder at this close range.
He approached the building, which must surely be the Fabrik. As he got nearer, a door opened, and a handsome man with walnut-coloured skin and wearing lightly stained dark brown overalls and a tool belt, emerged and beckoned him over. This must be Lawrence, he thought. Foon walked over to where he waited.
âYou look like someone whoâs had quite a busy day already,â he said, and grinned and put his hands in his pockets. âIâm guessing you might have something for me?â
Foon nodded, his go-to response, and took off his backpack and opened it, showing the items inside to Lawrence, who peered in at the contents. His eyes lit up, and he gave a broad toothy grin, and nodded enthusiastically.
âFantastic! Arkit delivers again! I hope he wasnât too difficult to deal with, although Iâm sure he was. If itâs any consolation, heâs like that with everyone, even Lora.â He then chortled at his own statement.
Foon shrugged, but couldnât resist a smile, Lawrence had a certain charm and an obvious happy-go-lucky nature, which was appealing, and quite unusual in the circumstances. Lawrence eagerly retrieved the items from the backpack, and held some of them in the crook of one arm, while stuffing others into large pockets in his tool belt.
âDid he ask you to return to him for more errands?â
Foon started to shake his head, but then became unsure, so he thought about it for a short while, but no, he hadnât been told to do that, so he shook his head decisively.
âNice. Now go and get something to eat at the Longhouse, it will probably be getting dark by the time you get there, and after that get home before somebody else grabs you and forces you to do their bidding!â
Foon smiled and nodded towards Lawrence, before turning to leave.
âWait!â said Lawrence, âI have something you might be interested inâŚâ
He entered one of the doors that led into the Fabrik, and shortly after, returned holding a moderately long, cylindrical, tapered brass object, which he handed to Foon.
âI can see a further purpose for this, but it would be very near-sighted for me to keep it. I like to examine whatâs directly in front of me instead, so you might as well have the thing. Enjoy!â
He saluted in a slightly comical manner, turned around theatrically, and then headed back inside to do whatever he did in such a strange contraption of a building.
Foon turned the object in his hands, examining it. It was certainly very well crafted, but he had no idea what it might be used for, so he placed it carefully into his backpack, buckled up the straps, and got ready to head all the way back to the Longhouse.
He passed by the alleyway where the strange creature had originated from, and glanced over towards it, but there didnât seem to be anything there this time. Continuing along the broad street, he approached Arkitâs warehouse again, but looked straight ahead, quickening his pace. As he passed however, the heavy door opened, and Arkit stood there in the entrance and gestured him over with a long finger.
âTake this to Lora. She might not be there anymore, and if not, place it in the metal cabinet on the wall to the right of her stove, which can be opened by simply pressing against the door. Close the door again afterwards, it will click smoothly into place.â
He handed Foon a round reflective metal sphere with floppy wires protruding from it at evenly spaced intervals. Arkit seemed slightly less hostile this time, but stood and stared intently at Foon anyway while he placed the item within his pack.
âI want you to arrive here much earlier tomorrow, a good day begins with good planning, and you must be available as soon as those plans have been realised.â
Foon nodded, and turned back towards the street, and then continued on his way back to the town centre. He entered the plaza again, but disappointingly there were no electrical events happening this time, so he continued on his way across it and back down barrel street.
He had done a lot of walking, and he was tired by the end of it, but fortunately the rest of the journey was quite uneventful, and nobody else asked him to do anything, which was a relief. It was getting quite dark by the time he arrived at the Longhouse, and he was glad to be mostly finished plodding about for the day. He saw people entering and leaving the stretched, squat building, which meant he would likely not have to it mostly to himself this time. He headed on inside, and upon entering, saw that there were several others sitting in various chairs, eating and talking, with random empty spaces between the erstwhile groups. He looked over to the stove, but Lora was nowhere to be seen, although the pots still simmered gently, steam rising from many of them.
He sat on a chair which was not flanked by other diners (there wouldnât be much to talk about, he knew), and wondered how the service functioned without Lora present. He looked over to the stove again, but this time noticed that there was a young woman there wearing an elegantly tailored beige dress, and a white apron with laced edges. She was busily filling bowls from preselected pots, before placing them evenly on a wooden tray. She glanced around towards the table, then picked up the tray, and walked directly over to Foon, smiling, before placing a full bowl and a spoon in front of him.
She was extremely pretty, he noticed, with large bright brown eyes and elfin features, and had long, dark hair lightly bunched by tight curls. She glanced over at him again, and then went on to service others who were without bowls and spoons. He didnât hear her say anything to anyone during all this, and if someone asked for more, she simply nodded and retrieved it for them from the stove.
Once again, the food was delightful, tasting quite different this time, but at least just as good as earlier. When finished, Foon looked over to the young woman again, admiring her elegant countenance. He now approached the cabinet that Arkit had mentioned, and pressed against the door. It slowly opened, revealing an inside of buffed metal. He took out the strange sphere and placed it within the space and closed the door. The young woman glanced over at him again, then returned her attention to the stove.
Most people were now finished eating and talking, and were leaving, and the place was becoming empty. He wanted to thank the young woman, but knew he couldnât, and she was now busy pulling items from shelves surrounding the stove and placing them on the counter, so he walked down the length of the table and exited the Longhouse again.
It was getting darker, and the rain got heavier, so he headed back up to the hut, and a welcoming bed.
3. Dry-day
A young woman, racing along on foot through a moonlit forest. She frequently and frantically looks over her shoulder, but keeps on running, because she knows that she is being hunted.
Normally, that wouldnât bother her much, but some of them have bows, and thereâs not much she can do against that. She begins to tire, and starts to slow down, wondering how persistent they will be, or if they have finally given up the chase. She stops, and leans against a tree, panting, and tries to catch her breath. She hears a wolf howl somewhere in the forest, but wolves present little danger to her as such. The forest is now mostly silent, the occasional rustle of a small creature disturbing a bush, or the distant hoot of an owl, but otherwise it seems that she might be safe, for now, so she allows herself to relax a little.
Only a year ago, her life was so much happier and more predictable; she worked with good friends, and was happily married to a man who she loved, and who was also a dear friend and confidante. Then they sent him to war, and after a brief period, she learned that he would never return. She was overcome with grief, but being of strong will, eventually managed to continue with her life and her work, always staying focused on the present, and slowly learning to accept her great loss.
But then, before long, she started to lose her temper. Sometimes this was concerning matters that others thought trivial, but when it happened, strange things occurred. At first, this was disturbing for those around her, but tolerable, and those closest to her learned to live with her outbursts. They keep them a secret amongst themelves, and were there to help clear up the mess afterwards. However, things got steadily worse, and she began to leave a trail of destruction and disarray that was hard to ignore, and even her dearest friends began to realise that it was no longer safe to be around her. The people of the town where she lived began to fear her and avoid her, and some began to despise her, and wanted to see her exiled, or even harmed. But they all stayed away, because she had a strange ability, and not of them was brave enough to face it. Life became increasingly difficult for the young woman, and others in her vicinity, and the situation eventually led to the troubles that she now finds herself facing on this night.
After resting for a short while, she continues on through the forest, but marching hurriedly now instead of running. Eventually she approaches a clearing where there is a log cabin, which perhaps offers a place to rest for the night. Bows will be of little use to any in there, even if she is discovered.
She peers in through a grimy window, but it is quite dark inside, and she canât really make anything out. Cautiously approaching the door, she reaches for the handle, but suddenly a large burly man bursts out, violently knocking her over. He circles behind her and begins to very roughly drag her upright, grabbing her under her arms, and then locks them behind her head using his own. Several other men pour out of the cabin, and then advance menacingly towards her, with bitter malice written all over their faces.
Suddenly, a powerful but silent blast, a shock-wave that emanates outwards from the woman herself. It instantly knocks all of the men off their feet, sending some a good distance, and rendering them all limp and unconscious. A nearby wood pile is also completely disrupted by the blast, with logs flying everywhere, many thudding heavily off the wall of the cabin before falling to the ground. She looks down at the sprawled, motionless assailants, a look of anger and disgust on her face, and she knows that she wonât find sanctuary here tonight.
Looking up upon hearing rustling noises, and the breaking of twigs and other disturbances of the forest floor, she realises that she is being covertly surrounded. She looks around in desperation, suddenly very frightened, and at the edge of the clearing, she sees several men emerge from behind various trees, bows readied, preparing to take her down.
Then, suddenly, a tall thin man appears from nowhere, or at least from somewhere where before there was nothing, and quickly manipulates a long, thin rectangular device that he holds in one hand. Everything nearby becomes instantly frozen, including the hunters, who by this time have arrows aimed squarely at their prey, ready to release them. One arrow has already been loosed, and is en-route, but now hangs inexplicably fixed in the air. The man approaches the young woman, who is somehow not affected by the strange deviceâs influence, and sincerely bows his head in greeting. He is wearing very strange attire, and is quite unusual in appearance, but she instinctively feels that she can trust him, after all, he has just saved her life.
He offers his hand, and she takes it, and he quickly leads her back to the exact spot from which he had previously appeared. He slowly lets go of her hand, looks right at her, takes one step forward, and instantly disappears.
The young woman stares wide eyed in surprise, but then notices subtle movement out of the corner of one eye. The bowmen appear to be gradually beginning to become animated again, and she is highly visible and vulnerable where she currently stands. She makes up her mind, and so takes a single step forward, and she instantly disappears too.
The men with bows, now able to move again, loose their arrows, but the young woman is no longer where she first stood, and the arrows embed themselves harmlessly into the outer wall of the cabin. The hunters are left standing next to their respective trees, confused and bewildered, and scanning around for her. After a short while, they begin to argue among themselves, filling the forest with noise. Something growls low nearby.
Foon awoke again.
This followed largely the same pattern as the previous morning, but it went by considerably quicker, and this time there were at least some shapes in the cloud, some meaning in the malaise. The things he had experienced the day before.
He opened his eyes, and once again the tin roof quickly swam into focus. He lay on his back and stared at it for a while, before noticing something that wasnât there. The sound of the rain.
He got out of bed, stretched, and stood up without putting on his boots and went to the door. He opened it and peered outside. The rain had stopped and the sun was shining bright in the clear morning. The sky was a hazy, light green hue, which felt much more cheerful than the gloomy grey of before. He returned to his cot and sat down to put on his boots, growing eager to enjoy some time without wearing a raincoat. He walked over and lifted it off the hook regardless, wanting to be prepared, and rolled it up into a tight bundle. He opened the backpack to place it inside, and noticed that inside lay the long brass tube that Lawrence had given him the day before.
He carefully pulled it out and replaced it with the raincoat, which he stuffed down into the bottom of the pack. He studied the object, carefully this time. He now noticed that inserted at the wider end, there was a clear and shiny flattened dome-shaped thick piece of glass, and flipping the tube around, he saw that the narrow end had a perfect hole in the centre, which also seemed to have a piece of glass inserted, just much smaller and flatter this time.
He slid it vertically into the backpack, where it stood upright, tightly supported by the rolled-up raincoat, and fastened the straps. He stood up and put it on, and started to feel hungry again, his belly rumbling on cue. Looking down at the table, he noticed that the tall cup was half-filled with water once again. Strange, he couldnât remember filling it last night, but there was a water barrel outside the hut, so he must have just been tired and couldnât remember. He drank the water and felt refreshed, it was cold and fresh. He put on his pack, turned towards the open door and left through it, into the bright morning that awaited.
This time he could see much more of his surroundings, and more clearly. What really stood out though, was the vast forest far below the plain, which now seemed to stretch out into infinity in the now clear atmosphere. It was like a rough green blanket of a thousand hues. To be lost in such a forest would be being lost forever. It just went on seemingly forever. He wondered about it for a while, then turned towards the village. There seemed to be many people milling about in the distance this time, and several people were entering and leaving the Longhouse.
He strode down the now less muddy path, and upon reaching the bottom of the slope, walked over to the long bloated building that served fantastic food. As he approached the entrance, the door burst open and three young children, two boys and a girl, bolted out towards him. They were giggling and excited, and quite noisy.
âDry-day! Dry-day!â, one of the boys exclaimed, and the others giggled appreciatively. They barged right past him and shot off in the direction of the village, heading off to something or somewhere even more exciting, if that was possible. Foon realised that this was the first time he had seen any children, but there had to some somewhere, he reasoned. After all, people donât just arrive pre-packaged as adults. He approached the door (which had been left wide open), and stepped inside.
Upon entering, he saw that there was a sparse scattering of people sitting at the table and eating their food. A few of them were chatting on and off between mouthfuls, but most were industriously emptying their bowls, seeming eager to finish. Lora was at the far end of the hall, tending to the stove, and the attractive young woman from yesterday evening was standing next to her, listening intently to whatever Lora was saying, and occasionally nodding in understanding. Foon sat at a chair close to the stove, perhaps the same place he had sat yesterday morning, but he wasnât quite sure.
Lora suddenly glanced behind her, noticing Foon, and gently nudged the young woman, who immediately turned and looked instinctively straight at him. She then turned and filled a bowl, grabbed a spoon, and placed them before him, once again offering a smile, before returning to Lora, and giving her full attention again. Foon sampled the hot food, and again it tasted almost completely different than before, but was simply divine, and he carefully ate all of it. The Longhouse was by far his favourite place to be, and the meals really sealed the deal.
Most of the other people had finished eating, and had left or were leaving, so the young woman broke away from her tutelage, took her tray, and filled it with the various empty bowls and spoons from the long table, including Foonâs. She stacked them all efficiently and neatly on the tray, before heading over to the large metal tube, swiftly placing them all inside, tray and all, and then closing the lid. Once again, shortly after, gurgling and whooshing sounds rose from the tube. She then leaned over a bucket, which stood next to it, and pulled out a heavy damp cloth. She returned to the table and began to wipe it down thoroughly, before returning to the tube and throwing in the cloth, and emptying the bucket into it on top of everything else. It suddenly stopped gurgling as she opened the lid, and resumed shortly after she closed it again. She then went back to Lora, and bowed respectfully before her.
âThank you, Kiraâ, said Lora, and gently patted her back before returning to her stove.
Foon watched Kira as she gracefully strode to the exit and left the Longhouse, but not before turning around to give him a flash of her eyes, and a quick smile once again. He returned the smile, it was hard not to. Lora stopped what she was doing and turned around to look at him with her usual concerned, and slightly puzzled expression.
âYou donât seem to like getting up very early,â she said, which made him blush slightly, although there didnât seem to be any real malice intended by the statement.
âTodayâs a dry-day,â she went on to say, âwhich of course means that you can do whatever you wish and without obligation, although make the most of it, because nobody knows when the next will arrive.â
Foon nodded and smiled, feeling elated at hearing this, maybe he could try to find out what the long brass tube in his backpack was for?
She continued to observe him, while he stood up and put on his backpack. He looked back towards her, wishing he could show appreciation for the exquisite meals which she had prepared. He looked towards the pots on the stove, and for once, a noise escaped him.
âUgh.â
Loraâs eyes suddenly shone brightly, and a very brief, tight smile appeared on her face, before she almost instantly resumed her usual expression. It was now quite difficult to tell if her expression had actually changed at all. Maybe he had just imagined it. She returned to her precious stove.
Feeling like the master of his own destiny, Foon headed towards the street with the barrel-shaped houses, which now looked much more appealing in the sunshine. Perhaps the buildings werenât so strange or ugly after all, he decided. There were several people walking up and down the street now, sans raincoats, and sometimes stopping to chat with various others who leaned against walls near entrances to buildings. They occasionally laughed at some joke that was shared, and looked significantly happier than those he had encountered the day before. Many of the people he encountered actually looked his way this time, and sometimes even gave him a quick nod, or even a smile. He always smiled and nodded back, and began to feel a warm kinship with them, no matter how briefly realised their attentions were.
Before reaching the end of the street, he noticed to his left that there was a broader alleyway running between the buildings, which looked like it wound much further along to the south, passing by the surrounding buildings and leading somewhere new.
Feeling like an intrepid explorer, he began to walk down it, as it snaked between the various buildings to its final unknown destination. Up ahead, he saw a small gathering of young people, standing chatting loudly, and occasionally bursting into fits of laughter. As he got closer, those already facing him nudged those with backs turned, who then turned around to look at him, all with sly grins on their faces, as they watched him approach.
âLook here, itâs Foooooonâ, a tall slim teenage girl with slightly acidic features mocked, which prompted the others to burst into laughter again. âCome closer Foon, letâs have a chat, oh wait, you usually donât have very much interesting to say, do you?â
This resulted in a ripple of snickers, and Foon felt his face go red. He tried to walk on past them, but a burly young man with a huge grin that revealed a broken tooth stepped in front of him, planted his feet squarely, and folded his arms. He then poked Foon in the chest, quite painfully.
âWhere are you off to Foon?â he demanded. âWhat are you going to do with a dry-day? Chase butterflies and fall off the edge?â
This caused the others to erupt into laughter again, and Foon fervently wished he was somewhere else. He looked the young man directly in the eye though, feeling rather upset and wanting him to move out of the way. There was a short standoff, with a soundtrack of snickers in the background, but then, for some unknown reason, the grin slowly started to fade from his tormentorâs face, and he slowly uncrossed his arms, and slid his hands in his pockets, still staring at Foon. He casually stepped aside, before turning his gaze thoughtfully downwards as if he was suddenly ashamed of his own behaviour.
This seemed to confuse the others somewhat, and they regarded the now uncharacteristically silent, would be antagonist with quizzical looks.
âGet out of here Foon,â snapped the now rather ugly looking girl, and she looked away from him, and resumed some previously ongoing conversation with the others that had perhaps been interrupted by the opportunistic festivities. They all looked away from him, seemingly pretending that he was no longer there.
He started on past them, feeling darkly deflated compared to his earlier sense of elation and belonging, and he wondered why anyone would think such things were amusing. The only other people who had been harsh with him were Arkit, who seemed more grumpy and impatient than truly mean-spirited, and the woman who had stormed out of the building to confront him, following the incident with the small odd furry creature, but even she seemed to be acting with some sense of purpose, although he had no idea what that might be.
He continued along the long alleyway, which was lit up by the sunshine, now feeling his mood start to lift a little again. There was an old woman sweeping up outside the entrance to a building in the sunlight, and as he got close, she stopped and looked up at him, regarding him with eyes that smiled and twinkled.
âYou should go and see the Elderâ, she shared mysteriously, and then waited patiently like she was expecting relevant inquiry, which obviously never came.
âDo you know where he lives?â she asked after a short while, perhaps realising he had no words to form a question with. This prompted Foon to shake his head, he couldnât remember hearing anything about an Elder.
âItâs a little further down this alley, a roundish hut with a low-pointed thatched roof, and made of many different types of wood, there is always smoke rising from the chimney.â
Foon smiled, and nodded appreciatively, and she smiled in return and went back to her chores, dry-day or not. He continued down the alleyway, which now seemed to be gradually turning into a street, widening somewhat and becoming straighter. Up ahead, rising above the low buildings in the vicinity, he saw curls of smoke, emanating from some unseen source. He wondered why anyone would need to light a fire when the buildings were all so nice and warm inside, at least the ones he had gone into.
As he got closer, a generous space between two similar boxy buildings revealed the aforementioned hut, sitting on a lawn of lush brown grass. The hut was constructed of vertical planks which seemed to be comprised of every single type, colour and shade of wood imaginable. It looked randomly assembled, but quite craftily built nonetheless.
It had no door, just a squat, arched entrance which was decorated by various strange symbols that had been carved into the surrounding wooden frame. He approached, and although feeling rather invasive, slowly stuck his head inside.
1 Like
4. Far sight
A small cheerful fire danced at the centre of the small room. A very old and thin, but otherwise quite sprightly looking man sat cross-legged on a large, colourful, comfortable cushion that had pleasing designs embroidered into it.
The man had a wispy white beard which grew straight down to his clavicle and then nested there. He had medium-length wispy white hair which framed a shiny bald head. There was a small fire in the centre of the room fuelled by wooden logs, with a round black metal wire stand over it, upon which a lidded pot with a curved spout rested. While the fire produced a light smoke which spread as it hit the underside of the pot, this didnât fill the room at all, and instead quickly flowed back in unison again above it, and made an educated beeline for a cylindrical wooden chimney that dropped from the ceiling and flared at the base several feet above the fire. The fire was obviously the main feature in this room, and everything seemed to be arranged around it.
Another low, doorless entrance was located against the wall behind the Elder, and a faint light shone from within. Maybe be his sleeping quarters, thought Foon.
The round room was encircled by form-hugging curved bookcases along its walls, all of them completely filled with various randomly sized and coloured books, some looking very well read. Three other welcoming cushions of a similar size, but differing patterns, were placed around the fire. The old man was reading a thin volume, the contents of which sometimes made him smile, sometimes chortle, and other times frown and bite his lip, his expression morphing quickly from one state to another on a seemingly random basis.
He now sensed something and looked up, and looked quite surprised by the fact that Foon was poking his head through his door. But the expression settled again, and he gestured towards a nearby cushion, offering his impromptu guest a place to sit. Foon came in, ducking through the low door and sat down where instructed. The man closed his book, apparently needing no bookmark, and set it on the floor beside him. He looked over to Foon and gave a toothy grin, which would have been much more impressive, if he had a few more teeth to do the job with.
âAre you the new lad with the honey?â the man asked, an expectant look on his face. Foon shook his head. The man looked disappointed.
âThere hasnât been any for forever now, and itâs just not acceptable. The last boy that was sent annoyed the beekeeper somehow, by picking a flower on the meadow I heard, and came back empty-handed. That all feels like a very, very long time ago,â he sighed, âJust how are we supposed to manage?â
Foon sat and looked at him, wondering what was so special about honey.
âYou canât speak,â he declared, nodding knowingly at Foon, and visibly agreeing with his own statement. âYou arenât the first, and you certainly wonât be the last, not round these parts. This place is becoming more unpredictable by the day, and thatâs the only predictable thing about it. Would you like a cup of tea?â
Foon wasnât sure that he knew exactly what tea was, but he nodded politely, deciding to find out. The man reached behind him and somehow conjured up two bowl-shaped large white cups with inadequately small and thick circular round handles, and began to fill them with the contents of the strange pot from the fire. He poured the tea into each cup very theatrically, holding the pot close, but then lifting it absurdly high above each cup while pouring, then slowly lowering the spout closer while they filled, before dramatically lifting it high again and righting the pot, expertly stopping the flow, an obviously well-rehearsed performance reaching its conclusion. After placing the pot back on the stand, he offered a steaming cup to Foon, who took it, and instantly encountered the fragrant aroma of the contents upon bringing it closer. It did smell very interesting, like a meadow of sweet flowers on a summerâs day, so he tried a tentative sip. The hot liquid tasted fragrant and fresh, and quickly made him feel quite warm inside. Yes, he could already see the point of tea, so he looked up at the Elder with a smile.
âMy tea will cure anyone of anything! Well⌠as long as itâs not anything serious, of course⌠People came from far and wide to sample it, but I very quickly got sick of the sight of them, so I simply shared the recipe with Lora, who now makes a pot almost as good as my own, which is not easy, let me tell you. But she is very a talented alchemist, one only has to taste her food to discover that.â
âYou donât have any honey with you at all? Goes very nice with tea⌠the two really compliment one anotherâŚâ he stared expectantly at Foon and waited. Foon shook his head, not having come across any honey at all in his travels. All he had seen that was related was an amulet shaped like a bee on his table at home, and what the Elder himself had just told him about the beekeeper, a subject he now continued further with.
âThe beekeeper on the hill is far too mean with it, surely more is being produced than that! I know we donât get many dry-days around here, but when we do, the bees are very busy indeed, everyone knows that. I really donât know what she does with it all. A tiny amount every now and then isnât enough to keep a man going!â
This was obviously something which frustrated the Elder, his countenance becoming tense and his face slightly red, but he then visibly relaxed a little, and said âIf you ever come across any, then just bring it right here, and I will of course compensate you. I have lot of interesting things here in my possession, you know..â
Foon felt something battle the constant confusion that lingered in the background of his mind. A sweeping wave of realisation now told him that the path that led up to his hut from the village, and continued further up and round the mountain slope, must lead to the beekeeper and her farm. There was a large meadow up there. Maybe he had just forgotten certain things and needed to be reminded? He wasnât going to forget again though, he was going to make a point of that.
The man sipped his tea, and then wiped some away from his beard.
âThere is no single one of anything, I keep trying to tell people, but no one ever listens. Then Propal says to me, âWell, I have one apple in my pocket, and itâs the only apple i have, so how do you explain that?ââ the old man raised his eyebrows and shook his head bemused.
âYes Propal, I tell him, but that is not the only apple on the mountain. The universe really doesnât care about what is in your possession, it doesnât keep track of such things, only what exists within it. There will always be more than one apple, no matter where you find yourself.â
ââBut what if Iâm on some planet where there are no apples at all and I bring one with me?â says Propal, so I tell him straight right there and then: There are still apples on other planets, and therefore more than one apple.â
ââThen what about something a skilled craftsman has produced, something so utterly unique in the universe, that there is only one of that thing. The craftsman dies suddenly upon completion of it and so can never create another. You must agree that breaks your rule.ââ The old man stopped talking there and looked at Foon increduously, shaking his head slowly and smiling.
âInfinity doesnât acknowledge uniqueness Propal, I tell him, it always implies infinite instances of everything. Rarity becomes purely relative.â
ââOh here we go again,â Propal says to me, âYour infinite universe, which you have absolutely no proof for whatsoever!ââ
âHe never listens you know, so I tell him for the umpteenth time: The void is infinite, and so is time. You would tell me that in their infinite vastness they house a relatively tiny, finite universe?â
ââWhy not?â says he, âAfter all a field can have a single tree,ââ
âBut itâs not the only field Propal, I tell him, and therefore certainly not the only tree. Then, of course, he declares all of a sudden that he has to leave, and that Myrna his wife is waiting for him to come back with ingredients for a cake or some other made-up nonsense like that. It was obvious to me at that point that he had run out of argument.â
He looked at Foon, eyes sparkling. This had obviously been a deciding point in the debate with Propal, and the old man seemed satisfied to end his telling of it on that triumphant note.
Foon didnât know what to make of the tale. An infinite universe? He couldnât really picture it at all, and it made him feel very confused to try to do so. But why argue over something like that? Foon felt like it might be a waste of time to ponder such things. After all, what use was it to know either way? What did it change about anything?
Then Foon had an idea, and stood and took off his backpack, opening it and pulling out the long brass tube from inside. He offered it to the Elder. The old man took it carefully from him with an admiring look on his face, and whistled low, which didnât really work very well through his many absent teeth.
âThis is a very nice object indeed,â the man said, examining it carefully. âIt looks like the kind of fine item that Lawrence would collect, he has a fondness for well-made tools like this.â
He held the narrow end up to his eye, and pointed it towards the small round window beside the door. He stayed that way for a short while, then lowered it again and examined it a bit more.
âItâs a scope. In this case, a far-scope, and an exquisitely constructed one at that. I think this would enable one to see very far indeed, and on such a clear day as this, that would be incredibly useful, donât you think?â
He removed it from his eye and carefully handed it back over to Foon, who then also looked through the small end at the window, and was surprised to see a little light shining through, but showing an extremely blurred image, possibly of his surroundings instead of through the window? He should try looking through it at the endless forest like the old man suggested, to see if that gave better results. He carefully packed it away again.
Then, they both sat in silence for a while, and Foon drank the rest of his tea, which had now grown lukewarm, but still tasted very nice. The Elder stared thoughtfully at the fire, seemingly hypnotized by the dancing flames. Foon already liked the strange old man, even though it was slightly hard to follow what he was talking about. They sat there for a long time and Foon felt like he might be falling asleep next to the warmth of the fire. After another long while, the Elder finally broke the silence, but now his voice was low and quiet, and he continued to stare at the fire while talking.
âPeople say that there is a man under the mountain,â he said, âand that he can answer literally any question that one would think to ask. But itâs nigh-on impossible to reach him, and he never comes above ground for any reason.â
Foon looked over to him, very interested in this story. He waited patiently to see if the old man would continue, and after a while, he did.
âThereâs absolutely no way to enter the mountain though. Just no way there at all, and if there was, Iâm sure it would have been discovered long ago. So of course, there is no such man, and this is just another mountain, but people do love their stories, and so the tale perseveres.â
âThey also say that everybody here comes from somewhere else,â he remarked, still staring at the fire. âBut how would you even get to here from somewhere else? Through the endless forest? Hah, impossible. There are many things in there that surely donât welcome visitors gladly, and anyway, someone would become lost in absolutely no time at all. How would you even be able to see where the mountain was through all of those thick trees? Youâd never leave the forest again, I guarantee it.â
âYou are missing a dry-day, young man!â, he suddenly exclaimed. âIâm not, I donât get out much these days, and anyway, the rain never bothers me at all. Iâm too old to work, so just like a butterfly or a bee, every day is a dry-day for me.â
The old man creakily rose up from his cross-legged position and went over to a bookshelf against the wall. Pulling out a thin green volume, he returned to Foon with it and offered it to him. Foon took it and opened the book somewhere near the middle.
On the left-hand page was a hand-drawn flower, with petals that spiralled inwards, becoming ever smaller as they did so, and at the centre of the flower the now tiny petals were almost indstinct. There was something written to the right of the flower, several paragraphs of text that Foon couldnât read. On the facing page, was a bee, drawn by the same hand. Every part of the insect had been detailed with meticulous care, and there were what were presumably descriptions written close to the different body parts. Foon stared down at it, trying to absorb every detail.
âYou are very welcome to borrow this book today, but please bring it back next time you visitâ, said the old man. âI do read that one a lot, because it is a very useful book indeed.â
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He eventually reached the fence, it was very sturdy, and looked like it could take a lot of punishment. Thick posts supported it at evenly spaced intervals, and were firmly embedded into the rocky ground. It rose up to just below his chest, and looking over it, he saw the endless forest, stretching impossibly out, and covering all of the land which wasnât the mountain itself. He took off his pack and removed the scope, feeling its heft, before moving closer to the fence and holding it to his right eye.
Foon was instantly amazed. The trees below were now so close he could almost count the branches, but there was some kind of strange double vision thing happening, he could see both big and small at the same time, and his brain didnât like it. So he closed his left eye tight, and looked through the scope with his right again. That was better! Now he could focus effortlessly on the trees, and he slowly swept the scope upwards and looked far off into the distance with it. The forest never seemed to end, and there was nothing but trees to be seen anywhere below. No wonder it was called the endless forest, he thought. Foon removed the scope from his eye, looking at it and smiling. What a fantastic thing to own, he would have to repay Lawrence somehow.
He took one more peek through, and this time swept it over to the far right and downwards, where he was surprised by spotting a long, winding set of irregular stone steps that snaked down the side of the mountain. Wow! Was it possible to go down them and somehow reach the endless forest? He had to lean slightly out over the top of the fence to achieve this view though, and he began to feel the effects of vertigo hit him, so quickly straightened himself back up, and decided not to do that again.
He walked further along the fence to the west and closer to the steps he had spotted. There was a huge woodpile here, comprised of long heavy thick logs, which were covered by a bubble which was similar to the one he saw covering the small garden yesterday. He approached it and reached out his hand to touch it, but his fingers just passed right through. He advanced a step, his body easily entering the huge bubble, and he reached out and touched a log which lay on the stack beneath it. It felt completely normal and the wood was bone dry, which was strange, given the rain had only stopped recently. Then it dawned on him, the bubbles were somehow keeping things dry!
Revelling in this, he proceeded further along the fence, still looking out for access to the stone path, but he couldnât find any. The Fabrik appeared off to his right, the roof still rotating, and the whole thing merrily humming away. He continued walking along the fence for a while, and it started curving round to the right, following the shape of the plain. It went on a considerable stretch further, before bending fully round to the north, and eventually arriving at the point where fence and mountainside met. He look out to the west, and something caught his eye. It looked like another mountain, off in the distance, shimmering and shifting somehow. He squinted at it and it swam around, refusing to be focused on properly. He remembered the scope, and took it out again and lifted it to his eye, and looked in the direction of the mirage.
It was another mountain! Not only that, but it also had a vast plain jutting out of it almost halfway up, and he could see the small inky dots of scattered buildings upon it, including what looked like a Longhouse at one end, and a Fabrik at the other. What was going on? Did they actually have remote neighbours out in the distance across the forest to the west? He needed to ask someone about this, but how? He looked out again, and saw that at the blunt peak of that mountain, was a large dome-shaped translucent object, with a short pointed mast extending up from the centre. Strange.
He scanned the side of the mountain down to the plain and spotted a place there, where the plain and mountain side joined. There was a barely visible, dark oblong that looked like some kind of entrance into the side of the mountain. That mountain also looked very similar to this one, and the buildings were at least very similar, perhaps they were somehow the same? No, thatâs not possible, why was he thinking like that? At least he was actually thinking, he supposed, but it all felt a bit unusual. Maybe there was also such an entrance here, on this mountain? It was worth taking a look, at least.
Maybe.. maybe.. maybe it would lead deep below to the man under the mountain, who the Elder had told him about? The man who had all the answers?
He started to chuckle again, his newfound talent. What if he did somehow find, and meet, the man under the mountain? What would he ask the man who knows the answers to all questions? Maybe he could just say âughâ, and hope for the best?
Then he began to laugh, and it felt good, it was a long needed release for the confusion, loneliness, and silent isolation he had otherwise felt. âMan under the mountain!â he shook his head and gave an amused snort. Enough scope for one day. He returned it carefully to his pack and decided to follow the mountainside back this time, heading back east along it. He didnât want to admit to himself though, that he was intrigued to find out if there actually was some kind of cave entrance located along it somewhere.
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5. Others
She looks up at the sheer cliff face in anticipation. This is going to be a difficult one, she thinks, but she never was one to shirk a challenge. She dips her hands into a small bag strapped around her waist, and they emerge covered in a white, chalky powder. She gently claps them together a few times to get rid of the excess, and takes a deep breath.
She approaches the rough wall of solid rock, and strategically begins to find handholds, and footholds, and slowly starts to ascend, frequently pausing to assess where the next likely supportive candidates are located slightly further up. She continues this way for what feels like a relatively short amount of time, but then glances down and is surprised at how much progress she has already made.
Others think she is insane for not using ropes and other equipment when attempting such difficult ascents, but for her, itâs the ultimate accolade (and thrill), to achieve victory over nature like this without relying on safety equipment. She has never lost her grip to date, and if she had, well then, that would be that, the end of the game.
She works in the city, doing a job which holds no interest for her, as an assistant to a spoiled, rich nobleman who treats everyone around him like inferior beings, including her. Especially her. She just gets on with things though, patiently waiting for precious time off, and her next big climb. She has no family, and few friends to speak of, and all of her pursuits outside of work are solitary, and thatâs just the way she likes it. Having few attachments, she has considered moving somewhere new, but the formations here are among the best, and not very far from the city, so she weathers her tiresome employer, and simply gets away every chance she can get. All the wrong people rise to the top in this miserable world, she always thought, so she has discovered her own way to rise to the top. Quite literally.
She continues on up the rock-face, stopping for a short while and resting a bit on a stony perch which is deep enough to plant her feet comfortably. She doesnât rest for long, however, and continues up the steep incline, her wiry arms and legs working fluently and in harmony, her fingers and toes confidently and accurately finding new solutions with which to defy gravity. She knows that the summit canât be that far off, and is glad of that, because the inevitable build up of lactic acid is beginning to wear on her.
Directly above her head, is an opening in the rock-face, a miniature cave of sorts, so she grabs its lower ledge with both hands and pulls herself up and plants her toes firmly onto what previously served as handholds. She peers inside, then listens intently, because she imagines that she can hear a buzzing noise, many buzzing noises in fact, but by the time she realises what the source of this might be, it is too late.
A swarm of angry insects race out from within the recess directly towards her head. She tries to wave them off with one hand, but they begin to sting her face, and she cries out in pain, then suddenly loses her grip with her other hand, and topples backwards. She falls down the cliff-side, arms and legs flailing wildly, it looks like the game is finally over.
But as she plummets past the passing rock-face, which was a fast-moving blur, it begins to slow down, as if her descent is somehow being arrested. She then simply stops falling altogether, and hovers there in the air, as if floating on her back in water. She is naturally extremely puzzled by all this, but at the same time wonders if she can somehow make her way back to the rock face, although she has nothing to brace herself against to actually achieve this.
But then she begins to fall again, at an increasing rate. She is once again falling too fast to survive the inevitable impact with the ground below, so she shuts her eyes tight and waits for the life to be slammed out of her. Before that happens though, about twenty feet above the inevitable solid earth, she suddenly vanishes into thin air.
A dog-like creature with no visible ears but many forward-facing eyes, and which witnessed the whole thing from the bushes nearby at ground level, sniffs the air, then runs off in the opposite direction of the cliff, whining loudly.
Foon closely followed the contour of the mountainside, all the way back along the plain, but not a single cave entrance was to be found, anywhere along it.
He could see places in the rocky slope of the mountain that had been used as temporary quarries, and a few layers of stone had been removed, presumably to provide a valuable building material and pave streets.
He felt a bit disappointed, but also annoyed. He could have been using his precious dry-day more wisely, by further exploring the village, or heading further up the slope past his hut, or trying harder to find those stone steps which possibly led down to the endless forest. It hadnât all worked out too badly though, he had met the Elder, which was certainly an experience to remember, and he had successfully used the scope, and even spotted another mountain off in the distance. Now all there was left to do was to get something to eat, and attend the gathering that the Elder spoke of, and perhaps listen to some stories and learn new things.
Foon approached the Longhouse. He was of course, hungry again, so he very much looked forward to finding out what was on the menu today. Upon opening the door and stepping inside however, he was surprised to find the place completely empty. The chairs were neatly arranged. The stove was dormant, and the pots resting upon it all had lids on, and no steam rose from any of them. Lora and Kira were nowhere to be seen. He found the whole thing deeply unsettling. Where was everybody? Then realisation dawned, the gathering! They must all have gone there, but where was it? He felt like he could find his way around the village quite well (although he wasnât entirely sure why, having forgotten most other things), but he simply couldnât think where the gathering might be held.
He left the Longhouse, and looked toward the village. He could just make out Simon emerging from what he now thought of as âbarrel streetâ, again carrying a large load over one shoulder. Simon was walking towards him and the Longhouse, but Foon started off in his direction to close the gap. As the two got closer, Foon could see that Simon was carrying a very large finely netted orange sack over his shoulder, which was stuffed as full as was surely possible, with logs and thick branches. Similar to the last time he saw Simon carrying something which looked extremely heavy, he seemed completely untroubled by it. He stopped and smiled warmly.
âNothing going at the Longhouse today Foon. Thereâll be food at the gathering though, and itâs all stuff that villagers have prepared themselves, sometimes the tastes are fantastic, sometimes.. unusual, but I love it all! Arenât you heading there?â His look indicated that he was waiting for a response.
Foon shrugged his shoulders and raised his palms to indicate that he didnât know where it was. This was a new gesture for him, and when Simon nodded in understanding, he felt like he had really achieved something.
âCome on. Letâs walk together.â
Foon and Simon set off together, now heading towards the fence. They hadnât walked for long before Foon noticed there was a gathering of people ahead in the distance. They were arranged in separate groups, sometimes comprised of many, sometimes only two or three.
He noticed that it was quite hard to copy Simonâs stride. He tried matching speed with him, but his own legs seemed to be doing a fair bit more work than his companionâs. He looked over at Simon, who had an eager smile on his face and his bright green eyes look intently towards their destination. He seemed to be happily anticipating the gathering, perhaps due to the wide selection of foodstuffs as he had previously mentioned.
As they got closer, some people turned to watch them approach, and many gave then a smile, which made Foon feel very welcome. Now he was really looking forward to this as well. He could see there was an area of bare stone in the ground which was otherwise populated by tufts of hardy looking grass. In the centre of this area, was a shallow bowl shaped indentation, perfectly round, and which had a blackened metal grid inlaid into the bottom of it which followed its curved form. A few people were adding what looked like kindling to the pit, dried moss and feathered twigs and branches.
Simon placed his sack on the ground near to the pit, and went off to chat with a few nearby attendees, hugging them individually before enthusiastically telling some story which caused them to laugh. Several people started removing the fuel from the sack and placing it carefully on top of the kindling, they continued to do this until the fire-pit had been constructed.
One of those people was Kira, Foon was pleased to see. After the job was finished, she walked over towards him, and gave him one of her entrancing smiles, her eyes sparkling like stars. She gently placed her hand on his upper arm before turning and walking over to join a group which Lora was a part of. Foon felt like he was under a spell, and a warm rush travelled up his spine. When Lora saw Kira approach, she smiled and briefly put her arm around her and leaned her head towards Kiraâs own.
Then Simon lifted an item that Foon hadnât noticed, one that was hanging from his waist by a thin strap. It was a thin metal tube, and he placed it to his lips and blew gently. A sound reverberated, a low whistle, and upon hearing this, people moved away from the pit in an expanding circle. Where the bare rock became grass, individual round cylinders began to rise from the ground and continued to do so until they reached knee height, now forming short pillars which surrounded the stony area, evenly spaced and collectively forming a circle around it. Each pillar was cushioned by grass which grew on top of it.
Foon stared entranced, what mechanism had enabled this to happen? How was it activated? Was it the whistle that Simon had blown into? He really wished he could just ask, so he decided to do just that. He approached Simon, and standing next to him, pointed to the stone pillars, which were now obviously seating that surrounded where the fire would be.
âAh, the bleachers. You would have to ask Lawrence about that. I believe theyâre somehow powered by the Jellyfish, but Iâm afraid I know very little of such things.â
Jellyfish? What was the Jellyfish? It seemed that every answer spawned several more questions. Foon looked around for Lawrence, he hadnât spotted him yet. Simon seemed to intuitively know who he was searching for.
âYou wonât find Lawrence here this evening Foon,â he explained, âwhen heâs not at the Fabrik, he lies to stay at home with his family. Many people do, you wonât see the whole village here tonight, only the people who want to attend.â
âJe-fis?â Foon managed to enquire.
Simon looked briefly surprised by this, but his face relaxed into a smile and he pointed up toward the peak of the mountain which towered over them. Foon peered up that way, and noticed that just visible, was the very top of a white dome with the very tip a small spire protruding from the centre. It looked just like the one that he had seen over on top of the other mountain! Once again, one answer, many more questions.
âDonât ask me about that either,â Simon laughed, âonce again, Lawrence is your man. Or Arkit I guess, but that might be the more rocky road to understanding in this instance.â
Foon smiled in appreciation and Simon nodded and smiled back, then turned and joined in the conversation with the other people that he seemed to know very well.
Two men passed them carrying a square glossy flat panel. They walked fence-wards for a short distance then turned slightly and faced each other and slowly tugged each end of the panel. It inexplicably expanded, becoming elongated between the men as they reversed away from each other. Once the panel had reached a certain length, just over that of the height of two people, legs automatically dropped from beneath it and they placed it on the flat patch of ground they had chosen.
People started to walk over to what was now a table, and went on to place items upon it which they removed from sacks strapped around their waists. They were obviously items of food, some wrapped in parcels of thin pastry, some in pots like Lora administered, but smaller and lidded, some looking like elongated loaves of bread or cake formed into circular shapes. Some appeared to be vegetables of some description, long and thin, short and squat and everything in between. As the table filled, a large variety of delicacies populated it, all looking very intriguing indeed to Foon.
Nearby, Kira reached into a sack, a white one this time, and removed a stack of bowls and placed them onto the table. She repeated this three times. She then returned to the sack and removed a large bundle of spoons, which was tied together using twine. It looked like the food was almost ready to sample. Foonâs stomach, which always seemed to have fully independent awareness of its surroundings, rumbled in anticipation.
He felt a very slight heat against the side of his face and noticed in the failing light that the environment had become brighter and warmer. Looking over towards the fire-pit, he could see that the fire had now been started, and danced merry and low, tightly embracing the logs which it now fed upon. People now began to approach the strange table, and each took a bowl and a spoon before selecting various items from the table.
Foon waited for a while until there was sufficient room for him there, and then did the same, taking a bowl and spoon and filling the bowl with various items. He had literally no idea what any of them were, so he just chose what looked appealing, and even a few items that looked less appealing but interesting nonetheless.
People were starting to seat themselves on the bleachers, so he walked over and did the same, choosing one that faced the village, and which wasnât occupied with immediate neighbours. It was comfortable, and felt strangely warm underneath his hind-quarters. Lora, who had an empty seat beside her gestured to Kira, who had just turned from the table after filling a bowl for herself. Kira smiled, but pointed to the seat next to Foon, and came over and sat down next to him, looking over to him and smiling as she sat down. Lora nodded and smiled at Kira, and then looked towards Foon.
The smile was no longer on her face, it was replaced by that inquisitive look that seemed particular to him, not necessarily disapproving, but perhaps cautious and thoughtful. It was as if her smile had never been there in the first place, and she had presented her current expression the whole time. She regarded him as if she was trying to maybe work out exactly what he was, and exactly what he was thinking.
Foon looked away, finding the experience slightly uncomfortable, and looked down to his bowl. There was a slightly curled and twisted purple root vegetable in there, so he picked it up and gave it a tentative nibble. It tasted quite sharp, and left a lingering flavour which evolved into something that spread across his entire mouth, awakening every taste bud at once. His eyes opened wide and his mouth pursed, he coughed a single time.
Kira looked towards him and giggled softly, she gently took the root from his hand and dipped it into a thick yellow sauce which was carefully positioned at one side of her own bowl. He hadnât noticed this sauce on the table himself. She then handed back the sauce covered root to Foon and nodded at him with bright eyes. He took another taste, this time taking a bite of both root and sauce at the same time. The experience was completely different, the sharp taste of the root now tempered by the cool creamy sauce, it was like the two were made for each other. Foon nodded and smiled, food was easily his favourite pastime, and sitting with Kira was also quickly becoming a firm favourite.
He went on to sample the rest of the bowl, eating some kind of soft grain with his spoon, it tasted slightly bland, but was by no means unpleasant, and felt quite filling. He also tried a small log shaped morsel which was wrapped in a sand coloured edible covering. It was truly amazing, the taste was savoury and very moreish. He wished it was larger or that he had selected several more of them.
People were emptying bowls all around him, chatting and smiling, everyone seemed happy, as if it wasnât possible to be here at the gathering and feel sad. The fire now burned more brightly, the logs now glowing and becoming dark on their undersides. He looked around at the other faces, and laid eyes upon the tall girl who had mocked him in the alleyway. She glanced up from her bowl towards him, but looked slightly embarrassed and looked away again and concentrated on her food. The large young man with the broken tooth sat beside her, but avoided Foonâs gaze altogether, and looked around as if he wasnât there at all.
Foon tried to lay eyes on others he might know. He scanned the many people around him, but there was no Arkit, no Lawrence of course, he was home with his family, the couple from outside the barrel-house were also nowhere to be seen. The Elder was not there either, but he had mentioned he didnât get out much, so it wasnât surprising. He had no idea what the beekeeper looked like, but strongly suspected she wouldnât be present either. He did spot someone else he recognised though, the old woman who had directed him to the Elder. She was sitting many seats away from him, almost across from him, and she was flanked by two other older ladies. They were engaged in conversation, occasionally laughing heartily and patting one another on the back. She looked over towards Foon, perhaps aware of his gaze, and gave him a broad smile and a cheerful wave. He smiled and waved back, she seemed like a cheerful soul, and if there was any badness in her, she hid it extremely well.
People were now placing their bowls down at their feet, the gourmet experience had reached its conclusion. Simon had been absolutely right, some of it had been absolutely fantastic, and he really wanted to try it again sometime. Some of it had been perfectly acceptable, and he could happily eat it again, also. Some of it had been, well, interesting to say the least, and he really wasnât sure at all, but was glad of the experience nevertheless.
The conversation around him lowered to a murmur. The people stayed relatively silent for a while, most looking around in anticipation. Then Simon broke the silence.
âAll creatures are precious,â he said quietly, âno matter how big or small. Nothing that lives is insignificant. Life is everything, and without it nothing else truly exists.â
Some nodded softly at this, some murmured quiet thoughts of their own. There seemed to be general agreement among the assembly. Foon had a feeling that Simon had voiced this before, and it was common knowledge. People began to fall silent again, and the silence persisted for a time while most stared at the fire.
âTogetherness keeps us all strong,â said Lora, âby helping your neighbours, you help yourself. Weâre a community, and that is much more than individuals, it is something much larger and more precious. If you find yourself in opposition to your neighbour, you are to present yourselves to me at the Longhouse, and together we will solve the dispute. Donât make me hear of it second-hand and have to come looking for you, I donât have time for such things. You can also talk to the Elder, who can also assist in these matters.â
There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd, louder this time, this also seemed to be something that had been voiced before, perhaps many times and was simply not up for dispute. Foon wondered what use the Elder would be in such situations however, but at the same time, he hardly knew him. Maybe he had other talents he wasnât aware of.
The crowd fell silent again. Suddenly, a woman shrieked. She was pointing and looking over towards the table, which a familiar creature had hopped onto. It was the blue animal from the alleyway! It darted along the table and grabbed what looked like the biggest morsel it could find, before dropping down and simply disappearing again. It all happened extremely fast and was incredibly easy to miss.
Simon laughed, pointing to the table, his shoulders bouncing up and down with the merriment. The others didnât look quite so amused, some were shaking their heads, some even had scowls on their faces, many were exclaiming their disapproval to others seated nearby. Foon glanced over at Lora, she looked quite angry, and as if she was struggling to control that anger. Eventually the commotion died down and the gathering fell silent once again.
âIf you stand close to the fence at night, you can hear wild sounds coming from the endless forest,â said a man with a serious face which was lined with care and all the signs of an eventful life. âThere are strange creatures in there which I for one, certainly do not want to encounter.â
A murmur again, some people looked visibly uncomfortable at hearing this, and repositioned themselves in their seats.
âLawrence can fix anything, my wet-cabin wasnât working right and it took him no time at all to sort it out!â a younger attractive woman said, she then blushed and looked towards the ground, some people giggled at this, but others nodded and murmured in agreement.
There was a further period of silence, before an older man stood up, grunting as he did so.
âThis isnât the only place you know!â he exclaimed to the crowd, wide-eyed. âWeâre all trapped here! It might not be the worst place to be, but I know that I knew of other places besides this sometime long ago!â
People didnât respond to this. Many of them stared down at the ground, sometimes glancing up to see if the man had sat down again. He shook his head, then sat back down slowly, once again grunting with effort. Foon remembered what the Elder had said, about everyone here coming from somewhere else, maybe this old man knew something about that too..
A tidy, well groomed looking man began to speak âPerhaps there are other mountains and villages out there somewhere, far out in the forest. We might not be the only ones who have such a place as this to live, maybe thereâs something more besides endless trees?â
Foon stared intently at the man, trying to acutely remember his face for later reference, but he was unfortunately quite ordinary looking. Maybe he knew something about the other mountain Foon had spotted only just today? For some reason Foon then looked over to Lora, who was staring right at him. This wasnât her usual inquisitive expression. Her face was completely devoid of emotion, she simply stared straight at him, and he felt like his mind was somehow being violated.
Lora broke her gaze again and looked over to the man who had spoken âPerhaps you should go and ask the man under the mountain about that? You can both discuss your fantasies over a nice cup of tea?â
A ripple of gentle laughter swept across the crowd, and people started talking among themselves. Simon stood up and said âThank you, everyone. The gathering has concluded. Please help to tidy up before you leave, and we can look forward to the next dry-day when we will all meet again.â
People began to stand up. Some approached the table and gathered what foodstuffs remained upon it. When it was cleared, the same two men lifted the table from either end and the legs folded themselves up and they squeezed it together again into a neat square. When the seats were all clear, Simon blew gently on the whistle again, and the bleachers slowly lowered themselves into the ground, reaching it and merging with the surrounding grass, now looking like they had never been there at all. Kira had seemingly disappeared, as had Lora, and the man who mentioned other mountains was nowhere to be seen.
Foon headed back to the slope and started up the path, heading home with very much to think about. Very much indeed.
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Hereâs a trimmed version. Iâve kept all content and narrative flow, mainly tightening sentences, removing small redundancies, and condensing descriptions without losing their character.
6. The spy
He dreamt of Kira. In his dream they were hurrying together, her pulling on his hand urgently, both glancing behind. It was quite dark, and behind them was an area even blacker than the surrounding darkness, and it appeared to be following them.
They hurried on, and he felt fear build inside him. Then Kira stopped and released his hand. She stood motionless, facing the darkness that was darker than dark, her head bowed slightly. The patch of absolute darkness stopped moving, hanging there behind them like a menacing void of nothingness. It slowly began to grow lighter, now resembling the other darkness around them, a more natural lack of light.
She looked toward him, and he saw a tear running down her cheek. Then she disappeared, leaving him standing alone, wondering if she had been there at all.
The wake-up process this morning was more fluent, closer to normal than ever, if perhaps still not perfect.
He could still only really remember the past two days in detail. He was sure heâd been in the village for quite some time though, and had probably done much the same every day: running errands and doing small jobs that required little more than two legs and a backpack. He didnât lie in bed thinking for long, and busily readied himself. He sensed it was considerably earlier than he had risen the past few days, and didnât want to waste it. Maybe Lora and Arkit would be somehow impressed, he self-indulgently thought.
He realised he couldnât really hear the rain anymore today either, but there was now a different sound: an almost imperceptible gentle popping noise. Before putting his raincoat on, he looked outside. A thick fog or mist lay on every horizontal surface â plain, slope, mountaintop, forest, building roof â although Foon couldnât see all that; all he saw was a gradually opaquing scene that ended as an impenetrable white wall. The mild popping became slightly louder when he opened the door.
He cautiously stepped outside. He was now inside the mist, and the gentle popping occurred randomly all around him, at a similar tempo to raindrops but much less defined. It made rainfall, even a gentle one, sound jarring in comparison. It felt strongly unnatural, and completely normal and natural at the same time. He had never heard these noises before, but felt sure they had been around forever regardless. It was colder than usual, so he rubbed his arms to warm them. Doing this, he felt his sleeves were getting quite damp, almost wet. He backed into the hut, away from the wet, popping mist.
He instantly felt the perfect warmth inside again. âLooks like today is definitely a raincoat day,â he thought. Maybe it was a little early to go out anyway â the sun, although not visible, surely hadnât risen much. He felt it was far too early to head down the slope. He stood in front of the thinly constructed but acceptably wide table. There wasnât that much stuff on it, so plenty of space remained.
He picked up the bee amulet. Someone had carved a flat piece of hardwood into the stylised shape of a bee. The fine details and basic illustration on the upper side were evenly burnt into the surface using thin elegant lines. It had almost every anatomical detail a bee would have, recorded in clean dark lines with nothing unnecessary. It was realised in a very simple and unassuming way. The first time Foon remembered noticing it two days ago, he thought it looked crude and uninteresting. Now he saw something completely different.
Someone had put great care and attention into the amulet, and it was quite beautiful in its own right. You could tell whoever made it had enjoyed making it. He liked the feel of smooth hardwood between his fingers, and traced the detail with his thumb. He slipped it into the side-pocket of his still-hanging raincoat as the first object he carried for no particular reason at all.
He turned to pick up the piece of paper again. The folds were clearly visible and sharply defined. The paper didnât look damaged at all. He unfolded it more slowly and carefully this time, and looked at what was marked upon it. It looked very strange and unidentifiable. There were many small, hastily-drawn but compact illustrations with some form of written language underneath or beside them, all in small, neat, presumably legible handwriting. Some had no accompanying text â perhaps the appraiser was simply expected to know what was represented. Foon didnât recognise any of it; even the explanations were as impenetrable as the illustrations.
Something caught his eye near the top-right: a diagram of a building. To him, it was undoubtedly the Fabrik, realised in exactly enough detail to familiarise one with it. There was writing directly below it. He wondered what it said. He gave up and scanned down to the bottom of the page, and saw something less familiar but familiar nonetheless: the big white dome he had seen on top of the other mountain to the west, which Simon had pointed out to him last night. âThe Jellyfishâ, that was it. Somehow it had made the bleachers rise and fall around the fire pit. Maybe it did even more. This diagram also had writing, on the left-hand side. He really wished he could read what it said.
Then he noticed something that wasnât there: the creases in the paper. The sheet curled gently towards him, but not a single crease was in sight. His mouth hung open and his brow furrowed while he gently began to buckle the paper, ready to create the first fold again. He didnât have to. It was already there, ready to divide cleanly â all the folds were. He stopped moving his fingers and looked at it, head cocked slightly, looking very puzzled. He fully unfolded it again, but the creases were still there. He stared directly at the central point of one crease, not letting it out of his sight, but nothing happened and he became impatient, then distracted. His eye returned to the white dome, and this time he noticed more detail. The dome seemed to have several extremely long thin tails hanging from its underside. It had a thin, short mast rising from the centre to a point, growing organically and fluidly out of the main dome with no visible seam. He wondered what it was.
Then he noticed a full absence again. The creases were completely gone, and the paper was curled towards him again. âIt cheated!â he thought. It waited until you looked at something else, became distracted, then pretended the creases didnât exist. Maybe he would catch it cheating sometime â after all, he knew he was going to look at the paper again. He definitely wasnât going to throw it away; it looked like a valuable source of information, no matter how cryptic. He folded it over, and now the creases were simply there again, as if they had always been. He hadnât noticed that happening either, and was sure he was looking straight at it the whole time. The mysterious page really was a master of misdirection. He folded the remainder neatly and carefully placed it back on the table.
He picked up one of the perfect metal balls. As he did so, the others hung underneath, somehow all attached. He stared curiously â there didnât seem to be anything attaching them. The position of the others changed when he lifted the one he held higher. He pulled on another; it felt firmly connected, but when he pulled harder, it broke free. He now held a single ball in his other hand. He moved it towards the cluster and it snapped into place against the nearest ball. He repeated the action with the same result. He smiled, wondering how this worked. He put the balls back down â another interesting possession to explore further.
Maybe it was time to leave, while he was still early. He pulled his raincoat from its hook, but found underneath it a previously hidden item of clothing: a soft, impossibly finely-woven upper garment. He laid his hand on it; it felt intrinsically warm, like another personâs skin, diffuse and soft and finely fibrous. He carefully removed the garment and held it stretched out in front of him. If this was really his, it was easily the finest piece of clothing in his possession. The neckline arched slightly higher at the rear, making it simple to determine which way round it should be worn.
He started to pull it on over his head. While doing so, it tore cleanly, sharply and silently from the bottom hem straight up to the centre of the neckline. He instinctively raised his arms, and the arms of the garment fell onto his own; they became one. It didnât just fit perfectly â it simply didnât suffer the existence of imperfection by design, and sat naturally on his body like an extra layer of warm, soft skin. It was still evenly split up the front, so Foon worried how to remedy that. He grasped the lower corner of each side and drew them together. Nothing happened until the corners touched. Both sides immediately merged naturally and perfectly, continuing all the way up until the split reached the top, and the garment was fully transformed again, no sign of a join visible, not even a trace. He ran his palm across his chest where the split should be; the transition was perfectly smooth and uninterrupted. If there was a join, it was finer than his fingertips could define. This jersey made him feel like he had strange magical powers â the ability to save people from any danger.
He really, really hoped it was his, and someone hadnât just forgotten it. But how could you forget such a thing? He would keep its existence quiet, but if anyone complained of it being lost, he would return it immediately and explain its origins.
He put his raincoat over the top. His new undergarment accommodated it effortlessly, without resistance. He could still feel himself wearing the raincoat, almost as if there was nothing much underneath except a strange warm glow. âPlease let it be mine,â he thought. He put on his backpack, now without telescope â which lay neatly across the rear end of the table â empty again and ready for new contents.
He headed back into the strange mist, the gentle popping sounds chattering around him once more. He could see far enough ahead to discern the path, so he followed it down the slope towards where the Longhouse lay in wait. As he approached, it slowly became more clearly defined until the whole building was in full view. He walked to the nearest window to check if anyone was inside at this early hour. He peered in and spotted Lora busy at her stove. He walked to the door, but instead of entering, he removed his hand from the handle â a sudden thought entering his mind â and headed around to the rear of the Longhouse.
Here was a small pleasant garden with flowering borders and wide leafy plants surrounding an even, flat trimmed lawn, all framed by mist which slowly grew thicker further away. A table stood at the centre with a solidly attached flat wooden bench running along each side, covered by its own waterproof bubble: a perfectly spherical half-dome. He turned and approached a window near the centre of this side, and surreptitiously began to watch Lora.
She picked up a small wooden cylindrical container, like a diminutive straight-walled cup that could be held between two fingers. She lifted it to her mouth and licked the top, then drew it away, her eyes fixed on it while her mouth moved as she tasted the results. She nodded knowingly and placed it back, but it was suddenly hard for him to see where it had been placed. Foon felt like a talented spy, despite being slightly ashamed. He wouldnât want anyone spying on him like this, so it felt wrong, but it was strangely exciting and hard to stop now that he had started.
He looked over to the entrance, noticing the door moving open slightly out of the corner of his eye, and saw a creature similar to the one from the alley the other day slink through the doorway. Its profile was low, and its long, pointed slender tail was straightened out behind it, following the curvature of its spine. It quickened its pace towards the stove, and as Lora turned, it smoothly transitioned to hind legs and sprang onto the counter beside the stove. In the next fluid movement, it darted towards a specific black, misshapen item of food on a thick wooden board. It seized the item with unexpectedly large jaws â its previously petite mouth now revealing a whole new form and function. Lora reflexively tried to grab it, but it was too swift. It sprang over the stove to the counter on the other side, pivoted perfectly, and sprang onto the long table in one fluid motion. As it landed, she chased it again, so it darted down onto the seat of the nearest chair on the left. The chairâs back was only inches from the table, but it slipped between the gap effortlessly.
Suddenly, that chair fell backwards at a rapid rate and struck the floor audibly. Disarray emerged in sequence along the other chairs on the same side â some jarred squint, others flying backwards and clattering or clunking against the stone floor. âIt must be remarkably strong for its size, with really powerful hind legs,â Foon reasoned. It descended from the last chair straight onto the floor, darted out through the still slightly open door, twisting its body to conform perfectly into the gap, all the while clutching its edible trophy between its teeth. It was now very unlikely to be captured.
Lora stood halfway along the table with arms straight down and fists balled. She did not look happy, and her frown gradually intensified. Then there was a loud but also completely silent noise â an âanti-soundâ that fed on all noise around it â and something invisible emanated from Lora, temporarily visible through disturbing the light layer of dust around her on the floor, decisively blowing it away into a perfect circle. But what happened to the chairs was truly surprising: they all righted themselves and resumed their precise regimental place at the table. This all happened so quickly that it was hard to believe. The entrance to the Longhouse was now also firmly closed.
Foon gawked through the window. Loraâs expression was again her usual; she seemed to have calmed down. However, her head turned precisely towards him. She regarded him with an indecipherable gaze, and he instinctively knew that ducking below the window would be ridiculous and would make him look even worse. He no longer felt like a competent spy. He had been caught.
She beckoned him in with impatient flicks of one wrist and walked briskly back to the stove. He went around to the front, opened the door, and carefully closed it behind him. She turned and gestured him closer. As he approached, she began to speak.
âFoon, if you ever find the Longhouse door ajar, even slightly, close it as quickly as possible. I donât have eyes in the back of my head, and many smaller children can be forgetful â sometimes adults too. Iâm often concentrating and donât notice. Lawrence says he can alter the door to close itself, but that was many dry-days ago, and I refuse to chase him on it. As for that cursed creature, I donât want it anywhere near my stove. It usually avoids people and wonât enter when others are present. But me â it shows no fear.â
Anger flicked across her face but was fleeting. âWhat it stole was quite rare and special, used to flavour many other ingredients simply by stewing alongside them. I could have used it many times. Now the thieving beast will enjoy it in some dark recess instead.â Her face took on frustration, then contemptuous determination, then evaporated. She grabbed two cups and gestured for Foon to sit across from her near the stove.
She filled the cups with tea so similar in fragrance to the Elderâs that it must have been brewed using very similar ingredients. Now that they both had a cup, she sat down, placed her elbow on the table, and supported her chin with a cupped hand. This was the first time Foon had seen Lora so talkative or friendly, although he felt this might be closer to her natural state than his previous encounters. He listened intently, making the most of the situation. He sipped his tea â unmistakably the Elderâs tea.
âSimon wonât allow anyone to harm it, and nobody is reckless enough to find out what happens if they do. I suspect they would no longer have a house to live in, after it had been swiftly deconstructed while they were away.â She stared at him and nodded slowly.
âThat happened once before, merely because someone carelessly swatted a healthy bee, killing it. Simon was standing nearby, staring with a frozen look on his usually friendly face. I know a refugee who saw the whole thing, and they said they felt quickly compelled to move along. A day later, the bee-swatter â who thankfully lived alone â returned to find their home completely gone, the site as if the building had never been there.â
Foon nodded in wonder. It certainly sounded like something Simon was capable of, and he seemed to genuinely love creatures, but he couldnât imagine him disassembling anything in anger. He was really enjoying her tale â unexpected and interesting. It was always good to learn something new, and if it was this easy, maybe he didnât have to be a spy after all. He opened his ears wider and waited for more.
âSo now people donât kill healthy bees, and sometimes elect not to deliver mercy to obviously dying ones either. This rule has never been clarified further, so itâs better not to take chances. Losing a house and having to build a new one without Simonâs help is a huge pain, as the villager eventually found out. They also learned to live for a while without much heat or light, or hot water or a wet-cabin, because Lawrence was suddenly very busy for many weeks.â
âThe person in question spent a lot of time in the Longhouse when not performing tasks, because it was much more welcoming than their crude new home. I allowed this, and tried to make them feel welcome. A bond grew between us in that time, and I know this person very well now. Thoughtlessly swatting a bee in front of Simon is the worst of their history of crimes. They learned and accepted the lesson, and no longer feel treated unfairly. In fact, I think theyâre secretly proud to be at the centre of such a fundamental custom. After a while it made sense to everyone not to harm the bees. They exist in perfect natural harmony with their environment â a harmony always more mysterious than obvious â and it must be respected, never interfered with. The bees are precious because the honey is precious, and the meadow is precious because it needs the bees to exist, and the bees need the meadow just as much.â
âThe beekeeper is precious because she understands all of it perfectly, as if itâs wisdom she was born with. She provides exactly the amount of honey we need, and production is always reliable. The quality is unsurpassable every time. Honey is literally the only thing she provides, but she requires little if anything in return. She grows her own food, crafts her own clothes, even repairs her own roof. I suspect sheâs the most capable person in the village â or nearby I should say â because she never comes down here except perhaps recently, but that was only reported by a single person, and the account may be unreliable.â
She took a sip of tea, then changed the subject. âFoon, have you seen that small beast elsewhere before?â
He felt instantly uncomfortable. Not only had she noticed him at the window, it seemed she knew exactly how long he had been there and what he had seen. His instinct told him not to lie; there was a chance she knew even more. He nodded and pointed towards the village, then drew both flat hands closer together in parallel and slid them back and forth to indicate a narrow alleyway. She nodded in perfect understanding.
âYes, it likes to hide in narrow dark places â preferably between the boxy buildings in the tight gaps. Did you learn anything more from your observation?â
Foon gestured negatively, shrugging with hands upturned, indicating he didnât know much more. Except â most people didnât like it much, and the angry woman in the street probably confronted him because he was entertaining its presence. It was devious, determined, destructive, and very capable â he had seen that last night and this morning. But Simon protected it, probably because he cared for all creatures, like the bees.
It felt like his thoughts had organised themselves outside his mind, then entered respectfully one at a time, forming a sequence that simply made sense. His hands were now back on the table, and his face showed an expression for which there is only one word: wonder.
This must have been apparent to Lora. He felt he had divined all he needed from the solved puzzle, and refocused on her. For the first time since he could clearly remember her, her look softened and appeared genuinely friendly â sharing and welcoming. Her eyes softened, the lower lids creasing to provide an entrancing extra smile below each. Her face became fully irresistible to behold; she was quite exceptionally beautiful, he realised.
The expression outlived its usefulness before long, and she resumed her familiar expression: inquisitive and expectant, but with the possibility it could turn to impatience at any time. As Foon vaguely anticipated, he became quite unsure if she had changed her expression at all â that it wasnât just something he had imagined. There it was again: complete uncertainty surrounding her, defying everything his eyes told him.
âToday youâll do a single errand for me before any other, Foon. Arkit is aware of this and knows better than to argue. Youâre not shirking duties â consider this the most important job today, at least until itâs complete. I want you to go to the beekeeper. Sheâll probably be expecting someone someday soon, so your presence wonât surprise her.â
âSheâll give you a few jars of honey â perhaps two, perhaps three. Bring them straight back to me. If anyone impedes your progress, simply say âLoraâ and look them in the eye. If they still impede you, try to escape as quickly as possible, because they are undoubtedly not from these parts and might be highly dangerous. Try to say âLoraâ right now.â
âLoa,â Foon said.
âThatâs close enough. Donât waste the beekeeperâs time. You can look around the farm if sheâs not in sight, but if she approaches you or offers you something, act quickly and donât keep her waiting â especially with unnecessary pleasantries or any form of personal pageantry.â
âAngee?â He managed again to connect his mind to his mouth and distil a thought into a single word. He felt briefly surprised, but his determination was being validated, making him feel resolute but reserved. He would find the words; he was getting better. Lora showed little recognition of his effort.
âNo, that wonât make her angry â sheâll simply walk off as if you were never there,â Lora stated matter-of-factly. âBut she might still be holding the honey as she leaves, and youâll find that very awkward â a huge unsolvable conundrum. She doesnât like to be interrupted when moving with purpose. The only person known to have tried woke up on the ground afterwards, alone, and although they couldnât remember how they got there, they knew exactly who had put them there. We had to do without honey for a while, but I suppose something was learned. Anyone trying to retrieve honey a second time after failing the first is hardly going to take it from her after she walks off with it.â
âYouâre simply there to collect the honey, Foon â the most important part of the job, its sole focus aside from returning here afterwards. Also, donât think youâll get to know the beekeeper through this exchange â not beyond her general appearance and deliberate, efficient mannerisms. Youâd sooner spring to the back of the mountain in one leap than truly know what youâre dealing with there. The one who knows her best is Simon, and while that has been over a considerable period, he hardly knows anything about her. They appear to have a special understanding, but Simon is not one for idle gossip. He doesnât really speak of her, but some days he makes his way up the hill. Lawrence has been up there too, once. He gave her a machine to help tend crops â perhaps trying to get into her good graces. I donât think it worked.â
She seemed to realise she had deviated from the main thread, so she stood and opened a cabinet, removing three slightly shorter-than-broad, flexible grey cylindrically formed pouches. She placed them on the table. Foon picked one up â very soft and cushioning, although not overly thick. They had obvious purpose: protecting the honey jars from one another inside his pack.
âYour pack should already be open and receptive on the ground. When she offers you the honey: if sheâs holding two jars, take them immediately, bow quickly, then pack them carefully into the wrappings and responsibly into your pack. If sheâs holding three, take the single one immediately and place it into your pack without delay and without covering it first. Then immediately take the other two, bow quickly, then pack them all away now that you have more time. She wonât watch you do this â sheâll head off, completely forgetting all about you, I guarantee it. Donât try to take two jars with one hand, despite the fact she might easily do so herself. For pityâs sake, do not imitate her mannerisms. Did you get all that, Foon? Are you quite sure what you have to do?â
Foon nodded. He was there to collect honey as efficiently as possible, with little room for error. Open the pack and place it ready on the ground. If two jars: take them, bow, protect, pack, return. If three: take the single one first, place it in the pack, then accept the other two, bow, protect each, pack, return safely. If anyone impeded him, say Loraâs name and they would back off â unless they were highly dangerous or stupid.
He nodded again, confident. She nodded back, stood, pushed her chair into place under the table, took both empty cups, and headed to the clean-machine.
âYâknow, thereâs really only one kind of dry-day, but we certainly have many different kinds of wet days, thatâs for sure,â she said as she deposited the cups.
Foon placed the honey-jar sleeves into his pack and buckled it. He stood and reset his chair. But before he could leave, she continued without turning from the stove.
âFoon. If I ever catch you spying on me again, youâre going to have a very, very bad day. Thatâs not a hazy prediction or vague threat â itâs reliable, undeniable, highly accurate foreknowledge provided for free, but be assured, for a single time only. Perhaps youâll have several equally bad days in sequence. The only certainty is that it absolutely wonât be pleasant.â
Foon nodded guiltily, eyes wide, awaiting other dark consequences, but she remained focused on her craft and didnât pursue the matter further.
He left quickly, to show eagerness and determination, he decided â but actually in case she remembered something else. Aside from another cryptic threat, he was overloaded with information and not eager to take on much more.
He tramped through the surreal thin white shroud, the unworldly gentle popping sounds always present. Although sound cannot normally be seen, it was as if what made the noises were actually living things floating invisibly, the sounds a form of communication. Perhaps they were talking about him, trying to work out exactly what he was. He smiled. This was surely something he was making up â he had no way of knowing â but he had told himself an interesting story, and that was always better than simply not knowing.
He was now approaching his hut. He felt a small wave of excitement: he was doing something he had wanted to do for a while, and fulfilling his duties at the same time â good reason.
He really didnât know what to make of Lora. In her presence, he felt completely safe and reassured, but also threatened by potential grave danger, at the same time. She certainly knew a lot. That must be because she spent so much time in the Longhouse, he reasoned â many people visited and passed on news. But she somehow seemed able to reach into his head and read certain thoughts, or even alter them. He would have to be careful, protect his thoughts, but also try not to be dishonest with her â he had a feeling that was a bad idea.
Even Arkit was less complicated. He didnât reach for your thoughts; his expression simply bullied your subconscious into revealing them. If he wanted to alter them, he simply stated his own, and the old thoughts fled. It was quite simple.
1 Like
7. Honey
The path led up to over the brow of the hill. Ahead of him now lay the beekeeperâs farm.
There were several beehives off to his left, all covered by one of the bubbles, but it didnât stop there, and went on to form a kind of tunnel that stretched and curved past a single story stone building with a tightly thatched roof to a barely visible through the fog beautiful meadow of flowers that lay beyond, slightly further up the hill, and was also covered by the same bubble, which was now obviously quite huge compared to the others he had seen, even the one that had covered the woodpile. Several tools leaned against the building; a rake and a fork, a spade and a shovel, and other things that he couldnât discern the function of. Tacked onto the side of the building was a wooden shed, slightly lower but quite spacious looking nonetheless. To the right was an earthy plot of land, which wasnât covered by a bubble, perhaps it didnât need one?
He looked around for the beekeeper, but she was nowhere in sight, so he decided to have a quick look around the farm, who knew when he would get another chance?
The earthy plot looked very healthy indeed, if not a bit unusual. There were many different varieties of crops planted into the soil, but only the various leafy tops of the plant life showed above ground. He scanned the field more intently, and quickly came to realise that no two leafy tops were the same, or even looked relatively similar to one another. The leaves of each could be literally any shape, thickness, or size.
A completely neglected device rested near to the plot, about half the height of Foonâs backpack. It lay on its side, forlorn and obviously no longer required for anything. Several grasses, tiny flowers with very long stems, and other prolific greenery with a high survival rate, was growing around and through it, conforming to its shape and taking full advantage of potential passageways that led towards the light. There was something quite sad about the scene. Foon wondered what it was for, and why it was no longer wanted or needed.
Then his face flickered from frown to smile with absolutely nothing in between. The device Lawrence had provided to tend to the crops with, the one that Lora had mentioned as part of her beekeeper briefing. Now he saw it in a different light, and it was suddenly much funnier. He looked back at the soil patch, everything there looked like it was a prime example of its species, whatever that was. It wasnât planted perfectly apart or in neat rows, oh no. It fact it all looked considerably more opportunistic and careless, as if appearances were completely irrelevant, and it was all just fine the way it was. He looked back at the crop-tender, lying in the grasses on its side. The mystery was solved in his opinion.
The person that tended this field did not need assistance, with or from anything. They knew exactly what they were doing, and they did whatever worked best, and probably didnât ever bother changing things again after discovering what that was. What they were doing was obviously working, just looking at the small field showed that. The crop-tender had probably seemed like some kind of careless insult, and was discarded without much or any thought. He began to laugh quietly, the thoughts just kept getting funnier. He began to suspect, or perhaps realise is a better word, that the crop-tender had never actually done a single dayâs work in its hapless life.
Besides the unwanted function it provided, it would also probably have simply looked ridiculous in a field like this, like a symbol of hopeful order trying to blend in among organisational chaos; like if the Fabrik, for example, was plonked down somewhere out in the endless forest; it wouldnât fit in very well at all.. He stared directly at it, and began to zone out slightly, his mind beginning to do something automatic in the background.
He imagined it slowly but purposefully crawling along the soil, sometimes having to dig slightly into the earth to get to where it was going. Despite the slow speed it mobilised itself with, its patience was practically infinite, and it always got to where it wanted to go, no matter what was in the way. It also had otherwise completely hidden and rarely-used options, which potentially (but nearly always) helped in unforeseeable situations. It would navigate to each and every crop, before what looked like a clear glass needle shot cleanly out from it, and directly into the soil just below the visible head of the crop. It would do this for every plant, shooting many needles before finishing. Then it would park itself, directly at the centre of the patch it maintained, and receive unseen signals from the needles themselves and process all the information at once. This would not take very long at all, and it would quickly know everything that it needed to about each and every crop it tended. It would always remember perfectly where each discreetly unique needle was located, and which exact crop it had been shot into.
The needles fully disintegrated on their own after a while, leaving absolutely no trace, and the crops would absorb them as an eventual form of nutrition (and then produce firmer, healthier and longer lasting roots and underground fruits as a result). When the needles had been fully absorbed over time, the crop-tender simply repeated the process, once again darting every single root and vegetable, then simply sitting still in the middle of the field again, and efficiently analysing the resulting data.
If there was an issue with health or pest, then there were several options available to it, most of which involved communicating with any other automated tenders in the vicinity and calling for assistance. These could literally be of any design or type, or even function. It would always eventually find a way to communicate with any other units that were open to communication in any way possible, and discover exactly which communication protocols to eventually use. It could also communicate with practically any central data terminal or store, if there were any around. The final option was try to locate a real person, and lock onto their personal information device, if they were in possession of one. It would then send a brief, polite message regarding the nutritional, environmental and harvestable status of all the individual crops. It would also include a generated and simplified, but highly accurate overhead image divided by markers into sections, and an accurate representation of each crop, no matter what it was, overlayed at precisely the correct spot in each section, and everything clearly labelled for identification. The data received always looked clean and respectful and was very much to the point. Other more detailed data was provided freely on further request.
It was a remarkable machine, and obviously would be highly valued practically anywhere else than right here. But it also had a pretty considerable flaw, he further reasoned. It couldnât really do anything about anything. It always knew the status of the produce better than any other entity in existence, even the organism itself, and in much detail. But it was really only just there to gather and provide data, and give instructions to other automated units. Failing that, a central terminal of some description, or even a person, if all else failed. This one was entirely useless to the location where it had been assigned. Even if it was allowed to do its job, no outside help from other units was, or likely ever would be, available, and its purpose was now vastly diminished, or simply non-existent. It was simply useless in this situation, unless you liked to read frequent reports on some handheld device, and deal with the issues personally.
Foon reached the end of the mysteriously clear and knowledgeable reasoning he seemed to possess regarding the crop-tender. Where, had all that, come from? He just felt like he understood perfectly how it operated. He then also felt a slight panic all of a sudden. What if all that information disappeared again, back into the confusion-cloud? He really wanted to run at least some of it past Arkit, or maybe Lawrence, probably better to be Lawrence, he thought. He would find the words somehow, and compress a whole list of thoughts and questions into a single word or two. He would manage somehow. He tried running through the process again in his mind. After a short while, he could tell that it all seemed intact and in order, everything still perfectly recallable.
Wow, what amazing stuff to know, even if it was about some obscure device. He fervently hoped that he hadnât somehow made it all up and was just guessing, but where else could it have come from? There had to be a way to find out though, even if he had to drag that thing all the way back down with him to the village! No.. the beekeeper might get upset for some unfathomable reason, maybe she liked it right where it was, it was probably best not to touch it at all. It would be a fantastic experience to try to take it apart though, imagine what was contained inside! He wondered just why Lawrence had supplied it to her in the first place. Surely he knew exactly how it worked, and that it would be doing a very lonely, and ultimately impotent job up here. It really was a puzzle.
He looked towards the hives. There didnât seem to be any activity around them, perhaps the bees were asleep? Perhaps they didnât like the fog very much? He wondered where the beekeeper was, and how long he would have to wait..
Then he saw her. She was sitting atop the thatched roof of the stone building, wearing a formless dark blue raincoat, one that was very broad at the base and which covered her completely, but sharpened to a point at her head. She rose to her full height, which was actually quite short, then nimbly stepped down to the edge of the thatch, and effortlessly dropped all the way from the roof to the ground. The shape that she and her raincoat made compressed reactively on landing, then expanded again while she stood back up. The entire series of actions were fluid, just like the movements of the creature that stole Loraâs root. She entered the shed at the side of the building, and closed the door again after her.
Foon quickly took off the backpack and opened it and placed it on the ground. Then he had a better thought, and moved it under the bubble tunnel, so that the sleeves inside would keep dry now that it was open. He stood there for some time, eyes fixed on the shed, and ran through the instructions Lora had given him again in his mind: Two jars or three jars, how to take them, which to take first, remember to bow afterwards..
The shed door opened, and the beekeeper came back out. He could see from bulges underneath the all-encompassing raincoat that she held something in each hand. She approached him and now he saw her face beneath the hood; deep dark eyes, not unlike Loraâs, but a face that was perhaps more similar to Kiraâs, with a small nose and quite pointed chin, but her features were older and more lined with care.
A split opened at the front of her raincoat as she extended her arms, he saw that there were three jars of honey, one in one hand and two in the other. How she managed to hold two with one hand defied all logic, especially as she gripped them with arched fingers from above. He didnât dwell on this for very long though, and remembering his training he took the lone jar from her left hand and placed it quickly into the pack. He then took the remaining two jars from her other hand, using both of his, and bowed respectfully before her. As he did this though, he dropped one of the jars.
Panic shot through him like lightning, and he instinctively screwed his eyes tight, awaiting the horrible smashing noise that would inevitably result from his clumsiness. It never came though, and when he opened his eyes again he saw her hand underneath him near to the ground, holding the jar of honey. He looked at her, and she was looking straight back at him, her head cocked slightly to one side, and once again he was reminded of the alley-dwelling root thief.
She straightened up and he gratefully took the jar of honey from her, as it was still being offered, and this time he placed it quite carefully in the pack before bowing again, more deeply than before. Her eyes brightened somewhat and she wore a faint lopsided smile, she then punched his shoulder, quite hard, and gave a single expression of mirth, before turning around and heading back to her shed.
Whatever had just happened, he knew that a certain level of beneficence had taken place, and he felt relieved and very, very thankful. His heart was still pounding, and he could feel numbness in one shoulder, but he now took time to cover all three jars carefully with the sleeves, and placed them all in his pack, the jars now neatly arranged at the bottom of it. He strapped it back up and put it on, it felt quite a bit heavier now the jars were inside.
He left immediately, remembering Loraâs instructions to return directly with the honey. He navigated the path back down towards the Longhouse, but as he approached his own hut he saw someone standing there. Getting closer he could see that it was the boy from the alley, the bully with the broken tooth.
âHey Foon, I came looking for you. I want to say sorry for yesterday, I was just jesting, no harm done, right?â
Foon shook his head and gave a brief smile, then started on his way again, however, the young man put his hand on his shoulder, stopping him in his tracks.
âHave you been up the hill to see the beekeeper? Tell me, my friend, do you have honey in that pack of yours? How about a little taste? I wonât tell anyone, and I promise to return the favour as soon as I can..â he looked at Foon in anticipation, wearing the friendliest smile he could apparently muster.
âLora,â said Foon, quite clearly, and looked him straight in the eye.
The boyâs eyes widened at this, and the smile mostly disappeared. He removed his hand from Foonâs shoulder, and his eyes darted to the left.
âOnce again, just having fun with you old pal, I wonât keep you, Iâm sure you want to get in out of the fog..â
Foon nodded, this time without smiling, knowing full well now what this personâs idea of âfunâ was, and continued down the slope. As he approached the Longhouse, he saw someone leave - it was Arkit. He was wearing his usual attire, but was surrounded by a bubble, one which closely followed his form. He has his own personal bubble to keep him dry, thought Foon. In place of his usual stony expression was one of frustration - something was bothering him, that much was certain..
He strode off towards the village, seemingly not noticing Foon at all, and somehow moving significantly quicker than the individual steps he took should allow for. Foon watched him go, now wondering many things at once; even more questions that begged for answers. He opened the door to the Longhouse and stepped inside.
Lora sat at the table, various roots and ingredients lay before her arranged on a wooden board, and a single pot stood beside it, steaming. Also beside her lay a thin pad of paper, and some sort of writing implement. She placed two of the items from the board into the pot, and waited. Then she took a spoon and tasted the contents, but her face scrunched up slightly, as if she was unhappy with the result. She noted something on the pad, and then stopped and put down whatever it was she wrote with. She looked up at Foon as he approached.
âYou returned quite quickly, thatâs good. How did it go, did you get the honey OK?â she looked at him expectantly.
Foon nodded and smiled. He couldnât really describe what had actually happened, but in many ways that was a relief. He took off his pack and opened it, then removed the padded jars one by one and placed them on the table.
âA job well done Foon, three jars, and all delivered safely, Iâm impressed. Now you had better go and see Arkit, he was here not long ago, complaining about all sorts of things as usual, itâs best not to give him even more to complain about, although complaints are his standard way to communicate and are therefore unavoidable. Come back later and Iâll have a special dinner prepared just for you.â
A special dinner? Even more special than usual? It sounded very interesting indeed.. but then Foon realised â he hadnât eaten at all today! All he had was a cup of tea this morning, and the realisation made his stomach turn in knots, as if it was suddenly also aware of the situation and wanted to protest as loudly as possible. Would he really have to go the rest of the day until dinner-time without eating? A feeling of desperation overtook him, and ended with him voicing it to Lora:
âHungry..â he said, wide eyed and pleading.
She looked at him quizzically, but then said âOf course! You havenât eaten breakfast today, the others have been and gone but I forgot you hadnât had anything. Wait there.â
She stood and approached the stove, then bent down and reached into one of the recesses and pulled out a parcel, similar or identical to the one that she had produced for Simon a few days ago. Handing it to Foon he could feel that it was warm, he took it gleefully, it must be food â so thatâs what was inside. He smiled at Lora and this time, two whole words came out of his mouth:
âThans Lora.â
Her eyes flashed wide instantaneously, then she settled into her regular expression once again.
âOff you go now, you can eat it on the way. See you later.â
She took the pot from the table and placed it onto the stove. Foon headed towards the door, but when he got there, he paused, looking at the package. He carefully opened it, revealing the contents. Inside was a folded rectangular pastry, and now that the package was open, he could smell the food and his stomach begged for him to try some immediately. He took a bite; it tasted very savoury and delicious. The filling was a dark brown colour, soft and just the right texture. He turned to Lora, to let her know how much he liked the parcel-food, but she was now right in front of the metal door to the side of the stove, and she had he head almost inside it.
There were faint noises emanating from the cabinet, but it was impossible to make them out clearly, let alone divine any meaning from them. Lora, with her head still half-poked inside, said "Only a single full day passed before he could start to express himself vocally. He knew his way around most of the village, right from the start. Heâs instinctively adapted to most others here, and can deal with a large range of personalities, apparently even the beekeeper on the very first meeting. He seems to understand many things in a similar way to Arkit, things which are of course far from normal, but of course without the discipline, skill or experience that I grudgingly admit that man has. He also..
She stopped talking abruptly, and coughed lightly a single time, then slowly and carefully removed her head from inside the cabinet and straightened up, before neatly and precisely turning around to face him. She closed the cabinet door again by simply pressing her back against it, her gaze still fixed on Foon. He felt his fear-level shoot right off the scale, this was surely classed as spying. He was a dirty spy once again, and had been caught, once again, by exactly the same person who had caught him on the previous occasion. There would be no mercy this time, as he had been explicitly warned.
âSoy Lora,â was all he could think of to say.
âYou are certainly becoming talkative. I should stop all that straight away if I were you, I mean maybe itâs fine practicing your talking on Arkit, but Iâm not really interested in your stories, Foon. I know exactly where youâve been so why would I want to know any more than that? Tell Arkit about your discoveries, Iâm sure heâd love to hear about them. Otherwise I shouldnât talk so much if I were you. Itâs not clever to try to speak before you can string a sentence together now is it? The best thing to do while learning anything is to keep quiet and learn until you get better at it. You are rubbish at talking. You are rubbish at listening, as well. Do you remember anything that has been said to you?â
Foon stared back at her. He found it incredibly hard to break contact with those eyes, which now seemed to contain all of the dark wisdom of the universe. He then realised, that perhaps he didnât have very much of a choice in the matter, his eyes were locked in place, he could feel it. Had she said something about âlearning something?â What was the last thing she had said? What happened after opening the package of food? He was sure he had left the Longhouseâwhy was he still here? His gaze finally wrenched itself from hers, in a similar way to the feeling of pulling two of the metal balls from his table apart from each other. It required lots of initial effort, but once the attraction had been weakened enough to separate them, they stayed apart unless introduced again. He turned and opened the door, and left through it, without looking towards Lora again even once.
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8. The gift
He stopped and stood still outside the Longhouse on the way to barrel street, the fog once again piquing his interest.
He realised that there was also a depth to the soft popping noises, some sounded quite close, others further away. He couldnât help but feel as if the sounds were something that were trying to communicate with him, that there was an intelligence behind them. They sounded quite beautiful, like a scattered, softly popping symphony all around him; as natural as a babbling stream, or raindrops falling lightly into a puddle.
He smiled. It felt nice in the popping fog, even though it was very wet.
Instead of heading down barrel street he veered towards the fence instead, planning to take a route behind the buildings to Arkitâs store, using the alleyway that ran past the Elderâs house. He glanced towards barrel street, it looked even more surreal than usual in the distance. Then he saw that someone was leaving barrel street and heading towards the Longhouse, and they were moving quite quickly.
It was Arkit. While he took long strides, he was somehow moving more rapidly than his legs should allow for, as if something was propelling him. He wore his white upper garment and indoor clothing, no raincoat, yet he looked bone dry despite the saturated popping fog.
Arkit has his own personal bubble⌠Foon thought.
Arkit slowed down neatly as he approached the door to the Longhouse, which then opened itself for him. In he stepped, and the Longhouse door closed firmly behind him again. Foon stared at the door for a short while, but no-one came back out, so he continued on his way to the alternative route he had chosen.
As he walked east of barrel street, Foon wondered just how the bubbles worked. All the ones he had seen so far were stationary, and were just sitting there covering things, presumably to keep them dry. But this bubble of Arkitâsâit moved with him. Was it something Arkit carried upon him that caused the bubble? If anyone knew more about the bubbles, it must be Arkit. Maybe Foon would have a stroke of luck and Arkit would tell him about them sometimeâŚ
The rear of the buildings changed into box street. This time these buildings seemed different though, and he saw them in a totally new way.
He realised that every carelessly stacked box shape was comprised of smaller ones, which were then comprised of even smaller ones. He felt his eye being drawn to a single small box of many comprising a wall, and gradually began to lose his spatial awareness. Soon, all that existed in his vision and his mind was the box he was looking at. Filling it, were other boxes, and a new, tinier box caught his eye, so he focused on it. It then went on to fill his vision just like the previous. Then other boxes appeared within it, multiplying organically around his stare. One in particular caught his eyeâŚ
Then it suddenly felt like an alarm went off inside his head. He quickly wrenched his gaze away from the wall. He had to stop this right now, and forget about the boxes. They go on forever, he just knew, and if he didnât stop looking at them at some point, then he might be looking at them forever. A frightening thought to suddenly have⌠He would definitely be late if that happened, and Arkit would surely not be happy.
He decided to put a bit more distance between himself and rear of endless box street, and head a little closer towards the fence. He kept walking, glancing back towards the buildings. He didnât need to go as far as the log stack, he remembered, but he also remembered he could see it from the exit of Elder street, so when the stack came into view, he should be near Elder street.
He didnât really take the fog into account though, and by the time he laid eyes upon the stack, it was closer than he expected. Simon was there.
The stack of logs was growing, but it was hard to see exactly how. It slowly kept stacking higher, but it wasnât possible to see where the huge logs were actually coming from, they were just there now, as if they had always been there. Sometimes Simon approached the stack to push a trunk into a new position, But mostly he just stood back with his hand on his chin watching the stack growing without being visibly added to.
There was a large upright section of log nearby, that rose to about chest height on Simon. A flash of blue caught Foonâs eye and he saw the now familiar blue creature spring up from the ground onto the flat surface on top of the log. Simon looked over at it, and walked slowly over to the log-table where the creature awaited waited standing on hind legs, head cocked to one side.
Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out one of Loraâs parcels and opened it. He tore off a small piece of the pastry and placed it on the table between him and the creature. It stared at the morsel for a short while, then reached out and took it with one hand, and then grasped it with both to nibble away, its nose twitching as it did so. But its jaws suddenly opened very wide for such a small mouth, exposing very sharp looking teeth, and its ears flattenedâit snapped down the rest of the pastry Simon had given to it in one bite. Its face then returned to normal as it kept chewing; the mouth was now small and discreet again, the pink nose flat and twitching, the now relaxed pink ears rounded at the base, pointed with blue fur at the tips.
The creature made a few chirping noises, then hopped nimbly down from the log onto the ground and darted off into the fog towards the town. Foon considered going over to talk to Simon, but he didnât seem to have noticed him, as his attention was now back on the logs again. Better get over to Arkitâs, he thought, I might have to backtrack a bit to Elder street.
The fog seemed to have grown thicker all of a sudden, and the poppings increased in number around him. He headed directly towards the rear of the town, and slowly the buildings came into view. Elder street was right in front of him, he was very pleased to see. He was starting to think that he really should just have used barrel street in the first place. Arkit might be back by now, especially at the pace he travelledâŚ
He started heading up Elder street, focusing ahead as much as possible and trying not to be distracted. He thought of the wonderful garment he was wearing under his raincoatâthe self sealing, warm second skin. He realised that he felt the perfect temperature right now. Not too hot, and not too cold. What an amazing thing to have.
He passed the Elderâs hut on his right this time, and saw smoke rising from the chimney, barely visible in the fog. He thought he heard a sudden exclamation come from inside the hut, the elderâs voice by the sound of it. He smiled, but kept walking with purpose towards the main street and the store where Arkit was waiting.
âIt is important in life to fulfil your obligations. At this time, you are obligated to me. Is this becoming inconvienent for you? Perhaps you feel as if you are finding other things more important than fulfilling your primary responsibility? In that case, it is vital that you address me and tell me why. Once you can achieve this, I will take your feedback into consideration, if applicable, and you may be granted time to indulge in your own investigations. Until then, you will show up here, and run every single errand that I require of you. I do not require the product of your mind, at all; simply your physical presence and the ability to understand and execute instructions. You have been very lacking in this area. The tardiness stops now. Do you understand?â
Foon stood completely still. His eyes were wide and his mouth was firmly closed. He understood all of it, in detail, all meaning conveyed was completely bare and unmistakable. Arkit didnât look angry; Foon began to realise that he never actually did, or needed to, but his expression was set as solid as stone, and his eyes targeted his own so perfectly, that some type of inexplicable universal resonance was in effect between them. âMight it be possible for Arkit to inform someone of his requirements without actually saying a word?â looking into his eyes was a bit like staring at twin suns, and it was hard to maintain exposure to the glare without flinching. Except this time, the suns were staring right back, their glare was not deviating in the slightest, at all. Foon nodded in absolute confirmation, eyes still wide.
âThe tardiness stops now,â he thought, âI always still have my mind, he obviously doesnât want that. Maybe itâs not so bad, I get to go places and meet people. I am definitely going to try much harder, though.â
Arkitâs gaze remained completely unbroken, but then an expression flickered across his face. Well, part of his face, his eyebrows at least. They both flicked upwards briefly and simultaneously, then immediately resumed their proper place. Then he looked away and down to his chest.
Arkit reached into a hitherto completely unnoticed pocket on the left side of the upper breast of his unapologetically white matte, strictly utilitarian upper-garment. His fingers emerged again briskly afterwards, grasping some long, thin and dark object.
Arkit offered him the hand-length, perfectly smooth slim object, which was both matte-black and polished silver simultaneously. If he concentrated, he couldnât see both at the same time, but he couldnât see one at a time either. It was a neither-or-the-other illusion, a calculated insult to reality. Its form flowed smoothly and the eye was instantly impressed by its sheer beauty. Any eye would be. Its shape was somehow perfected to a seemingly impossible degree. Perhaps it was the result of some natural formation from some strange place? No it couldnât be, it appeared as if it shouldnât plausibly exist, so it must have been manufactured somehow.
He took it from Arkitâs hand deferentially. It was exactly the same temperature as his own skin, and it felt like it had known his own hand all his life. It just instantly belonged there. It had effectively but inconspicuously assumed a strange position in his grasp; close to the far end now lightly pinched between finger and thumb tips, the other end of the object was supported just over halfway by the resulting upper loop and the soft accommodating purlicue it created. Arkit touched a forefinger lightly on the highly sloped and rounded top surface, as Foon held it steady, but nothing seemed to happen. Not until Foon looked down at the other end of the slim object, which was now tapered to a gradually pointed, but almost imperceptably rounded tip. It still felt and fitted perfectly between his thumb and finger. Foon pressed his finger from the other hand gently and briefly on top of the object as Arkit had done, and right before his eyes the point shrunk and retracted organically and evenly, a perfectly rounded and polished tapered conforming end smoothly taking its place. Arkit seized the thumb of Foonâs object hand with his own thumb and forefingers definitively, and raised his thumb over the end of the object. Foon instinctively pressed the end of the object using the pad of his thumb this time, and the point uncannily formed again at the other end. The way this happened, made it literally look alive, but always completely perfect in execution and efficiency of motion.
âYou can borrow it for as long as I allow. At any time I might want it back, and if that is the case, you will return it to me immediately.â
Foon nodded lightly but rapidly at hearing this, his eyes still wide and his mind very much awake. Arkit nodded back a single time, his expression still seemingly eternal, and presumably only alterable by a single being in the universe. He went behind the counter to retrieve a rectangular paper pad, which he scribbled into using a wooden writing instrument with a charcoal-silver pointed end.
Foon placed the object into the pocket of his raincoat, which was well lined with smooth and soft, but padded and warm, dry material. It felt like a safe place for something so precious, and the pocket dropped sharply upon entry, so falling out shouldnât present a problem. The object lay safely cradled at the bottom of it. He looked back up at Arkit, ready to leave only as soon as he was dismissed.
âDonât worry at all about it getting soiled, or damaged, it cannot possibly be affected by either, at least during the lifespans of living beings, very many of them. But, never carry it with you without a very fixed, single, and wholly unavoidable purpose. It will be safe where you deem it safe to store, but must always be stored in exactly the same spot every time, just as you also like to rest in a familiar spot, or otherwise you will lose it. It might simply disappear. It might no longer be in the place you left it, no matter of how sure you are of that location. If that ever becomes the the case, then you have only one errand in life that requires any attention whatsoever, and that is of retrieving it again somehow. If you are ultimately unsuccessful, you will at least have died trying, having never once in the remainder of your life considered ever giving up.â
âYou can tell no one of the source of the knowledge or guardianship you are provided with here. If you do, you will simply never be provided with knowledge, or guardianship again, which is obviously something that you crave and seek, so failure will be very counter-productive.â
âEven if you were to discover the fabled man under the moutain, you would not tell him of this. I do not release extremely special items from my stewardship to everyone I encounter, and if I do divulge a certain thingâs existence at all, it is to a single person, and that person is always aware of the fact that the knowledge provided regarding those items, or the simple awareness of their existence, immediately stops with them.â
Foon nodded with the most unpretentious and honest expression he could muster.
He would tell no one who had told him these things, he would show no one what had been entrusted to his care. The easiest way to achieve that was simply not to mention any of it to others at all. The confusion-cloud was certainly clearing, he realised once again. Perhaps Arkit somehow ignored it when telling him thingsâŚ
Those twin Suns regarded him some more. If there was activity under the surface, it was impossible to discern through the glare. Arkit then immediately broke his current focus, and turned back to the counter, before looking down at what he had scribbled on the pad. The conversation and the demonstration were demonstrably over.
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And thatâs it. 
Youâre using too many words. When you make posts, your language is short and crisp, economical, you understand how to allude and pack much into little.
Make it smaller.
Sorry, insomnia.
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Thanks Scorates, thatâs good to know.
People think that the difference between poetry and prose is meter, but actually meter is extremely important in prose also. Read a Stephen King movel, or any novel of your preference, or a childrenâs book. There is a cadence. Read a Mamet script, consider how he thinks about words and choosing them.
Youâre brilliant enough that Iâm not worried about substance. And even style you already do reflexively when you arenât trying to think about it.
Ok well. Whata a fuckinf douch this socrate.
I certainly donât think so mate.