Preparations for Passion; when no one’s looking; Ruth’s fates; Yem’s shirt; Dragon and Cow; what the Wolves must do; the Judge’s body, grey and cold; pickling Nakni Banni; some zombie mitigation techniques; Dragon and Wolf and Turtle; twenty-two days; a shed is built; “That’s not a new thing”; Sonata’s new plan; the crack in the wall in Gi’s room; “Critter?”
Tension (cont’d)
Jerry’s getting ready for Passion. His goal is to further entrench Love and Reason by selecting commoners to play the important roles—while satirizing the high muckey-mucks, of course.
Gi’s paying attention to the pillar-Tully. It moves when no one’s looking.
Some discussion of Ruth’s fate. She’s a little young to be sold. She ends up in classes with Lhimpat and Yem.
Yem’s being trained in fighting with Aponta and Hans. Jerry’s set to make a lead mail shirt for Yem.
The Dragon-priest is still sleeping in the sub-basement. The Cow-baby’s crawling all over him. Gi checks on him every day; one day, the Dragon-priest is gone.
17th Tension (cont’d)
Okaamahli visits the Wolf-priest. He says he’s decided to leave the military; there’s too much going on in the land that needs our attention. Also, he’s not thrilled with the new leader, who’s not as welcoming of Wolves. What does the land require of you? Sacrifice. Of what? My son. Okay, says the Wolf-priest.
Nakni Banni’s in the Judge-priest’s body. The body’s skin is grey and cold. —The Dragon-priest brings Nakni Banni to Woochi. I’ve got a friend who needs preserving. Woochi sends a Bitterman to fetch Honey and Tishkilla and Heshe. Heshe’s fascinated; Tishkilla’s appalled. She wants to kick him and the Dragon-priest out. They shouldn’t even be washed in the village. Woochi tries a salt-wash, but nothing happens to Nakni Banna’s skin. The Dragon-priest laughs. He reveals he put Nakni Banna together (Nakni’s complaining that there’s no seam, even though he feels like there should be one). The priests decide to drive them out.
Honey goes to warn Jerry. Nakni Banna tries to eat some of the pickled onions, but he swears they’re rotten. They’re fine, but he finds them foul.
Woochi walks them to the gates. The Dragon-priest is trying to summon the Wolf-priest, who’s got a headache. The Wolf-priest gathers some armed Wolves and heads to the gates. He hangs in the woods and watches.
Gi and Palpebra discuss possible mitigation techniques; Palpebra says fire’s usually best. He’ll go and see what should be done. Meanwhile, Murry’s heard about the zombie, and heads out to meet them at the gates. Some conversation about who’s the zombie and who’s dead and how much. The Dragon-priest talks about how he needs to sleep some more. His arm is making his head wrong. The Dragon is building him a mound and he’ll live in the mound and dispense wisdom. But maybe next month.
Gi tells Nil he’s headed down to the pool to talk to the Here about the Dragon-priest.
The Dragon-priest and the Wolf-priest have a shouted conversation, since the Wolf-priest has no intention of being summoned by the Dragon-priest or Nakni. The Wolf-priest reveals he’s been calling Nakni the Turtle. Nice body you’ve got there. The Dragon-priest tells the Wolf-priest he needs a mound. He’s going to sleep for a month, so the Wolf-priest has that long. Where? says the Wolf-priest. Right here, says the Dragon-priest. —The Wolf-priest allows as how the Turtle can live in the Wolf-camp to remind the Wolves of the Dragon. The Turtle will oversee the mound-building. The Dragon-priest says he’ll awaken in 22 days and will announce the presence of the Dragon then. There should be a festival. Maybe a raid.
The guards at the gate want to test the gates on an actual zombie.
Minkoshto sends a soldier (Imálhlhi) to alert the chatelaine and the magi and Jerry and another soldier to alert the Finger (and tell him to talk to his wife about it. “His wife?” “Yes. He’ll know what I mean”).
Palpebra finds Murry and the Turtle and does not attack them; Murry and Palpebra talk while the Turtle starts scooping dirt into a small mound beside them.
Nil’s alerted by Imálhlhi; he tries to ping Gi, but Gi’s not answering. Nil sends Yem and Lhimpat down to the kitchens to peel potatoes, despite the fact that Yem’s worried about his grampa.
It’s finally decided to let the Dragon-priest into the covenant so he can go to his ordained spot and sleep. His ordained spot is ten yards or so off to the side of the stables. They decide to build a shed over him.
Gi tells the Here that it’s just not good, bringing the dead back to life. Upsets the order of things. For whom? Gi struggles to explain death to the Here. He can’t survive on his own! snaps Gi. Yes he can, says the Here. He needed a body. We gave him a body. Things die and come to us, and from us new things are born. That’s not a new thing, says Gi. Yes it is, says the Here. —It’s your fault, says the Here. How is it my fault? You were supposed to be our Dragon-priest. Oh.
Heshe’s drinking lots of melos, despite the fact that it’s Ventrian stuff. She knows she’s going to go to sleep and have a long dream conversation with the Dragon-priest and she doesn’t want to do that.
Imálhlhi comes home to find his wife and baby have disappeared. The Wolves tell him she does this from time to time. Heads out to the woods. She was last seen about 4 days ago. All she ever does is go on and on about the baby, he’s told. Imálhlhi heads off to find Gi so he can find Yem so Yem can help him find Nashob. Gi meets Imálhlhi, and tells him Yem’s doing his studies. Imálhlhi says he needs Yem to help find his mom. I’ll have to accompany you, says Gi.
They head to Imálhlhi’s hut, and Gi finds one of Nashob’s hairs and casts a simple directional spell. Thataway, into the woods. They head that way, and Yem starts listening for his mother. They can all hear the sounds of armed conflict.
They find a clearing in the woods; it’s where she is, but she isn’t there. Yem’s frantic. Gi talks to the Here: go away, it says. She’s being trained. You don’t belong here. She does. Gi asks Yem to listen for monsters, but Yem’s too distracted listening to his mother. Imálhlhi yells at Yem to do what the nice man says. The clearing starts to fill up with shadows and eyes and slithering things. Where’s my sister? says Yem. Protected, says the Here. From what? I don’t care, says the Here. We need to be protected from her, says Yem. Gi and Imálhlhi look at him. Gi sends Yem and Imálhlhi back, and follows after. He’s learned she went willingly. Yem tells Imálhlhi he shouldn’t have left her. Yeah, says Imálhlhi. See you around.
Strife
Sonata has developed a new idea for dealing with the Eleanoréanism: she wants to spend a season observing their books to see if anyone else is using their books to find more books much as Nil has suggested they do with their books. She suggests constructing a circle for them to keep them free from local magical influence, with intellego vim spells to listen for projections and connections. Nil’s willing to give this a try, but needs a reason to dip into covenant supplies to power the circle and the spells. He also suggests just trying a month. I suppose we should tell Gi, says Sonata.
4th Strife
There’s a loud crack and a crash in Gi’s room (and Nil’s room). Gi and Nil stumble out into Gi’s front parlor. There’s a crack in the wall near the washbasin. The washbasin’s on the floor, broken. My mother made that, says Gi. I know what that is, says Nil. Oh? One of Lhimpat’s imaginary friends. Do you know how thick that is? says Gi. —They head to the dorm to wake Lhimpat.
There’s a large spike going through the wall between Nil’s and Gi’s rooms. The critter’s asleep: large, grayish green, lots of spikes. I’m going to assume you can’t see this, says Nil. See what? says Gi. Gi can feel the spike, though. It’s big and conical and rough, like sandpaper. Critter? says Gi. How long has it been here? Couple of weeks... says Nil. They don’t normally stick around. —These normally guard things, says Lhimpat. Like treasure. You have treasure in here? says Gi. Some seashells, says Nil. Can you trick it? Or kill it? Running water, says Lhimpat. Does it normally guard things you consider to be treasure? Yes, says Lhimpat. Ah, says Nil, thinking of the scrying dish.
It wakes up as Gi runs his hand along the bookshelf, stopping at a volume on the fæ. Spikes shoot from it. Gi leaps out the window; it follows him, ripping up the room as it does and smashing the wall and the window on the way down.
Gi traps it in quicksand in the cul-de-sac under Nil’s window. He tries a perdo mentem spell on it; doesn’t work. Perdix floats out Nil’s window and hangs there in midair, chanting a perdo vim spell; the monster blinks out, shaking Lhimpat to the core. —Ishta, wrapped in a sleeping-robe, works with Nishoba and Ruth to shore up the broken wall and glass it over. Ruth peers into the crawl spaces and wonders how you get in there without holes in the wall. You’ll have to figure that out for yourself, says Nishoba. They fix the crack in the walls with a low tunnel. Ishta has Ruth draw the monster on the new glass window with colored glass beads.
Gi pounds on Ishta’s door to thank her. She giggles.
Various magi decide to speak with Nil about this in the morning.
meta
“Should we gather people to drive them out with sticks?”
“I don’t like going around blowing people up for no reason, but.”
Some discusion.