Daniel M. Bensen's Blog, page 48

The Lands by the Waters – An Ucaptian Myth (3)

(start, previous)

And thus Obedient Ptahh built of cedar wood a boat and caused it to be loaded with things.

(He) caused it to be loaded with the grain(1) and the date.

(He) caused it to be loaded with the sheep and the goat.

(He) caused it to be loaded with the first cat and the first cedar (tree). (2)

(He) could not cause it to be loaded with the writing tablet, nor the Hectachonchiroid weapon (3)

Wise Ptahh prepared the boat and the waters became the death of the black lands.

Original

ħnaʕ ewsf s.tehl.ɣ.s.f ptaħ χjal bjar ħnaʕ s.t’erħ.ɣ.s.f m sn

s.t’erħ.ɣ.s.f m p pwar ħnaʕ p qwaqwa

s.t’erħ.ɣ.s.f m p ʔwap ħnaʕ p ʔraw

s.t’erħ.ɣ.s.f m p mjaw t’raʔ ħnaʕ p thal t’raʔ

mh ker s.t’erħ.ɣ.s.f m p txa ħnaʕ p knaj

s.helj.ɣ.s.f ptaħ nkaʁ p bjar ħnaʕ s.petħ.n.s.f mwaʔ.w p mlaw p wman.wt kam.wt.

 Footnotes:

(1) is usually translated as “grain,” but here the singular seems to have been intended.

(2) is usually translated at “ancestor”

(3) < knaj> is likely a back-formation of , a Hectachonchiroid person, itself probably a borrowing from a Saharan language. See Classical Kebian kanni (“main”) and baru (“a person”).

You can see all of the Ucaptian vocabulary I’ve got so far here.

Roadside Chicory

Roadside chicory,

too to tear the roots out.

Help me to wake up

Culinary International: the Rising Agent

You thought I was kidding about writing this story?

The dial rotated, and deep within the device, a circuit flipped from the OFF to the ON position. Electrical current began to flow through a nickle-chromium coil.

Nichrom is a poor conductor, and its twisted material knocked many millions of electrons were knocked from path toward the Earth. Screaming away on their random paths into space, the subatomic particles smashed into the atoms around them. Atoms moved, first a little, then more as the relentless rain of energy continued. Under its protective layer of chromium oxide, the Nichrom coil began to grow warm.

Somewhere close by, an LCD display changed from 29 to 30. The oven had begun to pre-heat.

***

Chull-Kwa Kam, pâtissier for one CIA and agent of the other, buttered the cake pans and thought of Yevgeniya. It was only a matter of time until she found out he was back in Eastern Europe. Her scrum of disaffected Russian coders would soon surely penetrate his secret identity and locate first the catering business that had hired him on, then the kitchen in the culinary school. He had very little time, but there are some things you cannot rush – in both espionage and baking.

With an upside-down pan and a single confident cut with his X-acto knife, Chull separated a circle of parchment from its parent sheet. Another. And one more. The small-time mafiosos, what the Bulgarians called Mutri, had demanded a three-layer cake for the wedding at the embassy. Yellow.

***

The Republic of Bulgaria and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea might at first glance seem to have nothing in common. Yet Bulgaria was once a People’s Republic as well, and its dictator once enjoyed a warm relationship with his far-eastern Brothers in Comintern. During the Cold War Era, Kim Il Sung visited the Balkan country, where he enjoyed the hot springs at Hisaria. Kim Jong-Il, it is said, very much enjoyed the Bulgarian pickled vegetables known as turshiya.

Now, though, the large and stately old building that once held the North Korean embassy to Bulgaria stands empty. After what the locals call “the changes,” relations between the two countries seem to have soured. But have money and supplies truly stopped flowing from the Balkan to the Korean peninsula? “Sour” does not always mean “bad,” as anyone who has eaten turshiya or kimchi can tell you.

Tomorrow, the former embassy would host a wedding.

***

Paper crackled like self-destructing messages as Chull fitted the circles into the bottoms of the pans. Butter and flower followed them, ensuring the product, when it was finished, would slide out silently and without fuss.

Fewer descriptions could be further from Chull’s current surroundings, however. The culinary school’s kitchen was large, loud, and crowded. Chull’s catering business was not the only one using the space, and his adopted team was only one of several crashing, yelling, multilingually-cursing melee of white-suited people. It was a nearly perfect cover, but it wouldn’t hold up to Yevgeniya’s sustained scrutiny.

101, read the display on the oven.

Chull sifted together flour and baking powder, remembering the meal he had enjoyed in a restaurant with reproduction wooden cannons guarding its doors, and the powerful rakiya he’d shared with Chorbajiev. Chull had matched his host drink for drink, and at the end, face pressed against the table, the Bulgarian had spoken of a nuclear physicist among the party-goers at tomorrow’s wedding.

Asparagus snapped like collarbones as two nearby chefs argued about soccer, each evidently believing the other supported a “fascist club.”

“Mr. Kam, you need mixer?” asked one of the staff in an implacable accent.

“Yeah, thanks.” The sifted dry ingredients slid to the side, ready, in the proper circumstances, to rise.

***

The call came as Chull separated eggs.

“Somebody got a bottle?” Chull cast around the counter-tops. “A plastic bottle for water? Hey, you, give me your water.”

A college kid held up his half-full bottle, which Chull emptied and inverted.

“Hey!”

“Watch this,” Chull said and, pressing the button on his earpiece, “hello?”

“Privet, sladkiy moy,” chuckled a voice like sour cream. “Or should I say sladur mi?”

“Hello, Yevgeniya.” Chull held the plastic bottle over the bowl of broken eggs. Squeezed.

“You have come so close to me, and yet so far, moy malen’kiy zheleznyy gorshok. How do they say that in Bulgarian, ah?”

“I wouldn’t know.” With a release of his hand, Chull sucked one golden yolk up into the bottle. Another. The college kid didn’t look impressed. Well, screw him.

“Oh, but the heat in Bulgaria! On the Sofiskaya Embankment, it is 25 degrees. So lovely! But in Sofia, it is how hot?”

Chull glanced at the oven. “Hot enough.”

“Too hot!” Yevgeniya laughed. “I am sweating like a pig in this mean little flat with nothing to do but aim lasers through the window of…well, but that is not so important, eh? Come, sladkiy tell me what you plan to wear at the wedding. I shall ensure that our outfits match.”

“I’ll be in the kitchen, not in front of the guests.”

That laugh again, making Chull think of emulsified butterfat and pure cane sugar. “So shall I, gorshok. We are always cooking something, eh, you and I?”

“Who sent you?” Chull asked, harshness masking the voice he wanted to use with her. “If you’re in a position to coordinate…”

“I love the sweet talk,” she said. “But whisper your questions into my ear, sladkiy, not a phone. Quickly, for you are in danger. Until we see each other, keep weapon close. As they say here, chao.”

The line went dead, and Chull’s guts felt like chilled champagne. Yevgeniya was here in Sofia! But Chull would have been told if the FSB had sent her. Therefore, Yevgeniya was not working for the Russian intelligence apparatus. She had finally gone rogue, and she thought Chull was in danger.

***

Electricity flowed through a coil of magnetic wire, generating torque powerful enough to liquify a lump of butter the size of a man’s fist. Chull poured sugar into the mixer, and waves of sweetened fat frothed.

With the addition of flour and egg yolks, the mixture turned thick and sulfurous yellow, and with milk it gained density. Chull remembered the centrifuges in a hidden lab in Iran, and added the remaining flour.

***

The problem was not the embassy itself, or even that the North Koreans were renting it out as a wedding venue. DPRNK embassies were famous for their nonexistent budgets; diplomats were left to find their own source of income or else starve. Well and good, but how much of the wedding money was actually going into the ambassador’s lunch budget, and how much was being converted to bitcoin and funneled into the North’s nuclear program?

“Give me some vanilla,” he shouted at a passing college kid. “Vanilla.”

Who was Yevgeniya working for, and how far did their interests align with those of Uncle Sam? How far could Chull trust that warning of danger?

Chull whisked eggs, churning up a foam of trapped air and long-chain proteins, white as the in the wake of an aircraft carrier in the Sea of Japan.

Now, as the net of the embargo tightened around the DPRK and Kim Jong-Un found his foreign revenue streams cut off, what tricks might he pull here in Bulgaria? And if those tricks were threatened, what might he do to protect them?

A quarter of the foam went directly into the batter along with the vanilla, but now came the tricky part.

With a wide wooden paddle, Chull folded the remaining egg whites into the batter, balancing smoothness of consistency with the need to keep the bubbles in the foam un-popped. He let his phone ring until he was satisfied.

“Kam, are you on the telephone? All right? Kam, there is a problem.”

“Yes, Chorbajiev?” Chull poured batter into one pan after another. The oven display read 163.

“The physicist is dead, Kam,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Heart attack. His…his…how is the word. Pacemaker. It made a short circuit.”

“Let me guess,” said Chull. “It’s a new model? With wifi?”

“Had it put in America,” said Chorbajiev. “The idiot. Taka. This is Yevgeniya, right?”

“I…” received a call from her. Chull couldn’t bring himself to say it. God damn it, but he wanted to see her. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Maybe. Maybe. Is that all you can give me?”

“Well,” said Chull, looking down, “the cakes are almost ready. Just going into the oven.”

“Hold on, I will come before before they are finished.”

***

While egg proteins denatured and baking powder, milk, and heat reacted, Chull mixed icing and thought.

A fried physicist. A Russian secret agent separated from her agency. His Bulgarian contact, pickled in grape brandy. Secret plans, rising in the geopolitical heat.

The chef orbited around to Chull’s station. “Mr. Kam,” he said. “Is there anything you need? An ingredient you’re missing?”

Chull shook his head. “Thanks, sir, but no. I have everything I need.”

***

The tops of the cakes were golden brown.

At the next station over, a saucier wept, a phone pressed between shoulder and ear.

“Hey!” said the chef, “Get that phone out of my kitchen.”

The saucier burbled something in Turkish about his girlfriend.

“Out!”

“The Korean guy gets a phone.”

“I’m American,” said Chull, “and they’re paying me to be here. You, they’re taking money from. Hang up and get me piece of straw.”

“Eh?” said the now single saucier, “A drinking straw?”

“No a piece of straw. A little stick. To test the cakes. Uh, shish?” Chull mimed skewering something.

The skewer was just sliding into the first cake when Chorbajiev appeared at Chull’s side.

“They aren’t going to like you in here,” said Chull.

“I will only be quick,” said the Bulgarian agent. “Now tell me the truth. Has Yevgeniya called you, Kam?”

“No.” He withdrew the little wooden skewer. Dry and steaming.

“Perfect,” said Chull. “I’ll chill them and they’ll be ready for me to deliver at 10 tomorrow.”

A gun pressed into his spine.

“No, my friend,” said Chorbajiev. “I will deliver the cake. You are uninvited to the wedding.”

Chull let out a breath. “You’re making a mistake.”

“Shut up. It was mistake to lie to me, Kam.” The gun pressed harder. “Don’t make noise. You only stay here until I leave. Go back to htel and tell your bosses that Yevgeniya broke your cover. You allowed this because you are stupid American obsessed with sex.”

Chull inserted the tester into the next cake. “How did you know about Yevgeniya, Chorbajiev?”

“Not important. Just stay out of the wedding.”

“Because the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior didn’t tell you,” said Chull under the clatter of the kitchen. “Zhenya’s boys could run rings around them. No, you’re working for somebody far more competent.”

Chorbajiev jerked in surprise. The gun pressed just a little less forcefully into the back of Chull’s whites.

“No,” said the traitor, “I’m – ”

Chull twisted, whirled, and stabbed the wooden tester into the back of Chorbajiev’s hand. The gun clattered to the floor and Chull kicked it away while the Bulgarian double-agent clamped his hand between his thighs, eyes bugging with the effort not to scream.

“Oops,” said Chull. “Butter fingers.”

“Hey,” called the chef, “is your friend okay.”

“He burned himself,” said Chull. “Don’t worry, I’ll get him out of the kitchen. Too many cooks, and all that.”

With special thanks to Argumate, Melissa Walshe, Kim Moravec, and Martha Stewart

The Lands by the Waters – An Ucaptian Myth (2)

(previous stanza)

To Knowing Ptahh(1), Merciful Shamaak sent(2) an ibis. And the ibis told him, “Perfectly thou art formed, Former, the only one (who is thus). Therefore, only thou wilt survive the coming flood(3). Thou wilt live, Ptahh, thou Builder with Cedar, if only thou buildst it of cedar.(4)

Original:

r ptaħ phal s.kehʔ.n.f.f ʃmak s.jhah hbaj

ħnaʕ jerɟ.ɣ.f.f p hbaj

tʃaw petħ.k ptaħ p wʕa mwat

ew.s ʔenx.ɣ.s.t ptaħ p wʕa mwat p ejw.t sjaw

ʔenx.k.t ptaħ s.thal ħnaʕ s.tehl.ɣ.s.t

Footnotes:

(1) <ptaħ>, literally “the Creator,” “the Shaper,” “the Former.”

(2) <s.kehʔ.n.f.f>, literally “someone made him fly.” (ibises were evidently considered masculine)

(3) <p ejw.t sjaw>, literally “the flood that will flood.”

(4) the root <thl> (ultimately from Hurrian tali) gives us <thal> (“cedar tree, cedar wood”), <s.thal> (“a Builder with Cedar,” “a carpenter,” one of the epithets of Ptahh), and <s.tehl.ɣ.s.t> (“will cause it to be built of cedar wood”).

You can see all of the Ucaptian vocabulary I’ve got so far here.

A Tomb and its Park

A tomb and its park

Trees cast shade on its soft grass

Why don’t I go there?

Stupid Ideas: Culinary International

Gourmet chef is actually international spy! “No, no, not that CIA. I work for the Culinary Institute of America.” I could write a whole series!

Rising Agent:

Crime Brulée

Spoiled Broth

Globally-Sourced

…and when the author gets cynical and sloppy…

The Spy in my Soup

The Plot Thickens

Five Factor Warriors: Karim

(Previous)

“Cloudraker

Cloudraker, share your finds

All your wonders at my demand.”

— Vienna Teng, “Landsailor”

Karim Narimani found the answer to his prayers in a pile of trash.

The prayer, in this case was “please, God, give me something better to do than talk to bureaucrats.”

Karim was late for a meeting between kabul’s water systems engineers and an American satellite dish installation company. Their new building had working sewers, it seemed, but nobody in the district head’s office remembered putting them there. Calamity!

Karim leaned and steered his motorcycle onto a road with lighter traffic. His phone buzzed with a message from the band he’d played with three bands ago, finally getting around to firing him. The street that lead mostly directly to the meeting was blocked, so Karim kept going past the intersection.

His motorcycle coughed and rattled. Karim would have to go to Herat to get a new one. Or fix it himself, for which he’d need some lead to melt. There was a guy he knew on the corner. An electrician. But Karim didn’t need anything electrified at the moment so he rode on, by wishing the guy on the corner was Burhan or some other acquaintance who spoke English and could be pressed into translating for the satellite people. Were there any streets going in the right direction? Or would he have to turn around? Karim pulled over next to a pile of trash and took a moment to wipe his brow.

Sewers, for God’s sake, he thought. Next they’ll have me talking to the trash collectors.

Actually, that was a good idea. Organize pick up for the foreign firms. The district head wasn’t going to do it. He couldn’t even remember which pipes he’d had put in the ground where. This pile of garbage right here, for example, who was going to move it? Karim shut off the engine and dismounted his bike to examined the garbage.

He noted the absence of kitchen scraps and the presence of cinder-blocks. Maybe someone was demolishing a building? Karim knelt and picked up a block. It failed to do anything worthwhile, but Karim did notice his own wrist, on which someone had written, “Do the thing. Important. Don’t be late.”

Karim sat back on his haunches, trying to recall what the message might be about. Maybe the sewer thing? A musical gig? Faysal’s physical therapy? Not a date. Karim would remember if it was a date.

He shrugged and went back to the trash pile. The metals would all be gone by now – no lead – but there might be something else salvageable, something that those with less imagination failed to recognize as valuable. This black string bracelet for example…

“All right. You’ll do.”

Karim’s ears pricked. He spun in the dust and put his hand out. A half brick found it and he relaxed. Well armed now, Karim straightened and looked around. “Who said that?”

“Turn around.”

It stood between him and his motorcycle. Not a dust devil. Not a swarm of insects or a rain of metal flung from the roof of one of the other buildings.

Silver shapes hung in the air. Or the same shape multiplied many times. They were long and triangular, with thin subtly curving edges like ocean-going fish or knives without handles.

The blades hung unsupported in the air between Karim and his motorcycle. They seemed to range in size from the length if his foot to invisibly tiny needles. Except that the smallest blades were also the furthest away, so that as he looked into the cloud or swarm or flock, it seemed those blades weren’t small at all, just very, very far away.

Karim moved his head from side to side, trying to judge just how thick the flock of blades was. He dropped the half brick, which was useless, and wondered if he could make a dash around the thing.

Movement within those infinite silvery depths. Patterns swirled that might be an arm’s length away and the size of Karim’s palm, or else miles away and bigger than continents.

Ripples spread outward from those twisting clouds of blades. Or perhaps upward. Or in any case toward Karim. The flock of blades twisted against itself, flashing in the sun, and spoke.

“I am Vesht,” it said. “And you’ll do until I can find something better.”

Karim thought best on his feet. “I’m the chosen one, aren’t I?”

The blades dipped and rose as if nodding. They didn’t all move at the same time, but rather as if they were trying to move at the same time, with each blade watching and trying to copy the motions of its neighbors. With what eyes?

“You’re my Chosen One, anyway,” Vesht said. “The other gods have their own, and — ”

Karim spat. “You’re not a god. There are no gods but God. Haven’t you been paying attention to the muezzins?”

The blades rocked back and forth. “Fine. Maybe I’m a demon. Does it matter?”

Karim didn’t pause to consider it. “No, I’ve got a good feeling about you. Give me whatever it is you’re going to give me.”

“You already have it.”

“The…” Karim looked around. “The brick?”

“No, not the brick.”

“My motorcycle?” He gasped. “Not my banjo!”

The blades quivered. “No, you idiot! Your banjo isn’t magical, it’s the thread! The Thread of Vijaya is in your hand right now!”

Karim opened his right hand. He was still holding the braid of cotton.

Now that he raised it to his eyes, Karim could see that the braid wasn’t completely black. A single thread of red wove through it like a poppy growing from a burned field.

“The thread of Vijaya,” Vesht repeated.

“Vijaya? What is that?” asked Karim, seeing how far he could push the demon. “Some Hindu myth? You could have called it the ‘Band of Rostam.’ That would really mean something.”

The blades swirled. “Fine. If you want to call it the ‘Band of Rostam’ instead of the ‘Thread of Vijaya,’ you go ahead. It’s not like either of those two people existed anyway.”

“Liar,” said Karim.

“Most of the time,” agreed Vesht. The blades waved lazily back and forth like leaves in a breeze. “So what you want me to look for some other ancient relic of power to give you? Or maybe I can find another champion who isn’t so picky.” The blades slanted upward. ” Which do you think would be easier?”

Karim held up his hands, red-and-black band dangling. “All right all right. I assume it goes on my wrist?”

Vesht nodded his blade flock again, and Karim tied the band around his right wrist like an amulet against the evil eye. It did look rather dashing.

“Now,” said Vesht, “tell it what you want.”

Oh, so this was one of those stories.

“Look, I don’t want riches,” said Karim, “or a princess to marry or my enemies defeated. I certainly don’t have any dead relatives I want to come shambling back to me.”

“Come on,” said Vesht, “stop fooling around and ask for something. It can be anything. A snack.”

“Okay,” said Karim. “I want a shish kabob.”

The thread tugged. It swung Karim’s arm up and pointed his hand down the street where, indeed, Karim knew there was a grill. Not very impressive, unless…

“I want some money I can use to buy a shish kabob.”

The band pulled his wrist toward his wallet.

“Very funny,” said Karim. “I want some additional money to pay for a shish kabob.” The thread tugged his arm around to point to a gutter. A coin gleamed there.

“Ehh?” said Vesht.

“It is more compact than most metal detectors,” conceded Karim. “But how about this? I want to do the shish kabob guy such a big favor that he will feel obligated to give me free food for the rest of my life.”

Karim’s arm moved like a compass needle, pointing into the city.

“What’s over there?’ asked Karim.

“I don’t know,” said Vesht, “but whatever it is, it will obligate that food seller to you.”

“If you say so.” Karim shrugged, trying to look as if he received objects of demonic magic every day. “What am I supposed to do with it?”

“Didn’t I say already? You’re my champion. The champion of Vesht. Now, go out and kill the others.”

Oh, so it was that kind of story.

“Uh,” Karim pulled out his phone. “Hey, look, I’m actually late for an appointment…”

The flock of knives flashed. “Do I look like I care about appointments? I’m appointing you right now! You’re my champion, Karim Narimani! Now go out and kill the others.”

Karim looked into the flock of knives. He smiled. “Sure thing,” he lied sunnily. “Kill the champions. I want to kill me some champions.”

The thread pointed him west.

“Ah. Well. Good,” said Vesht. “Looks like you’ve got things figured out. I got to go, but good luck! Make me proud.” The blades all angled away from each other, and flew off in every direction at once.

Karim stood there, the sweat running through the dust on his forehead, waiting until he was sure the demon was gone.

Then he whispered. “I want to stop these gods or whatever from screwing up people’s lives.”

The band quivered, but didn’t do much else. It kept pointing west.

“Oh, well,” said Karim. “I guess I’d better ask about human traffickers or document forgers or someth – ”

The thread pulled his hand upward. The movement was slow at first, but picked up speed  as, in the distance, a sound grew.

The plane roared overhead and Karim scrambled for his motorcycle.

New Rose Buds Open

New rose buds open

Above the fallen petals

That the kids tore up

The Lands by the Waters – An Ucaptian Myth (1)

I had a very rough week, and you know what that means! Conlanging!

This week, it’s finally time for the next chapter in the Saharan Seas Story. We followed the Hurrians from their homeland in Anatolia down to the Nile Delta, where things got weird. Now (2,000-1,500 BCE), it’s time for the Hittites to invade and the Afro-Hurrians’ para-Egyptian neighbors to the west, the Ucaptians, to get some attention. The following is the Ucaptian creation myth.

And it came to pass in his rising palace, that Wrathful Shamaak(1) beheld the black Lands by the Waters(2). And he said to himself, “These men are improperly formed(3). They wander as nomads when they would better settle and build cities. They slaughter beasts when they would better sow seeds. They tear down low what they should erect tall. Out of the silt they are improperly formed, so back into the silt I shall form them.”

Original:

ħnaʕ ew.s.f m ħwa.t ra.t pf.t,

fewr.ɣ.sn.f ʃmak ɣa p kam.wt jn p mwaʔ.wt

ew.s jerɟ.f.f,

“mh tʃaw petħ.sn mwat.w pn.w.

ʃʁeʃʁ.sn p wa.wt wʁar meh.sn.

s.lekj.n.sn p wa.wt wʁar pewr.ɣ.sn

dwaħ dewm .ɣ.sn p pja.wt wʁar khaʔ pej.ɣ.sn

m p jʃaj mh tʃaw petħ.sn,

ew.s r p jʃaj  s.petħ.n.t.sn.”

 

Gloss:

and pass-3rd-past in house-fem rising-fem the3rd-fem

visible-antipassive-3rdplr-past Shmak anger the black-femplr by the water-femplr

pass-3rd speak-3rd-past

not proper create-3rdplr person-plural this-plural

walk-3rdplr the time-femplr should civilize-3rdplr

causative-die-causative-3rdplr the time-femplr should sow-antipassive-3rdplr

low break-antipassive-3rdplr the thing-femplr should high stand-antipassive-3rdplr

in the soil not proper create-3rdplr pass-it to the soil causative-create.n-fem-3rdplr

 

Footnotes:

(1) <ʃmak> ultimately from Šimegi, a Hurrian sun-god

(2) <p kam.wt jn p mwaʔ.wt> from which the Ucaptian word for Ucapt, probably pronounced Muwaa’ut, literally “Those (Lands) by the Waters.”

(3)<petħ.sn>, probably pronounced something like “peit-hhasan,” or “they are formed,” “they have a shape.” Both this and the next line’s <s.petħ.n.t.sn> (“speit-hhant-san,” “shape them into”) derive from the root , which has to do with formation or creation. On that, much more later.

You can see all of the Ucaptian vocabulary I’ve got so far here.

A Fir Tree’s New Growth,

A fir tree’s new growth,

A bumblebee rests on it.

Give me a moment.