Spring 63: preserves
Most beloved Zann,
I didn’t sleep well. I didn’t dream; I just kept waking up. Which makes sense because of all the sleep I had had the day before. And when I woke I was sore and muzzy and in low spirits. But things did seem mostly normal other than that.
Wande and Jhus had already left by the time I woke. Wande had left some breakfast for me in the cold bin. Jaunelle preserves on the good bread. I ate that and bathed and dressed–and shaved!–and plotted out what to do today. I still wanted to track down Srix.
If Srix wasn’t working for Nangolt anymore, there was only one place I could go to look for him. And, like most sensible humans, I didn’t want to go there. It was the temple of Valx, out on Birch Spit. I trotted over to Enjar’s Street and caught a longcoach going that way.
So here’s the explanation of Srix and why he’s like that. He made me listen to it once and this is the part I couldn’t avoid paying attention to. A long time ago, the Crideon lands were ruled by the Vafelig family. Then the king died, whatever his name was. And he didn’t leave any heirs. So they had to have a grand council to decide who got to be king next. There were other Vafeligs around, but they weren’t closely related enough to the king to have a very good claim. Other families, because of intermarriages and whatnot, also had candidates with good claims. Eventually, and to hear Srix tell it there was a lot of sexy bribery and other kinds of corruption involved, the council settled on Ponesh, the first Talistag king.
But the Vafeligs weren’t happy, and didn’t just go away. They might have started a war to take the throne back, but they didn’t have enough support. So they started a religion. The remaining Vafeligs, and their few loyal supporters, became worshippers of Valx, the Lord of Rightful Rule. The god of being in charge by birthright, essentially. And since then they’ve been a fringe presence in Crideon society, trying to win as many people as possible over to the idea that the Vafeligs should be in charge because their piss has just the right smell to it, or something. Unsuccessfully, of course; nobody else has the slightest amount of time for them. Valx isn’t even a real god! You put his shrine in a fountainroom, it doesn’t glow no matter how many offerings you make to him.
(The Vafeligs have an explanation for this. It’s not worth the time it would take to repeat it.)
Srix, obviously, is a Vafelig, and he can’t shut up about his rights and how he and his family don’t get the proper respect. Especially now that the laurans rule and the Talistags are nowhere to be found.
This is why I wanted Srix: I know he’s not mixed up with any other criminal faction because he’s so committed to his own smackarse faction that nobody else would touch him. (Plus, he’s too proud.) I know he could watch my back against most regular danger because he’s a tall dark well-built fellow who’s quick with his sword. And I know he could shake me up if I needed it because he was always doing that. Not a fool, Srix, and a very uncomfortable man to talk to.
I climbed out of the longcoach about a block from Birch Spit, and walked out on Birch Road. The Spit was a sad little rocky point that stuck out a couple of hundred feet into the Crideon River. You couldn’t build much on it, but the Vafeligs had cleared some of the rocks and built a temple in green and yellow stone, the family colours.
There was a wide path through the rocks, but it was overgrown. I picked my way through, and ascended into the temple. Clean but dusty, and quite airy inside. Someone had put a bowl of flowers on the green altar. A man in yellow robes came out from a back room.
“Do you accept King Onyxal as your true sovereign?” he demanded.
Technically I could get in trouble for answering this, but nobody takes these people seriously, and you have to go along with it if you want anything from them. “Aye,” I said.
He was still suspicious, having been lied to about this thousands of times, but he was stuck with me as much as I was stuck with him. “Have you come to join us?” he asked. “Have you come to aid us in throwing off the cruel yoke of the Talistag’s lauran puppets?”
That was one I hadn’t heard before. “Not today, cousin,” I said. (One thing I learned from Srix: the Valxans call each other ‘cousin’. It’s significant to them somehow.) “I’m looking for Cousin Srix. I used to work with him.”
He glared at me.
“Cousin?” I said.
“We have a lot of people coming here, looking for information about our cousins. Sometimes it isn’t to their advantage. Creditors, things like that. Often they pretend sympathy to our views.”
“Oh, but I wouldn’t do that,” I lied. “Anyway, I’m here to offer Srix a job. Very much to his advantage.”
“As may be. We must be careful, though. I wouldn’t dream of telling you how to find Srix unless I was satisfied you were one of the faithful.”
“All right,” I said. “How can I satisfy you?”
“You must feed our Sacred Aunt,” he said. “She will be able to taste your intentions in your offering.”
“I don’t know what you mean by that.”
“No. Come with me.” He led me out the back door of the temple, through the grass down to the river, where there was an overgrown brick circle with a large trap door in the centre. He kissed me on the forehead (and, unlike me, he hadn’t bathed or shaved recently) and said, “Go with Valx.”
“What’s down there? Are you feeding me to a monster?”
He laughed. “Of course not. What kind of a way is that to grow a congregation? We’d never get anywhere! You’ll be fine.”
Good answer, I supposed. I opened the trap door, revealing a crude staircase winding around downwards. It smelled like the river down there, but also like something else. I wanted to turn around and just get the piss out of there. I was going through this so I could spend more time with Srix? Ridiculous. But I had to admit I was curious just what the Valxians were up to out here.
I climbed down, gingerly, my ribs and legs complaining the whole way. At the bottom of the stairs was a stone room, lit by a sunglass that must have been wired to the temple. There was a pool in the middle of the room, full of water. That was all that was here.
The priest hadn’t given me any food, and I wasn’t carrying any with me. How was I supposed to feed… their aunt? Nobody was here.
I looked to see if I could walk around the edge of the pool, but there wasn’t enough of an edge to balance on all the way around. I tried touching the water in the pool.
It wasn’t water! It was some other curst thing, and it rose up out of the poolbed in huge globs and glorps at me. “Aaah!” I said, and fell back on my chuff.
The giant watery blob wrapped one flollop around me and held me. I screamed for help. It extended another smorp of glup towards my face and I just screamed.
Cold and slippery, it forced its way into my mouth, and down my throat. I choked, tasting river slime, and tried to vomit, but couldn’t. My head and arms were held tight. The coldness of the scummy floop of blup moved all the way down my throat and into my heaving stomach, where it absorbed all the food that was in there.
Once it was sated, just as quickly as it had invaded my mouth and neck, it withdrew. I could once again taste the jaunelle preserves it had eaten in my belly. The thing, the Sacred Aunt, settled back into its poolbed and released my shoulders.
I fell back, scrambling and gasping. Climbed the stairs on all fours. The trap door was shut above me, and I hammered on it. The Valxian priest opened it.
“I see you were telling the truth,” he said. “The Sacred Aunt always knows! I’ll see what I can find about Cousin Srix.”
“Fuh… puh…”
“And you’ve now been accepted into our little family! I hope to see you here much more often, as we try to reclaim these holy lands from those who would defile them for our own purposes.”
I crawled back to the temple behind him.
“Lucky you had been telling the truth,” he continued. “If you had had ill intentions toward Srix, you wouldn’t have come back up! Poor Srix, it’s not often that someone wishes him well.”
I sat on the temple’s back stairs, breathing hard, enjoying the sunshine between lavender clouds. (I’d have to get inside early this afternoon, or the mists would make my hair fall out.) I made plans to stop at a fountainroom soon, so I could wash the Sacred Aunt’s taste out of my mouth.
The priest told me how I could find the villa where Srix was working as a guard and footman. I thanked him and went on my way.
Love,
Ybel
