A Gathering Of Stones

2

Havi Kudush the Lower was reed and mud and narrow waterway, with clouds of black biters to chasten the proud and try the tempers of the intemperate. According to their natures and the choice available, the pilgrims spent the week they were allowed to stay in longbouse dormitories constructed from the ubiquitous reeds or in individual cells, also woven from the reeds; this late in the season there were many empty cells for those who preferred privacy.

The pilgrims were ferried to and from the Temple Landing by small shallow boats that scooted about the reeds like bright colored waterbeetles, poled by small and wiry marshboys whistling like birds when they weren’t exchanging insults, nothing solemn about them however solemn and pious their passengers; they were the only way to get about and reaped coin like their elders reaped corn though the Temple taxed half of it away from them.

The barge landing was a stone platform at the edge of the marsh. The marsh elders had a tall reedhouse there, its front woven into intricate and elaborate patterns; morning light slid softly across the wall in an enigmatic calligraphy of shifting shadow and shades of yellow. In season, the elders sat at a table placed before the high, arching doorway, writing with reed pens on sheets of papyrus as they enrolled the pilgrims and passed out the clay creedeens that gave them the freedom of the city for seven days.

There was only one old man at the table when Brann’s barge tied up at the landing. He looked half-asleep, sour and dirty; his fingernails were black with dried muck, there was dirt ground into the lines of his hands, a yellow-gray patina of sweat and rancid oil over every inch of visible skin and there was a lot of skin visible since all he wore was a light brown wrap-skirt of reedcloth, bracelets of knotted reedcord, a complicated pectoral of palm-sized rounds of reedcord, knotted and woven in sacred signs. When Brann finally reached him after standing in line for over an hour, she almost gasped at the stench blowing into her face; for the first time since she’d donned it, she was grateful for the protection of the veil.

“The Baiar-chich Kisli Thok,” she murmured, answering the questions he’d dumped on her in his drawling indifferent voice. “Of Dil Jorpashil. My son Cimmih Thok ya Tarral. We come to seek healing for him.” Jaril sagged against her, looking wan and drawn, all eyes and bones, the essence of sickly, pampered youth. She set seven takks on the table before the elders, the fee for a private cell plus the fee for the creedeen. It wasn’t cheap, visiting the Temple at Havi Kudush.

Moving slow and slow and slower, the old man scratched her answers on the scroll; when he was finished he wiped the pen’s nib on a smeared bit of cloth and inspected it, unhooked a small curved blade from his belt and shaved off a few slivers, repointing the pen to his exacting standards. He set it down, pulled over the stacks of silver coins and weighed each on a small balance. Satisfied he had the full measure of what was due, he set the coins in a box and blew a shrill summons on a small pipe. Behind her Brann could hear soft whuffs of relief; the harried weary pilgrims knew better than to complain about how long he was taking, but they fidgeted and sighed and otherwise made their discomfort known. He showed no sign he heard or saw any of that, simply pulled his inkpot closer and beckoned to the next in line.

A marshboy came trotting up, loaded Brann and Jaril and their gear into his poleboat; she was afraid the shallow boat was going to founder under their weight, but by some peculiarity of its construction it merely shuddered and seemed to squat marginally lower in the water. The marshboy hopped onto the platform at the stern, dug in his pole and pushed off.

Between one breath and the next he had the bright red shell flying across the open water where the river emerged from the marsh; then he took them scooting precariously through the winding waterways of the reed islands, sliding on thick red water moving sluggishly among shaggy reed clumps with their spiky leaves and finger-sized stems. Half new green growth stiff as bone and twice as high as a standing man, half dead, broken leaves and stems slowly collapsing into the muck they’d emerged from, the reed clumps creaked and rustled in the morning wind, a wind that Brann wished she could feel. Down near the water, in spite of the speed of their passage, the air was still and lifeless and far too warm. Swarms of marshbiters rose as they moved along the ways; most of them were left behind before they had a chance to settle; the marshboy seemed to know the route so well he could follow it in his sleep and keep flying too fast for the bugs, though Brann couldn’t understand how he did it. One clump of reeds looked much like the next, the narrow channels were indistinguishable; she was lost before they’d gone through a handful of turns.

After twenty minutes the poleboat emerged into a more open area, a flat sheet of water dotted with hundreds of small islands gathered in tight clusters about a much larger one; when they got closer she saw that the islands were reed mats mixed with mud, pinned in place by pilings made of bundled nai reeds; each island had a small cell built on it. A lacework of suspension foot-bridges linked the islands within the clusters and the clusters with each other. On the big island there were several longhouses like the house at the Landing.

To build a longhouse: Take tapering bundles of towering nai reeds and wrap reed cords about them until they look like fifty foot spikes, their butts three feet across at the base. Drive them into the mud an armstretch apart in two rows of ten spikes, angled out like massive awns from some gigantic ear of wheat. Bend the spike ends over and bind them together, each to each, to make ten parallel pointed arches. Lay thin reed bundles across the arches to act as stringers. Sew on overlapping split reed mats for siding. Move in.

To build a cell: Do likewise, only in less degree.

The marshboy took them to one of the outer islands, basing his decision on some obscure calculation involving sex, age, and dress. After Brann counted out the coins he demanded, he pointed at the longhouses. “Wan’ t’ eat, t’s tha,” he said. He was a little monkey of a boy, black eyes like licorice candy, a snub nose and a cheerful grin that bared teeth like small sharp chisels and turned his eyes to black-lined slits. “Need else, t’s tha.” He hopped back on the boat, pushed off and in seconds had vanished into the reeds.

The cell was raised waist-high off the cracking mud; there was an odd sort of contrivance that led from the flat up to a narrow platform built onto the front end of the structure; it was like a cross between the foot-bridges and a staircase and was just wide enough for one person at a time. It groaned and darted sideways as Brann stepped onto the first segment; she grabbed at the handrope before the rampladder threw her and climbed cautiously to the platform.

When she opened the door, she smelled every pilgrim who’d lived there that season and maybe a dozen before. “Slya’s Armpits.” She groaned, wedged the door open and lifted the shutter mats from the windowholes, propping them up with the sticks she found thrust into loops beside the holes. “Favor, Jay?”

He was leaning in the doorway, the nose erased from his face. “What about it maybe alerting you know who?”

“Hah! You’re just lazy, luv. If she hasn’t smelled you yet, she won’t notice you crisping a few bugs and firewashing this sty. At least I hope not. How can you go looking for you-know-what if you can’t change? Think of it as a test run.”