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coronaviridaeVideoland-based alternate reality with a heavy fantasy bent. It's like the next Carbon.
"And that makes mate. You might even be lucky enough to drown."
The first thing I did once the peasants had pulled me out of the river was roll over and puke up breakfast. This, I thought wryly, was not an encouraging sign from the Paladin of Immanis, Our Lady of Peace and Justice. Then I threw up dinner, and finished coughing my lungs dry of the river's water. The peasants remained respectfully silent until that paroxysm of damp misery had passed and I sat up.
My rescuers, if they could be called that, were typical of peasant stock here in the East: brown and thick as the ironoak, and twice as hardy. But not stupid, I reminded myself as I sat there under their steady, cattle-like gaze. Not stupid, no matter how much they resembled the surrounding woods. Nothing stupid would have survived here in the East, not with Thomas Craven's habit of picking on the weak and defenseless.
I coughed again, trying to reach up a hand to rub the taste of bile out of my mouth. The shackles on my wrists clanked smugly; a little steel reminder of just why I hadn't been able to get out of the river in the first place. Well, that made me twice beholden to the peasantry, if they ever got over their xenophobia long enough to break me out of my bonds. My next cough was passing demure, if I do say so myself, and I lifted my bound hands as far as I could in silent suggestion.
The mass of brown peasants shifted a little. I waited. At last, one of them--probably their headman--cleared his throat. "Boyar," he said. Oh damn, I thought. Sweet Immanis, they don't even speak common patois. She must be displeased, if She'd let me wash up on the doorstep of a village where they don't even speak my language. I struggled to recall what little I knew of that damnably rough Eastern tongue, while their headman continued worriedly.
From his tone, and continued repetition of what I THOUGHT was their word for 'river', or maybe just 'water', I imagined he probably wanted to know what Her Lady's Paladin was doing floating around in their river like a drowned muskrat. At least, that's what I wanted to know; he may have been asking if I'd used any of my Western witchery to poison their only available water supply, or pissed in it or something. I couldn't tell; if I didn't listen hard, it was just a mess of ugly vowels and hushing sounds to my barbarian ears. At last, I held up by hands, struggling to get out the only phrase I'd bothered to learn: "Ya ni po'mahyu tvoy yizk." 'I don't understand your language', right up there with 'where is the bathroom?' and 'I am an American' for universal useful phrases.
Except I'm not an American, I'm Immanis's Paladin, and this is 'Ostyzik', not Russian. Too bad, comradeski.
The headman stopped. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see him shift nervously, and beckon to someone I couldn't see. After a moment of nervous motion, a child stepped out of the midst of the peasants, and I wondered how I'd missed him before. He stood out like an aspen among the ironoaks; skinny, blond, and fair, completely unlike the Easterners around him. Probably a slave, but to what use they put him, I didn't know. He'd like to snap in half if they leashed him to a plow.
Then he opened his mouth and I quickly figured out why they kept him on. "Lord," he said, in unaccented patois. "Headman Zarkarov most regretfully wishes to inform you that our blacksmith has a broken arm, and his apprentice is away on family business, so they cannot undo your bindings. He hopes, lord, that even one of the Dark Lady's riders might be touched by generosity, as we have saved you from the river, and not destroy our village for this slight."
What?
I looked down. Oh. The clothes! I'd forgotten I'd kitted out this morning as one of Hashtura's much-feared wyvern riders, for as much good as it had done me without a wyvern. I almost laughed, but decided it would do more harm than good. So I coughed again, and cleared my throat. "Tell your headman," I croaked out, "that I'm no rider of the Dark Lady; I came upon these clothes by a happy accident." It was half the truth; I'd killed their drunken former owner and filched them off his body. His mount had proven less tractable, and managed to call down its roostmates on me before I could kill it, too. "I'm just a poor citizen of Osterlicht, so he has nothing to fear."
A nervous titter passed through the crowd once the translator had conveyed this. That was heartening; they'd either pegged me for a thief, or thought I was lying through my teeth before biting their heads off. Or whatever it was wyvern riders did when half-drowned and bound hand and foot with steel shackles. I sighed, and waited. I was doing a lot of that lately.
The laughter subsided, and Zarkarov began speaking again. Still nervously, if I was any judge of these things. "He says, the lord is very kind to bless us with this humor. He says, no man of Osterlicht has ever been sighted on these shores, as the Dark Lady is gracious, so the lord has no reason to test their fidelity. He apologizes, he does not mean to offend my lord, but he simply wishes to help my lord to get out of his compromising situation and back to the Lady's service."
'His' compromising situation? It wouldn't be the first time someone had made that particular mistake. I didn't have it in me to correct the mistake, though; I was STILL damp, still bound hand in foot, and getting very, very cold as a wind kicked up off the river. I began composing my reply, and looked up.
On second thought, that was probably a mistake, but at least it got me inside.
Poor Headman Zarkarov nearly expired from shock on the spot; so had most of the party, those who weren't prostrating themselves or busy fleeing. Silly me; in my exhaustion, I'd forgotten that the Easterners weren't used to seeing gray eyes in anything human--except for Craven. Even the translator, who I guessed might be from Osterlicht himself, near about passed out from surprise. It took a very fancy piece of talking to keep them from killing me then and there; but once I managed to get them calmed down, the translator convinced them that I wasn't one of Craven's creatures or a child of Hashtura. At last, he managed to get it through to them it was probably better to take me inside, instead of letting me sit and freeze to death on the river bank.
I was really starting to like that kid. He had a good head on his shoulders.
The interrogation, such as it was, continued after they'd bundled me into the main lodge. They sat me near the fire--I wasn't protesting--and put two of their burliest youths on me to make sure I didn't suddenly attack, bound as I still was. Oh well; even guarded and distrusted, at least I was warm and starting to dry off.
The headman seated himself across from me, with the translator standing at his right hand. For a long time, he simply stared; I let him. There were stories about gray-eyed people; myths and legends about how we're all monsters, or saints, or some horrible mix of the two. I had no reason to debunk any of them, falling neatly into that third category myself. And most aren't too far off from the truth, anyway; the real story would be unbelievable. I have difficulties believing it myself, some mornings.
"How long has it been, Kory? Eight years? Nine?"
"You'd know better than I do, Craven. That magic you keep yourself alive with gives you perfect memory. Or I thought it did."
"I don't have any reason to gloat."
"Sure you do, you smug bastard. Check."
The unbelievable real story is that the gray-eyed aren't children of the gods or gods themselves; no more monsters or saints than any other human has a capacity to be. That's all they are: human, though not even the most powerful wizard this world has spawned could ever quite agree with that. After all, gray eyes are a sign of not just otherworldly origin but also eldricht powers, beyond the comprehension of most average citizens of Mir.
Otherworldly? Oh yes. The common patois uses the term 'Grisaug' to refer to the gray-eyed, but they use a more accurate term among themselves: 'the Displaced'. And the origin of that displacement was nowhere on Mir, but instead, Earth.
Yes, that same humble green and blue dustball that spawned the United States, the Beatles, and the hamburger. All of the Displaced--that fluctuating handful or so--are from Earth. These displacements began in the midtwentieth century, sometime--if I remember rightly--around the beginning of the Manhattan Project. Yes, the same Manhattan Project that created Fat Man and Little Boy and Immanis knows what other horrors--including, apparently, the Displacement.
Modern science has no explanation for what causes it; at least, it never did in my day, and I was pulled through in the year one thousand, nine-hundred and ninety seven, Anno Dominae. But then, the Displacement was never widespread; I could count and name the currently Displaced on my fingers. Enough people disappear under mysterious circumstances every year that twenty or twenty-five, spread out over six decades, would go totally unnoticed.
I said there are less than ten Displaced I know, but more than twenty disappearances of men and women of Earth into Mir. This is true; but I'll tell you now that those missing ten or so never found their way back. There is no way back; those Displaced men and women had the misfortune of dying on Mir. Sort of a grim fate, when you think about it; a side product of our being rather valuable pieces in the world war embroiling the planet.
In a way, Fat Man and Little Boy weren't the only superweapons created by the Manhattan Project. Stepping through space and time--or whatever causes Displacement--grants the Grisaug special powers, as well as their namesake eye color. They might look human, but they are stronger, faster, and more in tune with the magic of this world than any human could hope to be. I say they, not we--because I am the odd case of a Displaced, a Grisaug, who has no powers but what the gods have granted her.
Then again, I didn't get here the normal way. Thomas Craven got involved.
"It's been nine years, then. Nine years nearly to the day. I wonder, did you have any idea what you were getting into?"
"No-o; I was kind of more interested in getting away from my mother. Guard your queen."
"Oh, clever. You've been practicing. So was that it?"
"Was what it?"
"Was that the reason you came through the rift? Your mother?"
"Lord? The headman wishes to know how it is you got here."
I blinked and shook my head, biting down my tongue on my first smartass remark. Even mentioning Craven's name would probably send them scurrying for cover, as if the man himself would burst into the lodge and kill them all. "Here, as in your village?" I asked, stupidly. I suppose they didn't want to know how on Earth I got to Mir.
"Yes, lord," the translator replied, patiently.
muse
"And that makes mate. You might even be lucky enough to drown."
The first thing I did once the peasants had pulled me out of the river was roll over and puke up breakfast. This, I thought wryly, was not an encouraging sign from the Paladin of Immanis, Our Lady of Peace and Justice. Then I threw up dinner, and finished coughing my lungs dry of the river's water. The peasants remained respectfully silent until that paroxysm of damp misery had passed and I sat up.
My rescuers, if they could be called that, were typical of peasant stock here in the East: brown and thick as the ironoak, and twice as hardy. But not stupid, I reminded myself as I sat there under their steady, cattle-like gaze. Not stupid, no matter how much they resembled the surrounding woods. Nothing stupid would have survived here in the East, not with Thomas Craven's habit of picking on the weak and defenseless.
I coughed again, trying to reach up a hand to rub the taste of bile out of my mouth. The shackles on my wrists clanked smugly; a little steel reminder of just why I hadn't been able to get out of the river in the first place. Well, that made me twice beholden to the peasantry, if they ever got over their xenophobia long enough to break me out of my bonds. My next cough was passing demure, if I do say so myself, and I lifted my bound hands as far as I could in silent suggestion.
The mass of brown peasants shifted a little. I waited. At last, one of them--probably their headman--cleared his throat. "Boyar," he said. Oh damn, I thought. Sweet Immanis, they don't even speak common patois. She must be displeased, if She'd let me wash up on the doorstep of a village where they don't even speak my language. I struggled to recall what little I knew of that damnably rough Eastern tongue, while their headman continued worriedly.
From his tone, and continued repetition of what I THOUGHT was their word for 'river', or maybe just 'water', I imagined he probably wanted to know what Her Lady's Paladin was doing floating around in their river like a drowned muskrat. At least, that's what I wanted to know; he may have been asking if I'd used any of my Western witchery to poison their only available water supply, or pissed in it or something. I couldn't tell; if I didn't listen hard, it was just a mess of ugly vowels and hushing sounds to my barbarian ears. At last, I held up by hands, struggling to get out the only phrase I'd bothered to learn: "Ya ni po'mahyu tvoy yizk." 'I don't understand your language', right up there with 'where is the bathroom?' and 'I am an American' for universal useful phrases.
Except I'm not an American, I'm Immanis's Paladin, and this is 'Ostyzik', not Russian. Too bad, comradeski.
The headman stopped. Out of the corner of my vision, I could see him shift nervously, and beckon to someone I couldn't see. After a moment of nervous motion, a child stepped out of the midst of the peasants, and I wondered how I'd missed him before. He stood out like an aspen among the ironoaks; skinny, blond, and fair, completely unlike the Easterners around him. Probably a slave, but to what use they put him, I didn't know. He'd like to snap in half if they leashed him to a plow.
Then he opened his mouth and I quickly figured out why they kept him on. "Lord," he said, in unaccented patois. "Headman Zarkarov most regretfully wishes to inform you that our blacksmith has a broken arm, and his apprentice is away on family business, so they cannot undo your bindings. He hopes, lord, that even one of the Dark Lady's riders might be touched by generosity, as we have saved you from the river, and not destroy our village for this slight."
What?
I looked down. Oh. The clothes! I'd forgotten I'd kitted out this morning as one of Hashtura's much-feared wyvern riders, for as much good as it had done me without a wyvern. I almost laughed, but decided it would do more harm than good. So I coughed again, and cleared my throat. "Tell your headman," I croaked out, "that I'm no rider of the Dark Lady; I came upon these clothes by a happy accident." It was half the truth; I'd killed their drunken former owner and filched them off his body. His mount had proven less tractable, and managed to call down its roostmates on me before I could kill it, too. "I'm just a poor citizen of Osterlicht, so he has nothing to fear."
A nervous titter passed through the crowd once the translator had conveyed this. That was heartening; they'd either pegged me for a thief, or thought I was lying through my teeth before biting their heads off. Or whatever it was wyvern riders did when half-drowned and bound hand and foot with steel shackles. I sighed, and waited. I was doing a lot of that lately.
The laughter subsided, and Zarkarov began speaking again. Still nervously, if I was any judge of these things. "He says, the lord is very kind to bless us with this humor. He says, no man of Osterlicht has ever been sighted on these shores, as the Dark Lady is gracious, so the lord has no reason to test their fidelity. He apologizes, he does not mean to offend my lord, but he simply wishes to help my lord to get out of his compromising situation and back to the Lady's service."
'His' compromising situation? It wouldn't be the first time someone had made that particular mistake. I didn't have it in me to correct the mistake, though; I was STILL damp, still bound hand in foot, and getting very, very cold as a wind kicked up off the river. I began composing my reply, and looked up.
On second thought, that was probably a mistake, but at least it got me inside.
Poor Headman Zarkarov nearly expired from shock on the spot; so had most of the party, those who weren't prostrating themselves or busy fleeing. Silly me; in my exhaustion, I'd forgotten that the Easterners weren't used to seeing gray eyes in anything human--except for Craven. Even the translator, who I guessed might be from Osterlicht himself, near about passed out from surprise. It took a very fancy piece of talking to keep them from killing me then and there; but once I managed to get them calmed down, the translator convinced them that I wasn't one of Craven's creatures or a child of Hashtura. At last, he managed to get it through to them it was probably better to take me inside, instead of letting me sit and freeze to death on the river bank.
I was really starting to like that kid. He had a good head on his shoulders.
The interrogation, such as it was, continued after they'd bundled me into the main lodge. They sat me near the fire--I wasn't protesting--and put two of their burliest youths on me to make sure I didn't suddenly attack, bound as I still was. Oh well; even guarded and distrusted, at least I was warm and starting to dry off.
The headman seated himself across from me, with the translator standing at his right hand. For a long time, he simply stared; I let him. There were stories about gray-eyed people; myths and legends about how we're all monsters, or saints, or some horrible mix of the two. I had no reason to debunk any of them, falling neatly into that third category myself. And most aren't too far off from the truth, anyway; the real story would be unbelievable. I have difficulties believing it myself, some mornings.
"How long has it been, Kory? Eight years? Nine?"
"You'd know better than I do, Craven. That magic you keep yourself alive with gives you perfect memory. Or I thought it did."
"I don't have any reason to gloat."
"Sure you do, you smug bastard. Check."
The unbelievable real story is that the gray-eyed aren't children of the gods or gods themselves; no more monsters or saints than any other human has a capacity to be. That's all they are: human, though not even the most powerful wizard this world has spawned could ever quite agree with that. After all, gray eyes are a sign of not just otherworldly origin but also eldricht powers, beyond the comprehension of most average citizens of Mir.
Otherworldly? Oh yes. The common patois uses the term 'Grisaug' to refer to the gray-eyed, but they use a more accurate term among themselves: 'the Displaced'. And the origin of that displacement was nowhere on Mir, but instead, Earth.
Yes, that same humble green and blue dustball that spawned the United States, the Beatles, and the hamburger. All of the Displaced--that fluctuating handful or so--are from Earth. These displacements began in the midtwentieth century, sometime--if I remember rightly--around the beginning of the Manhattan Project. Yes, the same Manhattan Project that created Fat Man and Little Boy and Immanis knows what other horrors--including, apparently, the Displacement.
Modern science has no explanation for what causes it; at least, it never did in my day, and I was pulled through in the year one thousand, nine-hundred and ninety seven, Anno Dominae. But then, the Displacement was never widespread; I could count and name the currently Displaced on my fingers. Enough people disappear under mysterious circumstances every year that twenty or twenty-five, spread out over six decades, would go totally unnoticed.
I said there are less than ten Displaced I know, but more than twenty disappearances of men and women of Earth into Mir. This is true; but I'll tell you now that those missing ten or so never found their way back. There is no way back; those Displaced men and women had the misfortune of dying on Mir. Sort of a grim fate, when you think about it; a side product of our being rather valuable pieces in the world war embroiling the planet.
In a way, Fat Man and Little Boy weren't the only superweapons created by the Manhattan Project. Stepping through space and time--or whatever causes Displacement--grants the Grisaug special powers, as well as their namesake eye color. They might look human, but they are stronger, faster, and more in tune with the magic of this world than any human could hope to be. I say they, not we--because I am the odd case of a Displaced, a Grisaug, who has no powers but what the gods have granted her.
Then again, I didn't get here the normal way. Thomas Craven got involved.
"It's been nine years, then. Nine years nearly to the day. I wonder, did you have any idea what you were getting into?"
"No-o; I was kind of more interested in getting away from my mother. Guard your queen."
"Oh, clever. You've been practicing. So was that it?"
"Was what it?"
"Was that the reason you came through the rift? Your mother?"
"Lord? The headman wishes to know how it is you got here."
I blinked and shook my head, biting down my tongue on my first smartass remark. Even mentioning Craven's name would probably send them scurrying for cover, as if the man himself would burst into the lodge and kill them all. "Here, as in your village?" I asked, stupidly. I suppose they didn't want to know how on Earth I got to Mir.
"Yes, lord," the translator replied, patiently.
muse
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-03 09:57 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-12-14 02:37 pm (UTC)In fact, I think it could stand alone very well, with sufficient modifications, and I bet it would be wicked awesome.
So write more, darnit!
CEM
(no subject)
Date: 2005-01-31 10:28 pm (UTC)