Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
From: li@Data-IO.COM (Phyllis L. Rostykus)
Subject: [Kardia] In the Garden
Message-ID: <1993Feb23.214433.24309@data-io.com>
Date: Tue, 23 Feb 1993 21:44:33 GMT


        Kardia went to sleep immediately after the delicious dinner, 
pleading exhaustion while the residents were setting up the card tables.  
The bed was soft and deep and warm compared to a blanket on the hard 
ground.  Curiously enough, she found herself tossing and turning, trying to 
find a way to get comfortable in the softness after the days on the road.  
She eventually settled into a fitful sleep, finding herself awake what 
seemed to be every other moment, staring into the darkness.

        The wall over the house shut out all light, it had made it 
strangely cool during the day, and now, at night, Kardia realized that the 
moon could never peer into her window.  She sighed when she realized that 
fact.  She would have to find a different place to stay, eventually, but, 
for the week she needed to orient herself to this city, this would do.  It 
was close to all the things she needed to do initially.  None of her things 
had disappeared during her small trip that evening.  The security on 
Merchant's Hill was tight enough for her to walk about at night.  

        She realized she was asleep again when she thought she'd opened her 
eyes and the silver light of the moon flooded her room with its cool light.  
It was her old room at the Academy.  The sheets were smooth and perfect.  
She was amazed at the absolute regularity of the mass produced panes of 
glass in the window, realizing that she'd been away long enough to wonder 
at uniformity in anything made. 

        There was a warmth, a weight sitting at the edge of her bed.  She 
didn't want to look up, but she did.  As always, she felt her throat 
tighten and her stomach clench at the blade sharp beauty of his face, at 
the slanted tarnished silver black of his large eyes, and at how the 
moonlight shone off his silver hair.  Not for the first time in her life, 
she regretted the fact that she dreamed in full Holocolor and CoordSound.  
She swallowed and flatly said, "You're dead.  I killed you." 

        The laughter that met her words was the same warm chuckle that 
she'd always remembered.  She wanted to just curl up around that sound and 
cry.  Instead, she met his eyes and trembled as the tip of his finger 
traced her cheek.   He kissed her on the forehead, "You did not kill me, 
dearheart."

        "Did too."  She could feel the tears start to flow and the absurd 
desire to laugh at the childishness of her answer.  So she channelled her 
anger and frustration into her voice, "I left you.  I could have... 
*should* have bound them.  I..."  The touch of his fingers against her chin 
made her voice break.  Knowing it was only a dream, she finally allowed 
herself to lean against him and cry.

        His hand stroked her hair.  "Ah, love.  You know as well as I do 
that you would have also died if you had attempted my release at that 
time." 

        "No." she said it flatly against the damp warmth of his shoulder,
the softness of his throat.  She could feel the slow beating of his heart
through the touch.  "I do not know that."  The moonlight and his touch
faded into the darkness of her room.  She woke, aching to keep the dream.
Her eyes were dry.  She whispered the next words into the lonely shadow of
reality, "I will never know."

                     *               *               *

	Kardia awoke the next morning with a headache and eyes that felt
like they were on fire.  She didn't want to get up, so she forced herself
up and was lucky enough to find that the borders' bathroom was empty.  She
washed the sleep out of her eyes, and looked at herself in the polished
metal surface that served as a mirror.  The pale grey eyes were as they
had been ever since they had been put in when she was 18.  She combed back
her red-brown hair and her hands met the hardness of the chipslots.  For a
second they hovered there as she debated going over her past journel for
just a glimpse of Alistair outside of a dream.  She growled softly, and
kept moving.  Eventually, she was dressed and ready for breakfast.

        She didn't eat much.  Just enough to take the edge off her hunger.  

        "Come, lass." said Mrs. Cludne looking at Kardia with eyes that saw 
too much, "A youngling like you should eat more.  You're too thin to begin 
with and with all that travelling, you're wearing down to skin and bone..." 

        "Thank you, it was wonderful, but I'm not really hungry."  Kardia
smiled and pushed away from the table.  Then she looked into Mrs. Cludne's
bright eyes.  She had to look away.  Mrs. Cludne didn't push after that.

        The walk to the gardens cleared Kardia's head.  The morning was 
cloudy and cold, not the spectacular clarity of the day before.  She 
breathed deeply as she walked and watched the errand boys, the delivery 
carts, and heard the laughter of servants as they did their early morning 
duties.  She didn't really know if there were hours to the garden or if 
Vitor would be there.  

        The gates were open when she arrived, so she entered.

        At first, she only realized that there were a lot of plants in the
area, more than there were anywhere else in the winter bound city.  She was
mainly looking to find people, and it was only after she didn't find anyone
that she started looking at the plants and wondering what or who or where
these fascinating swathes of botanical magic were from.  Blue roses bloomed
from the snow with a scent so pure and strong it cleared the ache from the
back of her eyes.  An ache she hadn't realized was there until the scent
had relieved it.  She was surprised to find that there was nothing forcing
the growth.  It was entirely natural.

        Other sections were not quite as descrete.  Narcissus nodded near
buttercups.  Primroses and ice roses grew near ivys.  Not only did delicate
white trillium bloom amid fern and moss under maple, alder and fir; but
purple, pink and black trillium bloomed as well.  There were maples of
every size, shape and growth pattern, sugar alongside ivy maples.  Oaks
towered near spruce and cedar.  She counted at least 40 variety of apples,
a few of which Kardia had not only never seen before but were in no
catagory of like plant life she had access to.  She was astonished to find
one apple tree that had ripe fruit, green fruit, and new buds as well all
growing from it.  The leaves were still on the tree even in the dead of
winter.  She could feel the twist that had made it so, but the tree seemed
happy with the change so she did not touch the binding.

        There was an entire garden filled with herbs and spices.  Another
held what seemed to be acres upon acres of cactus, succulants, and desert
growths.  The air was warm and dry in that place.  A rose garden was mostly
dormant, but she found not only another set of those insane blue ice roses;
but a patch of moss roses with the same color bloom and the moss had a
scent like lemon tea.  Then she found herself coming to an area that looked
as if it were a grass plain, but squared off.  The various grains and
grasses grew taller than she was in spots, and among them she recognized
not only the staple grains of her home planet, but those of three others.
She searched and searched and found eight varieties of flax, only five of
which she'd ever seen before.  One of them had flowers the color ice.

        Just then she saw an old gardner pushing a wheelbarrow down a path 
about three patches over.  She hesistated, not knowing if this was the
gardner that the guard was talking about.  He didn't seem like much.  

	She walked closer, and found him stopped by a maize patch.  He
knelt down in the dirt and started pulling the plants that had gathered
between the strong, tall stalks; however, instead of just tossing the weeds
into a pile, he carefully pressed them into the soft dirt he had in the
wheelbarrow.  Kardia blinked.

	"Uhm... sorry to interrupt you..." she said, hesitantly.  

	He looked up at her.  Faded eyes amid wrinkled skin, then he smiled
and she saw the lines of contentment, of wind and rain and soil and the
warmth of the sun in that smile.  She couldn't help but smile back.  "It's
all right." he said and carefully worked himself back onto his feet.  "What
may I do for you?"

	"Uhm..." Kardia pulled her sack up in front of her, and rummaged
through it to find the bag of precious seeds she'd carried with her for
weeks.  "The guard at the gate..." she mumbled as she kept looking, "he said
that you..."  Kardia suddenly looked at him instead of the bag, "You are
Vitor, aren't you?"

	He smiled just a little more and nodded.

	"Anyway... he said that if anyone could grow these, you would."
She finally found the leather bag and pulled it out.  She opened the
drawstring and spilled some out into Vitor's waiting hands.  The seeds were
silver white rounds.  Looking at them, Kardia couldn't help but see Vitor's
hands.  They were large hands, with large knuckles.  They were calloused
and brown with dirt.  The short, blunt cut fingernails were black with
dirt; but the large fingers were gentle as they turned over the seeds.

	"My." he said as he looked at them.  A light shone in his eyes.
"Where did you get these?"  

	Kardia vaguely waved a hand, "I got them out East."

	He looked up at her and met her eyes square on.  In a very gentle
voice he said, "There are none of these on this planet.  Where did you get
them?"

	She blinked at the straight gaze, then sighed.  "A friend gave them
to me before he died, on another planet.  I..." she swallowed, "after he
died, I fled that place and ended up on Nexus.  I... I need for these to
grow as I'm..." she fumbled again in her pack and managed to find the
bundle more quickly this time.  "I'm almost out."

	She opened the bundle of moonsilk for Vitor's inspection.  He
didn't touch the fibers only nodded.  "Yes, they would be finer..." he said
softly.  "Here... follow me."  He carefully poured the seeds back into her
pouch and handed the pouch back to her.  "I don't grow that family out
where folks can get burned by them."  He moved far faster than she thought
was possible for his age, especially while pushing a wheelbarrow full of
damp dirt.

	They reached an area deep in the grass patches.  The air seemed
moister, warmer than it had outside the gardens.  She accidentally brushed
the bottom of a leaf on one of the stalks that grew close together and
felt the familiar burning sting of a stinging nettle.  She sighed and
grinned a crooked grin.  At the sigh Vitor looked back and just smiled at
her look.

	"Here." he said and pulled up to an empty patch of ground that
seemed to have just appeared.  "This should be a good place for them...  Do
you need any tools?"

	Kardia awkwardly knelt on one knee in the soft earth, she reached
in and pulled up a handful, "Hmmm... perhaps..." she looked at the size
of the patch, "10 pounds of loam and a rake?"

	Vitor smiled, nodded and crooked a finger.  They went to a shed
that seemed in a random place and he pulled out a wheelbarrow for her.
They filled it with soft leaf loam and she pushed it back out to the patch
as he went somewhere else to do what his garden needed.  She pulled out two
pairs of gloves from her bag and put them on and started in.

	Kardia spent the next several hours folding loam into the dark
earth.  By the time she was done to her satisfaction, she was drenched in
sweat and her left leg ached with the unaccustomed exercise.  The wound was
recent enough that she hadn't done anything other than limp on it.  For a
while, she just looked at the upturned earth.  Then she pulled out the bag
of seeds and started sowing them thickly over the ground.  The thicker they
were, the closer they would grow and the fewer leaves would form along the
long fiber stalks.  The closeness would also crowd out other plants and
make weeding easier.  The patch turned out to be exactly big enough to hold
the whole of her bag of seeds.  However, it felt strange pouring Alistair's
last gift to her on the ground after treasuring it for so long.  She was
crying before she was done.

	Kardia was terribly startled when the hand touched her shoulder.
She whirled, but Vitor simply stood there, looking at the turned and sown
patch.  "Good work." he said and then seemed to notice her tears.  He
sighed and added, "I guess you know that this particular strain does grow
better with a few tears thrown in."  Kardia shook her head and wiped her
tears away with an earth encrusted glove and then couldn't help but laugh
at the look on Vitor's face at what she must have done.  He hesitated and
then wiped at the streak of dirt with his callosed hand and could only
chuckle at the result.  "Why don't you come and wash up?  It looks as if
you could use it."  Silently she nodded and followed him to a tiny house
in the depths of the garden.  It was only after she got very close that
she realized that the house was a natural growth of the place.  The walls
were intertwined trees that lifted a glory of green to the grey skies.

	She followed him in and went into the washroom.  The outside light
came in, filtered with green.  Kardia pulled off her gloves and examined
her hands carefully.  There was no damage, so she quickly washed them, her
face, and the worst of her sweat away in the washbowl.  By the time she was
done and emerged, there was no one in the leafy house.

	Feeling a little awkward, she bowed to the house and said clearly,
"Thank you."  She somehow felt that the old man might have heard the thanks
through the growth here; and then she walked out of the Garden back into
Generica.

----
[ADMIN:  Much thanks to Hutch for pointing me in all the right directions
and to Dreamer for taking the time to check out and approve the above.
I'll admit it, I'm too much of a slave to the dog (sic) of continuity to
join the party... unless the cleanup crew took the whole next day... and
would actively try and pick up a girl with puffy eyes from the street.  
(oh, oh, was that a challange?) Grin.]
----
-- 
Phyllis Rostykus |  "... and how you feel can make it real 
aka Liralen Li   |       Real as anything you've seen... "
li@Data-IO.com   |                      Peter Gabriel _US_