From: kjc@aramis.rutgers.edu (Kelly J. Cooper) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [MG] Garden Party Keywords: walking howling walking Kron Park Message-ID: Date: 20 Oct 93 14:53:22 GMT "The harvest is plenty, Laborers are few. Come with me into the fields. Your arms may grow weary, Your shoes will wear thin. Come with me into the fields." --- "Come With Me Into the Fields" "I give up. What planet are you from?" * * * Jameson was very, very worn. There is up and there is down, but nothing compares to how weary one can get from existing, day to day, never a chance to fully catch up, completely regain footing. Seven hundred years it seemed she had felt like this, from the first time she died to every time someone collapsed in her arms. She moved, restlessly from place to place, world to world, universe to universe. She had achieved a kind of peace, a serenity born of insanity, but it wasn't quite enough. It was never enough. Ignoring her feet, Jameson wandered. Her mind was beyond depression. This was not sorrow, this was exhaustion of the soul. And it was written upon her face. Gleaming eyes watched her pass and gradually, she collected a small following of those who looked for weakness. This one certainly seemed weak, shuffling along, lost to the world. The whispering quiet of people trying to move silently insinuated itself into the cacophony of Jameson's mind. Her own voice, split into the many voices of her many thoughts, blended with the chaos of images jangling her nerves and whirling on the edges of her mind. Her internal discussion cum shouting match rose to a crescendo and turning abruptly, she very deliberately bared her teeth. Those she could see, and even those she couldn't, paused. Jameson thumped her staff on the flagstones beneath her twice and they rang out hollowly. Emanating from her chest, came a low rumbling growl, building to a threatening snarl that forced its way through her clenched jaw. Her eyes seemed to glow. Timid and fearless alike began to feel the building pressure of a primal fear. Something formless, something that could not be understood by coherent thought, trembled in each as the growling grew. The sound seemed to surround them, as it bounced off the walls, coming from all sides, assaulting their ears, beating and pushing at a raw emotion within them. Layered, the low deep growling grew to a rumble that could almost be felt in the ground beneath their feet while a sing-song snarl rose above it, calling shivers of anticipation and something like horror up the spines of all those listening until finally both sounds cracked as one and broke into a long, drawn-out howl of frustration, pain, and anger. Everyone and anything within a hundred meter radius that could hear bolted, leaving Jameson standing alone on the pavement, slightly bent and somewhat saddened, sounds dying away on her lips. She began walking again. * * * By the time she reached Kron Park, she felt wrecked. Like something had hit her, backed up over her and hit her again. She was shivering slightly as the autumn breeze quickly cooled her sweating skin. Standing at the base of a crumbled pile of old stone, she looked into the cool colors of this small forest. The tips of the trees seemed to wave, stroking the sky independent of each other or any wind and the whole area gave the distinct impression of oddness, of not quite fitting in other-worldliness. Resettling her pack on her aching shoulder she smiled grimly. Perfect. They would be a matched set. Stumbling into the Park, she walked a few steps and sat down abruptly. Sliding off her pack, she flopped back and lay in the grass, quietly panting, and tried to relax. * * * The time ticked by. Or so they say. Time is an abstraction. Time is an artifice. Time is the sneaky hand that hides all sins, eventually. Time is a creation of man. Time has enslaved man. Time ticks, but only for the ears that hear. There were two who did not hear the ticks. One lived outside the bounds that time created; she mocked the orderliness and the even tempo, and kept sharp ears tuned to her own rhythms. The other washed through the world like a worn, white-leached piece of driftwood, moving with the currents but never seeming to go anyplace at all. One sat and watched the leaves flutter in the breeze. The other *was* the leaves. - * - The language of leaf and limb, of sap and vine, is not easy, but it can be learned. First you must forget words, and then forget thoughts, and finally abandon all concept of communication. To learn you must unlearn. "Eyes," she said, speaking to nobody and everybody. "There are eyes," agreed the other, "and they watch for you." "Hands?" she asked, although rather more information was conveyed. "The eyes are the hands. The hands grasp the sky. Hands. Fingers. Press into the coolness. Touch the waters." "Minds." She could feel them, like a crowded room just across the wall. "There are many." She stretched briefly. The grass felt good. She looked at the whole, and smiled. "Here there is beauty." - * - The sun passed the 30-degree point in the sky. There was the sound of rustling, high in the canopy, as the first phalanx of leaves flapped over like the tiles in the railway station, revealing the next layer of foliage. Behind them, the third and last layer patiently waited their turn. Jameson sat up and looked around. Bees buzzed in the distance. From deep below the earth came the sound of gurgling water. A giant baobab-like tree humped slowly through a nearby thicket on some mysterious errand. Jameson's eyes narrowed. "What are you singing?" "The song that is sung is the sound of grass growing. The song that is sung is the sound of wind through leaves. The song that is sung is the sound of blossoms, withered, falling from stems to the forest floor." "That says everything and nothing." "As the Kron says many times, 'The feeling is mutual'." Time passed. Perhaps. "Why do you sing?" She asked idly. "Why do you breathe?" That required some pause. After a moment, she nodded and began to hum something a bored demi-goddess had taught her. Either her or the warrior with a wolverine's head. "Growing, rising, branches scramble/ Seeking sunlight; never stop/ Creeping, writhing through the bramble/ Wriggling rootlets; never stop/ Never stop! keep on growing/ Never stop! keep on going/ Brighten deserts, shatter stone/ Powerful, alone." It digested this. "This is a Lifesong." "What is that?" "It is." "Express." "To express is to sing. Hear:" tiny, small. the wind bears us. wings/little sails/we are a little green ship. where are we going? ask the wind. ground! water! we are buried. we cannot feel the wind. But somehow we know: we know this is good. we must wait. a movement we are hatching! little snakes spring forth. They nurse from around us. we gather our strength deep inside. push! to sky! hurry! push! now! a coiled spring punches up and out into air and bathes us in light. let us rest. a new sail unfurled; rippling the light is good. But here there is so little. We must grow taller. We must live. ....... - * - "You sing your memory." "The Lifesong is kept closely." "We keep them in a matrix." "??? You tap them when needed, like sap-cells." "Yes." It was at a loss. "You do not live them always." "No." It puzzled. "The Kron has lost many....memories." "The matrix is not perfect." "Outrage! The Lifesong must grow always....." "...Or?...." It is quiet now. "We hear songs from across the walls of stone, from where many grow together, but do not speak as one." "The wilderness." "The young have Lifesongs, and sing them proudly. But some are the old that sing their songs again and again, and never add. They are trapped in their own lives." "There are people like that." * * * Jameson sat and breathed. Listened to the loud quiet of the living forest, listened/felt/knew the rhythms beneath the surface. Something tight in her chest loosened for the first time in so long, she hadn't known it was there. Finally, the lesson she had shared with Kadrys was making its way from her mind, where she had understood the concept and been comforted, to her heart, where finally, she no longer needed the comforting. The secret to living? It is simply, to live. * * * The gravel crunched. Jameson opened one eye. Something's head was blocking the sun. "Interrupting anything?" asked the shadow. The trees murmured to themselves. Jameson squinted up. "You must be The Kron. Or is it just Kron?" She extended a hand, and was assisted to her feet. Kron smiled. "So you're Jameson. We keep just missing each other. 'Raelf's told me about you." He winked broadly. "Ye Gods, we know the *weirdest* people." Jameson laughed at that. She waved around her. "I like your new home. Very personable." Kron looked around him in a vague kind of way. "Home is, as they say, where you wear your hat." He grinned as he said this, but a strange look invaded his eyes. It was a look of an amnesiac or a space alien who uses certain words fluently but has no idea of their meaning. Words like 'home,' for instance. Jameson prodded at some firegrass with the toe of her boot. "Speaking of 'Raelf, there's a party tonight hosted by him and a few others. It's at his lighthouse. I'm sure, knowing the patron, things will be weird." Kron grinned, for real this time. "You betcha." Jameson slowly smiled back and looked him straight in the face. "Mr. Kron, sir, would you care to be my date for the evening?" Kron's elbow hooked into a crook at his side. Jameson's arm passed through it. She looked across at him, and they laughed. The sun passed the 32-degree mark, triggering the day's shedding of dead leaves. As the sudden winter of brown and orange rained down from above, Jameson and Kron strode off along the path towards the city and the sea. Tendrils crept up from the grassy carpeting and did their destructive duty on the fallen foliage. If Jameson's absence was noted, it was not marked in the activity of the plants, the growth of the green, the living of life. And the band played on. -- HWRNMNBSOL lies, lies, lies! & Kelly J. Cooper Contact for the Mage Guild kjc@cs.rutgers.edu -- Feedback appreciated.