"This is my boat club. I come here many evenings. Here we are building the boat which will win for Monton this season."
"Good health Urs. I see you have brought a guest." The speaker was a short, balding man who must have had some sort of skin disorder. He had a warm smile, but one side of his face was a mass of puffy bumps and wrinkled skin.
"Pet-ar, this is my friend of many racing seasons, Lark Vestral. Pet-ar works for me at the Vanu. He is a newcomer to our town and a stranger to the Winter Festival Days as well. I wanted him to see the winner of the next race for the Governor's pennant."
I nodded my response adding the expected "good journey".
"What do you think of our boat Pe-tar? Lark was obviously as proud of the vessel as if it were a 12m boat in the America's Cup race. To the locals this event was orders of magnitude more important than the Cup races. Besides the huge wagers, and civic pride involved, the winning city was generally awarded a good deal of highly sought after shipping contracts for the government. There was a lot at stake.
"I'm pleased to meet you Lark", I said exchanging with him the palm to palm greeting of riverman. "But", I went on, "I don't know much about boats. In my land of course there are many types of water craft large and small, those built for cargo and those for speed, but I have only a limited knowledge of them. I can say that this looks like a sturdy craft."
"We call her the 'Water Rikki'. She will carry the Questals to victory this season."
She was rightly named. A rough equivalent of the name would have been the "Water draft horse". She certainly didn't look built for speed." I'd expected the boats in the race to look more like racing sculls or war canoes than canal boats.
"Could you tell me more about how the race will be run? Will it be a test for the fastest boat and crew? or will there be other factors involved?"
"Having a fast boat is of course an advantage in the contest Pe-tar, but there is more involved than that. The contest is for the best boat and crew. That means the best cargo movers on the river. The race calls for each crew to load a sizeable cargo, row up river around a marker, return to the wharf and unload the cargo. The contest is won by the first boat to bring the cargo ashore."
"I can see that having a fast boat is only part of it. If it is not a secret, I’d be interested in how your crew trains for the race?"
He paused a moment, scratched at his chin and then began. "Well, first we select the best of the oarsmen from among the crews on the river. Then, we make sure they are well fed and well rested for the race day. Other than that there is nothing more to do. Since there is little cargo to move the crews are well rested and ready to go by race time."
Urs and I were ushered around the boathouse. From the walls hung pennants and banners from past competitions. It was sort of a club backed by local merchants. For an hour or more we talked, watched, and sat with the proud club members drinking the local brew (Graslat). Some played a local brand of dominoes while a couple of men actually worked on the craft adding some refining touch here or there.
Thereafter Urs invited me to the boat club with him whenever he went. Many evenings I took him up on it, but there were also times when I stayed and spent a quiet evening in quarters with Leeta and Lady Camille. The long weeks on the trail together and the experience in Gutan's village had brought us close together and reminded us of how much we really meant to each other.
Leeta was once again showing her artistic side. In addition to knitting Modran had also taught hera local form of needle point or embroidery and she was working on a piece to enter in the young people's division at the Winterfest. Modran pronounced her an incredibly fast learner, adding that her taste in colors was a bit bold but always well coordinated. To my eye her work was every bit as good as any I'd seen on Needle Lane where widows and unmarried women often earned their living in small tailor shops. I'd special reason to know as I had developed a small romantic liason with a young widow/seamstress, Keesla Diwajan.
Modran, who had had some formal schooling tutored Leeta in her spare moments, usually in the evenings. She taught reading, and the basic arithmetic of the12 based number system that was in use locally.
I attended these lessons as often as I could. Lady Camille maintained her role as a "pack animal" but I knew she always listened attentively. I especially enjoyed the lessons on local history, culture, and tradition. The material was extremely rich in myth and fable. They had their own history of how the peoples of the world came to be.
Modran's Story of the Beginnings of Ulan:
This is the story of the beginning of the world and of the time of the Great Fall (also translated the Great Collapse).
Before the world of Ulan came to be the Old Ones moved between 1000 worlds (Modran actually used the number for 12 to the third power but "1000" seems to fit the translation better here to designate a indeterminately large number). Known to some as the Kwaijilli, they held the secret of opening the doors between worlds.
All others who wished to travel or trade between the planets paid homage to them. They were wise beyond knowing and rich beyond belief as they claimed 1/12th part of every cargo transported as their own. Intelligent beings could use the doors freely but were bound by the rules of the Old Ones. They could take nothing with them, not even their clothing. They left no way to bring a poison, a weapon, or any bad thing to other worlds. Any who tried suffered the horrible penalty of having the doors to their world closed and locked for a long span. Throughout the galaxy there was peace. Trade flourished and the peoples traveled to other worlds as easily as Urs or I might enter another room in this building.
This world, "Ulan", which some call Alana or even Pachem" was very important to the Old Ones. From here they bent space in special ways. From here doors could be opened to a thousand other worlds.
Each day beings from the edges of the Galaxy came and went. Most paused here for only the span of a few hours before being sent on to other worlds.
Then came the Great Fall! For reasons unknowable something went wrong. For a short time the Old Ones and their web of doors continued to send beings to this world but none could be sent forth to other destinations.
The ancestors of the peoples of Ulan stood naked under the sun. The Old Ones tried to help but could do little.
Each sought others of his or her kind to console them. Alone, naked in a strange place “like” clung to “like”. Fears shared became fears divided.
At last a great meeting was called. The Old Ones shared the news. The keepers of the ways had fallen ill with a terrible plague.
In time Others might come with new machines. The Old Ones might be able to restore the doors but it would be a very, very long time. If they survived the plague they might take to their ships and sail between stars but even their ships could not catch a light beam. If they survived it would take generations to cross the great blackness of space.
Already some were starving, some dying for lack of medicine, some prepared to fight. Each of the peoples was advised where on Ulan they might find homelands most like their native worlds. Each received maps. Each elected from among themselves leaders. Each was challenged to keep alive their history and the knowledge of their home planets. Each was admonished to live in peace lest the Old Ones find disharmony on the day of their return.
The Old Ones could do no more. They turned their attention to what might be done to preserve the machines for the long off day when commercial intercourse might resume.
Most heeded their words but some turned in anger to destroy the building which housed the doorways. For almost two passages the people given the land by the river traveled. They helped others where they could, endured what had to be endured, and at last arrived in the wilderness of the Monton.
They laid first the foundations near the site of our current capital Llhaven. We are now in year 573 of our founding. As yet the Old Ones have not returned. Some say they never will, others say they were but myth.
In the early times before the printed word
was once again available much was lost. . . but much was also retained. For me, I believe our history to be true. They will return some day. Some day the doors to other worlds will open. This is my home and I shall remain here but perhaps young ones like yourselves will go once more to see what lies across the Galaxy.
_______
Evening after evening when the customers were gone and the kitchen prepared for the next day she would spin tales of her girlhood and of the days when she and Urs were courting, of the happy years she had in the village school, and the wise "monk" who taught her. I never tired of hearing her talk. She was a marvelous storyteller. Some day I may write a book of the tales I heard that winter from Modran and the many customers of the Cornered Vanu.
When Modran was not with us Leeta and I could count on the Lady to keep us entertained. I had finally gotten past the last vestiges of a mental block to perceiving intelligence in a being (almost said "animal") who looked so dumb.
I had imposed on the Lady for two haircuts since we left the transporter sight. Once she had bobbed my hair with only a knife and done a reasonably good job of it. Since arriving in Mon-ton we had taken a more "civilized" approach and used a pair of scissors. My beard had also returned and was now a deep brown growth of almost 5 centimeters length. Leeta said she liked me better without it but there was no really effective way to stay clean-shaven so I elected to keep it.
Lady Camille’s hair/coat/fur? lost in the transport process had finally grown back to what I assumed was it's normal length. She continued to look a bit like an overly coiffed critter some 4-H’er might enter in the state fair. She was, in fact, so meticulous in her grooming that I doubt any 4-H or FFA member could have groomed as well. Leeta continued to help her comb out the harder to reach areas each evening.
As I may have said before, the Lady was also a fine story teller. She told us something of the history and culture of her people. Mostly, though she liked to tell us of her own youth. She sometimes waxed nostalgic and spoke of family members who very likely believed her dead.
She loved to tell us of the practical jokes she had played on co-workers and friends. It was so out of keeping with my notion of her character that at first I didn't realize what it was she was trying to communicate to us. She would tell some story of putting some icky thing among a colleague's papers and then watching as they discovered it and then she would begin the panting sounds that I knew for laughter. A string of two or three of these stories would send her into near convulsions of panting. At times I thought she would hyper-ventilate from her own good humor.
I knew we had crossed an important barrier in our friendship the evening I jumped shrieking from my sleeping pad after feeling something strange moving under the covers. I grabbed a broom and threw back the covers prepared to squash it. There in my bunk was a realistic looking insectoid the size of my hand trailing a string which ran to where the Lady stood behind a partial partition. The panting started slowly and built to a crescendo as the realization of what had been done to me appeared on my face.
"Don't tell Leeta I want to show her too" was the only comment! Just what I needed, an alien practical joker who looked like a moose crossed to a Holstein camel and whose thought processes were a combination of Einstein and Robin Williams.
All in all it was a winter season which was promising to be anything but dull. We all had some sense of urgency about getting on with our mission. Perhaps, because of her family, Lady felt this most of all. Nonetheless, we would not be bored here in Mon-ton waiting for the mountain passes to clear.
CHAPTER 13
The fire bell rang a just after midnight. Urs and the rest of the lodgers turned out rubbing sleep from their eyes and hastily pulling on clothes. From the porch of the Cornered Vanu we could see smoke and a rosy glow from the waterfront. It was somewhere on the east side, possibly in the neighborhood of the Euthonats temple or the ropemakers quarters.
I grabbed two of the Vanu’s leather fire buckets hanging by the back door and joined the rest of the crowd now racing toward the fire. The crisp night air was more heavily laced than usual with smoke.
Before we actually reached the scene we could hear the night watch shouting directions to the fire fighters. "Get that water wagon in here! Fetch more from the river".
On the top of nearby buildings we could see men working feverishly to wet down the roofs to prevent the spread of the fire. I joined the lines of the bucket brigade. Along one side buckets filled from a nearby trough/fountain were quickly passed up to the men on the roofs. Along the other side the empties were passed back. Whether or not the fire could be limited to the building now engulfed in flames was impossible to say. It was going to be a close. Half an hour later those wetting the roofs and walls of the adjoining buildings were clearly gaining the upper hand. The fire would not spread beyond the original structure.
I caught my breath and paused to look around. As I did I recognized with certainty just where we were. It was Urs' boat club that had burned. My heart sank. It meant so much to him personally and financially. I wasn't sure whether his heavy bets would be voided if the boat could not be entered or if he would simply have to pay off. Either way, I knew that Urs would be a devastated and unhappy man this evening.
I scanned the crowd and spotted him sitting on the edge of the fountain/water trough. His head held between his hands. He’d just watched a year's worth of planning and dreaming turned to ash. As I moved toward him the still blazing roof of the boat club collapsed into the interior. Those fighting the flames had been correct to focused their efforts on saving adjoining buildings. The boat club was beyond saving.
The buildings of the town were packed in between the rivers east, west, and south and the wall of the city to the north. A slight breeze blew toward the west in this predawn hour. It helped blow the flames away from neighboring buildings and toward a public passage way 5 or 6 meters wide along the boat ramp which joined the entire east side of the structure.
Crews already atop adjacent buildings continued to put out smaller roof fires with buckets passed up to them. Luck and the wind had been with them and the main fire was being contained.
Urs did't seem to notice me as I stood near by. I decided that it was best not to speak at the moment. Some of the men who had been knee deep dipping water from the icy the river needed relief. I waded in up to my knees and accepted a bucket from a stout man in his 70’s waving him ashore to where the townswomen had now arrived with hot food and drink for the firefighters. Someone eventually took my place in the now slowing bucket line. My turn to rest and eat.
By now what had been the boat house was a huge pile of glowing coals which no one made further effort to put out. By letting it burn to ash the metal nails and hinges could be more easily salvaged and the ashes would be more easily disposed of. With this in mind, some guys were using boat hooks to push the unburned ends of charred beams back into the central fire. A few of the stones which had been on the windward side of the structure might even be used again. The rest were too blackened with smoke and cracked by the heat to be of use.
At one side of the crowd lay a man who had gotten a nasty burn on his arm. He was being tended by a very tall, slender, being in light yellow robes. I asked a woman, who had just pressed a mug of steaming broth into my hands, who he was.
"He is Oderan, the healer, of the Efusi brotherhood. Though I thought everyone knew of them."
"As you can no doubt tell by my speech I am new here"
She moved on to serve some of the other volunteers.
About daybreak a cold, light, rain began to fall. In the grey morning light the scene was even more dismal than it had been the night before. The true extent of the devastation was revealed. Adjoining buildings were blackened with soot but by grace, good fortune, and a lot of hard work, they were still standing. The hall which had housed the Water Riti and more than 100 years of trophies and treasures collected by the boat club was a total loss. An old timer with a long beard stopped beside me, assessed
the damage and began to tell me of the really big fire the year of his 18th summer that had burned half of Mon-ton.
"Now there was a fire! Burned for two days. We built cofferdams with anything we could find in the streets and then broke into the acquaduct above town and routed the entire supply into the area where the fire was burning. A few died in the fire, but more in the sicknesses we had before we got the water and sewers working again afterward. Now there was a fire".
Back at work at the Vanu, Urs was understandably solemn, not at all his jovial self. He moved among the rough tables seeing to the needs of his customers, exchanging a word with a group here and there, but his remarks were not followed by the usual laughter and hearty kidding. Loosing the boat had meant so much to him.
That night after the kitchen closed he called all of us together. With Moltan beside him he gave us the news. Soltan, the smiling if somewhat erratic cook, Leeta and the two serving girls Gressel and Novera, even Lady Camille listened from the open doorway to the storeroom where we had our quarters.
"I have called you here to tell you something which will affect our futures. You have a right to know in time to make plans for yourselves and for those who depend on you.
You know of my boat club and of the "Water Rikki" which we planned to enter in the races. You know that each year I bet heavily on the races. This year I did what has proven to be a very foolish thing. The "Rikki", in my opinion was an almost sure bet to win the races. Moltan and I are not getting any younger and I wanted to put something aside against the day when we can no longer operate the Vanu.
Our only son, Ferst, never returned from the war with the salt pirates so we have only ourselves to depend on. . . but that is not your concern. This year I bet so heavily on the races that when the local boat fails to win I will have to sell the Vanu to pay the debt. Perhaps if the right buyer can be found Moltan and I can buy a small country inn and live out our days there. Perhaps the new owner will keep all of you working for him, but I felt you must know that none of us can count on being here after the Winterfest."
The Ways Between Worlds: Peter Cooper Page 11
