Belmundus (The Farn Trilogy Book 1)

by Edward C. Patterson

  “Yes. We are partial to far seeing. Near seeing is a challenge.”

  Harris put that on his mental to-do list.

  “Read.”

  Yustichisqua spoke:

  “O the pernicious . . . catwhiff!”

  Harris peeked.

  “Caitiff. It’s an old English word for a coward or a miserable bastard.”

  “Oh.”

  “Start again.”

  “O the pernicious caitiff!

  How came you, Cassioshima, by that handkerchief

  That was my wife’s?”

  Harris looked off into the rain and mumbled.

  “I found it in my macaroni:

  And he himself confess’d but even now

  That there he dropp’d it for a special purpose

  Which wrought to his desire.”

  Pause. Long pause.

  “Next line.”

  “Yes, oginali.” Yustichisqua trembled. “O fool! Fool! fool!” He nodded. “Please forgive me, oginali.”

  Harris laughed but continued unabated and in full voice.

  “There is besides in Roderikosan’s letter,

  How he upbraids Iagomoto, that he made him

  Brave me upon the watch; whereon it came

  That I was cast: and even but now he spake,

  After long seeming dead, Iagomoto hurt him,

  Iagomoto set him on.”

  Little Bird’s eyes widened, impressed by his master’s deep voice. Recitation, not acting — not yet, but the germ brought forth another being and must have surprised Yustichisqua. How many men lived inside Lord Belmundus?

  “Come, Little Bird. I believe the next line belongs to Lodovicomori.”

  Yustichisqua returned to the script.

  “Yes, oginali. That is the name for the next say.”

  He read, slowly, and with temerity:

  “You must forsake this . . . mikaruni, and go with us:

  Your power and your command is taken off,

  And Cassioshima rules in Honshu. For this slave,

  If there be any cunning cruelty . . .”

  “Enough,” Harris said. “You’ve done well.”

  “Thank you, oginali. I do not know what it means.”

  “Most people don’t. Besides, we’re just running lines. There’s more to acting than that.”

  “I do not doubt it.”

  Harris took the script, rolled it, and then slapped it in his open palm.

  “Who taught you how to read?”

  Silence.

  He was sorry he asked. The teacher had broken the law not the student. If the Eye should pop in now, it might think Harris held class.

  “She did,” Little Bird said, after hesitation.

  “She?”

  “Littafulchee.”

  “Your cousin.”

  Harris had a mental flash of the elusive Trone who served Charminus silently, but efficiently — a Trone whom other Trones gave wide berth. An attractive Trone — mysteriously alluring. Harris knew he might have stepped over the line with Yustichisqua, but when it came to Charminus’, liberties were heresies and dismissal would probably result.

  “But if it’s a taboo to teach . . .”

  Little Bird was circumspect.

  “She teaches us when we are in the Kalugu. It is dangerous, but if she did not undertake it, our people would lose their heritage.”

  “Is heritage important to a people who grovel and live at death’s edge?”

  “We do not fear death, oginali. We fear pain — the lingering in dying, which the Yunockers can give effectively. That we fear. We, like you, do not live forever. You will live long and will cling to your youth. But your poor Yustichisqua grows old and dies — food for the porcorporian.”

  Harris sat with a thud. He hadn’t considered life and death’s dynamics in a community where the masters live forever or nearly so, and the population churns like sand in the wind.

  “How sad,” he said.

  “No, oginali. We are bound to service. Our lives are hard, but they have been hard always, or so I have been told. To serve in silence is honorable. But we have a voice and it is alive. That is why Littafulchee has taught me to read the letters and to say the words.”

  “Cetrone.”

  “The ancestral speech prevails.”

  Suddenly, Harris had a revelation.

  “So, Cetrone is the basic speech of Farn.”

  “It sits with others at the core.”

  This was true. The wards of Montjoy City all had Cetrone names — as did the instruments in the orchestra and the flora and the fauna. Even within the tasty name of mongerhide lingered a Cetrone root word, but it wasn’t a mouthful Harris was prepared to swallow.

  “Then,” Harris mused, “the Cetrone have been around for a long time.”

  Little Bird smiled broadly.

  “We are the people, oginali. The Ayelli came from another place. They took our land — the growing fields beyond the hills, and made many changes to the way we live. But as long as they are the Ayelli, we are content to serve them.”

  Harris soon learned Ayelli meant . . . Invader.

  Chapter Three

  The Weeping Road

  1

  Yustichisqua gazed into the rain, and then extended his hand to catch the drops. He grinned, and brought the sky drink to his lips, sipping it from his palm. He gained Harris’ full attention.

  “This is our land, oginali,” Little Bird began. “From the hill to the valley to these drops of rain. Ours, but no longer.”

  “Did the Ayelli steal it?”

  “Not the Ayelli,” Yustichisqua replied, sadness in his voice. “They came later. We are the people, but not the only people in Farn. There are many rulers. The spirits of the realm decide for all when they decide at all.”

  The promise and prophecy, Harris thought.

  “Can it be true?” he asked.

  “True and final, although some believe there will come a time when we shall dwell in peace and breathe the free air again. We know now, land can be owned and taken. It was not a thing we knew to be true, but we know it drives others. It drove the Yunockers, who watched the Gurts and Zecronisians buy and sell land. Such things are hard to know, but are true, because they happen.”

  “Land is a possession, Little Bird. It’s as true where I come from as it is here. If you don’t have a deed, you’re screwed.”

  Little Bird chuckled.

  “Pieces of parchment and twigs notched with boundary marks. The Cetrone know that well . . . now. We even thought it to be in our best interest to adopt such ways. When the Yunockers first came into the valley, we called them brothers. They spoke a language close to ours. The Great Spirit settled them to our south, in the pastures of Aweeyodayna, where they lived in straw huts and ate braised dayna meat. They grew no jomar or quillerfoil. They harbored no waddly wazzoos to guide their spirits. When they hungered, the Cetrone took pity. We taught them to plant the seed and till the land. We let them settle on our borders so they could share in our bounty. But we knew not the measure of their greed — a people driven by possession and the ownership of land.”

  “The Cetrone were Good Samaritans,” Harris said.

  “If you call it so, oginali, then it is so.”

  Yustichisqua strode to a spot near his waddly wazzoo. Sadly, he looked to the lamp as if it were the only thing in his life deemed true. He sighed.

  “They came to us for help. They thanked us and gave us gifts, which they said was payment for land. We took these, but regarded them as traditional gifts — unexpected but embraced as any nation would embrace another, especially much like our kin as were these Yunockers. They came into the valley like the tides upon Plageris. They built tall houses, which shadowed our simple yehu. They invited the Gurts to craft metal and zulus, to carve gemstones and shape pottery. They hosted a market with the Zecronisians who excelled at take and bring, making for commerce to other lands. The Zecronisians sold wares — wares made on the soil of the
Cetrone ancestors.”

  “Sounds like an infestation to me,” Harris said. “Farn’s not unlike my world, where people impose on people at every turn, taking what’s not theirs and pushing the natives aside.”

  “Then you understand, oginali. There is no surprise in it. You must see Montjoy as a place much like your own. You shall thrive here.”

  “No, Little Bird. Farn’s like my world in some respects, but is foreign as shit in most everything else. I’ll never be comfortable in a land where creatures are enslaved.”

  “But it is our fault we are so,” Yustichisqua said, sitting beside his lamp. “When all the land was taken and the Cetrone had been paid these gifts — when they had bought buckets of sqwallen and retreated to the Kalugu, there was little more we could do. Then came the Ayelli. Their lands were beyond the mountains, but the great master took a shine to our valley. He bought the hill, and then claimed it in the name of the Great Spirit.”

  “There’s always some god or other to make things right,” Harris said. He hunkered down beside Little Bird. “But how is this the Cetrone’s fault?”

  “That is something lost in time, oginali. The Yunockers did not accept the Elector’s rule. Oh, no. They arose to evict him from his hill. They attacked the palace and threatened to destroy his treasure houses. But the Elector’s power is great. He needs no armies. With a wave of his great Stick, he paralyzed the Yunocker forces. After the Yunockers were defeated, the Ayelli demanded yedalas — many yedalas. And great stores of jomar and quillerfoil. The Yunocker Grand Council sued for peace — a thing on the Elector’s mind also.”

  “But how did that affect the Cetrone?”

  “We are a divided people, oginali. We have always been given to factions. The villagers who owned land and had slaves wanted to sign an obligation to the Grand Council for rewards. Others, the people of the Kalugu, secretly sent a delegation to the Elector, agreeing to serve the House of Montjoy in exchange for the Kalugu. This shook the Yunocker hold over the eastern ward. However, before the Cetrone could act with one voice, a treaty between the Ayelli and the Yunockers was made. The Yunockers could live in peace if they supplied the Elector with a police force. The Elector also demanded the Cetrone serve his family upon the hill. It has been so ever since.”

  “Sad.”

  “Sadder,” Little Bird said, lifting his waddly wazzoo, allowing it to dangle from its chain. “The Cetrone refused to comply, rebelling against both Yunockers and Ayelli. There was much bloodshed. We are a peaceful folk with few weapons, and had no access to Aniniya nayu — the Power Stones, which the Yunockers had in abundance from the trade with the Zecronisians.”

  “So, you were defeated.”

  “And downtrodden,” Little Bird said, a tear glistening in his eye. “It is a thing of the past — so long ago I only know it through the Yodanado — the Whisperers. Then the Yunockers captured us, putting us in cages — in long rows to hang upon the desert wall. Many examples were made. Many Cetrone dried in the demon suns. Others were imprisoned and tortured. But the lord Elector is not a cruel man. He intervened. He commanded the Yunockers to set free the Cetrone. And so it was decided we would be moved.”

  “Resettled?”

  “Yes. Some remained in the Kalugu, because the House of Montjoy needed servants. All others were to be set aside and driven east to the Dodaloo — the Spice Mountains, many yiyutli across the Forling desert.”

  “The Cetrone were marched across the desert?”

  “Yes. No zulus to shield us from the kowlinka — the red sand. The Yunockers prodded us onward. Many Cetrone fell from exhaustion and torment. Great was the weeping. By our tears the trail was moistened. Those who survived the journey settled in the Dodaloo and are there still. It is called Cetronia. In days past, a ferry crossed the Forling to keep contact there, but such crossings are few now.”

  “But if Cetronia is across the desert, why are your people still in Montjoy — in the Kalugu?”

  “We are not immortal, oginali. We live and die and breed and grow and multiply like all things except royal Farnians, who keep the spirit fires and are rewarded with long life and health everlasting. We are . . . stuck. We serve to manage it. It is our fault, after all. We were good hosts to the Yunockers and unable to come together to serve our interests over the invaders’. Our contracts hold us with few advantages. The Yunockers enforce our lives — which we give often. The past seems a bitter place, choosing being more painful than compliance.”

  Yustichisqua brought his waddly wazzoo closer, kindling it with a friction stone near the wick. It burst into flame, the light dim different from other light in Farn.

  “And that, oginali is why places here are called by Cetrone names and not in the Ayelli language.”

  He closed his eyes and began to sway gently, singing a haunting song:

  “Dsulasi dona owaynasa,

  Ulushoo ita ha yeeyasa,

  Awaydeesga akali

  Ustigunana digaswosdi.”

  “How sad, Yustichisqua,” Harris said. “What does it mean?”

  Little Bird opened his eyes.

  “My feet go far from home,

  I fall because I roam,

  I tote my people’s load,

  Along the weeping road.”

  “The weeping road,” Harris echoed, and knew he too was Ayelli.

  2

  Little Bird dowsed his lamp.

  “I must get you something to eat, oginali. Perhaps, chumwhat porridge and the cheese of the diluwopeen bear.”

  “Sounds delectable,” Harris said absently. “But I can wait. I want to hear more about the Cetrone.”

  “What more is there to tell? We are as we are and will remain so. There is peace when order is kept. Everyone knows their place. Steady grows the heart.”

  “Bullshit,” Harris snapped. “Do you mean to tell me that none among you stir against these cruel overlords or your enemy?”

  “It is true the Yunockers are our enemy. But in defeat there is no shame when the honor of the victors is revered.”

  “Bullshit, again and again, I say, bullshit.”

  “You may say it, oginali, and I may hear it, but here it stays like the rain upon the railing or the wick of my waddly wazzoo.”

  Harris didn’t buy it. Cetrone history sat heavy on his conscience, as if he had caused the encroachment or ordered the resettlement. A fair-minded man, he had always been generous to his co-stars, never rivaling anyone for marquee space or top billing, despite the box office cut tied to it. His agent, a wily fox who must have had a waddly wazzoo of his own, because Harris had more than his share of top billing, handled those details. Still, this wasn’t theater. This was a strange world — not his world. Yet, sitting in the storm and listening to Yustichisqua’s tale, Harris’ anger inflamed and with it — guilt. There must be a way to leverage his advantages as Lord Belmundus the Fair and the Just and the Big Muckyfuck to right these wrongs. Yet how? Centuries old wrongs, these . . . millennia perhaps — an eternity of darkness imprinted upon a people who had lost their will to fight. Grumble they might do behind the chumwhat porridge pots in the Scullery Dorgan, but nary a word against their overlords was spoken in public. Then, something occurred to him.

  “Hey, wait a minute, Little Bird.”

  “You are hungry now, yes, oginali. I shall get you the diluwopeen cheese straight away.”

  “No. I just thought of something. You can walk through walls.”

  “Yes, I can.”

  “Then how the fuck can the Yunockers confine you in the Kalugu? You can just use that advantage to frustrate the crap out of their plans.”

  Yustichisqua grinned.

  “I see what you are thinking, oginali. But the wall walking is the property of kaybar nayu, and not of all rocks and stones. It is not entirely within us, but in the kaybar. Just kaybar.”

  “Kaybar? I don’t understand.”

  “I do not either. How it works is beyond me. But it is so, nonetheless. The Cetrone cannot feel kayba
r nayu. We cannot even lift it. We can use building hoists to craft houses and walls made from it, as others can do. The Ayelli use it as a convenience so we may pass through it and serve them better, much like wearing the zulus. But wall walking has to do with our body’s composition. It is like the Gurts’ long tongue, which they can use to scratch their ears and catch lice crawling on their backs. The Zecronisians have a third leg growing like a tail from their backsides, which they extend and have a seat. And the Yunockers have a powerful sense of smell. They can sniff out a Cetrone at many yiyutli distance. However, none can pass through the kaybar as we can. But we cannot pass through other stone. So the walls around the Kalugu are made of phitron nayu and other materials like wood from the iron trees of the hillside or glassifon crafted in Gurt kilns and ryyves. They make strong glassifon there and we cannot penetrate it. Only the kaybar.”