The cataclysm t2-2

by Margaret Weis

  But, first, I am going to get a sugar roll.

  Report Number Two

  Same day, about midmorning

  Hi, Astinus! I am writing this from the Newshore magistrate's jail in cell number four. It is dark in here, and I cannot see what I am writing or even if my pen is still working. It smells like somebody drank too much ale and it didn't agree with him, so he got rid of it in every way he could and then didn't bother to clean it up. I can hear someone snoring in cell number one, and cell three has someone in it who needs to use a handkerchief.

  How I got here is very interesting, so I will put it down in case it is important. I was really hungry and was getting cold in the alley, so I went on into the bakery, which smelled of fresh-baked sugar rolls and breakfast pastries, the whirly kind with the melted cheese stuff on top that Ark says gives him gas but which I like anyway (the pastries with cheese I mean, not the gas, which is awful).

  Ark always buys pastries from Goodwife Filster by him self. When I tell him I want to get them, he always says, "That wouldn't be a good idea," and he buys the pastries. Goodwife Filster always frowns at me while I wait for Ark outside her shop. She knoFws I'll be eating the sugar rolls Ark is buying, which I think makes her mad, but I have no idea why. She's one of the people I want to understand by being a recorder, but so far I haven't figured her out.

  When I opened the oak door and went inside where it was toasty warm from the baking ovens and smelled the way I imagine Paradise does, Goodwife Filster saw me and frowned (she never smiles) and said in a nasty voice, "I'm not open yet, kender."

  I said, "I thought you always opened about now."

  And she said, "Get out of here, before I call the magistrate. Go on!"

  About then I knew I wasn't going to get a sugar roll or even a cheese pastry, because Goodwife Filster is funny sometimes about people who aren't human like her, only she's not really funny as in funny ha-ha, she's funny as in funny uh-oh. Ark calls her the Minotaur, on account of she's strong and heavy and has such a terrible temper, but he says it's because she's as ugly as one, too.

  I was leaving when I remembered what you had asked Ark to do, so I stopped and said, "I have just one question to ask before I go."

  Goodwife Filster's face knotted up in a way that reminded me of the Wylmeens' dog, but she didn't say anything, so I quickly got out my papers and pen and got ready to write down her answer. When she looked like she was going to yell at me, I asked my question, which was, "Do you think the gods did the right thing when they struck down Istar so that the balance of the world was preserved and freedom of thought, will, and action was granted to all once more?" I'm not sure I asked the question exactly as you wanted Ark to, and I borrowed some of your phrases from your letter to get it right, but I figured I was close enough and didn't think it would hurt.

  On the other hand, maybe I didn't ask the question properly after all, since Goodwife Filster called me a name that meant that my real parents weren't married, which for all I know they weren't, but that wasn't any business of hers, and then she came at me with a bread knife, so I ran outside and down the street and was cold and hungry again before I knew it.

  As I was standing outside her shop with my arms crossed under my robes because it was too cold to write this down yet, a fisherman came up to go into the bakery, and I said, "It's not open yet," because I'd never known Goodwife Filster to lie, even if she once said that all elves carried diseases and kidnapped children, which I don't think they do, or at least not all of them, or at least not the ones I know. Anyway, the fisherman said, "Oh," and left.

  Then the Moviken kids came up, and I said, "It's not open yet," so they made faces at the bakery window and left. Then the spinster sisters Anwen and Naevistin Noff came up, and I said, "It's not open yet," and they groaned and left.

  Then Goodwife Filster came out, wiping her hands on a towel, and she looked around and frowned at me, and I said, "Are you open yet?"

  And she made a snorting noise through her nose and said, "When Istar rises, you damn kender," then went back inside to bake some more.

  Then Woose, the dwarf, came by and said, "Morning, Walnut," and I said, "Morning, Woose. The bakery's not open yet."

  Woose peered at the bakery door and scratched his beard and said, "That's funny. She's usually open at this hour," and then he left. Woose isn't a human, but he has lots of steel coins from his mining business, and maybe Goodwife Filster forgives him for not being human on account of that.

  Five more people came by whose names I've forgotten, and they left, and then Goodwife Filster came out and mumbled to herself and looked around and glared at me and said, "What did you tell those last two people who were here just now?"

  And I said, "That you weren't open yet," and she got a look on her face that reminded me of the Wylmeens' dog when it bit me on the finger, and she called me a name that meant I liked my mother more than normal people were meant to, which was silly because I don't even remember my mother, and Goodwife Filster grabbed me by my robes and brought me here to the magistrate to be hanged.

  We had to wait until Jarvis, the magistrate, could get out of bed and find his spectacles, and he was as tall and thin as ever, and his black hair was all messed up from sleeping on it. He combed out his hair and big moustache, then looked at me and said, "You again?" and looked sad, probably on account of this being the fifth time this year he would have to throw me in jail for being a public nuisance, which Jarvis says is really just a way to let everyone cool off and forget whatever I had done so they wouldn't tie me to a rock and drop me on a kelp farm, as Jarvis puts it, which sounds interesting but which I don't understand, since that would mean I was underwater.

  "What now?" said Jarvis to Goodwife Filster, who then said a lot of things that weren't true, like that I was a plague carrier and a thief and a liar, and she was about to explain what she meant by my being responsible for the fall of Istar when Woose, the dwarf, ran into the magistrate's office and yelled, "Fire! Fire at Goodwife Filster's!"

  Then Woose saw Goodwife Filster and yelled, "Gods, woman, your bakery is on fire!" and Goodwife Filster went all white and staggered like someone had hit her, then she ran out, and Woose ran out, and Jarvis ran out, but before Jarvis ran out he locked me in here and said he would be back.

  So here I am with my facts machine and nothing to do. I should write down some notes on the economic situation in Newshore after Istar blew up and the crops drowned because of the ocean that used to be two days north of here but now comes up to the place where the Karkhovs once had a giant melon field and is where Ark and I fish for moonfins, but Jarvis is back now, and he's waiting for me to leave my cell after I finish this first.

  "What are you writing?" he just now asked me, and now he's looking and…

  Report Number Three

  Same day, about an hour after noon

  Hi, Astinus! I'm writing this from the rooftop of the Cats amp; Kitties, which is really just a tavern with a sign showing a woman's bosom with no dress on and isn't a pet shop at all, which was what I thought all the time I was growing up but Ark wouldn't take me there to find out. It's warmer now, and the sun is out and the sky is clear blue, and I can see lots of bird droppings on the roof from last year now that the snow is gone, and I might be sitting on some but I can't help it. Someone should clean this roof up, but then no one is supposed to be up here and I wouldn't be either except that Magistrate Jarvis said I was safer here than in jail, and he's gone to try to calm down the mob before I show up in town again.

  So here I am, writing away on the roof and reading over some letters that Ark left in the satchel with the facts machine, and those letters are very interesting, though I can't imagine why Ark put them in here since I doubt very much he meant to send them to you. I think Widow Muffin wrote these letters to Ark, and she says a lot of things that make me think that maybe they aren't telling me the whole truth whenever Ark asks me to go into town to buy groceries when Widow Muffin comes over, and when I get back they te
ll me they were just talking. I was quite amazed at some of the things she said, and I don't think I will ever be able to look at either her or Ark again and not think about them playing "warming the weasel," which I should probably explain but am too embarrassed to do, and you wouldn't believe me anyway.

  How I got up here on the roof is an interesting story, and I will write it down in case it is important. After I left off last time, Magistrate Jarvis took my satchel away while I was sending my report through the facts machine inside, and he took me out of jail, then gave me my satchel back and said that I could leave now, but I shouldn't try to talk to Good-wife Filster for a few years.

  "What happened to her bakery?" I asked, and he said, "Oh, the old windbag left a cloth sitting on an oven when she went outside, and the cloth caught fire, and that spread to the wall and ceiling. The place is pretty well ruined now. She's probably going south to Gwynned to stay with her brother until she gets things sorted out."

  I felt bad for her having to leave town, but I also felt bad for myself and everyone else, since she had the only good bakery. Jarvis went on about there being a lot of confusion as they were trying to put out the fire, but when Woose tried to get people organized, no one would listen to him, because he was rich or a dwarf or both, so the whole place burned up and took the tailor's shop with it. Jarvis said a lot of things about certain people that I should probably not put down here, because I think he was just angry, and I doubt he would really know if those people were as much in love with their barn animals as he implied they were.

  Magistrate Jarvis stopped and rubbed his face and then looked at me and said, "By the way, where did you get those?" and he pointed at my gray robes, so I said, "Ark made me his official recorder this morning, and these are my official recorder's robes, and this is my official Palanthas paper, and this is my steel scribing pen, and this is my once-holy symbol," and I showed him my silver necklace that has the tiny silver open book with the tiny little scribbles in it that you can't read no matter how close you hold it to your eye, which I did once when I was smaller but poked myself in the eyeball and couldn't see for two days, so I don't do it now.

  Magistrate Jarvis snorted and said, "Arkie'd be better off sticking to his shoe business. People don't have a need to read or write all that much. A little bit of knowledge goes a long way."

  I was going to ask what he meant by that, but he looked at my satchel and asked about that, too, and I said it was just to hold all my papers.

  Jarvis sighed and said, "You'd better be getting on out now. Try not to get yourself killed before nightfall," and I promised, and he let me go.

  I was almost out the door when I remembered what you wanted, so I turned around and said, "Can I ask just one question?"

  Jarvis was heading back to bed, but he groaned and said, "If it means I can get to sleep afterward, sure, anything."

  So I took out my papers and my pen and tried to remember the question, and I asked him, "Do you think the gods did right when they sank Istar to preserve the balance of the world and to protect the freedoms of will, thought, and action among all beings?"

  Jarvis stood real still for a while, which made me a bit uneasy, and I slowly began to roll up my papers in case I had to run for it. His face got old and white, and his black moustache looked droopy and dark, but he only said, "Why would you ask me such a damned foolish question as that? By the Abyss and its dragons, no, that wasn't good at all. The gods ruined everything for us. Istar had evil on the run. We had those goblins and minotaurs and other scum in our grip, and we were smashing down the wizards' towers right and left. We could have had a golden age here on our world, the first true age of freedom ever, but the gods broke Istar and turned their backs on us. I was a soldier for Istar before the fall. I was out here in Ergoth hunting down blood-crazed barbarians when the sky lit up to the east and the mountain fell on my homeland. Then the earthquakes and windstorms came, and there was suffering and starvation for all of us who were left, every damn one. That was twenty-two years ago, and I remember every moment of it, every single thing, just like it was yesterday. The gods did us wrong. The good gods turned evil and sold us out. They sold us into a pit of serpents like the lowest goblin whelp."

  Jarvis didn't look much like the Jarvis I knew. He looked more like someone else, and I thought maybe I'd better be going before he threw something at me even if he did promise not to. But Jarvis only stared at me some more and then said, "Get out of here," so I left and didn't write anything down at all until now.

  I walked around town for a little bit after that, thinking about what Jarvis had said and wishing I could get something to eat, because I hadn't had anything so far, what with being chased and thrown in jail and starting fires by accident. I wasn't getting very far on my assignment, and I didn't feel very good at all. I finally got a drink of water from the town fountain, and that helped a little, so I sat on the fountain rim and bunched myself up because if was still a little cold, and I wondered why you were so worried about Ark finding someone who understood why the gods had destroyed Istar, and how you would feel if no one ever understood but Ark and me, and how you would feel if sometimes even Ark and me don't quite understand, either, since the Cataclysm seems to have made everyone so rudeminded. And I didn't understand how not understanding would cause everyone more problems later. Nothing made any sense then, and it still doesn't now, but I'm getting ahead of myself, because it's boring to be here on the rooftop, even with the nice view.

  Anyway, I was sitting by the fountain when a man riding a horse came over. He wore a little bit of armor, so I knew he wasn't from town even if I didn't recognize him anyway, since no one here wears any armor because goblins never come to the coast and the barbarians aren't bothering anybody this year, because they're all sick. The man looked like he was very old but very strong, and he had a moustache bigger and thicker than Jarvis's, but it was full of gray hair. He rode his horse up to the fountain and got off and let his horse drink while he stretched and scratched his backside and began to rub his horse down. It was about the time when he pulled a cloth out of his pocket and began wiping off his armor that I thought he might be a knight, because only a knight would do that. Nobody else cares what his or her armor looks like.

  Ark had told me a lot about the Knights of Solamnia when I was younger, and I never knew if he liked them or didn't like them, because the knights did both good things and bad things, but they often did them both at the same time, so I was pretty confused as to which side they were on. I got out my papers and pen so I could ask my question, but I saw the knight pull out a long steel sword with notches and scrapes cut into the blade, so I decided I would wait a little while and ask about the weather first instead. Ark always says I should think first, since I'm not very good at it sometimes, and maybe I would live longer that way, and right then I decided that maybe he knew what he was talking about.

  The knight glanced at me a few times but said nothing as he cleaned his armor, every bit of it, then got himself a drink from the fountain. He acted like I wasn't really there. I forgot how hungry I was getting because I had never seen a real knight up close, and this one smelled like old sweat and leather and fur and steel. His eyes were like a gray winter sky, and the more I looked at him the less I wanted to ask my question, but I knew I'd have to do it anyway for Ark and you. I was just clearing my throat and was trying to get the question framed properly, so that I could run if necessary, when I saw Kroogi walk up from the blacksmith's shop to wash his face before lunch like he always does, and I knew I was saved. I would ask Kroogi the question first.

  I smiled at Kroogi and sat up straight when he came over, only he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the knight and the knight was looking back, and neither was looking away, and they didn't look too happy about seeing each other. I waved at Kroogi to get his attention, but he didn't wave back. He slowly stripped off his shirt to wash, and you could see the old tribal tattoos on his chest and arms from when he was a warrior with the Red Thu
nder People who lived east of here before they all died from fighting or being sick, which was why Kroogi left them. The knight stared at Kroogi's tattoos and Kroogi stared at the knight's armor, and neither of them said a thing.

  "Kroogi!" I said, waving my arms. "Kroogi, I have a question. Do you have a moment?" I felt safe asking Kroogi, because he was real quiet and never did anything mean, even if Jarvis said Kroogi once cut two men in half using a hand axe in a battle with Istarian army renegades before the fall of Istar, but that wasn't anything anyone would hold against him, as Istarian army renegades were not very nice and they're mostly dead now anyway.

  Kroogi didn't look at me, because he was still staring at the knight, and then Kroogi began flexing his huge arm and chest muscles so you could see the places where spears or swords or arrows had cut him here and there. Finally, he looked away and bent down to soak his shirt in the fountain water, ignoring the knight.

  Several more people had wandered over to the fountain in the meantime, so I knew I'd have lots of other people to ask if the knight or Kroogi didn't give me an answer. "Kroogi!" I said.

  Kroogi glanced at me as he began to wash himself using his shirt, and I knew I could go ahead and ask my question. He never said much, but he always made what he said count.