Through Darkest Zymurgia!

We gathered in the lounge promptly at seven o'clock: myself, Carbuncle, Philpott, Hodgins, Cadbury, and Captain Halvorsen. After introductions were made and Cadbury and Carbuncle finished greeting each other, we pulled the chairs into a circle and sat down. The steward circulated with bottles of sherry and suchlike.

"The agenda for the night is twofold," I began after sampling my sherry. "First, we must plan the events of the next few days. As that is a straightforward matter, it shouldn't take too long. Next, I would like to review what we know about Zymurgia, both from historical sources and from our own experience." I smiled at the gathered company. "That shouldn't take too long, either, I fear." Carbuncle grinned at that; Philpott and Hodgins just looked earnest.

"But first, our plans," I continued. "Tomorrow, we must do a survey of the line of the plateau. It's an easy job, but it will get us moving, and also it will be much easier to do from down here than it would be from the top of the plateau."

Philpott broke in. "But didn't you do the same survey on your previous trip?"

"Precisely, Thaddeus, precisely. One of my pet theories is that Zymurgia is getting progressively more remote as time goes by. It will be interesting to see how this survey compares with the previous one. Though, in all fairness, we had no Hansen's geometer last time."

"I take it, then," said Carbuncle, "that you'll be wanting me to come along and operate it?"

"But surely, Thomas, you have more important things to do here?" As I feared, he did not.

"I think I can spare the time, Leon." He smirked evilly at me. "A stitch in time saves nine, they say."

I looked at him coldly, but did not respond to his insinuation. "Very well then, yes, I'd like you to come along, Thomas. And also you, Thaddeus, and you, Hodgins. That should be sufficient." Cadbury was looking disappointed. I hastened to reassure him.

"Cadbury, once we have finished our preliminary survey work, we will want to make our first trip to the top of the plateau. You know what that means in terms of donkeys, supplies, and so forth; can you see to making the arrangements?"

"Perhaps you will not wish to work so hard," he said, sitting forward in his chair. Perhaps I looked as puzzled as I was, for he continued immediately, "How long will you be at the surveying? Three days? Four days?"

"Five days; or perhaps four, weather permitting," I replied. "We will be making two trips, one to the east and one to the west, to map the plateau's line in both directions."

"The next trader is expected in six days," said Cadbury, "though it may be seven. Who can say? If you will wait, we can ride to the top of the plateau with the trader, and have a native guide immediately."

"Capital, Cadbury, capital. That's what we'll do. We're ahead of schedule thanks to our mad rush up the river, so even if it is eight days we will still be all right. Will we need our own donkeys?"

Cadbury's eyes crinkled as he smiled broadly, but all he said was, "No, my friend, no donkeys."

I turned my attention to Captain Halvorsen. "Captain, we will need the ship's boat in the morning to travel to the east shore of the lake. I'd like to have the boat ready first thing in the morning."

"Easily done," said the Captain. "I'll detail Jackson and Perkins to row you over. You won't object to their returning to the ship until it's time to pick you up?" We quickly arranged that the boat would return for us at the end of the second day, and that we would flash a mirror across the lake if we needed to be picked up earlier.

"Well, that concludes the planning portion of the meeting," I said, waving to the steward for a refill. "Now for a little Zymurgian history. Hodgins, I believe you've finished the translations I asked for?" He nodded, stiffly, sitting bolt upright in his seat, a sheaf of paper in his hand. "Capital. Please summarize their contents for us." His eyes widened, and if anything he sat up straighter. He did not look happy, but Hodgins is an Anglish seaman, so he rallied quickly.

"Yes, sir." He shuffled pages for a moment, as if deciding where to start.

"Start with the earliest ones, Hodgins, if you please, and work your way forward."

He nodded, and began. "The first mention is by Miletidus the Troasene, who lived in the 22nd century BU. Um, he writes of a drink called the Water of the Gods which is served at the court of the king of Seros. He doesn't call it beer, but he does say that it comes from a land far to the south."

"It seems odd, doesn't it," said Carbuncle. "Didn't the Troasenes know about beer?"

"They certainly did," said Philpott. "I've seldom heard of a culture that didn't. It's almost an invariant."

"It hardly matters either way," I said. "Old Miletidus based his writings on traveller's tales; I'm not sure he ever left Troas. He certainly never tasted the Water of the Gods, and I doubt his source had either. Also, remember that Seros may still have been largely fabulous at that time." I sipped my sherry, as Hodgins continued.

"Ah, the next mention," he said, "is in the Serosan Campaign of Isotragoras of Chalcedon, which was written late in the 18th century BU in Phillipi. This Isotragoras fellow was an advisor of Phillip the Great's and was with him during the conquest of Seros. The Water of the Gods was still being drunk by the king of Seros and his court at that time, and the soldiers who captured the palace identified it quite definitely as beer. They left little enough, but apparently Phillip got a taste of it, and continued importing it. According to Isotragoras, he contemplated a Zymurgian campaign, but nothing came of it. Isotragoras also says that the Water of the Gods came from a country many week's journey to the south and high in the mountains. He called the place Zumosia."

I nodded at him to continue.

"There are a few mentions during the next century or so," Hodgins went on, "but they don't amount to much. The next important document is the Memoirs of the Paloman general Clodius Serosicus. He conquered the last remnants of Phillip's dynasty and turned Seros into a huge farm for the benefit of the Paloman Empire, except that I guess it wasn't really an empire yet." Hodgins snorted and looked up. "Bit of a killjoy was old Clodius. He disapproved of Zymurgian beer on moral grounds. He refers to it as the Water of the God, aqua dei, but he knew it was beer all right. He didn't approve of the beer they served in Paloma either. Let's see," he said, trying to find his spot again. "Clodius was appointed proconsul of Seros, and he did two important things: he stopped importing beer to Phillipi, and he arranged to have Seros fairly well mapped."

"For that day and age, certainly," I agreed. Carbuncle chuckled.

"He's the first source I've read that gives the name Zymurgia to the land to the south of Seros," Hodgins went on. "He tried to suppress the beer trade, but later gave it up as a bad job. Apparently he contemplated invading Zymurgia to stop it at the source, but after he learned of the plateau and the cliffs he gave that up, too."

"I seem to recall that his is the last source that speaks of the Zymurgian traders travelling freely about Seros...is that right?" I asked. Hodgins thought for a few moments, then nodded.

"Yes, I think it is. Many traders were imprisoned or killed, and I suppose the remainder got tired of it all."

"Ah. Go on, please," I said.

"Well, the next source is the Paloman historian Musebius, who travelled through Seros at the height of the Paloman Empire. He found the aqua dei all over Seros, drunk by all manner of people; apparently the trade had picked up considerably by then, but most of the traders were Serosan. He ascribed healing powers to the aqua dei."

"Ironic, that," I said. "Tradition has it that he sent for some aqua dei in his last illness; apparently it spoiled in transit, and he died of it." Philpott looked slightly appalled, but Hodgins snickered appreciatively.

"Well," he continued, "then the Seljurks swept through around the 7th century BU and took over the whole place."

"Not the Seljurks," said Philpott.

"Followers of Aziz, then," said Hodgins. "Azizim rulers have come and gone since then, but they've mostly suppressed the trade even more harshly than old Clodius, on religous grounds. There are scattered mentions of Zymurgia over the next thousand years, as the source of a clandestine trade in forbidden liquor. The next important mention is in the writings of a Lyrican explorer, Giacomo Cabrini. He was the first Arrastian since the Palomans to say much about Seros, and the first to see this lake we're floating on since Clodius did his survey. He came to Seros a little over a hundred and fifty years ago, and made it all the way up the Aram to right here. He'd had so many troubles on the way, and was so upset by the sight of the massive cliffs that he lost heart. He spent some time with the local villagers, and then went home. He doesn't say anything about aqua dei or Zymurgia, but he does mention that the locals gave him some truly excellent beer, and that he was surprised to find such a thing in a village of the Azizim."

Hodgins straightened his pile of papers, and sat back. "And that's about it," he said. "There's been a lot written about Seros since, but not many people have made it this far south. I guess they keep getting stuck at the various monuments and things in the north."

Carbuncle chuckled again. "That's more or less what happened to Leon and I on our last trip. That writ-server in Cuprios has probably done us a real service."

"Now, Thomas," I said, "you know we never intended to visit Zymurgia on our last trip. We were just trying to get away from the visitors."

"That's true, indeed that's true. Bad as mosquitoes they were. Now, Leon, tell them about our trip," said Carbuncle.

I leaned back in my chair, waving at Baxter for a refill. I twirled my glass by its stem for a few moments as I gathered my thoughts.

"What I remember most," I said, "about our previous trip to Zymurgia is the donkeys. We hired a team of donkeys from the villagers here, and rode them to the top of the plateau. At least, we rode them where we didn't have to walk. It's a long, steep, windy, poorly maintained path, and frankly I'm not looking forward to that part of the trip."

"Do not worry," said Cadbury, "you will not have such trouble this time."

I looked at him skeptically. His brown face was solemn, but his bright eyes were laughing at me.

"Should this be true, Cadbury, I will be eternally grateful." He half-bowed in his seat, inclining his head. "At any rate, the trips up and down the cliff were as uneventful as they were painfully tedious. When we got to the top of the plateau--"

"You could hardly stand, as I recall, Leon," Carbuncle broke in.

"When we got to the top of the plateau--"

"And then you could hardly stand to be seated!" Carbuncle's broad face was suffused with laughter as he drained his glass of sherry and gestured for a refill. Cadbury joined him--in the laughter, not the sherry. I refused to be drawn.

"When we got to the top of the plateau--" I paused, and looked at my colleagues. Carbuncle had his face buried in one hand, stifling giggles, and waved me along with the other. I resumed, "our first job was to find a native guide. Either the villagers didn't suggest hiring one of the traders, or there wasn't one due, I don't recall, but we didn't have a Zymurgian guide with us."

Carbuncle had recovered by this time. "That's really what held us up," he told the others. "We had no guide, and the only Zymurgian we managed to grab didn't speak Serosan."

"That's when we found out how odd the Zymurgian language is," I said. Philpott sat up straight. "None of the old writings mention the language at all; they just say that the Zymurgians were foreigners. I'd assumed all along that the Zymurgians were of the same race as the Serosans, speaking a variant of the same language, but I was greatly mistaken. It's entirely different, and unrelated to any language with which I am familiar. I'm quite impressed, Cadbury, that you've managed to pick it up."

"Leon," said Philpott, "do you suppose I could stay here while you go off surveying? I'd like to work with Cadbury on an Anglish-Zymurgian dictionary."

"Doesn't that seem a tad ambitious, Thaddeus? You've not yet learned any other language than Anglish."

"One must start somewhere," he said, earnestly. "And besides, it could be useful." Useful to his career, I thought to myself.

"Very well, Thad. Carbuncle and Hodgins and I should manage all right between us."

"So what happened next, sir?" asked Hodgins.

"What was that, Hodgins?"

"With the one Zymurgian you managed to grab, sir."

"Oh, yes. Him. We couldn't understand a word of his language, and he couldn't understand a word of ours, but he was quite friendly none-the-less. He lead us to a kind of hut at the edge of a field of grain, just under the trees, you know, and gave us quite a nice meal, didn't he, Thomas."

"He did, Leon, he did," said Carbuncle. "As I recall, there was some kind of meat stew, and a jug of something that nearly took my scalp clean off when I drank it."

"Yes, some kind of grain spirits, I believe," I said. "It was quite potent," I said, rubbing my own scalp at the memory. Cadbury, who had of course had had none, was looking painfully smug.

"No beer?" asked Hodgins, surprised.

"Yes," said Philpott, "I'm surprised as well. I don't completely understand the Law of Consensus yet, but after beer has appeared in all of the stories for thousands of years, I'd certainly expect there to be beer."

"No beer," I said. "I don't know why that should be, but this trip I hope to find out. The important thing to remember is that the stories don't tell the whole story. All we really know is that Zymurgia has exported beer for thousands of years. What place beer has in their culture, we have no idea." I drained my glass. "Is there any more sherry, Baxter?"

"No, sir, there is not. Unless you would like me to open another bottle."

I mentally tallied the number of bottles remaining, and shook my head. "No, thank you, Baxter. Well, gentlemen, I declare this meeting closed. I shall see you all at an ungodly hour tomorrow morning. Good night." And with that, I walked carefully to my cabin for as many hours of the dreamless as I could get before morning.