Through Darkest Zymurgia!

The yellow sun was past the zenith before we were done with the hoist and its environs. Fixing its position--my chief concern--was accomplished in a matter of minutes. Taking sightings of prominent landmarks took even less time; the hoist stands in a man-made clearing in the forest that lines the rim of the plateau. The view south was blocked by the trees, and the view north was of territory already perfectly well mapped. Even if Seros was less well-known, the air was hazy and shimmered with the heat coming off of the desert; any measurements would have been suspect. And so, while Carbuncle poked and prodded and nosed about in the works, Hodgins in tow, the rest of us sat in the shade and threw sticks for Bruno and drank chilled fruit juice. During the passage from Cuprios, Carbuncle had managed to perfect his wine chiller. In the meantime, of course, we had run out of wine to chill. No matter. Carbuncle had preserved several empty bottles, into which we decanted fruit juice or other potables as necessary. It was a pleasure to see the surprise on Fox's face when I handed him a frosty glass. Indeed, it was a pleasure to see anything at all there.

"My word," he exclaimed, "What is this?"

"It is the juice of the gonowah berry," I said. "Or so Mukden tells me. Oh, you mean the chiller? It's an invention of Carbuncle's."

Fox fell to studying it, while I conversed in Serosan with our guides. Cadbury was in town with Philpott, but Mukden's Serosan was quite good, as, surprisingly, was Firenz'. I congratulated him on his grasp of a tongue he would seldom have reason to speak.

"Ahh," the old man said, "It is not so surprising. Have I not made many journeys to the Lands Below?"

"He is my uncle," said Mukden, "and the head of my family. The eldest of the Hinkayas is always one of the Masters of Tomar."

That explained Firenz' apologetic air and his stress on hospitality during our recent inquisition. It also explained why he had volunteered to come traipsing over half of creation with us...it reminded him of his youth. I was about to ask him to tell me of his travels when he spoke again.

"What is your friend looking for?"

"He wants to see how the hoist works."

"It is a simple thing. Why does it take him so long?"

"Perhaps because he seeks something complicated."

It took me a few tries get that idea across to the old man, but once he had it he laughed until he choked. We plied him with fruit juice until he was calm again, though still chuckling.

"A thing that happened in my youth," he said, "Shall I tell you?"

I nodded my agreement, and he began. There was a certain amount of of confusion and explanation, and of backing and filling, which I cannot possibly convey, so I will tell the story as I finally understood it.

"I am of the Hinkaya," he said. "I have lived in the grand house of the Hinkaya on the square all of my life. It was a fine house when I was a child, as it is now, and filled with every good thing. One day my mother had baked nut cakes, and gave me one to eat. She wrapped it in a napkin, so that I would not burn my hands. Oh, it was a fine hot nut cake, with a piece of birga nut sticking out of one side. I took a big bite, and burned my mouth, and then my mother sent me out to play.

"A little while later she caught me passing through the kitchen. She scolded me for stealing another nut cake, and called me a greedy child, but I showed her that it was the same cake, with the same birga nut sticking out of one side, and the same big bite in it. And then I showed her that no nut cakes were missing. Oh, she apologized to me, and then sent me back outside.

"Ah, I was a great trial to her that day. She could not keep me out of the kitchen! Whenever she turned around, I was there, with my napkin and my nut cake. She was sure I was stealing nut cakes, but as often as she looked she saw that it was the same cake, with the same birga nut sticking out of one side, and the same big bite in it. Finally she forbade me to come back into the house until dark. She was sure I was making mischief in the kitchen, though she could not see what it was."

By this time, Firenz' lean black face was nearly round with suppressed merriment, as was Mukden's; he had clearly heard the story before. Some response seemed called for.

"And were you?" I asked.

"Oh, of course, my friend, of course. I was not stealing nut cakes, oh no. My mother would have caught me in a moment. But my brothers and I, we were making sailboats to sail in the fountain, and we needed sails. I was stealing napkins!"

This time I joined in the old man's laughter, and when I had done Fox was looking at me quizically. I related the story to him in Anglish, as best I could.

"Why ever was he stealing napkins?" asked Fox before I reached the end of the story. I reflected for a moment on the awful power of banking to mold and transform its practitioners, giving them a keen eye to see through every situation, while evidently stifling their wit altogether.

"Never mind, Frederick," I sighed. "I suppose it doesn't matter very much." I rose to my feet, tired of waiting. "I'll just go and see what's taking Carbuncle so long, shall I?" Mukden joined me.

"What seems to be the trouble," I called out as we approached him. It was hot under the afternoon glare of the yellow sun, and Carbuncle had taken off his coat and rolled up his sleeves. He was standing, staring at the hoist and its mechanisms as if in a daze. He seemed quite puzzled. Hodgins was sitting nearby on a massive spool of rope, Carbuncle's coat beside him; he just looked tired.

"What seems to be the trouble, Thomas," I repeated.

He ran one hand through his hair, and scratched the back of his head. From appearances, he'd been doing that frequently.

"I'm just trying to figure out how it works, Leon." I looked the device over. Now I was puzzled.

"It seems perfectly plain to me, Thomas," I said. "That pillar over there, with all the bars sticking out of it, is some kind of windlass. They get a bunch of people to hold on to the bars and walk round and round. You can see where the cable is wrapped many times around the pillar, up there? They walk round and round, and that winds up the cable, which then gets coiled up on those spools over there. I guess they do that by hand." I paused, and studied it a bit more. "And that crane-thing with the counterweight on the end is mounted on some kind of swivel; I'd guess they turn it by having a group of people push or pull on that bar over there."

Carbuncle looked at me blankly as I related my guesses to Mukden in Serosan. He nodded and pointed out one or two particular refinements, which I passed along to my friend the phantasticist.

"So where," I repeated, "is the difficulty? I hate to think of what would happen if someone let go of their bar while they were hoisting--in fact, I rather think I'll go back down on donkey-back, and let the rafts fall where they may. But I don't see anything terribly complicated about it."

"So it appears, Leon, but I don't see how any number of people can manage to lift such heavy weights. There must be some kind of phantasm helping out, but I simply cannot find it." He stared at the thing in frustration.

"Hmm," I said. "I rather guess that that's what all those pullies are for, Thomas." He shook his head.

"Why are you so surprised, Thomas? You're the one who told me you found no sign of any phantasm on the raft, and no sign that any phantasm had been used in building the thing."

"I know you're right, Leon." Carbuncle sighed, and ran his hand through his hair again. "I was hoping I was wrong. I thought that if they had no small phantasms, perhaps they would at least have one or two big ones. But it seems that they are innocent of even elementary phantastics." I could understand his disappointment. Behind the everyday bustle of messing around with the expedition's phantasms (maintaining is his word) lurked his real ambition: to find some new phantasm, such as had never been known before. Such a find would be academically satisfying, and potentially lucrative. Alas, it began to seem unlikely.

"Buck up, Thomas," I said. "The season is relatively young, and we have lots of ground to cover. Something might turn up yet. Now, we've spent enough time here. I want to survey the road from here to the donkey trail before dark."

While we were taking our ease and sipping fruit juice, Philpott was wandering from one end of Tomar to the other in the company of Cadbury and the lovely Asha. So we discovered when we returned to the hostel at the end of the day.

It had been a productive day, despite our lengthy sojourn at the hoisthead. We had surveyed the road between Tomar and the hoist, and, on donkeyback, the road from Tomar to the donkey trail which zigzagged down the cliffs to Seros below. The two roads met in a fork just north of Tomar itself, and joined to become the main street through the town. As the rest of the land between Tomar and the plateau's edge was heavily forested, we had therefore in a single day surveyed most of the open land north of Tomar. I do not say that we saw everything there was to see, by any means. The road from the donkey trail to Tomar is fully ten miles long, and there are occasional trails running to one side or the other. It was in a hut along one such--I have no recollection which--that Carbuncle and I were entertained on our first visit.

There was one particular trail that intrigued me. It started at the fork in the roads just outside of Tomar, and ran due north into the woods. The other trails were narrow but well-tended; this one was wide, almost as wide as the roads. It was also much overgrown, not just with shrubs and bushes but also with saplings and a few good-sized trees. It spoke of something once important but now forgotten or abandoned. We had no time to explore it that day, or I would have followed it to its end. It could not be very far; the plateau's edge was only a few miles to the north. Lacking the time, however, I eased my curiousity by inquiring of my guides.

Mukden looked down the overgrown way, and shrugged.

"It is an old road. No one goes there now."

"But it must have lead somewhere once upon a time. Where did it go?"

"The hoist was not always where it is now. When it was moved, the old road fell into disrepair," said Firenz. "Nothing is left there, my friend. Soon the road itself will be swallowed by the forest."

That was certainly true; it had been half-swallowed already.

On the walk back to Tomar I related Firenz' story of the nut cakes to Carbuncle and Hodgins, who laughed appreciatively. I did not discuss the context in which it was told. Carbuncle is a sensitive soul, and he had been sadly disappointed that day.

When we returned to the hostel, Philpott was already seated at the refectory table, sipping fruit juice and working on his notes.

"Ah, Philpott, just the man I wanted to see," I said, sitting down across from him. He looked up at me blankly, pen in hand, eyes owlish behind his spectacles. Then he seemed to snap into focus, and put down his pen.

"Oh, hello, Leon. Did you have a productive day?"

"Indeed we did, and I've a story I want to share with you." I related Firenz' tale for the third time that day, and I fancy it was the smoothest telling so far. Philpott listened attentively, nodding from time to time. He didn't look at me, but rather into the space over my left shoulder, as though he were silently comparing the tale with same slowly moving canvas behind me. When I related that Firenz' mother had forbade him to enter the kitchen, sure as she was that he was up to no good, he pursed his lips and raised his eyebrows, and nodded again.

"I take it Firenz was stealing the napkins for some reason?"

"Yes, to make sails for some toy boats," I said, not very graciously. It was the second time I had had the punch-line cut off by my listener. Philpott just nodded.

"Yes, Leon, a fascinating tale. I'm glad you passed it along to me. There was a time, you know, when no academic who valued his reputation would have anything at all to do with such folk tales. Now, however, we know that such stories are a window onto a culture's collective soul. This is a particular fine one, and I must write it down before I forget the salient details. I don't suppose you could relate it again?"

And so I went through the story a fourth time, unsure whether to be pleased or otherwise. As I spoke he seized his pen and made many rapid scrawls.

"Thank you, Leon, I believe that will do."

"You are welcome, Thad." I poured myself a glass of fruit juice, unfermented and unchilled, but sweet and wet. Just then, Abayla served dinner, and any further discussion of the day's events was postponed as we did it justice.