This is a short one because I spent FAR too long working on character and worldbuilding notes (over 7000 words) and ran out of time to develop the story as much as I wanted to. So this is more of a part one than a full story. Sorry – but I’ll get more writing done now that summer is here and my seasonal stuff changes!
“You want to prove the gods did not create the world while we’re in the middle of a global crisis of faith?” Sibling Lomman asked.
“No, no, no. No. Well…” Zebedy hesitated. “Not… technically. Not exactly. Maybe. Sort of.”
Lomman stood behind Zebedy, watching the woman inspect the small rock face. She stood with hands on hips under her beautiful silk poncho, woven like the night sky with a crescent moon on her back and stars on her shoulders. She stared at the cracked stone, planted her right boot on a boulder, leapt to press her left boot off a high ledge, and vaulted over the ridge.
Expertly done. Lomman hiked this mountain most days for a decade and knew precisely where an avalanche had weakened the face, where the seasonal freeze and thaw cultivated cracks in the granite, which colour streaks were snap-lichen. Zebedy had never been here, but she intuited Lomman’s route in a few breaths.
Lomman and Zebedy turned the last tight corner before the lookout, squeezing between the rock face and a gnarled tree clinging to the cracks. Her reaction was quieter than Lomman expected – a mere soft “ah” – but he saw her appreciation for the view in the way her gloved hands fell a way from the rough granite and her stance relaxed.
He moved to the rough bench and patted the seat next to him. “Built it myself,” he said with a penitent smile. She sat next to him, and for a few moments they took in the view.
The place was not chosen for grandiosity – there were plenty of more awe-inspiring vistas around the mountain. Lomman preferred this spot for its narrower focus: the valley a microcosm of the range, with a small pure waterfall bubbling between tumbled hills encrusted with soft, persistent low greens, dry browns, and year-round pearly snowdrop blooms. The oilslick-shimmer of the chaos wall was at their backs, hidden behind the mountain.
Afternoon sun glinted between the peaks and Lomman watched as Zebedy shielded her eyes, then began idly plucking long grasses to weave. “Your research proposal,” Lomman began again, “Cannot be approved in its current state.” He emphasized the word current. “This is a small community, but even so, the war and the silence have touched us too.”
“The silence? Is that what they call it?” Zebedy asked. Her hands worked fast, unhindered by her soft leather gloves: already the grasses began to take the shape of a wide-brimmed hat.
“It’s what they call it here,” Lomman shrugged. “Thank you for the copies of your research. I have been reading your work for the past three days.”
The corner of Zebedy’s mouth twitched. “They’re only backups.”
He eyed the small enchanted notebook strapped to one of her wrists and the writing quills on the other, always accessible. “Nonetheless, I appreciate it.”
Somehow Zebedy already finished her hat. She rested it on her head and adjusted the woven brim to shield her eyes from the sun. She plucked more grasses and began work on something new, and while she did, she looked Lomman up and down.
He felt Zebedy could read more of him than he liked. Her eyes lingered on the non-customary half-cape covering Lomman’s left arm, his scars, and his old faded sailor’s tattoos, and he wondered if she may somehow be capable of deducing their presence.
“In your proposal,” Lomman prompted, “you say your research is for no reason but your own knowledge and satisfaction.”
“Yes,” she said simply.
He’d hoped she would elaborate on her own, but no matter. “Do you understand the implications of what your ideas suggest?”
Her hands slowed their weaving. “I do,” she said. “Please believe that I have faith, but I see small patterns and I need to understand the whole.”
The guttural stress she placed on the word need… more than a desire or hunger. Lomman suspected Zebedy would fall ill should she be unable to pursue these patterns she saw. Not in the physical sense, exactly, but it would affect her nonetheless.
“I believe I felt that need, too, once,” Lomman said. For a moment the over-stone ripple of the waterfall became the wash of ocean waves on shattered hulls. For a moment Lomman could smell salt and fish, copper and rot. For a moment Lomman sagged under memory of the melancholic, cathartic release of the need when he learned of the underwater earthquake and landslide and finally knew why.
Sibling Lomman breathed deep of air on the wrong side of the mountains to carry the scent of sea. “I believe I understand the goals of your proposal and research. To grant you the patronage of the Library of Ord, I need to understand how your project of possibly indefinite length and expenditure could help our monastery, our village, and the temple.”
Zebedy deposited a woven basket at Lomman’s feet. Perhaps his moment had been a touch longer than he perceived.
Zebedy reached for the leatherbound notebook strapped to her arm, but let her hand fall without opening it. “I thought the Library of Ord funded any project that advanced the understanding of the gods’ creation, particulary relating to Order.”
“Yes and no,” Lomman said. “Before the war, this monastery was devoted to understanding the world through the arts. Though I am not the Head Sibling, I am granted control over the monastery’s funds, and after the war I began to approve projects of wider scope.”
Zebedy nodded along with the cadence of Lomman’s words. “You hope to nurture devotion in a difficult time by proving the gods did create the world and do have a plan.” Lomman glanced hard at her, and she cryptically added “I see patterns.”
“But your work may prove the opposite,” he replied. Funding research that would drive the faithful away would be disastrous for the Library and its partnership with the temple.
She nodded, cleared her throat and set her shoulders. “Sibling Lomman, I should be honest. I want to know and I am not concerned with the consequences of knowing, even if knowing hurts my faith and yours and your town’s and temple’s.” She wove the last strand of grass into a tiny cover for the tiny basket. “I do this for myself. I keep my research in my book -” she gestured to her wrist – “but I will give you copies in exchange for funding, and the copies are yours to do with as you will. I have no interest in sharing my results with the town and the temple, but you will have your copies and it will be your choice to share them, to disseminate them, or to file them away to gather dust.”
Lomman leaned back as far as he could on the rustic-carved bench with no back, feeling the rough natural grain in the creases of his fingers. He could see patterns, too. He’d been forced to, since the war. The wizard and apprentice, the witches’ coven, the hermit druid – all gone, and with them the aid and conveniences the town and the Temple of the Garden of the Soul relied upon. In addition to his duties he’d learned to mediate and appease, and in so doing learned by trial and error and exhausting effort to guess at what drove people.
In Zebedy he saw earnestness. She was focused, overly so, perhaps pathologically so – but at least self-aware and honest enough to warn him.
A bluebird landed on the branch beside him and trilled three soft clear notes into the afternoon sky. “Tell me about bluebirds and owlbears,” Lomman prompted.
She squinted at him, recognizing the reference from her writings, but perhaps surprised he asked. “Your bluebirds are slightly different from mine,” she said slowly. “Back home, far east of here, we call them blue flycatchers. Now I call mine eastern blue flycatchers, and yours western blue flycatchers.”
Lomman restrained himself from asking where the owlbears came in.
“Eastern and western blue flycatchers are nearly identical. They crossbreed, somewhere in the middle of the continent, but the hybrids do not survive long. Yours have shorter beaks, and mine have longer beaks. They catch different, specific kinds of flies, you see.”
He understood the hybrids failed to catch either type of flies with their in-between beaks, but did not yet see the point.
“Where do owlbears come from?” Zebedy asked on a sudden change of tack.
“Wizards,” Lomman answered. “Created hybrids of owls and bears for gods know why.” She did not flinch at the phrase as some of the townsfolk and other Siblings would. “I think I know where you mean to take this. Why do hybrids of closely related bluebird fail, yet hybrids of owls and bears thrive?”
She nodded and began to braid three fresh strands of grass, her nightsky poncho rippling in the sun. “Owls and bears cannot have hybrid young without magic. Blue flycatchers can. I suspect the bluebirds reveal more about the nature of the world than the owlbears – that magic may interfere with our understanding of nature.”
Lomman shook his head. He’d spent days reading her notes and could see where she meant to take this. “Your obstacle is not to convince or interest me of the merits of your research,” he said. “It’s for me to convince the Head Sibling of its benefits to the faith.”
Zebedy threw the half-braided strands of grass into the ravine and they floated downstream. “I can’t promise any benefits until I have results.”
Lomman spread his hands. “And you won’t have results until I can justify your expenses to the Head Sibling.”
Frustrated, Zebedy kicked at pebbles with mud-stained boots and sent one tumbling down the ravine. But, damn her… Lomman felt the beginnings of that old itch, that need to know.
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