So we were staying with the stablehand, Arin, and the lame horse. The horse just didn’t know what to do: it wanted to stay upright, but its leg was hurting, so it didn’t want to stay upright. Then Lesla made it feel like the pain wasn’t so bad, and the stable hand was impressed with that. We stayed all night, up in a little meadow, and caught fish and crayfish for dinner.

In the morning, the real horse doctor arrived. He and Lesla huddled together, and Lesla was glowing! And the horse doctor was impressed, and Lesla looked like she’d finally found what she would want to be doing for ever and ever. And that’s good, because just counting and doing sums isn’t doing anything real.

The horse doctor wanted to stay with the horse, and sent us and the stablehand to Gralen. Only two days, he said, unless we’d go fast, when it’d be only one day. Little did he know!

In the morning, we left for Gralen. And then we sort of kind of like of felt like there was something going on. So we asked Arin to take care of the horses, and went into the forest to try and find out what was going on… We didn’t get very far before we found a man with a crossbow!

He was with the Nameless! Not Arin, the real Nameless, Arin (not the stablehand)’s dad!!!

There was quite a bit of a scuffle, but we escaped safely. And we captured a crossbow! And then we noticed there was a hut in the forest, with people locked into it!

So, of course, duh, we went right at it, because it felt kind of like Veray, and we knocked on the door. These were also people who didn’t go with Anshen, but they did belong to Arin, not Arin’s Nameless Dad! But they told us, they’d holed up there to secure themselves from the Nameless’ supporters, and now we were really confused! They didn’t want to be rescued, so we didn’t do that, we left instead. Their warnings kept ringing around our heads!

So we met Arin again, and got on our horses, and went on to Gralen. And then there was a great big gate made all out of light in the middle of the road! Totally unpassable!

So Lesla and I, we sat down and tried to figure out ways to get through, and we got through, too!

Only, on the other side, there was another man with a crossbow, and he started firing at us. We didn’t like that, so we went on as fast as we could, and the we got to another of those gates. These people were really stupid! All we wanted to do was to go to Gralen! And we couldn’t reach Lady Rava, nor Lord Vurian, they were still too far away.

So we had to barrel through again, and break that door made out of light, again.

And that’s when Lesla’s horse bolted! It ran on and on, and we lost sight of her! All I knew was that I was getting the worsest headache ever. It was coming in like thunderbolts, or hammer blows. I almost fell asleep.

That’s when we saw something lying in the road. It was Lesla! She was sleeping! And her horse had gone, and she had bruises all over the place. So we hoisted her on my horse, and went on. I think I remember a third door of light, but that must’ve been before this… But all the headache makes me feel like I cannot remember anything!

And then we encountered Lord Vurian! He was on his way to meet us, and when we told him the horse doctor had stayed behind, he rode on! He’s a real warrior, if that word means what I think it means. He took some men, and while riding down the path, he asked me, with his mind, about everything we’d seen, so I showed him, with my mind.

And we went on to Gralen. Gralen is pretty small, even compared to Turenay, which is, like, tiny, compared to Essle. But there’s a place to sleep, and a place to swim, and there was a fire, and when Lesla had woken up, we sat together near the fire. I did dance a bit, I think, but mostly it felt like a dream. There was someone telling us that Lesla had almost been killed, and that I had almost been killed — that’s what the headaches were about — and Anshen was there, and he was cute as always! I think I want a boyfriend! As long as he’s Anshen!

And also, Lesla’s horse was here, and safe, and a bit confused about not having Lesla. And the next morning Lord Vurian came back with prisoners!

Life at the brewery is fun — there is plenty to do, and plenty of time to swim, and chat, and draw, and hang around and cuddle cats. Only I thought that we’d be here all summer! But no, it’s only a few days after the Feast of Anshen, and we should already be going back to Turenay! And that’s stupid, because it will be weeks and weeks and weeks before the school opens again!

And Lord Vurian has been teaching us specially about fighting with light, so we could defend ourselves against those headaches, and we’re not done yet!

We woke up because someone was knocking on the door. It took a while before we realized where we were: in the mother of the queen’s house! There was a girl outside, called Lyse, she was not much older than us! And she was bringing us water, not for drinking, but for washing. Well, we wetted our noses and our bottoms, and went out to discover breakfast.

Breakfast was impressive! Everyone was at the breakfast table, from Lord Vurian to us, all their children who were still living with them, even though they’re ever so old, but the youngest is younger than us, he’s called Radan and he’s pretty cute, almost like Rovan. There was so much to eat that when Lady Rava took us to the school I had the most wonderful belly-ache, like as if I were bursting!

Lady Rava first took us into her office, and gave us some paper and ink and pens to write or draw while she got through her morning’s work. First we peeked through the books on her shelves, but there wasn’t any book with interesting drawings in, and the letters were too small and crabby to read, even for Lesla.

We had settled down on the floor and I was having lots of fun with the ink when she closed her book and asked us about what happened in Veray. And Lady Rava wanted to see if we really could get through a seal like we told, so she sealed the room. But she was much stronger than the bad person in Veray, and besides, we quickly found that the light over darkness thing doesn’t work if it’s light on light, it only makes it stronger! Even the window, which was smaller than the door, was ungothroughable.

But we did want to get out, and prove to Lady Rava that we’re smart! So, next we thought of going through the chimney. It was a nice, wide chimney of very climbable bricks, only very dirty, of course. So we pulled off our skirts and shirts, and I stood on Lesla’s shoulders. It was quite difficult to get through her seal, but we managed it! And then we could climb through the chimney and get out through the fireplace one floor up.

Of course we weren’t wearing anything but a lot of soot, but we’d made it! And we were making a little dance about it when Lady Rava came into the room with our clothes. She took us to the washing place first, before we were allowed to put them on, though, and people were looking at us like we were weird, so we made dresses out of light, and mine was exactly like Lady Rava’s! Still a bit seeing-through, but we were all black underneath anyway.

Noon meal at school is great! There’s a hole in the wall, and if you go there, there’s a person, and you can ask them for food, and every time you ask for food, you get food! There were a lot of other people coming in when we were eating, and they were talking about us, but it was only talk, no stones were thrown.

After lunch, we were taken upstairs by a lady teacher, Senthi she is called, and she knows lots of languages. And she was going to teach us reading and writing, only Lesla can do that already, and I wasn’t really interested. And Lesla and I nearly got into a fight because she also insisted I do letters, and I didn’t want to, they look like nothing at all! If I paint a bird, you can see which bird it is! If I write “bird” nobody knows anything about that bird except that I write very badly!

But lady Senthi is a VERY good teacher! And very nice. And she asked Lesla to write a letter, and then asked me what bird that letter was, so I drew an angry swan around it! And now I know some letters, too. I only have to remember which bird the letters look like, and then I can remember them! I think Lesla will always be better with letters (and numbers, but we haven’t done numbers yet at school), but I don’t have to hate letters anymore, they’re all birds, after all.

It was already late when we were done, lady Senthi is amazingly patient!

After that, we want to meet Doctor Cora, because Rava isn’t the cuddling kind, and she is, and we wanted a cuddle. But when we got there, we saw she was busy doctoring, with her hands in somebody’s body, and she was using light, and the light she didn’t get where there’s always light, but people were giving her light. So we decided to give her light as well, but she needed a LOT!

Lesla got the idea that we’d go to the little temple, and get the light from there, because there’s more light in the temple than anywhere else. That worked, but it was hard to get the light out, so I sat down half-way between the hospital and the temple, and sort of push the light on. It worked, and after Doctor Cora was done, we went to her, and helped her wash, and then we had tea, and she cuddled us, and we talked a bit and she said, we could go and visit master Jeran and our cat, and Lady Rava wouldn’t mind, as long as we would be back in time for dinner.

Master Jeran was home, and he said, come up, and we told him about our first day at school, and asked him about the cat, and he told us, the cat was always catching mice, and bringing the mice to him, and he didn’t want the mice! Still, it’s nice of the cat to share its catch with master Jeran. So we tried to explain to the cat that she should only bring the tails, and eat the mice herself. And then we had to explain to master Jeran that he would have to accept the tails or he would hurt the cat’s feelings. It’s very complicated explaining things like that to grown-ups! Cats do have feelings, although our cat had been fighting again, this time it was Lesla’s turn to stroke its scratches closed.

And while she was doing that, master Jeran gave me paper and paint, and I made a painting of us coming out of the fireplace!

I think I did well! And so did master Jeran, and I asked him about coming to teach painting at school again, but he didn’t want to do that, and he told me that if he taught me painting, I would learn to paint like him. That sounds strange, why can’t I learn to paint, but paint like me? Besides, I already know how to paint something that is there, to not paint something that is there but make it look like it’s there, and how to paint something that doesn’t exist!

He was a bit like Lady Rava then! He wanted me to prove that I could paint something that didn’t exist, so I painted a bird with four legs, four wings and curly bill like a snail’s shell.

And then it was late! So I grabbed my paintings, and made master Jeran promise we could visit him again, and we ran home. At least, we tried, but I couldn’t find the way! Lesla did, though, and we were in time to help in the kitchen.

There were onions to be peeled, and all peels were kept for the pig. Onion-peeling is a weepy business! So I tried to make glass of light, like the glasses Lord Vurian is wearing, to see if they could keep the weepiness out, but they didn’t work. I forgot to make them go away, though, so I was still wearing them when we had dinner.

But first we were allowed to feed the pig! She is very big, lots of bacon coming in autumn! But also little piglets. It’s strange to think of autumn already when Midsummer is so very near… And we got mucky of course, in the sty, and because we wanted to cuddle the pig, so we had to wash AGAIN.

Then we could go in for dinner. There was so much food, I thought they had put everything they had on table in one go, so I tried to eat it all — surely nobody can have so much food that they could put this much on table and still have something left for tomorrow! But Lord Vurian explained that they really had that much food, and then he helped me with my glasses. I’m not sure how that happened, but then he asked what we would be eating at home, and if we’d always had had enough — and of course we had! Even if there weren’t enough fishes, you could always find rats, and rats can be good, if you kill and skin them underwater, so the fleas don’t jump. Stewed, rolled in mud and baked or as soup, rats are food.

But not as nice food as we’ve been getting now…

And then Lord Vurian and Lady Rava sent us off to bed, and I hadn’t even had a chance to show my paintings to them!

Rhinla’s turn. She prefers to do it in pictures!

They were fighting! There were lots of dark clouds over Veray, and those were very scary! But Master Jeran said it was all people of the Nameless fighting amongst each other. It was impressive though! So I asked Master Jeran for a sheet of canvas and paint, and I started painting the clouds and the fight! I added lots of light, too, but I later learned that the light disappears from the painting, it doesn’t stay stuck.

And then I noticed I was using lots of yellow and red (that makes orange!!!) — and at the same time, master Jeran and Lesla yelled, a house is on fire! And we asked Master Jeran if there were people still inside the house, and he said, yes, and they’re locked in, with semsin (whatever that may be). But burning people is BAD!

So we ran towards the house. There were lots of people handing each other buckets with water, that almost blocked the street, but we managed to squeeze through. That wasn’t so easy, especially because Jeran isn’t as small as we are!

When we came to the house, people were milling around, but nobody could do anything about the fire or about letting people out, because there was a thick layer of — not light, but darkness! — all over the house, making it shed water like a duck. And now we could feel the people inside, and they felt so deadly afraid! As I would feel, too. We didn’t know who was inside, or who was doing this, but Lesla and me, we felt sure that no way, this was not something the Queen or the Thankful Man would tolerate! This was murder, not punishment or whatever!

There was a huge crowd in front of the house, but we ducked into an alley, and found a door in the side of the house. It was closed, too, of course, by the filthy dark skin that was all over the house. So we had to think of something smart! Well, you can make anything you want with light, so we made a door of light on top of the door, and that sort of replaced the skin of darkness, and it took a lot of effort and sweat and tries, but finally Lesla and me, we managed to open the door! So we called out to the people inside, and they came out, coughing and singed and smouldering.

When they came out, I thought, hey, they look familiar! But there wasn’t time to think, because when we ran out of the alley, towards the back of the house, there was this person, we couldn’t see if it was a man or a woman, and they were busy keeping the house smothered down, and they had not even noticed we had made an opening yet! But we knew we had to run all the same, so we ran to the river. And when we came there, the two people, one man, one woman, from the house, master Jeran and Lesla and me, where our boat was, then we knew…

These were the people who had tried to kill us! The people whose boat this was before we conquered it! That was a scary moment, I was so afraid they would want to kill us still, and us just having saved their lives! Then Lesla spoke up and told them we had won their boat in a fair fight, and now that we had saved their life, there could be no talk of killing us, because after all, we had saved their lives.

And they were so frightened… They wanted to flee Veray, and never come back. So Lesla offered them the boat, to buy, not to steal! It was ours, after all, fair is fair! But we didn’t know the price of a boat, of course, but master Jeran said, twenty-four riders, and that’s what they gave us! We didn’t know, but master Jeran had this number in his mind because it’s a special number: it’s exactly what two people need to pay to start learning. But we didn’t know that at the moment, of course.

Well, the haggling was very short because there was noise coming our way, so they gave us money, and we helped them push the boat into the river, and they paddled away, with the stream, in the falling darkness.

That was an adventure all right!

And then it was time to go and sleep. Jeran keeps a room in Veray, a small one in a neighbourhood without any canals, but it was clean, and he took us up, put us in his room, and then went down and fetched some really nice food, and then some more food, because we finished it all. Cutting light into darkness makes a person hungry! And after food, there was lessons in closing up and talking to Anshen, even though the room didn’t have any fire. And Jeran trusted us to close the room with light — only telling us not use too much light, just enough. That was tricky!

He still snores… And we still had the cat with us, and the cat wanted out in the morning, and so did we, because master Jeran had made clear that no corner in this room was squatting in. We could see that as well, it was all as clean as a spotless cat!

So we made a hole in our room-cover, and went out, with the cat, then mended the tear again, so master Jeran could see we were careful and tidy, and went down. Because… Downstairs it smelled nice! Really, really, really nice! We found the kitchen, and there was a tall, thin woman stirring a kettle. She petted the cat, then cuddled us a bit, and gave us food. She was also full of questions, but we didn’t know the answers, and then we were full of questions, like, you don’t have a canal, and you don’t have a rain catchment, so where does you water come from? Water is important! So she showed us the well and let us fetch water from deep underground! That was fun! And then we made breakfast together for master Jeran, who was looking very uncomfortable when we brought it to him because he hadn’t been able to get out! We had locked him in with our tiny-thin-invisible-light around everthing!

Well, when he had gone to the little house in the yard, and had eaten his breakfast, master Jeran took us to the Temple of Mizran, where we delivered the letter. It was a bit of a problem, though… The letter had gotten all wet! And we knew that they had told us in Tilis that this was a letter for Mizran, but the stupid priest didn’t want to believe that, nobody sends letters to Gods, he said! Well, I think any God would be glad of a letter or two, but apparently that’s what talking to the fire is for, or to the silver man, so went back into to the hall and said “tannetallemizran” to the silver man and then went back. and the priest opened the letter to see who it was for. He only gave us one shilling, not two, but… By then we didn’t care, let him have his letter, and we left!

We left for Turenay. Master Jeran found a cart somewhere, and a donkey, and asked us to stay with the donkey while he went out to buy provisions. The bridge guard, only he doesn’t guard a bridge, but a gate, he was a bit worried, I guess, about us, thought we might have been catching the cart and donkey instead of staying with it. We told him all about us and master Jeran and Essle and everything, so he was satisfied and went back to his bridge, no, I mean gate, and started guarding it again. Is it just us, or are gate guards even less smart than bridge guards? Or maybe people in Veray aren’t very smart, just imagine being a priest of Mizran and not knowing your God can get letters!

The rest of the day was peculiar… First we went all the way upstairs, the river was going down as straight as rain, and the road, it was like kinky hair, and went up and up and up, just like a staircase in a building, only it was outside. And when we were upstairs, there were trees everywhere. Everywhere! And lots of birds and other beasts, and some mud, and even a small river, small as if Archan’s grandson was having fun piddling, it was that small! But the water was clear, and full of crayfishes, so there was lunch, except that master Jeran had brought PIES, so that was an even better lunch. And you can run around the trees, and play hide and seek, and it’s called a forest, not a swamp.

And when night fell, we made camp, and a sleeping place underneath the cart, and the donkey bound up to a tree near the canal, with lots of donkey food. The cat was still with us, and went out catching food, she’s allowed to! But for us, catching food that’s not in a river, that is too hard, and some food is owned by persons, and so shouldn’t be catched. But there was pie still, and master Jeran helped us find ways to do things with light as lightly as possible. That was tricky! But master Jeran was satisfied in the end. When we went underneath the cart, and master Jeran was asleep we talked about it a bit — we both felt that master Jeran did feel like he was kind of a bit scared of us — if you can believe that! Scared, of us!.

And then it started to rain… Drip, drip, drippety, drip, and it sounded and smelt like the first proper rain! So I wriggled out of my clothes and out of underneath the cart, and started doing the Rainy Dance, like we always did when the Rains began, back home, in, well, I feel homesick now, Essle. These were different rains though! The drops were coldish, not warmish, and softer, somehow. But I still felt like, the rains have started! So I was really cheerful and started painting the sides of the cart with light!

And then I heard a sound… It was groink, not groarrrh, so it wasn’t Jeran snoring! I scooted back underneath the cart and cuddled against master Jeran. I’m afraid he got all wet, and he was all surprised, too, but I explained ’bout the sound, and then we saw half a dozen (or so Lesla tells me) piglets pass the cart, followed by an enormous lady pig! With HUGE tusks, our donkey was so cared!

But Lesla could calm the donkey with just her light!!! And the pig walked away, following her baby pigs, and we went to sleep again. I so wish there was light so I could make a picture of the big pig and the small pigs, and Lesla’s light and the poor donkey! But instead I had to put on my wet clothes again because master Jeran wanted me to.

The next day, around noon, there were side-tracks, and buildings and one of those was an inn, and there we stopped. Master Jeran took a room for us to sleep, but it wasn’t sleeping time at all yet! Still, after noon meal he went to sleep with a tankard of ale next to him, so I begged some sheets of unused paper off him and colors and brushes, and I first made a drawing of our donkey, while Lesla was playing with the geese.

And then I drew the white dog, only I didn’t draw the dog, I only draw the bits around here, because she was as white as the paper!

And in the evening after a HUGE dinner, we played with light and fire and so on again, and then went to sleep. I think master Jeran is nice! He didn’t complain about my painterings, or about us cuddling him, or about how used too much light after all, when doing the evening playing. And tomorrow, we’ll be in Turenay!

When I had eaten a bit, we went back to the Palace. We got to keep our boat, so we’re still pretty rich! But Cynla wanted to teach us more stuff, and she wanted to do that in the Palace, besides, that’s where we were supposed to go back to. On our way back, there were more barges bringing dead people out to the sea — it looks like everyone is dying! Or at least, lots of people.

Cynla was really down and done up when we got back. Even though we had borrowed lots of pillows and cushions to make her comfy in the boat, she had started bleeding again, but by now we knew what to look for: if she makes a grimace and tries to hide her breast behind her fist, she’s bleeding again. Stupid! Why would she want to hide that! We put her to bed, and I went out to scrounge food from the kitchens, and got a nice big plate full of things that were new to me, and to Lesla. Then we got a bandaging person to do the bandages for Cynla, but that took a lot of nagging! They promised all the time they would come, but didn’t come.

Next morning, Cynla’s wounds were closed again, though I’m still worried about them, they’re red and hot and glisteny, and I don’t think they’re doing well! But Cynla decided to give us lessons again, but it was kind of like teaching us swimming, everything was totally stunning! Once we got to what she’s calling our “safe place” we could grab and grab and grab the light and make things out of it, all kinds of things, just by thinking! We made sticks and stones and knifes of light, and fishes of light that we could catch of each other with nets of light and we could make things closed with light, and open with light and — there’s nothing you cannot make from light, if you can make anything with light!!! It was so much fun that we dropped down with headaches because we hadn’t noticed we were getting tired in our heads.

Light is awesome stuff!

But then Cynla took us to the secular tarry, the thankful man, and there he was, and Cynla was there, and other people, and they made us sit down on the stools, and then talked at us, a whole lot.

Some-one wanted us to do this, some-one else wanted us to do that, and then another some-one wanted us to do something else altogether. We already had headaches! And no we felt like people were trying to drag us in five different ways at the same time, all the time telling us, you have to choose what you want!

So I touched Lesla’s head with a bit of secret light, the same moment she did that to me, and we both thought of the same thing: let’s go together to the pissing hole place, so we could talk to each other.

And when we were there, we were almost in tears. All these people, they all know what we we should do! They all know what we must do! They all ask us what we want to do! They never tell us what they really want us to do, or why, or what they think we could do best. All they tell us is, well, you know now about this, so make a choice!

Well… We thought, if they’re all asking us all the time, nag, nag, nag, let’s ask the person who knows everything! So we decided to sneak out and take the boat and go and ask the Queen. After all, everyone knows that the Queen is the most know-all person in the whole world.

After all, we’ve got a boat! And it isn’t even made out of light, so it could hold us both.

Sneaking out of the Palace wasn’t hard, and we made it to our island without anyone following us. But Faran wasn’t there! Nobody was there! Maybe Faran was visiting Jerna? But we didn’t want to go back to Master Jeran.

But Lesla had been learning letters, so she wrote a LETTER for Faran. With lots of letters, and ink, on a piece of flat driftwood.

Then we went to the Priestess and told her everything. She first tried to tell us that Valdis was too far away for us to go, but if the King and Queen can go between Valdis and Essle, we can go too! And she did agree that we’d better be asking someone else for advice if everyone was nagging us like they had been nagging.

So she showed us a drawing of the river, and she explained that it was like the river, only very small, and seen from above, as if you were a bird. I wonder whether you can fly with light and see the world as if you were a bird.

She offered to make a new drawing just like the one she had, on paper, but we’ve learned to make things from light! So I made a MAP from light, and it shows us where we should go! The Priestess was a bit surprised, I think, but maybe she cannot make things from light, it seems not everybody can.

The next part is both boring and scary!

It was really far! We’d soon left the islands where people were living, and there were more and more and more islands. And then someone showed up…

He didn’t have a name, but he come onto our boat, and he told us we were being pursued. And also that he could hide us! But we didn’t want to be hidden by someone without a name, so he asked us, give me a name.

So we named him Arin.

And he told us he was the son of the Nameless! The son of the actual person who had told people to kill Cynla’s mum!

Arin was getting more stupid all the time, stupider and stupider, and he made us feel really weird. So we told him to swim away, and asked Anshen to help us make him swim away, and he DID!

From then on, we had to hide ourselves, but we weren’t catched at all, not even close, not even once!

Tilis was kinda strange! It’s a big wooden house and there’s lots of places to moor a boat. It wasn’t even very hard to get to talk to the boss person! We only had to go through two guards and one secular — something. She did ask us a lot of questions about sick people in Essle, but we didn’t know much about that, except that we could we whether people were sick or not, and we weren’t sick!

But she also knew more! She knew that if we’d talk to the Queen, the Queen would certainly send us on to a place called Turenay, because there’s a big school in Turenay and she always sends people to that school. So if we’d go to Valdis, we’d only have to to Turenay after all, so we’d best go there directly, besides, the Queen is supposed to be in Turenay anyway.

Best still, we can get there by taking the river, so we’re all set to go!

Waterbirds, 5

People have tried to kill us! They have tried to shoot arrows at us and kill us, and we were only bringing Jerna to Master Jeran! And we didn’t want to let ourselves be killed, so we fought back, and now I have killed two people! I have bitten them and drowned them and… And now I feel horrible and I feel those people I killed in my mouth all the time, and taste them all the time, too. It’s really icky, killing people.

We do have two boats, now, because we took the boat of the people who attacked us. Or rather, one boat belongs to the boat man, but the other one properly belongs to us. We were punting towards the main channel when the other boat came at us, and then we saw a woman take a bow and arrows, and she was firing at us! She missed at first, so I jumped overboard and swam to their boat, and tried to upend it, but that was hard, but I managed to make the two men fall into the water.

Well, I bit them so they had to let go of me, and I sat on their faces so they drowned, and then let go of them. And Lesla managed to hit the woman with the bow and arrows with an oar, and made her fall overboard, so we won, and we had saved Jerna, too.

So we took Jerna and the two boats to master Jeran’s house, and he fetched someone who knows about sick people, but he couldn’t see the holes in Jerna’s light, but he did say that we should keep Jerna warm, not cold. And he gave Jerna something to drink, and said she wasn’t going to die yet. He also said lots of people all over Essle were falling ill, and getting spots on their skin, and dying, too.

But master Jeran promised to take care of her, so I gave him my coins that we’d earned from the boat man, for her food. And master Jeran gave us lots of food. I could eat that food, but right now, I don’t want to eat food. The longer ago the fight has been, I think, the less I want to eat. Bah!

When we ate, we told Jeran about the fight. He wasn’t angry at me for having killed two men and I worried that I was going to be hanged for it, but he said, no, nobody was going to hang me for defending myself and Jerna. It was easy for him to say, though, he hadn’t killed them!

And then he wrote a long letter with everything we told him in it, and I offered to bring it to the Palace in our own boat, to the thankful man. Master Jeran took a bit of persuading, but he allowed me to go. And the boat man allowed Lesla to borrow his boat a bit more, so she could go back to Faran to tell him that Jerna was being cared for by a doctor. Even if it isn’t a doctor who can see holes in people’s light.

But when I arrived at the Palace, I wasn’t allowed in! I have to admit I wasn’t wearing my Palace clothes, but that wasn’t it — they were just not letting anyone in because they were afraid that they’d let in someone who was sick. I swore I wasn’t sick, I mean, I can see that I don’t have holes in my light, but the guards didn’t want to listen at all.

So I sneaked around the back, and got in through the kitchen. I first made myself hard to see, like Lesla, and when I was in, I grabbed a silver thing and put cups and so on it, just like the silver thing that was carried in when we were here last time, and I walked around with it, and nobody looked twice at me, even though I was all wet and half naked and wearing my old shirt for the rest! And when I couldn’t find the thankful man, I asked someone I met in the corridors, and she took me most of the way, chatting all the time.

I recognized the corridor where the thankful man has his room, so I thanked the girl who helped me find it and walked in. I didn’t knock because the girl who had brought in the silver thing with food last time also didn’t knock, and besides, I had both hands full with the silver thing. The thankful man was really surprised to see me, but he did like that I had brought food, and then I gave him the letter.

He tried to explain to me that I shouldn’t have gone into the palace because of the sickness in Essle, so I explained about knowing that I wasn’t sick, because I don’t have holes in my light. He looked up at me when I told him that and asked me whether I could take a look at him as well, and I did, and he didn’t have holes in his light either.

Now he was really interested!

So I explained again, and he asked whether Lesla could do that as well, so I said, yes, we’d both learned it from the Swamp Lady. He then wanted to know where Lesla was, so I explained about that as well. He promised to send help to Jerna and master Jeran, if I would go and get Lesla to come to the palace. I told him I wouldn’t be let in again, but he smiled and gave me a let-me-in letter! So now I can always go into the Palace if I want to!

Lesla was already on her way, so I met her at master Jeran’s house, and visited Jerna, but she was asleep in one of the boxes upstairs, so she didn’t see us. At least she didn’t have more holes in her light!

Back in the Palace, the thankful man put us in a room with a table with cloth on it, and from that moment on people came into the room, and we had to look if they had holes in their light or not, and if they had, send them on through one door, and if not through another door. It was hard work! We were soon sweating and swaying on our feet, but there were still people coming! And nobody brought us food or anything to drink, and only when it was really dark did someone light a lamp. But that was just before everything went black, and I don’t remember anything for quite a bit, until it was morning again.

Then someone brought us food, but when I tried to eat it, I had to think of the men I had killed, and I had to go into the corner where we had done our business, and puke, and then I tried to eat again, but I had to puke again! And it was good food, but with every bite I had to think of how I had bitten the fingers and ears and and cheeks of those men, and I had to puke until there was nothing left inside me, and even then I felt like I had to puke!

And then the thankful man visited us and he went red when he learned we had worked until midnight, and had slept in the other corner, where we hadn’t done our business, but he said it wasn’t red from being angry with us. And we didn’t have to see anyone’s light that day. But we did look at our own light, and Lesla saw that I had tiny holes in my light! But she could close the holes with her own light, so I wouldn’t be sicker than I was anyway.

Waterbirds, 3

Oh gosh! Oh joy! I bet you’ve never, ever in your life had such a wonderful waking-up as Lesla and I had! We had our bellies still full with bacon and bean soup! I woke up because Lesla made a noise with her behind, and then so did I. Bacon! Beans! Onions! And there was still some left!

But Jerna said, we shouldn’t eat it all, we should bring some to the Swamp Lady. I didn’t think we should, and said, isn’t that like Arin bringing part of his catch to his “master”, but Lesla agreed, and said we should share. Well, sharing is fine! So we took a big earthenware bowl full of good soup between us, and went up to the Swamp Lady’s place.

She was right there, and wasn’t being weird with weird herbs or stuff, and she did like the smell of the soup, and said, she’d eat it later on. She didn’t even hint at sharing it with us! But well, that’s swamp ladies for you. Bring ’em stuff, and they take it all. But Lessla, she was interested, and wanted to know if we could help her. So, she said, you can gather herbs and flowers for me. And here’s a drawing of the most important flower, the one I want most.

It was a really good drawing! So we went out and deeper into the marsh. We collected a lot of the herbs and flowers! And then we saw a boat drifting in the deeper parts of the swamp. Someone was lying down in it. And it looked like there was an arrow sticking out of his back!

So we put our flowers and herbs with the man in the boat and started pushing the boat back to the Swamp Lady’s lake, the man had lost his pole or his oars. The Swamp Lady had no idea what to do with a dead man, though, and she said, we’d better bring her to the Priestess. And she didn’t want to come, not because she was afraid othersiders would start throwing stones at her, but because she and the Priestess didn’t like each other.

The boat was heavy, and there wasn’t enough water between the Swamp Lady’s place and the river in many places, so we had to drag boat over mud and bog, that was really hard work! But we managed it, and, of course, crossing the river with the boat was easy. It’s a splendid boat, completely made out of wood instead of reed, and solid, and painted blue and white, and lots of place! Maybe we can keep the boat, we did find it, after all…

The Priestess was surprised to see us, and asked us to help bring the dead man into the Temple, before the statue of Naigha. There she looked through his clothes, and she found a sack with some money in it and also a round thing, a tube, like a reed stalk, hollow and and all. But it was closed and the Priestess couldn’t get it open! Well, neither could we! And he also had a ring on his finger, made out of gold! There was something weird on the ring, made out of bits of glass or something like that.

The Priestess didn’t know who he was, and she was wondering how she could find out when we had a great idea: we’d ask the beans man, because he’s got books and paper and things, so he must know everything! So we took the boat, without the dead man, but with the tube and the ring, and borrowed the Priestess’s neighbour’s oar, and set out again to visit the bean-and-bacon man!

And we knocked on the front door! That was actually great fun, because there is an iron knocker, and we tried who of us could make the biggest noise. Lesla won, and the beans man opened the door for us! And we went in and told him about the dead man and the arrow and the ring and tube, but he couldn’t open the tube either, but he knew someone who might! And he said that the ring showed that the man belonged to a very rich, very important family. Well, the rich, duh! Of course he was rich, he had a sack full of coins, awesome clothes, shoes and a ring of gold!

And then disaster struck! The beans man wanted to see the boat! And he recognized the boat, and knew it belonged to someone else on the island, someone who has more than ten boats! And he went to fetch the man, and the man recognized his boat. At first he wanted to be angry with us for having lost the oars, and it was really hard to make him understand. He then said that we could row his boat for him! And he would give us some money for it. But it wouldn’t be our own boat.

But first he tried to open the tube, and he couldn’t either! So he said, Jeran, maybe they should go to Tao, and now we know what the beans man is called, he is called Jeran.

And then the boat man got into the boat, and asked us to come, and we went deeper into Essle than ever before. In the end, we got to a small island where the houses were almost all made out of stone, and he knocked at a door, and a dark man opened the door and let us in. And then it turned out that this Tao also couldn’t open the tube.

He asked us to go home, and leave the tube and the ring with him, but we didn’t want to do that! We found it, and we didn’t know Tao at all, even though the boat man said he could be trusted. Besides, it was already getting late, and we weren’t sure we could make it home before dark, and we were hungry! So Tao went out to get some food, and after the food, gave us some blankets to sleep under, we were going to sleep on the floor, he didn’t have hammocks, only a small room behind two small doors where he slept himself. And we weren’t going to sleep in the bed of a man we don’t know — there’s a word for girls who do that, but Jerna says we shouldn’t use that word.

Next morning, we went out to get bread, and while we were eating the bread, Tao asked someone called Serla to come with us. He expected that Serla could open the tube. I’m still not sure about that Serla. She was pushy! When we were back in Tao’s house, she said, hold my hands, and look at the fire and pray. And then she started saying things I didn’t understand at all, and when I wanted to let go of her hand, she held it tight.

And then there appeared a face in the fire! A man’s face, but he didn’t say anything.

And when Serla was done, and we asked her how that was possible, and who that was, she was surprised, and she started using us things about the Gods, but we only know about Naigha. She asked, not even Timoine, but we’d never heard of Timoine.

So then she and Tao both started pulling at the tube, and it opened! There was paper inside, with ink on it. They looked at it and then said that it had to go to the Palace. The Palace! Where the King lives! Only it isn’t the king-king, but a sort of city-king. And they wanted to send us home again, but nothing doing! We found the tube and the ring and the dead man, so we were going to stick with the tube and the ring until we were sure the right people had them!

That made them think, and they told us we’d have to wear better clothes, and be cleaner and wear clogs or shoes, otherwise we wouldn’t be allowed into the palace! Things like that cost money! But that wasn’t a problem, so a little later on we both had a real skirt, and a real shirt, and wooden clogs with leather on top. And then we went into a house where you can wash, and it had a big barrel with hot water, too small to swim in, and a big pool made out of stone where you could swim in, but first you had to throw hot water over yourself with a bucket, before you were allowed to swim. And Serla put something in our hair that made it go all white and stung in our eyes, and now Lesla’s hair isn’t black anymore, but red! And it where we stood, it looked as if someone had poured ink on floor, but it wasn’t us!

The clogs were horrible, though.

And then Serla decided she didn’t want to come to the Palace after all, and she didn’t want to tell us why not, but she stayed behind, so it was just the three of us who went to the Palace. There were bridge soldiers on the steps to the Palace, only their clothes were a different color. And they let us in!

And we were brought into a really nice room, where a man was seated at a table full of paper and ink. And we told him everything, and he was obviously the right person to have the ring and the tube and the message, since he was hired by the King to say “thank-you” to everyone who did something the King liked, and the King has other things to do than saying thank-you, though the thank-you man couldn’t exactly explain what.

He wrote a letter for the Priestess with the name of the dead man — oh, I had forgotten, the Priestess also had made a drawing of the man’s face, the thank-you man recognized that as well — and said, you have to go back now. And he wanted to know if we could count and read and so on, and Lesla said she could count, but he said, counting to 10 is not enough, not even counting to more than ten is enough. So he also wrote in his letter that the Priestess should teach us.

So we went back, with some palace soldiers, first to Tao’s house, then to Jeran’s house, then the to boat person’s house, then to the Temple… It was a very long way.

The Priestess was happy with the letter, but the soldiers said they were going to take the dead man to the Palace, and she had to give him up, and she wasn’t so happy about that. And she said she’d visit us the next morning, to talk about teaching…

Then we swam home, and Jerna and Faran were really worried about us! So we told them everything and gave them hugs, and then we got some food and went to sleep.

Waterbirds, 1

I’m Rhinla. Yes — that means duck, and that’s my name! My best friend’s name is Lesla, and that means kingfisher. And that’s not weird! We’re named like that because we’re with the Waterbirds. That’s what we call ourselves. We, that’s me, and Lesla, of course, but also little Rovan, who is only five or so, and Faran and Jerna and Arin. Faran and Jerna sometimes make love! They are old, Faran older than Jerna, but old all the same. Arin isn’t that old, but much older than us. Lesla and me, we’re nine or ten, or eleven, depends on whether we’re quarreling. But we don’t quarrel a lot! And we’re the Waterbirds, we’re waterbird enough that we don’t eat duck or goose or teal or mallard or swan.

Faran is big and strong, and usually has a strong stick with him, but he uses that mostly to lean on, he doesn’t beat us! And Arin has got a real knife, made out of iron, and I am allowed to keep it sharp! Jerna cooks for us, except when she’s really ill, as she was some years ago when she had a big, swollen belly and the swamp lady had to come and make it go away. Then Faran cooked, and really badly, too! The swamp lady has forbidden us to eat water fowl, she also sometimes comes to make us better, when we’re sick with a fever. She lives in the swamp, in a house near a little lake, but I’ve never been there before.

We live in a lovely place, just outside the city. Essle, I mean. Hidden behind the reeds, we’ve got three islands to ourselves that hardly ever drown! On one island there’s the boy’s house, on the other one our house, and in the middle, we’ve got our rain barrel, and a piece of sailcloth with a hole in the middle, so the rain drains into the barrel. We don’t drink river water! That’s bracken anyways. And the sailcloth also keeps us dry when we eat!

We’ve got enough peat and rushes and things for a fire, a kettle, and Jerna makes us clothes out of reeds and bits of cloth and bark. And I can make boats out of reed bundles! And there’s fish in the river and in the swamp, and crayfish and shrimp and eels and voles — all good to eat! Sometimes Faran or Arin go into the town to catch town food, like onions or turnips or bacon (bacon is the best food!), and altogether, we’re never really hungry, we’re never really cold, and we’re never, ever alone, so we’ve got it good!!!

Only, now we’ve had an adventure, or really two, even though the second one was because of the first one, and Faran has been asking us stupid questions, and — but that’s for later, but someone else also has been asking us stupid questions. Anyway, I want to tell you about our adventure! It includes bread and people hiding on roofs.

So we got out of the women’s hammock — which is a bit complicated, because me, Lesla and Jerna all sleep in the hammock, Jerna who is biggest in the middle, so Lesla and me, we had to get out at the same time to make sure Jerna wouldn’t be tipped out. Oh, this was in the morning, of course. We’re not thieves, we sleep at night. And I went to rekindle the fire, and Lesla went to catch a fish, and she caught one, and when Jerna got up, she was like there was not going to be any food until the evening, but there was. So we made fish gruel, and took a bit up to the boy’s island, so Rovan could have something warm to eat as well. It was a trout, but only a small one…

And Jerna asked us to go out and get something for dinner. She doesn’t boss us around! And neither do Faran nor Arin. So we were free to decide whether to get swamp food or town food, but town food is nicer, if you can get it. Bacon!!! So Lesla and me, we improved my reed boat, and Lesla started learning how to make reed boats, too, and then we drifted south with the tide and the current.

The current was stronger than I had counted on, and soon we had to decide — go along with the current and duck under one of the bridges, or moor at one of the bigger islands. Well! Bridges have tall men and women with tall halberds and altogether too many questions, so we moored. There was a bit of muddy bank, and we secured my boat securely. Next to a small shed made from stone, wood, canvas and whatever.

Lesla peeled away a bit of the canvas, and we could sneak in. We’re good at sneaking! It’s an accomplishment! Inside, there were some rather interesting-looking sticks, some pieces of bent wood — and a barrel. It’s usually apples that you find inside barrels, and apples are good! So I wanted to open the barrel, but it was very tightly shut. We were looking around for something to force it open with when I saw that this shed had a door with two bronze or iron or whatever hinges. We forced one of the hinges loose, and with the hinge, we prised off the barrel’s lid.

Weird! Inside there was a little tub of butter, covered with linen and a piece of string (which I claimed for myself, Lesla has a piece of string to tie together her hair already, and I have to make do with reeds or mud), a bottle with a lacquered cork and three packages of herbes, in water-proof sailcloth. Why would anyone hide that in a barrel! But we took it out, and hid our catch in between the rushes of our boat, and then went on to look for real town food.

We sneaked across several backyards, not finding anything! Well, one was full of washing hung out to dry, and we were careful not muddy it, but you cannot catch laundry, it’s other people’s clothes, it’s not a fair catch. Then we came to a backyard that had a big cupboard in it that radiated heat, and it smelled, it smelled… It smelled better than anything I’ve ever smelled, and everyone will tell you that I cannot smell anything.

With a piece of cloth, we managed to open the door of the cupboard, because when I touched it with my bare fingers, it hurt, and inside was bread. With my hinge I teased out one of the breads, and juggling it from hand to hand, I took it to a hiding place behind two rain barrels, while Lesla closed the cupboard’s door. We couldn’t take the bread home to Jerna! Bread melts in water, everyone knows that. So we shared it, and it was lovely. Warm and chewy, and we had round paunches when we were done! At that point, a woman came out into the yard, opened the door of the cupboard and started pointed her index finger at the other breads. She did that twice, three times, and then she got angry and started shouting something about rats!

A man came out and started looking around the courtyard, but he didn’t see us, and then, after she’d taken the breads out, the woman put white lumps back into the cupboard, and after that, went inside again.

But the man was still around, so we didn’t investigate the white lumps, and went on. Then we found a pig… A whole pig. It was still grunting, and when I asked whether it could give us some bacon, it didn’t answer! Just like the cat we petted didn’t answer when we asked where we could find some bacon…

And then… I saw that there was a man hiding on the roof of the house with the pig! He was looking at us. I was sure of it, he really was looking at us! What for? I mean, why would anyone spend time on us??? It’s not like we’re thieves or anything! But we sneaked into the water and swam for the other side of the canal. There we walked around, but everyone was on their guard, and there was no place where we could catch some town food to take with us.

Not even from the carts… There were horse and ox drawn carts moving over a bridge, an endless stream, one after another. All were checked by the men with big halberds, and all of those carts had boxes and barrels and crates on them, none of them was stacked with, say, cabbages, that a well-aimed flint could dislodge and allow us to catch it. And then… We noticed a young man, not the one from the roof, but another one! He was hanging about in an alley, cleaning his nails with his knife and looking at us.

We decided to just leave, and go back to my boat, maybe look a little around on the other side of the first island. But there was nothing to be found! And when we came back to our boat, the first man was standing next to it! And poking inside the rushes! So we decided to rush him, and Lesla tackled him, and he went down into the mud, and we took the boat and our scanty catch and paddled upstream!

He came after us, first swimming and then running along the shore. He always seemed to know where we were going to be, and he was always shouting, thieves! So Lesla slid off the boat and started pushing it, swimming, underneath some of the houses thare are on poles, and we went from creek to creek until we finally arrived a bit north of our islands. We load the boat there, and took our catch home!

We were a bit sorry for not having caught any cabbages or things, but Jerna was happy enough with the butter, and agreed we should bring the herbs to the Swamp Lady; and the bottle, she didn’t know what was in it either, but wanted to wait for Faran to return before deciding whether to open it or not. And we, we took our flints and started sharpening our sticks so we could use them as fish-catching spears!

Lesla had found the haunt of a big, bad old pike, and she really wanted to catch it, so we went to its lair, but we didn’t manage to catch two pikes, both almost as big as the old pike! And when we came back with our pikes, Faran and Arin came back as well, with a bag full of ONIONS! Onions are awesome, and we got one to divide between the two of us, but we gave Rovan a piece as well, but he found it sharp, so Jerna made it soft in the kettle, where the pike and and onion stew was bubbling.

Two times that day we had our bellies full and round! Nobody was going to get their bread back until early in the morning, that’s sure and certain. Faran decided that it would be best to sell the bottle, and agreed that we should bring the herbs to the Swamp Lady. Then he started asking us really weird questions — like, what we wanted to be when we were grown up. Well, a grown-up, of course! With a knife, I said. Lesla said, with a house with a bread-making cupboard, and maybe a pig. And I added a cat. But I guess that wasn’t the kind of answer he was after, and he told us about how he used to be a fisherman, going out to sea, but that he’d hurt his head so bad he was always getting seasick.

So we kissed the top of his head, and with that, and smelling of pike and onions, Lesla and I went to sleep in the hammock. Jerna would wriggle in between us later, and tomorrow, well, we’ll go and visit the Swamp Lady!

The swamp lady lives long way to the west, where the sun sets. It was a twisty little path, that we followed, and half-way we found bird skulls! A kind of upside-down fence with bird skulls! Then we knew we were on the right way, because Jerna had told us about that.

The Swamp Lady has a little house next to a pool, and there were big swans floating on the pool, but we went inside. The Swamp Lady was dead! At least, that’s what we thought, but when we came closer, she started to move, and warm up a bit, she told us she often went that way, but not how she did it. Not that I want to look dead, and not move, although Jerna might like that, she sometimes complains I cannot sit still.

Anyway, we showed her the herbs, and she was interested! They were good herbs, and well-packaged, and she was wondering what to do with them, but first we asked her if it was all right to eat duck’s eggs, from the first nest, and she said yes, we could eat the first eggs, but not ducks or ducklings, which is good, because duck’s eggs, you can make pancakes with! If you’ve caught some town flour, that is.

The Swamp Lady was asking all kinds of weird questions, too, which I don’t remember, because they were weird. But she did want to try the herbs! So we cooked some up in water, and tried it, and it was so weird…

When I had had a sip, I thought a lobster was climbing out of the pot! And the Swamp Lady, she started walking away, through the marsh and the quicksands, and we had to catch her. And Lesla, she told us the  river was flowing through the kettle, like it was just after the Feast of Naigha, when the river overflows and sometimes even our islands get drowned.

But then it stopped, and it was all not true! The tea made us see things that were lies! Stupid tea. So we went back home.