THE SUN HAD NOT brightened the sky of Si’Empra for two weeks and would not do so for another two weeks. Outside the Cryptal caves, a blizzard had been raging for days, blowing snow and ice horizontally across the landscape. Inside the caves, insulated from the outer world though they were, the Crystalmakers knew instinctively that midwinter had arrived. They gathered in the Illiath audience chamber to participate in The Telling: the story of their creation.
It began:
We crawled from the sea
Into Cryptal arms
They give us our warmth
They give us our light
They give us our homes
They give us our Order
On the plateau we lived
Though through all of Si’Empra
Over rivers and mountains
Through the winds and the rains
On glasaurs we roved
We made crystal and cloth
From hair of the Cryptal
Fashioned so fine
With dye and with skill
Virigin too
From hair of the Cryptal
With skill
Cryptal faced Cryptal
Others their quarrel
Bloody the battle
Land they divided
Our roots in the clouds
Our lives belowground
From out of the waters
The Skyseekers came
They reaped the land’s bounty
Sheltered in caves
Shared what they reaped
For crystal and cloth
Cryptal our lives
Below and above
The Order is all
The beginning section of The Telling was a summary. A vast portion of the many verses of the thirty-four sections of The Telling was told over many days. However, the verses were not chanted in sequence and some were even repeated, though the ceremony always began with the summary verses. Initiates and acolytes from the Guild of Memory led the ritual. Sometimes they used tapestries, displayed only at the time of The Telling, to illustrate their verses. Some verses were chanted or sung only by the initiates or acolytes. Other verses allowed everyone’s participation; wind, string and percussion instruments striking up in harmony as people sang and danced.
People came and went throughout The Telling, including Guild Masters and initiates and acolytes from the other Guilds, depending upon the call of other duties. Almost everyone participated at some time, exploring the verses with their interpretations and memories of past discussion. This was the one time of the year when Crystalmakers all gathered together in the one place – including Webcleaners – though the Webcleaners sat apart, shy and awed at being exposed. They watched and listened, sang and danced, but did so quietly and among themselves, as avid as all Crystalmakers to relearn the story of their creation.
On this fifth day of The Telling, Elthán sat among the Webcleaners: cross-legged on a mat on the floor, listening to a verse in the third section:
The Cryptals the guardians
The Order established in six equal parts
The Guilds the division
One to clothe the body
One to create our comfort
One to gladden our hearts
One to remember our words
One to give us light
She sat up straighter and listened with clinical interest to the discussion that began when the initiates finished the chant. She was disappointed to again only hear the usual acclamations by various people about how well the Guilds had performed their duties: “the furnaces of Trebiath are once more operating”; “tapestries are being repaired – oh! the glory of the oldest tapestries”.
No one wondered why there were ‘six equal parts’ but only five Guilds.
Richard had once given Elthán a recording device and she had secretly recorded the verses. With Müther’s help she had transcribed them. It had been an interesting exercise. For the first time in her life, she was able to follow the verses in their approximate sequence – though she couldn’t be sure that, even after several years of recording, she had managed to record all. Müther had questioned this verse of the third section: “The second-last verse doesn’t sound complete – And what are the six?”
“Cryptals, cloth, building, art, memory and crystal,” Elthán replied.
Müther had muttered. “Cryptals are not a guild – why would they be one of the six?”
Müther had also wondered why there was an apparent hesitation in the final part of the fourth verse of the summary of the Telling; something that Elthán had not even noticed.
The question had stayed with Elthán – perhaps one of the lesser crafts used to be a guild: making tableware or sewing or preparing food? However, today’s discussion clearly indicated that ‘the six’ was understood in the way she had told Müther: Cryptals being one of the six.
One verse was rarely chanted and, if so, only when most Crystalmakers had tired of The Telling and the audience chamber held relatively few people:
The gift of the web
The cleaner renowned
In service of beauty
The Order to serve
This verse was never discussed by Crystalmakers, even by Webcleaners themselves; its meaning beyond, it would seem, even the Memory Masters. But since Hochhein’s creation with web threads, Elthán had begun puzzling over that verse also: could the ‘beauty’ be web cloth?
Elthán’s thoughts were interrupted by the start of a lively song about the making of Trebiath. People jumped to their feet, buoyed because Trebiath was again an inhabited city. A thordilones struck up a chord and flutes joined in. With skips and twirls, figures danced around, singing the verse, repeating it, embellishing it and adding other verse-references to Trebiath. Then, most wondrous of all, the Guild Master of Design joined the dance with his partner, a man as lithe as himself. Others stood aside as the music lilted to a smoother sound and the pair danced the dance of the Making of the Guilds, their graceful bodies bending and flowing as they mimed the wonder of each Guild.
Small hands grasped Elthán’s arm.
Elthán turned to find Josie’s twisted features close to her shoulder. She smiled to see the bright excitement in the child’s eyes. “Mistress,” the girl said as loudly as her deformed windpipe would allow. “I am learning the notes of this dance on the thordilones. Müther and the lady with red hair are teaching me.”
Elthán smiled, stroking the child’s short-cropped hair with affection. “When next you are at the school and I come to visit, you will play it for me. We will all dance to your music and you will make us happy.”
Josie nodded enthusiastically, nestling close to Elthán. “Perhaps Müther will sing for us. When she sings, my heart flies.”
After the lively dance subsided, the initiates chose to chant from the second section of The Telling:
Glasaurs huge
The Cryptals made
Birds In splintering boats
With goat and bird
Skyseekers came
Dark and wild
Rude and crude
With eyes for light
And words that spat
Of ignorance and fear
Too weak to walk the tunnels
Too strong to be ignored
And we and they did agree
Our land’s bounty from their labour
Theirs warm homes in glasaur eyries
And the glasaurs all did vanish
to carry, reap and sow
Berries, seed and reed
Bulbs and root and meat
The verse prompted talk about how another glasaur now stalked above ground. Gossip buzzed around the room. With growing surprise, Elthán noted that some Crystalmakers began casting resentful glances towards the Webcleaners, who reacted by huddling into a tighter group, bewildered by the animosity.
Click Follow to receive emails when this author adds content on Bublish
Comment on this Bubble
Your comment and a link to this bubble will also appear in your Facebook feed.