The Provenance of a Pinecone

After a day or two in Chakramalsian's wagon, I was feeling strong enough to stand and begin painting the centerpiece of its roof: the character for Peace, surrounded by a stately procession of the aquatic traveler's favorite fish.

"Put at least one of them in a funny hat, please," he added. "If a mural doesn't include a fish in a funny hat, one might as well not even bother."

In addition to the painting, Chak was also starved for conversation, which I was happy to provide as I worked. Not only was I glad to return something for his hospitality, but he turned out to be my favorite type of conversationalist: one who enjoys speaking eloquently and at length on nearly any subject with even the most minimal of encouragement. After several pleasant hours spent discussing our respective travels, favorite extinct restaurants, the breeding of photosynthetic cats, the use of explosives in Thiglian stomp opera, and the practical considerations of housekeeping at the bottom of a lake, the conversation turned to the subject of family heirlooms.

I took out my grandfather's extra-foldable ruler, the one he used to build so many cunningly hidden secret compartments into the walls and floors of the family home. (Please do let me know, by the way, if you've discovered any more during my absence, especially any more that are deeper than the walls that contain them.) While I'm no dimensimancer myself and can't use it to build elegantly impossible carpentry, I do find it useful, on occasion, to be able to pull a ruler twice my own height out of my pocket.

Chak, in turn, took a box from one of the smaller of his various moss-encrusted trunks. Inside was what appeared to be a pinecone made of brass, small enough to hide in one's fist. Each scale was coated with blue enamel and linked to its neighbors with small loops of wire. When he picked up the pinecone by a larger loop at one end, the individual segments slid over each other with a faint chiming sound, and it telescoped to nearly twice its original length.

"It's a family heirloom," he said, smiling at the pinecone. "No practical use to speak of, but it's pretty, isn't it? I never travel without it. According to family legend, it once belonged to the master burglar Fenish keTmeel." He gave me a hopeful look.

One is rarely offered such a clear invitation to hear a story. Naturally, I asked who Fenish keTmeel was, and Chak launched smoothly into what I soon came to recognize as his don't-believe-a-word-of-this storytelling voice.

"Fenish keTmeel is practically a legend now, like Orbadon or the Ratty Hatmaker, but she was an infamous burglar in the Scalps - if she actually existed - about a century and a half ago. She was a Wayfinder, of course. Nearly all successful burglars are; otherwise, they couldn't rely on ever actually finding their way to anything worth stealing. According to the legends, she could simply turn a corner and walk straight into any vault or treasure room she pleased. Everyone who had a vault or treasure room quickly caught on and posted armed guards, but somehow, she walked right past them. Most of them never even realized she'd been there until she was gone, and the most valuable objects in the room with her. It was remarkable. A number of wealthy dragons nearly exploded.

"She didn't just keep or sell everything she stole, either. If something she took had already been stolen, she often left it out somewhere public - if possible, in such a way that it would incriminate whoever had been holding onto it. During her career, a remarkable number of foreign works of art turned up years or decades after everyone thought they'd been destroyed. A handful of them even got returned to their rightful owners eventually. She kept the vast majority of what she stole, of course, but that bit of theatrical public service was more than enough to make her a sort of folk hero, at least to everyone who had nothing worth stealing. My family's in business, so they've always been rather ambivalent about her, but I admit I've always found the stories quite exciting.

"Especially since most of them agree that, after a while, she started bringing things out of vaults that had never been in them in the first place. Marvelous, impossible things. Soup pots that never ran empty, books that could only be read with one's eyes shut, spectacles that made people who were nearby look and sound as if they were far away. This is a story from the Scalps, remember," he added with a smile. "But that's what she's truly famous for: stealing things from nowhere and no one."

I inquired as to what had eventually become of the thief.

"No one knows!" Chak said with delight. "There are at least a dozen different endings to the story that I've heard. She retired to a life of anonymous luxury in Kennyrubin, or she tried to rob the wrong dragon and got herself roasted, or reality caught up with her and she stopped existing, or she found the thing she'd been looking for all along - an heirloom, or an egg, or her own heart; it varies depending on who's telling the story. My aunt maintains that she was merely a fiction created to cover up a massive streak of banking fraud, but then she's always been a dedicated cynic.

"Besides, the things she stole still turn up from time to time, usually when someone tries to pawn or auction one of them off and the dragon it was stolen from finds out. Then everyone runs around trying to sell it to some other poor fool so that they're not the one left holding it when the dragon catches up. No one's foolish enough to try to argue ownership with a dragon who has a legal claim to something. No one who lives very long, anyway," he amended.

"And of course, there are a million small trinkets sold every day in the Scalps that claim to be from Fenish keTmeel's hoard - more of them than a thousand thieves could possibly have stolen in a lifetime of burglary. Most of them are fakes. But some…"

He held up the enameled pinecone by its other end and gave it a shake. With a chorus of metallic rattling, its scales flipped themselves in the opposite direction, and the entire pinecone turned itself inside-out and became an exquisitely jointed blue enameled goldfish.

"Some, I think, might be real."

He dropped the fish into the water, where we watched it swim around for a minute or two. Despite being mostly brass, it showed no sign of sinking. When he held out a hand under the surface, it came to rest there, nestled in his palm; he gave it another gentle shake, and it turned inside-out again and became a miniature crocodile, still formed entirely out of jointed enamel scales. It swam around for a short time more, theatrically snapping its tiny brass teeth.

"It used to be my great-grandfather's," Chak said, watching the crocodile fondly. "He said he fed it his secrets. I've kept up the tradition; I've few enough secrets to feed it at my age, but it doesn't seem to mind. There's no other power source that I've ever been able to find, no springs or gears - it's just enameled brass and wire. I'd suspect that it's a Hill Builder relic, but… You've seen their work, yes?"

I acknowledged that I had, many times.

"So you know that it tends toward the utilitarian or the inscrutable. I've rarely seen anything they designed that I'd describe as… charming." He petted the crocodile under the chin, and it gave his finger a small play-bite, like a kitten, before swimming back to rest in his palm. "Possibly it's the work of some other artisan, but if so, they didn't leave a mark or a signature." The crocodile yawned and, with another series of chiming rattles, folded itself back into a pinecone again. Chak shook the water out of it and gently set it on a cloth to dry before returning it to its box.

Pausing my work to watch was enough to make me realized how tired I'd grown. After a little more conversation, I put my paints away for the day, and Chak and I retired to separate pursuits, most of which - in my case - involved sleeping. First, though, I asked if any of the other pieces from Fenish keTmeel's ill-gotten collection were available to view, and Chak was kind enough to write me a (somewhat damp) list of museums. I'll make it a point to visit at least a few of them if I ever find myself in the Scalps again.

Fish of the Sun

I left the gregarials yesterday after a breakfast of fish and green cheese. (It comes from the green cow. Her name is Pickle.) In exchange for the hospitality, I left them a jar of dark green oil paint. As I mentioned, one of the gregarials is an albino, white-scaled with bright pink eyes; he has difficulty hunting, as he practically glows in the dark.* I can easily pick up more green at the next town I come to, and he could use some camouflage that won't wash off in the water.

The following day was relatively quiet; the gregarials carried me across the river on half of a boat that they have, wished me well, and sent me on my way. It took longer to get back to the main river than it had to get away from it, so I ended up spending a night in the open after all. Oh well. I'm used to it. I would have slept quite well if it hadn't been for the owls hooting in Morse code over my head.

Today, like every day in the last week, it seemed as if the sun had come down to bathe in the river. Steam rose from the water. The light reflecting from the packed dirt of the road was blinding. I kept to the trees as much as possible, their shade nearly black in comparison to the sunlight. Even there, the air seemed something to be drunk rather than breathed. I reached the river road slightly before noon, hardly a hundred feet from where I left it two days ago. The Tetravanians would be proud. It seems like a lot of work to cross that much distance, but I'm glad I did; I got to meet the gregarials, after all. I looked back at the branch that had caused the detour, that torrent of fast water that had been too strong for me to sail across, and was shocked to see someone wading in it.

Normally, I would say she was a large, fluffy samoval, but I don't think I've ever met one who was less than eight feet tall and didn't make a sheepdog look bald in comparison, so there's really no need. This one was no exception. She was plowing through the water, waves breaking against her waist, stomping as if she was trying to kill something with her feet. She was in the deepest part of the river when I first noticed her. As she started to reach the shallower parts, her head got higher... and higher...

If she wasn't at least nine feet tall, I must have shrunk a lot in the last few weeks.

She was wearing a wide-brimmed hat the size of a wagon wheel. It was almost wide enough to shade her shoulders. On one shoulder, she was carrying a four-foot jar full of what looked like orange juice. Every so often, a flash of red scales and fins was visible inside. Her fur was black at the roots, but she had dyed it a pale yellow, possibly to make it less hot in the sun. If so, it didn't seem to be working particularly well. She was panting in the heat. As I watched, she let out a roar of frustration, threw her hat into the bushes, put down the jar - I was afraid she would throw that too, but she put it down with exquisite care - and flung herself headlong into the river. The wave nearly capsized a little canoe passing by.

"A Thousand Thousand Curses on this abominable fur!" she roared, erupting out of the water again. The man in the canoe nearly tipped over out of fright this time. "Even in the cool of the shade, it Roasts me like a very Oven, and gives me no peace by Night or by Day! I swear this moment, in the hearing of all who hear me, I shall endure it no more! I shall cut it off! To the last Strand shall I sever this coat of Evil, and cast it into the Mud to be trampled by Cattle and Pigs! You!" She pointed with a massive fist at the terrified canoe-paddler. "Have you Scissors? Give them to me!"

The man babbled something about not having any scissors, sorry, goodbye, and paddled off at a speed I didn't know was possible in a canoe. I could see sunlight underneath the keel.

The samoval turned and caught sight of me. "You!" she said, sloshing over to the bank. "You are one who has Scissors. I can tell. You have the Look. Give them to me." She held out one enormous hand. I took a look at the claws on it and decided not to argue.

My scissors looked like nail scissors in her hand, but she managed to get the tip of a finger through each handle. Her fur stuck out in spikes as it dried in the hot air. She cut each one off as if it had personally insulted her. She started walking again as she worked, picking up her hat and jar again on the way by. The jar must have weighed more than I do; she lifted it easily, with one hand.

I had little choice but to follow her. I only have the one pair of scissors. Fortunately, she was going in the same direction I had been traveling anyway. She stomped along without another word, pounding dust out of the road, hacking away at her fur with every step. She somehow managed to hold the jar in one arm while trimming with the other. Cutting evenly seemed to be of no importance; after an hour, her arms had a sort of mangled hedge look to them. The scraps of dyed fur that remained made a sort of diced lightning pattern over the dark roots. The scaled thing continued to flicker in and out of sight in the glass jar. After another hour or so, the samoval seemed less completely enraged, so I asked her about it.

"This is my Fish," she declared. "He is a handsome Fish and quick of Fin. I am raising him in the Fruit of the Sun, so that he shall be a Giant among all Fishes and possess the power of Flame. The Waters shall steam where he Swims."

After that, she was quite willing to talk, though the conversation was rather one-sided. Her name, she said, is Mahalia Peraximander the Third. (The Fish is from the Unseen Deeps and does not yet have a name.) She is apparently part of the royal family of a place called Crucible, "a Great City of Fire and Iron." Having found her Fish, she is returning there. She's fifth in line for the Throne, "but unlikely ever to claim it," she said. "For we are a family of great Strength and Stubbornness, and it shall be many Years till the Death of my Uncle, if indeed Death ever dares to disturb him at all."

I wonder if everyone in Crucible talks this way. I suppose I'll find out. It's going to take a long time to cut all that fur.



* His name is something like Plrzzxgak. I can't pronounce it any better than I can spell it.

Gregarials

I had to take a detour yesterday around a branch of the river. There was no bridge over it. There had been one once, judging by the broken pilings on either side, but it looked like the last flood had decided to keep it. The current was a bit faster than I was comfortable with, or I would have crossed on my suitcase.

The path was shady, overhung with trees and marsh creepers; I didn't mind leaving the hot, dusty road for a while. Frogs jumped off the bank as I passed. Kingfishers and spotted snatchers yelled at each other in the trees. The river branch was quiet, as flat and shallow as the main trunk, but the forest around it more than made up for that.

There were far fewer houses on the branch. I walked until almost sunset, when the light slanted sideways through the trees and lined them with gold, and saw not a single sign of anyone living nearby. I was starting to resign myself to sleeping in a tree when I came across the house. It was old, a low, lopsided building that looked like it was about to slide into the river. The porch sagged so much that one side was submerged. The water around it was full of weeds and floating logs; it looked as if the house had begun to dissolve already. Sedges and cattails covered the banks and leaned up against the crooked boards, except for a muddy, trampled-looking area by the water. There was a cow grazing in the back. It was green.

As I walked up to the door, several of the logs lifted their heads from the water and looked at me.

I covered the last few steps to the door somewhat faster, then wondered after I knocked if perhaps I shouldn't have. The face that answered the door was startingly similar to the ones that I could hear crawling out of the water behind me. They were completely unhurried. Crocodiles are always unhurried right up until that last moment when they lunge. The one at the door, taller on two legs than I was, grinned the grin that only crocodiles and snapjaw sharks can achieve. I was certain that I was about to become dinner.

Then the crocodile burst out laughing at the expression on my face, and I noticed - looking away from those teeth for the first time - that she was wearing an apron and a pair of oven mitts embroidered to look like sheep faces. The crocodiles behind me started laughing too. It was an odd, creaking sound unlike anything I'd heard before; it took me a moment to realize that it was laughter. After a few seconds, I started laughing too, if somewhat nervously. The two-legged crocodile beckoned me inside with one oven mitt.

"Khom in, khom in!" she said. "We won't eatchoo, we promish."

They were not exactly crocodiles, as it turned out, but a closely related species called gregarials. Crocodiles tend to be solitary creatures; gregarials are not. They're pack animals, and far more intelligent than the average crocodile. This was one of several packs living on the River Truckle.

Like most people, they varied quite a bit in shape. Most of them were built more or less like ordinary crocodiles. Several were part amphibian, their back legs missing, their heads adorned with leathery manes of gills. One was an albino; another was striped, like a tiger in green instead of orange, and had six legs. One looked almost human, except for the scales that covered his skin. His wife (the one with the oven mitts) was the other humanoid of the pack. She looked more crocodilian, but was by far the more talkative of the two. Her name was Cheleezixmargra; his was Shekelnark. I was introduced to the others, but their names are far beyond the capabilities of any alphabet I know.

I was never quite able to count how many of them there were.

None of them wore anything besides cooking aprons, which they took off once the food was served. Reptiles rarely feel the need to cover themselves up the way mammals do. There were a few dresses hung on one wall, next to a spectacular striped suit; I assumed that they were for special occasions. The dresses were a variation on the tube gowns popular among reptiles and weasels. Styles are different for people whose mouths are longer than their arms. The gregarial's voices varied as well. A few could have passed for humans with a surplus of teeth, at least in the dark; others had deep, creaking voices, and several spoke only a chewing sort of language that I didn't recognize. They seemed to understand each other well enough.

They invited me in for dinner, with repeated reassurances that I was not to be the main course. That was a stew featuring freshwater eel and a deer that one of them had caught crossing the river. (The roof was largely held up with antlers.) I added a piece of my shell cake and a marginally more recognizable crustacean thing from Woodpot. The gregarials pronounced them crunchy, but edible. I was asked to tell them about my travels - they've rarely been farther downstream than Truckle Stop - but the conversation during dinner was mainly about the day's work. They fish for a living, apparently, and sell things they find at the bottom of the river. The floods leave the things they don't like down there, and even in the dry seasons, people are always dropping jewelry and spectacles and so on out of boats. There's also a lost city somewhere beneath Sedge. None of the gregarials have ever found it - and not for lack of looking - but they keep finding statues and pots and ancient oil lamps half-buried in the mud. There's an archaeologist who, not being aquatic himself, comes up the river every now and then to see what they've found. According to him, it's all from something called the Alpaca Empire, which no one but archaeologists has ever heard of. They say he exclaims over each shard and fragment like a little boy on his birthday. They're quite fond of him.

After dinner, all the gregarials gathered around the fire and listened to Cheleezixmargra read a chapter of Year of the Manatee, Lena Tithe's epic seafaring novel. They were completely absorbed in the story, staring raptly at the reader, though I got the impression that they were most interested in the parts with the sharks. Several of them dropped off to sleep before the end of the chapter.

They invited me to stay the night, and I saw no reason not to accept. I spent the night at the edge of a heap of huge, hoarsely snuffling crocodiles, trying to keep from leaning on claws or the more serrated backs, with fish-scented fangs snoring gently in my ear. A cacophony of frogs shouted from the darkness.

Surprisingly, I actually slept. Once you've reassured yourself that they're not going to eat you, there are few places safer than a heap of crocodiles.