you skip learning is the one thing you’ll end up needing to know most later. But the money-game was unbelievably fussy and rulebound: which little metal counter, and how many of them, and when, and why, for this, for that, for the other thing . . . One of these days Demane meant to get to grips with it all. Real soon now. Yeah.
2 Enkindle?
Epigraph Three
First, let it be understood that divinities crave tender companionship no less than we mortals do; thus enlightened, we may now begin to examine what form this tender companion of theirs ideally assumes: meet for the passions of a god, delightful to the heart and sensoria divine . . .
from
Appendix H (Extinctions and Reemergent Taxa:
type, philomel
) of “Résumé of Ashëan Hyperphenotypes”; vol. 6,
The Olorumi Grimoire
Third of Seven
He bathed in the Mother of Waters. Returning up the Mainway to the Station, he went this time into the warren of corrals and stables and warehouses, southside. Demane asked of a passerby, “Master Suresh l’Merqerim?” and found that name known. He had no problems following the directions.
Floor-to-ceiling shutters of the gallery above were folded back, and there, upstairs, the merchants reclined at a feast. On deep pillows, Master Suresh and his peers; on their knees, bowing again and again, servitors filled cups no sooner than they were drained. From mountainously heaped platters, merchants pinched up fingerfuls of rice ornate with cinnamon and cashews, charred yet tender bits of cabrito, rock salt and smashed garlic, dried apricots all moist and plump and soft again, onions turned to caramel . . . Such were Demane’s powers of scent and taste that he too partook of the meal, in every way except satisfaction. One of the merchants, if not Suresh himself, would now and again peer down from the gallery, on those busting their asses below, and find some cause to scream abuse.
Under the feast, workmen and the captain unpacked the camels’ luggage, packed the burros’ bags, rushed goods upstairs to be stored in one of three warehouses above the stables, and rushed down yet other goods to be squared away into the outgoing panniers. Captain hustled at his tasks as if his life depended on it. Taking perch on the corral’s fence, Demane sat and watched. For a quarter of every night the captain lay as one dead, and the world’s ending might not wake him. Otherwise, there were no idle moments for him. He ran on foot through the white-hot desert, though everyone else rode upon camels. He drilled himself at arms, or drilled the brothers. If he saw you working and the labors sufficed for two, he lent a hand; otherwise you got nudged aside. The man wore you out just looking at him.
Captain had changed his robe. He hardly smelled of himself, mostly of the aquifer minerals and endemica of Mother of Waters. Though never truly needing it, he’d gone to bathe as well. Ashëan idioviruses kept the captain’s breath sweet, wounds sterile, and body odor, at worst, a musk that was sometimes a bit more peppery than usual. Had Faedou only obeyed, and allowed Captain to spit into that great gaping hole in his leg, as Demane had begged, then the wound wouldn’t be festering, but healed nearly whole by now. “Good juju,” however, had proved a poor translation for “panaceaic endosymbionts.”
The work done, Captain gathered with the drudges around a water barrel, awaiting his turn to dip the ladle. Motion caught his eye: Demane jumping down from the fence. Captain handed off the ladle and started across the paddock.
Nothing’s
better than your lover smiling to see you.
A shout fell on them from the sky.
“Skipping out, is it? This is how much your promises are worth? No more than a pig-raper’s, set to watch the sty!” Master Suresh l’Merqerim leaned over the upstairs balustrade. “Who then will I get to—?”
Snarling, Captain spun and seized a barrel beside that from which the drudges drank. Was it empty? For he wrenched the barrel
2 Enkindle?
Epigraph Three
First, let it be understood that divinities crave tender companionship no less than we mortals do; thus enlightened, we may now begin to examine what form this tender companion of theirs ideally assumes: meet for the passions of a god, delightful to the heart and sensoria divine . . .
from
Appendix H (Extinctions and Reemergent Taxa:
type, philomel
) of “Résumé of Ashëan Hyperphenotypes”; vol. 6,
The Olorumi Grimoire
Third of Seven
He bathed in the Mother of Waters. Returning up the Mainway to the Station, he went this time into the warren of corrals and stables and warehouses, southside. Demane asked of a passerby, “Master Suresh l’Merqerim?” and found that name known. He had no problems following the directions.
Floor-to-ceiling shutters of the gallery above were folded back, and there, upstairs, the merchants reclined at a feast. On deep pillows, Master Suresh and his peers; on their knees, bowing again and again, servitors filled cups no sooner than they were drained. From mountainously heaped platters, merchants pinched up fingerfuls of rice ornate with cinnamon and cashews, charred yet tender bits of cabrito, rock salt and smashed garlic, dried apricots all moist and plump and soft again, onions turned to caramel . . . Such were Demane’s powers of scent and taste that he too partook of the meal, in every way except satisfaction. One of the merchants, if not Suresh himself, would now and again peer down from the gallery, on those busting their asses below, and find some cause to scream abuse.
Under the feast, workmen and the captain unpacked the camels’ luggage, packed the burros’ bags, rushed goods upstairs to be stored in one of three warehouses above the stables, and rushed down yet other goods to be squared away into the outgoing panniers. Captain hustled at his tasks as if his life depended on it. Taking perch on the corral’s fence, Demane sat and watched. For a quarter of every night the captain lay as one dead, and the world’s ending might not wake him. Otherwise, there were no idle moments for him. He ran on foot through the white-hot desert, though everyone else rode upon camels. He drilled himself at arms, or drilled the brothers. If he saw you working and the labors sufficed for two, he lent a hand; otherwise you got nudged aside. The man wore you out just looking at him.
Captain had changed his robe. He hardly smelled of himself, mostly of the aquifer minerals and endemica of Mother of Waters. Though never truly needing it, he’d gone to bathe as well. Ashëan idioviruses kept the captain’s breath sweet, wounds sterile, and body odor, at worst, a musk that was sometimes a bit more peppery than usual. Had Faedou only obeyed, and allowed Captain to spit into that great gaping hole in his leg, as Demane had begged, then the wound wouldn’t be festering, but healed nearly whole by now. “Good juju,” however, had proved a poor translation for “panaceaic endosymbionts.”
The work done, Captain gathered with the drudges around a water barrel, awaiting his turn to dip the ladle. Motion caught his eye: Demane jumping down from the fence. Captain handed off the ladle and started across the paddock.
Nothing’s
better than your lover smiling to see you.
A shout fell on them from the sky.
“Skipping out, is it? This is how much your promises are worth? No more than a pig-raper’s, set to watch the sty!” Master Suresh l’Merqerim leaned over the upstairs balustrade. “Who then will I get to—?”
Snarling, Captain spun and seized a barrel beside that from which the drudges drank. Was it empty? For he wrenched the barrel
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