leaving me alone to establish contact with the local elemental. We were on the Colorado Plateau, a large region stretching across four states, so I had already assigned it the name of Colorado in my mind. I took a deep breath, put myself in that Latin headspace, and sent a message through the tattoos that bound me to the earth: //Druid greets Colorado / Wishes health / Harmony//
There was a long pause before I got an answer. I was getting ready to repeat my greeting when it came. //Colorado greets Druid / Welcome//
I frowned at the short rejoinder. Elementals aren’t talkative as a rule—they don’t talk at all, really, I simply do my best to render their images into words—but Colorado sounded reticent, perhaps even a bit surly. Usually elementals are overjoyed to hear from me. They tell me to relax, ask me to hunt, wish me harmony, and so on.
//Query: Health? / Harmony?//
//None// came the reply.
Well, shit. I tried to remember the last time I’d spoken to this elemental and came up blank. I knew I’d traveled through here with Coronado and Don García López de Cárdenas in the sixteenth century, but after that … This might be my first visit since. I wondered if elementals felt jealousy. Might Colorado be feeling petulant because I’d spent so much of the past decade talking to Sonora, Kaibab, and the other elementals of Arizona, but not to him?
//Query: Source of discord?//
Deafening silence. Yep. Colorado was having an elemental hissy fit. Emergency flattery needed.
//Druid happy here / Will stay for long visit / Find harmony//
That got a response. //Query: Druid will stay?//
//Yes / Druid visits for long time//
//Query: How long?//
Damn it. Promising a lengthy stay would get me quickly into his good graces, but I didn’t know what I could promise anymore. Still, provided that the Norse and the rest of the world believed me dead, the reservation would be a good place to stay and complete Granuaile’s training. I chose a happy turn of phrase. //Druid wants to stay forty seasons / Perhaps more//
Wanting wasn’t the same as promising.
//Joy / Contentment / Harmony// Colorado said.
//Harmony// I agreed. Ice broken. Granuaile returned and sat down beside me as Colorado took great delight in showering me with a list of complaints. He’d had less than average rainfall the past few years, his water tables were getting dangerously low, and to make matters supremely irritating there was the matter of the coal mines, which not only opened wounds on his surface but exacerbated the water problem.
And since he’d last seen me, he’d suffered fifteen extinctions. Not nearly so many as other elementals, not by a long shot, but he mourned them no less. I commiserated with him throughout the afternoon and into the evening before asking him to do anything. The sun had headed off to bed early, the workers had all headed back to Kayenta, and Oberon was napping next to Coyote by the time I wondered if he’d help me build a road from the plateau floor to the top of the monocline.
A graded slope for his long-lost Druid buddy? Hey, no problem! Colorado couldn’t wait to show off, and he knocked it out in about a minute, amid a great clash of rocks and dirt that woke Oberon and Coyote and roused Granuaile from the campfire she’d built some distanceaway. Coyote was now in his animal form, and he began to yip in amusement at how quickly the road took shape.
“It’s too bad I can’t build shit,” I told him. “Because now you’ll have to explain how this got here without me.”
Coyote fell over laughing and howled, and Oberon regarded him with bemusement.
he asked.
No, Coyote just appreciates a good trick. He put me on the spot earlier and now I’ve turned it against him. How did the ass-sniffing go?
There was a long pause before I got an answer. I was getting ready to repeat my greeting when it came. //Colorado greets Druid / Welcome//
I frowned at the short rejoinder. Elementals aren’t talkative as a rule—they don’t talk at all, really, I simply do my best to render their images into words—but Colorado sounded reticent, perhaps even a bit surly. Usually elementals are overjoyed to hear from me. They tell me to relax, ask me to hunt, wish me harmony, and so on.
//Query: Health? / Harmony?//
//None// came the reply.
Well, shit. I tried to remember the last time I’d spoken to this elemental and came up blank. I knew I’d traveled through here with Coronado and Don García López de Cárdenas in the sixteenth century, but after that … This might be my first visit since. I wondered if elementals felt jealousy. Might Colorado be feeling petulant because I’d spent so much of the past decade talking to Sonora, Kaibab, and the other elementals of Arizona, but not to him?
//Query: Source of discord?//
Deafening silence. Yep. Colorado was having an elemental hissy fit. Emergency flattery needed.
//Druid happy here / Will stay for long visit / Find harmony//
That got a response. //Query: Druid will stay?//
//Yes / Druid visits for long time//
//Query: How long?//
Damn it. Promising a lengthy stay would get me quickly into his good graces, but I didn’t know what I could promise anymore. Still, provided that the Norse and the rest of the world believed me dead, the reservation would be a good place to stay and complete Granuaile’s training. I chose a happy turn of phrase. //Druid wants to stay forty seasons / Perhaps more//
Wanting wasn’t the same as promising.
//Joy / Contentment / Harmony// Colorado said.
//Harmony// I agreed. Ice broken. Granuaile returned and sat down beside me as Colorado took great delight in showering me with a list of complaints. He’d had less than average rainfall the past few years, his water tables were getting dangerously low, and to make matters supremely irritating there was the matter of the coal mines, which not only opened wounds on his surface but exacerbated the water problem.
And since he’d last seen me, he’d suffered fifteen extinctions. Not nearly so many as other elementals, not by a long shot, but he mourned them no less. I commiserated with him throughout the afternoon and into the evening before asking him to do anything. The sun had headed off to bed early, the workers had all headed back to Kayenta, and Oberon was napping next to Coyote by the time I wondered if he’d help me build a road from the plateau floor to the top of the monocline.
A graded slope for his long-lost Druid buddy? Hey, no problem! Colorado couldn’t wait to show off, and he knocked it out in about a minute, amid a great clash of rocks and dirt that woke Oberon and Coyote and roused Granuaile from the campfire she’d built some distanceaway. Coyote was now in his animal form, and he began to yip in amusement at how quickly the road took shape.
“It’s too bad I can’t build shit,” I told him. “Because now you’ll have to explain how this got here without me.”
Coyote fell over laughing and howled, and Oberon regarded him with bemusement.
No, Coyote just appreciates a good trick. He put me on the spot earlier and now I’ve turned it against him. How did the ass-sniffing go?
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