Eolts want word for word, so you are right, go we must and listen.*
“Is that what Mer-Eolt Lebesair came to say? Or has more news come across from Melitoh?”
*Both, sioll. Xe didn’t say-but from xe’s comport, I do think more song has been brought and it is something evil*
Another sigh and Melech sank lower until xe’s grasping cilia brushed Maorgan’s hair. *Xe came to tell me there will be a Klobach. Thee ingathering has begun. T’ Meruu want the mesuch harper there if you and I agree it’s wise.*
“I wondered when you didn’t say anything, sioll.” *I was considering Lebesair’s song and how temeroum it was.*
“What size are the holes and how many?”
*Large enough to float through and many indeed.*
“Sounds like secrets to me and that’s a bad omen. Chel Dй grant the Meruus don’t start down that road.” He touched thumb to ring finger in the avert sign, then got to his feet and walked along the Harper’s Way that circled the roof of the Meeting House, heading for the stairs that led down to the Center, the inner court where the meeting was set.
The Eolt Melech dropped xe’s graspers to the roof holds and pulled xeself after xe’s sioll.
2
The main part of Dumel Alsekum was laid out as an infinity sign with the Meeting House at the twist point. In one node the horses were low and rounded with an organic look as if they were grown rather than built and roofs that glittered in the sunlight, panels of translucent material that could be slid aside to let in the full force of the sun. In the other the style of building was more angular, walls built with a mellow ocher brick and wood with the gleam of pale bronze; the roofs were rough shakes with a crannied thready texture as if they were cut from bark rather than the wood itself. Moss grew in patches across these roofs, the dark rich green starred with small yellow blooms. Ketengs lived in the first node, Fior in the second. Despite this separation in the living quarters, Shadith saw children of both species playing together, the adults working together in the fields, standing together in the streets. She was pleased to see this, but couldn’t help wondering where the catch was; the history of Cousin interactions with intelligent non-Cousins was on the whole bloody and depressing.
The Yarak driver stopped at the edge of the village. No, Shadith thought, Dumel. That was what the Bйluchar called a village. Dumel was the settlement, ordumel the manufactories and farms attached to it. She touched her fingers lightly to her temple; the translator had settled down, the blinding ache was gone, all she had now was a twinge or two when she ran into a spate of slang like the shouts of those children outside.
The driver twisted around to speak to Aslan.
“Scholar, if you want me to take you to the Hostel, I’ll have to go round outside this place. The streets are too narrow for the track.”
“Wait here a moment. We’re supposed to be met by local officials. Once we’re out, you make your way round and wait. There’s maneuvering to do before that’s settled. I hope you brought something to pass the time since we probably won’t get in till sundown, if then.”
He flashed his pointed teeth at her in a broad, dangerous grin, his orange-brown eyes shutting to furry slits. His mask was a sketch of mahogany fur only a few shades darker than the rest of a pelt that was shaggier than the neat plush on Goлs Koraka and the other highborn and there was no white on his face. “How it goes,” he said. “Rush till you’re rubbed down to hide, then sit around and listen to your fur grow while the big chods talk.”
Aslan chuckled, clicked her tongue. “Hush now. Two of those chods are coming toward us.” She pushed her chair around so she was facing the others. “Dune, Shadow and I will see if we can light a fire under them and clear the way for you to start getting settled in.”
Duncan Shears was a small wiry man with droopy eyelids that lent a mild and sleepy look to his round face, a man given to hoarding words. Now he simply nodded, settled down in his seat, and turned slightly so he could look through the offside window of the track’s cabin and watch the maneuvering of the locals as they moved in staring circles about the tracktruck.
Shadith swung down and followed Aslan to meet the Bйluchar, a Denchok and a Fior walking side by side, looking curiously alike though they were from different species.
Denchok. In Bйlucharis it meant settled and caretaker and middle term, the three meanings blended in a way she didn’t know enough yet to understand. Meloach were the children. That term was easier, it meant beginning and herd and opening bud. Eolt seemed to have only one meaning, being the generic name given to the intelligent floaters.
This Denchok had broad plump shoulders and grey-green skin like the bark of a willow tree. Unlike the Meloach, xe had no symbiote moss, rather a weaving of thready lichen that spread about the middle of xe’s stocky sexless body and looked like brittle gray-green spiderwebs. Watching xe move brought to mind the march of a dead tree trunk weathered and old. Xe wore no clothing, merely a bronze chain about xe’s short thick neck, a medallion dangling from the lowest link with worn symbols engraved on its oval.
The Fior was a plumpish man with a neatly trimmed white beard and mustache that framed thick red lips. He wore tight trousers and a tunic of deeply textured cloth that was a stylized echo of the Denchok’s lichen web. He, too, had a bronze chain and medallion.
The Denchok stopped a few steps from Aslan. Fingering xe’s medal with broad stumpy fingers, xe said, “I am the Metau Chachil. I speak for the Denchok.”
(Shadith murmured a translation into Aslan’s ear, added, “Local pol. Context fringes-xe’s elected to the post, not born into it.”)
“And I am the Teseach Ruaim. I speak for the Fior.” The Teseach’s voice was a silver tenor that might have been crafted to charm birds from the sky.
(“Different word, same connotation,” she whispered.)
Turn and turn about, dancing their voices through the phrases, of the welcome speech with a practiced ease, the Teseach and the Metau welcomed their visitors to Dumel Alsekum.
When they finished, Aslan said, “May our interaction be pleasant and fruitful.” She paused for Shadith to translate, then went on briskly, “If my associates could be guided to the living quarters that were promised us, I would be most grateful.”
The Teseach snapped thumb against forefinger, dropped the hand on the shoulder of the youth who ran over to him. “Diroch will show you how to go. That contraption can’t come inside the Dumel, it’ll have to go round.”
(“Nose out of joint,” Shadith murmured. “No one’s moving into his town till he and the Metau approve. You’re going to have to keep this pair sweet or they’ll make trouble every chance they see.”)
Aslan bowed as she’d been instructed, arms crossed, the tips of her fingers resting against her shoulders. “Teach your grandmother,” she said, tucking the corners of her mouth in to keep from grinning. “Tell our friends there how profoundly appreciative we are and how we shall strive to be worthy of the honor and keep your face straight while you’re doing it, hm?”
The Meeting Room wasn’t a room at all, but a pentagonal court at the heart of the building with grasping rods extending from the roof on the five sides, leaving the center completely open to the sky. Three Eolt floated above the court, their tentacles anchoring them to the rods; below them a collection of Fior adults and Denchok sat in witness on benches pushed against four of the sides. Near a low dais that ran across the fifth side, the Dumel scribe perched at a small desk with a tablet, stylus and inkpad. Xe was a Denchok who seemed older than the rest, xe’s crust coarser, grayer, xe’s lichen web a thick matting of closely interwoven, crinkled threads.
The Metau and the Teseach climbed onto the dais, stood waiting beside massive chairs carved over every inch of their surface, chairs that looked extraordinarily uncomfortable. Shadith and Aslan were left standing at the foot of the steps.