Archive for the ‘Series’ Category
The World, Under
Wednesday, October 28th, 2009
Dark and constrictive and wet, cacophony of noise, the yelling, the pushing, vague sense of ejection, and then the little Eurasian girl with the Sanskrit name emerged into the Land of Grey Dusk, whispers of the world she knew still clinging to her jumper and jeans.
Bewildered, she gazed wide-eyed at the surrounding forest of sere arbor, the slate-colored skies, the ashen soil and the cinereal sun, and tried to block from her ears the faint staticky background hum of the place, as if a myriad radios were tuned to dead air. Her equilibrium slightly unsettled, as though the ground was quaking beneath her feet. The air tasted faintly of charcoal.
From a tree branch above descended a Corgi-sized spider on a silken line, landing gracefully at the little girl’s feet. Eight crimson eyes blinked in unison as the spider took in her face.
“Such pretty eyes,” said the spider with a husky feminine lilt. “They match the color of this place. And who might you be?”
“My name is Anya,” said Anya. “Where am I?”
“You are in The World, Under. Are you lost?”
“Yes, ma’am. Could you show me the way home?” The little girl rooted in the pocket of her jeans for something with which to barter, and produced two greenish iridescent scales, vaguely fish-like, which shimmered in the low light. She didn’t remember how the scales had gotten into her pocket, but they were pretty enough. “I can give you these in return for your help.”
The spider scrutinized the scales for a moment, passing two of its forelegs lightly over them, then nodded.
“Indeed. Quite unusual. I wonder how you came across them. Catoblepasi are very rare in any realm, and their scales tend to stay on.”
Anya said nothing, protective of the scales’ origin and slightly embarrassed by her unintentional theft. Though the spider seemed friendly enough, Anya knew about not giving away too much information to strangers.
“Fine,” said the spider, taking the scales in two of its arms. “I will show you the way.”
Abruptly, the spider cast out its filaments and ensnared the little girl in a cocoon of white fiber. Snug tight in her swaddled capture, the little girl closed her eyes and lost consciousness. Then, without another word, the spider pulled her effortlessly upward, into the treetops.
Previously:
00: Mini Buddha Jump Over the Wall
Our Lady Of the Snows
Friday, October 23rd, 2009
“Her house is everywhere where winter is”; but this turned out not to be true, as I learned when I went away to school and, for the first time, met people from other parts of our country. I learned then that it is full of places — wooded valleys, and windy inlets, rolling farmland or monastery country, indeed, even the occasional bustling city, as big as or bigger than Kardery — places, in short, where the people live not too differently from us. They speak the same language; they read about the capital, and the Empress; children trudge to school to study the same lessons we learn at home.
And yet, despite all these similarities, there is one house inside which these people have never been.
Corinne (she was the first girl I had ever met with bangs; they rippled over her dark eyes like a sheet of water) said that where she comes from, winter means only that the sun is obscured by a new, low sky of cloud. She said, when one goes walking across the pasture to the cows, one’s body casts no shadows on the grass; no, nor the tall stones that hold up the sky; and underfoot the green is wet and brilliant enough to replace – almost — the hidden sun.
Bruno, brown and blond, said that in the plains, winter means no rain, and that means fire. (It makes a noise like an angry army in the mountains, he said.) While in Kuchko’s home city – Kuchko is thin and pale, with a scarred hand — the trees only turn gold (she said), and the water noisy, and white mist rolls in from the bay and makes silver oceans in the air.
But none of them – none! — had ever seen or walked with the Lady.
I told them that, when the first cold comes, I will take them out into the hills behind the school. There we can get used to the corridors, the galleries and halls, while they are still upholstered in autumn. And then, when the time comes, we will go out again — dressed for visiting — and I will show them into her parlor, and we will go to her among the silent trees, and render her what we have brought to give, where she waits for us in her receiving room: Our Lady of the Snows.