The Lord of the Plains (17 page)

There were no celebrations for the emerging
from the caves or the brave settlers of centuries past. All that
happened was that the Astarians worked even harder and for a few
weeks there was a gleam in their eyes that wasn’t there before.
There
were
speeches given by the leaders of Astar, though in
Aerlid’s mind these sombre and patriotic affairs did not count as
celebrations.

Aerlid, annoyed and feeling somewhat
thwarted- they recognized the need for days of rest, yet not
celebrations- sat Riley down in their apartment. At least one good
thing happened during this time of not-celebration- their apartment
now contained a second bed. It sat in the bedroom, some distance
away from the original bed. Aerlid had been concerned that Riley
might not want it, but had bought it anyway- it was a matter of
pride. His worries were all for naught; she took to it quite
well.

Riley sat quietly in the stiff chair looking
at him slightly askance. Aerlid seemed a bit…frazzled. Aerlid knelt
down in front of her and looked up at her face.

He thought about it for a moment, then
smiled. He would tell her of the customs of the Seiaan people. ‘The
people who lived here long ago worshipped a Lord and Lady,’ he
began, ‘they called them Lord Asin and Lady Assah. Asin and Assah
were married, but they were very unhappy with each other. Often
they fought. In one of their fights Assah drew blood from Asin with
her sword, which was named Cleysar. His blood spilt and formed the
ocean. Asin, enraged, grabbed a fistful of Assah’s hair and flung
it down, and that formed the land. Assah’s hair was very beautiful
and it meant much to her. So she cried tears of rage and sorrow and
this rained down on the land and ocean. It gave… it was…’ he
paused, struggling to explain, ‘desire, anger, feeling. It gave the
land and sea life. Now Asin grew sad to see his wife cry. And…’ he
glanced sidelong at Riley. ‘Well, they made up. And… that created
people and animals. Now, the world had been made out of Asin and
Assah’s anger, so the world was a violent place. But humans and
animals had also been formed from love as well as anger. So only
through them could some peace come to the world. They used to treat
animals as people, you know, and if you didn’t fight with your wife
regularly you were considered a very bad husband…’ he trailed off,
realised he was getting off track and continued his story. ‘Assah
and Asin found this new world a marvel, and there was peace between
them for some time…’

Aerlid stopped, watching Riley’s face. Then
he remembered how she’d thought Molzolzor was real. ‘It’s just a
story, Riley, it’s not real.’

Her eyes were very wide. She nodded.

‘Well, they believed it. Some of them did. I
don’t think it’s real.’ he amended.

Her eyes widened.

He thought he might be confusing her more.
‘People believe lots of different things, it’s important because it
affects how they behave, but you don’t have to worry about Asin and
Assah fighting.’

‘So…they’re like Molzolzor?’ she asked
weakly.

‘Yes, exactly.’

Riley was silent for a long while. Then she
asked something very surprising.

’You call the moon ‘lady’. Is the moon like
Lady Assah?’

Aerlid was stunned she’d noticed that.

‘Well… not really, yes, in some ways. I
suppose you could say I feel for the moon the way the Seiaan people
used to feel for Lady Assah. And I show my… devotion by
singing.’

Riley was quiet. This was something very
difficult for her to think about. ‘So where you come from, they all
sing to the moon?’ she could almost imagine a whole host of Aerlids
gathered in a forest and singing to the moon. But this was not the
type of thinking she was good at and it slipped from her mind
quickly.

‘No, not all…some…’ he trailed off, it was
so hard to think of his own people, in a way he did not wish to
talk about them, yet she had asked, and she so rarely asked about
these sorts of things. ‘I have a friend, a woman who sings to the
sun, there are others who revere the ground we walk on…No, I
suppose only a few of my own people sing to the moon. What I do is
a…personal experience, we do not often sing communally…’ He almost
mentioned what Riley’s mother sung to, but if that didn’t interest
her? He didn’t think he could bear it. ‘Though there are others and
sometimes we did sing together…’ he trailed off again. ‘The
ancestor of the woman who sings to the sun visited the sun once and
brought back songs that would please her. Those are the songs that
are mostly sung now to the sun.’ he was silent as he ruminated.

‘So you sing… because you are devoted?’ she
frowned a little. This was hard for her to get her head around. She
didn’t understand. Aerlid could see this.

He blinked. Why did he sing? Because he
couldn’t
not
sing. It was a part of him. When you looked at
Aerlid you knew that he was a part of the moon, somehow, in some
way. That was why he sung. And as he sung he became stronger,
revitalized. A gift from the Lady. But even without that, he would
have sung. Because she was the Lady. Aerlid looked at Riley, at her
pale skin that was more like his own now than either of her
parents. He suspected that was because she sung- or hummed- to the
moon with him. She ought to have been summer. Her mother was
summer. His people would have been fascinated by this change in
her.

‘Yes I… suppose you could put it that way.’
was all he could say. It hurt him that she lacked the intuition to
look and see why he might sing. She said the right words but she
didn’t understand, not in her heart. Not really. But he had raised
her, so who could he blame for what she lacked except himself?

Recently it had become colder. Not very
cold, but cold enough to wear a jacket. Cold enough that the
produce in the stores had changed.

Aerlid made another round of the store.
There were very few vegetables left, and they were prohibitively
expensive. He came back to where he had started. Tubs of a greenish
slime had appeared. He watched curiously as someone walked by and
scooped some up into a container.

Aerlid walked over and had a look in the
tub. Was it used to insulate houses against the cold? He’d ask
Keila about it tomorrow.

The slime neatly filed away in his mind,
Aerlid turned towards the man behind the counter to find out where
all the food was.

The man gazed back at him dully. There was a
pause. ‘What?’ he asked finally, his voice slow.

‘Where’s all the food?’ Aerlid asked
bluntly.

The man’s eyes slowly drifted sideways.
Aerlid followed his eyes. It was the tub of slime. He looked back
at the man. He pointed just to make sure Aerlid knew. ‘Cave
mould.’

‘Cave mould?’ Aerlid asked, his voice a
little high.

‘Do you need a bucket?’

Riley poked at her mould with a spoon and
then looked up at Aerlid.

‘I’m told this is how it’s eaten.’ Aerlid
said, looking down at the green mould on his own plate. He
seriously wondered if the man had been joking.

‘We should try it.’ Aerlid said with more
fervour than he felt.

Riley looked back down at her plate. She dug
her spoon into the pile of green stuff and popped it into her
mouth.

She looked like she was chewing then she
stopped and just swallowed it.

‘How is it?’ Aerlid asked.

Riley was silent for a while. Finally, she
said, ‘it’s ok.’

Aerlid looked down at his plate. With a sigh
he scooped some mould up.

It was cold. Cold and wet and tasteless.
Water had more taste than cave mould. He swallowed. It slid down
his throat slowly like it didn’t want to go down. He suddenly had a
horrible picture of that unpleasant substance sick people coughed
up. Phlegm. This was like phlegm before it was coughed up.

He looked over at Riley. She had finished
half her plate, though her face was wearing a pained expression.
Her mouth was twisted and there was a deep line between her
eyebrows.

Aerlid swallowed. It was still there. ‘I
hear it’s very nutritious.’

Riley gave him a look that spoke
volumes.

After the year end passed the fervour of the
Astarians began to return to normal levels, levels that could be
sustained each day for the rest of the year. At school Riley was
treated differently. The gemengs held her in high regard for her
marks on the exams- clearly she was what they all aspired to be (as
they could never be as good as a human). Some of the human children
grudgingly admitted her into their friendship. Riley was somewhat
perplexed by this. If they didn’t like her why try and make friends
with her? But human children were expected to understand gemengs-
how better to know how to fight them? The best way to do this was
to spend time with the gemengs made available to them through the
school system. And as she was clearly the best of the gemengs she
was the most appropriate choice as a new friend. Those that had
done worse than her in the exams were particularly upset about
making friends with her, something she found quite bewildering.

Razra though, treated her as usual.

Recently a sticky sort of snow had begun to
fall. It was scarce and often melted on the ground but after many
weeks it began to build up in an unpleasant, dirty slush.

Riley cleared some snow from a patch of dirt
she intended to sit on with her foot. Razra had just plomped
himself down on the ground by her. As he watched her his eyes
widened. ‘Oh!’ he said. He half sidled half waddled over to her
clean patch.

Riley frowned at him. She’d learnt that it
was important to be forceful about things that she did not care
particularly much about, otherwise he’d just keep pushing.

‘Razra, clear your own patch.’ Riley
said.

He shot up in an instant and with a bashful
smile on his face began clearing his own patch of ground. Good.
Usually he responded well to ‘no’ but on occasion, usually without
warning, he would become stubborn and entirely unreasonable.

Riley sat down on her clear patch and began
the task of eating. Her social skills were progressing nicely. She
was listening to and watching the other children carefully and saw
that their style of conversation was very different to how she
conversed. She was currently in the process of rectifying that
situation. She was under instructions to fit in after all.

So when Razra began happily telling her
about something that one of his siblings had done last night Riley
listened in a more active way than just observing and noting. He
was her friend, not only was she supposed to care about what his
sister did last night, she had to act like it too.

‘Hmmm.’

‘Yes..’

‘Oh!’

Razra was very pleased with her responses at
key locations in his monologue.

Razra trailed off and plopped a huge lump of
cave mould into his mouth. He swallowed without chewing. His eyes
were roving over the field. A few groups of children had gathered
together and were trying to pile up the dirty snow.