Welcome to Gaia! ::

Here is where I will write a story.

(Chapter 2)

A celebration in our home meant many things. It meant my brother and I were to be immaculately clean and on our best behavior. Our mothers wrath knew no equal when we defied this. She was patient with us through many tests, but when that patience broke, it was us who felt the sting of the fail. Our cloths were ready for us, held to the same standards. They were not so objectionable, but they made movement a chore in the arms. We could not raise our arms above our stomachs without the need to tug back the shoulders. If we met Shamal’s final approval, we were fit to be seen by these people we hardly knew or spoke to. The table was surrounded by those who either wished to pay tribute, or simply wished to partake of the plenty of the party. Ruden and Barnum had admitted to both on several occasions, which gave me cause to like them. They were people I would have liked to speak with if I was their age, but I only had the benefit of company from the children of the guild masters. There were always three of them, though they were not always the same ones. It was difficult to remember all their names as we rarely spoke our names to one another more then once. A celebration meant being made to sit among them before the meal began. We were under the watchful eye of the tutor, Haka. He knew the limit for everything. If there was to much roughness, he stopped it, if there was too little talk, he had us speaking of our lessons and trips through the city. If we stayed to long after meal was announced, he brought us to the table.
A celebration meant that we were to sit at the head of the table, one on either side of our parents, where people could see us and take notice of the symmetry. I always felt we were there to be seen and little else. We were the mediums for tribute for the masters of the guilds and the priest to the sun king. There was the expected clinking of a glass with a spoon as the farmers guild mast stood.
“ I think I will be the one to begin our yearly toast to our leaders, in honor of their twice fortuned boys. May they see the trees grow to the heavens.” The old priest took the guildsman’s tail and rose his own cup.
“ And may you climb those trees to better receive the blessings from above.” Ruden leaned to Barnum, his hand to the opposite side of his mouth.
“ I think they’re gettin enough of this damn’ed sun as is. They’ll be the color of good biscuits by his ‘follow me’.” Barnum’s shoulders bounced in withheld sounds of laughter. There was a hushing hiss from across the table. Ruden saw Shamal’s warning stare and raised his chin in passive defense. He made no more comment on the visitor’s toasts, but I couldn’t help imagining what quips came to his mind as each representative of the city raised their voices with their goblets. The first line of tribute was finished we ate, and ate well as the entertainment brought by the guests played uplifting songs.
“ What ever happened to those dancing girls ye used to bring Mosden. I’ll say with no lechery that they were a fine sight.” Ruden commented to the guildsmen of trade, laying the base of his cup on the table empty.
“ No lechery. Huh. Just base vice and illusions of youth. “ Barnum’s laughter at his own cleverness was halted when his reach for a bit of lamp was made fruitless by me. I was too busy chewing to say my pardons. My mother laughed.
“ I am sorry cousin. But I asked that they not come. I do not wish for those ladies to be the first impressions my sons have. You will have to arrange to see them for yourself. ” Shamal explained with mock empathy.
“ Bah, what are ye talkin about.. I known many a dancing girl with class. Beauty goes deeper then skin with some I tell ye.” Ruden gave the queen a belligerent eye. “ And maybe I shall make the effort. I had hoped to talk to one of those lasses anyhow.”
Mosden tapped a plump finger on the side of his cup. He spoke carefully, but did not fully hide his meaning “ I am afraid many of the girls have male interests already, if not husbands. It would a shame to have disputes among my household that would involve ill labels of you.”
“ Labels such as lecher, b*****d, blouse chaser, mongrel,..” Barnum began count on the finger, the affronting names he spoke. He halted when Ruden raised his hand as if to smack him. “ I am sorry my friend, but as strong as hope makes one, you make a fools errand out of chasing dancing girls. Though, I suppose I showed little wisdom in the way I chased my dearest. She struck me blind in the beginning, and I have since learned to see brighter things.” He raised shook his hands, clasped in praise.
“ You lie!” Ruden burst out, pointing his finger like a weapon at Barnum’s nose. “ Yer wife was no dancing girl. You lie. You lie like…that heap’a rugs you tossed in the hall!”
“ Excuse me!, But must you have your sparing where my children, who I have tried with so many waking ours and agonous headaches to raise above your slur and doggerel, can hear you.” Hasudeen spoke comfortably from his chair at the head of his table. My brother must have been as disappointed as I was as he no longer leaned over the edge of the table to better hear the conversation that received a welcome in my own ear.
“ Beside’s. it is an old one.” Shamal followed her husband’s lead. “ I believe I can even end it for you. Ruden, your judgment on women has yet to change. It’s tragic. Barnum, you encourage him to much. I swear you could pass for his brother if you’d but shaved your head and lost an eye.”
“ Burned, not shaved dear.” Ruden corrected, punctuated with a sip of drink.
“ My mistake.”
“ What is under all that Barnum?” With no banter to entertain him, Bahamut’s attention was on the pile of weaves that sat in sheer contrast to the obvious gifts the others had brought.
Barnum crossed his arms and stared dreadfully at my brother. “ What. Is the work of my wife’s own hands not good enough?” Bahamut clamped his mouth shut and flinched as if wounded. Barnum snickered. “ You will see in due time. Do not worry yourself. It is not something that can disappoint wise children.” I always felt there was a trick to Barnum’s word, but did not then know what it was. My brother found his patience and the meal was allowed to continue. The rest of the gifts were not hidden. What was metal shined and what was cloth flowed for all to see. There would be no waiting for our comments on them once the party had ended. All those who came to secure their kinship with us had gone down the well known path to the city. We brothers watched them go, sitting at the stone beasts that guarded our home. I watched long enough to see them spreading out across the city to their respective homes and chambers from where I straddled the lion’s back. Bahamut leaned forward to speak to me from beneath it’s jaw. “ Do you have any idea what Barnum brought us?”
“ No. I don’t have a single idea. It must not be very big. His gifts are always strange. Remember the globes of glass with the city in it and that hat that mother won’t let us wear?”
“ Yes. I do.”
“ What do you think?”
“ We will have to find out.” We nodded agreement and decided our guest watching was done. We could hear the four of them talking before we saw them. Barnum, Ruden, and our parents.
“ So… what have you brought them. I do not recall you having to hide gifts before.” Hasudeen queried.
“ Ah, I still do not hide gifts. The gift is not what is hidden. Only it’s nature, for reasons I do not think I have to explain.” Barnum swayed his words, but my father could still follow them
“ You also hide the answer to my question friend. “
“ Huh, you will know it when your sons see it so that I might not have to explain what you already know.”
“ So we know what it is then?” My mother asked.
“ You might.”
“ Can we see it now.” I was no longer satisfied with listening from the doorway. Barnum turned, smiling towards us , just as the faces of the others were beginning to catch on to what their minds were thinking. He gave us a presentational bow and slid away from the line of sight between us and the rugs. We took that as our queue and near ran to it. I laughed once as we through the rugs aside, letting them drape over the other gifts that were brought, some of them soiled by the dust in them. The adults were all to content to watch us remove layer after layer until we revealed what was hidden. It was a long rectangular case, clasped and hinged with iron. It looked old, but also cared for. We put our hands across the leather, feeling out the crease of the case’s parting. Bahamut’s hand met our mother’s. She had come to feel it to, but her eyes were on Barnum.
“ Is this?”
“ It is the very thing.”
“ Open it carefully boys.” Shamal clasped her hands and rested them on her knees We did as our mother said and eased the creaking box open. We saw the softly textured red cloth that made up the spaces between the parts of what was inside. At first glance, I did not see how anyone could have possibly seen all those items and believed they all came together to make one things. It was a puzzle of tubes and glass with knobs and wheels and hinges. I saw it as a scramble, the adults all saw the outlines of what is was. It was Barnum who spoke to us in our confusion.
“ I thought now was appropriate. If your tenth birthday is not, then which would be. Certainly not your twentieth. You would be too concerned with girls. It would be far to late.”
“ I think your timing could not have been better. Haka has only now begun to teach them of the stars.” Hasudeen said, patting Barnum’s shoulder.
“ The stars. What does this have to do with them?” I asked.
“ You may see them closer. This device is called a telescope. It is like a looking glass, a very powerful one. You can see beyond the limits of your eyes.” Barnum explained.
“ You may also see the moon and planets further still.” Our mother added.
“ Aye, just don’t take to looking at the sun with it.” Ruden found his opening as our mother closed the box.
“ I think that Haka will be able to help us put it together. He may need some help.” It took the better part of the daylight till it was all assembled. Haka was rubbing his eyes. There had been many tiny screws, so small he needed to bring out special tools simply to turn them. He looked back at his work as if it was something growing from his toe.
“ I have not seen a telescope of this kind before and my tutors have shown me several. I have put it together as it should be, but there is the problem of how to make it work.” It was a long array of lenses that stood awkwardly on a tripod. It squeaked as Haka tested it’s ability to turn. Not all the lenses met in the tube at once. There were several on wheels of different shape on color. The number of combinations was vast. It looked like it was several telescopes rolled into one with a few dials thrown in. “It’s odd.”
“ It’s no ordinary telescope, Haka.” Our mother explained.
“ What’s so special about it?” My brother asked,
“ This wasn’t just used to see stars and girls from across the lake as Barnum or Ruden have. It was no built by any normal scholar either. This looking glass, was built by a man named King Mortimer of Arch. Would you like to hear the story of him?” We nodded. “ Then you can tell it best cousin.”
“ Aye, I suppose I could.” Ruden took a seat at the edge of the garden cliff, getting comfortable for a long stay there. Ruden was a master of stories. He told us many. They would be about war heroes and monster and voyages across the sea. He spoke of his homeland, but rarely of the clan and never in our mothers hearing. He had a pipe he would spoke on such occasions, he used the smoke to dramatic effect. It would become dragons breath and the dust from a giant’s step. He did not bring it out this time. Perhaps there was no drama in recalling the tale. He took in a long breath and began.
“ There are a lot of kings out there, like yer father, like Armon to the East and others. Some of these kings are known for collecting the weird, the odd. They get famous for this. They also attract a fair number of scholars and thieves. These visitors come away with stories that make these kings known for the oddities that they collect. I have heard these stories and some are of King Mortimer. But only Mortimer, of all the kings I can name, from Nicolai to Zandzeua, is known for creating oddities. He built things that gave him titles like wizard, genius and madman, but I know him as a henpecked old man with a wife with a lions voice. I’ve seen the things he’s built and seen the things he’s done with them. Old King Mort, I’ve seen him call down lightning and trap a mans likeness in the blink of an eye, on paper. But, by far his most unbelievable act, was what he did with this contraption here. He used it to map more then the stars, more then the path of the moon. He used it to grasp the flow of time and predict the very future.” Ruden grinned at our astonished faces. We begged for him to tell us what he predicted. Ruden was taking another breath to speak when Shamal jumped in.
“ That is a story for another time. Tomorrow night would be better.”
“ What? No! I want to hear how he saw the future. I want to see it too.” Bahamut pleaded. Our mother simply stared him into submission.
“ Don’t worry any. I’ll tell ye in due time.” Ruden consoled. “ Besides this deal isn’t enough. He only used this to map the sky. He told the future with something else. I’ll tell ye all about it later. No, to bed with ye. You lost too much practice with them toys of yers.” Anxiousness and disappointment haunted our attempts to sleep that night.