Kinderling 46

 In case you are interested in starting this story at the beginning, Kinderling 1 can be found here:

The Tricycle of Thought: Kinderling 1

Please don't judge the story or the writing too harshly, this story is written with little to no editing.  It is just meant to get me writing regularly for practice.  

Now back to our story, already in progress..

Mama and I packed carefully as we pared down all of our ideas to what we thought might be workable.  We went over each and everything as we packed.  Would we need this?  Would we need that?  Could a smaller, more easily carried device work instead?  Mizzy was a big help, offering suggestions and feedback.  She didn't like the main part of the plan, but we were never able to come up with an alternative.   

Our planning and scheming was interrupted by Tommil and Adiz, helped by a couple stout villagers, carrying in a long, wide, smooth plank of wood.  It was glorious.  Much bigger than I expected, but as soon as I saw it I knew that Tommil and Adiz were right in making it so large.  There were even handles, not carved... but grown into the sides.

Both Tommil and Adiz looked worn out.  Asking so much from a tree, and extending the energy to help make it happen can be draining.  I just hoped neither of them hurt themselves in the endeavor.  

"The tree," gasped Tommil, "didn't fight us, but it took a lot to get this done.  I hope it works like you want."

"It's perfect Tommil!"  I gave both Tommil and Adiz hugs and started sliding my hands over the smooth wood.  It really was perfect.

"Well, you two look like you need some rest and some good soup."  Mizzy said, gently marshalling Tommil and Adiz out, and quietly shooing everyone else out too.  "I know that look, Tandy's going to be impossible to talk to for a while."

I soon found myself alone, although embarrassingly I didn't really notice.  I was already planning out the runes I would carve into the wood and how to balance them out.  Carrying this thing around was going to be a problem, it weighed more than I did, but perhaps I could chain in something to lighten it.  Then all I had to worry about was if it would lift enough weight for my rescue plan to work.

I spent a few days, I don't know how many, planning out and carving the new go-stick, stopping only for food when Mizzy insisted.  Well, and I guess I passed out from exhaustion a few times, because i woke up with a blanket wrapped around me and a pillow strategically placed under my head.

Mama, Father, Tommil and Adiz, and even Bez and Tilly all came in at one point or other and tried to get me to slow down and take it easy.  They didn't understand.  I had long conversations with Mizzy about what it was like to wear one of those evil harnesses, and even though I couldn't talk to them, I could see the haunted looks in the eyes of the Gorf soldiers that we freed.  Mouse was up there wearing one of those things because of me.

Mizzy understood.  She wore one of those things.  She didn't like me working so hard, I could tell, and she didn't understand why I felt guilty about leaving Mouse behind, but it was enough for her that I did, so she supported me as best as she could.

To my surprise, Smoke whole heartedly approved and stayed with me the whole time.  We didn't talk much, but Smoke was never one to talk too much anyway.  I think her steadfast presence rooted me so that I didn't get too lost in the work.

When I was finally done, I didn't even have the energy to test it.  Mizzy brought Father, who carried me to our rooms and put me in bed.  I woke up a day and a half later.

"She's awake!"  Mizzy squeeked happily, jumping on the bed.  Sometimes, because she's so competent at everything she does, I forget how young Mizzy is.  That reminder hits me especially hard because it reminds me how young I am.  "I thought you were going to sleep forever!"  

Then I hear Mama's voice,  "I have been looking at that monster you created, I can barely control it.  I'm not sure we can rely on it."

"Let me have a try,"  I replied, "I have often found that the more powerful a device is, the more tied to it's creator it is.  Tessagor wrote about it in The Study of Kinderling Enchantment and Rune Compendium."

"Tessagor's Compendium?  Tessagor was a Fraud.  I thought I banned that one."  

"Mama, I read it specifically because you banned it."  I had to laugh, "I thought it was one of the ones you banned because that would make it forbidden fruit, so that I would search it out and want to study it."

"You're thinking of the Compilation of the Tobin Circle Papers, with all of the nefarious things that the Tobins got up to before they were stopped, people assume the worst, but there is a lot of interesting things in there."

"I got next to nothing from the Tobin papers." I replied, "To get to anything worth while, you have to dig through pages and pages of experiment notes talking about cutting some poor creature's legs off and sewing legs from some other animal back on.  And they were stupid.  Even if you get the animal to survive, what use is putting duck feet on a forest cat, and who in their right mind would think that would make the cat be able to swim?"

It occurred to me at that point that Mama probably had read Tobin, and a lot of her small medical devices were influenced, directly or indirectly, by what she learned in those pages.  Tessagor, on the other hand, she was somewhat right about.  Tessagor was a crackpot indeed.  By all reports, he had very little talent to speak of, mostly making toys to amuse neighborhood children.  What many people don't realize is that Tessagor was a genius when it came to understanding the runic interaction itself, and to a lessor degree, the interaction between the runes, the crafter, and the crafter's intent.  Sure there were long, boring experiments in Tessagor's book too, a majority of them useless because Tessagor himself didn't have enough talent to test them and didn't have the discipline to write down enough details so someone else could reproduce them.  I wasn't able to get a single one to work as written, but I learned a lot from the attempt, and that's what a book is for isn't it?

Tessagor and Tobin were contemporaries from a time when writing books about crafting was practically a craze.  More books were written on the subject of Crafting and Talents during that dozen or so years than you could shake a stick at, and a vast majority of them were complete bunk.  My family had a small library full of them, many written by my ancestors.  Neither Tessagor nor Tobin were in the family library.   Because of how controversial they were and neither being members of the family, it would have been scandalous for us to maintain copies.  Oddly enough, it was Mizzy who helped me in that regard.  Turns out, her family's library had both.

To head off an argument with Mama, who could get downright confrontational on the topic of crafting and old books about crafting, I steered the conversation back to the monster-go-stick.

"Sorry Mama, the whole design is different on the monster-go-stick.  The little ones you can almost guide them by thinking.  The monster is much more complicated and you would need to be more forceful with it."  I said, "Let's go give it a try."

That's when I noticed Mizzy glaring at me with a stern look on her face holding a tray carrying a bowl of soup.

"Perhaps after I eat my soup."  I said sitting back down.

"Wise choice."   Mama said.

The soup was one of Mizzy's best, but even Mizzy's best soup can't cover all the medicinal herbs shoved into the bowl.  You can always tell when Mizzy is worried about your health, because she tends to over-compensate with the medicinal herbs.  Not that I'm complaining mind you, anyone would be lucky to have someone who cares about them as much as Mizzy cares about me.  I couldn't identify what was in the soup, but I soon realized it made me sleepy.  Or maybe I was just sleepy.  I ate it all anyway, and laid back down for a nap.

When I woke up again everything was so much better.  My head was clear and I didn't even ache that much.  Whatever Mizzy put in that soup was incredible. 

I got up, got dressed, and made my way down to the workshop only to find Mama sitting on the monster-go-stick fighting like mad to control it, and failing miserably.  Father and Uncle Zon were there looking apprehensive and sure that Mama was going to break her neck.  Would have served her right too I guess, I remember telling her that the monster-go-stick isn't designed to work the same as the smaller ones.  Just as I was about to announce my presence, Mama fell, plop, right on her behind.  She was mad, but I couldn't help but laugh.

"Do you think you can do better Tandy?"  Mama spit at me.  Mama doesn't  usually let things get to her like this.

"She's been at this all morning."  Father added whispering, "I'm worried she is going to hurt herself."

"Need I remind you that you couldn't even get it to move? Tobias?"

"I'm pretty sure I can not only get it to move, I can fly that thing."  I said.

Mama, rubbing her back side, stood aside for me to give it a try.  I won't say that first attempt went very well, and soon I was joining the bruised posterior club along with Mama.  By the third try, I was starting to get the hang of it.  By afternoon I was zooming through the hallways and generally making a nuisance of myself.  To Mizzy's surprise, I scooped her up and flew here up to one of my favorite perches in the rafters of the great hall.  We sat together watching the Kinderlings bustle around getting dinner ready, chatting, laughing.  To look at them, you would never know that this was the fugitive remains of a village that was sacked by monsters working for one of their own.   I found myself amazed by the resilience of the Kinderling people.  My people.  And I felt that fierce need to protect them that surprised me, even still.

"Well that certainly is a serious face."  Mizzy said, "You were grinning like a fiend a moment ago, now you've gone all serious and angry."

"I'm looking at my people - our people.  They didn't deserve to be run out of their homes and have their families, friends, and neighbors killed.  Baot has a lot to answer for.  We can't just live up here forever and let Baot get his way."

Mizzy smiled.  "I have been looking at the numbers with your Mama.  The entire village wouldn't have been able to fit up here, but with the ones who stayed with Baot and the ones who were lost, our group of refugees won't outgrow this place for the foreseeable future.  Our real problem is that sooner or later Baot will decide to come for us.  He surely knows where we are by now.  There have been enough villagers trickling back to the village that someone will have told him."

"There are Kinderlings going back to the village?  Why?"  I was surprised and a little shaken by that revelation. 

"People are tired of hiding, Tandy.  They miss their homes, they miss the village."  Mizzy said.  "I don't blame them.  If it weren't for you, I might think seriously about going too.  Without you and your family there is nothing here for me."

"Do you want to go back?"  Afraid of what she might answer.

"No silly!"  Mizzy laughed.  "You are here, so here is where I belong.  There is nothing for me down in the village."

Mizzy had lost her parents when she was young, as long as I've known her, Mizzy has been self sufficient and lived alone.  She did have an Aunt who was supposed to look in on her from time to time but they didn't get along, so Mizzy didn't see her very often.

"What ever happened to your aunt Drula?"  I asked, mostly because it popped into my head.

"She was one of the first to bow to Baot." Mizzy replied.  "I don't think she was in on any of what happened, but she jumped into Baot's camp before the bodies cooled."

That was only a mild surprise.  Drula was always a social climber, eager to jump on whatever bandwagon she thought would gain her more status.  Part of the quarrel between Mizzy and Drula stemmed from the seat on the council that belonged to Mizzy's father.  Drula felt it should go to her as a matter of course, but by Kinderling tradition it would go to his heir, which was Mizzy.  Mizzy couldn't be seated on the council herself due to her young age, but she could appoint someone to sit in her stead. Mizzy, always practical even as a child, appointed someone she thought would be good at the job to hold the seat until she was old enough to take it herself.  Secretly, I suspect Mizzy's plan all along was to gift the seat to her husband in keeping with her ideals of being the perfect Kinderling wife.  Mizzy sure does have some funny ideas.

It struck me that technically, while nominally still a child, Mizzy was close enough to being an adult to claim her seat.  The seat became open when her proxy on the council was killed in the initial attack along with the rest of the council.  Only Father escaped, I suspect by the brilliant expedient of running late as usual.  That would give us two council members in the barracks, enough to over-rule Baot if it came to that.  Add our two council members to the seal, which Father wisely had Uncle Zon hide for him, and we had a majority in what passed for government in the village right here.

"I need to talk to Father and Uncle Zon!"

It just goes to show how much Mizzy was used to my outbursts that she just shrugged and sat on the monster-go-stick like showed her.