Meanwhile: In the Droog Mire

Two men and one woman sat comfortably in a small, comfortable and dry shelter resting on an lurching hill of dry land coming up from the deep, muddy arms of the Droog Mire. Around them, the swamp was a chorus of insects, frogs, reptiles and other animals all whirring, creaking buzzing rumbling whispering and howling. To their experienced ears, it was a tapestry of languages conveying matters of instinctive importance, but ultimately to them it all meant things were well in the swamp. Nothing was amiss.

The woman was swarthy in complexion with sharp, jade-colored eyes, dark blond hair cut short and a tidy, compact but rounded body testifying to a love of food which kept overwhelming her extensive exercise. She bore some resemblance to her obviously Cerian counterpart, an older man with gray in his black hair and keen brown eyes. His weathered skin marked him as a farmer, but the quality of his clothing hinted at his importance. The third in the group was a small, intensely wiry man with stereotypically Cerian black hair and dusky skin, but his eyes had a hint of almond shape to them and his features were far sharper. His hair was very straight and long, tied into a knot, and his eyes were nearly black.

“It's a blessing to have you with us, Fon,” said Owen, the older man, puffing lightly on an ivory pipe. “I know it's been a lot of work, trying to catch up with everything that's changed.”

The smaller man smiled a bit, looking out at the swamp. Fon seemed able to crouch comfortably in a way the other two couldn't manage for long periods of time. “Even this is different, though not much. There are sounds missing, some sounds new. But the frogs sing the same way.”

“Much was lost to us over the years,” said the woman. “So, we have a lot to learn from you as well.” She paused when one of her hunting pack emerged from the water, crept up the shore and bumped her hand with its gnarled snout. She patted the toothy face fondly.

Fon Apdoroc nodded a little. He was a Voltigeur, a sacred messenger of the enigmatic swamp-god Coboc, and like Coboc's sacred frogs, he was a traveler between two different worlds, leaping through the barrier between to transgress laws of time and space rather than air and water. He had been used to the small gaps between now and now that sometimes resulted from a jump, but his last jump had been of great significance, and it had landed him a thousand years away from the world he knew. In his day, there were no Cerians, and Coboc was called on by many. Now, one branch of his descendants had covered the entire region as the Cerian race, and Coboc was barely even known. Owen was a lay follower, but a man of influence and connections, and the woman, Woana, was the current Bal Tocseh of the Coboclo that remained. She bred the sacred animals and led hunts. They had been his teachers since his leap had been completed.

“It is impossible to grasp it all,” said Fon. “All that has changed. It is all so different that I must simply start anew. I am still Fon Apdoroc and a Voltigeur, but my people are all gone. You are my people now.”

The other two said nothing, likewise being unable to comprehend the age Fon came from, able to witness the yawning chasm of time and thereby sympathizing. But Fon glanced over at them with his bright, wise eyes and smiled. “It is long past the time I began to work again for Coboc. But tell me what I asked of you?”

Woana swatted her pet playfully, sending it hopping back into the water with its clutch mates, and nodded a little. “The tales we collected for you all hold,” she said. “The ones who caught you at the end of your leap, the ones you gave the oracle stones to, they've all done great things and have powerful influence in the city of Yhelm. They have done much to preserve humanity, but it is also true that they are great friends and allies of cyroi, elf and dwarf, and Owen has learned that they do business with the kobolds... well, the city priest does, at least.”

Fon nodded a little, watching a mosquito light on his hand. He whispered quietly to it, and the Handmaiden floated off to seek someone else not devoted to Coboc's service. In his day, the cyroi were alien manipulators. The kobolds were marauding bandits, and it had astonished him that the race was now a mercantile empire. In his day, the dwarves stayed deep beneath the earth, uncaring of humanity, and the elves were the enemy. They would come to hunt humans, killing without mercy because they'd believed humanity responsible for the success and horror of the Shepherds. Fon and his people had fought vigorously to save humanity from the elf pogroms, and to pay the elves back for the misery they'd caused. The Shepherds had been elves, after all.

“Fon,” said Owen quietly. “We did have a question, though. Why did you give them the stones? Those stones would have been so valuable to us.”

“I am a holy messenger,” said Fon, looking back at his friends again. “Where I land after a jump, those who are there must receive the message. The message was in the stones, or the act of giving the stones, or the act of the leap, or any other thing that came of my finished jump. I do not know which, but it doesn't matter if I do. They were there, so I gave them the stones, and they will do Coboc's will whether they know it or not. Even if they are friends to the enemy, I must give what is sacred to them if I am bid to do so. Perhaps one day they will understand and join us. I hope that they will. Their hearts are good, but they don't see the danger in the friends they've chosen.”

“Yes, but...” Owen paused as a small bird lighted on Woana's knee. She listened to it twitter and chirp for a bit, and then nodded, stroking its tiny head with her thumb. As the bird flew away again, she looked at them.

“The priests are calling a meeting. They've received word from Yhelm; the elves want to build an ancestral shrine on Bangir's Hill, just west of the city, and are applying to the Cerian parliament.”

Owen sighed and got up wearily. “We should get to the boat, then. Seems such a small thing, but...”

Squinting a little, Fon otherwise didn't move. “What is Bangir's Hill?”

“Oh, it's a landmark outside of Yhelm,” replied Owen. “A flat-topped hill, flanked by three jags of rock. There are farms all around it. Bangir was a mercenary who saved a lot of the farmers during the Ogre War by collecting them on top there and defending the place until reinforcements arrived.”

Fon's eyes smoldered. “Two great hands of rock on the south, and one to the north? A half a day's ride to the north shore?”

Owen blinked. “Yes, that's it.”

“Take me to Yhelm. I will speak out against this. There is something that has been forgotten about that place.”