Two- the centaur

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"Ferocactus wislizeni or shamji'itche as it is known to the Fae tribesmen of this area is a compass, a favorable omen and a source of emergency sustenance. Could potentially even be a dowsing rod if we're lucky as they do tend to congregate in areas of standing water." My father dug into the earth with his fingertips, feeling the sand for moisture. When he found none, he dug deeper. "Notice how they all tip in the same direction? Ferocactus always grows towards the south. And see here, the little yellow fruits atop that one? These are edible but a word of caution-- When eaten on an empty stomach they can cause nausea and other digestive unpleasantness that could only dehydrate you further."

A basking chuckwalla unclenched its jaw in our general direction before hot-footing it across the sand. The creature took one brief, cowardly skid into a stone crevice and inflated its pink body like a sheep’s bladder. “Papa! Papa, did you see that?” I grabbed the side of my father’s trousers and tugged.



“See what?”

“The lizard thing!” I hopped as ferociously as a fifty pound girl up to her heels in sand could ever hope to hop, pointing with one hand and tapping my father’s back with the other.

“Have you been listening to me at all, little jengu?” I stood on the tips of my toes, desperate to see as much of the chuckwalla as I could from the beneath the safety of my father’s shadow.

“Yes but you should have seen what it did! First it ran like this—“ Here, I thrashed my arms and legs to mimic the chuckwalla’s gait. “And then it jumped in the rocks! And then it blew up like this!” I extended my arms on either side as though my belly were three times its width and waddled, my cheeks swollen with air. Papa only grinned and shook his head as I teetered through the sand. Turning back to the cacti, he began digging once more. I watched the flurry of his hands with interest until they stopped dead.

“Jira!” I pelted across the sand towards my father. He was pressing his fingertips deep into the trench and water was rushing in from below. “Go fetch Goodwife Ottomas. Tell her that we need cloth and a large bowl to catch the silt. Hurry, now!”



And off I went. My arms stretched high above my head, I was a skimming snake. I would get back to the camp in ten seconds’ time, faster than the fastest snake. As I ran, I composed a song but I don’t remember it now. It was something to do with water, sun and big bowls.



What a funny thing it is to be a child with your whole world contained in a silly song or a frenzied dance. At the summit of a rather imposing dune, I planted my soft-soled mojaris toe-first into the sand thinking that it would make me faster, if a little awkward. Not only was I wrong but my suede soles slid on a concealed rock, causing me to lose my footing. I tumbled sideways down the dune, some ten feet or so.



I remember this moment moving slowly as things tend to do when the blood is quickened. My left hand hit the ground first, followed by the corresponding elbow and shoulder. I was not in much pain or discomfort but that may have been because I was startled. Or maybe it was as my Papa used to say and children truly do bounce. Whatever the case, I soon found myself at the bottom of the dune much quicker than I had originally anticipated and on all fours.

There was an instant of disorientation. In the distance, I could hear a strange clinking sound that I chose to ignore. The ground had stopped moving and my limbs were submerged. I shook my head vigorously to get rid of the accumulated sand. I felt like a snowball. No, I thought. A sandball! This new word was hilarious to my nine-year-old mind and I giggled at my own cleverness. But I was not alone in my amusement.



A meerkat sentry was observing me from about a foot away. It barked in a way that was probably inquisitive or even aggressive but to me at the time, it sounded like laughter. I froze, not wanting to frighten it off. During our brief staring match, an entire group of them began to emerge one by one.



I tried to will them closer to me. No sudden movements. Then in the distance, I noticed a brown dot on the horizon lumbering towards us. Slowly, suspiciously, I pushed myself to my feet.

As the clinking grew louder, I knew it to be the staccato sound of reigns. I squinted at the approaching intruder. It was a wagon drawn by two, sturdy-looking holsteiners.



As it came nearer, I could see two figures seated on the tongue. One was small and very fair. The other, taller and quite dark. A man and a woman, perhaps. A married couple. Then I was struck by a very exciting notion indeed. Maybe there were children inside of that wagon! My father and his water forgotten, I raced down towards our guests.



Storm clouds of the sort that threatened but never fell rolled in. The sky was inked with them. Had I been concerned with signs, I might have known to beware.

The loose sand swallowed my shoes, making it difficult to run. At the bottom of the mound, I landed smack-dab into Goodwife Ottomas who took me by the shoulders and spun me back around.



"Get your Papa." Her voice was low but urgent. The wagon came to a halt. I paused to study it. "You deaf? Go on now, git!" Goodwife Ottomas patted my backside and just as I started back up the dune, my father's figure rose against the skyline, gazing down upon the lesser mortals below. Goodwife Ottomas approached the wagon while my father began his decent and I followed close behind.

The smaller of our two visitors hopped down from the tongue, circling to the other side to aid the taller one. I could see now that they were both men (which was a disappointment-- alas! no children) and that the taller one was positively ancient. Goodwife Ottomas stopped some fifteen feet away, shielding me behind her skirts.

As the young man gripped the old one to keep him steady, I first noted how ghastly the young man was in appearance. His skin and hair were depigmented save the dusky flourish of red in his lips and the vein-blue scars that mapped his face. A soiled rag was tied tight around his eyes. As he brought the old man forward, I noticed that the young man walked with the confidence of a sighted person but with a pronounced limp. My eyes trailed from his colorless hands to the strange dress of the old man and upward, towards the old man's beatific grin.



"Salute the day! Peace be with you ladies and gentleman," the old man shouted. "My name is Hieronymous Rotwang Von Dussell. Time traveller, soothsayer, necromancer and clairvoyant. Former advisor to the now deposed royal family of Alpinloch." By now, the other members of our party were beginning to assemble at the sound of his booming voice. I puzzled over the term time traveller but said nothing as I continued to gawk at the pair. The young man folded his arms over his chest and Von Dussell patted him on the back. "This is my assistant Heath but do not anticipate getting a word out of him-- Mostly deaf and utterly dumb from birth, I'm afraid. Good man for keeping secrets."

"What sorts of secrets?" I looked up at Goodwife Ottomas, whose attitude had shifted from cautious to bored in a matter of moments. Von Dussell's eyes glittered at her question. He licked his upper lip.

"Why the mysteries that tether man to the universe, my dear woman," he said. Goodwife Ottomas snorted in derision. I turned my attention to the Heath creature.



Deaf, dumb, blind-- He must have been the most isolated man in the world and yet his body language made apparent that he was very much there in the moment with the rest of us. He had not heard me speak or move, that was certain enough, but his head tilted slowly until my eyes met the canvas space where his eyes should have been. I was being addressed without words and from that gesture alone, I knew the cunning in him. My father broke away from the crowd to greet Von Dussell.



"Hello Master Von Dussell. Please allow me to be the first to welcome you. My name is Kahlil Muenda and I was a physician in my past life. Where are you headed, if you don't mind my asking?" Von Dussell took my father's hand and shook it.

"As far away from Shintow Gate as providence will carry us! If I never see another pointed ear again then by heaven, I will not have spent my declining years in vain!" My father laughed his baritone laugh and patted the old man on the shoulder.



"Why don't you join us for supper? We've short commons but could seat two more provided you gentlemen have a stomach for coney stew." Papa said.

"Bless you, son but we would not want to burden your women with an old man and a cripple."

"Nonsense. It's Mr. Curious back there that does the cooking." Here, I lost interest in the conversation and turned back to Heath.



To everyone else, he seemed a ghost, a non-presence but I felt my gaze being continually drawn to his war-battered face. I smiled at him though he could not have seen. And I'll be damned if he didn't smirk back, if only just.

ABH and Other Stuff

Pleasantview is broken again and I have not bothered to fix it. I might fiddle with back-ups later, possibly.

I do want to wrap up Anywhere But Here though. It has been an entire year since I posted the first chapter. The second chapter is almost finished. It is only five chapters long. I should get on that. Preview of the centaur above.

Historical Context for Anywhere But Here

Before I continue with Anywhere But Here, I want to give a quick overview of the point in history that we are working with, starting with the life of the first King of Simcity.

In the spring of 1481, Seriah Io Laocoön was born on the floor of a fish market to the mistress of a failed poet. Faes (up until this point) were divided into five tribes corresponding with the aspects of Deus Rex that they descended from and mingling was strictly forbidden. Seriah's mother, Zilpah Imine Ishmael, was a member of the Tribe of the Ba and his father, the Tribe of the Ka. This was a big no-no. On the day of his birth, Seriah was brought to the Magister Templi to be ritualistically slaughtered (the prevailing belief being that mixed children were offensive in the eyes of the Destroyer) but the Magister Templi refused. He had a feeling that this baby was special. And thus, Seriah was brought up in the Temple of the Ba.

Seriah grew to be a hauntingly beautiful and highly charismatic child, though also a dreadful scholar. His heart was not in prayers and rituals but in the romantic ideal of being a soldier, fighting against the brutish race of savages (ie humans) to reclaim the land for his people alone. Privately, Seriah had a dream. He wanted to see the five tribes united. One people. One temple. One leader. At the time, it was completely unheard of but Seriah, now 43, would have the chance to pursue his dream.

For decades, the human population was exploding. Faes had always been drastically outnumbered but now they were surrounded. (The Tribe of the Ib was a notable exception-- They were focused in modern day Strangetown where no humans ever ventured.) For the Fae peoples the choice was quickly becoming either to conquer or to assimilate. And assimilation was no option at all. On June 9, 1524, a small battalion composed of Ba tribesmen and lead by Seriah himself assassinated the human magistrate of Helos, Veronaville, bringing the humans of that region to their knees. Thus began what is known as The Rose War.

Over the course of the next ten years, Seriah would be made general of the Four Nation Army, picking away at human provinces in Veronaville, Alpinloch, Alderton (Pleasantview) and Riverblossom Hills. Seriah was crowned King after the Battle of Arbormoor, his subjugation of the humans on the continent having been completed. The reach of his kingdom would extend as far as the Strangetown/Veronaville border (an area known today as Mantua).

One- Adrift,

He left his best friend on the outer banks blubbering that this was not the way they died but Orion Io Saul did not believe in prophesy. His body was broken. He thrashed his arms to keep his head atop the mire while his legs dangled listlessly. He was too desperate to feel pain or cold. Fatigue did not creep over him but swooped down from above like some murderous bird of prey, plunging his head below the quagmire at intervals. He knew what it was to draw a breath and fill his lungs with mud. He could hardly imagine a worse death than the one that flashed its silver teeth at him just now.



There was barely a current in the marsh but it was enough to carry Orion far from the battlefield and into the heart of Arbormoor. He was transported to deep recesses where the water did not yet run red but that stank prematurely of death. Great cathedrals of loam rose from the creek bed providing ideal outposts for snipers. Even the air here was a poisonous fume that choked the lungs. This was no place for crickets or snakes or drowning boy soldiers.



The wind was peppered with falling ash. It collected in Orion's hair and on the tip of his nose. Enemy barracks burned on the hillside, suffusing the ground with light. As Orion approached the shore without the use of his legs, he realized that he had reached an impasse. He thought wildly that the drowning he had just escaped would have been a mercy compared to what awaited him on land.



He could starve to death on that shore. He could become infected and rot on that shore. He could be taken prisoner on that shore. Orion grabbed a tree root and began hoisting himself onto the solid earth when his progress was stopped with a sickening crack.



The pain shot up his torso and wracked every nerve that he had the ability to feel. He screamed from a place that he barely knew he still possessed. It was a place of raw fear and disbelieving anguish that only children knew. Orion plunged his fist into his mouth to stifle the sound. Amid the rapid, shallow breaths and irrepressible tears, he fought hard to assess the situation. His left leg was caught on something. He had not been able to feel the entanglement initially but when he pulled, he had done further damage. He trailed a hand down the side of his body, hoping not to find confirmation of what he already knew. His pelvis was shattered. And his trousers, sopping with morass, seemed to cling to the shape of an exposed bone.

Shivering and half blind from the pain, he planted his forehead against the shoreline. He would need to move his leg, perhaps even bend his knee if he was ever to emerge from the mud. The pain of it would take everything he had and leave him fit only for the sport of rats. This was the way that he died. Orion knitted his brow, gritted his teeth and slowly dislodged his leg.

Sweat poured down his face, cutting through the grime and seeping into his eyes. He could feel his bones grating against the shards of other bones but to cry out again might have alerted someone to his presence. With his ankle free of the undergrowth, he increased his grip on the tree root and slithered through the mulch.



He barely remembered hitting the rock that cleaved his body in two. There was a glint of white light as an incendiary propelled him through the air upon impact. Soot drew its black curtain over the world and he could not even find the voice to cry out. At length, he tried to sit but below the waist, there was nothing. Crawling backwards on his elbows, he dragged his limp body past faces that he recognized, shoulders he had touched, scenes that were now etched indelibly into his skull. When he reached his friend Annubis who was badly burned and gibbering, he did the only thing that a coward could-- He fled. He inched down into the mud, sinking head first below a creek of sorts and drifting with the gentle current of Arbormoor.



This was a sacred place for his people. Seriah the Great had very strategically forced the battle into this corner of the world knowing that his army would be nearly unstoppable here. This was where the Ka first bled beneath the skin of the Ba, the very cradle of all life. The blessed water still snaked through everything in the swamp. Orion lay on his back expectorating it.



His coughing abated more from a lack of strength to continue than from having fully cleared his respiratory passages. Behind his head, he heard a soft squashing sound that continually grew louder. Someone was approaching. Someone rather light on his feet. With the pain and the paralysis, Orion would not be able to focus his energy to defend himself. He gritted his teeth and kept silent. Maybe his filthy body would blend into the moor and the savages would overlook him entirely.



The footsteps came ever nearer and Orion began to snicker. He saw nothing amusing about the situation but still the laughter twisted his insides and emerged from his mouth in a fit of gurgling. This was not the way that he died. His death would be a long, slow agony. He saw that now.

Fine red silk brushed Orion's cheek and a figure loomed overhead. His laughter heightened in pitch, became more difficult to contain. The girl that stood above him pressed her cool palm to his brow.



By her murky green eyes, waxen skin and jet black hair, he knew that she was not of his people. She was a daughter of the Sheut. Seriah Io Laocoon would see the Fae peoples united under one banner but until that day came, Orion still feared any descendant of the Sheut. He almost wished she'd been some shit-licking savage. Orion tried to sit up but the girl gently pushed him back to the ground.



"Calm yourself." Though she smiled serenely, her tone threatened more than it promised. In the firelight, he caught sight of her canine teeth, which were uncannily pointed and carnivorous. A new terror stopped his heart. He had never considered the means by which he might survive or what cost would be too dear to save his young life. Orion swallowed his refusal, burying it. His fate was upon him, fashioning a tourniquet with a long strip of her sari.

Orion closed his eyes and gave himself over to circumstance, praying that he would soon forget the color and the sound of things.



I was nine and a half years old the autumn we left Veronaville on foot.

My Papa and I had been on the move from the onset of the war, diligently avoiding the vigilante militias that marched through the streets, handing out machetes to any man fit enough to carry one. Our government being what it was back then, boys were conscripted and old men like my Papa were pulled into the war by the scruff of their collars.



My mother died when I was much too young to remember. We had no other family that could care for me in the event that Papa was forced into battle. Our choices were nil.

We left Alderton as stowaways on a mining ship and disembarked at the first place we landed. For months, we laid low, shuffling our feet. It was in those days that I learned to sleep standing up.



Then one sunny afternoon in Lanceshire, we were finally picked up-- And not by the militia. Goodwife Landry was barely sixteen, a fine lady of the leisure class, widowed by a war that her husband had not been able to buy his way out of. She tucked us away in a hidden room beneath her scullery and there we crouched right up until the day that General Seriah Io Laocoon Zumerdrem was crowned king. Shortly after, my father began planning our migration. There were still portions of the continent where the Fae peoples held no reign. And we were meandering right through those portions, headed for the coast.

Goodwife Landry's neighbor was an inventor and alchemist by the name of Nigel Curious. He was a very bright man who hardly ever said much but who managed to speak volumes with no more than a raised eyebrow. I told my Papa that I thought Goodwife Landry was sweet on Mr. Curious but he told me that it was wrong to pry into other people's business. So I kept my mouth shut. In any case, Mr. Curious had his brush with new regime when General Seriah took the capital. Men of Mr. Curious's profession were being driven out or executed if they failed to leave. When I asked my father why, he said that it was because the Faes considered them heretics. Though I could not begin to imagine what that word meant, I did not ask for further explanation.



In Riverblossom, my father and Mr. Curious struck up a quick friendship with a stuttering thatcher called Wilhelm Ottomas. His home was torched at the Battle of Canton and his family had been traveling ever since.



They were joined by a family from Alpinloch that was not running for their lives but for their wallets. The patriarch of the family, Fritz Bjornsson was an innkeeper by trade who had a few unresolved debts to his name. His wife, Gia, was an exotic belle who had been a fine lady's maid. Their son was a creature of a different sort altogether.



Leif Fritzsson frightened me. He was twelve-years-old and had a leonine beauty that made no attempt to mask the predator at his core. I was certain that he was deranged. Mind you, I had no proof of that assertion but just the same, I was sure to never be left alone with the beast.



Mr. Ottomas's daughter was quite opposite. Olga was a jolly sort of girl, always quick with a joke or a quip. I was very fond of her. Of all those present, she became an unlikely paradigm of womanhood for my motherless self.



Her own mother was a very strict woman who always smelt of linseed oil and who could hunt rabbit better than any man. Mrs. Ottomas's father had been one of the wild men of the desert tribes. She herself had never set foot in the desert before now.



Lastly, there was my Papa, Kahlil Muenda. He was a warmhearted, fair and even-tempered man, liked by all, worshipped by his daughter. My universe began and ended with him as his universe did with me. Sometimes I wonder if things would have been different if we had not accepted Goodwife Landry's kindness and just kept running. But life is too short for what-ifs.

ITZ MAH BERFDAY!

And as per the dictates of tradition, you get a present.

I had been thinking about doing this for ages but other than jotting down a few cursory notes on my blackberry, I didn't get much done until now. 

Anywhere But Here is a short story about the initial colonization of Strangetown. It takes place approximately 500 years before the start of Dragging Blue Lake. The story is five chapters long. The first chapter will be posted later today (you know, when it isn't 1:30 in the morning EST). Hope you enjoy it and Happy New Year to all!