“You shouldn’t go too long without drinking something. Here, take this.” Snake interrupted my quiet repose at the fire by word and scent. The small bowl he held in front of my face was filled with a warm broth.
“Miso soup? No tea?” I took the bowl gladly and held it with both hands. Tliltc Ocelotl shifted her curled pose around me just enough to take a sniff of the meatless offering. She laid her disappointed head back against my thigh.
“You can’t subsist on tea alone. And I know the waking weather is far too hot for this.”
“Heh. Yea. It’s been a while. Thank you.” It’s forecast to be in the upper 90’s (Fahrenheit) at downtown [Major Metropolitan Center]. To convert that forecast to where I live, add 10 for the minimum high. It’s going to be too damn hot for miso soup for another three months at least.
Snake sat close to me and revealed his new toy. A three stringed, long necked instrument with a turtle shell as the body. I tried to place the instrument culturally, but the name eluded me. A sitar? Maybe. I’ll have to look it up. I tried to cover my ignorance by teasing him.
“I know a few folk that would be very angry at you for the turtle shell.”
“It’s a gift. The least I could do is learn how to use it. And if by folk you mean environmental warriors, they can come talk to me about the turtle shell when they have reduced their personal impact on their surroundings to the equivalent of a raiding party.” Snake’s tone ended the teasing.
He played at playing it for a while. Testing the range of each string before trying at chords. I know by tonight, he will have mastered the instrument. I finished off the soup and sat quietly. No drama. No intrigue. No friends being forced to attack me. No betrayals for my better good. Just peace and quiet.
This is nice.
This quiet.
Too quiet.
I feel like I’ve forgotten something.
I opened an eye and looked at Snake. “The Seal Chamber.”
He didn’t look up. “What of it?”
“Sealed and warded?”
“Of course.” He raised his head, not to look at my face, but to look at the bowl. “All done? Put the bowl in the fire.”
“The fire?” I turned the time dried bowl over. What I thought was wood turned out to be ceramic.
“I’m trying something new.”
“Something Weaver-proof.”, I teased as I tossed the bowl into the flames.
“Well, that’s a constant requirement. You throw things in the waking when raging, but would set fire to the River if you could.”
I shuddered at the possible outcomes of doing just that. “The lake, the creek, the tub, yes. The River? No. I will have to be leading the rending of the universe for me to even think of attempting that. God damn it, Snake. That’s horrific.”
He shrugged. “Oh, by the way…”
Now it comes. “By the way, what?”
He pulled a card from his robes. “This was left for you. There was a note attached but it disintegrated when I read it, my apologies. The note simply said, ‘Here. Do something with this. It’s for you.’.”
I took the card. A blue and red checkered triangle pattern completely covered one side of the card. It reminded me of playing cards. The other side had a simple design of circles and a triangle. Plain, devoid of writing or symbols, and completely inert. A design, and nothing more.
“Was it signed? Any trace of the sender? And where was it?”
“Unsigned. No trace of the sender, and stuck to the inside of the Seal Chamber warding.”
“And you brought it to me after the bullshit that happened there?” I gave Snake severe stink-eye, but I knew he would not have brought it to me without extensively checking it for subterfuge. The note probably disintegrated because of his testing of it.
“It’s a plain design. A series of straight lines and gentle arcs that don’t mean anything unless you want it to. If I’m not mistaken, the great seal of the chamber was revealed to you in much the same manner, yes?”
I looked over the design again, and noted how simple it was to duplicate in the waking, even with my lack of artistic skill. “Lines and circles, positioned in relation to each other. And nothing more until I put more in it.” The triangle was a surprise, it reminded me of the prism prison. “Snake. How many sentences were in the note?”
“Three.” He raised a finger. “Here.” He raised a second finger. “Do something with this.” He raised a third finger. “It’s for you.”
I knew who sent it. I started to laugh when Tliltic alerted. Her voice is heavy with sultry bass, full of promises of pain, delight, or both. “Something approaches. From above.”
Harpy hands come easy to me now, regardless of my armor state. What appears as merely stiff feathers isn’t always just feathers. Snake appeared to hide himself in his robes, but I knew better. Let him be thought as cowardly and harmless until it is necessary to prove otherwise.
I heard the humming before I saw the source and recognized it at once. “Stand down, Tliltc. It’s a Courier.” I kept the harpy hands. Just in case.
A small hummingbird announced herself and asked for me by a specific name that told me she was successful in reaching the recipient of my message. I acknowledged the name and extended a hand for her to perch on.
Snake moved around me and produced an elevated perch from which a great number of small hoops were attached. “You have traveled far, Courier. Please, be refreshed.” He placed fresh flowers in the hoops and tilted them towards the perch. A thimble of water was placed, and a freshly picked miniature lotus from within as well.
I just looked at him in surprise as he bowed a welcome to the Courier. She moved from my finger to the offered perch and took from each flower. I admit, it was very strange and more than a little unsettling to see Snake as an attentive servant. I made a note to mercilessly tease him about it later.
“Do excuse Weaver’s inattention. Enough time has passed since her own courier duties that she has forgotten her manners.” He smirked just enough for me to see. The grimace on my face was evident to all present.
“Why you shit!” As I turned to playfully punch him, I slid the card into a pocket. I’ll deal with the image later. The hummingbird laughed in genuine glee. Snake only bowed with exaggerated humility.
We waited until she had settled comfortably. “Social call, or duty?”
“Duty. I bear a message from [the one you sent me to]. Are you ready to hear it?”
“Verbal? I’m surprised.”
“She said that though anyone could hear it, only you could understand it, and once you hear it, you’ll understand why.”
I raised an eyebrow and smirked. Esoteric encryption. My inner geek is very pleased. Tliltic braced herself against my back, just in case I react badly to the sounds. Snake put aside his instrument (a lyre?) and waited. “I shall hear the message now.”
The hummingbird sang a beautiful song. No words, just notes. Trills and jumps between octaves that settled quite nicely on the ear. I recognized the tune. It was the song being played when I first encountered [the recipient]. On recognition, my awareness was pulled away from the fire without my lair into the memory where [she] was waiting for me.
“You know me.” She appeared to me as the same as that day. While the appearance is not threatening, knowledge of who she is and what she is very well capable of demanded the most formal of decorum until she signified otherwise. She didn’t.
“Yes, Ma’am.”
“It is mine. Send it to me as you have sent your message.”
“Yes, Ma’am.”
And with that acknowledgement, my awareness was released to return to the fire. The hummingbird was singing the last notes of her song. Snake watched me intently. As short as the encounter was, to them all I did was blink my eyes.
She completed her song and drank deep of the flowers and water before her. “I am to return to [her] with a response.”
“Wait here. I go to prepare it.” I started to stand and realized I was leaving a hummingbird in the presence of a jaguar. “She’s not a snack, Tliltc. If you so much as twitch a whisker in her general direction, she’ll kick your ass coming and going.” Tliltc didn’t acknowledge any of my words. She appeared as if taking a nap, full of feline indifference.
Snake warned me not to remove anything from the item I was going to send, and suggested adding another layer of warding to be prudent. I agreed. I entered the lair and took the Hand of Glory that I’ve kept safe since the failed auction. Still wrapped in Snake’s protective cloth, it was well sealed for the journey. But as is, anyone could unwrap it. Time to put my paranoia to good use.
I took a cord and wrapped it around the bound hand in a certain pattern. Once tied, it can not be slipped off without cutting the cord. But once tied, it becomes a solid binding that can’t be cut. I sealed the knot the same way I sealed the message, by ‘encrypting’ it with the signature of the recipient and hiding that with my signature. Should anyone intercept the item, they’ll know that I’ve sealed it, but they won’t know who could break that seal. [She] now knew where the Hand of Glory is, however. And knew that it’s on its way back to her. Anyone that intercepts the item and keeps it is going to fuel the making of its replacement, I’m sure.
I wrapped that in another swath of scuffed and dingy cloth, with an ordinary slipknot tying it in place. Again, there is no need for the outside of the package to announce that it is Top Secret and Of Utmost Importance.
I brought the package outside to see the hummingbird had taken on her humanoid appearance. Tliltc was now on the other side of Snake, and Snake was playing his stringed instrument under the hummingbird’s tutelage. I raised an eyebrow in silent askance. The Courier and Snake said nothing but smiled broadly. Tliltc switched her tail in obvious annoyance.
It seems not a single part of me is immune to curiosity.
I handed the completed package to the Courier. “This is my reply. I expect none in return.” She bowed and placed the package in her brilliantly beaded satchel. As she turned to transform and leave, Snake called her.
“This… is for you. Place in a bowl, add water, expose to light every few days. They do well in difficult conditions.” He handed her a small wrapped package. I could smell the freshly cut miniature lotus shoots despite the layers. She looked to me and smiled.
“To be honest, we’re overflowing with them. If nothing else, the nectar will make for good hooch later on.” She laughed and accepted the package. Placing her personal gift in a different pocket than the Hand of Glory, she bowed to me, Snake, and Tliltc. She transformed into a hummingbird and flew away quicker than I could trace by sight or Sight.
“Well. That’s that. Things went much better than expected. Of course, now I have to write the former owner of the hand with the news that the rightful owner has reclaimed the item. I wonder if I’m going to have to answer for handing the Hand of Glory back to the rightful owner. That is a question of honor, isn’t it. It was entrusted to me for safekeeping, and I gave the bugger away. But then again, it was stolen property to begin with, and once knowing that, keeping it would be a worse dishonor than returning it. Right?” Snake said nothing, but broke down the stand and perch. I asked Tliltc to come inside the lair, but she only looked away. I understood. The less contact she had with ‘civilization’, the better. I had a suspicion that Keri was never supposed to be Raven. The raven aspect was to be kept away from flesh, much like how Mxtl has. But the Jaguar was captured, caged, and chained. So the Raven had to pick things up and keep going. Or so my wild speculation is leading me to.
I sat back at the fire and extended a hand to Tliltc. “Then come sit with me here? You’re comfortable and I want to be pampered by your presence some more.” She smiled and made a great display of rubbing her mostly naked body against mine as she curled around me again. Snake rejoined me as well, but with the hand drum as accessory.
I waited a bit to see if there was going to be any more surprises to the slow turning morning. Seeing everyone and everything settled down again, I pulled out the card left at the Seal Chamber. The circles had moved since I first looked at the card. I took a finger and pulled at one. The card reacted like a tablet touchscreen. The circle I had touched moved to follow my fingertip, the other corresponding circles moved as well. Pulling and nudging on the design, I found the placement of the individual structures followed simple rules.
I found a different configuration of the design in my play. A simple change, but when looking at the design with an esoteric eye, changed the purposes the design could be used. One version seals and the other version anchors. Or so it seemed at first glance. I tried tugging on the seal in different ways, but I could not find a third configuration. I’m sure there had to be one. [TA] speaks in threes, after all. I could not see kir leaving something behind that only had two forms.
Morning approached in the waking world. I told Snake and Tliltc as such. They confirmed it.
“Are you going to reproduce your new seal?”
“Of course.”
“Are you going to make it public?”
“Not sure yet, but I probably will like I did the grand seal. I doubt I’m the first to see this, it’s very simple and basic in design. And like the grand seal, by itself, it is nothing. It’s what you do with it, what you add to it, that makes it something of note.”
I tucked the card back into my pocket and leaned heavily against Tliltc. She only purred in response. “Stalk you later, bitch.” She laughed and pawed softly at my face in mock anger. She stood and left for the shadows of the forest. Snake stood and entered the lair.
I woke up.
…
In the writing of this, I was inspired to pull on the seal in a different direction. The circles moved and locked into a third configuration. Yup. This is [TA]’s handiwork alright. Now to figure out why ke wanted me to have it.