Wherein a day at the point begins (Ch. 18)

 As the sun threated its rise, Hailey was painfully reminded of the scant five days left until the summer prophecy, and despair had long since set in among the holy girls. Hailey was greatly worried, his all-too youthful face finally lined with worry after long years of unearned serenity. He’d ignored Dolstoy at first, and now could not get a hold of him no matter how hard he tried. The anguish would’ve been far greater had Hailey not had matters far more pressing to deal with. Chief among these was the rapid rate at which the holy girls were falling to some unclear despair.

“Ruthela’s been unresponsive lately. She’s always been distant, but I suspect it’s something more this time. You have to do something about it Hailey.”

He sat with Jen at their daily briefing. The heat never made it up to the point, so the pressure of conversation had to make up for it. As his discussions with Jen were of late mostly about girls despairing of life, this shouldn’t have been a great ask. And yet it seemed to be, for neither Jen nor Hailey showed fear or hesitation. Hailey replied with a dryness to match Jen’s.

“Ruthela will be Dolstoy’s responsibility should the worst come about. I’m sure he’ll find time for her despite his many duties to the Goddess.”

“The Goddess…”

The question was obvious in Jen’s manner, though Hailey knew she’d never deign to openly interrogate his assertions. Besides, Hailey could not see controversy in stating that Dolstoy served the Goddess. He let the matter drop.

“Who have you selected for the first spreading? I think we should play it safe and pick those who’ve earned the honor, but if things are as desperate as you say, we could dangle the honor as a carrot for those who’re reaching the edge.”

“Are you crazy? The honor to be the first to spread a new prophecy, the new word of the Pontiac, auctioned to the most depressed sack of beans? Some of the holy girls are so depressed, I don’t know if their souls could bare the thread of prophecy. Hailey you… you can’t entertain the idea!”

It was a strange idea, now that Hailey reflected upon it. How many years since he’d done anything truly strange? Since prophecy had been anything but routine? Stranger still that those thoughts had come together. The ornate fountain that lined the edges of the alcove where the two sat burbled and gushed. The strangeness of the thin circular fountain only sharpened the strangeness of Jen’s words, and Hailey found himself compelled to interrogate. Gently, of course. He was an old man after all.

“Surely you meant to say the new word of the Goddess? The thread of prophecy is only tamed and translated by the Pontiac. She cannot choose the thread of things to come any more than you or I can.”

Jen set her eyes firmly to the spire of the great library. This required she shift right away from Hailey and contort her body to see over the tall fountain walls. Upset but unsurprised at the evasion, Hailey set out the daily itinerary. Soon it would be time for daily lightings, festival preparations, setting stones, organizing letters, and a myriad other duties spread between the holy girls and their subsidiaries such as the handy girls. Jen objected not a jot to this work, and so Hailey felt more than comfortable to leave her to the drudgery. It was time to get Dolstoy’s attention.

It took Jen an hour of meticulous study and rearrangement to get everything set to her satisfaction. The dew was evaporating unnaturally slowly, as if it scorned to take part in the natural cycle of all things. Jen couldn’t begin to fathom why or how such a thing would occur, and had she known she’d have rejected the knowledge safely assuming that it was the kind of thing Wicker would now.

Two things were perpetual at the point: the wind, and the bickering. The wind was no bother, and when the sun glared overhead it could be welcome distraction. Even the most squeamish would come to embrace it. The bickering was another matter, and Hailey could not imagine the point without it. There was always a lively dispute between the preachers, the holy women, the scholars and the rangers. Sometimes these arguments were substantive, though had Hailey had the language, he’d have described the debates as resembling those of a group of misanthropic venture capitalists in the midst of their newest hairbrained scheme. Since Hailey lacked this oh so poignant framing of the issue, he described the whole thing as childish drivel, which was mostly the same thing anyways. Despite his generally low opinion though, he’d expected at least some awakening to take place. Now was the time to debate! To argue over why there were no pilgrims! Why the holy girls were losing the will to live at an alarming rate! Why the Pontiac and her consort had been avoiding polite society! Why no one could attest to sending supplies down to midway village in the past month! Why no one from the caverns around midway were at the point for the summer prophecy! Finally, there were questions that ought to be asked!

These thoughts consuming him, Hailey set towards the hall at the edge of the library where the incoming birds of the day were lightened of their luggage of information. Dolstoy’s gentle warnings regarding the veracity of this information rattled in his head. But one rarely contemplates a great travesty to much depth. Hailey had comfortably landed on the unfalsifiable conclusion that while some information was missing, there was doubtless nothing that could be done to improve so ancient a system as the Pontiacate pigeons.

Hailey regarded himself a friendly soul. This self-perception was greatly hardened with every passing year. The older he got the more distant he felt from the troubles and trials of those who could bring about change. The more he saw constants where there were variables. A good-natured determinism had come to define him. That this was the only real acceptable attitude for older men who resided at the point was purely coincidence in the sense that it is coincidence for the surgeon’s son to be a surgeon.

There were no surgeons or surgeon’s sons on the point, but there were plenty of men supremely confident in their piety and their value. Whilst not the worst ways to regard oneself, these typically do not lead to a very good drudge worker. That most of the work in and around the point was so monotonous was surely divine justice, a way to keep the self-important preachers and guardians in line. Any god more involved than the Pontiac’s surely would’ve claimed credit for such divine justice. As ever, the Goddess only cared for the future and for the hope said future could provide. Hailey could take only faint solace from this hope, as he hated the drudgery as much as the freshest boy brought to the point.

So, with friendly greetings to those who accepted and those who did not, Hailey set about to a day’s monotony. There was feed to be spread for the birds, letters to be tentatively classified, tasks to be conveyed to the holy girls and handy girls, lessons and chores to be set for the apprentices and youngsters, and there was the ever-important task of assuring a smooth afternoon study.

Four letters from Jepchy, a dozen from Karg, two from Gelton, twenty from Sebastopol, five from Tellyphill and two from Kadyp sprawled on the table. It was an odd assortment, but that was the luck of the draw. A brief reading and transcription for the afternoon study was all he had time for. That was the time for contemplation after all. Still, one always took just a moment to think on what it was he was transcribing. To be the first to draw the connection to prophecy would be the greatest honor one could aspire to. Despite his long years, that prize had always eluded Hailey. The bitterness of long disappointed years must’ve weighed heavy on Hailey for he did a most uncharacteristic thing: he took note of the birds as they came and went.

Most birds flew straight into an empty alcove. The alcoves were dank and slimy, and dripped some strange substance that Hailey would’ve hesitated to call a liquid. Whatever it was, the birds adored it and would spread it about themselves with great vigor. The slightest corrosiveness the substance possessed melted away the bonds of letter and leg, leaving the treasured information to slide down the sloped alcoves and into the gaping maws of endless boxes ready to be filled with information from every corner of the plains. All together this meant that any bird that had reached the feeding stage should’ve been well and truly unadorned. At the very least, Hailey had never noticed or heard of another possibility. And just such an outcome presented itself to him; glimpsed glances of the feeding frenzy revealed spiderlike strands around the neck of one bird. Hailey had very little experience with the birds themselves, but he knew enough to observe the strangeness of the placement and retention of this. He’d have investigated, but wooing one bird of hundreds was beyond him, even once his eye was firmly set upon it. The remaining hour of duty became consumed by unfounded supposition as to the nature of this strange anomaly.

The hour ended, and Hailey promptly made the tragic mistake of forgetting all about this anomaly and instead turned his attention to every other anomaly that had made itself clear since Dolstoy’s return. Chiefly, dread and fear as to the fate of the pilgrims took prime position.

As every morn past for longer than any could remember, the diligent, the brown nosed, and the night shift were organizing for a morning study. As a substitute for breakfast it may not have been much, but Hailey had grown accustomed to little nourishment. The great library was still lit with the damp orange effervescence that the holy girls had set in motion the night before. Early daylight spilled in through the great eastern window, lighting the glass in mosaic patterns few ever saw. Soon the glass would begin its usual dull blue glow, and the lines and patterns would be obscured until the next sunrise. Only now, before that glow, could one appreciate the sketches of nature and man that adorned the great window. Not for the first time, Hailey marveled at the greatness of the civilization that could afford to craft a wonder that only so few would ever see. A more egalitarian mind would’ve seen something deeply wrong with such a state of affairs. As a man burdened by responsibility and piety, Hailey could afford no such nicety.

Some monks and scholars were deep in their study, oblivious to his entrance. Others looked up to nod in recognition of his service or presence. As he pondered how to best utilize this rare moment of quiet, deeply buried instinct forced his limbs to make the climb towards the upper recesses of the library. Before he knew it, he was overlooking a game between three young acolytes. The distinct shaved right eyebrow told him they were to be priests, which was just as well, as Hailey himself was so dedicated. Hailey could barely believe they were old enough for such a dedication, but he struggled to tell those of sixteen apart from those of twenty, as many older folk tend to struggle. He believed this shortcoming of his was well concealed. The youths sensed his puzzlement and rapidly discerned its confused origin but were too polite to say so. All things said, Hailey noted not their youth, and the young priests never explained themselves. It was a most agreeable compromise.

As Hailey set about to his games, Jen set about to her ministrations. The holy girls had many duties, and they had been less than eager to fulfill those duties for some weeks by this point. Jen thought little of why this might be the case. Had she been pressed; she’d have asserted it was the lack of pilgrims. If pressed harder, she’d have slapped you, or maybe thrown a shoe; she was not very philosophical.

A large part of the holy girls’ training was philosophical, which made Jen’s elevated position all the stranger. It’d have seemed stranger still had any of the holy women or hexmistresses been there to note Jen’s performance. But there was no such oversight present, and Jen remained under the supervision of Hailey alone. The girls may have chaffed, but no more than at any other master. Jen thought so at the very least.

The suicides were another matter. One might’ve chalked it up to Jen’s gruff manner or to the hardship and loneliness that the juniors of the point endured every day. One could also blame miasma, but the air was kept perfectly clean, so one would’ve been wrong. The apprentices the rangers and the scholars also breathed the same air, so the argument would’ve been wrong on that account as well. As a matter of fact, the easiest difference to point too between the gender’s treatment was the leadership. Perhaps Jen was to blame after all.

Jen certainly didn’t think so, though it’s hard to imagine what she believed the case to be. Perhaps it didn’t worry her too much.

“Garin! Dellina! Aroma! Set the girls to task! Light the halls, warm the waters, cool the chambers, cook the food, there’s a thousand things to do and less of you lazy lot every day to do it all!”

Such a waking was not unfamiliar to Jen’s subordinates. Groggy but firm, the three named girls set about waking and organizing the troupe of holy girls. A lifeless resignation lined these girls’ faces, of the sort usually only achieved in middle age. In this sense at least, their education was putting them well ahead of the curve.

Each moment of the girls’ lives should’ve been technical and ritualized. The waking, the work, the study, the meals, and what little leisure time was left over. All should’ve been steeped in chants and movements centuries old, each moment ought to have been a page out of history. Instead, operations were perfunctory and utilitarian. There was work to do, and here were the people to do it. Jen made sure of that.

Perhaps the girls wondered. Perhaps they wondered at Jen’s authority. Perhaps they wondered about Ruthela’s absence. But such musings were kept to heart had they crossed their souls, for conversation rarely ventured further than Wicker’s disappearance weeks prior.

“I heard Otis confronted Vant yesterday” “About the water situation?” There was always a water situation of some kind at the Point. “No, about Ruthela. Said Vant was lax with the apprentices! He was encouraging them to leer at her!” “A thug! Those boys are children, and Vant likes that I think!” “You said you wished we had a hexmistress like Vant!” “No I didn’t! You said you’d run away like Ruthela did if anyone looked at us like that anyways!” “I said you’d run away if anyone looked at you that way” “So you wouldn’t?”

The chatter was incessant, but if at time mean spirited it was no worse than what is typical for girls at such an age. Only the grim specters of suicide and disappearance distinguished most such discussions. The more technically minded of the girls perhaps bored at the very thought of being sent to task with their fellow juveniles all day, but they were also the exact crowd dwindling in number. All in all, harmony and homogeneity were expected to rise right up until the summer prophecy.

As the morning grew long and the natural lighting could no longer be called faint, that same summer prophecy came to eat away at Hailey. Specifically, it was affecting his board state. The loose coalition he’d formed with two of the younger men threatened to fracture should the prophecy be published at once. Placing a favor token and an excommunication token in an envelope and passing it along, he placed a marker on the ‘Aviary’ space and read a secret note from the player across from him. If he could just hold on a little longer, just until the round had passed, he could reveal his gathered support and make a play for the coalition victory. But his coalition would not last no matter what the prophecy said. It was an interesting board state indeed, and others from the floor had gathered round to watch, and to commentate.

“Pontiac’s getting trashed here” “You think so? Don’t believe it! Gard and Otis both want her there to balance out the ranger corps” “So what? No one’s paying them for their information cards! Either they steer towards the emperor, or they just lose to the coalition”

Hailey found the chatter only vaguely tolerable. He supposed he’d viewed the negotiation game as a youngster himself, but resolutely he believed he’d never been so nosy. But the chatter was welcome and warm, familiar as fewer and fewer things seemed to be. Idly, some of the more experienced players mused on the game’s name, specifically its lack of one. Another mystery, Hailey supposed.

All too quickly the game came to a close, a rush of tokens and markers shuffling in haste as the losers made desperate attempts at salvage. With a hand and mind deft and sharpened on the game’s whetstone, edging out another coalition partner, Hailey brought the game to a close with the revelation of the ending hand. Every group played differently, but Hailey had always preferred the uncertainty this method of conclusion was wrapped up in. The winners were only truly discovered once there was nothing more to be done about it.

Winners. Dolstoy was a winner, wasn’t he? He was deep in Mel’s good graces, assumed commander of the ranger corps by many, and ever affable to boot. So why hadn’t he talked to Hailey since that day in the library? What could he fear in the old man? Of course, Hailey was thinking along the entirely wrong lines, for Dolstoy was barely anyone at all in the Ranger’s hierarchy. That nearly military arm of the Pontiac was commanded and steered from Tellyphill, though few outside the corps itself were privy to such information. Vows of secrecy sworn along the way to becoming a ranger ensured a level of mysticism and awe around the rangers in all their various activities.

Hailey knew of the vows’ existence, a leap further than most had taken. But the chasm was deeper and wider than just that leap, and there was so much Hailey didn’t know. He hadn’t left the point since his coming there as a boy, after all. Most hadn’t. Perhaps that was part of the rangers’ mystique then, the worldliness, the dirt, the grime. Perhaps the seclusion and cleanliness of the point left some hole in the soul of a man. Hailey reasoned it could not be the case: for centuries, thousands of men of all temperaments and spirits had taken to the various schools of scholarship and studies the point had to offer. 

Content that it was so, Hailey headed a procession to the mess hall for the noon meal. The cacophony of argument over the game just played and those further in the past roused the streets as they had not been roused in perhaps too long. Hailey was glad to be the one to prod such liveliness into the point, though he wondered at the problem. There had been other negotiation and card games played lately, why had none of those given rise to such camaraderie?

There was much to worry over, and Jen was content to worry over that which she could grab. She grabbed Ennet and made her sweep the floor. She grabbed Garin and set her to running messages to the aviary. She wanted to grab Aroma and have her retrace the hexes protecting the mess hall, but the girl was wiry and slick, always just sharp enough to be out of Jen’s range.

As the men of the point streamed into their section of the mess hall, Jen turned to discover the apprentices raucously invading the kitchens. Her first thought was one of disgust towards the boys, her second one of condescension: the apprentices, unlike the holy girls, were selected for their specific duties only once they reached some maturity. A hexmistress and a line weaver on their first day couldn’t be compared. Resolution bubbled in Jen’s heart; a grim determination reserved for those most precious battles of the soul. Only this battle would be an attempt to shame the boys into some form of submission. So far she’d had little success, and had she set anyone else to the task she’d long since have reprimanded them for their tardiness in its completion. Of course, success in this case was so nebulous a concept that Jen would’ve simply declared the task undone no matter how cowed the boys would’ve been.

“Jen? Merrin wants another inspection of the wind workers. Apparently the lines in the crosshatch have been degrading, and someone needs to do something.”

Jen stared right through the girl, a recent catch of the hexmistress’ with a manner and face more befitting an affable llama than a direct pawn of the Pontiac. She was one of those who’d committed that most egregious of sins: friendliness. Compared to that, her escape from Jen’s grasp was but a raindrop in a blizzard.

“And does Merrin inspect and maintain every mundane hex on the point? Your new mistress is a bit laxer than that, isn’t she? Doesn’t think you need to work as hard as everyone else?”

The argument fell on ears not deaf but confused. Perhaps that was worse, but Jen couldn’t tell. Head tilted and eyes wide, with a confidence Jen was entirely sure the girls didn’t deserve, she trudged onwards.

“Everyone needs to work hard. Summer prophecy’s in less than a week! Merrin promised me I’d get to see where a hexmistress keeps her dresses and gowns! Just imagine the colors, the textures, the beauty!” The girl looked skywards, smile and gaze distant. Angry more at the girl’s manner than the content of her speech, Jen didn’t even note that the girl seemed to be admiring a grease stain that had somehow reached the tall ceiling. “I’m off, set someone to it. Merrin said someone quite skilled at that kind of thing is under your purview? A bit shy, a bit thin? Fifteen? Get her to it, we don’t want the mess hall getting drafty!” And with that she off. Jen wanted to argue, she wanted to pout, she wanted the girl to treat her with the respect she felt she deserved. So preoccupied she was with these concerns, that barely did it register that Merrin probably wanted Wicker. Now there was a girl a chasm away from Jen.

She was growing testy, and on some level she knew it. The realization wormed its way nearer and nearer her consciousness as the meal grew long, streams of men and women shuffling into their respective halves of the mess hall. A stiff breeze of the point’s lofty air was enough to hasten Jen’s mind to the fact that the hexes had not been reinforced properly once again. She tried to stir herself to anger, but only frustration remained. To the holy girls’ chagrin, when Jen took it out on them, frustration and anger were much the same.

Hailey mused over the game with the young men he was quickly coming to regard as his friends. Happily, he was quickly coming to realize that the gray in his hair and the loftiness of his post weren’t near enough to create a rift between himself and a fellow enjoyer of the negotiation game. Discussion grew heated and animated, and Hailey found himself sitting in front of an empty plate for minutes on end. An itch had been scratched, and it was only by the good fortune of the pigeon pie that he remembered the morning’s strangeness. Sadly determined, Hailey searched within himself for the will to interrupt the delightful conversation. He couldn’t find it, as the talk of various negotiation games from around the plains was simply too delightful.

“What’s the strangest place you’ve learned a game from?” “I learned one from my mother when she came here for the winter prophecy after I gained my staff” “There’s a game a ranger once showed me. Something from around Worstone”

The table had been lively, rowdy even. But the hated word had been spoken. Far more than Kadyp had ever been, the holdout for near a millennia of empire had been Worstone. Enigmatic, evil, terrifying Worstone. “What was a ranger doing learning anything from Worstone…” someone asked rhetorically, and a murmur of agreement answered the pronouncement. Still, the hush returned, everyone staring at the dishes as if suddenly realizing they all had duties to attend to. Inspiration and fear all a mess, Hailey spoke before he could rationalize a reason not to. “Does anyone here work with the Aviary?”

No one spoke up. No one flinched or showed unnerve, but none gave much acknowledgement other than curt denial. Hailey felt dirty at the attempt, then thought better of it, and felt clever and crafty instead. There was no need for further comfort, for a short plump man deep in his twenties spoke up, crumbs falling from his thick moustache as he spoke.

“I’ve worked with the aviary. Ever since that mix up with the Danubian mail service I’ve been monitoring the bird feed to ensure future clarity.”

Hailey couldn’t remember the man being present in the library, but he hadn’t closely monitored the dozens of spectators who’d dropped in and out throughout the morning. Besides, no nefarious purpose or motivation for deceit presented itself. That the man was genuine seemed the likeliest explanation.

“So that’s what distinguishes the different birds? The feed they respond to? I thought it was some kind of homing instinct that determined where they went” Hailey thought himself well versed in the myriad of endeavors the Point partook in. “Well yes. The mix up was caused due to an unfortunate mating season, it came late because of a snowstorm and the wild Telkot variety… doesn’t matter, yes, I work with the aviary” the man was nervous, his doormat of a moustache drooping as he fidgeted over his words. Aware that time was short and that finding an expert could often take weeks at the point, Hailey hazarded suspicions. “So that’s the differentiation? Between species and companies? Everything beyond that is standardized?” Hailey asked with what he hoped seemed casual passing interest.

It must’ve seemed so, for the tenseness that had gripped the table like a bear trap dissipated into the fog of post meal malaise. The peculiar man’s response was almost lost in the hubbub, as Hailey only just noted the peculiarities: no marked shaved eyebrow, no distinct brown of a ranger’s cloak, nor the clean face of the scholar. So which of the lesser schools could he belong to that’d leave him time and knowledge to view a negotiation game in the library? Luckily for Hailey, these musings weren’t quite enough for him to miss the man’s confident reply. “Well of course not! Every man who works with the creatures every day gets an eye for them. You can tell who’s swift or tardy, who’s friendly or puckish, all sorts of things. Real personality!” His speech grew animated as his description of various birds and their characteristics went on. Finally, after what to Hailey seemed a long diatribe on wing patterns, the hint he’d been patiently awaiting fell upon him with all the grace of spat chewing gum. “When you really like a bird, you’ll mark it somehow. Nothing heavy, nothing that could get caught in a branch. Only a very few materials like that!” His eyes went misty, and his view grew distant. “Of course, it never lasts long…” a moroseness fell about him, completely at odds to the previous cheer and animation that espousing upon his favorite topic had allowed the man. In his best grandfatherly tone, which was rather competent as Hailey employed it often, Hailey pushed onwards. “The ribbons don’t last long?” “They’re not really… yes, the ribbons never last long.” Another pause, but only a short one, and a sad smile could be glimpsed under the moustache as he brought the conversation to a close. “The birds don’t last long. If you’ve seen a bird long enough or often enough to grow fond, it’s either old or overworked. Either way, probably not many trips left in there.”

Hailey ought to have been saddened by this state of affairs, but it seems unlikely he was. Emotional he could get, over ideas, over people, over events, and over animals. But the birds of the aviary were tools, not wild beasts worthy of respect, awe, and study. So he took the news in stride, and excused himself; there were sermons to write, apprentices to instruct, and Dolstoy to be found. Dolstoy probably didn’t wish to be found, as he’d finally wrangled Ruthela away from Jen’s grasp. Hailey may have shuddered at whatever it was Dolstoy was teaching his daughter, or he may have seen her much as he saw the birds: as a tool to do with as the owner saw fit. Dolstoy most definitely thought of Ruthela as no such thing, though not for obvious reasons.

As the meal wrapped up, Jen and Aroma set about to divvy up the remaining hours of the day. It was the kind of task that Jen was loath to share, as the delegation of tasks could be construed as a mark of authority. The benefits reaped from Jen’s authority were unclear to most, to Jen most of all. Nevertheless, it seemed a position of power, and who didn’t want one of those? “And the ones who studied with Katie should know enough to re-seal the storerooms. That leaves only-” “It leaves only Pontiac’s attendants unassigned, and no one but us two left for the task” Jen concluded the hasty discussion.

Aroma looked sick at the prospect of attending the Pontiac. Jen didn’t look like much of anything, but that may only have been because most people averted their gaze from her scowl. She may have been excited at the opportunity to be so close to one so holy. It seems unlikely though.