Cloud of Clear Thought

The guests began to arrive as the sun disappeared behind the trees.

Weard and Sophi had made ready the plant room, closeting the mushrooms and removing buckets and jugs to the hallway. Neither of them were neat people, but they were conscientious. Everything important, such as mud, leaf and plant samples, was carefully stored. Everything else was tossed in a corner.

Sophi had tea ready, and Weard met each person at the door.

First to arrive, as always, was Schafft, who barely stayed away from the house. Weard let the man ramble, interjected with smart but sarcastic remarks by Sophi, while he sized up the young man's companion.

Aussie Logen was of Schafft's generation, and they had been close friends, even after Aussie left Litus Albus as a youth and returned as a mapmaker a few days ago. He had removed his travel-stained black cloak when he entered, but Weard's sharp eye had noted the cut and obvious cost of materials. He was enough of an Oper that he had to work to prevent the sneer at the ostentatiousness of it. Aussie had obviously been to Domus Palus, where the traders found people more willing to accept the teachings of outsiders.

The sweat of Aussie's travels had darkened his hair to nearly black, and the same travels had hardened the man's brown eyes like aged, gnarly wood. Though he was only a year older than his friend, Schafft, he looked ten years older. Weard noted with some amusement how boyish Schafft looked next to Aussie, in face and mannerisms. Schafft's idealism had never weathered the realities Aussie had seen on the road to Domus.

Tharv showed up, in his shuffling, sideways manner. Weard could imagine, with a wife like Berta, how a man could be so unsure of himself. The cooper was conscientious, bringing a cask of pickles from his store, and welcomed ferociously by Weard and Schafft, who set Tharv up before the fire and started regaling him about the importance of dredging and damming.

Rin Befrad and Yarpelt Lehren arrived together, two men whose friendship started out professional and had grown in the interest of improving Mar culture.

Rin was a strong warrior and had the ear of the town's battlemaster. He was a big, strong man, quick on his feet, but, Weard suspected, a tad near-sighted. This was evidenced by his inability to hit anything with a thrown spear. Yarpelt, who was nearly a decade older than Weard, was a giant of a man, a full hand taller than Schafft, with arms massive through years of working his forge.

Marrishland did not have a lot of metal, which made any metal precious. Yarpelt was a master of turning a hundred-year-old farming into an hour-old pot for dinner. His work itself, many said, was magic, and he had raised seven sons to work his forge for him.

Sophi, of course, in the speculative ways of women, had informed her father that Yarpelt's greatfather, a mapmaker from the north, had slept with a woman of the Hundred Tribes and stayed with her until she had her baby, then stole the baby and come south, leading an angry army at his heels. Her guesses as to why he would have stolen the baby were even more wild, and Weard mostly brushed those ideas away.

The oldest member of the cadre, the trader Lauf Resitien, arrived last, as usual.

"You live too far away," he huffed to Weard, clasping the herbalist's hands and smiling.

"You know we should not meet anyplace else," Weard said. "Come inside. I have some soup, and the kettle is boiling."

"Please, please," he said, scraping the mud off his boots with the thunga. "First we must fill our pipes. If great thinking is to be done, it should be done in a cloud of clear thought."

Weard surveyed the chatting crowd and his daughter bringing them bowls and tea. Their group, which they called the Perkonen, was fairly new. A mapmaker from Domus Palus had brought tales of where the Oper were headed, and in deeper questioning by Lauf and Weard, he had admitted to hearing of several splits in the main theology. A group called the Operbut were performing live human sacrifices, he had insisted, and the Fulemon had built a camp near the old Domus Palus and meditated on the Kalkorae artifacts in the region.

But the sect that appealed most to Weard's and Lauf's wandering interests was the Perkonen, the clear thinkers, who actively sought the gift of magic from Marrish. There was a shared glance, a long night of enjoying some of Weard's garden's finest produce, and finally, a decision, interrupted only briefly by Schafft's appearance.

The well-known truth was that the Kalkorae devices held no magic for the Mar. Weard himself had a tablet with a handle on it that he was certain his ancestors had used as a magic device, but he could not be sure for what. His study of it, however, and his knowledge that he could recreate it, suggested to him that the device itself was not magical. The mede who used it, Weard suspected, was the seed the magic came from, and the tablet was no more than a flower, exposing the magic to the whims of the wild.

But the Fulemon represented a break from the original Cult of Marrish, much like the Veravenaton, who sought enlightenment in a book they couldn't read, and the Oper, Weard's sect, whose import on community still seemed the best way to enhance the Mar's continuity, as their evangelical leader, Geflo Kraut, interpreted the tradition.

Therefore, Weard and his cohorts reasoned, while in one respect their breaking away from the traditional Oper thought patterns would disrupt the continuity (and so they continued to attend though they also went their own route) in another respect, the Oper themselves set the precedent for the subculture informally known as the Perkeron.

The Perkeron performed all of the Oper rites of communal gathering, communal sharing of goods, free trade and free service. Weard hosted the Oper service once per season, as was expected as an elder in the group. But while the Oper seemed content to remain static until Marrish struck them with the power of magic, the Perkeron were a bit less patient.

Aussie became a crux, Weard thought. Another mapmaker, returned from Domus Palus. His news to the town leaders, including Weard as herbalist and Lauf as dominant trader, spoke of secular things, but Lauf had learned to hear the unheard in a man's speech. When Schafft had brought word of some of the more esoteric of Aussie's tales, the young mapmaker had immediately been invited to a Perkonen meeting, with faith.

Of course everyone knew about torutsen, the tea made from the dried leaves of the kalysut. No one drank the bitter tea, and it had no known medicinal value. But, much like some of the more exciting herbs in the garden, it induced a strange effect upon the drinker. Not dizziness or light-headedness, or clarity of vision followed by withdrawal and nausea.

It gave the drinker, though, a view into the world that covered their own, a world not visible by any other means. This world had no name, and the Perkonen were still enough in awe of it to not call it anything other than "the fog" or "the cloud of motes."

Weard glanced out the door again. He knew no one else was coming, but need to create justifications for the group's existence were enough to make him eyeball any passerby while the meeting happened. Even if it was very late at night. He closed the door, and took his pipe from its shelf by the door.

Sophi poured the tea, then disappeared. Weard knew she would not go far, but she was smart enough to understand that if their cult was persecuted, everyone here could say she was not there, and it might mitigate the response. Weard watched Aussie's eyes follow her out of the room, and wondered how soon he would have to talk to Schafft about his friend.

Lauf cleared his throat. As eldest, he always opened their ceremony. The general buzz of small talk subsided, the last voice, of course, Schafft's as he continued to extol the virtues of draining the swamp to poor Tharv. Weard gently touched his friend's arm as Lauf cleared his throat a second time, and the young man quieted.

"Lord of Wind and Fire, preserve us, your faithful servants," Lauf intoned, rotating his mug. "We seek but ways to earn your favor, for the man who sits on the log dies with the bog. Seruvus knows of our meetings, and may tell those who mistrust new ideas, and we ask Heliotosis to keep our words silent to prying ears. Have faith in us, Marrish, as we have had faith in you, and we will prove the Mar deserve your greatest gift to us, the gift of magic."

"May Seruvus hear our oaths," the rest said, even Aussie, stutteringly, "that we will not disrupt the Oper's gatherings with our thoughts."

They raised the tea to their lips and sipped lightly.

"By Swind and the star-crossed Her, you brewed it too strong!" Lauf sputtered.

But everyone else just waited, Tharv and Aussie glancing around in confusion, and soon the haze appeared.

The fire and lamps seemed to dim, but the light grew more evenly distributed. More details in the corners of the room could be discerned, and the faces around the table sharpened. Weard, who was used to the effect, kept his eyes on Aussie, who blinked rapidly a few times, and Tharv, whose face lost all color. The cooper rubbed his eyes two or three times, then closed them.

The motes appeared, like flies in the thousands of millions. Red, blue, green, yellow and colors that had no names, they danced around the room like a turbulent river, sluggishly headed southeast — they had all agreed that as a general rule, the motes moved in one direction. The other main property the men had agreed upon involved why the motes would seem to pass right through the table and mugs and tea, but not through the men themselves.

Tharv whimpered. "I didn't do it," he said, so quietly Weard was sure he was the only one who heard him.

"It is ... amazing," Aussie said, his voice a mix of steely resolve not to be afraid and golden wonder.

"Speak, mapmaker," Weard said, taking another sip of his torutsen. "We were told you had tales of the Hundred Tribes. Specifically, the use of this tea in their observances."

Aussie stood abruptly, waving his hands in front of him. Weard had seen this before, as people tried to push the motes out of the way. He had done it, too, and been surprised when they had moved nearly in what might have been the wind of his arms' passage.

The young mapmaker with the hardened face stood lit by the fire, and the men settled in for the story. Weard lit up his pipe, following the other men who stuffed theirs with the more exciting herbs in Weard's garden. A mapmaker brought news of the world, but in his own fashion. And when a person asked about tales of the Hundred Tribes, they became just that.

Aussie cleared his throat, and began, the motes of light and swirling smoke from pipes creating shapes around him.

"Among the Hundred Tribes, of which there were far more than a hundred, many things were worshiped. Mostly these were living things, such as the Vagal and their raptors, but many were conceptualized, such as the Send and their mother worship.

"One tribe, the Zedan, worshiped the kalysut, a tree known to grow in the bog, fen, swamp, marsh, delta or plain. A tree known to grow in wet conditions or dry, in tropical, temperate and arctic conditions. A magical tree, perhaps.

"The Zedan were nomadic, as many of the Hundred Tribes were, though they were nomadic in a curious way. Sometimes they would camp in a spot for a season, but sometimes they would make their home in a place until a young child reached adulthood. Sometimes they would move within a few days. This had to do with their tree worship, for they always carried seedlings of the kalysut to plant where they stopped. Occasionally, they would stop at an ancient tree, and these were the times when they would wait for the unsehneir, a vision quest, a trial by their gods, the reward of which was insight into the future.

"Unsehneir were performed by all men and women at the time of their flowering, and then at another period when they wed or chose to permanently remain alone. They also happened at random times for the elders, to help the tribe make decisions, and the warriors sought enlightenment if a battle was known to be ahead. For the Zedan, seeking a hint of what may come outweighed the dangers of what they did to themselves.

"During an unsehneir, the participant wanders off alone, wearing nothing but the very basest of clothing, carrying nothing but a ceremonial dagger made of wood and a dozen horns of thickened kalysut tea. He walks far, far in one day, as far as he can, into the night, until sleep and exhaustion and hunger threaten to overcome him. Then he finds a special place, which may be a clearing or a hollowed log, a small island in the river or, if the tribe was in the right area, a cave.

"He drinks the thickened tea, one horn after another, as though in dire thirst. All of it. He sees these motes, I am told, and more: He sees the dead. He sees the future. He sees damnens that send him screaming and eat his mind. He sees his god, Zedan, and loses all control of himself, becoming consumed in the god's presence, writhing on the ground in physical agony.

"But that is nothing to what it does to how he thinks.

"Most of the time, after three or four days of being in the magic place, sunken into a deep, deep sleep so as to appear dead, he awakens, weak and exhausted, and stumbles back to the tribe to tell of his vision. Everything he says is heard with great respect, and his life, and sometimes the tribe's, is directed by his words. It is, by far, the most faith any of the Hundred Tribes has in its god, to take the message without question, and act accordingly.

"Some of the time, though, he doesn't return, and warriors must be sent to find him. When they do, if he still has any sign of life, they cut him off from the tribe, making him drink of kalysut sap, and use their magic to coax him back into his body.

"It is said the greatest victory of the Zedan over the Totanbeni encroachment came after their most powerful warrior, Fist Tharnkar, went on an unsehneir that lasted for four nights. His warriors were on their way, panicked that he had succumbed to whatever damnens Zedan had sent to him, when they found him, dragging his way back, saying that Zedan had shown him the way to defeat the Totanbeni.

"When he recovered, he led his men to the Totanbeni encampment, a force half again as large as they were. The Totanbeni had built fortifications. Fist split his men into a half-dozen groups of no more than four each and told them to spread out. He led a similar group.

"What passed next was slaughter, as Fist ordered the attack, and Zedan made their number appear infinite to the eyes of the Totanbeni. They appeared and disappeared, like ghosts, like damnens themselves, everywhere, all over the field. The Totanbeni weapons could not hit them. The Totanbeni guiders could not summon their magic. Before daylight had truly broken, Fist and his men had crippled this arm of the Totanbeni invasion, forcing them to withdraw. It was an important blow to their enemies, and Fist Tharnkar is remembered in many of the Hundred Tribes for the battle."

Aussie's fist had raised to the sky when he talked about the battle, his voice gathering strength to show the power of the Zedan assault. Now he lowered it slowly, the echoes of his words leaving the men in awe.

Weard felt he had seen the invasion in the fog and colored lights around the mapmaker. He took a deep drag on his pipe, and let the haze settle into his mind a bit deeper. Even Tharv seemed to have completely relaxed, sharing Rin's pipe, though he had not touched his tea again.

"They thought the kalysut tea gave them visions," Schafft summed up. "They saw things in the colors cascading about us. Shapes, people who had died, totems and spirits."

"It's highly probable they overdosed, as well," Weard said. "We know that the colors and volume of the motes increase dramatically even as we sip to the bottom of our cups. I have also been looking into more concentrated effects, over-boiling the leaves into a condensed paste, then applying that to water."

"Any success?" Rin asked, his thick eyebrow furrowing in his head. He seemed to be counting the motes.

"Just a dab of that stuff on your tongue is about as strong as draining your cup while it is still steaming," Weard said. "It needs to be diluted."

Lauf waved the conversation aside. "We know you are fascinated with the kalysut and its leaves, Weard, but I do not see how this leads us to our longer-term goal. The gift of magic to the Mar, do you truly believe it will come from this tree?"

"Ah," Weard said. "As I have explained, magic comes from within, not from an outside source."

"Magic will come from Marrish," Yarpelt said, always trying to stick to the original Oper teachings.

"The gift will come from Marrish," Schafft corrected brusquely. "The knowledge. The abilty, however, must be there already. A tree does not know it can become a fence, but if it is shaped properly, it is a fence."

"But no longer a tree, Schafft," Lauf said. "It must be remade by man into a post. But I agree with you, in principle, my young friend. Marrish would not reach down and change something fundamental about the Mar."

"So, the gift is the knowledge of how to use magic, which will come from Marrish," Weard said.

"And Marrish comes to those who are in need, or who are seeking answers," Schafft went on as though he had not been corrected at all.

"We know we are here to seek answers," Rin said. "Not to wait around for the gift to drop on us like rain."

"And what answers have we found?" Yarpelt asked, smiling crookedly. "Weard brews his tea. Lauf smokes his pipe. Schafft had me make this crazy piece of twisted metal frame ..."

"A screw."

"... and Rin, I don't even know what you do, but we don't seem to be very focused." He gestured to Tharv. "Our cooper her is very silent, but he is new. And the mapmaker, well, he was here for the story."

"Yarpelt is right," Lauf said, mediating over Rin's sudden explosive breath. "We seem to have many more questions than answers. However, tonight we are here to discuss Weard's idea, related to Aussie's story. Weard?"

"Thank you, Lauf," Weard said. "Now, in my studies of Kalkorae devices; yes, yes, I know the Fulemon have pursued the same path with little results. In my studies, it is apparent that the device itself is merely a ... a pathway for magic to manifest. Something that makes it physical, you see."

"Magic isn't natural, see," Schafft interrupted excitedly. "I mean, it is natural, because it exists, but the difference between putting up a fence with magic or with physical force ..."

"Is that in one you sweat," Lauf said. "Schafft, let Weard finish."

"It's just it's more like fire, an element we can't move or cut or do anything but start and stop ..."

"Shut up," Yarpelt said, cuffing the man on the back of the head.

Weard cleared his throat. "More like air, I think, Schafft, as I can move fire with a branch or as a coal. In any case, imagine magic is a ball ready to manifest inside a person, but it needs a way to get out. That's what the pathway is. The conduit. As the Kalkorae had with their devices."

Tharv cleared his throat. "It must be different," he said into the silence. "You said Mar can't use the de ... things."

"Exactly. Not a device maybe," Weard responded slowly. "A representation of magic."

"And you believe it is these colored bugs we all see?" Yarpelt said, waving his hand in front of his face and smiling.

"Yes. This is why the kalysut tea is important. We would never have known the motes were there without it."

"But it works for the Hundred Tribes, and we cannot use their magic either," Lauf said. "You must consider that."

"I have, I have. As I said, the motes aren't the magic. Magic comes from within. The motes, I think, are the pathway."

"A pathway we can't shape, or touch, or even see without this tea," Rin said.

"We can shape it, a bit," Weard said quietly, but Rin was still talking.

"Weard, you are a respected member of the community, and a thoughtful member of this group. But, as much as I enjoy the sensation of having my head filled with fluff, is this the way to magic? The wints don't drink or smoke anything to find magic. The medes may have held devices, but they certainly did not eat anything before they performed their feats that built the great cities and fought the Totanbeni to a standstill."

"Thank you, Rin," Lauf said. "We are here to create a pool of knowledge, to aid each other, and you seem to be ..."

"It's fine, Lauf," Weard said, smiling a bit as the colors danced around his head. "If an idea is not questioned thoroughly, why should it be pursued? Rin, I have to admit, has a sound question. If magic is inherent, why do Mar need a crutch to use it? But your argument defeats itself. If the kalysut tea is a tool, then it is the same as the Kalkorae devices, and the Kalkorae could perform no magic without them. Half of our ancestry is mede. We must have some mix of how they use magic and how the wints use magic."

Everyone was nodding, now, although Weard thought Tharv was simply getting tired. The smoke could do that to a person.

"I will do my best to explore this," Weard said. "You will know what I am doing and any advice you give is welcome. That is why we have this group."

Lauf nodded, repacking his pipe. "All we can do is our best, and keep our minds clouded with clear thought."

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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