The Lord of the Plains

Chapter 12

  Riley wasn’t nervous. The other children were nervous as they stood in the line. The gemengs even more so. Riley was possessed of a remarkable amount of stillness. Stillness she had learnt from hunting. The other children fidgeted and asked their friends, ‘are you nervous?’, ‘what do you think she’ll ask?’ and they said, ‘yes’ or ‘no’, depending on how they wanted to look to their peers, and they said, ‘I don’t know’ or ‘oh I think she’ll really focus on numbers’ or ‘I don’t think numbers are important’ based mainly on what their hopes and fears were.

  ‘Are you ready?’ Razra leaned over and whispered in her ear. He was a bit too close to her ear for her liking so Riley edged away. When she spoke to him it was in a whisper (for she learnt to take her cues from the other children), but she didn’t get close to his ear.

  ‘Yes.’ she said, then, ‘are you?’

  ‘Oh for sure! It’ll be easy. What do you think will be on it?’ he asked hopefully.

  ‘What we studied in class.’ she replied evenly.

  ‘Oh yeah. What else?’

  Riley frowned, a line appearing between her little brows.

  Just then Ms Thrope called the first boy in. The line instantly became tense and quiet. One child put his ear to the door to listen to what was being said and was instantly yanked back by another. The other children hissed hushed admonishments at him, and he was duly chastised.

  After maybe ten or fifteen minutes the boy came out and Ms Thrope called the next one. He grinned at his friends and walked quietly to the room where the children who had finished were to play quietly, without giving the questions to their friends.

  So much of human interaction in Astar depended on the honour system, children were expected to obey it even at their age.

  After almost two hours Riley was called in. The door was closed behind her. The blackboard was blank, if something had been written on it before it had been cleaned very well.

  Ms Thrope looked at her levelly. She began by asking her to solve basic math problems in her head. After that she was to write some more complicated problems on the board and solve them. She only had half the board to use, if she wrote poorly or too big and couldn’t fit all the problems in, well, that was part of the exam. Afterwards she was asked questions about geography and told to draw a map on the board. Then she was asked immersion questions.

  Riley may not have gotten everything right, but she was calm and prompt and when Ms Thrope told her she was done and to clean the board she did so without worrying about her mark.

  When the exams were finished everyone was called back into their classroom.

  ‘Well, now you’ve got your first exam out of the way.’ Ms Thrope said. ‘I hope you’ve all learned something from this experience. Now I will call the marks out, understand?’

  ‘Yes, Ms Thrope.’

  Riley did quite well, in fact, Riley was the best gemeng in the class. Humans who came below her had still done well on their exams, but were upset anyhow- a gemeng had beaten them. Everyone knew gemengs were all brawn and no brain.

  There was little time left in the year after exams ended. Though he had resisted, Aerlid’s Seiaan had changed as Riley’s had. At least, around others. They were trying to fit, and changing their language was preferable to constantly reminding people he and Riley were different. In some ways it crept into his speech even when he was with Riley- Seiaan was not his language after all, and he had no great love for those people or their culture.

  Whenever Aerlid walked through the city he looked around for signs of festivals or celebrations. He had some little hope of it, even after all he had learned about the people of Astar, surely they had some celebrations? The weather grew colder and it was time for another visit to the clothes store- Riley could hardly go to school in her furs.

  As the year drew to a close the only change that Aerlid noticed was that people became more fervent in their patriotism and frugality, and they talked even more of how they had come to Astar.

  This was not a story taught in schools, it was just a story every human child knew. The story as told by the people of Astar was that humans had been forced to live in the caves due to the strength and violence of the gemengs. Then, 436 years ago, they had built their technology to such a level that they could come down out of the caves and win some land for themselves.

  Aerlid had doubts about the date for emerging from the caves.

  Though the calendar and hours of the day were accurate in Astar, for pure efficiency purposes, they didn’t study history. If the people of Astar recorded their history, it was somewhere very obscure, so how could they be so sure about how long they had been out in the world?

  There were no celebrations for the emerging from the caves or the brave settlers of centuries past. All that happened was that the Astarians worked even harder and for a few weeks there was a gleam in their eyes that wasn’t there before. There were speeches given by the leaders of Astar, though in Aerlid’s mind these sombre and patriotic affairs did not count as celebrations.

  Aerlid, annoyed and feeling somewhat thwarted- they recognized the need for days of rest, yet not celebrations- sat Riley down in their apartment. At least one good thing happened during this time of not-celebration- their apartment now contained a second bed. It sat in the bedroom, some distance away from the original bed. Aerlid had been concerned that Riley might not want it, but had bought it anyway- it was a matter of pride. His worries were all for naught; she took to it quite well.

  Riley sat quietly in the stiff chair looking at him slightly askance. Aerlid seemed a bit…frazzled. Aerlid knelt down in front of her and looked up at her face.

  He thought about it for a moment, then smiled. He would tell her of the customs of the Seiaan people. ‘The people who lived here long ago worshipped a Lord and Lady,’ he began, ‘they called them Lord Asin and Lady Assah. Asin and Assah were married, but they were very unhappy with each other. Often they fought. In one of their fights Assah drew blood from Asin with her sword, which was named Cleysar. His blood spilt and formed the ocean. Asin, enraged, grabbed a fistful of Assah’s hair and flung it down, and that formed the land. Assah’s hair was very beautiful and it meant much to her. So she cried tears of rage and sorrow and this rained down on the land and ocean. It gave… it was…’ he paused, struggling to explain, ‘desire, anger, feeling. It gave the land and sea life. Now Asin grew sad to see his wife cry. And…’ he glanced sidelong at Riley. ‘Well, they made up. And… that created people and animals. Now, the world had been made out of Asin and Assah’s anger, so the world was a violent place. But humans and animals had also been formed from love as well as anger. So only through them could some peace come to the world. They used to treat animals as people, you know, and if you didn’t fight with your wife regularly you were considered a very bad husband…’ he trailed off, realised he was getting off track and continued his story. ‘Assah and Asin found this new world a marvel, and there was peace between them for some time…’

  Aerlid stopped, watching Riley’s face. Then he remembered how she’d thought Molzolzor was real. ‘It’s just a story, Riley, it’s not real.’

  Her eyes were very wide. She nodded.

  ‘Well, they believed it. Some of them did. I don’t think it’s real.’ he amended.

  Her eyes widened.

  He thought he might be confusing her more. ‘People believe lots of different things, it’s important because it affects how they behave, but you don’t have to worry about Asin and Assah fighting.’

  ‘So…they’re like Molzolzor?’ she asked weakly.

  ‘Yes, exactly.’

  Riley was silent for a long while. Then she asked something very surprising.

  ’You call the moon ‘lady’. Is the moon like Lady Assah?’

  Aerlid was stunned she’d noticed that.

  ‘Well… not really, yes, in some ways. I suppose you could say I feel for the moon the way the Seiaan people used to feel for Lady Assah. And I show my… dev
otion by singing.’

  Riley was quiet. This was something very difficult for her to think about. ‘So where you come from, they all sing to the moon?’ she could almost imagine a whole host of Aerlids gathered in a forest and singing to the moon. But this was not the type of thinking she was good at and it slipped from her mind quickly.

  ‘No, not all…some…’ he trailed off, it was so hard to think of his own people, in a way he did not wish to talk about them, yet she had asked, and she so rarely asked about these sorts of things. ‘I have a friend, a woman who sings to the sun, there are others who revere the ground we walk on…No, I suppose only a few of my own people sing to the moon. What I do is a…personal experience, we do not often sing communally…’ He almost mentioned what Riley’s mother sung to, but if that didn’t interest her? He didn’t think he could bear it. ‘Though there are others and sometimes we did sing together…’ he trailed off again. ‘The ancestor of the woman who sings to the sun visited the sun once and brought back songs that would please her. Those are the songs that are mostly sung now to the sun.’ he was silent as he ruminated.

  ‘So you sing… because you are devoted?’ she frowned a little. This was hard for her to get her head around. She didn’t understand. Aerlid could see this.

  He blinked. Why did he sing? Because he couldn’t not sing. It was a part of him. When you looked at Aerlid you knew that he was a part of the moon, somehow, in some way. That was why he sung. And as he sung he became stronger, revitalized. A gift from the Lady. But even without that, he would have sung. Because she was the Lady. Aerlid looked at Riley, at her pale skin that was more like his own now than either of her parents. He suspected that was because she sung- or hummed- to the moon with him. She ought to have been summer. Her mother was summer. His people would have been fascinated by this change in her.

  ‘Yes I… suppose you could put it that way.’ was all he could say. It hurt him that she lacked the intuition to look and see why he might sing. She said the right words but she didn’t understand, not in her heart. Not really. But he had raised her, so who could he blame for what she lacked except himself?

  Recently it had become colder. Not very cold, but cold enough to wear a jacket. Cold enough that the produce in the stores had changed.

  Aerlid made another round of the store. There were very few vegetables left, and they were prohibitively expensive. He came back to where he had started. Tubs of a greenish slime had appeared. He watched curiously as someone walked by and scooped some up into a container.

  Aerlid walked over and had a look in the tub. Was it used to insulate houses against the cold? He’d ask Keila about it tomorrow.

  The slime neatly filed away in his mind, Aerlid turned towards the man behind the counter to find out where all the food was.

  The man gazed back at him dully. There was a pause. ‘What?’ he asked finally, his voice slow.

  ‘Where’s all the food?’ Aerlid asked bluntly.

  The man’s eyes slowly drifted sideways. Aerlid followed his eyes. It was the tub of slime. He looked back at the man. He pointed just to make sure Aerlid knew. ‘Cave mould.’

  ‘Cave mould?’ Aerlid asked, his voice a little high.

  ‘Do you need a bucket?’

  Riley poked at her mould with a spoon and then looked up at Aerlid.

  ‘I’m told this is how it’s eaten.’ Aerlid said, looking down at the green mould on his own plate. He seriously wondered if the man had been joking.

  ‘We should try it.’ Aerlid said with more fervour than he felt.

  Riley looked back down at her plate. She dug her spoon into the pile of green stuff and popped it into her mouth.

  She looked like she was chewing then she stopped and just swallowed it.

  ‘How is it?’ Aerlid asked.

  Riley was silent for a while. Finally, she said, ‘it’s ok.’

  Aerlid looked down at his plate. With a sigh he scooped some mould up.

  It was cold. Cold and wet and tasteless. Water had more taste than cave mould. He swallowed. It slid down his throat slowly like it didn’t want to go down. He suddenly had a horrible picture of that unpleasant substance sick people coughed up. Phlegm. This was like phlegm before it was coughed up.

  He looked over at Riley. She had finished half her plate, though her face was wearing a pained expression. Her mouth was twisted and there was a deep line between her eyebrows.

  Aerlid swallowed. It was still there. ‘I hear it’s very nutritious.’

  Riley gave him a look that spoke volumes.

  After the year end passed the fervour of the Astarians began to return to normal levels, levels that could be sustained each day for the rest of the year. At school Riley was treated differently. The gemengs held her in high regard for her marks on the exams- clearly she was what they all aspired to be (as they could never be as good as a human). Some of the human children grudgingly admitted her into their friendship. Riley was somewhat perplexed by this. If they didn’t like her why try and make friends with her? But human children were expected to understand gemengs- how better to know how to fight them? The best way to do this was to spend time with the gemengs made available to them through the school system. And as she was clearly the best of the gemengs she was the most appropriate choice as a new friend. Those that had done worse than her in the exams were particularly upset about making friends with her, something she found quite bewildering.

  Razra though, treated her as usual.

  Recently a sticky sort of snow had begun to fall. It was scarce and often melted on the ground but after many weeks it began to build up in an unpleasant, dirty slush.

  Riley cleared some snow from a patch of dirt she intended to sit on with her foot. Razra had just plomped himself down on the ground by her. As he watched her his eyes widened. ‘Oh!’ he said. He half sidled half waddled over to her clean patch.

  Riley frowned at him. She’d learnt that it was important to be forceful about things that she did not care particularly much about, otherwise he’d just keep pushing.

  ‘Razra, clear your own patch.’ Riley said.

  He shot up in an instant and with a bashful smile on his face began clearing his own patch of ground. Good. Usually he responded well to ‘no’ but on occasion, usually without warning, he would become stubborn and entirely unreasonable.

  Riley sat down on her clear patch and began the task of eating. Her social skills were progressing nicely. She was listening to and watching the other children carefully and saw that their style of conversation was very different to how she conversed. She was currently in the process of rectifying that situation. She was under instructions to fit in after all.

  So when Razra began happily telling her about something that one of his siblings had done last night Riley listened in a more active way than just observing and noting. He was her friend, not only was she supposed to care about what his sister did last night, she had to act like it too.

  ‘Hmmm.’

  ‘Yes..’

  ‘Oh!’

  Razra was very pleased with her responses at key locations in his monologue.

  Razra trailed off and plopped a huge lump of cave mould into his mouth. He swallowed without chewing. His eyes were roving over the field. A few groups of children had gathered together and were trying to pile up the dirty snow.

  Without warning Razra was up again, the rest of his lunch having already disappeared and started off towards one of his groups. Then he remembered Riley and stopped, ‘Hey, come on!’ he called over his shoulder.

  Riley didn’t ‘come on’ until she had finished her lunch. By then Razra was already deep into one of the groups and his voice could easily be heard across the playground.

  Riley approached the group and watched as was her way. Razra spotted her and grabbed her arm. ‘Look, guess what it is!’ Razra pointed at the waist high pile of slush.

  Riley looked at it for a moment. ‘Snow.’ she said after a moment.

  Razra burst out laughin
g. He thought she was joking. ‘It’s Jeitar!’ he said. ‘It’s a snow Jeitar!’

  Just then Ms Thrope summoned them all back inside with her piercing voice. The children abandoned the snow Jeitar and ran into the classroom. Razra was still grabbing her arm. ‘Tomorrow we’ll make a snow Molozor to go with Jeitar! Then an army of gemengs for them to fight!’

  The next day the children ate quickly and set out in groups to make their snowmen. There really wasn’t that much snow in the yard and Riley saw that the human children tended to exclude the gemengs from the play, and in some cases steal their snow.

  Riley looked around the grounds. All the snow was taken. She thought for a moment about where the snow came from and its path from there to here. Then she moved away from the school building and looked up at it. The roof was flat. It wasn’t that high…she quickly plotted a route to the roof. She checked to make sure no one was watching her and started her ascent. She was careful as this was a climb she had not done before and the snow and ice made it slippery.

  Once she was at the top she crouched down and made sure no one was watching. She’d been unnoticed. She crept into the middle of the roof where she had less chance of being seen from the ground. Then she smiled.

  The roof was covered in pure white snow.

  She thought of building her own snow man and then thought of pushing the snow off the roof so the other children could play with it. But if she did that the humans would just steal it from the gemengs. No, wouldn’t it be best if she could invite the gemengs up here?

  She got down onto her belly and slid towards the edge and surveyed the playground. She didn’t want the teachers or humans to know what she was doing, and she didn’t want the gemengs to get hurt getting up here. There were many challenges to her goal. First of all, she thought, she should approach the gemengs and determine which ones had the ability to get up here without getting hurt and which ones were interested in getting up to the roof to play.

  Riley crept back to the centre of the roof. She surveyed the snow again. If she brought other children up here she probably wouldn’t get to play with the snow herself; she would be too busy managing the operation.

  There was some time left before Ms Thrope would summon them back inside. Riley took that time to begin her career as a snow builder.

  When Ms Thrope came to call everyone back inside Riley didn’t hear her. She was looking at her snow Aerlid and snow Riley thoughtfully. She was beginning to think the only way the other children would get to play with this lovely snow was if she had Ms Thrope’s cooperation. The climb could quite easily be dangerous for the other children, and it was highly unlikely no one would notice children climbing up and down the building.

  Down below Ms Thrope was demanding to know where Riley Meilis was.

  Her voice had risen by then and Riley heard her. She looked up in alarm. For a moment she was still. She was pretty sure she could get down without being seen, but she wanted Ms Thrope to allow the gemeng children up here. So if she would have to reveal she’d been climbing up here anyway, why not now?

  Riley walked to the edge of the roof and waved down at the other children. Ms Thrope caught sight of her and made a sound much like some of the water birds Riley was familiar with. She was somewhat bewildered by this. She knew what Aerlid meant when he made bird calls, but what did Ms Thrope mean? Anxious now, because she didn’t know what was going on, Riley quickly and lithely climbed down the side of the building.

  She stood in front of Ms Thrope, who was just looking at her with big bug eyes. This made Riley slightly less anxious, that was a look Aerlid got on his face sometimes when he was going to be unreasonable about something perfectly reasonable.

  There was silence for a few moments as Ms Thrope scrutinized Riley and she looked up at Ms Thrope and all the children gathered around behind Ms Thrope looked at her curiously.

  ‘What were you doing?’ Ms Thrope finally asked, her voice a tad strained.

  ‘I was playing with the snow,’ then with a great deal of eagerness Riley launched into an explanation of what she had been doing. ‘There’s lots of snow up there to play with, it’s cleaner than the snow down here. I thought the gemengs would like to play with it because the human children don’t let them play with the snow down here. Can they play with the snow up there, Ms Thrope?’

  Riley was beaming at Ms Thrope. It had a startling effect on her appearance, as happens with all people when they are suddenly radiating happiness. The expressions on the faces of the human children ranged from startled to indignant that she would say such things about them. It wasn’t meant as a judgement upon them, merely as a statement of what she saw as fact.

  Ms Thrope raised her eyes to the top of the building. She could see some snow just over the lip of the building, and a shimmer where there was some ice.

  She lowered her eyes to Riley, who was still beaming.

  Somewhat weakly she said, ‘I-I’ll think about it.’ And with that she herded everyone inside, her usual force somewhat lacking.

  When Riley got home that day she was positively bouncing around. She shared with Aerlid all the details of her day and told him how she had made a snow Aerlid and a snow Riley and Ms Thrope said she would think about letting the gemeng children play with the snow.

  Aerlid watched her calmly, a smile on his face.

  ‘I need some of your clothes.’ Riley said levelly when she was done.

  Aerlid eyebrows raised slightly at this, ‘you need some of my clothes?’ he asked, his voice remaining calm with some effort.

  ‘For the snow Aerlid.’ Riley said with a smile.

  ‘Ah…’ Aerlid replied with some relief. That could have been a much stranger request, coming from Riley. ‘So where did you find this snow?’ he asked, changing the subject and hoping Riley wouldn’t ask again- he didn’t have so many clothes that he could donate them to snowmen.

  ‘On the roof.’ And Riley launched into another animated monologue about the snow.

  Aerlid had rarely seen her so excited and was happy for her. He waited for her to take a breath and quickly got in, ‘Riley.’

  That stopped her in her tracks. She looked up at him with her big green eyes and a giant smile on her little face.

  ‘You shouldn’t climb the buildings here, you’re very lucky you didn’t get into any trouble.’ he said gently, not wanting to ruin her happiness.

  Her mood dampened, she nodded her understanding.

  Riley didn’t get an answer the next day or the day after but on the day before Restday Ms Thrope declared, that after consultation with the other teachers, gemengs could play on the roof.

  Riley was delighted and the oddness of such a decision by teachers (or anyone in charge of looking after children) didn’t really strike her. When lunchtime came Riley rushed outside. She was very excited. When she got outside she noticed a tall ladder set up next to the building.

  That ladder clearly wasn’t meant for her, though she was pleased thought had been given to those who couldn’t climb like she could. The other gemeng children were not quite as thrilled as Riley was. When Riley saw them though she gathered them up and pointed towards the ladder, explaining if they liked they could play with the snow on the roof now.

  When the children didn’t follow, Riley climbed up the ladder to show them it was alright and then back down again. She wasn’t aware of some of the human children giving her and the gemeng children dark looks. Despite this, when the gemeng children saw she could climb up and down easily, and saw that the teachers did not get upset with them they hesitantly, then with more feeling, climbed up the ladder to the rooftop.

  Not all the gemeng children went, but this was ok too. Riley didn’t think it was a good idea for the roof to get too crowded. It might not be safe for the others. Riley followed the last gemeng child up. She gazed over her rooftop with pleasure as the children began relaxing and playing with the snow.

  Riley didn’t play. She patrolled the roof to make sure no one fell. Every
now and then she climbed down to see if anyone wanted to come up.

  All was well on the roof that day and for the rest of the days after that, while the snow remained. Riley was happy during this time, though Aerlid wasn’t so happy that the teachers had allowed children (any children, gemeng or human) up on the roof.

  Eventually Riley suggested to Ms Thrope some human children could play on the roof too- Razra had been asking her for a while (’Why won’t you let me come play, hmm?’, ’Molozor always plays with Jeitar, how come I can’t come too?’). Ms Thrope shot that suggestion down immediately, with something akin to horror on her face.