Extracts
from a diary:
STORM
BIRDS
by Simon Barber
Amelia, Lady Allworthy (neé Amelia Bourne-Phipps) & her
friends
(educated adventuresses all, and warrior priestesses, some)
encounter the world after Songmark Academy
-- beginning July 1937.
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Storm Birds
Thursday July 22nd,
1937by Simon Barber Not the sort of day we had planned. Our first task was to update Helen and Maria with the situation, which Helen took with her usual stoic calm. I was rather reminded of when I had to tell her Maria had “surrendered” to Mr. Pettachi and would need rescuing in a few days. Helen never asks out loud “why me?” but from her expression I believe she thinks it quite a lot. Still, when I explained what had happened she conceded she would have done the same in the circumstances. It is odd that I tend to be the one who ends up in such circumstances. I certainly never look for trouble but it has a habit of finding me regardless. If there was any actual curse on me such as Adele suffered under, I am sure Saimmi would have spotted it by now. I had noticed three plain-clothes furs following us from the hotel, though they did it quite well and changed costumes twice apiece on the way to the docks. Miss Cabot spotted another. There was a police launch idling in the harbour with the engine covers open supposedly having maintenance done, but had we tried to make a dive for the Storm Bird I think we would have soon found it blocking our exit. Having put our departure on hold, Helen was at least glad to get her paws back on solid ground and we were soon back at the hotel where we bathed and got dressed in our travelling best. Sure enough, at nine there was a knock at the door where Tall Pines was there with four police-furs to “safely escort us” to a waiting bus in the street below. This sounds rather like what Eva Schiller has mentioned in her homeland, where various unpopular classes of furs are not officially rounded up and arrested but only “put into protective custody” - although at least we hear the Synod, the equivalent of the local religious authorities, want to meet us. That is less encouraging than it may seem; from Maria’s accounts the equally religious Inquisition was no tea-party for those who it invited to discuss their non-standard theology with. Half an hour later we were on the far side of the city where the steep forested ridges come straight down to meet the buildings; there is no logging within sight of Sealth, probably to keep the surrounding hillsides stable against mud-slides as much as the shamans’ wish to have somewhere unspoiled locally to commune with Nature. No doubt Molly would have made comment about a Spirit Lodge being just like home for a bootlegger. The building was rather like a much inflated Native tepee, except the supports were foot-thick cedar logs and the central hearth one could have roast an ox on - though seeing the species of many of its congregation that might have been an unwise thing to suggest. It seems that Tall Pines must have got quite busy on the telephone last night and told an alarming story. There were forty shamans there to judge by their outfits, of various species but mostly the deer, moose, musk-oxen and elk we had expected. Horns and shamanism seem to go together for some reason. We had pointed out to us as the ranking shaman Grey Cloud, a massive bison in the most elaborate outfit of carved amulets, bones and such that presumably can be read by others in the trade as clearly as a soldier’s rank insignia and medal ribbons. Though there are North Coast style shamans indeed on Spontoon, it is not something we specialised in - as Saimmi has told us, one cannot train to be a shaman, it is something the Spirits choose one for regardless of any other plans one may have had. Certainly, whatever abilities we have seem to be evident at a distance to trained professionals around here. I am not sure if to their senses we glow in the dark or whether some local spirit whispers “the feline in the braces, she done it” but Helen and I were “invited” to step into centre stage while Maria and Miss Cabot were spectators at the edge under the watchful eye of the police-furs. Having called the meeting to order, Grey Cloud cleared a few points up by explaining to us that the Synod is the local religious leadership - it does not only handle the Native beliefs but whatever comes its way - indeed, I spotted an Eastern Orthodox lepine in full regalia and a suave black-clad mink who by her silver question-mark medallion might be one of those Agnostic Missionaries one sees on Casino Island. The shamans are “the senior service” here and are a force to be reckoned with, fully equivalent to the legal judiciary. In other words, if they decide we are in big trouble they will be quite right. Tall Pines started the ball rolling, giving a summary of the facts that we could not argue with. He then called forwards three of his colleagues (an elk, a beaver and unusually enough a wolf) who had examined the polecat in hospital and surveyed the damage. His broken arm is responding to medical treatment but mentally he will be a long time healing if indeed he ever does. It is not that even the super-egalitarian Rain Islanders are that concerned about the welfare of a known criminal caught in the act, but they want to know exactly what I did and how. “Why” is something that the Police Report was fairly even-pawed about. It seems the shamanic tradition can indeed spot the equivalent of a scent on us; there are no doubt canines and boars who could still physically detect the fragrance of Spontoon on us after three days and it seems the spiritual “influences” stick rather longer. Grey Cloud stepped forward and faced us about a body-length away, and chanted as he cast the pawfull of bones - it made no sense to me, but traditions are radically different and that means little (none of us could work out exactly what the Priestess Oharu did on the Krupmark raid, though we could certainly spot it worked). Grey Cloud did not seem too happy about what he read. I somehow got the impression of a backwoods fist-fighter being shown a vision of the Somme or Verdun when asking a stranger if they have any “fancy wrasslin’ tricks” where they come from. Not something he wants to see in his home town. Grey Cloud seemed to have received a fairly wide-ranging dossier from somewhere, including our activities in Antarctica. He referred to the Germans as “Knights of the Great worm”, a phrase we have heard before - and told the assembly of how we had been around when something had been woken that ought not to have been. I whispered to Helen that it looked as if Neue Suden Thule’s security is not as tight as they would wish. She dipped her ears and pointed out it was no living fur who would have leaked this story. Professor Schiller need not warn his folk about mysterious and warm-blooded Agents skiing off across the Antarctic plateau to radio news of his doings and diggings. Shamans talk to spirits, and what happened in the ancient city probably made a sound that is still echoing around the spirit plane. When Tall Pines had finished, I pointed out we had told the Germans to in no circumstances try and break that seal we had found at the lowest level - we had been invited there to give expert opinion and had given it. Further, we were travelling at the request of our adopted homeland and report back to them, not to Rain Island. If they had any questions about that, I suggested they ask Saimmi about it. One of the younger and least decorated wolf shamans seemed to take great exception to this. He stood out declaring I had insulted the authority of the Synod - and while a few of his colleagues told him to back down, others were looking at him somewhat amusedly, “have a go” seeming to be the attitude. Evidently a shaman is a shaman, and they are not strictly organised. At least, Tall Pines sat back and watched rather than intervening one way or another. It is a good thing that Warrior Priestesses are trained in defending themselves - I felt him trying to get the truth out of me with a fair amount of power behind it. Well, we are guests here so it would have been wrong to refuse. I concentrated on that unutterably ancient seal we had seen in the ancient city, then remembered in its fullest detail what was released - and not only showed it to him but did the equivalent of pasting the image in front of his camera so he could see nothing else for a minute. It seems that even adult wolves can howl like cubs. He was quite loud. Tall Pines let it carry on awhile then dispelled what I had done, shaking his head and commenting that he had asked impolitely and I had only satisfied his curiosity. Perhaps permanently, as to that subject. As Molly used to say, too much spirits gives one an awful hangover. Tall Pines apologised for his colleague Clouds Running Dawn (one could have a worse name; Nose Running springs to mind) and asked if he could ask much the same question more politely. I agreed, and at the equivalent of his knock I brought out for inspection something of what we had done on Cranium Island and Krupmark Island - though without saying what the Fragments were. Either the Rain Island shamans already know or they can ask their spirit guides - either way, the details are pretty much “Streng Geheim” as Eva Schiller says about her recipe for Currywurst. I could see Tall Pines was somewhat rocked back on his hooves by our Krupmark Island experiences - evidently such things do not happen in Rain Island and evidently he was very happy that is the case. I would not be surprised if part of our hot reception here was that we are associated with such things, and the local priests want to be very sure nothing is following on our trail. There are advantages with being a shaman, though if they need written notes one of them would have to train as a stenographer. At any rate, I saw the folk in beads and amulets whispering to the Russian Orthodox priest, the Rabbi and the Agnostic Missionary as evidently what one of them knows they all do. We were politely escorted out into a sort of open porch while the furs inside debated quite long and loud about us. Nearly an hour later, we were invited back in. The verdict seemed to be that we were free to go - in fact as soon as possible. Helen pointed out that after all they had done to delay us it was far too late in the day for us to get back to the Storm Bird, get all the pre-flight checks done and start heading across the Rockies - something Tall Pines agreed with. We were “invited” to spend the evening enjoying the hospitality of the Grand Lodge. In other words, where powerfully talented and highly qualified folk could keep an eye on us, probably with the Spirit World looking on to be sure we did not try anything too hideous. From what I gathered, Grey Cloud had been putting two and two together to make a lot more than four: just because we had been associated with some extreme terrors and were trained as Warrior Priestesses does not mean we are liable to unleash anything drastic on Rain Island. Actually, it was quite a fine evening - away from the grand Lodge there are a dozen or so smaller cabins up in the trees, all linked with gravel paths. Some of them are “sweat lodges”, an intriguing idea of combining church and sauna from all I hear. We were shown up to one of the cabins three hundred feet or so up the hill, a cosy enough place with a levelled shelf of hillside just outside it. Having a slightly enforced stopover was a good time for us to get in some exercise - sitting in a pilot's chair and wandering around cities like a tour-boat tourist will soon have us losing conditon. It is awhile since we had a proper self-defence practice, so having stowed our cases which the Synod had arranged to collect from our hotel, we had a most vigorous hour and a half. Our last practice on the beach of South Island seems a very long time ago, though in truth it is only four days. By coincidence, in the cabin next to us a hundred feet away half a dozen of Rain Island's finest were also evidently "on leave" possibly on pilgrimage to the main sweat lodge. They happened to have a pair of young shamans with them, two hefty caribou gentlemen who look like they are the local equipment of "Muscular Christianity" as practiced by Casino Island's Reverend Bingham. In an hour they had evidently finished their duties and came over to make our acquaintance, watching our technique with professional interest. Helen pointed out that we have trained with Rain Island troops before on Spontoon, and indeed they were very cooperative. She mentioned that "raid" on Songmark where they were coming over to plant the flag against our regular night patrols - the atmosphere lightened up considerably when the Sergeant remembered one of his comrades had actually been on that raid and she had told him about it. Evidently that was the girl captured by Prudence's dorm, where they had been speculating whether or not to turn their captive over to the Tutors or keep her for fun. Songmark is evidently getting famous, or perhaps infamous. Helen offered them a re-match against us, considering none of their comrades managed to get into and out of our compound. They declined, which was a pity. An excellent evening all round, and one with a rather finer view (albeit of mostly clouds and wet woodland slopes) than we had from the hotel yeaterday. I asked the shamans if they can do sunshine dances - around here Rain Dances would be certainly surplus! Apparently not - which is a pity. next |