the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes...

[goddessnanshe]

Morning of 21st June

It's still raining, though not as heavily as earlier, but I couldn't wait any longer to come out here and see what has happened. I was wakened in the early hours of Sunday by a strange feeling of pressure and brilliant light, but my cell was completely dark. I walked through the abbey, and all was still and shadowed. Anyone else

Comments

[samuel_durand]

Syl wonders aloud if I've come to join the local church, and Noma finds me continuing to style myself 'Brother' peculiar, given the length of my absence from the cloister. I spare all assembled any number of possible lengthy justifications based in the long history of mendicant orders of wandering friars, or solitary anchorites, and instead just hold my hands with palms up and shrug helplessly. She doesn't seem to mean anything by it, and I return her smile. I even chuckle at her joke, and affect to cast my eyes gently heavenward as though in a good-natured plea for patience. Inwardly I want to groan.

But what she says next draws me up short.

"Those sound useful indeed, although I wonder if a knowledge of the supernatural would be more helpful here..."

If I hadn't mastered my emotions long ago, my mouth would be hanging open wide enough for woodland creatures to nest in. As it is, I blink perhaps more than is necessary to clear the rain from my eyes, and let a few beats of silence pass. "Ah. Right. Fair enough. I'm afraid I might be somewhat less useful in that department. Slept right through that portion of my education, no doubt."

What, exactly have I stumbled onto? Local superstition? I find myself cautiously excited for the first time since my arrival. At last I have a thread to start unraveling.

I look to the others, study their faces to see if they find her remark unusual, and then move to one side to ostensibly begin a slow inspection of the damage. Mainly I want to keep an ear cocked to whatever conversation that follows.

[jack_hollow]

Mean, we ain't away, exactly, but it's still a bit fuzzy. Like the time with Miss Lannie and that bastard Donner, 'cept I'm pretty sure it ain't that bad. Damn glad for the rain, for a change, 'cause when I get out ta here I can see what was done--maybe not how--and the thought of all this catchin' and burning...

Well, ain't the only one out here, an' guess I ain't that surprised. See Chester an' a woman with him standing off quiet ta one side, and nod to him, but leave it at that, make my way through the rest of the blast ta the three women and the man standin' there.

"I wonder if a knowledge of the supernatural would be more helpful here..."

"Could be, ma'am," I say, coming up. "'magine we c'n manage that," though I don't look over at Chester, 'cause I ain't gonna draw attention ta a deputy who's tryna keep his head down. "Miss Thorn, Brother Samuel, ladies..." Trail off an' I straighten up, getting a look at the two women I don't know, 'cept I think I ought to know one.

"Morning, ladies," I say, nodding to the one picking at the tree. "Deputy Hollow." Turn ta the other and dip my my head a bit, and taking off my hat never mind the rain. "I ain't-- I am afraid that if we've met, ma'am, then I have missed your name." Maybe at the Dormouse, I guess, but not anytime I can place. Strangest damn idea runs through my head, that maybe I knew her sister back before, maybe Waterkey knew her, maybe...

"You bin out here long?" I say, glancing 'round at the four of them.

[goddessnanshe]

I know who he is, of course, this tall man who does not need to dream - or sleep, or eat. I wonder if this wet weather is bad for him. But he takes off his hat despite the rain, and that makes me smile.

I ain't-- I am afraid that if we've met, ma'am, then I have missed your name."

"I'm Noma," I say, "and I don't think we've met, Deputy. I live at the abbey."I smile at him. "I arrived only a few moments ago."

[syl_thorn]

Jesus Christ, now th'law's gettin' involved. So much ferra quiet bloody mornin'. Startin' t'wonder if'n I need a new place t'hold m'rites. I nod t'th'lawman when'e says m'name, an' go back t'studyin' th'ground. "Ah. Right. Fair enough. I'm afraid I might be somewhat less useful in that department. Slept right through that portion of my education, no doubt." Th'monk says. Well, 'e'll be fair useless, 'en.

But'e did ask a fair question b'fore. "I di'n't see't. Wuz'n bed, but I sensed th'power, smelled th'smoke." Shake m'head. "Any'a you see what happened, 'sides from one helluva big fire?"

[jack_hollow]

"Miss Noma," I say gravely. "Glad t'meet you, ma'am. Hope you're settlin' in well." Samuel's lookin' like he's tryna make himself useful, at least, and I glance from him back ta Thorn. But if Noma says she just got here a few minutes ago and she's bin at the Abbey guessin' they didn't come together... "C'n I ask what brought you out?"

"I di'n't see't. Wuz'n bed, but I sensed th'power, smelled th'smoke," Thorn says. Glance 'round t'wards the Carnivale, not that I c'n see it from here, and guess there was one helluva kick ta whatever happened. "Any'a you see what happened, 'sides from one helluva big fire?"

"Sorry," I say, shakin' my head. "Just heard 'bout it second-hand, an' I don't know that she saw much either. Ah..." Take another look around. Hell, don't know what happened here but pretty sure it wasn't some kids gettin' bored and sneakin' all the way out here with a bottle. Ain't never that simple.

"Miss Thorn? I'm guessing... mean, I've heard 'bout some a' your work... mean. Er." I sigh. "I'd sure 'preciate hearin' what you had ta say. If ya could."

[samuel_durand]

I'm the odd man out, that much is clear. Even the ones who don't know each other still share the bond of community. I'm still on the outside, looking in. It's worth wondering whether they already know more than they're letting on. At least one person answers my question, and directs it to the others. And Deputy Hollow appears to gently be herding others toward some answers. But if I want to get to the bottom of things, I may have to do a little bit of legwork myself.

Supernatural indeed. If I need to channel the spirits of my ancestors or some such rot in order to break down a thermobaric reaction, I'd bloody well better just hang it up.

I need to be higher. Between all the people gathered around and the remnants of destruction scattered about, I just can't see what I need to see from down here. Looking around for a few moments, I find what looks like a good spot: a massing of debris, charred and twisted trunks and detritus, and not far enough from the main group to be completely out of earshot. I climb it nimbly enough, and find a roughly horizontal point on a snapped-off trunk some ten or twelve feet above the ground where I crouch to survey the area.

Hmmm. "There were multiple blast waves," I note, loud enough to be heard over the rain. "And of differing strengths." To the trained eye it is clear enough from the distribution pattern of the debris: things already leveled are flung farther than things being newly wrenched out of the ground by the blast. If we were high enough up and looking down, I imagine we'd see something like a series of rough concentric circles with distribution more and more uneven as one approached the edge. Something nags at me, but I can't quite determine what it is.

Climbing back down proves more difficult than climbing up, fighting gravity on the slick wood, but I manage to make it down without mishap. I test the ground, mud and ash, but... "Not much crystallization." Now that is unusual. Most explosives powerful enough to cause this kind of damage heat the blast area to nearly 2000 degrees Centigrade. "Unusual. From the blast alone, one would expect the temperature to be much hotter. There ought to be crystal nucleation, like you see if you dig where lightning has struck."

What could it have been? Magnesium burns much too hot, and a phosphorus reaction would probably still be potent enough to burn through our boots, rain or no rain. An explosion of natural gas? Can't rule it out, but where would the pressure have built up in all this open air? And it certainly wouldn't explain the pristine center.

I move to a spot near where the woman Syl was when I first approached, in the untouched hurricane's eye. A mystery of the first order, how such a blast happening just outside could have managed not to even flatten the... Hang on. The grass along one side is mashed, not just weighed down and sodden with water. Too widespread and evenly distributed to be the crisscrossing of foot traffic. A long, broad weight...

I drop to all fours in the sodden grass, my nose not two inches from the ground as I run my fingers through the creases and folds of the grassblades, until-- I examine the red-brown muck under my fingernails. "Someone may have been lying here. There was blood. Quite a lot of it, I should imagine. Else not even this bit would have survived the rain."

[goddessnanshe]

"Glad t'meet you, ma'am. Hope you're settlin' in well."

"I am, thank you," I say, smiling. "Everyone at the abbey is very kind."

Brother Samuel makes a detailed examination of the place, and I am curious. He seems to know a great many things for a monk. Not that monks cannot be educated, but not normally in matters such as these. But his next words catch me.

"Blood?" I kneel down next to him. "I don't suppose there's any way to tell if it is animal or human."

[syl_thorn]

"Sorry," th'lawman says, an' shakes'is head. "Just heard 'bout it second-hand, an' I don't know that she saw much either. Ah...Miss Thorn? I'm guessing... mean, I've heard 'bout some a' your work... mean. Er. I'd sure 'preciate hearin' what you had ta say. If ya could."

I nod, cuzzit is rather what I do. Part'a me thinks I oughta ask fer payment, if'n th'bloody town 'ffic'als's gettin' involved, but I bite't back. We's all here, annit wouldn't be nothin' more'n I'd be doin' on m'own, so...

"From what I can tell," I says, pacin' 'round th'edges 'a th'circle, "...well. Pretty clear't wuzza blast'a power. Likely fire. But't don't feel like anythin't wuz meant, if'n y'get m'meanin'. Feels like..." Pause, shake m'head 'gain. "Feels like'n amateur. But not total, annat's what's buggin' me." Look up, an'ey's starin't me, an'I sigh. "Well, look, see'ere, where th'grass ain't scorched'n th'middle? 'at feels t'me like a circle'a protection. Annat ain't 'n amateur's trick. A real bloody amateur woulda gotten'emselves broiled 'long wit' th'trees. So somebody here knows t'protect'erself, but can't control 'er own powers. I don't rightly get't, t'be honest."

Just finished sayin'is when th'monk, Samuel, calls, "Someone may have been lying here. There was blood. Quite a lot of it, I should imagine. Else not even this bit would have survived the rain."

"Blood?" Says Noma, "I don't suppose there's any way to tell if it is animal or human."

"Lemme see," I says, walkin' over t'em. I see what Samuel means - there's a smeared red stain on th'grass. Bend down, take onna th'blades'a grass 'tween m'fingers, an'I roll't cross m'tongue, suckin' onnit.

An'en I freeze.

"'scuse me," I says, grittin' m'teeth. "I gotta find someone who oughta be dead an' kick'm square'n th'balls."

[jack_hollow]

Huh. Samuel's on 'bout some things I ain't following the particulars of, though if it boils down to not that hot, several times over guess I c'n follow it. Copy down what he's sayin' for Mab, though, holdin' my hat over the page in my off hand ta keep it dry. Way he's describin' it...

God pounds his nails. Fer a second I imagine what that'd look like, an' I look around in the rain and shiver.

"Pretty clear't wuzza blast'a power. Likely fire. But't don't feel like anythin't wuz meant, if'n y'get m'meanin'. Feels like... Feels like'n amateur. But not total, annat's what's buggin' me," Thorn says.

"Well, look, see'ere, where th'grass ain't scorched'n th'middle? 'at feels t'me like a circle'a protection. Annat ain't 'n amateur's trick. A real bloody amateur woulda gotten'emselves broiled 'long wit' th'trees. So somebody here knows t'protect'erself, but can't control 'er own powers. I don't rightly get't, t'be honest."

"Maybe..." Think about it a sec an' shake my head. "Could she be used ta the protectin', and just started flailin' round for the rest? Like used ta usin' a shield, an' then tryna beat someone over the head with it?"

An' then Samuel finds blood, an' aw hell. Close my eyes a second. Miss Noma goes and kneels down.

"You sure it's from the same time?" I say. Mean, bin more'n a day. Can see one person comin' out ta look, another showin' up and bad luck says the two have some kinda grudge goin'...

"'scuse me. I gotta find someone who oughta be dead an' kick'm square'n th'balls."

Gotta say I was not expectin' that.

"Miss Thorn?" I say carefully. "Ah-- mean, could you--" And then it dawns on me, cold and clear and awful, who oughtta be dead and could maybe get that kinda reaction. Can feel the candle buckle and flare inside me, and put one hand up as if I were tryna shade my eyes. Just workin' on keepin' the rain outta them.

"C'n I help you with the finding?" is what I settle on. Because Christ damn well knows that if Donner is around I'd like to know soon as I can and get him caught quicker than that.

[samuel_durand]

I cannot quite follow all that is being said by the others, and it isn't just Syl's clipped words that I mean. Unfamiliar terms are being bandied about-- well, not that the words themselves are unfamiliar, but their usage suggests loadings that escape me completely. Terms like 'power,' 'circle of protection,' and so forth. I commit them to memory, falling still and quiet as I listen.

The strangest bit is, even though some of them don't even know each other, all of them are on the same wavelength, speaking the same shorthand, operating from the same basic assumptions. Something in that garbled jargon explained it all for them, and I realize that they don't even have to hide things from me: like a child being talked over by adults, I simply lack the knowledge to understand. It is incredibly frustrating, their certainty doubly so. No one asks anything like 'Even if someone in the center could somehow survive such a blast, what were they breathing in an inferno-created vacuum?' For them, the capacities of the central active mechanism are clear, therefore the question irrelevant.

Noma joins me after I find the blood, a salve to a wounded pride I hadn't even known I possessed. I'm about to tell her that with the blood having dried and then been reconstituted by rain, I would need a microscope-- and then Syl comes over and tastes the thrice-damned bloodstained grass. I think for a moment that I know what she's up to, tasting for the differences in iron and copper content that can differentiate human from animal blood, and I am impressed. Though I don't think it'll work. Too many of the trace elements would have been leached out by rain.

But her face hardens in --recognition?-- and I realize I'm off. Way off.

"Ought to be dead?" I repeat neutrally, running on autopilot as my brain continues to scramble. "Can I assume you mean something a bit more than just that he was recently lying prone and bleeding out in the middle of a pyroclasm?"

[goddessnanshe]

Should be dead. The deputy's face goes still, like a candle blown out, but I don't think he has the right idea. I ignore Brother Samuel, because he has no idea what's going on, no matter his effort to cover that with long words, and right now what Syl is saying is more important.

"Is it -" I say to her, and roll my eyes skyward. She knows who I mean.

[syl_thorn]

'm tryin' t'breathe out hard through m'nose. S'bout th'only thin't's keepin' me from screamin' curses 'n puttin' m'fist through a fuckin' tree. Tez. Fuckin' Tez. 'e puts me'n Genny through alla'is an'e comes waltzin' right back like't ain't nothin'...

"Miss Thorn? Ah-- mean, could you--C'n I help you with the finding?" S'th'lawman, an'I dunno what bizness'e'd have wit' Tez. 'e sounds scared too, almost, an'I dunno what reason th'town law'd have t'be scared'a Tez. Well, no reason't wouldn't also lead t'bein' scared'a me. So I don't rightly know what'e's on 'bout.

Luck'ly Samuel jumps in. "Ought to be dead? Can I assume you mean something a bit more than just that he was recently lying prone and bleeding out in the middle of a pyroclasm?"

"Y'can." I says, bit sharp. Nanshe's lookin' worried, an' she turns'er eyes up t'th'sky. Yeah, she gets't, an'I nod when she looks back't me. Tez. What th'bloody hell'd 'e manage? Did'e come back jes' now? Izzis what happened when'e shoved'imself back inta meat? 'r did'e jes' fuck up like'e always duz?