Octans War Chapter 1. End of the World
This was written after the original Chapter 1, which is quite large. This bit was to be a sort of prologue. But since the character appears later in the book as a POV character, it seemed reasonable to turn the prologue into an initial (if rather short) chapter.
Chapter 1. End of the World (10/13/09)
1 The troubadour swam through the outpost at the end of the world, trying to understand what he saw and what scents his arms were picking up. Kervor could see others of the troupe through the clear water at the edge, picking through the litter of suddenly abandoned lives.
2 Everyone had left. He flowed into a few caves to see if anyone had left notes, finding little of interest and no recent records. There would be few softsands in such a new settlement; writing would be a luxury. He found writings, finally, inscribed in a softsand in one of the caves that served as a home until proper corals could be grown-but the sand’s notes were inconsequential, recordings of some meeting of the local governing council almost two moons back. The political types always seemed to want their doings recorded.
3 Kervor had encouraged the rest of the entertainers to make this trip outward from their usual city route, but the eight days of dangerous journey brought them no patronage and no tips. They faced only a mystery. This had been a Lightspinner Tribe village, and it had been started moons ago-the better part of a year. Where were they?
4 Lightspinners had a reputation for pride. They weren’t as fierce as the Blackstones, perhaps, but they weren’t known for swimming away from an unfinished project.
5 The tip of an abdomen backed slowly out of the adjacent cave-the tan skin and network of dark, interconnecting lines marked the female as one of his Whitesands sisters. In another blink, enough of her appeared; it was Tefa. Paska was probably still in the cave.
6 Tefa’s left eye spotted Kervor and she spun and jetted toward him, eight arms gesturing and skin flashing wildly. “Ker, come see this. There is a Lightspinner here!” Fear and astonishment alternated in waves across her skin, and the symbols on her speaker were large with excitement.
7 Kervor jetted with her back to the entrance. She touched down and clung to rocks on the outside, but two arms came up and waved him on in.
8 In he went. There was no timestriker out here, of course, but he knew it was several aurs after noon. The late afternoon sun was more than enough to provide ambient light in this little cave. A couple of armspans in, he was unsurprised to find a body.
9 He had been old, this one-he looked every bit of five years or more and the skin sagged with great age as much as death itself. Three of his arms were gone, but they had been growing back for perhaps a moon or so. A wound stretched across the left side of his head and on back down his side; it also showed signs of healing but looked bad, and deep-especially in the abdomen. And the old Lightspinner had just died within the last day, Kervor guessed. The crabs had hardly gotten a good start on their work.
10 That fabulous skin the Lightspinners were famous for was almost unrecognizable now; decay and apparent starvation had taken the luster from it. Gently, Kervor lifted the old male from the crudely hewn platform he’d rested on. There was a softsand there, and a stylus … and a strange, shiny little bit of artwork. He let that last item sit and turned the softsand to read it-the sand was barely legible and told him little:
11 “I came back,” it said, “to find the all of the settlers gone. It is no surprise. I had gotten away and hid for a time, living on the crabs that will soon have their turn. Something is wrong, inside me, and it grows worse. At least I can die in my new home-but I had hoped to see Duraf again.”
12 The smell of crabs mingled with the smell of death, and irritated Kervor. He was hungry-everything they ate out here had to be wild-caught-but he had no stomach for these death-feasters. They would catch something elsewhere.
13 The little carving caught his attention again. He was no sculptor, but he knew someone who was, and who might appreciate it. The thing had been placed with the sand, almost in invitation. Kervor tucked it into a pouch and moved out of the cave.
14 There was no funeral platform here, no Lightspinner funeral artists. The crabs would finish their work soon enough. It was time to move on.
Kervor, a Whitesands troubadour, visits an apparently abandoned Lightspinner settlement at the edge of the Great Deep called “The End of the World.” He finds little evidence of what happened, but the scrawled writings of a recently-deceased settler-and a curious artifact-offer vague clues.
Chapter 1. End of the World (10/13/09)
1 The troubadour swam through the outpost at the end of the world, trying to understand what he saw and what scents his arms were picking up. Kervor could see others of the troupe through the clear water at the edge, picking through the litter of suddenly abandoned lives.
2 Everyone had left. He flowed into a few caves to see if anyone had left notes, finding little of interest and no recent records. There would be few softsands in such a new settlement; writing would be a luxury. He found writings, finally, inscribed in a softsand in one of the caves that served as a home until proper corals could be grown-but the sand’s notes were inconsequential, recordings of some meeting of the local governing council almost two moons back. The political types always seemed to want their doings recorded.
3 Kervor had encouraged the rest of the entertainers to make this trip outward from their usual city route, but the eight days of dangerous journey brought them no patronage and no tips. They faced only a mystery. This had been a Lightspinner Tribe village, and it had been started moons ago-the better part of a year. Where were they?
4 Lightspinners had a reputation for pride. They weren’t as fierce as the Blackstones, perhaps, but they weren’t known for swimming away from an unfinished project.
5 The tip of an abdomen backed slowly out of the adjacent cave-the tan skin and network of dark, interconnecting lines marked the female as one of his Whitesands sisters. In another blink, enough of her appeared; it was Tefa. Paska was probably still in the cave.
6 Tefa’s left eye spotted Kervor and she spun and jetted toward him, eight arms gesturing and skin flashing wildly. “Ker, come see this. There is a Lightspinner here!” Fear and astonishment alternated in waves across her skin, and the symbols on her speaker were large with excitement.
7 Kervor jetted with her back to the entrance. She touched down and clung to rocks on the outside, but two arms came up and waved him on in.
8 In he went. There was no timestriker out here, of course, but he knew it was several aurs after noon. The late afternoon sun was more than enough to provide ambient light in this little cave. A couple of armspans in, he was unsurprised to find a body.
9 He had been old, this one-he looked every bit of five years or more and the skin sagged with great age as much as death itself. Three of his arms were gone, but they had been growing back for perhaps a moon or so. A wound stretched across the left side of his head and on back down his side; it also showed signs of healing but looked bad, and deep-especially in the abdomen. And the old Lightspinner had just died within the last day, Kervor guessed. The crabs had hardly gotten a good start on their work.
10 That fabulous skin the Lightspinners were famous for was almost unrecognizable now; decay and apparent starvation had taken the luster from it. Gently, Kervor lifted the old male from the crudely hewn platform he’d rested on. There was a softsand there, and a stylus … and a strange, shiny little bit of artwork. He let that last item sit and turned the softsand to read it-the sand was barely legible and told him little:
11 “I came back,” it said, “to find the all of the settlers gone. It is no surprise. I had gotten away and hid for a time, living on the crabs that will soon have their turn. Something is wrong, inside me, and it grows worse. At least I can die in my new home-but I had hoped to see Duraf again.”
12 The smell of crabs mingled with the smell of death, and irritated Kervor. He was hungry-everything they ate out here had to be wild-caught-but he had no stomach for these death-feasters. They would catch something elsewhere.
13 The little carving caught his attention again. He was no sculptor, but he knew someone who was, and who might appreciate it. The thing had been placed with the sand, almost in invitation. Kervor tucked it into a pouch and moved out of the cave.
14 There was no funeral platform here, no Lightspinner funeral artists. The crabs would finish their work soon enough. It was time to move on.
Kervor, a Whitesands troubadour, visits an apparently abandoned Lightspinner settlement at the edge of the Great Deep called “The End of the World.” He finds little evidence of what happened, but the scrawled writings of a recently-deceased settler-and a curious artifact-offer vague clues.