Braving the Elements

5: Chapter

The gently sloping grasslands gradually descended into broad fens. Petra and Naia sculpted the landscape before them into a passable road, but the foursome still had to slow their pace. It seemed even the formidable control the nymphs exercised over the elements had its limits.

"I thought we would have seen something by now," said Rajke. "Natan's parents said he was going to a school. I pictured something like Aldonis' College or the Universét ji Saloquín, you know?"

From their blank stares, Rajke gathered that Petra, Melia, and Naia did not know.

"Grand estates with many big stone buildings. Statues, and pillars, and shining brass domes."

Petra raised her eyebrows, seemingly impressed. "I would like to see that. I always liked to see the things you people do with stone."

"Yeah, well, I don't see anything like that out here." There was light tree cover ahead, barely thick enough to be called a forest. The trees were tall pines, with far-reaching but sparse, needled canopies. There seemed to be an awful lot of brown interspersed between the green needles, and perhaps some movement too.

"I think I see..." Rajke trailed off as he slung his backpack off one shoulder. He dug around and pulled out a small cylinder, about as long as the width of his fist. He held it to his eye and through it spied the treeline.

"Oh! Is that a double lens?" asked Petra, intrigued.

"Uhh..." said Rajke, looking at the contraption. "Yeah. It's usually called a spyglass or field glass where I'm from, but it does have two lenses, so I think we mean the same thing."

"I love lenses, another brilliant thing your people do with stone!" Petra beamed, somewhat uncharacteristically. She was still as majestic as ever, but her high cheekbones seemed to lift even higher, pushed up by a delighted grin.

"Unfortunately, this one is not particularly brilliant. You wouldn't believe how expensive these things are. This one was all I could afford. It's barely any better than squinting and leaning forward."

"Can I see?" She asked politely.

Rajke handed over the device. "It looks like Kovrim," he said, pointing to the treeline, referring to the movement he had seen through the glass.

Petra took the device but looked confused. "Kovrim?"

Rajke looked to Naia and Melia. "Kovrim?" he asked looking for a glimmer of recognition. Nothing. "Gbolima? Podris? Hakors?" he tried, offering a few of the many, many names the Kovrim had for themselves in their myriad languages.

Seeing no hint of understanding, he tried some of the names humans used for them. "Toothers? Hordelings? Goblins?"

Melia and Naia exchanged a look and shook their heads. Petra was looking through the glass, her brow knit in confusion and fascination.

Rajke didn't try any of the nastier terms humans used for the Kovrim, though there were many. He figured the elementals wouldn't know them anyway. "I'm shocked. I get that there are some things you don't know, but... Wait. You know about elves, right?"

Maia nodded. "Remember? I told you about the mage that gave us these." She held up her hand, showing her electrum ring.

Rajke remembered, "Right, what about gnomes?"

"Yes, we've met a few gnomes," said Melia, looking intently at the trees. "Are the Kovrim like gnomes?"

"No," said Rajke. "Well, they are small, like gnomes. Even smaller, most of the time. But that's where the similarities end. What about Dji and the Dji'ayants."

"Of course, we know Dji," said Petra, still staring through the glass. "They are practically cousins."

"Right," said Rajke. "Oh, if you don't know the Kovrim, then you probably don't know their elfkin, either, they're called War-kind, but they tend to abbreviate it

orc

. They are an interesting bunch."

"I've met an orc," said Melia.

The other two nymphs looked at her in surprise. Petra lowered the glass for the first time since Rajke handed it to her.

"When was this?" asked Petra.

Melia shrugged. "Two... three hundred years back."

The others exchanged glances, quietly waiting for Melia to explain. But Melia didn't seem interested in divulging. Instead, she just resumed walking calmly toward the Kovrim tree camp.

After a moment of shocked silence, Naia and Petra followed, Rajke close behind.

"So what is the problem with Kovrim?" asked Naia.

The way she asked it took Rajke aback.

What's

wrong

with them? Nothing was

wrong

with them.

"What do you mean, Naia?"

Naia immediately looked abashed. "No, sorry. I didn't mean it like that. It's just... Earlier, when you said 'Looks like kovrim.' You felt hopeful, but also worried. I just meant to ask what worried you about kovrim." She grimaced, embarrassed about her poor choice of words.

Rajke understood. "Well. Kovrim can be difficult to deal with. First, they have as many different cultures, customs, and languages as all the other speaking species combined. Maybe more. All the way out here, the chances are slim that this horde speaks one of the two kovrim languages I can barely pretend to know. They might speak a human, gnome, or dji language, but I wouldn't count on it.

"And the culture can be tricky too. Each horde is different, of course, but altogether, they tend to be pretty different from humans. And humans, being what we are, have not, by and large, treated them well. It's caused a lot of tension between our species."

"What do you mean by that?" asked Petra. "About humans, 'being what you are.'"

"You know," said Rajke, fully expecting Petra to know what he meant without having to say it.

When Petra showed no hint of catching on, Rajke took a deep breath. "Humans are..." he halted, looking for the right words. "An elf once told me, 'Humans don't know how to garden. You only know how to pull weeds.'"

The three nymphs mulled the words over.

"It's like," continued Rajke, "we don't see each plant for what it is. We just make rules. These kinds of plants are

bad

, and these are

good

. And we kill the bad ones and tend to the good ones, and we teach our children the rules, and pretty soon, we don't even know why we are pulling the weeds in the first place."

The foursome was still a short bow's volley from the treeline, but Rajke was beginning to see the shape of a kovrim tree city come into view. Chaotic spasms of wood and rope formed irregular structures without pattern or system. Bridges, ladders, and tight ropes crisscrossed the space between branches and edifices - not as neatly as a spider's web, but with much the same effect.

Tiny figures in the distance scampered and scurried across the arboreal skyway, barely more than green and brown dots.

"Hold up," said Rajke. "We shouldn't get too close just yet. Like I said, not all kovrim hordes are the same, but it's frequently a custom to let them approach you, to show you are not hostile."

Melia, still leading the way, slowed but did not stop. "I could try to connect with them," she said, pointing to her magical diadem. "One of them, at least."

Petra's eyes never left the trees, but she responded. "I cannot make you do anything, but I would caution against it. It is plain they are more chaotic than humans. There's no telling how you will react to the connection."

Rajke frowned a little. "A lot of humans think they are chaotic too. But I'm not so sure. It might look messy to us, but there is a reason for everything they do and build." Remembering a campfire discussion with a young naturalist, Rajke thought of a metaphor that Melia, at least, was sure to understand. "They're like a slime mold. It might seem like randomness and disorder, but a slime mold's veins are highly optimized to transport nutrients quickly and efficiently throughout its body."

"Obviously," snorted Melia, unimpressed. "See how most rope paths cross several buildings, not just one. This is a very well-thought-out community."

"Rajke," said Petra. "I think you and I may mean something different when we say 'chaotic'" Her words were more inquisitive than reproachful. She was intrigued by the differences in their language and mentality.

She continued, "To me, 'chaos' is not antithetical to reason, or care, or even planning. In fact, your elvish quote about humans as gardeners illustrates quite nicely. If I understand you, correctly, then I take it to mean that humans establish values, reasons, and judgements rather firmly and have difficulty changing or adapting.

"When I called these creatures 'chaotic,' I simply meant that they seem to be more flexible. Their values and reasons change quickly and often."

Rajke was intrigued. He wanted to ponder on what she said, but a more immediate question pressed him to put philosophy aside for the moment. "You got all that from seeing the faint outline of a few tree houses.

Petra smiled, and tossed Rajke his field glass. "I saw more than just faint outlines."

Puzzled, Rajke looked through the glass, and jumped in surprise. Through the glass, the settlement seemed almost on top of him. Rajke looked down at the eyepiece, and through it again, checking to make sure he was seeing right. "What did you do?"

Petra laughed, apparently pleased with Rajke's appreciation. "Glass is made of the same stuff as sand and stone. It was nothing. Think it's about three times magnification now. About three and a fifth, actually."

"Sure," admitted Rajke, "Do you realize that if I sold this field glass now, I could buy a fief in Talmark. A small one in the country, but still!" Rajke marveled and Petra beamed.

"I've had a long time to practice."

Never one to be distracted when a question needed answering, Rajke circled back to his original query. "Still, how can you tell they have flexible values and all that just from what you see?"

"Look at the main trunk of one of the larger trees. What do you see?"

Through the glass, Rajke observed that at the crux of the trunk and branches there was a scattering of old wood and frayed rope cord. The same was true for another tree Rajke checked. And another. "They look... I dunno... abandoned."

Petra nodded. "Sure, abandoned. But also old."

Rajke looked more closely and, sure enough, spotted signs that the loose material was more weathered, and sun bleached than the material that made up the rest of the city.

"And does it look like the former structures were destroyed? By a storm, or some great beast, perhaps?"

Rajke considered, and responded "No. It looks like they were taken apart."

"Yes, but not completely disassembled, or there would be nothing left to see."

Rajke thought for a moment, but eventually said, "I could spend an hour or two figuring this out, but why don't you spare me the embarrassment and tell me what it means."

"Just what I said. Some time ago, but not too long ago, or the wood would have rotted away, these people had reason to build on the trunk of these trees. Maybe the trees were younger, so the trunk was the only place strong enough. I don't know. But then..." she snapped her fingers. "Something changed. They started building out on the limbs, and they pulled apart the homes of their parents and grandparents for spare parts."

Rajke nodded. "So... they never stop asking why they bother to pull weeds."

"Precisely. Furthermore, which plants count as

weeds

and which are worth cultivating, is not a list set in stone. It's a judgment. Something they have to decide upon each and every time they pull."

"Hmm. And this chaos - this flexible mindset - it's bad for you somehow?"

"No, not bad. But it is different. It's like being intoxicated. Both sobriety and intoxication can be pleasant. Both can be miserable. But if you are focused on a task while sober, getting intoxicated is rarely productive."

"Oh, better not then," said Rajke. "As horney as you all are, if you got drunk on chaos you might just kill me by way of sexual dehydration."

All three of the Nymphs laughed, but none harder than Melia. "You think you would survive long enough to die of dehydration? Ha!"

Rajke had just been joking, but now worried that he may have been closer to the truth than he thought.

"Petra's right, though," she said when the chuckles died. "But if we don't share a language, connecting with one might be the only way we can communicate."

Petra didn't say anything. It was clear that she trusted her companions to make sound judgements without her mandate, just as it was clear her companions trusted her leadership enough to take her suggestions seriously.

"There," said Melia, pointing at one of the nearest trees. A host of kovrim where amassing. Some were looking at Rajke and the Nymphs, some seemed to be discussing what to do. Discussions among kovrim could often involve blood and blades, but this time, at least, it seemed teeth and claws where all that was required.

"I like these folk," Said Melia.

"Yeah," said Rajke, smiling a little. "Humans and Kovrim don't usually get along, but I think they are pretty great. I've never once known a kovir to lie. Very communal people, by and large. They don't hide much from each other. They shit, and fight, and fuck in the open. They share most of their property.

"Well..." Rajke said, reconsidering his last statement. "Maybe 'share' is the wrong word. They take things from one another without asking. And they'll fight over it if they disagree about who should have it. It's complicated. You'll see."

Suddenly remembering something that might be very important, Rajke added "And I wouldn't recommend having sex with them."

"Why the hell not?" she asked, incredulous.

Rajke didn't get a chance to explain because a small band of about thirty kovrim had descended from the trees and were now charging the adventurers, mostly galloping on all four limbs, moving quickly with their long arms and digitigrade feet.

This group was mostly brown-green with black hair - which was common enough for their kind. Their black and yellow eyes were striking, and their mouths were fairly wide, with short noses. Some goblin faces extended in a short muzzle, but these had more rounded heads. As they grew closer, Rajke also realized they were rather large for goblins, about as big as most gnomes.

"Rajke," said Naia. She grabbed Rajke's arm, and there was a note of worry in her voice. "This is our first time interacting with creatures whose emotions we cannot sense. The Mind Shields were a great idea, but this is a very unusual experience, and I don't much like it."

Rajke quickly looked at the other two, to gauge how they were feeling. Petra had gone stone-faced, betraying nothing, and Melia's eyes gleamed with interest.

"It's alright. Um...." he thought quickly, trying to decide what he could say that might help. "You can still feel me, right? Focus on what I'm feeling. You'll be able to tell if there is something to worry about."

The kovrim were almost on them. Naia, took a deep breath.

"I know it's a little intimidating - how fast they run at you. But they don't mean anything by it. Kovrim just don't mosey like humans do. If there is somewhere to be, they get there fast. They have lots of energy, kind of like human children. They can run all day and not get tired. I think running might be more natural than walking for them."

Rajke realized he was rambling, and he would be lying if he said it wasn't because he, too, was a little nervous.

"If they wanted to fight, they would have fired arrows already," he said in a last ditch effort to calm himself and Naia.

The leading kovrim halted ten feet from Melia. Soon the whole band was standing, leaning forward on the knuckles of their large, four-fingered hands, but barely even panting.

There was silence for a spell, and Rajke decided the band was waiting for his group to speak first.

Rajke started in his native language. He was from the northeasternmost reaches of Torva, which wasn't close, but was still close enough they might have encountered people from there.

"Hello, I am Rajke. This is Melia, Petra, and Naia," he said, pointing to himself and each nymph in turn. He kept his voice slow and calm, but mentally kicked himself for it.

Slow and calm is for dogs and horses.

Kovrim usually talked in a quick monotone with lots of gestures and facial expressions. Inflection was often interpreted as a sign of extreme emotion. Yet another cause for culture clash between their kind and his. Humans thought kovrim were stern and angry, while kovrim thought humans were dim witted and emotionally erratic.

Adjusting his tone and posture, he continued. "Wearelookingforflatfeet" he pointed to his eyes and feet as he mentioned them, using a common kovrim term for humans. He then repeated the message in the two kovrim languages he knew.

One of the kovrim stepped up and responded in a language Rajke felt like he had heard before but did not know.

Rajke flicked his tongue. He had once done a job with a koviri named Tik who had taught him that instead of shaking and nodding one's head, with kovrim one should show one's tongue for no, and snap one's teeth for yes. "'No' is nasty, yuk!" Tik had said in his raspy voice, flicking his tongue out briefly as he exclaimed. "'Yes' is tasty!" he had said, biting the air.

For a long moment, he worried that this group did not share that particular custom - that he was making a fool of himself, or worse, offending them. So he was relieved when, after a moment of exchanged looks he saw several of the kovrim respond in kind.

The kovrim began to chatter among themselves. Rajke pulled his pack round to his front and fished around inside, producing a small, leatherbound notebook and a writing device he had bought in Hassala. It was a wooden stick, with a core made from a mixture of charcoal and wax. It was called a shisano, but people in the north usually called them "markers."

Rajke had once seen a kovir drawing pictographic people, and instead of stick figures like humans used, the kovir had drawn just two rectangles, a small one representing the head, and a large one representing the rest of the body. So on one page he drew a basic house, and a boxy figure of a large person and a few smaller ones for little people - children. Rajke hoped the box-people were another ubiquitous element of the larger kovrim culture.

He showed one of the kovrim, and all gathered around, going so far as to literally climb on top of one another to get a good look. Rajke pointed to his eyes. "Have-you-seen..." he pointed around them "...near-here..." he pointed a the person and then to himself "...flat-foot with" he pointed at the small people in the drawing, and indicated with his hand a height about three feet off the ground "...and-children..." last he pointed at the building "...and-a-building."

There was a brief moment of silence, and then a clicking sound. And another. All of the sudden there was a chorus of chattering teeth all around Rajke, and the kovrim were pointing north west - not directly at their city, but through the treeline just westward of it.

Rajke nodded his head excitedly, "Yes? I mean..." he snapped his teeth and reminded himself to keep his tone level. Hepointed at the drawing and then to the north west.

A few of the kovrim took off in that direction. Feeling it was appropriate to show gratitude for their help, Rajke looked around in his pack for something he could give them. As he searched, the spy glass slipped out. There was an immediate scramble as several of the kovrim tried to snatch it up.

Tik had told him that when kovrim tried to take something from him, he shouldn't let them. That it was fine to push, shove, smack, bite, or scratch anyone trying to wrest something away from him, and if he didn't fight for his things, he would come off as slow and stupid. Still, Rajke didn't have much experience with kovrim outside of those who chose to live life in cities among humans and gnomes. So by the time he figured out that he should be getting into the mix, one of the kovrim had already won the row and taken off toward the tree settlement with their prize.