She found it strange that although he did not know about Lim’s wife or child, he had many questions to ask about the man who had told her of them.
The troupe of Bondri Gesel had come far from the slopes of the North Watcher – Silver-seam and all relevant honorifics – when the senior giligee approached Bondri while keening the preliminary phrases of a dirge. Words were hardly necessary under the circumstances. The old Prime Priest was barely able to stagger along, and even when they carried him, they had to jiggle him to keep his breath from catching in his throat.
‘Bondri, Troupe-leader, Messenger of the Gods, one among us has a brain-bird crying for release.’ So sang the giligee.
Bondri sagged. ‘Prime Priest Favel,’ he hummed, subvocalizing. The giligee wagged her ears in assent. Well, there was nothing for it but to halt for a time. The Prime Priest deserved that, at least. Every viggy needed a quiet time to set the mind at rest and prepare the brain-bird. ‘We make our rest here,’ Bondri sang, leader to troupe admitting of no contradiction. The giligee was already circulating among the others, letting those know who had not the wits to see it for themselves.
‘I am glad of a rest,’ the Prime Priest warbled, breathily. ‘Glad, Bondri Gesel.’
‘So are we all,’ Bondri replied gently. ‘See, the young ones have made you a comfortable couch.’ He helped the old viggy toward the low bench of fronds, which the young ones had spread on a shelf of soil overlooking the valley beyond. From this vantage point one could look back on the Tineea Singers, the Ones Who Welcome Without Meaning It, arrayed against the sky, almost equidistant from one another and too close for easy passage among them. The Singers had gained their name in immemorial times; no viggy worth his grated brush bark would try to sing a way among them, though young ones sometimes dared each other to try. The song that worked for one did not work for the next, and they were too close to separate the sounds. The Loudsingers had a way to get through, but the only safe viggy way was around.
‘The Ones Who,’ mused Prime Priest Favel. ‘I have not been this way in a generation. I had forgotten how beautiful they are.’
Bondri looked at them, startled into perception of them as newly seen. Indeed, when not considered as a barrier, they were very beautiful. Pillars of diamond lit with rainbow light, their varying heights and masses grouped in such a way that the heart caught in the throat when one saw them at dawn or at dusk. ‘They are beautiful,’ Bondri agreed. ‘But perverse. They do not respond honestly to us.’
‘Like a young female,’ Favel sighed. ‘Singing tease.’
Bondri was surprised at this. ‘Tease?’
‘Yes. She is too young for mating yet, she has nothing to give, really, but she sings tease. The Loudsingers have a word for it. Flirt. She sings flirt.’
‘Tineea,’ Bondri sang softly. ‘The songs of maidenhood.’
‘The Ones Who are like that. They flirt, tease, sing tineea to entice us. But they have nothing yet to give us. Perhaps one day, they will.’
‘That is true,’ whispered Bondri. Newly awakened to loveliness, he stood beside the old priest for a long time more, wondering if The Ones Who could perceive their own beauty.
‘Enjoy the aspect, old one,’ he said as he returned to the others of the troupe.
‘Is he at peace?’ inquired the giligee as she busily grated brush bark, using a crystal-mouse jawbone as a grater, onto several criss-crossed and immature tree fronds. When heaped with grated bark, the fronds would be folded, then twisted to press out the refreshing bark juice, a drink for all in the troupe to share. Both the mouse jaw and the tree fronds were in keeping with viggy law concerning tools. Tools were expected to be natural, invisible, undetectable, as were the etaromimi themselves.
‘Prime Priest Favel admires The Ones Who,’ Bondri warbled, watching as the first juices trickled into an ancestor bowl.
‘Take him drink,’ the giligee said. ‘It is your giligee’s bowl, Bondri. A good omen.’
Bondri picked up the bowl and looked at it. It was a good bowl, clean and gracefully shaped. It was a good omen, bringing to his mind many memories of his giligee. He shared a few of these with the nearby troupe members before mounting the hill once more.
‘Whose bowl is this?’ Favel asked courteously, allowing Bondri to identify the bowl and sing several more little stories concerning his giligee. The time she climbed the tall frond tree and couldn’t get down – that had been before Bondri was even depouched the first time. The way she used to cock one ear, making everyone laugh. Bondri was smiling when he left the old priest, and Favel, left behind to sip his bark sap, was contented as well. It was good to share memories of the troupe.
Memory was such a strange thing. A viggy would experience a thing and remember it. Another viggy would experience the same happening and remember it as well. And yet the two memories would not be the same. On a night of shadow and wind, one viggy might sing that he had seen the spirit of his own giligee, beckoning from beside a Jubal tree. Another viggy might sing he had seen only the wind, moving a veil of dried fronds. What had they seen, a ghost or the fronds? Where was the truth in memory? Somewhere between the spirit and the wind, Favel thought.
When the troupe traveled down a tortuous slope, one would remember pain, another joy. After a mating, one would remember giving, another would remember loss. No one view would tell the truth of what occurred, for truth always lay at the center of many possibilities.
‘Many views yield the truth,’ Favel chanted to himself, very softly. This was the first commandment of
