Shree Sevlanti and the Numinous Lake

by Bosley Gravel

Table of Contents
Part II, installment 1
appears in this issue.

Part II: A Transmuted Death
conclusion

Kladius: “It escaped.”

Thadius: “Jonlok?”

Kladius: “Acting as an ambassador to Sevlanti’s herd. It is at the edge of the valley.”

Sevlanti, now lacking a translator, only nodded his huge head in understanding, although he could not reply.

The news of Kalinon did not seem to be real. Thadius’s throat had a lump in it, As a healer, he knew that both Samuel and Kladius had not accepted Kalinon’s death.

Soon, when the numbness was gone the pain would build, brick by brick, like the King’s Great Wall had risen from the toil of a thousand men who worked for a thousand days. The Warrior’s training helped control the anguish of the loss, but it would never make it go away.

Kladius walked over to the treasure, tapping it with his knuckles. “I fear it will take the strength of—”

Thadius: “An Elephantine?”

Kladius rubbed his bruised face, “Sevlanti, I beg a feat of strength. Free whatever is entombed in this stone.”

Sevlanti rose from his meditation position, and stood, raised his cloak daintily. His leg was like an ancient gray log dusty from his travels. He raised his round foot up, trumpeted into the sky and brought it down on the treasure. As it cracked, an unnatural groan came from within, the voice of something ancient, something not begotten of the Old Ones, but perhaps older still.

Samuel: “Lokkje made that noise when I wounded him.”

The split was not complete, and Sevlanti brought his massive foot down again, this time the thing cracked open and split down the middle like a brittle nut. A light glowed dimly, then brightly, and as if overwhelmed with power, and then it faded completely. A wisp of smoke rose from the two halves, and pooled into the air. The smoke churned into a gnarled mess of color and light and hung over the cracked stone. The spirit spoke through Kladius.

Kladius: “Hail Samuel, Hail the Last Warriors, I am Lokkje, the Sly-One, hidden for an aeon, hidden in the Time Before, brought back by a false prophesy.”

Samuel: “It is mother’s lover, he tricked us. I don’t know how.” His eyes were crazy with the pain-killing root. He rose up, “I will slay you again.”

The spirit laughed and again spoke through Kladius: “Your prize is knowledge, brothers. You seek the Begotten Seraph, but the Seraph is a clumsy imitation of a dream, the fancy of True Men.

“The Old Ones created all but the Wandering Things, the Oracles. The heavens are empty, the throne exists, but none sit upon it, nor ever has. Turn back, beget children, drink wine, eat meat. Your ignorant priests know nothing, they worship their own begotten fantasies.”

Samuel was standing now, his cast only partially dried. He spit to his left and carefully inched toward the treasure, using a stick as a crutch. Kladius was stupidly staring down at the two halves of the rock. A bit of drool rolled down his chin.

Thadius seemed to notice Samuel’s approach in a dim awareness, but he, too, was transfixed on the stones.

Samuel’s cloak had been draped over his shoulders, it slipped to the ground, and he stood naked before the spirit.

Samuel steadied himself with one arm against Sevlanti, who was also mesmerized. The other hand went to his groin; he summoned clarity in his speech, and despite the root’s earthy magic, he found it.

Samuel: “Kurak to Lokkje,” he urinated into the stones, his face in a chilled grin.

The Sly-One hissed like water dropped on a hot cooking pan, and then began to dissipate into the open air.

Kladius slowly realized what was happening. He came out from the trance only partially confused, he had been dreaming that his mouth was full of feathers and every time he spoke more would come up from his throat. But now he realized Lokkje was using his mouth, or perhaps, he thought, it was his ghost, hadn’t Samuel slain the devilish thing? Stubbornly, he denied himself the the anger of Lokkje’s violation.

Samuel grinned with childish satisfaction, and made his way back to his makeshift sick bed. It seemed that Samuel’s urine was enough to drive the Oracle off, either by magic or by insult.

Kladius looked to the stones, the magic was gone; Lokkje had tricked them into loosing his evil back into the world.

The sun was high enough in the sky now to call it morning. Everything looked raw, unreal,an familiar parody of the night before. The stones sat, no magic in them, if it had ever been there.

Samuel: “The second beast had the Wheel. We have failed.”

Kladius threw Samuel’s cloak back to him, “Cover yourself,” he said, and paused, “Samuel, you’ll go with the herd, if they’ll have you. Your recklessness has made you useless to our quest. Thadius, gather what we need, we will meet the herd and exchange greetings.”

Samuel rolled his wild eyes, but said nothing. Thadius began gathering things up.

Sevlanti made his way into the woods’ edge, pulled down tree branches, and stripped off the bark. With leather strapping he took from Jonlok’s bag, he lashed it together making a kind of reinforced sling. Sevlanti made it clear the contraption was to carry Samuel with, the three loaded him into it, and then onto Sevlanti’s back. They began the short trek to the plain to meet the herd.

Samuel, strapped to Shree Sevlanti’s back, watched the distance grow between him and the enchanted lake, and finally become shrouded by the woods.

* * *

In the distance, Kladius could see the advancing herd. There must be seven hundred or more Elephantines, he thought. The herd sat cross-legged, basking their huge bellies in the sun, Jonlok sat with them. Mice crawled up and down their bodies, around in their headdresses, grooming them, making them immaculate. Sevlanti quickened his pace, and broke ahead, running. Samuel bounced on the Elephantine’s back, alternating an angry grimace and annoyed frown.

Kladius, ever the observer, noticed something strange in the very back of herd. It looked like a man on a horse... but it was too far to see, he dismissed it, focusing on the herd. Up ahead Sevlanti was already entwining his trunk with the other Elephantines. Jonlok was up now, his long hair loose, on his head, a make shift headdress from coils of gold and copper, jewels dangled and sparked in the sun and wind.

He met Kladius and quickly briefed him. The herd would take Samuel to the Autumn Orchards, Sevlanti was a respected philosopher, and their kindness had indebted the herd.

Kladius nodded, expecting no less. The loss of Kalinon weighed heavily upon him, and the thought of sending Samuel away squeezed his heart like something parasitic. He pushed the emotion back down. “It is good!” He raised his arm to the herd.

Jonlok: “There is something, more, I told them of our quest, and Sevlanti’s battle. They said they have a gift for us.”

Kladius: “Aye?”

Jonlok motioned to the Elephantines. Sevlanti was making his way around the herd, greeting each and every one, by intertwining his trunk with theirs. They rose up now, and a violet Elephantine came up from the back leading a centaur by a rope lassoed around its man-belly. A rough bit was tied into its mouth so it could not speak. Golden chains bound its two front horse-legs, its wrists in golden cuffs. The brutish thing shook its head at the sight of the True Men. If it had not been bound, it would have been cursing them all.

Kladius, for the first time in months felt hope warm his belly.

Jonlok: “They say he knows where the Saddle Witches will camp this winter. They say he won’t speak of it, but a cunning warrior may drag it out of him, one way or another.”

Kladius: “No doubt he will talk.”

Jonlok: “No doubt in my mind.”

* * *

Samuel hadn’t spoken a word since leaving the lake. Kladius had handed him his feather. Samuel had crushed it in his hand, and dropped it to the ground.

Kladius swiped it up as if the earth might sully it forever. He tried to smooth it out but a single crease remained. He looked at it with a gleam in his eyes as if he was a miser looking at his gold, and then carefully placed it with the others.

Strapped to Sevlanti’s back, there was no way to avoid their eyes, but Samuel tried all the same.

Jonlok: “Sevlanti says that the herd gathers at the Autumn Orchard and shake the apples from the trees and crush them to pulp and make gallons of wine. They drink for three months until the frost sets in, and then they pray for True Men, and they laugh for True Men, and often they cry, but they always praise the universe, the Old Ones, and all that was Begotten. Brother, it should be no different than the temple.”

Samuel: “Kurak to the Autumn Orchard, kurak to True Men, and kurak to the temple.”

Kladius: “It was your own folly that put you here.”

Samuel: “Bah. Kurak to the universe too.”

Samuel boorishly swatted an errant mouse from Sevlanti’s shoulder and watched the mouse fall to the ground and scamper off.

Thadius spoke to Jonlok, detailing the care of his brother, Jonlok passed the information to Sevlanti, who replied they had healers of the True Men close to the Autumn Orchards they could call upon if need be, and with little more to say, they turned the centaur over to the three brothers.

* * *

From the heavens he watched, he saw his three brothers go east, into the dawn, leading the centaur. He saw the Elephantines begin their migration west, all of them like tiny graven images of a child’s toy chest.

The lake was like a half moon surrounded by the green tops of trees, some already turning to golds and reds due to the approaching fall. He wondered if he might be a god with the panorama spread out before him, and the knowing of their past, and something of their future. He floated, drifting, perhaps contained but not bound.

* * *

On the ground, Kladius folded three feathers into his leather wrap. He wrapped a string loosely around his treasure and stowed it deep into his travel bag. Jonlok jerked at the centaur’s tether, and the three brothers and the Saddle Witch’s beast of burden headed into the rising sun.