that doesn’t make the road an allegory
I have FINALLY FINALLY FINALLY finished chapter 3 of Demon Hunter! We’re not going to talk about how long I’ve been working on it.
Demon Hunter: Previous Installments
Chapter One: A Single Step
Chapter Two: Leaving the Capital
Chapter Three: Learning Experience (part 1: Gold)
Chapter Three: Learning Experience (part 2: Soap)
The next day found him crouching warily in the shadow of a mud-and-wattle wall, watching the open market in progress in the square. Tables had been set up under shading awnings, selling a bewildering variety of produce, livestock, craft items, tools, goods, clothing, odds and ends-- things Ryuuki didn't even have names for. It was alive with people, too-- farmers toting baskets, middle-aged women haggling for groceries, young ladies swarming and giggling around a table of accessories, a gaggle of young children playing tag around the legs of the shoppers. Ryuuki eyed them warily-- some of them were about his size-- but they were too absorbed in their game to notice him. And anyway, he had other things to worry about.
He clutched the heavy gold coin he'd pried free from the seam of his waistband in nervous fingers. It was a long, flat oval, almost the size of his palm, and the cold metal had warmed from contact with his skin. But he'd never bought anything in his life, whereas everyone else he saw seemed to know exactly what they were doing.His empty stomach was very persuasive, though. Despite his fear, he would act.
He had chosen his first experiment carefully, a heavyset woman who ran a stall full of miscellaneous foodstuffs and household items. She seemed approachable, with a face made for frowning that still managed to bear the imprint of smiles, small eyes disappearing behind her cheeks. Her arms seemed strong and sturdy, and she wore a patched apron over her townswoman's clothes. It all spoke of security to Ryuuki's mind, perhaps because she was completely different from anyone he'd ever encountered during his precarious life. Moreover, a small boy, younger than himself, was playing contentedly in the dust near her feet, stacking walnut shells.
Ryuuki tried to look tall and proficient as he walked up to the stall-- as opposed to small, grubby, and unsure, which was how he felt. He tested one of the green pumpkins there by rapping on it with his knuckles the way he'd seen one of the previous customers do, but he had no idea what the sound was supposed to tell him. He could feel the woman's eyes on him as he picked out a few vegetables, a cluster of marbled eggs tied up in twisted straw, and a double handful of the walnuts. He tried not to look either too nervous or too hungry as she tallied them, and when she quoted the price, put his coin on the board with what he thought was a good imitation of the last buyer's casual confidence.
The woman's eyes went comically wide. "I can't take that!"
"You can't?" Ryuuki felt his stomach drop, dismayed. "But it's enough . . ."
"Of course it's enough . . . that's gold, isn't it? A full gold liang!" The woman picked it up as if she couldn't quite believe it, then quickly put it down again. "It's too much, that's the problem. I can't change that! Where did a kid like you get something like that?"
"My father gave it to me," Ryuuki said numbly. It wasn't exactly a lie. But . . . his money was no good? What was he going to do? "But it's all I have . . ."
"Here, kid, take it back. Quickly, now, don't flash it around. Look . . ." the woman's rough hands folded his fingers around the heavy metal. "You need to take that to a money changer, see? Not the Guild, they'll think you're a thief for sure. Take it to Gao-- he sets up near the livestock pens. Long white mustache, you can't miss him. But don't let him cheat you, mind! Then run along back-- I'll put these aside for you."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ryuuki was probably hungrier than he'd ever been since Shouka had started looking after him. It gave him the courage to march directly up to the wizen, wrinkled man who sat at the money-changer's table under the spreading branches of a great tree. The old man flicked the beads of his abacus back and forth with long fingernails, the quickness of his movements stirring the trailing ends of his whispy white mustache.
"I need change," Ryuuki announced boldly, though he felt somewhat ridiculous standing with his strange burden of crossed swords so near the loud commotion of the cattle pens.
The old man wrinkled his long nose. "A bath would be a good place to start," he suggested. "One involving soap."
"Soap costs money," Ryuuki imparted this new-found wisdom with what he considered a pretty fair impression of imperial dignity.
"So I've heard," Gao the money-changer said, "but I'm afraid I'm not in the philanthropy business."
"But you are in the money business."
"I deal with people who have money, not people who need soap." Gao dismissed Ryuuki with a wave of his fingernails. "Be off with you."
"I have money!" Ryuuki protested indignantly.
"Then why haven't you used it to buy soap?" The money-changer gave him a disapproving look down his nose. "Really, boy."
Ryuuki thunked his gold liang down on the surface of Gao's table. "I have too much money, that's the problem."
Gao's eyes went wide, and he scratched one fingernail over the bright metal. "So you do," he managed finally. "Well, that I can help you with."
His fingers flew over the abacus and flicked the worn, polished beads up and down. Ryuuki tried to keep track of the sums and equations Gao was carrying out as he converted the liang to smaller coins, but was soon completely lost.
"Right, then," Gao said briskly, and opened the lid of his money box to take out two strings of silver coins and one of copper. "There's your change, boy."
Ryuuki reached out eagerly for the money, but found himself pausing mid-motion, arrested by a feeling of such strength if could not be denied. Even though he knew instinctively that it didn't originate from his own mind.
Not enough.
"It's not enough," he repeated, almost questioning.
Gao's impressive and wispy eyebrows rose. "What was that, boy?"
The feeling of certainty rose once more. "It's not enough," he said again, more boldly.
"Nonsense, boy, you saw me do the calculations. This is what you're due."
"Do them again," Ryuuki said stubbornly.
The money-changer shook his head, as if resigned to the follies of youth. "Once more, then."
Once more his hands flickered over the abacus, and Ryuuki watched and tried to follow, but the numbers came too fast, and once he'd lost track he couldn't find his place again--
There.
Ryuuki's hand shot out on its own and stopped the beads in mid-flick. "There, right there."
Gao sputtered. "Boy, what--"
"It should be four, here. Not two," he said with absolute certainty; a certainty which had no basis in his own observations.
Gao considered him. "Hmm," he said. "My, my. I do believe you're right. It is four, indeed. My fingers must have slipped."
He added two more strings of coins to the collection atop his table, and Ryuuki counted them in his head, almost expecting the strange internal prodding when it came. "It's still not enough."
The money-changer sat back on his stool and rolled the gold liang between his fingers. "You're right, it's not," he said laconically. "But it's the best you're going to get unless you go to the Guild, and they'll ask you questions that I don't think you'll want to answer. Take what you've got, boy. I haven't paid out this much to anyone since before you were born-- consider it a reward for your quick eye on the beads. Either that or your desperate need for soap has actually moved me to charity--" he grinned, "--but I doubt it."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The shopkeeper was as good as her word, and had Ryuuki's purchases waiting for him when he came back, dustier than ever, and hungrier, but triumphant. She had even added a few items that Ryuuki hadn't thought to pick out, and a warm packet of folded leaves tied in string that Ryuuki identified by scent as holding the sweet, sticky rice he'd once tried with Shouka.
"Thank you," Ryuuki said awkwardly as he paid her, not certain what to do when she added an extra handful of chestnuts to all the rest. He decided to try a compliment. "Your son is very cute."
"Son?" The woman's eyebrows went up. "I have no son."
"You don't? Then who is--" Ryuuki's eyes went to the boy stacking his shells in the dust at the roadside.
"I had a boy," the woman said, staring at Ryuuki. "He died. My boy was killed--"
The boy looked up at Ryuuki and smiled, and his teeth were big and square and all wrong in his little boy's mouth.
"--trampled in the road by--"
"He loves-- must have loved-- you. Very much, very--" Ryuuki's throat was dry, and he swallowed hard, his eyes on the ghost. He caught out of the corner of his eye the woman's expression, her hands starting to form the gesture to ward off demons. "I've got to go, I--"
He grabbed the rest of his parcels and ran.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That night, his stomach filled for the first time in days, Ryuuki built up the fire and carefully began to undo the wrappings on the hilts and sheathes of the swords. He laid them out on his blanket, and the leaping firelight gleamed in the gold fittings, danced in the depths of the polished saphires set there.
"It was you, wasn't it?" he addressed them, and somehow it wasn't at all strange to be speaking to a pair of swords. "Back there in town, with the money-changer. And-- before that. Those times with the-- the demons. You warned me. You told me what they were."
The swords were silent, just a pair of swords. Deadly but beautiful. The treasures of an empire. He reached out and touched an ivory sheath, an ebony hilt-- Kanshou, he heard his brother's voice in his memory. The Zenith Sword. His brother's blade, the sword known as Heaven's Fury.
And-- he picked up the other sword, ebon sheath and ivory grip. Bakuya. The Steel Eclipse. The sword called Heaven's Tears. His brother's gift, his treasure. She will protect you.
He stood up and unsheathed the sword, moved through one of the exercises General Sou had taught him. It was both harder and easier than he remembered-- he had not done it for a while, but he knew at the same time that despite the lean diet his journey was making him stronger.
But from the swords he felt nothing at all.
When he finally stopped he was panting and sweaty. He cleaned both swords meticulously, re-wrapping hilts and sheathes and finally checking the draw on each, as his brother had taught him.
I'm coming, Aniue.
Then he went to bed. It had been a very long day. Tomorrow, he thought to himself, a bath.
With soap, something whispered in his mind, but he was already asleep.
Sidestories
Haunted
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
One of my previous roommate's cats, Shunki, as an adolescent, having a stretch on my futon. An absolutely gorgeous cat, and well aware of it. Like my Jackl she was also a rescue-- my friend fished her and her littermates out of a box in a river in Tokyo. All went to good homes and have grown up to be wonderful pets. Shunki and her brother Ensei are now living happily in the United States, where they are referred to fondly by my previous roommate as "her Stupids."
The kanji for Shunki's name are "春姫", which translate to "spring princess." Rarely have name and personality suited each other so well in anyone.
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
5 Reasons Humanity is Terrible at Democracy
Deeply interesting and informative reading. Terribly depressing, though.
Bioware Tells Straight Men to "Get Over" Being Hit on By Gay Men in "Dragon Age 2"
Good for them. An intelligent and reasoned response to a complaint probably wasn't either.
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
A Color of the Sky, by Tony Hoagland
Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn't make the road an allegory.
I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I'd rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.
Otherwise it's spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.
Last summer's song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,
which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.
Last night I dreamed of X again.
She's like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I'm glad.
What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.
Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;
overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,
dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,
so Nature's wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It's been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.
Demon Hunter: Previous Installments
Chapter One: A Single Step
Chapter Two: Leaving the Capital
Chapter Three: Learning Experience (part 1: Gold)
Chapter Three: Learning Experience (part 2: Soap)
The next day found him crouching warily in the shadow of a mud-and-wattle wall, watching the open market in progress in the square. Tables had been set up under shading awnings, selling a bewildering variety of produce, livestock, craft items, tools, goods, clothing, odds and ends-- things Ryuuki didn't even have names for. It was alive with people, too-- farmers toting baskets, middle-aged women haggling for groceries, young ladies swarming and giggling around a table of accessories, a gaggle of young children playing tag around the legs of the shoppers. Ryuuki eyed them warily-- some of them were about his size-- but they were too absorbed in their game to notice him. And anyway, he had other things to worry about.
He clutched the heavy gold coin he'd pried free from the seam of his waistband in nervous fingers. It was a long, flat oval, almost the size of his palm, and the cold metal had warmed from contact with his skin. But he'd never bought anything in his life, whereas everyone else he saw seemed to know exactly what they were doing.His empty stomach was very persuasive, though. Despite his fear, he would act.
He had chosen his first experiment carefully, a heavyset woman who ran a stall full of miscellaneous foodstuffs and household items. She seemed approachable, with a face made for frowning that still managed to bear the imprint of smiles, small eyes disappearing behind her cheeks. Her arms seemed strong and sturdy, and she wore a patched apron over her townswoman's clothes. It all spoke of security to Ryuuki's mind, perhaps because she was completely different from anyone he'd ever encountered during his precarious life. Moreover, a small boy, younger than himself, was playing contentedly in the dust near her feet, stacking walnut shells.
Ryuuki tried to look tall and proficient as he walked up to the stall-- as opposed to small, grubby, and unsure, which was how he felt. He tested one of the green pumpkins there by rapping on it with his knuckles the way he'd seen one of the previous customers do, but he had no idea what the sound was supposed to tell him. He could feel the woman's eyes on him as he picked out a few vegetables, a cluster of marbled eggs tied up in twisted straw, and a double handful of the walnuts. He tried not to look either too nervous or too hungry as she tallied them, and when she quoted the price, put his coin on the board with what he thought was a good imitation of the last buyer's casual confidence.
The woman's eyes went comically wide. "I can't take that!"
"You can't?" Ryuuki felt his stomach drop, dismayed. "But it's enough . . ."
"Of course it's enough . . . that's gold, isn't it? A full gold liang!" The woman picked it up as if she couldn't quite believe it, then quickly put it down again. "It's too much, that's the problem. I can't change that! Where did a kid like you get something like that?"
"My father gave it to me," Ryuuki said numbly. It wasn't exactly a lie. But . . . his money was no good? What was he going to do? "But it's all I have . . ."
"Here, kid, take it back. Quickly, now, don't flash it around. Look . . ." the woman's rough hands folded his fingers around the heavy metal. "You need to take that to a money changer, see? Not the Guild, they'll think you're a thief for sure. Take it to Gao-- he sets up near the livestock pens. Long white mustache, you can't miss him. But don't let him cheat you, mind! Then run along back-- I'll put these aside for you."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Ryuuki was probably hungrier than he'd ever been since Shouka had started looking after him. It gave him the courage to march directly up to the wizen, wrinkled man who sat at the money-changer's table under the spreading branches of a great tree. The old man flicked the beads of his abacus back and forth with long fingernails, the quickness of his movements stirring the trailing ends of his whispy white mustache.
"I need change," Ryuuki announced boldly, though he felt somewhat ridiculous standing with his strange burden of crossed swords so near the loud commotion of the cattle pens.
The old man wrinkled his long nose. "A bath would be a good place to start," he suggested. "One involving soap."
"Soap costs money," Ryuuki imparted this new-found wisdom with what he considered a pretty fair impression of imperial dignity.
"So I've heard," Gao the money-changer said, "but I'm afraid I'm not in the philanthropy business."
"But you are in the money business."
"I deal with people who have money, not people who need soap." Gao dismissed Ryuuki with a wave of his fingernails. "Be off with you."
"I have money!" Ryuuki protested indignantly.
"Then why haven't you used it to buy soap?" The money-changer gave him a disapproving look down his nose. "Really, boy."
Ryuuki thunked his gold liang down on the surface of Gao's table. "I have too much money, that's the problem."
Gao's eyes went wide, and he scratched one fingernail over the bright metal. "So you do," he managed finally. "Well, that I can help you with."
His fingers flew over the abacus and flicked the worn, polished beads up and down. Ryuuki tried to keep track of the sums and equations Gao was carrying out as he converted the liang to smaller coins, but was soon completely lost.
"Right, then," Gao said briskly, and opened the lid of his money box to take out two strings of silver coins and one of copper. "There's your change, boy."
Ryuuki reached out eagerly for the money, but found himself pausing mid-motion, arrested by a feeling of such strength if could not be denied. Even though he knew instinctively that it didn't originate from his own mind.
Not enough.
"It's not enough," he repeated, almost questioning.
Gao's impressive and wispy eyebrows rose. "What was that, boy?"
The feeling of certainty rose once more. "It's not enough," he said again, more boldly.
"Nonsense, boy, you saw me do the calculations. This is what you're due."
"Do them again," Ryuuki said stubbornly.
The money-changer shook his head, as if resigned to the follies of youth. "Once more, then."
Once more his hands flickered over the abacus, and Ryuuki watched and tried to follow, but the numbers came too fast, and once he'd lost track he couldn't find his place again--
There.
Ryuuki's hand shot out on its own and stopped the beads in mid-flick. "There, right there."
Gao sputtered. "Boy, what--"
"It should be four, here. Not two," he said with absolute certainty; a certainty which had no basis in his own observations.
Gao considered him. "Hmm," he said. "My, my. I do believe you're right. It is four, indeed. My fingers must have slipped."
He added two more strings of coins to the collection atop his table, and Ryuuki counted them in his head, almost expecting the strange internal prodding when it came. "It's still not enough."
The money-changer sat back on his stool and rolled the gold liang between his fingers. "You're right, it's not," he said laconically. "But it's the best you're going to get unless you go to the Guild, and they'll ask you questions that I don't think you'll want to answer. Take what you've got, boy. I haven't paid out this much to anyone since before you were born-- consider it a reward for your quick eye on the beads. Either that or your desperate need for soap has actually moved me to charity--" he grinned, "--but I doubt it."
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The shopkeeper was as good as her word, and had Ryuuki's purchases waiting for him when he came back, dustier than ever, and hungrier, but triumphant. She had even added a few items that Ryuuki hadn't thought to pick out, and a warm packet of folded leaves tied in string that Ryuuki identified by scent as holding the sweet, sticky rice he'd once tried with Shouka.
"Thank you," Ryuuki said awkwardly as he paid her, not certain what to do when she added an extra handful of chestnuts to all the rest. He decided to try a compliment. "Your son is very cute."
"Son?" The woman's eyebrows went up. "I have no son."
"You don't? Then who is--" Ryuuki's eyes went to the boy stacking his shells in the dust at the roadside.
"I had a boy," the woman said, staring at Ryuuki. "He died. My boy was killed--"
The boy looked up at Ryuuki and smiled, and his teeth were big and square and all wrong in his little boy's mouth.
"--trampled in the road by--"
"He loves-- must have loved-- you. Very much, very--" Ryuuki's throat was dry, and he swallowed hard, his eyes on the ghost. He caught out of the corner of his eye the woman's expression, her hands starting to form the gesture to ward off demons. "I've got to go, I--"
He grabbed the rest of his parcels and ran.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * *
That night, his stomach filled for the first time in days, Ryuuki built up the fire and carefully began to undo the wrappings on the hilts and sheathes of the swords. He laid them out on his blanket, and the leaping firelight gleamed in the gold fittings, danced in the depths of the polished saphires set there.
"It was you, wasn't it?" he addressed them, and somehow it wasn't at all strange to be speaking to a pair of swords. "Back there in town, with the money-changer. And-- before that. Those times with the-- the demons. You warned me. You told me what they were."
The swords were silent, just a pair of swords. Deadly but beautiful. The treasures of an empire. He reached out and touched an ivory sheath, an ebony hilt-- Kanshou, he heard his brother's voice in his memory. The Zenith Sword. His brother's blade, the sword known as Heaven's Fury.
And-- he picked up the other sword, ebon sheath and ivory grip. Bakuya. The Steel Eclipse. The sword called Heaven's Tears. His brother's gift, his treasure. She will protect you.
He stood up and unsheathed the sword, moved through one of the exercises General Sou had taught him. It was both harder and easier than he remembered-- he had not done it for a while, but he knew at the same time that despite the lean diet his journey was making him stronger.
But from the swords he felt nothing at all.
When he finally stopped he was panting and sweaty. He cleaned both swords meticulously, re-wrapping hilts and sheathes and finally checking the draw on each, as his brother had taught him.
I'm coming, Aniue.
Then he went to bed. It had been a very long day. Tomorrow, he thought to himself, a bath.
With soap, something whispered in his mind, but he was already asleep.
Sidestories
Haunted
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
One of my previous roommate's cats, Shunki, as an adolescent, having a stretch on my futon. An absolutely gorgeous cat, and well aware of it. Like my Jackl she was also a rescue-- my friend fished her and her littermates out of a box in a river in Tokyo. All went to good homes and have grown up to be wonderful pets. Shunki and her brother Ensei are now living happily in the United States, where they are referred to fondly by my previous roommate as "her Stupids."
The kanji for Shunki's name are "春姫", which translate to "spring princess." Rarely have name and personality suited each other so well in anyone.
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
5 Reasons Humanity is Terrible at Democracy
Deeply interesting and informative reading. Terribly depressing, though.
Bioware Tells Straight Men to "Get Over" Being Hit on By Gay Men in "Dragon Age 2"
Good for them. An intelligent and reasoned response to a complaint probably wasn't either.
xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx xOx
A Color of the Sky, by Tony Hoagland
Windy today and I feel less than brilliant,
driving over the hills from work.
There are the dark parts on the road
when you pass through clumps of wood
and the bright spots where you have a view of the ocean,
but that doesn't make the road an allegory.
I should call Marie and apologize
for being so boring at dinner last night,
but can I really promise not to be that way again?
And anyway, I'd rather watch the trees, tossing
in what certainly looks like sexual arousal.
Otherwise it's spring, and everything looks frail;
the sky is baby blue, and the just-unfurling leaves
are full of infant chlorophyll,
the very tint of inexperience.
Last summer's song is making a comeback on the radio,
and on the highway overpass,
the only metaphysical vandal in America has written
MEMORY LOVES TIME
in big black spraypaint letters,
which makes us wonder if Time loves Memory back.
Last night I dreamed of X again.
She's like a stain on my subconscious sheets.
Years ago she penetrated me
but though I scrubbed and scrubbed and scrubbed,
I never got her out,
but now I'm glad.
What I thought was an end turned out to be a middle.
What I thought was a brick wall turned out to be a tunnel.
What I thought was an injustice
turned out to be a color of the sky.
Outside the youth center, between the liquor store
and the police station,
a little dogwood tree is losing its mind;
overflowing with blossomfoam,
like a sudsy mug of beer;
like a bride ripping off her clothes,
dropping snow white petals to the ground in clouds,
so Nature's wastefulness seems quietly obscene.
It's been doing that all week:
making beauty,
and throwing it away,
and making more.