Well, for a long while there, I think I have got the knack of this dumb civilized thing, as if I can dally with it and no harm will be done. Oh, young fool that believes himself exceptional, that thinks he can do as he pleases with no consequence! There we are in Pavis, a huge and filthy stone mess of a thing, hot like the breath of Old Enemy Salamander and stinking in the Fire Season like a five-year-egg split open. Oh, my father he would not believe the kinds and types that come and go in such a place, they are from all over, on the backs of Broken Beasts of all description from the fierce harsh terror of the desert, and on boats and barges along the only saving grace of this whole place, the beautiful green-giving flow of the Zola Fel. Always I am welcome in those sweet temples on the Riverbank, and that Great and Holy Carp, he is always tempting me to abase myself in front of His God The River; and mighty tempting it seem too, sometimes, to be close again with one’s element, and devoted to it with all of one’s heart: but of course, a mere River is as nothing to the Glorious Wide Mirrorsea and the Infinite Ocean beyond it. So Gramper stays true to himself and his people, and merely nods and winks at the Old Carp Priest and says ‘Some Day’.
But as I move around the walls and the towers of this sprawling rudeness, I am forever shaking my head at the ludicrous Lunars who will wear the scorching bronze in the high noonday heat, or those crazy Goldentongued Trackers who will convince you to buy any old bauble or gewgaw and leave you with nothing but a deep perplexity at what the Hell you start to talk to them in the first place, with their knackered excuse for barren Beasts that cannot even beget more of their own – wholly unnatural! I tell you that is easy to be like those Desert Princes, and fool any soul who hangs around here too long going crazy, for even Gramper has managed to make rich living out of singing and dancing and playing any old shit on his flute and these dumb fools will give him more than is enough to purchase whatever his heart could possibly desire in such a place, food and water and anything except good fresh cool air and the sound of the gulls crying for the tide to return. Indeed, Gramper’s pot-belly has swollen like he is soon to spawn, gorged on profane breads and wayward pastries and all manner of thing that would make his mother wail and tear at her hair, if she had any left.
And so it has gone, on and on for far too long, and all I have really learned is how to make a simpleton cackle at my buffoonery - although Darkos, he is not so keen on this whenever I suggest we team up to fleece the crowd real good, and he is laying forth with some Ode or Saga or other in his deepest and most serious manner, while I am miming at my best to keep up with his weird gobbledygook stories and let everyone know what he is gabbing about. In the end, he tell me to go and do my own thing and we will make more money if we split up, although quite frankly I think the only reason he is still alive is that he bore his audience into throwing their money away, or he would surely not have a crumb to put in his mouth with all his grim yarns of nonsense. He cannot sing to save his life, although maybe he just frighten people’s money out of them with his gnarly looks if he don’t get them reaching in their purses fast enough. That boy is so erratic, you don’t know if he is going to kiss someone or stick an arrow in their gut. Anyway, somebody feeding him despite his doing without my help and aid.
So, I think all is well and no harm will be done by my letting my body glutton itself and my mind go to waste with witless fancies. And then, the day come – a sinister and a shocking day indeed, and it jolt me right out of my fat-bellied prattling and dancing and flirting with The Civilized. This Garrath Sharpsword, he draw up right out of nowhere again and stir up an unholy wasps nest of trouble. Surely, he was sent by my Old Fathers to jolt me out of my shilly-shallying with such weakness and tommyrot and smack me good and hard across the arse. A few mysterious words from his sun-cracked lips and he has us all twitching and peering at each other like an Urchin’s spines are growing out of our noses. ‘Oh, nooo!’ thinks Gramper, for he knows that those boys he is with, they are sick of this mucking around in the City, and they will all too eagerly drag Gramper off to a grievous and untimely death in some mad adventure to find an answer to the riddle left by that Sharpsword’s babble. Oh yes, this poor Sofali can just see it know, his limbs all hacked up and his mutilated face on a pole in the desert, and his Spirit trapped in some dark and horrible hole while all his kinfolk look on and shake their heads and mutter at his idiocy, and his three fey friends rub their brows and shrug their shoulders at the manner of his ridiculous and shameful demise. But Gramper knows that any illusion of his being in any way controlling of his Fate is only folly, and that at this rate he will be tossed hither and yon by the Currents until his senses are as confounded as the waves that pound their heads against the cliff face.
Cleombrotus, he is all too happy to leave his efforts at haggling and shifting the shonky goods about like a two-bolg Desert Prince Pretender, and heft that great shield on his arm and start twirling his deadly spear around like he is joining in the Cane Dance, only if you get poked you will not be jogging and prancing about so gaily any more, no way. And Grant, he just cannot wait to get naked again and run around in his shifting blue woadedness, laying out with Death all about him with a shout in his throat and a grin on his half-crazed face. And of course, you know for sure what Darkos going to do with a nugget of a chance to throw himself into the Wide Jaws of the Great White One, taking his friends all with him as he goes, and the Teeth chomp down on one and all and chew us all up real good once and forever. Such a Crowd! And poor Gramper, he go too to his Certain Slaughter, heavily dragging his old shield and trailing his spear behind him as he staggers to keep up with the death-dealers he has Fallen In with, and no point in him moaning or complaining for his Lot, as it is all his own fault for not paying attention and clouding his Spirit, growing fat and lazy on lavishing his Flesh-Self on the foul foods and inane rictus of the City-Dweller.
So we traipse out and leave the lovely River, and turn our backs on the Waters where I swam and played and gabbled with the Boatmen in their sing-song talk, and we trek out into the desert and the Hills to hear our dooms. And when we return weeks later to that Great City Pavis all dust-covered and battered, we are well and truly soured with the ghastly foreboding that has come in and dried up our poor souls as gaunt as the desolation we just wearily stumped back in from.
Sacrifices.
That is what all the omens points toward.
Three Sacrifices out of the Four of Us.
And who will be the One that is spared then? Will it be Gramper Soulmarsh? Brave spry Sofali who only wants the simple life, and does not pester or bother anyone out of hand? Innocent young Turtleman in the tender bud of his life’s blooming, callow and crisp and looking out at the broad horizons of the long living he has ahead of him? Oh no, not on your Nellie will hapless Gramper be seen to totter out into the soft sunlight of his Twilit Seasons, leaning on his stick and his grandchildren, and passing his life-long gleaned wisdom so that all the tribe may benefit. Oh, no, no, no. And now Gramper sees that all the trials he has faced were just a vile preparation for the Big Chop. Not enough for his Spirit is it that he must get diseased from Harpy-shit and possessed by mad Uroxi and Lunes and get his head stoved in by cruel and wicked horses, and his limbs all hacked off by undead fiends, and all the while feeling lonely and homesick with only this dangerous Wrong Crowd for company. ‘Pah!’ say the callous Spirits of Fate. ‘Pah! to you, young Soft-Back! That is as nothing – we are really going to put you through it now, you will see! Ha!Ha!’
Oh yes, Gramper can tell that he will be one of The Three to be Sacrificed, he can see his bloody corpse right now, dangling in the Breezes where this Wrong Crowd of Wind-Worshippers have led him. Oh, yes, he is for it, alright. But rest assured, Those Spirits of Fate, They are not done with him yet. No, give Them Their way and They will have even more tribulation to pour out from their horrid Jug upon Gramper’s sorry head, and subject him yet to all manner of macabre and debasing humiliations before finally They open Their great Bowels on him and drown him in shit for good. Oh, boy.
Never did I think I would see the day when I would be glad to get back to the potty Rot of Civilization, but now I need a rest and some serious thinking badly, about what I am going to do about this whole Swimabout and Falling In with the Wrong Crowd and everything. It is about time that Gramper was the one who take control of his own life, and start giving Those damn Spirits of Fate right what-for and slap Them back into line and make Them do what Gramper want for a change, just like Grant do with that lippy and brazen Starscribe Spirit, thinking he can run around and make the living dance to his dead jig. I better do something different quick before They end up making me caper about to some idiot’s tune too, or make me soil myself in public or fuck an old lady in front of other people or some such! Everyone think that this whole thing is grinding Gramper down into the harsh Earth, what with his pummelled body and mangled Spirit always taking a beating, but I tell you this – soon I will be so outraged and aggravated that I will have no choice but go and Awaken my Spirit-Self, and it is Gramper who will be on the attack then. And when he Turn, You Spirits of Fate watch out! You will be going down with him, You hear me? Don’t say I did not warn You!