Brightness Reef

Alvin’s Tale

So there we were, way up in the thin, dry air atop Mount Guenn, surrounded by heat and dust and sulfury smells from Uriel’s forge, and what does Gybz the Alchemist want to talk to us about?

The traeki tells us we’re being sent to a different kind of hell.

But hold on, Alvin. Spin the yarn the way an old-time human storyteller would. Describe the scene, then the action.

Gybz concocts recipes for metal and glass in a grimy workshop, quite unlike Uriel’s prim, spotless hall of spinning disks. Mineral powders spill across stained wooden shelves and earthenware jars stink with noxious liquids. One slit window overlooks a northern vista stretching all the way down to a splash of painful color that could only be .the Spectral Flow, which means the chamber is about as high as you can get without tumbling into Mount Guenn’s simmering caldera.

Below the window, flies swarmed over a pile of nicely aged kitchen mulch. I hoped we weren’t interrupting Gybz at dinner.

The four of us — Huck, Pincer, Ur-ronn, and me — had come up to the alchemy lab at the command of Uriel, the great blacksmith, ruler of this fortress of industry perched on Jijo’s trembling knee. At first I figured she sent us away just to get rid of some irritating youngsters, while she conferred with a human sage over how to improve her beloved mobile of gears, pulleys, and whirling glass. The chief assistant, Urdonnol, muttered disapproval while shepherding us up a long ramp to the traeki’s mixing room. Only our pal Ur-ronn seemed cheerful, almost ebullient. Huck and I exchanged a glance, wondering why.

We found out when Gybz shuffled ers mottled, conical bulk around from behind a workbench. Words bubbled from a speaking tube that puckered the third-from-the-top ring.

“Bright youths of four races, be made welcome! Sublime news for you, it is an honor to relate. A decision to approve your expedition, this has occurred. Your endeavor to reach, visit, explore the nearest reaches of the Upper Midden, this you may attempt.”

Gybz paused, venting puffs from a purple synthi ring. When the traeki resumed, it was in warbling, uneven Anglic, with a voice that sounded strained.

“The attempt will have… the full backing of Mount Guenn Forge. As evidence of this support, behold — your completed window!”

The Master of Mixes gestured with a wraparound tentacle toward a wooden crate near the wall, with its cover removed. Amid drifts of fine sawdust, there gleamed a curved pane of thick glass, flawless to the eye.

Pincer-Tip danced excitedly, his red-clawed feet noisy on the stone floor. “Beautiful-iful!”

Gybz agreed. “It has been treated with proper coatings — for clear vision in the planned environment.”

Ur-ronn snaked her long neck around to inspect the bubble-pane.

“This last phase was delicate. Thank you, Gyfz, for the exquisite coatings!”

Ur-ronn turned to explain to Huck and me, “After months of delay, Uriel suddenly agreed just three days ago to allow the casting. And since the results were good on the first try, she will let this count toward a kun-uru!”

That was urrish plains dialect for a master work. One qualifying the maker for craftsman status. It would take Ur-ronn a long way toward fulfilling her ambitions.

None of the rest of us have started professions, or even decided what we want to do, I thought, a little jealously. On the other hand, urs have to hurry. They don’t get that much time.

I glanced at Urdonnol, who was Ur-ronn’s top rival as Uriel’s heir. I didn’t need a rewq to read her annoyance with all this fuss over what she called a “childish hobby” — the making of an experimental deep diving craft.

You should know better, I thought, feeling a bit sorry for Urdonnol. Uriel also has a useless pastime, that room full of spinning disks. Ur-ronn’s project shares thatjust-for-the-hell-of-it quality. It’s a similarity between them that goes beyond mere kin-scent.

To Ur-ronn, then, this had also been a smart career move. I felt happy for our friend.

“The glass was tested to withstand hydrostatic pressures exceeding those at fifty cords depth,” she commented with evident satisfaction. “And when you add the lanterns and other gear Uriel is kindly lending us—”

“Us?” Huck cut in, breaking the mood. She spun to face Ur-ronn with three outthrust eyes. “What you mean us, honky? You’re volunteering to come along, then?”

Ur-ronn’s narrow head snapped back, staring at Huck. Then her neck slumped in an S-curve.

“I will… if I can.”

“Huck!” I chided. It was mean to rub Ur-ronn’s nostril in her limitations. I could hear Huck’s spokes vibrate with tension.

Gybz interrupted with another venting, this time pungent like rusty metal.

“If possible, an urrish presence will be called for.” The traeki seemed short of breath. “But even if that proves impossible, fear not. A member from Mount Guenn shall… accompany this bold undertaking … to its deepest depths.”

I had trouble following Gybz’s halting, accented Anglic. Huck and I shared a confused look.

“It is i/we… who shall part-wise accompany… this august group,” Gybz explained, wheezing through the topmost ring. With that, the traeki showed us something none of us expected, shuffling around to expose an oozing blister on its far side, halfway up the fleshy stack. It was no normal swelling, where the traeki might be making another tentacle or readying chemicals for the mill. A crack split the swollen zone, exposing something slick and wriggly within.

Staring, I realized — the traeki was vlen-budding before our eyes!

While the crevice widened, the Master of Mixes seemed to flutter. A complex gurgle of vaguely sickening noises accompanied something that began to emerge, slithering through the opening, then sliding down the traeki’s sloping flank, trailing loose fibers behind it.

“Gosh-osh-osh-osh-osh…” Pincer repeated in turn from each leg-vent, his sensor strip spinning frantically. Urdonnol edged away nervously while Huck rolled back and forth, torn between curiosity and revulsion. I felt sharp, biting sensations as little Huphu, our noor beast mascot, scrambled up my back and onto my shoulder, growling anxiously. Half-consciously I stroked her sleek pelt, rumbling an umble that must have sounded more confident than I felt.

Glistening with slime, the thing landed on the floor with a plopping sound and lay almost still, ripples coursing around its quadruple torus of miniature rings. Meanwhile, realignments quivered under the flaccid skin of the traeki parent.

“Not to … be concerned,” a somewhat altered voice burbled from the oration peak of the old stack of rings, “i/we adjust… reconfigure.”

Reassuring words, but everyone knows vlenning is a dangerous time for a traeki, when the unity of the former stack is challenged and sometimes fails. For that reason, most of them reproduce externally, growing new rings singly, in pens, or buying them from expert breeders, exchanging and swapping for the full set of traits they want in an offspring. Still, vlenning has advantages, I hear. Mister Heinz claims to have witnessed several, but I bet he never saw a four-tier bud emerge like this, already stacked and moving on its own!

“This newly detached self may be addressed — for the time being — as Ziz. To that word-phrase it might answer, if engraved training patterns take hold. After performing its function with merit, it may then return for augmentation as a candidate for full life. Meanwhile, it is schooled … to serve your quest, coming with traits you may require.”

“I don’t know.” Ur-ronn’s head swayed an oval of confusion. “Do you mean—”

Huck muttered, “Gybz, what are we supposed to—”

The traeki. cut in.

“i/we no longer answer to that name. Our rings vote among ourselves now. Please do not speak or interfere.”

We fell silent, watching in awe as the creature literally wrestled with itself, within itself. A rippling seemed to rise from the base segment all the way up, terminating in a belch of yellow vapor. Waves flowed back and forth, crosswise as well as vertical. This went on for many duras, while we feared Gybz was about to tear erself apart.

Finally, the tremors lessened, then faded away. The traeki sensory organs refocused. Words bubbled from the puckered speech mouth, in a voice transformed.

“It is decided.

“Provisionally, you may call us/me Tyug and have good odds that this stack will answer…”

Another pulse of throbbing.

“That i will answer. Please inform Uriel that this thing is done. Furthermore, tell her that my/our major skill cores seem to be intact.”

Only then did I realize what had been at risk during the vlenning. The Master of Mixes is a vital member of Uriel’s team. If Gybz — if Tyug — failed to remember all of its tricks of the trade, Mount Guenn alloys might not shine or cut as well, or decay so completely with the passage of time.

Foolish me. I’d been worried the whole time about the poor traeki’s life.

Huphu slithered down my back and approached the new-formed traeki half-entity, which was already gathering an array of flipperlike feet under its bottommost segment, waving clumsy tentacles from its stubby top ring. The noor sniffed suspiciously, then settled back with a satisfied trill.

Thus Huphu was first to welcome Ziz — newest member of our band.

Now if only we had a human kid, we’d be a true six.

Omens can be good things, as any sailor knows. Luck is uttergloss. Fickle, but a damn sight better than the alternative.

I had a feeling we were going to need all of Ifni’s help we could get.