From The Jackals To The Shepherds 25: 2 of Clubs

From The Jackals To The Shepherds

The Woods:

The Map:

Dave – Taylor

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Battlebards Tracks used:

Elven Dirge – Farewell – Score Music – Philippe Payet

Transcription:

For a long time, we were at war with The Jackals. But now, we’ve driven them off, and we have this – a year of relative peace. In this moment, there is an opportunity to build something.

A week has passed.

The first sunrise of Autumn peeks over the top of the highest mountain and the golden rays of sunlight dance upon dew gathered on the collar of a corpse.

Yesterday was a cold evening, down by one of the fishhouses Clem sits netting, his net, in the gloaming almost invisible, a dark purple-brown, and his shuttle worn and polished. The air smells so strong of riverfish it makes one’s nose run and one’s eyes water. All is silver: the heavy surface of the river, swelling slowly as if considering spilling over, is opaque, but the silver of Clem’s bench, the holding pots, and nets, scattered among the wild muddy shore, is of an apparent translucence like our small old buildings with an emerald moss growing on their shoreward walls.

His big fish tubs are completely lined with layers of beautiful herring scales and his wheelbarrows are similarly plastered with creamy iridescent coats of mail, with small iridescent flies crawling on them. Reese visits and brings Clem a rolled cigarette. They talk of the decline in the population and of codfish and herring as they wait for autumn to come in. There are sequins on Clem’s vest and on his thumb. He has scraped the scales, the principal beauty, from unnumbered fish with that black old knife, the blade of which is almost worn away.

Down at the water’s edge, at the place where the river has started to haul up driftwood, up the long descent into the water, thin silver tree trunks are laid horizontally across the gray stones, down and down at intervals of four or five feet.

Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, element bearable to no mortal, to fish. Cold dark deep and absolutely clear, the clear gray icy water . . . across the river from Reese and Clem, the dignified tall firs begin. Bluish, associating with their shadows, a million thick trees stand waiting for winter. The water seems suspended above the rounded gray and blue-gray stones.They watch the waves over and over, the same sea, the same, slightly, indifferently swinging above the stones, icily free above the stones, above the stones and then the world. It is like what we imagine knowledge to be: dark, clear, moving, utterly free, drawn from the cold hard mouth of the world, derived from the rocky breasts forever, flowing and drawn, and since our knowledge is historical, flowing, and flown.

Reese finds Clem this morning, as a group of foragers clears the river’s bank and reenters the community center. Reese is concerned at first that the fisherman had stayed up too late mending his nets, but when Clem does not move at Reese’s call, the other boy grows nervous, then runs and calls for help. Gathered around the body, we move Clem from his place and see the wounds on his front, left in the night by The Beast.

While mapping the forest, a topic of conversation common amongst foragers, Reese in particular, was where The Beast was, lurking in the forest it called home. Complacent to take our peaceful gathering at face value, we forgot the danger in the woods, but now The Beast has struck us at home.

The art of losing isn’t hard to master; so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster. We lose something every day. Accept the fluster of lost door keys, the hour badly spent. The art of losing isn’t hard to master.

The war with the Jackals has given us practice in losing farther, losing faster: places, and names, and where it was we meant to travel. None of these will bring disaster. In fleeing the city, Ezekiel lost his birth mother’s watch. We lost our cities, lovely ones. And, vaster, some realms we owned, two rivers, a continent. We miss them, but it wasn’t a disaster.

Even losing Clem it’s evident the art of losing’s not too hard to master though it may sound to listeners like disaster.

We mourn Clem’s passing. We add another plot to our cemetery. We discover something new about our community: as the newer members mourn with us, Safwan scampers near the edge of the crowd, and stumbles. As they right themself, they stare into the trees across the river’s bank and lock eyes with The Beast as it slowly backs into the forest. The trees themselves move around The Beast’s passing and seem to give off a silvered glow. As they return to their natural standing, Safwan could swear they see faces on the bark, faces whispering a soft chant.

And a week passes.

Thank you for joining us for the twenty fifth episode of From The Jackals To The Shepherds. If you like this show please give us a rating on iTunes, tell a friend, or share us on social media. As always the intro for the show was read by Dave Lapru, who is also our mapkeeper. You can find Dave on twitter at plantbird, and I’m at leviathan files. Please consider visiting our website at Riverhouse Games dot com, or supporting this show and other Riverhouse Games work on Patreon at patreon dot com slash Riverhouse Games. Music for this episode was provided by Battlebards dot com. Until next week, I hope your week goes well.

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