Short Stories & Tidbits
Transcribed by Garr
As told by Egremora
Immediately following her story of A Mother and Her Children.
This sounds a bit like an altar:
Now, you remember that story I told you last week?
The secret place in that story—
The caver, the darkness—
Cave, that is.
That became a shrine, where admirers of that foolish girl began to gather.
She'd done a great harm, but any time you do something big, some folks take notice and think you're important.
So first in ones or two they'd come walking over those hills, hiding from the Orga—
—Eventually findin' their way to that cave.
Sure, they built statues there, and applauded her wisdom.
They called that bag a secret relic, and offered their services in fashioning it a reliquary.
Over the years whatever was in the bag … that little bit of dark moon sun …
Filled up their reliquary, and changed it, too."
(Egremora frowns.)
Egremora ponders, "Why am I telling this story?"
(Egremora frowns.)
Egremora says, "Now let's see.
That reliquary, they makes it out to be a special thing.
They drape tapestries on it with the symbol of that girl's family.
They claim it can remember things.
People are always telling stories, though.
You have to know where they come from.
* * *
Ovar's Dad Digs A Hole
Did I tell you the one about the time Ovar's Dad told me he could dig a hole all the way to the other side of the world?
I told him he never could.
But moon bless him, he insisted.
He had his pickaxe and shovel, and just started digging down.
A few days pass, and he's deep down in there.
Maybe he's gone all the way through, I'm thinking. He's a good digger.
So we set out out an expedition. Me and Carlos, Yamarana, Hekus and Rekus and Fecklus and a few other folk.
We walk down this beautiful tunnel he's dug and eventually we get down to the end.
He's down there, but he's discovered this massive cellar.
Barrels and barrels, far as the eye can see.
Looks like he's drunk a few hundred of 'em himself.
He's down there snoring.
We don't bother to try and wake him.
Just get Fecklus to carry him.
Put a big rock on it to cover it up.
When he wakes up two days later, we tell him he did it and he's on the other side of the world.
Your Dad was a good dwarf, Ovar.
(Egremora nods.)
Egremora says, "He sure was.
The Marsh Hermit Reminds Egremora of Someone She Knew
Whirl wind says, "He talks about his goat, and meshra babies."
Huh. Sounds a lot like a fellow I used to know.
Now this story is true, sure enough.
The boy who told me, he's not old mountain folk.
But I was here when he come, so the Moon knows it's true.
Thistle asks, "A story about our neighbour in da marsh?
Could be. A story about a boy who liked goats.
He come to Puddleby on a shipwreck like many folk.
Or so he says. That part, well, I don't remember him arriving.
Just him being here.
Anyhow, he was a willow twig of a boy.
Now he was a headstrong and adventurous young boy
More prone to clamber off on mountain paths by himself than to stick around and listen to an old woman tell stories.
Not much like to yourselves, I'm saying. A different sort.
You look more like the sit in town and tell stories type to me.
So this boy, he's a bit like the girl from the other story.
Most comfortable wandering up and down paths in a lonesome kind of way.
Only he's not lonesome, that's the company he prefers.
So he challenges himself to go farther and higher.
He admires the goats, how they can balance on the sheer side of a mountain.
With nothing much to hold on to at all, just standing there like it's natural.
Anyhow, so he goes up there and practices his balance.
It's tough. He doesn't know how the goats do it.
But he sweats and he scrapes and he struggles and he manages to balance.
Now you know goats, they're curious.
One goat heads sees this boy thinking he's a goat.
As any goat might do it just headbutts him, right off that cliff.
Not in a mean sorta way, just playful-like, like one goat might do to the next.
Well sure enough, the boy's not a goat, and he needs some mending afterwards.
I find him down there at the bottom of the ravine.
I lay on hands, and he tells me he's studying with a new master.
He's studying with Master Goat.
Once he's mended, he takes a little nap.
He climbs right back up there.
He balances on the edge of that cliff.
Goat comes by, same as before.
Headbutts him off.
Down he goes, splat
If anything even flatter than before.
I'd been busy studying with my Mama and praying to the Moon, so I don't come by the way for a while.
But eventually I do. He's decaying a bit, but between me and my Mama, we get him fixed up.
He tells us he's progressing well in his studies.
Takes a nap again.
Scrambles right back up.
Practices his balance — it's not so hard, this time —
Goat comes by, curious as ever."
This time, the boy headbutts that goat right off the edge of the cliff!
Now the goat's a goat, so it just sorta gets its balance up there in the air and finds another nothing-much to stand on.
Now the goat tells a few of its friends about the boy.
And they show him a few paths up the cliffs.
We'd see 'em up there for many turns of the Moon—
Taking turns headbutting each other off the cliffs.
One day after I cleaned him up (he'd still lose his balance sometimes)
He shows me one of the goat paths he's been walkin'
Now me, I'd never walk a path like that by myself
But he's a confident boy, and a good fellow, so I follows him.
Sure enough, he's found his way up behind some rocks, steep as steep
And by jumping off the cliff he finds his way into this cave
Now I know I'm all the time telling you about this cave and that one
So I figure I should tell you it isn't the same as the cave in the other story.
This cave's behind a waterfall, too
And filled with strange crumbling old things
They glow when you run your fingers over them with a strange light of their own—
And visions of triangles dance in the light.
So it was that the boy came to have a following of his own—
Studying with the Goat Masters
Searching for new paths through the mountain ways.
So this Hermit of yours—
Could be he's the same fellow, only grown up and hid himself away.
He was always most comfortable by himself.
Whirl wind asks, "Was his name Injaros?
He went by Injaros. I'm sure many of the mountain folk still know his name.
Sounds like you've heard tell of him.
