Summer 30, 513 AV
High Security Ward, Cellar, Scholar's Asylum
--------------------------------------------------
In the days before the Asylum, the building had once been a grand house of Zeltiva, and what was now the high security ward of the Asylum had been a cellar. The thick stone walls were admirable from a security standpoint, but between their insulationary powers, and the location of the city in a hollow, tree-surrounded dell, it took very few days for a new resident to come to understand just how insufferably damp the air in the Cellar was. The orderlies had picked up even an informal slang around this - one 'swam down' to a patient in the cellars, and damp cloth was "cellar-worn".
In the summer, actually, this was something of a blessing. What few narrow windows there were in the cellar had long since been closed off for security reasons, and without the pervasive damp of the stone, the draftless pit would have been insufferable. But then there were, very rarely, years in which the heat was so pervasive and so long-standing that it pierced even down into the dank pits of the cellar.
By the 28th of Summer - for Minnie, perhaps differently from most of the inhabitants of the Cellar, still kept careful track of the days, the Cellar had begun to heat up. The stone lost some of its effervescent coolness. The thickness of the air grew sticky and unpleasant. Each day this increased.
When Minnie awoke on the 30th of Summer, she could hardly breathe, the air was so thick and hot. She fought to her feet - it was pitch dark, as it always was in the morning, but she could sense it was earlier than normal. She felt beneath her pillow, and there, there was the book. IT was this that had awoken her - the heat had thickened and grown stale in the night, and her mind had whispered to her: the book. The book. The book would grow warped in this.
Outside from the hall, she heard the slow moaning of someone else in the hall: Morris, who had not slept well since the heat had come on, who awoke every night for hours at a time, crying out, screaming about fire.
But the book, the book. She rubbed her ragged scalp - it itched terribly with the hair growing back in now - and dropped from the side of the bed to pray.
And stepped in water that reached almost to her ankles.
She leapt back onto the bed, and gasped, felt down into the water - it was thick, murky and filthy. She felt around the floor. The water was everywhere, covering the stone. She took the book in her arms, and shivered, knelt.
"Qalaya… Qalaya, take the book, take it early. Something has happened, there is water, please, take it early, I will keep it as safe as I can, but you must take it early, mother…"
She reopened her eyes, and shuddered, took the book, kissed it gently, so very gently. She wrapped the book carefully then in the blanket and stood, pushing the pallet toward the wall - it was low, no legs on it, it would not stay dry long. She took the blanket again, in her arms, now, and tipped the palette up, climbing up the under slats of it. She took the blanket to the highest slat, then, and grabbed the limp straw palette, and tore it open roughly, tearing a long strip and knotting the blanket to the highest slat. Thenbowed her head once more, kissed the bundle, and crawled back down.
She hurried to the door, and began to bang on it. So late, the orderly might not even be awake, she would have to make a racket. She banged harder. No one came. But… but she was a professor, she had suffered this issue, the issue of getting attention of people in the back of a lecture hall. How different could this be?
She pulled her lecture voice, and shouted.
"Hello! Hello!" whining, nasal, grating.
Noone came still. She felt stupid. Just shouting hello over and over again, it would become perhaps a drone.
"Oh you, my friends!
Oh children of a hateful God!
What currents of the thirsty sea
Would draw ye down?
Relent! Relent you sons of sailors!
Relent! Do not resist the dark father!
Cast forth and mad as the sea itself -
Rage 'gainst the angry dome!"
She rose the words to the angry pitch, and heard in the halls, some of othe other inmates shouting.
"What is this? Who is that! WATER"
"Water! The water! It is the end of days!"
Well. That was something.
She cleared her throat, and went on with the poem.
"He heart is not flesh, but the stony depth,
A maw of a thousand teeth!"
God, she hated this poem. But it was loud, at least.
"His hands are angry waves!"
"WHAT THE PETCH IS… Flood! Oh Petch…"
"Trilly! Its bun a-rising fast, ma'am!"
"Petch… Doc, you quiet down, and I'll get some … petch."
And the door at the top of the stairwell slammed shut in the pitch black. Minnie fussed in her space, peeling her eyes to try to see… anything. The water was at her lower calves now. She rushed to the palter, checked it - it was still standing where she'd put it. The bundle was still tight.
The hall was a cacophony, the whole ward awake now, and screaming at each other, at the water, at themselves. And soon, the staff would be trying to… something? To bail the water somehow. And they would have to deal with all these frightened patients.
//Calm them Minnie-Wren. Calm them down. It will help us keep the book safe.//
"Calm… Calm down, everyone."
"The water, the end of days! The end of days!"
Morris was howling like an angry cat.
"Shut up all of you!"
Minnis sighed, this was not working.
//Sing to them. Sing to them, Minnie-Wren.//
//I can't sing!//
//You don't have to sing well. We sang to little Gypa, don't you remember?//
Minnie blushed, and remembered, Gypa wrapped in her arms, her own head on Lanie's lap, wrapped in a blanket together before the dark last days. Singing soft cooing songs.
"Lullay, Lully, my child… Lullay Lully…Lullay Lully, my child, Lullay Lully."
Her voice was piping and pitchy, but soft, and gentle, like a mother. She closed her eyes and wrapped them and… almost. Almost she could feel a child there. She sang on, through the shouts and screams.
"Sunshine is gone, and the moon is high. The stars are come with secret songs, but I will hold you sweet and long, Lulay, Lullay, Lully"
"La-la-la-Lully" the voice came from elsewhere. Morris. Morris?
She sang on "Lullay, Lully, my jeweled hear, Lullay Lully.
Hear from the dove-bird her mournful cry
That sings of a nest where she'll never go back
To a bird-lover feather in mourning black
Lullay, Lully, Lullay Lully."
Morris sang on, half tuned, half clear. She kept singing.
x
High Security Ward, Cellar, Scholar's Asylum
--------------------------------------------------
In the days before the Asylum, the building had once been a grand house of Zeltiva, and what was now the high security ward of the Asylum had been a cellar. The thick stone walls were admirable from a security standpoint, but between their insulationary powers, and the location of the city in a hollow, tree-surrounded dell, it took very few days for a new resident to come to understand just how insufferably damp the air in the Cellar was. The orderlies had picked up even an informal slang around this - one 'swam down' to a patient in the cellars, and damp cloth was "cellar-worn".
In the summer, actually, this was something of a blessing. What few narrow windows there were in the cellar had long since been closed off for security reasons, and without the pervasive damp of the stone, the draftless pit would have been insufferable. But then there were, very rarely, years in which the heat was so pervasive and so long-standing that it pierced even down into the dank pits of the cellar.
By the 28th of Summer - for Minnie, perhaps differently from most of the inhabitants of the Cellar, still kept careful track of the days, the Cellar had begun to heat up. The stone lost some of its effervescent coolness. The thickness of the air grew sticky and unpleasant. Each day this increased.
When Minnie awoke on the 30th of Summer, she could hardly breathe, the air was so thick and hot. She fought to her feet - it was pitch dark, as it always was in the morning, but she could sense it was earlier than normal. She felt beneath her pillow, and there, there was the book. IT was this that had awoken her - the heat had thickened and grown stale in the night, and her mind had whispered to her: the book. The book. The book would grow warped in this.
Outside from the hall, she heard the slow moaning of someone else in the hall: Morris, who had not slept well since the heat had come on, who awoke every night for hours at a time, crying out, screaming about fire.
But the book, the book. She rubbed her ragged scalp - it itched terribly with the hair growing back in now - and dropped from the side of the bed to pray.
And stepped in water that reached almost to her ankles.
She leapt back onto the bed, and gasped, felt down into the water - it was thick, murky and filthy. She felt around the floor. The water was everywhere, covering the stone. She took the book in her arms, and shivered, knelt.
"Qalaya… Qalaya, take the book, take it early. Something has happened, there is water, please, take it early, I will keep it as safe as I can, but you must take it early, mother…"
She reopened her eyes, and shuddered, took the book, kissed it gently, so very gently. She wrapped the book carefully then in the blanket and stood, pushing the pallet toward the wall - it was low, no legs on it, it would not stay dry long. She took the blanket again, in her arms, now, and tipped the palette up, climbing up the under slats of it. She took the blanket to the highest slat, then, and grabbed the limp straw palette, and tore it open roughly, tearing a long strip and knotting the blanket to the highest slat. Thenbowed her head once more, kissed the bundle, and crawled back down.
She hurried to the door, and began to bang on it. So late, the orderly might not even be awake, she would have to make a racket. She banged harder. No one came. But… but she was a professor, she had suffered this issue, the issue of getting attention of people in the back of a lecture hall. How different could this be?
She pulled her lecture voice, and shouted.
"Hello! Hello!" whining, nasal, grating.
Noone came still. She felt stupid. Just shouting hello over and over again, it would become perhaps a drone.
"Oh you, my friends!
Oh children of a hateful God!
What currents of the thirsty sea
Would draw ye down?
Relent! Relent you sons of sailors!
Relent! Do not resist the dark father!
Cast forth and mad as the sea itself -
Rage 'gainst the angry dome!"
She rose the words to the angry pitch, and heard in the halls, some of othe other inmates shouting.
"What is this? Who is that! WATER"
"Water! The water! It is the end of days!"
Well. That was something.
She cleared her throat, and went on with the poem.
"He heart is not flesh, but the stony depth,
A maw of a thousand teeth!"
God, she hated this poem. But it was loud, at least.
"His hands are angry waves!"
"WHAT THE PETCH IS… Flood! Oh Petch…"
"Trilly! Its bun a-rising fast, ma'am!"
"Petch… Doc, you quiet down, and I'll get some … petch."
And the door at the top of the stairwell slammed shut in the pitch black. Minnie fussed in her space, peeling her eyes to try to see… anything. The water was at her lower calves now. She rushed to the palter, checked it - it was still standing where she'd put it. The bundle was still tight.
The hall was a cacophony, the whole ward awake now, and screaming at each other, at the water, at themselves. And soon, the staff would be trying to… something? To bail the water somehow. And they would have to deal with all these frightened patients.
//Calm them Minnie-Wren. Calm them down. It will help us keep the book safe.//
"Calm… Calm down, everyone."
"The water, the end of days! The end of days!"
Morris was howling like an angry cat.
"Shut up all of you!"
Minnis sighed, this was not working.
//Sing to them. Sing to them, Minnie-Wren.//
//I can't sing!//
//You don't have to sing well. We sang to little Gypa, don't you remember?//
Minnie blushed, and remembered, Gypa wrapped in her arms, her own head on Lanie's lap, wrapped in a blanket together before the dark last days. Singing soft cooing songs.
"Lullay, Lully, my child… Lullay Lully…Lullay Lully, my child, Lullay Lully."
Her voice was piping and pitchy, but soft, and gentle, like a mother. She closed her eyes and wrapped them and… almost. Almost she could feel a child there. She sang on, through the shouts and screams.
"Sunshine is gone, and the moon is high. The stars are come with secret songs, but I will hold you sweet and long, Lulay, Lullay, Lully"
"La-la-la-Lully" the voice came from elsewhere. Morris. Morris?
She sang on "Lullay, Lully, my jeweled hear, Lullay Lully.
Hear from the dove-bird her mournful cry
That sings of a nest where she'll never go back
To a bird-lover feather in mourning black
Lullay, Lully, Lullay Lully."
Morris sang on, half tuned, half clear. She kept singing.
x
