4.8 - Who Remembers a Gardener?
The Barge of Souls was a grand machine, cogs spinning and levers being pulled, all in service of plans laid out by powerful craftsmen. The past and future were a construct of their actions, built like a protean monument to an unknowable objective. In a thousand years, scholars would pour over tomes detailing the great swings and movements of it all. Nowhere in those tomes, not even scribbled in the margins, would be the name Anselm. Exactly how he liked it. The world outside was immense, and vengeful, casting aside all that didn’t make a lasting mark on it. In Anselm’s world, the world of a gardener, the little and the insignificant were kings and queens. Each flower, each petal, the soil and the roots it surrounded, all wonderful pieces of a kingdom existing purely for the joy of living. The Barge of Souls could keep its machinations and plots.
All Anselm needed were a few garden beds to tend, a roof to rest beneath, and of course, Galene. The love of his life, and any life he may have lived before. Forty years at her side and still the time seemed to have passed quicker than he was ever ready for. When it was time for Anselm to walk the harshly trodden path to the afterlife, the only regret he would carry with him is that he didn’t find Galene sooner. Every day with her was worth a hundred days anywhere else in the world. He could hear her now, humming to herself in their cabin that resided on the grounds of Lord Kalfir’s estate. It was a song her mother used to sing to her about dragonflies and eelgrass.
Anselm smiled and closed his eyes. The sun, just barely cresting over the hills to the east, warmed his face. With a finger he scratched at the old and beaten-up mug in his hand, the tea inside it nearly gone. He always saved the last mouthful for right before they set out to work for the day. After slowly sipping it down, he would rest his mug on the railing of the cabin, ask Galene if she was ready, and take her hand as they walked down the steps and into the gardens. At the end of the workday, they would return to find a few bees buzzing happily around the honey left on the rim of his mug. Anselm would sit down and rest, watching the bees until they returned home, then he would carry his mug inside and help prepare dinner.
“Git! Come on!”
Anselm opened his eyes to find the source of the high-pitched voice. A san renomo with three sandstone-colored horns that met at a point behind his head sat on a wagon being pulled by two pitch-black horses. The driver and horses alike were heavily armored, and the wagon was equipped with spirit bows. At least that’s what Anselm called them. Lord Kalfir used them on the boundaries of his property. They were crossbows that aimed and fired independently of an operator, so long as the one who cast the enchantment properly marked a target. Typically the marking was done with an enchanted spyglass known as a mutaract. Mona, Lord Kalfir’s head of security and resident mage was quite talkative and spent many hours in the gardens boasting to Anselm and Galene of her abilities and trinkets, her own mutaract included. The wagon was covered with a tarred canvas, but one corner had blown up from the wind. Shimmering in the sun were hundreds of gemstones, rough cut directly from the stone. The san renomo impatiently urged the horse forward, despite the weight of the load clearly having taken its toll on the beasts.
“Let them rest for a moment,” Anselm called out.
The san renomo jumped at the voice.
“And who are you to give me commands?” he barked back.
“The gardener,” Anselm responded with a smile. “One moment, I’ll bring feed down for them.”
Anselm stepped inside the cabin and shuffled over to the corner where a large bag of feed sat, next to a pair of mud-covered boots.
“Who are you talking to dear?” Galene called from the other room. “Is Mona outside?”
“No, no, just a delivery man,” he called back, hoisting the feed bag under his arm. “Shall we head out to the garden soon?”
“I suppose it is that time,” Galene said. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Despite his harsh reaction, the wagon driver was still waiting outside, drinking from a waterskin and resting the reins across his knees. He had, however, adjusted the canvas on the wagon to cover the exposed corner of gemstones. Anselm dug a hand into the feed bag and raised a handful up to the first of the two horses, who eagerly devoured the food. He gave the horse another handful before moving to the second beast.
“Quite early for a delivery. Must be important,” Anselm said.
The san renomo stared at him for a moment without responding, then shrugged.
“I suppose so,” he said. “I was scheduled to arrive before daybreak, but I was delayed.”
He sat tight to himself, closed off, a barefaced amalgam of disinterest and distrust.
“Do you enjoy what you do?” Anselm asked. Galene often teased him for his insistence to fill the air when around strangers. It was a compulsion he’d had for as long as he could remember. At least since his time in the military.
“Not at the moment,” the wagon driver said, glaring.
Anselm chuckled. He gave the second horse a pat and moved around to the side of the wagon.
“The moment is passing as we speak, my friend,” Anselm said.
The driver said nothing, but nodded and urged the horses forward. Suddenly the driver and wagon were gone, and in their place was a memory from many years past. Anselm was in a medical tent, his leg propped up on a table, a doctor tightly wrapping a wound.
The Mullentia War, year two, somewhere on the northern front.
Next to him was a young san renomo, shivering and struggling to breathe through her panic and the wound in her side. The battle had been a victory in a military sense, but in every other way, it had been a tremendous defeat. The physical and mental wounds were piled high. As high as the Valdineer Mountains that flanked the valley they found themselves in.
“The moment is passing as we speak,” Anselm said, reaching a hand out to the san renomo.
“For what?” the san renomo asked, through gritted teeth. “So we can go back out and die somewhere else? There is no hope on the Barge of Souls. We will all die, on the battlefield or elsewhere, all beneath the shadow of the ones commanding us.”
“You are one of the new recruits. It’s Selouise, right?” Anselm asked, still proffering his hand to her.
“Yes,” she said, gingerly reaching out to him. “I didn’t think I’d been here long enough for anyone to remember.”
“Selouise. A nice name, it suits you,” Anselm said. He winced for a moment as the doctor pinned his leg wrap tight to the wound. “It is so very easy to lose yourself in times of hopelessness. Particularly beneath the weight of great pain, and in the face of a war that is being fought for the gain of others. The immensity of it can be devastating to confront. In the movement of a thousand years, the flinch of one moment seems lost before it can be born. But in the flinch of one moment, there you are. A thousand of you and more, as a constellation greater than the dead and dying beast of time. You will persist if we take the corners of the cloudless open sky and fold it around ourselves. Within is where we learn the meaningless of time when we have the other. There will always be those who need us. We will always need them. That is what we must hold onto in such times.”
Selouise said nothing, but her breathing settled. She gripped Anselm’s hand tight, and they held each other’s gaze for as long as the memory persisted.
“Ready to head out?” Galene’s voice gently summoned Anselm back to the present. “Would you like me to run the feed back inside for you my love?”
“No need, love,” Anselm said, glancing down at the bag in his hand and gently rubbing the texture of it, grounding himself back in reality. “I’ve left my gloves inside anyway. Just a moment.”
The sky was cloudless, and the warm sun beat down on the entirety of Lord Kalfir’s garden. Winter was fast approaching, but only whispers of the cold were in the air, brushing by Anselm’s neck if the breeze picked up.
“I can handle the flowers today,” Galene said. “It looks like Kalfir brought in a few new trees, would you mind taking a look? I’m not sure where we should put them.”
“Of course,” Anselm said, then paused. “Are you feeling alright today dear? The air is heavy above you.”
Galene stood up from the flowerbed and wiped her forehead, smearing a bit of soil along her brow in the process.
“I’m feeling…distant,” she said. “Not from you, but…from all of this. From the garden. From my own hands. I feel as if I’m watching it all from afar. It’s quite unsettling.”
Anselm wrapped both arms around her and kissed her forehead as she pulled him close.
“You will never be far from me,” he said. “Be gentle with yourself today. We’ll go easy, leave a few things undone for tomorrow.”
Anselm felt her nod against his chest.
“We’re getting old, love,” she said. “What do you think will happen with the garden when we aren’t here to tend to it?”
“Kalfir may not be a champion for the people, but if there is one thing he cares about, it’s the garden,” Anselm said, scanning the area to make sure Mona wasn’t nearby. “He would sooner see the Barge destroy itself than let the gardens fade. Whenever we pass on, I’m sure he will find others capable enough to pick up after us. As for the flowers you cultivate, well, I doubt there is another soul alive who can do what you do. Perhaps we will have to gather them up and take a few bushels with us, if Ysopra would allow it.”
“Hmmm,” Galene said, letting go of Anselm and turning back to the flower beds. “That sounds wonderful.”
Anselm made for the center of the garden. A marble statue of Kalfir’s grandfather, Lord Palsida Unvarek, stood tall in the center of a massive fountain. The Unvarek name meant next to nothing before Palsida. They led a settlement on the eastern coast so small that no historian would remark on it. Palsida was a tinkerer and a man of questionable morals, a fiercely dangerous combination on the Barge of Souls. At the request of Yulfang, he began work on automated sentries, designed to track and hunt down humans. The Unvarek family fortune was built on the sale of his design, the ikyrons. Deadly creatures made of iron and wood, with a penchant for violence. Two unsavory advisors from Yulfang paid the Unvarek family an amount never revealed, but it was enough for generations. Their only stipulation was that all creative rights would transfer to them. As far as Anselm was aware, Kalfir was the first lord of the family who refused to keep ikyrons as security on the grounds. They unsettled even him. Only once in his life had Anselm come across an ikyron.
Vivian Wenzler
The statue of Palsida and the fountain surrounding it melted away, and in its place was a farmhouse, engulfed in flames. Somewhere in the vast plains around Yulfang, a week prior to Anselm’s thirty-second birthday, and five years after the Mullentia War. Galene had spotted the smoke from the road, and while she watched the wagon and horses, Anselm ran through the cornfield hoping to help. The roof of the farmhouse crumbled as he cleared the field and stepped into the open. A creature stood at the steps to the porch, holding a canvas bag soaked in blood. It was humanoid in shape but made entirely of iron plates, cord, and quickly spinning wooden cogs, each one enchanted with bright blue sigils. Its face, or what was meant to represent a face, was an iron plate void of any features. The body of the creature was cut and damaged in places, and covered in splatters of blood. Anselm saw a large blade recede into an open slot of its arm as it turned and moved towards him. He tried to run but couldn’t find the strength to move his legs. Instead, he stood completely still and watched the ikyron approach him. It paused for a moment when it reached him, and slowly turned its head to face him. Anselm’s blood ran cold and all the air in his lungs evaporated beneath the weight of the ikyron’s eyeless gaze. With a creak, the creature turned its head back and then walked forward into the corn, leaving a trail of blood from the sack it carried.
A thin, weak breath returned to Anselm’s lungs, and he felt his legs unlock. The farmhouse was far gone, but the barn next to it only smoldered from the roof. Anselm ran forward and plunged through the half-open and shattered barn doors.
“Hello!?” he shouted over the sound of the flames above. “Is anyone here!? I can help!”
He was met with silence, and tried again, and again, as he frantically moved through the barn. One of the pens was covered in blood from two cows that had been slaughtered by the creature. Anselm heard a faint cry from the pen and tried pushing the door open but one of the cows blocked it. He pulled himself up over the wall and landed with a splash in the pools of blood. Laying down behind one of the cows, completely covered in blood, was a boy. He peered up at Anselm and held out a shaking hand.
“We’re gonna get you out of here okay?” Anselm said.
A heavy piece of the roof collapsed somewhere behind him, but Anselm ignored it, stepping over the body of the cow and gently sliding his hands underneath the arms of the boy. He couldn’t be more than nine years old.
“Okay I’m going to pick you up now so we can get out of here,” Anselm said. “I need you to do something for me okay? There is a lot of smoke in here, I need you to take your shirt and pull it up over your nose. Can you do that?”
The boy nodded, and weakly pulled his shirt up over his nose like he was told. Anselm lifted the boy up and then covered his own face. Instead of trying to climb over the pen, Anselm braced himself and began to kick the door. Another chunk of the roof fell to the ground, and a heavy gust of wind came through the hole, feeding the large fire in the loft. It howled and roared higher. After six heavy kicks, the gate splintered open enough for Anselm to squeeze through. The smoke and exertion were getting to his head, and the barn began to spin. He ran for the exit, each footfall booming in his head like a hammer, the weight of the boy on his arm dragging him forward. Anselm careened out of the barn and carried the boy a safe distance before setting him down and tumbling to the ground next to him. He laid down and gulped breath after breath. The boy sat next to him coughing and then spoke up for the first time.
“We tried to help,” he said. “Somebody needed help and we tried to help them.”
It was what Anselm thought. The boy’s family had hidden a refugee from Yulfang.
“They…my mom and dad told me…” the boy began to cry. “They told me to hide behind the cows. They said the…they said they see heat. They can’t tell it apart from an animal. So I did.”
“I’m so sorry,” Anselm said, beginning to catch his breath. “I’m going to watch over you. I won’t leave you alone. My name is Anselm, and my wife Galene is at our wagon, down by the road. What’s your name?”
The boy sniffed and wiped the tears from his face. He gently reached a hand up to the two small horns spiraling from his head, as if to make sure they were still there. Anselm hadn’t noticed that he was a san renomo until then.
“My name is Irfan,” the boy said. “Thank you.”
“You okay there old man?” A high-pitched voice shocked Anselm back to the present. He was sitting on the edge of the fountain, beneath the shadow of Palsida’s statue, with one hand dangling in the cold water. Mona, the head of security stood in front of him, her dark green mage’s attire was pristine as always, with not a speck of dirt on it. Her arms were crossed, but her face betrayed a small shred of worry for Anselm.
“Oh yes, I’m fine Mona,” he said, wiping the water from his hand on a rag he had tucked in his belt. “Just caught up in an old memory is all.”
“Whatever you say,” the worry was gone from her face. “I’m here to help with these.”
She motioned to the four evergreens leaning against one of the hedges.
“Kalfir wants them planted in the southside, around the Monument of Calbreda.”
“A fine place for them,” Anselm said, pulling himself to his feet. “A bit of shade in that area will be nice.”
A harsh shriek emitted from the northern edge of the gardens, followed by a heavy slicing sound, the noise of spirit bows arming themselves, primed to fire.
“Perimeter breach!” Mona shouted, drawing her mutaract. She took a scroll from her belt and whispered an incantation before throwing it straight up. The paper burned bright white and exploded upward into a shield made of sparks, then reformed to an arrow pointed north. Every guard on duty would have seen the call to action.
“Stay here, it’s the safest place in the garden,” Mona said, then sprinted towards the alarm.
Anselm was not one to lightly disobey an order, but as soon as Mona was out of sight, he ran the opposite way, towards the flower gardens to the south. Towards Galene. Kalfir was a lord with more than a few enemies, but an attack on his estate would be brazen even for the most vicious among them. A traveler tripping the security system was just as unlikely, considering the isolated nature of the land, just on the outskirts of the Central Kingdom. A chill ran down Anselm’s spine. The Central Kingdom. What was once a crazed whisper from drunken swindlers had become practically a fact to the Barge of Souls working class. The Central Kingdom was awake and bubbling over with all manner of savage creatures. Stories from Wolf, Paruul’s Bazaar, Osterhold, even desperate cries from The Mist in Gidaea’s Forest all but confirmed an impending danger. Anselm had even broached the subject with Mona, days before. She waved it away, saying “you don’t need to worry about that. Lord Kalfir has safeguarded this place in more ways than one.”
Anselm barreled around the corner to the flower gardens fearing the worst, as more perimeter alarms blared to the north. Galene was standing in the center of the garden, staring upward. At first, Anselm saw nothing. He stepped closer, and a being flickered into view. Another step and it was gone, then another, and it returned as if it were only visible when the light hit it just right. The being was like an armadillo, standing on two legs with a massive shelled back. It towered above Galene, easily three times her height. Its tail, shaped like a blacksmith’s hammer rested on the cobblestone path, carefully curled up to avoid crushing the flowers. Its paws were tipped with razor-sharp claws that were each the length of a broadsword, but the being kept them close to its body. The flowers in the garden seemed to be reacting to the presence of the being. They were brighter than Anselm had ever seen them, even in the heart of summer. They were nearly singing in joy. Galene turned to Anselm and smiled, motioning him towards her. Keeping both eyes on the being, Anselm sidled over to her, quickly taking her hand in his.
“You have nothing to fear, Anselm,” The being said. They bowed to him, nearly curling up into a ball. Anselm opened his mouth to ask how the being knew his name, but before he could get the words out, they answered him.
“A little boy, afraid in a barn,” the being said. “A woman without hope, injured on the battlefield. Only two of many lives you’ve touched. Two lives that will be crucial to our survival in the coming days. Your name may not be remembered in the legends told, should humanity live on. But among us, Ysopra’s champions, you will always be an honored guest.”
Anselm looked at Galene. When the being spoke, they motioned to her as if they were of the same ilk. It was the first time he had taken his eyes off of the being and rested them squarely on Galene. Only it was not Galene. Her hair, which had long ago faded to gray, was vibrant chestnut brown just as it was the day he met her. Her crow’s feet he loved so much were gone. Her eyes were no longer the pale blue they had been. Instead, they contained a swirling eternity of moons and crashing waves of bright stars too beautiful for Anselm to comprehend.
“I’m afraid, my love,” Anselm said. “I do not know if you are here, still.”
“Galene is here, but she is only a piece of me,” she said. “But even that small piece, just a fraction of my being, contains so much love for you that I can barely contain it. She wants you to know that she would never be ready to leave you, but the world and her brethren are calling her back. Back to face the mounting hatred of the Central Kingdom that overflows as we speak. All because of the greed and malice of those like Kalfir, mining from the God’s Pearl in exchange for the lives of his neighbors, left at the feet of the Deathless King Arisosh. The king bargained with the mages to leave the Central Kingdom and its infection to him, and endless wealth would be theirs. But now the infection spreads beyond him, spilling out into the rest of the Barge of Souls. Just like it did when they first broke the God’s Pearl before The Collapse. Please, my dear. You should head to the east. Find the river and follow it to Paruul’s Bazaar. An old friend is there, and she would love your guidance once more.”
Anselm was struggling to accept what he was hearing. It seemed like it was only moments ago when he held Galene close, and now she was gone. Or changed.
“What of the garden?” he asked, afraid to say anything that might move her away from him.
“I will watch over it, in my own way. Kalfir will be removed, his estate burned to the ground, and his machinations destroyed. You could return one day, but I fear it will be too dangerous for the time being, while the Central Kingdom thrashes about.”
“Can…can I speak to Galene one last time?” Anselm asked.
“This form is the closest I can get to the Galene you know,” she said. “But she is listening, and I can speak for her.”
The armadillo being turned to leave the garden.
“I will wait for you outside, Tumo Barugh,” they said. “It was an honor to meet you, Anselm.”
They flickered and vanished, leaving Anselm with the being that was and wasn’t Galene.
“The last forty years were greater than anything I could have hoped for, because of you,” he said, taking her other hand. “I do not know if you were always this being, but if you were, it would explain the capacity with which you held the beauty of this world. I learned love from you, more complex than any I could have fathomed before. I only hope that in the swell of everything you gave to me, I was able to return it in kind.”
Tumo Barugh’s eyes, full of galaxies, welled up and stars began to fall down her cheeks, crashing to the ground in bursts of color.
“I am lucky to have held you all these years, my dear. And to have been held by you. This may be goodbye, but only to the forms we’ve known. Our love will continue, one day. When we transcend the bounds of this place. I will eagerly await that reunion.”
Anselm took a few long, heavy breaths, and begrudgingly let go as Galene stepped back.
“Bring some of the ember lilies with you, when the time comes,” Galene said. “They have always been my favorite.”
“I will,” Anselm said. “As many as I can carry.”