The gate guards by the Cliff Gate didn't pay the man much attention. It was the middle of Fire Season, and despite the fact tempers were being frayed by the weather and the inevitable stench of city life, no one was spoiling for a fight. He looked as if he wasn't that threatening. He wasn't armed and carried a lute, an Esrolian harp and a travel worn bag. The bag clunked down and a couple of flutes and whistles spilt onto the road.
"Balls!" The man cried, retrieving his wind instruments before any
passers by could tread on them. He dusted them off, looking in evident
distaste at the mouth-piece of one of his whistles that had ended up
where a merchants horse had relieved itself. The man looked to the sky
and said in a loud theatrical voice: "Oh for clean streets or a curse on
Horses!"
Many of the passers by turned to look at the man, who bowed low, like an Esrolian courtier meeting his paramour. There was a distinct twinkle in his eye as he said: "My Lords, and Lordesses, for mere copper I am here to play for you what you will."
Some wag passing by shouted back "You can have silver if you play the flute!"
"I believe that playing that instrument would leave a sour taste in my
mouth," he replied, "The sort of taste that only one such as yourself
would experience felating your experienced boyfriend."
Thankfully the crowd laughed and he bowed again. "I have come to your," he paused, thinking exaggeratedly "fair city, from the metropolis of Nochet. I came here expecting a capital city, but I find the eerie of the Gods..." He inspected his shoe. "...and their stables."
The crowd roared again. Now as many as 40 men, women and children stood watching. One man leant forward "Come on then minstrel, give us a tune! Your choice," lobbing a silver into the still open sack of instruments.
"My first commission!" The player said, hand over heart, wiping a mimed
tear away. "'tis true that the people of Sartar know and love the arts."
He bent down and picked the lute up. It was well cared for and looked in better shape than the man himself. He strummed a few chords and sang a scale, ending with an impossibly strained high note. "I think songs with a lady's part are postponed until further notice. So, I'll tell you a story about the Wind Children." He paused for effect: "But you'll hear that they're not the Children of the Wind at all, but the Children of the Sky who were rejected by both their father and their mother."
He rattled a couple of chords off on his lute, stuck it down gently and abruptly capered towards a woman at the front of the crowd who squeaked in an undignified manner and shrank back. "Yelm was the king of the Gods. Look up there!" He pointed to the sky where the sun blazed. "Every day was like this one..." he wrinkled his nose "...smell excepting!"
"You know what these..." he whispered "...Dara Happans..." his voice
rose to normal "Are like. Well, Yelm was like the highest and mightiest
of them all. He was, as a point of fact, so pure that not even shit
could waft up his snout."
The audience laughed. Even the Lunar gate guards, anxious to find anything to pass the time smiled. "I'm not joking, I am so deadly serious I should be struck down here and now, " he continued. "Yelm was the King of all Glorantha. All he surveyed he ruled. All he ruled owed him fealty."
"Not anymore!" Someone shouted.
"'Tis true enough, my sharp witted friend!" He replied. "But despite his
faults, despite his arrogance, Yelm did love someone. No, not himself,
but his wife Ernalda, you uncultured oiks!" He mimed mopping his brow.
"How am I supposed to work amongst such plebian interests? Oh, I am an
artist and words are my palette and you sand it down with your coarse,
abrasive wit!"
He shook himself and continued: "One night while asleep on the pillow of his wife's breast after making love, Yelm dreamed of the perfect mortal child. It had the body of a man and the wings of Vrimak, it could do everything a man and a bird could do. When they awoke, Yelm and Ernalda found the sky over the Spike full of swooping Sky Children, reveling in their flight. Ernalda laughed to see them and her heart filled with joy at that day's offspring."
"Now, by nature the Sky children were like birds, they could go anywhere
in Glorantha within the dome of the Sky. But like birds, they had short
memory, especially of their mother which lay everywhere below them. When
Umath sundered the Sky and the Earth, the Sky Children were terrified at
first, but soon mastered the vagaries of Umath, using him to help them
fly where they wanted. Umath enabled them to soar where they wanted
without effort, all they had to do was ask him and he often helped,
lifting them in his great hands and depositing the, where they wanted to
go."
He paused. "It was idyllic then. But we all know about the God's war, the Greater Darkness in which Orlanth learned responsibility for his actions." He looked about the crowds again. "The Sky Children were lost in this time. When Yelm was killed Ernalda asked them to accompany him down to the underworld, but they were scared. Ernalda was disgusted by her children and forbade them to ever return to her womb. The Sky Children, in tears of shame fled their mother forever as Chaos infested the world."
He looked around the crowd of nearly 60 people now. All were rapt by his craft. He noticed one little girl with eyes likes plates staring up at him. He flung his arms out and stood with legs apart, writhing as if in pain:
"They saw their old friend Umath, chained between the Sky and the Earth.
They couldn't unchain him, but they could help ease his suffering. Umath
was comforted by the Sky Children and ceased many of his thrashings of
pain. They told him of their mother's rejection and their fear that
there father was never to return. Umath told them that he would be proud
to be their father. Rejoicing that someone loved them, they borrowed
some of Umath's power to help the other inhabitants of Glorantha fight
Chaos. Some say that when the Storm Bull bellowed, the renamed Wind
Children used Umath's power to aim the fragment of the Spike that pinned
the Devil."
He made a hammer blow with his hand, miming the effect of the Spike hitting the Devil.
"Finally, the Sun rose again. He saw how the Wind Children had hurt
their mother and taken the power of his enemies and disowned them. He
had a tear in his eye, because he had rejoiced in watching the Wind
Children knowing he had created them. Despite their new father, the Wind
Children always look sorrowfully up at Yelm when he travels the Sky,
sometimes calling to him for forgiveness. But he's a proud father and
won't respond now."
He went very quiet and looked around the crowd. "If when you travel from here you see one of the Wind Children and hear them crying their lament to the Sun, remember what Orlanth said: Honour your parents."
His face cracked into a grin. "Thank you," he ended and bowed as the audience clapped.
He wandered over to the bag, with a quick motion only he switched the horse soiled flute for a clean one. "Okay, who says a Lunar for a jig on this?" Many hands dived in purses to dig out their coppers, the cautionary tail forgotten for now, all for the chance to tell their friends about the weird Esrolian who would eat shit for money.
End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #102
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