The River of Memory Riddle

From: Ashley Munday <Ashley.Munday_at_liffe.com>
Date: Tue, 11 May 1999 17:45:58 +0100


The River of Memory Riddle

While Ynla fished, Cerdic and Jon bathed in the river. Thankfully it was a hot day and the iced water from the mountains was a refreshing change rather than the torture it would have been normally. Jon spent the time telling his store of "The Darra Happen Lady and the Agimori Fan Slave" jokes, not really able to hear Cerdic's laughter as his ears were submerged under the river most of the time.

Cerdic also watched Ynla. The cat crouched by the edge of the stream looking intently for fish. Occasionally one swam past and her desire to savage something overcame her distaste at getting wet. She'd dunk a paw in, flail about then dart back up the bank to lick her paw dry, as if to say "I meant that." Eventually she went and sat herself in some shade, out of sight and minds of humans and fish alike.

Jon finished his jokes, and sat up, his shoulders clear of the water. "It's a bit chilly in here," he announced, "I think Ynla's got the right idea, kipping under a bush." He rummaged under the surface and pulled out the jar of wine they'd been drinking, kept cool by the river. He drained it and looked lovingly at the bank where their other jar lay.

"Take pity on an old man," he said to Cerdic, grimacing as if from the pain
of movement, "Fetch the other jar for us." Cerdic felt a bit too mellow to move, but he felt like arguing the toss even less. He'd guzzled a fair share of the wine and it'd gone straight to his head in the hot sun. He rolled over, on all fours to get up, his bum scraping over the gravel. Jon burst out laughing: "Shit, it's Rufelza!" he exclaimed. Cerdic was past caring, he waved his bum imperiously and struggled to his feet.

"Not exactly Kero Fin on the other side are you?" he said, surprised he
could summon anything like wit in his torpid state.

Jon roared laughing. "It's the water, far too cold for me to emulate that pillar of granite." He looked up at the swaying Cerdic, "Er, Wine doesn't fetch itself..." He waved Cerdic imperiously towards the bank.

Cerdic couldn't think of anything coherently witty to say, so he decided not to bother. The day was too balmy to worry about that sort of thing. One thing he'd learnt from Jon was that the older someone was, the sharper his wit. It wasn't that Jon was much cleverer than Cerdic - he'd just had longer to think things through. Cerdic had often learnt the hard way the difference between wit and raw intelligence. Where he had to derive wit when he needed it, older people have it stored.

He splashed out the river and scooped up the new jar of wine. With a grin he hefted the jar to Jon. Jon caught it effortlessly. Twice the age of the young sage he still had the reactions that came from fighting for your life.
"Thanks," Jon said, pulling the waxed linen cap off and taking a big gulp.
"Ugh, it's a bit warm..." he said, recapping it and submerging the
earthenware jar under the water.

Cerdic picked a spot of bank covered in grass and flopped down. The direct sunlight started to dry him, warming his goosebumped skin. Jon stood up, picking the empty jar out of the water. While he waded out of the river he lobbed the jar at Cerdic. Cerdic, with the reactions that came from sitting still reading all day, froze and made no effort to catch the jar and it thumped to the bank, raising a small cloud of dust.

Jon wandered over to the bank and joined Cerdic. "Want to make a river?" he asked.

"Um?" Cerdic replied.

Jon laughed at Cerdic's bemusement. "C'mon," he added, "Want to see how the God's do it?"

Cerdic narrowed his eyes, wondering what sort of mischief Jon intended to perpetrate. With his drunkenness came a heightened paranoia that he was about to become the butt of a practical joke, the sort of thing that regularly happened when he was an apprentice sage. "How do you mean?" he asked.

"Didn't you ever make rivers when you were a child?" Jon asked back. Cerdic
admitted he hadn't. River building was not the sort of thing that had occurred to him as a child in Nochet. Jon waved him over to a sandy patch of bank and motioned him to sit down by it. Jon sat opposite him and scored a line in the sand down the slope of the bank almost to the river's edge with his index and fore fingers.

Cerdic was not impressed. "Not very big is it?"

Jon looked at him. "The patience of the young is under-whelming," he muttered, shaking his head. While he spoke he was filling the empty wine jar from the river, the escaping air making glubbing sounds over the chatter of the current. "Now, watch this..."

With that he started to pour the water down his makeshift river bed. The water flowed down the runnel until it poured out of the bottom. Again, Cerdic wasn't very impressed. "That it?" he asked.

Jon said nothing and gave him a withering look. "You have to do this a lot to appreciate the effect," he told Cerdic, refilling the wine jar again from the river. "Look a bit closer and you might notice something." He started pouring the water from the jar again down his now moist river bed.

Cerdic did as he was bidden and looked intently. All he could see in the current were small grains of sand being swept downstream. He told Jon what he'd seen as the jar was refilled for the third time. "Keep watching..." Jon told him. "Especially the sand."

Cerdic had to admit it was fairly relaxing watching the "river" Jon had made. He watched carefully as Jon emptied jar after jar of water down the runnel. Jon got into a sort of rhythm: While the bed drained of water, he refilled the jar. As he emptied the jar Cerdic watched the grains of sand tremble and dance their way down the slope.

He wasn't sure how many jars Jon had emptied, but Cerdic noticed some changes in the river's topography. The end Jon had been pouring into had deepened while the end it vented from had flattened, forming a sort of delta. The change had been so gradual he hadn't really noticed it. Added to that, the previously straight channel had a couple of distinct kinks in it. It now looked like the imprint of a snake that had been resting in the sand.

Jon laughed seeing Cerdic's face light up with wonder. "Shall I keep going?" he asked. Cerdic nodded dumbly. He had the feeling that a door was being opened ajar for him, a door of understanding that if he thought hard enough could be cast open. Jon continued emptying the jars down the runnel, Cerdic staring intently at the bed, trying to see everything that happened down the entire length of the river. After another indeterminate number of jars he could see the kinks in the bed were turning into fully fledged meanders. In his minds eye he could imagine that he was standing on the banks of a huge river watching the current sweep by in a huge arc. He felt like a God as he could see every detail of Jon's creation.

Jon stopped to rest his arms. His forearms were knotted and fatigued from the effort of lifting and pouring the water. How much water he'd poured was beyond either his or Cerdic's estimation. As he massaged his wrists, Cerdic felt slightly frustrated that he couldn't see his river grow and change anymore. Jon offered Cerdic the jar and without a word Cerdic took it and continued making the river flow. It took a while for Cerdic to get into the rhythm, especially as he didn't want to be too heavy handed in case he damaged this natural work of art.

While Cerdic studied the changing topography, Jon wandered off for a gulp of now cooled wine and a pee in their river's larger brother. By the time Jon returned, Cerdic had stopped and was deep in thought. The big meander had been pinched off from the river and now formed an Ox bow lake, the ends of the lake silted up with fine sand. It was no longer fed by the main stream which bypassed it, flowing down to the delta.

"Look at that!" Cerdic cried, excited by what had happened, his face alight
with wonder. Jon nimbly sat back down from where he'd done the lion's share of the pouring.

Jon studied the river and then asked Cerdic: "Your memory is a river. What is a lake?"

Jon had a soft voice at the best of times. Cerdic couldn't help but think that when it asked you to think the effect was so compelling you couldn't help but want to answer. Jon had baited the hook of his question and was waiting to see if he caught Cerdic's mental fish. The only problem was, around Jon he felt like a minnow trying to swallow pike bait three times his size. Then it all became clear, Cerdic's mental fish wasn't a minnow but a huge carp, and it swallowed the bait with ease.

"My dreams."

Cerdic sat the rest of the afternoon between both rivers. Jon sat under a tree with the other jar of wine teasing Ynla with a platted rope of grass. The only sound was the chuckle of the river and the snap of the cat's jaws. Neither man needed to say anything, they were past words.



Ooops, just seen that this is 9K - hope someone else is paying the 'phone bill.

End of The Glorantha Digest V6 #591


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