What the Reed-woman Told Me (Excerpt)

I met this woman in Elz Ast at the dockyards, where she was explaining to wide-eyed soldiers how to survive in a land like Eol, as they prepared to sail up the White Sea for some expedition or another. Probably not a Kalikos one, I think. 

She told me later, "What do I know about Eol? But those boys and girls feel safer, don't they?" I admired her ability to reconcile truth and lies, though not so bluntly, and she said, "Ah, I've been doing it for long enough." At that point I began taking notes. This is part of what I wrote down. 

Within the cities, they say that Aether Primolt had four sons. That Dayzatar was a being of pure thought, that Lodril was a being of pure emotion, and that Yelm had to mediate between them, and so he ruled over both. And Arraz was his servant in this.

They say that Lodril never forgot Yelm ruled over him, and that he had to sometimes fight his sons to get them to remember this. They say that Dayzatar never forgot Yelm's presence, alone among material things, and appointed his spawn Polaris and Ourania to fill in when Yelm had an unavoidable appointment in Hell. 

In the dry lands, they will tell you Yelm was afraid. That when Lodril descended to bring fire to the Earth, which was cold from the Dark which gnawed at her from below, he called out to his brothers to follow him. That Dayzatar would only look at him with one eye, and that Yelm only descended halfway. But Yelm warms the world regardless, in his own way, and Dayzatar's Eye still provides us with guidance. 

They say that whenever there was a problem brewing for Yelm, Lodril would go and fix it first, and then abide by Yelm's judgement after. They say that anyone could go to Lodril and hear his advice and it would always be good. They say that Yelm would only marry a woman who could reject the world like he did, but Lodril loved Oria for what she is and not what she could do. I have never heard them say anything of Arraz one way or another.

We are the river people. What do we care with the lofty gods and the tall gods with the big long spears? When Oslira came roaring up from the south, most people fled. But some of us leapt into her mouth and were preserved. And then when she had calmed down, we emerged and were met by long-legged Biselenslib, poling a boat up Oslira's length. She showed us the parts of Oslira's flesh we could live off of, the reeds and berries and groundnuts, and finally the rice. But without her feathered neck and strong beak, we could no more eat the rice than we could the poison ivy. Some people tried to be birds by dressing as them, and they went away east. 

When she saw this, Biselenslib called out for her husband, burning red Shargash, and he descended from the skies and beat the rice with his club, and we were all very frightened until we saw that he was doing it gently, tapping the rice off. But then Oslira rose and said she would not suffer Shargash to touch her again without consummation, and Biselenslib argued with her, and at last they agreed to share Shargash between them, and where the three consummated together, Shargash dropped one armring, which is now the city of Alkoth. But the other armring he gave to us, the people of two of his wives. I have a piece of it here, on a string around my neck, and any Shargashi who sees it will know I am a greenwife or a redwife or possibly both. 

We have had other sunderings- people going off to follow billygoats, people abandoning Oslira for her children to the southwest, people joining the strange people to the northwest. But we remember where we came from, and what's really important in life, and no city along our Oslira could live without us. That is enough.