Tainaron: Mail from Another City by Leena Krohn

Author:Leena Krohn
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: fantasy
Publisher: Cheeky Frawg Books
Published: 2012-11-25T05:00:00+00:00

THE MIMIC

THE SIXTEENTH LETTER

In Tainaron I have a balcony where I sometimes sit and bask when the sun shines and I have no reason to go into the city. For you it is autumn, but for us it is still high summer.

Yesterday the dazzle closed my eyelids and set fiery landscapes rolling beneath them. There was a book on my lap, but I did not turn its pages. Here in the courtyard grows a great tree whose name I do not know, and the blaze of the sun was extinguished only when it was snared by the branches.

Look! At that moment I saw below me a group of stones. They were largish cobblestones, grey ones, dappled and reddish ones, granite or possibly gneiss. The centre of the courtyard was paved with them, and they were beautiful stones; but that was not why I was looking at them. It seemed to me that new stones had been brought to the courtyard and that some kind of a hillock had been built, which had certainly not been there before.

Just as this little riddle was beginning to trouble me, Longhorn stepped on to my balcony.

‘Look under the tree,’ I said to him. ‘Do you understand why a hill like that has been built there?’

He looked, and began to smile—if the slow withdrawal of his jaws to the side of his face can be called a smile—I never get used to it.

‘Perhaps you find it amusing,’ I said, a little irritated, ‘that all sorts of obstacles are built on the thoroughfares; I myself can see no sense in it.’

When I glanced at the pile of stones again, I was downhearted, for I thought it began to look like a small grave.

‘Do not worry,’ said Longhorn reassuringly, resting his light forelimb on my shoulder. ‘I see you do not yet know the Mimic. If you wish, I will introduce him to you.’

‘Who is he?’ I asked, and my mood was cheerless, even though the day was bright and autumn was still far off.

‘It is him you are looking at,’ Longhorn said amiably.

I did not blink, but nevertheless something happened in my eyes, for now I could see that what was in the courtyard in the shade of the tree was no pile of stones but a living creature, motionless, whose back was covered in a reddish-grey, lumpy carapace.

I wanted to ask something, but Longhorn made a gesture with his hand. He has, you see, a habit of moving wonderfully gracefully and elegantly, and his movement silenced me indisputably.

‘Now look,’ he ordered, and there was no longer anything or anyone in the shade of the tree. But a round knoll had appeared on the strip of lawn beside the wall, and it, too, was as green as new grass.

‘Is it . . .?’ I began.

‘Yes, he is quick,’ Longhorn acceded.

‘I do not understand,’ I complained. ‘Is he someone, then? Who is he?’

‘My dear,’ Longhorn said, and looked at me, waving the extensions of his antennae, ‘do you believe that the Mimic could have a personality? Today he is one thing, tomorrow another.

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