You Are Here: Tales of Cartographic Wonders by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2016-11-16T05:00:00+00:00

MAPPING THE BUZZ OF INSECTS

Daniel Ausema

Mosquitoes in the Cranue River Valley must have crossbred long ago with alligators. Or perhaps, as some tales had it, they were part swamp panther, adding a touch of feline stealth to their persecution of human intruders. Every stilt-raised village was ruled by the caprice of a foul swamp witch. Or a fiend whose body released deadly fumes. Every tree was capable of lifting its eerie roots out of the shallow water and wrapping enemies in a deadly embrace.

Fanciful stories of course, and yet… As the boat pilot pushed yet another scaly beast away from the boat with his pole, Sargent Tiepool wasn't ready to dismiss the old folk tales entirely. The insects that swarmed him and his small retinue might not literally have any reptile ancestry, but they certainly outgrew the mosquitoes of his highland home. And who could say that the blood their ancestors had surely drained from alligators—and humans and other animals that had wandered into those waters—hadn't somehow been passed along in uncanny ways to their descendents today?

A thud beneath the boat made Tiepool grab the gunwales. The pilot glanced his way and tossed him a bundle of half dried plants. A dozen woody stems were held together by another stem. The leaves were a green so dark they were almost black, and clusters of white flowerlets poked out above the leaves.

“Good luck plants.” The captain grinned. “Local custom, but all you soldiers have taken to chewing them too. Brings luck.” A glance at the water behind them where something had hit the bottom of the boat. “And less worry.”

Tiepool took a leaf from the bundle and bit down on it. Bitter, but only for a moment. Then a sense of calm settled over him, a feeling that fortune would bless him. Such a quick effect, no wonder the other highlanders had adopted it when they came to these swamps.

Tiepool had yet to see any village—or witch, for that matter—but the fame of the lowlands' plant magic made the idea of strange protections somewhat plausible. Whatever they had would be more primitive than, say, Ormenna's celebrated magic, and no match for the weaponry Tiepool's people could command, but it would no doubt form a significant part of the lives of these backwards people.

The real danger wasn’t in witches and magic, though, but in rebels and hidden weapon caches.

As for the trees, they were uncanny all right. The roots sprouted out from the trunks well above the waterline, like dozens of eels latched on and gulping the trees' blood. Well… sap, he supposed, but something about the way they brooded over the water made the word sap far too dilute a word.

He was in the middle of trying to come up with a better word for the trees' lifeblood when the boat glided around a corner, and a village came into view. The captain called out a greeting. Tiepool slid past the gear and a crew member who stood near the front, so he could stand right in the peak of the bow.

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