Watson, Ian - Black Current 03 (4 page)

 
          
"Clay," he murmured.
"A potter needs clay. And not just any sort of mud, either! I need kaolin
clay and petuntse clay. Kaolin is decomposed granite, and petuntse is decayed
feldspar which melts into glass. That's if I want to craft real porcelain. . .
. For soft paste- ware I'd only need chalk, white clay and frit. But frit's
made up of gypsum, salt, soda and quartz sand. Anyhow, pasteware scratches easy
and picks up grease marks. . . . And if I just wanted to craft faience or
majolica, I'd still need the right sort of soft earth, wouldn't I? It's so arid
here.
All dust and sand.
I hadn't realized."

 
          
"Whatever you need, the guild
will get."

 
          
Tam laughed. "What, tubs of the
right kinds of clay all the way from Aladalia?"

 
          
"Why
not?"

 
          
"They'd probably dry out.
Anyway, it isn't the sort of stuff you buy in any old quayside shop. It has to
be sought. A potter should know his clay like his own flesh, or else he
botches. He turns out second-best that cracks and crazes."

 
          
"Can't you write to friends in
Aladalia, saying exactly what you need?"

 
          
"And wait weeks and weeks, and
meantime change my plans? No, a potter should work with the local clay that
he's in touch with." His shoe grooved the surface of the street.
"Dust and sand all around me.
Oh well, I guess I can
try my hand at brickwork. Why not? I'll be a big fish in a pond that's
otherwise empty." He grinned lamely.

 
          
But of course I didn't yet know the
half of it; and it was Peli who got Tam to explain fully over dinner, which we
three ate privately that evening in my own chamber.

 
          
Just before the meal was served, he
presented me with his gift: a bundle of straw tied with twine. Within was a
mass of chicken feathers.
And nestling inside those ... a
fragile translucent white bowl.

 
          
A bowl about the
size of Tam's hand.
The sort of bowl that ought only
to hold clear water with a single green leaf afloat.
Or only air. There
was already something floating at the bottom of the bowl beneath the glaze: a
dark violet fleuradieu, last flower of deepening winter. For a moment I thought
this was the very bloom which I had sent to Tam by way of goodbye. But no; it
was painted exquisitely on the porcelain.

 
          
"Why, Tam! It's beautiful. No,
it's
more
than beautiful. Did you
really craft this?"

 
          
"Who else?
It's part of a series showing all the hues of the farewell flower from
summer's powder-blue to the midnight blue of year's end."

 
          
"How did you manage it?"

 
          
He shuffled his big feet and twisted
his knobbly hands about. Lana had finished setting out some lacquer food boxes
for us. She said, "Better fetch a brush and pan for the feathers, hadn't
I?"

 
          
"No. Just leave us, will
you?"

 
          
When she'd gone, Tam said, "How
indeed? Well, when you sent that flower, Yaleen, something altered in me. This
emblem . . . purified my art; enhanced it. It's only a little while since;
it's a big change, I'd say."

 
          
"A breakthrough?" queried
Peli.

 
          
"Hardly
the word a potter would use!" Tam chuckled and
pinged
the bowl with his fingernail.

 
          
"Don't!"
cried
Peli in alarm.

 
          
"It won't shatter unless you
chuck it across the room. It's frail but strong, as an eggshell is. A fat hen
could sit on it. Talking of chickens and eggs, let's eat. I'm starving."

 
          
We took the lids off the food boxes
only to find that we'd been served with raw fish, Spanglestream-style.
Obviously this was a new experience for Tam. The fish of the northern reaches
are coarse and indelicate compared with those of the south. Northerly fish need
frying, boiling or barbecueing. True, we didn't have such delicacies as hoke
or pollfish or ajil in Pecawar waters, either. But a few species made passable
substitutes. What's more, the new Spangle- stream-style restaurant whose fare
we were sampling that evening had begun to experiment with importing the yellow
pollfish and madder hoke alive in nets towed behind boats—though frankly these
fish didn't seem to travel too happily; their flesh became a tad lacklustre en
route.

 
          
Needless to say, I hadn't asked
Donnah to order in a raw fish banquet for us; and I feared this was a bitter
jest aimed at discomfiting the newly-arrived Tam who had never eaten such a
thing in his fife before. Maybe Chanoose had suggested our evening's menu to
Donnah! Though raw fish was to my own taste—with reservations—I felt bound to
apologize for the strange cuisine and assure Tam that it had nothing to do with
regular Pecawar cuisine. I knew that he preferred spiced sausages, lamb
pasties, faggots, blood pudding and such. If I'd had any sense, I should have
foreseen something of the sort. I resolved to have a firm word with Donnah the
next day.

 
          
But Tam claimed to enjoy all this raw
fish, dipped in pepper and mustard sauces, as a novelty; and Peli pressed
questions on her compatriot to make him feel very much the honoured guest; and
perhaps distract him from what he was munching.

 
          
As she quizzed Tam, so the true—shall
I say
enormity
?—of what I'd done in
summoning him to Pecawar became more apparent.

 
          
Soon curious words and phrases were
flying about, such as "saggars" (which are fire-clay boxes) and
"biscuits" (which are what you call fired pots before they get
glazed), and "overglazing in a muffle fire" and "burners who
watch the kiln".

 
          
"Burners?"
I interrupted.

 
          
"People have to watch a fire to
keep it constant."

 
          
"How long do they do that
for?"

 
          
"Sixty hours
or thereabouts."

 
          
"Oh. And your clay has to be
crushed and churned first of all under a millstone?"

 
          
"Right; that's to render it soft
and fine enough. Oh, I could fix up a grinding wheel sufficient to my needs,
though I doubt I'll need one."

 
          
"Why
not?"

 
          
"No suitable clay. I'll have to
turn my hand to brickware—or lustre and majolica. I reckon I can design a small
kiln which won't need constant attention."

 
          
"I'll pitch in/' said Peli
. "
It'll give me something to do with my paws. Who
knows, you setting up shop here could be quite like, well, the new
Spanglestream restaurant opening!"

 
          
Tam surveyed a few slivers of fish
remaining on his plate. "Perhaps," he sighed.

 
          
"Tam," I said, "I'll
find you the clay you need—the clay to make fleuradieu porcelain! I promise I
will."

 
          
"But . . . how?"

 
          
"Tell me exactly what these
kaolin and petuntse clays look like and smell like, and anything else about
them."

 
          
So he told me, though it isn't too
easy to detail the hue and the feel of types of clay I don't suppose he
believed my promise, and I didn't explain further in case nothing did come of
my plan.

 
          
That night I dreamed up a river for
myself. That night I dreamed up a Worm. And the Worm rose from the depths of
the waters; from the depths within me.

 
          
Hullo,
Worm. Solved any riddles lately?

 
          
Hullo
yourself. It
isn 't
easy. Why is there a universe? Why
is there
a me
? There's nothing to compare me with. Now
if only I could contact another of my ilk. . . .

 
          
Just
what are you getting at?

 
          
Tis
hut an idle notion.

 
          
Well,
we don't have time for idle notions. What are we going to do about the Godmind,
eh?

 
          
Aren’t
people doing it already, by booking tickets for my Ka-store? Pity there's an upper
limit to the number of Kas I can swallow.

 
          
Say
that again!

 
          
There's
still room for you, if you get bored with being my priestess. Just jump in the
river and I'll see to the rest.

 
          
You 're
having me on, Worm.
You 're
trying to panic
me. Admit it!

 
          
You
can hardly expect me to swallow an infinite number of persons. Obviously
there's an upper limit.

 
          
And
it's large enough for everyone, I’ll bet!

 
          
I
do wish you would join me.

 
          
Sorry.
Other duties call. And here's one of those duties, right off: I need clay.

 
          
Clay?

 
          
I
need certain types of clay. Otherwise I'll have done the dirty on my friend Tam.

 
          
Explain.

 
          
So
I did. Will you search the memories in your Ka-store? Someone may know where to
find kaolin and petuntse locally.

 
          
No
problem. I already know.

 
          
You
do?

 
          
It’s
underwater, on the bed of my river. The stuff you call kaolin is about a league
south of here.
You 'll
find petuntse half a league
beyond.

 
          
On the river bed?
Sequestered by
water and
stingers,
and by madness for any man. . . .

 
          
The
stuff's just offshore. A person could wade out and dig, if they held their
breath.

 
          
Worm,
it's time to talk about men.

 
          
Need
some advice?

 
          
Don't
be daft. I want you to promise that if Tam drinks of you
you
'll
let him enter the river.

 
          
And my Ka -store too?
I don't much care for the taste of the
several (lead Sons I swallowed.

 
          
Tam’s
different. He’s gentle. Most of our men are, over here in the east. They ve
learned to flow with the world.

 
          
Hmm,
I seem to recall they
weren 't
so gentle
recently—during a certain war.

 
          
And
whose fault is that? You provoked the war!

 
          
Oh.
So 1 did. And now
you ’re
asking for all men to drink
of me and enter the Ka-store? That's what this request of yours implies.

 
          
Anything
to get Tam his day! Okay, so that's what I'm asking.

 
          
Hmm,
but that would put an end to the female monopoly of the river.
Which would turn your own world upside-down and my Ka-store too.
My whole inner landscape would alter. I don't think I like that.