Strandpiel
How dual nationality works out for one proud user.
Currently embuggered by loads of ideas and very little time to commit to record because of the demands of a new job. LOTS of ideas for continuing old stories ("Many worlds", et c) and barely enough time to sketch them out for retrieval later. Building skeletons, basically.
In Saffie slang on this world, a "soutpiel" is a person caught between two continents. Nimbus Llewellyn, a long-time reader, would know. The idea is that one foot is in South Africa. The other might be in Europe, North America or Australia or New Zealand. But the general idea is that the person is caught between two places and has roots in both: "Sout…" is Suid Afrika. The "piel" is that bit of the anatomy which, metaphorically speaking, is dangling in the ocean in between. This is an uncomfortable position to be in even when, strictly speaking, the person in question does not in fact have a "piel" to dangle.
How to put this in a Discworld context? Well, "strandvoerts" is the best Afrikaans/Dutch I can find for "Rimwards". Message me if you know better. And a piel is a piel on both worlds. Hence, "strandpiel".
A series of episodes and glimpses into the later life of a new character. Readers do appear to want to find out more about her. I'll try to put them into some sort of order. As time allows.
Slight revision to tidy up and address little inconsistencies pointed out by reader "Guest". Thank you, anonymous person. Good points. Chapter Two will come soon.
Nap Hill, Ankh-Morpork.
The bogeyman blinked in the murky dark shadows of the child's bedroom. Bogeymen are not bright creatures. Their existential imperative is simple: find child, frighten child. Wake house. Interrupt sleep of parents who rush from their sleep to reassure and soothe child and assure them there's nothing there. Go "hur, hur, hur!" and leave, with a glowing sense of job satisfaction.
But this bogey was experiencing a dawning sense of worry all of his very own. It wasn't going according to plan. Not at all. He recalled learning from the other bogeymen in Biers that nobody had done Spa Lane in ages. He'd asked if this was okay. He was a new bogey in town, after all, the others had their beats, and a strict hierarchy applied. He didn't want to poach anyone's turf. There was such a thing as professional courtesy, after all. The other bogeys had suddenly gone poker-quiet and said "help yourself, friend".
He should have taken that as a warning…
He'd got into the house on Spa Lane alright. And standing in the darker shadows of a garden in Spa Lane, he could sense quite a few young children. His only difficulty had been the sheer giddying amount of choice available here. The bogey was irresistably drawn, in the end, to one particular house and to one particular upstairs window, drawn to a sleeping child no older than around about three or four. Or possibly five. Bogey hunting instinct was unerring when it came to prey.
But far from being frightened, the child, a female of about four or five with red hair, had sat herself up in bed and was watching with intent interest to see what would happen next. She had drawn her knees up to her chin and was observing over the top of them with quiet intense eyes.
She had also reached over to a book at the bedside and flicked it open.
There had been a blur of motion. And now the bogey, half-hidden in the shadows behind the door, could hear a voice at his shoulder, speaking from where he couldn't see the speaker - but could still clearly hear the voice. It was worrying.
"You're in the wrong place, friend." the voice said. "You picked the wrong house. Me and Bekki here, we go back a year or two. She done nice things for me. She give me a voice. She got me to break my conditioning. I owe her."
The bogey found himself gulping. The voice had overtones, somehow, of glowing red eyes and fangs. It sounded demonic.
"But since you're here." The voice went on. "Fancy a bit of coffee? I think I could manage some cream, too."
The bogey registered a low insistent growling. It got louder. Then two shapes detached themselves from the darkness. They became two of the largest dogs the bogey had ever seen. Angry dogs. Big angry dogs.
"Oh, did I mention Kaffee and Crème are Howondalandian Ridgebacks? Bred to hunt lions. Make really good guard dogs! And right now, they're guarding Bekki. They defend. It's their wossname, imperative. Soek, guys." the unseen voice said.
The bogey screamed. Loudly enough to wake others. This was almost lucky for the bogey. Who later on would come to realise, with a shudder, that being ripped limb from limb by angry Ridgebacks would have been the easy way. In quick succession, several intent-looking goblins scrambled through a tiny door in the side of the chimney-stack. Goblins were parents too, had no human parent illusions about bogeymen being figments of the imagination, and who these days had a zero-tolerance policy towards nocturnal home invasions. These goblins were armed and showed every inclination to respond. And then things got worse for the bogey. The bedroom door opened and a figure was silhouetted against the light. A barefoot human woman in a nightdress. She had long unbound red hair and she was carrying a very big blade. She had the look of somebody whose sleep had been interrupted, and who was correspondingly a bit tetchy about it.
"Kaffee! Crème! Bly!" she commanded. She flipped the door back with the blade of her sword and glared at the bogey without fear. And a great deal of annoyance. The dogs, still growling, padded to her side, their eyes expressing an intent of causing maximum damage to the intruder. The bogey, terrified now, registered other humans behind her. One looked like a wizard. He also registered the sword rising. The woman had every appearance of one who knew what it was for.
"Tokoloshe." she said. "Die Boeman. Jy is in my huis. Jy is hier om my dogter te skrik."
Her words were spoken softly and had a quiet menace to them. The bogey held his hands up in a placatory way. The woman glared at him and the sword, straight, heavy and designed to cleave, rose higher.
"Bogeyman." she said, in Morporkian this time. "You came into my home to ettack my daughter. Explain to me why I should not kill you."
"Errr…" said the bogey.
"Have you chosen the wrong house, friend!" the original voice said, with a demonic gloat. The woman spared a glance. She smiled slightly.
"Be quiet, Grindguts." she said. "You know you are not meant to be out of The Book. I may request my husband returns you there. Permanently."
"Yes, ma'am!" the creature said, quickly. And respectfully. He noted the Wizard, standing behind her, nodded in quiet emphasis.
She smiled again. Slightly. She patted her stomach with her free hand.
"The lest time I was cerrying a child, this house was invaded. My household fought. The etteckers were destroyed. The survivors did not survive for very long. They were henged. Now it eppears. New child, new invader."
She nodded to the angry goblins.
"We will not be ettecked in our home egain by night intruders. My people are prepared for this. I em en Essessin, tokoloshe. End I have inhumed things of the night before. End for my daughter, I will inhume you!"
She stepped forward. The child in the bed, who had winced at the reminder a little brother or sister was on the way and she would very soon cease to be the only child, spoke up.
"Please, mummy! Don't kill him, let him go. I'm sure he's very, very, frightened and he won't do it again? Please, mummy?"
Mummy paused, smiled and lowered her weapon. Only a little, but it still went down.
"Do you hear that, Boeman?" she demanded. "You came to terrify my daughter end she hes no reason to like you or to speak up for you, but she is. It is very possible she will grow up to be a far better human being than her mother, who will kill you. Without blinking. She takes efter her father in this respect, end he is a truly gentle man. But be warned. He too inhumed in defence of this house end his family."
The Wizard – he had to be one, he stank of magic and radiated intent to use it – frowned at him. Bogeymen knew from the cradle, or their equivalent of, not to even try to invade the personal space of magic users, who could get as emphatic as Assassins about these things.
The woman paused, and breathed out. She pointed her blade at the open window.
"Leave this place. Never return. Be warned. Go. Voet…"
The woman controlled herself. She restrained her dogs. They gave every indication of wanting blood and conclusive retribution. As did a gaggle of armed and irritated goblins.
"Just go."
There was a whoosh in the air. Seconds later, there was no bogeyman. The bogeyman sniffed the air. There were little boys in the house next door… (1) and another little girl in the house two doors along…(2) The hunting imperative was strong. Stronger than caution. He would soon discover why bogeymen gave Spa Lane a wide berth.
In the house behind him, Johanna Smith-Rhodes settled her household to sleep again. In the quiet of their bedroom, she resheathed her machete and sighed deeply. Ponder Stibbons looked over to her, ready to talk to her about things.
"Ponder, what do we do ebout Bekki?" she asked, a mother who was running out of ideas. "She was not even frightened of thet creature. More like fescinated with it."
"And Grindguts." Ponder said. "He was only ever meant to be a pop-up-sprite in a picture book."
"A picture book aimed et wizards." Johanna said, meaningfully. "Or to be precise, et their children."
Ponder winced. Baby's First Grimoire had caused ructions in the household. Strictly speaking, Bekki was too old for it now. But she loved the Book. It had been impregnated with first-generation Imps, meant to be bound to the page, to perfume limited functions to delight a child, and open the eyes of a magically-inclined toddler to things of magic in a safe and controlled environment. A little song and dance, to introduce a young enquiring mind to simple language with repetitive and simple song-and-dance routines. And being a picture book written by wizards for young boys with magical talent, the pictures had themes revolving around elementary magical concepts. Such as Grindguts The Destroying Demon – who had developed a mind of his own and gone beyond his programming.
Grindguts had turned out to be an amiable and benign creature who loved and adored Bekki and would do anything for her. And somehow he'd learnt to untie himself from his bonds to the Book and leave it to roam independently. It had caused Ponder no end of headaches. He had realised, uneasily, that at the age of four, his daughter had enough magical talent to create a familiar spirit. He was keeping an eye on this. Grindguts had been told his independent sentience was conditional and only there under sufferance. Do not do anything to annoy Johanna. Please. Don't.
"Well. When she's old enough you're going to take her to the Butts and teach her about weapons. To see if she takes after you as much as she does me. Hopefully that'll ground her in mundane things." Ponder said. "In some children magic is there to begin with, but fizzles out after about age five, when they find other things they like. They say Rincewind started out that way, with just enough pre-school magic to give the wrong impression, but it fizzled out after he turned five or six. By then the University had accepted him, and we realised far too late he'd lost it all. So we were stuck with him."
Johanna sighed, heavily.
"We'll see, Ponder. I want to take her to the Ridings soon. To get her beginning her riding lessons. If she gets eccess to ponies end horses, thet might ebsorb her energies. I hope so!"
(1)16 Spa Lane: Owned by Emmanuelle, Comptesse de Lapoignard, who was indeed the mother of two young boys. And principal instructor in Swords and Bladed Weapons at the Assassins' Guild School.
(2) 14 Spa Lane: Owned by Doctor Davinia Bellamy, mother of Davinal Bellamy Junior, a playmate of Bekki's and the daughter of a woman who taught Applied Botany at the Assassins' Guild School.
number 4 Spa Lane was also owned by Emmanuelle, Comptesse de Lapoignard. She rented it out to graduate students and teaching assistants at the Guild School and at any one time there could be up to eight young Assassins in residence. There were good reasons why creatures of the night who knew their local geography avoided Spa Lane. A several-times-winner of the Teatime Prize (for assassination strategies directed at supernatural creatures) lived on Spa Lane.
Notes Dump:
Somewhere in a sea roughly halfway between two continents, the one of the tale being currently written and the semi-glimpsed one of future tales yet to be committed to paper, where isolated ideas are given lifebelts and a signal rocket against being rescued in future.
Lots of lovely stuff about Dutch folklore and cultural mythology. The Boeman travelled to Africa with Dutch emigrants and collided with the native myth of the tokoloshe, a native African bogeyman whose rationale was to prowl and frighten by night. Afrikaans, apparently, uses both words interchangeably for what English knows as the bogeyman. Bogeys must have emigrated to Howondaland alongside the first Vondalaanders.