Miasma Standing Still!
"Hana Kohl, look there! Look to the west! The miasma stream is standing still!" cried out Dah Yis, one of the two Selkies that gathered myrrh for the port town of Leuda, to his companion as they approached the miasma stream that none had been able to pass for eons.
"Come, come, Dah Yis, you know that we cannot cross it," scolded Hana Kohl in her most exasperated voice. "Let us simply return to Leuda now that our chalice is full. And in any case, we haven't much time."
"It won't hurt to try and cross a miasma stream that stands still, now, will it?" Dah Yis persisted. At last Hana Kohl agreed reluctantly and steered the Leuda caravan's wagon toward the mysterious miasma stream, which (to both Selkies' surprise) allowed them to pass unharmed.
Nothing, however, could have prepared Leuda's caravanners for their next surprise: an apparently-abandoned wagon tied to a hitching post at the base of Mount Vellenge, the yoked papaopamus pawing the ground nervously. "The caravanners, whoever they are, must have been on the mountain a long time, judging by the way the papaopamus is behaving," assessed Hana Kohl, feeding the creature several star carrots and then doing the same for her own caravan's papaopamus. "Shall we continue in search?"
"That may not be necessary—I think I already see someone!" Dah Yis called out, pointing to a body lying almost a hundred yards from the wagons. "Bring the chalice!"
Both of Leuda's caravanners, Hana Kohl carrying the crystal chalice and Dah Yis brandishing a cudgel-like weapon, hastened toward the slain caravanner. It was a fellow Selkie: a young woman of about twenty-four with shoulder-length lavender hair that covered part of her delicate face. Her skin was sun-tanned, dulled slightly by dust, but it might have only appeared so because she wore a fine Selkic garb made of diamonds and a belt inlaid with colorful stones. What puzzled Dah Yis and Hana Kohl, however, was that the fallen caravanner bore no mark of battle: as far as they could see, she had no wounds save where the straps of her over-worn sandals chafed her feet.
"She had to have died of miasma poisoning," said Dah Yis at last, awed and chagrined. "But how could she have simply been left to die—here, of all forsaken places?"
Hana Kohl shook her head in dismay and then, on inspiration, knelt down beside the fallen caravanner and smoothed back the stray hair that partially veiled her face. "Anaїs Nin…" she gasped in shocked surprise.
"Anaїs Nin?" Dah Yis repeated.
"She was the Selkie in the motley crowd from Tipa," his companion explained. "I remember, because we met that group in what was left of Tida, and she led her fellow caravanners in a dirge of remembrance for all the people of Tida who lost their lives as the miasma swallowed the town."
"That and she shares her name with the girl whose death at the hands of a maddened townsman gave rise to the legend that to kill a Selkie is to invite disaster upon one's town, as Clavats and Yukes alike seem to think," added Dah Yis.
But Hana Kohl started in horror as she stood. "LOOK OUT!" she shrieked.
Dah Yis turned around in shock. A tentacle had sprouted up behind him, and it was just about to lash him when he struck at it. Hana Kohl, too, brandished a racket, and with a few economical strikes the tentacle was no more. It crumbled to dust, leaving behind a magicite stone.
"It's a stone of Life…" breathed Hana Kohl in surprise.
"You know what to do in that case," remarked Dah Yis. "Reawaken the fallen Tipa caravanner, and let's take her to Leuda—maybe she can tell us what's happened to make the miasma stand still."
Hana Kohl did as instructed, then again knelt down beside the stirring Anaїs Nin. "Is the danger past?" asked Anaїs Nin feebly.
"What danger are you talking about, Anaїs Nin?" questioned Dah Yis, confused.
Anaїs Nin pulled herself into a sitting position with great effort, beginning to explain. "Khetala said that if we cut the miasma off at its source, we would awaken Raem, the memory-eating dragon that roams Mount Vellenge, so we all had to scatter and be dead before Raem caught us—but how? How do you know my name, and how did you cross the miasma stream?"
"Well," answered Dah Yis, "we both remembered you from Tida—you led the singing of a funeral dirge, and we hear that your Tida namesake is the unfortunate who tried to plant a myrrh tree's root but was killed by a maddened townsman as she did so."
"And the miasma stream that no-one was able to cross for eons is finally standing still, so we were able to cross, spotted your caravan's wagon at the foot of the mountain, and then found you and revived you," added Hana Kohl. "I suppose your caravan is responsible for the miasma stream standing still now?
Anaїs Nin nodded heavily. "Khetala said that our cutting the miasma off at its source depended on Raem not finding any of us alive…"
"So you had to hope that the miasma would kill you before this Raem creature found you or any of your fellow caravanners," Dah Yis finished for her. "Surely you must tell us all about it now that you're alive again, but not now—it can wait for the road."
"The road?" repeated Anaїs Nin.
"We came to investigate the disturbance when we saw that the miasma stream stood still, but our chalice is full, so we want to take you to Leuda with us," explained Hana Kohl. "We haven't any time to go looking for your friends—you can feed your papaopamus again but leave the wagon if you have any hope of your friends returning to it. Otherwise, you'll just have to take your belongings from your wagon and join us on our return to Leuda."
At length (though only after much begging and cajoling until she finally gave up) Anaїs Nin agreed and followed Dah Yis and Hana Kohl back to the hitching post at the base of Mount Vellenge. She only had a few belongings still on the Tipa caravan's wagon that she really wanted to bring along: another change of clothes, a bolt of blue silk, and a few scattered accessories that had served her well as her caravan went far and wide. She also took two cobs of round corn to feed the papaopamus and a striped apple each for herself and the Leuda caravanners before all three Selkies left.