Simple Harvests

The next three days passed in a blur. He spent most of the time with Bertran, learning about the ins and outs of life in Harbek and its environs. This ranged from lessons on the basic terminology the Casparians used to a crash course in the basic theory of lumi and its applications. Raster, the head recorder, dropped in to ask him questions on the evening of the second day but that was all he saw of the elders for a while after the initial meeting.

Rather, the recorder visited Trick on the second watch. That was one of the first things he had to learn. The sun didn’t show itself on the seventh sphere for some reason so they divided time into watches which, in turn, consisted of twenty hours. The Casparian hour was close enough to the Earth hour that Trick couldn’t detect a difference. From there units of time were oddly similar, which he found very suspicious. He hadn’t had a chance to broach the subject with Raster or Brossius yet so that mystery would have to wait.

There were a lot of mysteries to Casparian society and it didn’t help that they were apparently an offshoot of a larger civilization known as the Precincts of Balthazar. The Zars, as Bertran called them, had a lot of ancient traditions that just carried over to Caspar. The reason for those traditions got lost somewhere along the way.

Or maybe a frontier town like Harbek just didn’t have a use for that kind of very niche information.

It was kind of odd to think of Harbek as a fringe settlement. It was about the same size as his home town. Ossian wasn’t a huge place, even for the American Midwest, but it was less than four hours drive from there to several decent sized cities, including the state capital. From comments Gemma made it sounded like Harbek was days from another town.

At least they seemed fairly self-sufficient. The vines that crawled over almost every building produced edible leaves that were chewy but nourishing and, if he was being honest, pretty tasty. Dog sized flightless birds called amoas produced eggs and meat. Most meals included bread or root vegetables. Food wasn’t varied but it was plentiful. The key to keeping it available, as with so many things in Harbek, was ensuring there was lumi available.

During his third watch after meeting the elders he went on a harvest patrol with Bertran, Gemma and Sari. They spent an uneventful five hours collecting cobalt and topaz lumi from various wells outside town. As they crossed the hills and gulleys Trick’s hosts pointed out various new things to him.

Zelpnirs, the eight legged furry creatures represented in several statues around Harbek, were ten foot long omnivores that served as mounts to the Casparians but could also be dangerous predators in the wild. Their undulating bodies didn’t look like they made for a comfortable ride but Trick wasn’t about to judge. There weren’t a lot in the way of big animals on the seventh sphere, other than the creatures that fell from the ninth sphere.

Beyond that Bertran and Gemma pointed out so many small birds, scuttling rodents and buzzing insects that Trick lost track of them all. An hour into their excursion he stopped paying attention to the wildlife. Instead he focused on the techniques for manipulating lumi crystals, hoping to get a head start on his lessons on that front. Bertran insisted he’d get a longer training on how to manipulate and formulate lumi at some point. However, there were supposedly a lot of other fundamentals he had to get down, first.

What these fundamentals were wasn’t clear.

When they got back to town near the end of that watch Trick was sure of two things. First, figuring out lumi just by watching how people used it seemed like a fool’s game. The tools built to use lumi were a big part of the how of lumi. Bertran and Sari called this the craft that went into the tool, although Trick had come to understand they used this word to mean the intent or purpose of the tool. The second thing he realized was that Sari was far and away the best lumi user of the three he was with.

That was an interesting discovery.

Sari said she was born the brightest person in Harbek. Did that mean she was somehow uniquely gifted in the use of lumi? Possibly, although that wouldn’t explain why she said she had to be dim.

She also said she bore the responsibility to darken the light of the town, which Trick figured made sense with how the starsight seemed to seek out lumi when they attacked. To the Casparians lumi and light were essentially one and the same. Taking steps to keep Harbek’s lumi from attracting the attention of the starsight made sense. Putting the responsibility on the shoulders of one woman did not.

Unless her status as the brightest in Harbek somehow gave her a unique status or ability to control the illumination of the town? That might explain it. He hadn’t seen Sari demonstrate any such a gift but, then again, Trick wasn’t sure he’d recognize that gift if he saw it. And it was the only thing he could think of to explain why she was the brightest in Harbek.

Well, that or the fact that she was the only blonde he’d seen in town but that struck him as ludicrous.

They were in the process of unpacking the day’s lumi harvest when Bertran said, “So you’ve been in the wilds twice, now. Do you think you’re ready for another trip in a watch or two?”

“Well, a harvesting trip is nothing like hiking through all that red grit so I could probably do another tomorrow - sorry, next watch if you need me to.”

“I’m not asking about a harvesting trip.” Bertran turned one of the newly filled crystals over in his hands, running a thumb along hairline cracks that spiderwebbed across its faces. “Reservoirs can only be refilled so many times before the start to hold less lumi for less time. Eventually they become useless. They can be refined and refreshed but no one in Harbek has the craft for such delicate work. The warden is anxious to find the stockpile of crystals in that section of the Steel Perilous you say you found.”

“Don’t you think it’s a little early to take Trick back there?” Sari asked, her voice even but her hands trembling slightly as she unloaded her basket. “You haven’t trained him in any drills yet. I haven’t trained him with any lumicraft yet. He hasn’t been to the hall of records to learn about the dangers of the Steel yet.”

“The Steel isn’t like the spheres, Sari,” Bertran said. “The creatures that appear there aren’t anything like zelpnir or amoa, they aren’t animals or even beasts from the ninth sphere. Training with the sword or lumi aren’t really going to prepare him for anything. Trick has already survived the Steel Perilous once. That goes for far more than anything we could do on his behalf.”

“But-”

“It’s alright, Sari,” Trick said. “Like he says, I’ve been there before and, if you want my opinion, it wasn’t exactly perilous. Maybe that section of the Steel is separate from the hazards Casparians have seen there in the past. And I can see why the warden would want to go there as soon as possible. Some of the reservoirs kept in that facility were missing when I arrived. If we want to gather the rest we should probably do it as soon as possible. Do you want to go tomorrow, Bertran?”

“It’s not up to me,” he said. “Warden Dart wants to come as well and he plans to bring a full patrol of the harvest guard just to be on the safe side. I’ll tell him you’re ready to make the trip and he’ll decide when the town can spare the men. However, the zenith is soon. There’s lots of harvesting to do before then so there’s no saying when we’ll be ready with certainty.”

“I’ll stay on my toes, then.”

Bertran set his basket aside and got to his feet. “Speaking of the warden, I need to go and report that we returned safely. See you at dinner, Trick.”

Trick nodded and kept sorting full reservoirs into the cabinets full of padded, wooden cubbyholes where the full crystals were kept. Once Bertran was gone Sari stopped doing the same and stared at him from behind her veil. After about ten seconds of that he stopped and did his best to meet her eyes. “Something wrong?”

She returned to her work. “I think you’re being too accommodating, Trick. The elders will take advantage of you.”

“We’ll see, Sari. We’ll see.”

They finished sorting the harvest in silence.