Episode 31
Travelling Light E031S01 Transcript
[Title music: rhythmic electronic folk.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light: Episode Thirty One.
[The music fades out.]
The Traveller
Entry HE85002-8: A nursery rhyme from the Valtat province of Koom, with additional historical context.
Key words: children and infants; Koom; local history; nursery rhymes; oral literature; poetry; travel and transport; Valtat.
Notes:
One of the more unusual features of the city of Attala, and indeed of most of the settlements we passed through in our time in the Valtat province, is the prevalence of old-fashioned – even antique – airships, clustering the skyline.
These ships harken to a by-gone era, when travel across the vast Valtat desert was far more difficult than it is today. Rather than make the treacherous journey over land, airships were habitually used to travel between settlements.
Over time, some communities came to live more aboard these vessels than in towns and cities. Winding caravans trailed the sky, with entire families making their homes in the ships tucked beneath the belly of each great gas balloon.
In the days before automated safety protocols and assistive technology, life aboard an airship was, frankly, astonishingly dangerous. Naturally it was of urgent importance for the people living such lives to impress upon their children the need to follow proper safety precautions.
Nursery rhymes are often used to caution children about proper behaviour and good manners. But the tales told in Valtat nursery rhymes of old are enough to make your hair curl.
The verses are filled with tales of children tumbling out of portholes to their grisly deaths, getting tangled in guylines and asphyxiated, or being summarily minced by unnoticed propeller blades, all underscored with an exhortation that this would never have happened if only they had behaved themselves!
Nowadays, the old airships have largely been decommissioned, or preserved as museum pieces and tourist attractions. But slivers of this airborne past live on in the nursery rhymes, still sung today by the apparently fearless children of Valtat.
This is one such rhyme, which recounts the tale of little Asim and the terrible fate that befell him:
All good little girls and boys
Know that airships are not toys.
But Asim was a contrary child
Proud and willful, rude and wild.
The airship where he lived was parked
And all the adults disembarked
When Asim hatched a scheme to play
At being captain for the day.
Before the gods could intercept,
Asim to the cockpit crept.
He threw the ropes down in a flash
And launched the airship in a great, mad dash.
Oh! the joy of that first flight!
Asim laughed with such delight!
He could not hear his parents' cries
As the airship rose into the skies.
But Asim soon had cause to frown
For he could not set the airship down.
There was nothing he could do
As up and up and up he flew!
Soon the air grew cold and thin
And Asim lost his boastful grin.
The airship rose to such a height
That both boy and boat were lost to sight.
No-one ever yet knows quite
How ended Asim's fateful flight.
If he landed, if he fell,
It is a tale that none can tell.
Some sky sailors like to say
That Asim flies yet to this day.
They say he floats there, up in space,
With frozen tears upon his face.
Only this one thing is plain:
Asim was ne'er seen again.
[The sound of the data stick whirring fades in, cutting out when the data stick is removed with a click.]
The Traveller
2nd Herach 850, continued.
The lodging house at Sulka was a small but comfortable affair, lined with terraces offering views of Lake Intzar – or at least, promising those views once the sun had come back up. [laughs]
I was too restless for sleep, and so found my way out to take the night air. Óli, it transpired, had had the same idea, and we sat together for longer than we ought, considering the business of the following morning.
But for all that I knew I should say goodnight and go to bed, I could not bring myself to move. Not with the sound of waves coming to us through the dark. The fragrant smell of jasmine wafting from the gardens below. Óli's arm brushing against mine. The night so warm, so soft, so still…
[sighing] So, when morning came, I was a little more fuzzy-headed than I might have been on a full night's sleep. But I cannot say I regret the decision.
I did, however, regret my nerves. They were such that I could hardly take advantage of the spread laid out for us for breakfast. All I could manage was a little bread, some fruit, and a cup of tea.
Tsabec, Óli and Duytren filled their plates with cold meats, soft cheeses, nuts, preserves and delicious-looking dips and spreads that made my stomach alternately rumble and churn. [sighs]
Aman, meanwhile, seemed almost as nervous as I was, though she hid it well. She had brought down the case containing the helmet, and she kept reaching down to touch its handle, reassuring herself it was still there.
By the time we left, the sky was a bright, shining sort of grey, with shafts of brilliant sunlight breaking through the clouds like bolts from the heavens.
Sulka is a small town but its people no less industrious for all that, and everywhere I looked I saw the happy sight of ordinary, peaceful folk living their ordinary, peaceful lives.
I am not generally one for omens, but the sight cheered my heart. It was very hard to imagine anything going badly on a day that began with such warmth and activity. Then again, I had not thought the previous sale would go badly either.
Our agreed rendezvous point was in stark contrast to that first, furtive meeting. Instead of being tucked away down a dark alley or lurking somehere in a hidden basement, we were to meet in the open air, at a certain statue in the public gardens.
I had not been sure how we would recognise one another when the appointment came. The statue was clearly a popular meeting point, with all manner of people standing around it in loose clusters or sitting upon its plinth, laughing and talking.
But one group drew my eye. There were five of them in all, all managing to feign postures of easy disinterest with varying degrees of success. But as soon as we came into view, though, all their affected ease dropped away.
Five sets of eyes fell on us, keen and watchful. A shiver ran up my spine, despite the heat. This was it.
Only one person among the other crew seemed genuinely at ease. And as we grew closer, I felt a jolt of surprise and recognition.
I had seen the buyer's name plenty of times in my communications with Aboday. I had discussed him with Aman and the others while we made our plans. But until I caught sight of that looming figure beside the statue, I had not made the connection.
Our encounter with one another had been brief. And yet, I knew that broad, bulky body, that grim, square head rising from grim, square shoulders.
He greeted us as we grew closer, Aman leading the way. “Operator Aman of the Tola,” he called out, almost friendly.
“Captain Scarry of the Guillemot,” Aman responded, nodding her head to the captain of the self-same merchant ship I had been considering before I secured my passage on the Tola.
I must have reacted because Óli looked down at me. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. Yes I-I am fine. Just surprised. That captain and his crew – they were at Port Taroth about the same time that we were.”
Óli's eyes widened, but before they could answer, our attention was pulled back to where Aman and Scarry were conducting the sale.
Aman placed the case at her feet, nudging it gently forwards with her toe. “675,” she intoned. “As agreed.”
Scarry's broad, blocky face twitched in something like a smile. “Don't you worry, Operator. I've no intention of cheating you.”
He looked over his shoulder, whistling through his teeth to summon one of his crew mates. A lithe, long-limbed person scuttled forwards, flicking open the catches of the crate and peering inside.
“My goodness,” they hissed, half-sighing at the sight. Their tail lashed behind them in obvious pleasure. “What a specimen. Authentic Echtern cloisonné on the brow ridge, and- [gasp] Is that...?”
“Hand-crocked strapping, yes,” Tsabec put in, unable to keep the excitement out of their voice. “I verified it myself. Not a particularly rare model,” they confessed.
“Oh, but beautiful! [sighing] Oh, so very beautiful…”
“Have you seen they're opening the Francello collection to the public next year?”
“Oh, oh yes! Oh, simply the most divine..!”
But Scarry cut in. “Resimus,” he barked, evidently the crew mate's name.
“I-it's just what we agreed, Captain,” they reassured him. “No funny business.”
Scarry nodded his big head and gestured for Resimus to seal up the crate. They rushed to do so, and slunk back to the rest of the group – though their attention lingered on Tsabec, perhaps regretting the brevity of or meeting.
“All's well, so,” said Scarry to Aman, handing over a much smaller container.
Aman barely cracked the lid to check its contents before she'd snapped it shut once more and tucked it away somewhere about her person.
“Pleasure doing business with you,” she said, already turning to go. “Go you well, captain.”
“One more thing.”
Aman stopped. We all did. Scarry's crew shifted behind him, bristling like the hackles of a dog.
“Don't play silly buggers, Scarry,” said Duytren, almost too quiet to be heard.
She looked as calm as ever, but in the set of her shoulders there was a hardness I had never seen before. A memory, ingrained upon her muscles, of her days before her academic career.
“Trust me,” she said, in that same, low, dangerous voice. “You do not want to play silly buggers.”
“You're quite right,” Scarry said, looking quite unfazed. “I do not. But I have not travelled half the galaxy in your wake just for a helmet.”
“What do you mean, in our wake?” Aman spat. “You've been following us?”
Scarry looked almost bored. “Not you.” His eyes tracked over us, scanning our little gathering until finally, they fell on me. “You.”
His black, proud eyes pinned me where I was, stuck as surely as a fly in amber. I-I tried to speak, to say I had not done anything to deserve this, but my tongue would not move as I willed it.
Then, beside me, Óli spoke.
“I am sorry you have had a wasted journey then, Captain,” they said, their voice cold and clear. And I realised, Scarry was never looking at me. He was looking at Óli.
A wicked smile twisted across his face. “That really depends on you, doesn't it… Your Highness?”
[Title music: rhythmic instrumental folk. It plays throughout the closing credits.]
H.R. Owen
Travelling Light was created by H.R. Owen and Matt McDyre, and is a Monstrous Productions podcast. This episode was written and performed by H.R. Owen.
This week’s entry to the archives was based on an idea by Toblerones, with accompanying artwork available on our social media accounts.
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