• Lemmikkieläin

    I met Lemmikkieläin in the spring of my second year in Vartiokylä, when I was a bare four summers old. After being warned repeatedly not to stray and to watch for wolves, I had been sent out of the village with Oiva to help him with the flocks and learn from him all the things a shepherd must know. My legs were still soft and weak with baby fat, and on the hike up the crags above the town, I gradually fell back, to the tail of the flock and beyond, until Oiva walked out of sight around one of the trail's many bends.

    I felt no anxiety on the matter. The land around our village did not have a large number of predators-- the only reason the village sent out shepherds at all was to keep the beasts from straying into the folds of the surrounding towns. I had been looking forward to the day, for it meant not the first day of my edification in the serious business of herding sheep, but the first day I had been able to wander the crags without several of the village boys following me. Oiva neither needed nor wanted my presence, so I was free for the day-- from then until he called me in with the rest of his flock in the second hour before dusk.

    There had always been, in the back of my mind, a thought that if I could climb to the top of the mountain, I would be able to see the whole world. On this rarest-of-rare free day, I was set on climbing the mountain.

    I was climbing a narrow, gravely path above the Tähystyspaikka when I heard a voice. There was no one around me, and I attributed it to wandering thoughts and continued on my way. The voice came again.

    'What do you, human cub?' the voice asked. 'And rude you are, when I speak to you, to ignore.' I gasped, and nearly fell off the narrow path. The voice was still there, and a white-furred snout, complete with damp leather nose, was hanging off a ledge above me. 'To kill yourself, try you?' the voice inquired. A lower, distinctly gravely note had entered it. 'Foolish, this is. You will stop.'

    A large white shape sprang off the ledge and landed on the path behind me. The wolf cocked its head. 'Your keeper where is, pup? Surely, you straying not should be.' I was indignant. "I am a boy grown," I said, "and have need of no keeper!"

    'So, is this? Then gone, get you. The sheep-boy calls,' she replied (for the voice had a young woman's sound). Her mouth opened and her tongue lolled out in a wolf grin as I scampered around the corner. As it happened, I scampered a bit too quickly. About half way down to Oiva, I missed a foothold and slid a few feet in the gravel before I fetched up against one of the edging stones. An image of a laughing wolf blossomed in my head, and I heard the voice a last time. 'When come you, next time, Lemmikkieläin call. Help you not fall down so much, she will.'

    She kept her promise and more. She be came a sort of imaginary friend, a secret I had that nobody else knew. Most of the times I climbed to the cliffs above the village, if I got away from the group, she would meet me and we would play any of a group of childish games I came up with. It wasn't until much later that I realized that her promise to 'help me not fall down so much' was meant in more ways than one.

    -----



    Otso

    I had always been small. During my fourth summer, I was one of the shorter children my age, and by my sixth, I was of a size with the children one and two years younger. I did not like being reminded, and the hand-me-downs from children my juniors distressed me. There had been teasing on the subject for a long time, but several boys, the chief's second son, Otso, among them, took it to new levels. They began with snide comments on the shabby state of my clothes and my lack of height, but it didn't take them more than a month to progress to shoving.

    Break (missing piece, I need to write it still ^^ A summary of what happens here is in the third post)

    The pain starred my eyes. The world did a drunken jig, and I stuck out my hand as I started to fall. Suddenly, a warm, solid weight interspersed itself between me and the distinctly un-warm-and-soft ground. I gasped, and staggered again.

    Break (Another missing piece, sorry!)

    When I pulled my eyes off the floor of the ihmiset-paikka, the first thing I saw was the forbidding scowl of Aatos, the Second Elder. A close second was the ruddy face and bulging eyes of Into, the First Elder. He was staring at the men that had brought me in, who were starting to fidget. "So we have the boy," he said. "Where is the demon?"

    "It was not found, sir," the man replied. "Neither us nor any of the other search groups saw so much as a tuft of fur." The First Elder gave him a skeptical look, but did not pursue the matter. "Well then," he sighed, glancing over his shoulder at the chief and the other elders, "let us begin."

    I gave my tale simply, from start to finish as best as I could recall, from the day I met Lem until the time when the men had picked me up from Pyry's house. Towards the end, my voice petered out, and I sat frozen, starring at the floorboards. Someone touched my elbow, and I jumped. It was one of the men who had picked me up earlier that evening. "Steady, lad," he whispered. "Gwine an sit that bench. The others got to say their bit too, yah know." He gave a small smile and drew me towards one of the benches along the wall.

    The story that Otso and his friends told was some of the most sickeningly sweet drivel it has ever been my misfortune to hear. Needless to say, the chief's son can have no fault, especially compared to the runty, lazy foundling from who-knows-where. They didn't actually say this, of course, but I am sure they were thinking it. My habit of sneaking off to play with Lem had left a certain impression, so they may be spared some of the blame for the thought.

    The court proceeded as I had dreaded. The debate was hurried, shallow. The First Elder finished his hurried discussion with the Second and Third Elders and turned to face me. He banged his wooden mug on the bench; a wholly unnecessary gesture, as the ihmiset-paikka was very quiet already. "Boy, called Lapsi, foster of Pinja and Pyry, come forth!" he croaked in his ancient, cracked voice. I managed to wobble out into the middle of the room. To this day, I do not know how.

    "This is a difficult case!" he continued. "There is no proof, only four witness testimonies. However, this if the rare case in which letting the villain walk free could cause the extermination of the whole village! The demon could destroy us all! This would leave the rest of the Merja villages open to the attacks we guard them against!"

    He was really getting into the showmanship of the whole thing. I could feel the villagers hanging on to his every word. "We must rid Vartiokylä of the taint!" he crowed. I was getting less and less hopeful as each second ticked by. "Therefore!" he cried, "I pronounce the accused, Lapsi, --"

    'For not coming quicker, pardon I. Call, did you? Miss anything, did I'

    A volley of gasps scurried around the room. My head snapped around. Silhouetted between the gaping doors stood Lem. It may have been just me, but she looked . . . bigger, somehow. I dashed it from my mind. The wind was fluffing her fur, or whatever. She was in high good spirits. A grin was plastered across her face, and a blue twinkle showed in the back of her eyes. She trotted jauntily into the room, and folded herself gracefully onto the floor behind me. The First Elder leapt to his feet. "Seize it!" he shrieked, pointing wildly at Lem.

    Several of the villagers sprung towards Lem. The furry white puddle uncoiled. The fastest one, a woman, brushed her hand over the fur on the back of Lem's neck. There was a loud bang and a flash of light. The woman backed away, rubbing her arm and stifling curses. One of the other enterprising wolf-catchers, a young man, cried across the room to her, "Virvatuli! What did the beast do?"

    "Shocked me somehow," she called back. "Hurts! I can't feel my fingers. Like when you sit on your foot and then get off of it; pins and needles, real bad." Lem gave the woman a wolf smile. 'Grabbing, not nice is. Nice, be. In return, I nice will be.'

    Lem looked around at the assembled villagers. 'Sad thing 'tis, she commented quietly. If I hadn't known her, I would have said that she was talking to herself. 'Sad thing, 'tis, word of three bullies over the upright child hearing . . .'

    "Demon, hold your tongue!" the Elder snapped.

    'Oh, my.'

    "What manner of creature are you?"

    'Permitted to speak, am I?'

    'WHAT MANNER OF CREATURE!" he snarled, as his face turned a majestic shade of puce.

    'A demon, me you called. The blue twinkles in her eyes intensified, and seemed to swirl around each other.

    "Are. you. not. a creature of sorcery?" he heaved.

    'Of course. As demon is. What answer have you?' As she said this, and I can assure you it was not my imagination or a trick of the light, her back began to glow. A shimmering, sapphire blue streak pulsed softly, from between her ears to the middle of her back.

    "And are you not that boy, that Lapsi's, familiar, by choice or coercion?" the First asked.

    'No. I am none of his.' The voice in my mind was incredibly flat, and had the familiar gravely ring to it.

    "Are you sure?" he pressed.

    'Yes.' The gravel in her voice was growing glare ice. 'Something so blatant, I would not miss. Me the fool play, please sir, do not try. If interrogating you, I were, the question excused could be, but so this is not. Held or bound in any way I am not. Know, I would.'

    "You lie! The boy is a witch, by his own confession! It must be lying!" He was screaming and frothing at the mouth as he gesticulated wildly. The other Elders were giving him concerned looks.

    'You dare.'

    The rough edge her voice had contained was gone. In its place was a voice even flatter than before, with a shape that suggested that the gravel had dropped away to reveal the pits of hell beneath.

    'I am greater than a demon.' she spat. I am older than your Tähystyspaikka, more powerful than the moon. I am none of his. You have insulted me thrice. I demand satisfaction.'

    "I assure you, no insult--" gasped the Second Elder.

    'No insult was meant? Then for stupidity alone you die! A demon, you call me. You insist that this whelp, coerce me could. And you say I lie.'

    She turned to me, and I would have backed up if I had been standing. 'As one also wronged, do you satisfaction also demand?'

    'What?' I asked, totally flabbergasted. She had grown. Her head came up to the Elders' shoulders, not my runty eight-year-old thigh. Her eyes were a solid, glowing blue, and the stripe down her back was lighting the sooty ceiling far above us. Her throat was showing a dull glow too, and I had a premonition of doom. With a gliding rush, she interposed herself between me and the Elder's platform.

    'Then pay the piper, they should.' she snarled. 'Let them burn.' A pulse of blinding light exploded out, and then I could not see.

    -----


    My vision slowly recovered. When I could see again, the ihmiset-paikka was mostly the same. But Lemmikkieläin was glowing brighter than before, and was covered in runes that danced and swayed.

    A harsh, dry rattling sounded deep in her chest, and she coughed once. Her eyes clenched into slits, and she opened her mouth wide. White flames poured out from between her glistening teeth. They rolled across the floor, branching into rivulets that snaked towards the elders and the pillars of the roof.

    The ihmiset-paikka exploded into screams. The villagers leapt to their feet or froze, according to their natures. Some ran for the doors, whether to escape or fetch water was anyone's guess. Others dove towards the flame, to stomp on it or attempt to smother it with their coats.

    Into froze. Two of the streams of flame sprang away from him, to either side. He exhaled sharply. It took him precious seconds to realize his peril. It was too long. In those seconds, the streams had swung together again, leaving Into stranded on an increasingly perilous island. In several more seconds, the streams had become rivers, and began to creep inwards at an agonizingly deliberate pace.

    By this time, the ihmiset-paikka was empty, discounting the three of us; man, boy, and wolf. The firefighters had rapidly given the building up for lost-- the flame would not go out, and devoured anything near it, albeit at a slower pace than it ate up the wood floor. I think I must have been in shock, for I had not noticed their going, and the fire seemed to have spread much. The columns were engulfed, and the flame was flicking along the beams and through the thatch of the roof. It lit the carved walls with a harsh, cold light as it crept over and through them. They didn't seem to burn.

    A heavy weight thudded into my chest. 'We go,' Lem said as she pulled her head back. 'You, up get.' I stared at her, uncomprehending. She gave me an irritated look and laid down upon the floor. 'Fast, we must go, so ride you must.' She swung her chin in a brusque gesture towards her back. 'You, up get.'

    I clambered on and struggled to grip her silky fur with my numb hands. She stood quickly, with a sharp rocking motion. I gasped, and nearly fell off. She turned, and began to trot out the doors.

    "Wait!" I cried. "Into! He's still back there! You can't leave him!"

    'Yes, I can,' she said. Her voice was very, very cold.

    "But he'll die!" I wailed.

    'Possibly.'

    "You can't do that"

    'Watch me.'

    She hadn't slowed down at all. If anything, she'd sped up. We were out of the village entirely, heading up into the mountains towards the Vartiotorni, and traveling faster than I could run.

    Her words chilled me. I was going to jump off. I was going to run back to the ihmiset-paikka and rescue Into. The circle had been shrinking slowly; I could get back in time, I was almost certain. I still needed to try!

    I think I must have tensed. Her voice snapped through my mind. 'Stop. Idiot, you are. Die, he will not. He, too crotchety is. The gods of death will him not take.' Her logic seemed ludicrous to me, and I said so at volume.

    'Hush,' she chided. 'The fire, slowly comes, and the wood touches not. Easily, a bridge fashioned could be, if your villagers think do.'

    I subsided, and we continued on. I could see little in the dark. She must have known the mountain like the back of her paw, for we reached the road far sooner than I had thought possible. I was glad. Of the trip there, I will say little, but it was harrowing, and I avoided many things too closely for comfort.

    As we cleared the bluff that overlooked the road, I was startled to see lights on the verge. As we drew closer, they resolved into a huddle of wagons, with torches in brackets fore and aft. I was stunned. The tower had not called a sighting, nor a recognition. The wagons had gotten into Merja territory unnoticed; I had never heard of it happening before. 'A very good guide, they had,' Lem said. 'And their skill for the surreptitious, modest is not.'

    "Is the way they came closed? Is the border still safe?" I asked. The wagons were worrisome; where a wagon could get through, so could soldiers. 'After gone you are, the way shut will be,' she answered calmly.

    "After I am gone?" I wailed. "Where will you be?"

    'About.'

    "But--"

    'Join the travelers, you will, and learn. I will watch, and come also, eventually. Down the hill, go you.' And without further ceremony, Lem snapped her forelegs out from under herself and pitched me down the hill.

    'Much and quickly learn. Strong legs and good food, pup.'
    And without another word, she vanished back up the trail.