Old Ideas, New Visions

By Jonathan Shandy

“I call it the Iron Snake.”

Daggi beamed with pride at Hanky and Edy, having laid out the greenprints on their table at the “The Valley’s Finest Pub,” which could well be true, since City Folk called their pubs “taverns” and in Longton the Mountain Folk had a place simply called “The Bar.”  Forest Folk preferred hosting friends in their homes, and if a Gardening Folk opened a place, it was because they enjoyed cooking more than they could eat.  

The windows were open to let in fresh air, and a crystal hung in each window, absorbing sunlight all day and giving it back half the night.  One wall had been decorated with a pebble mosaic of a startling sunburst behind clouds, and another of the prow of a boat cresting a wave in bad weather, the thick, rolling fog blurring the distinction between obscured sky and angry sea. Kristi had never been to the sea, but had heard much about it from passing travelers and always said when her kids were old enough to manage the pub, she’d go and see it for herself. Most people, especially her kids, figured that was ten years ago and she hadn’t gone yet.

Each of them had a glass mug of a different colored, bubbling concoction. Every month Kristi had something new for her customers to get tipsy, dreamy, or sleepy. A thick journal lay open on a short pedestal, with a sign encouraging people to write their name, home, what they had drunk, and the side effects in the name of natural philosophy.  A couple of tables had been built taller, for the occasional Wood or City Folk passing through.

A distant explosion reminded her, and probably everyone in the Valley, that Jonny had returned from his travels abroad.  He had left when Daggi blew him off, swearing to not return until he could impress her.  Two decades later he showed up, but moved right back in with his mother Dirti, the best herbalist of their folk and so, of course, the wealthiest. He dug out a new room for his experiments, and burrowed into his work.  She admired his effort, but in her rare and unwelcome moments of idle reflection, wondered why he hadn’t called on her. His adventures must not have worked out as planned. So far all he’d done is shake up the ground, so he might make a pretty copper or two selling explosions to Mountain Folk for mining.

“It looks like the steam powered toys you’ve been selling,” said Hanky, stroking his brown beard as he looked over the Iron Snake.

“Proof of concept.”

 Edy twirled a few strands of his red beard. “Except those were made of wood. Iron is a lot heavier.”

“The Iron Snake will have a lot more fire in its engine.”

“The Mountain Folk won’t sell you that much iron for less than more gold than you will ever see,” said Hanky. And there was no point in asking the city folk, since they couldn’t mine iron fast enough for their own needs. They fought so many wars their weapons didn’t hold up long, so always had to be making more.  Mountain and Forest Folk liked a good fight, too, but the latter preferred a “touch point” competition and the former’s natural instinct was what they called “drunken grapple punch kick.”  They hadn’t converted mining tools into killing tools until the coming of the War Folk.  

“If I can make this work, I’ll have more gold than anyone in the Valley except the Mountain King. Maybe more.”  She dreamed of a day when she lay down iron rails and her Iron Snake dragged wagon loads of goods around the Valley, making trade between the folks faster and easier than ever before, at a small percentage. Maybe she’d even have rails for iron snakes going in both directions. Maybe even one running out of the valley to the Kingdoms of Katan, a prosperous bunch who were always building something. As she explained her ideas, her friends ordered more concoctions.

 “The Katan folks like hiring robber gangs to annoy each other,” said Hanky.

 “She could hire Mountain mercenaries to scare them off,” said Edy. Edy made special effect points for the bolts of their crossbows, or arrowheads if other folks came calling. Someone wanted a tip that injected a sleeping potion, or a potion that made War Folk break out singing opera, or sprayed a potion as it flew overhead, Edy was the folk to ask, as long as it didn’t kill anyone.  Valley Folk knew the prices of everything except a being that knew of its own existence, and just because only Wood and Dream Folk could invite others into their dreams, to walk around and enjoy a concoction or read a book, didn’t mean other Folks didn’t have them.

 They chatted about her ideas until the crystal started to glow, and she decided to go home and rest up, so paid the tab, calling the drinks their consulting fees.  “Tomorrow I’m heading out first thing, to ask the Leaf Lady to loan me some capital.” Everyone knew the Forest Folk had more money than they knew what to do with, even if they seemed to think loaning money and getting either more or less of it back was just a game and not a way of life. Her own Folk always reinvested their money in their own ideas, so if they needed more, usually asked the Lady, who had infinite patience with repayment, unlike City Folk, who compared their people who loaned money to large, carnivorous fish.  Of course, everyone in the Valley knew the Lady’s coins had a bad luck curse on them that kicked in if someone decided not to pay her back if they could, but that didn’t worry Valley Folk. In matters of prosperity, they had an honor code that made City Folk rules of war look loosey goosey.  That City folk had to write down their contracts cast a certain suspicion on their culture.

“You could just ask Jonny,” said Edy. “Everyone knows he came back with a lot more than he left with.” Trunks of stuff from far off lands, probably most of it for his mother.

But he hadn’t come calling on her, so either it wasn’t true, or he’d changed his mind about her. Either way, she wasn’t going to call on him.

From the doorway stretched out a view of the river and the Forest on the other side. Too steep for farming, the hill had smoothed over rocks where folks sat with their concoctions and could listen to birds all day or star gaze all night.  Daggi gave each of them a quick kiss goodnight, and they returned to their separate burrows.

Bright and early, empowered by her morning porridge and coffee, Daggi hurried down to the ferry where Raggy sat reading The Weekly Words, a journal printed by a Valley Folk in Longton about all the business opportunities and political inconveniences around the Valley.  She sold them to her cousins who loaded up their wagons and sold them in every town where Valley folk lived.  Even the better-informed City Folk subscribed, as did the Mountain Folk, but those misers shared their copy.  It took about a month for each wagon to make the rounds, but the printer had four cousins with four wagons. Another thing Daggy could speed up with her Iron Snake.

She gave Raggy a copper, they bowed with respect to their transaction, and he pushed the boat off with his pole from the carefully tended gardens and pastures to the thick, irregular line of trees, bright greens facing the sky and shadows under their branches. They chatted about the more interesting articles, his insights more musical to her ears than the birds singing, since he chatted with all sorts ferrying folks around.

The dock on the other side was really an exposed root of unusual width that the Forest Folk had encouraged to stretch a little further out into the river.  They’d also encouraged the trunk to grow in the shape of a Mountain Folk hero holding his hammer high with victory, to commemorate their united victory over the War Folks long ago. 

She hopped on with ease, offering him another copper to wait and take her back across.

He stared at it skeptically. “I’ve not known anyone to do that quick a business with a Forest Folk.”

So she offered him two, which he accepted and sat down to read. It was understood that if she didn’t return by nightfall he could leave, since she was probably entranced by the peace and beauty of dreams.  She took off her boots, tied them together, and slung them over her shoulders.  The fungi connecting all the root systems in the forest could sense her bare feet and know her for being of the Valley, a folk who had never harmed these woods.

The wildness confused her.  The Leaf Lady could usually be found by the tallest, oldest tree, but once in the forest, Daggi couldn’t see which tree that was. Following the sound of innocent laughter, she found a Forest Folk in a simple green and gray shift searching the forest. Yet the giggling echoed from all around. 

Daggi asked if she knew where to find the Leaf Lady. 

“I cannot even find the children under my charge.”

More giggling from the canopy. Hide and go seek was the most popular game among Forest children, encouraged by their parents, and raised to levels of intelligence and skill that rivalled chess, which was why their rangers could sneak up on the forces of darkness. 

“Never send an army when a lone ranger will do,” was how their saying translated into Valley speech, but City Folk translated it as “assassin” and Mountain Folk as “shadow stalker.”  Valley Folk disliked violence, but appreciated the economical efficiency of killing rulers who started wars instead of soldiers stuck fighting them.  

 Despite her joke, the woman pointed Daggi in the general direction, then smiled and rolled her eyes when offered a coin for her trouble.  Annoyed, Daggi walked around trees, over roots, and whenever possible through the streaks of light that made it through the canopy. When a gentle radiance shone from the plants and earth, she walked into the strange, alluring space between dream and reality where Lady Leaf, at this moment, lived forever and yet did not truly live. They stood in perfectly smooth courtyard, a round wall around a round pond, with tall crystal containing the illusions of heroes.  In the middle of the pond stood the image of her father, who had died fighting side by side with a Mountain King against a demon in a war that had drowned a tottering old empire in blood, allowing heroes to become new kings and rebuild shattered provinces as their own realms.

In theory, a Forest Folk could live forever in their dream space, their body sleeping against a mossy tree or sinking into the earth, yet only among memories. Reading a new book, learning a new song, having children or growing into an adult, all had to done in the world where they could change but resumed aging.        

“You are Daggi,” said Lady Leaf.  The woman whose beauty inspired too much awe for jealousy or lust smiled at her. “You are really here.”

“Yes, Lady Leaf.”  Daggi looked at herself in the pool, and saw a version of herself without blemish, which, she supposed, was how Lady Leaf remembered her.

“I guess I should wake up then.”

The courtyard disappeared as Lady Leaf’s real body sat up from leaning against the tree with a wide, full yawn.  No longer quite so awe inspiring, she still appeared as one so attuned to nature she never suffered from hunger, disease, or vice, yet had the vitality of someone who had climbed the highest mountain, the shoulders and back of an archer, and in her voice could be heard the tempering of elven innocence with somber memories.  As a lone ranger, she had avenged the death of her father by hunting down the War Folk priest who had summoned a demon to kill him.

Lady Leaf escorted her to a round, marble table standing in a small meadow, surrounded by marble stools for folks of different builds. The mosaic of a Mountain King stared up at them from the surface.  After Daggi laid out her greenprints and explained her plan, Lady Leaf didn’t smile, which for a Forest Folk was as good as a frown. “This seems quite noisy, and you would have to cut down many trees.”

“But none from your Folk’s forest. The tracks go around.”

“And where will the heat come from?”

The Lady didn’t want her to say wood.  “I can buy coal from the Mountain Folk,” she said even as she mentally added more costs to her plan.

“But that dirties the air.” They had almost come to blows about dirty coal smoke generations ago, so the Mountain Folk installed pipes to expel their industrious smoke on the other side of their mountain.  “I think you should find some other source of power before I reconsider your proposal.”

To one of her own, Daggi would have explained just how much profit there was in this venture and haggle over the investment, but Forest Folk just didn’t care much about money, except as souvenirs to show off while telling stories about their adventures.

The next day, she paid Raggy to boat her upstream to the Mountain. After three days of pushing against the tireless river, they passed through increasingly rocky terrain until sheer walls rose up on either side, thick strips of pastels hinting at their ages. The day after, they docked at a wide stone platform next to a waterfall, the constant mist refreshing after so much time in the sun instead of her workshop, the random heavy patters of drops against the rocks so consistent and close they reached Folks’ ears as a comforting continuation.

As Raggy broke out his fishing rod, she walked to the metal double doors.  Despite being no taller than Valley or Gardening Folk, they had wasted the resources on doors tall enough for giants. The closer she came, the more obvious the decoration. Images of Lady Leaf stood in slight relief from the doors, one in a time of peace holding a scroll and the other in a time of war holding a bow.

She banged on the knocker until a part of the metal slide aside and a guard looked out. “Who are you and what is your business?”

“Daggi, here to offer an investment opportunity.”

The Mountain Folk frowned, skeptical. Sometimes they would invest in a Valley enterprise, and sometimes it made a profit and sometimes it made a loss, but it was hard to convince one of them a business failure hadn’t been a long con to get their gold.

“Can I at least talk to Kagnar?” He had more respect than authority in the caverns, because he’d been traveling instead of rising through the ranks, and knew more about foreigners than traditional Mountain Folk considered proper business.

“Yeah, I suppose.”

The window slid shut and the heavy doors opened with the lazy ease of perfect mechanical balancing. She had interrupted a card game between three guards, all the same build and armor but the woman didn’t have a beard.

While two other bored guards closed the doors behind them, the guard who’d answered her knock escorted her through the tall, lantern lit tunnel. Each lantern, larger than other Folks’ and hanging down from the middle, had stained glass sides, illuminating a history of teaming up for the benefit of society. Scouts who had first discovered the iron ore in this mountain. Generals who had devised the defeat of their enemies. Drummers and buglers who lifted people’s courage and enlivened their dances. Smiths who turned ore into prosperity.

Their civilization echoed in the vast caverns. Hammers against metal. Pick axes against stone. Ore carts rolling. Operatic singing. Daggi wanted to cover her ears but resisted out of politeness.  As her mind adapted, she heard the rhythms underneath, using beats to keep time as teams and music to raise their spirits during the monotonous work that was the foundation of everything else in their lives.  Nothing the Mountain Folk excelled at was done alone. 

They passed a weapons practice session, and half the students were big beards. About one in six Mountain Folk were born burlier, taller, and roaring to fight, so much so they usually left the mountain as hard drinking mercenaries and boasting adventurers.

They followed a steady white glow into the outer sanctum, a cavern alit with crystals, like walking through a rainbow. Beyond stood the door to the inner sanctum, where only priestesses of the Earth Goddess entered. In this room, priestesses tended to those wounded by work and consulted with those seeking advice, including the “All Sisters.” Born as rarely as big beards, All Sisters looked like short City Folk except with slightly wider ears, draped in simple white. More delicate than their bigger sisters, their strength came from the Goddess, which could be quite a lot if the ire of their sluggish deity was aroused.

Kagnar chatted with an All Sister, his entire body showing signs of nervous humility. When Daggi bowed her way into the conversation, he looked relieved to change his focus, grinning broadly.  The priestess, introduced as Cinar, granted her the same, impartially sweet smile as she had her kinsman, and greeted her in Valley speech, startling Daggi so obviously that Cinar smiled with a little more mirth. “When Valley Folk philosophy was explained to me, I thought it so oddly different that I learned the language to see if the translation did its justice.”

Daggi scratched her hair, wondering if she should be pleased.  “Did it?”

“We find it easy to trust our own Folk because we live closely together. I can’t imagine how your people, who need trust all the more, can build it while living further apart.”

She had never thought of her township as living apart just because they lived in small families. “I’m just glad we’re both trustworthy Folk.”

 They found a table and she spread out her plans and explained her vision.  Kagnar nodded along. “I suppose we could make a lot of money that way, if you expanded the track out of the valley to Flemin.” A city on the edge of the sea, a steady market for the toys she’d been making.

“I like the way you think.”

The priestess sighed with disappointment. “Except we cannot help you. I know what my brother would say. You wish to borrow our gold to buy our iron and coal, with an invention that the Forest Folk would protest?”

She’s a princess as well a priestess?  Daggi shuffled her feet nervously, which made her losing argument all the more difficult to make. 

Disappointed, Daggi took the boat all the way to Longton, trying to buck herself up with internal pep talks about how strength of mind and will was all a Folk needed to succeed, and she would, by golly.  The trip was twice as far, but took the less time since it was all downstream, the river happily carrying them along.  All Raggy had to do was steer until they reached the short docks beside the long bridge.

Disembarking, she paid Raggy to come into the city with her.  They hustled down the dock between the City Folk’s long legs, paid a gate toll, and entered the city.  Other Folks thought city life confounding. It stood to reason people living so close together liked each other, but they had guards on the walls and guards walking the streets and guards patrolling their mutual borders as often as they watched mountains where War Folk roamed, so they actually feared each other.  Few of the other Folks spent time in cities by themselves, in case there was good reason to be afraid.

They hiked up the side steps, carved shorter for “little people,” into the only city institution Valley Folks admired: the bank. She even had an account to ease the sales of her steam powered toys. She found Reginald’s desk and he greeted her happily, shaking their hands, reminding them that they could call him Reggie, and even bringing over a couple of high chairs carved for folks of their size.  She laid out her greenprints for the steam engine and plans for the tracks. He found it all very fascinating, then took out some paper of his own and explained the terms of a loan.

“That’s a really high interest rate.”

“It’s a high risk, high magnitude, long term loan.”

“Could I take these whiteprints and study them?”

“We call them legal documents, but yes, of course.”

They checked in at a hotel catering to “little people.”  They spread the “legal documents” over the floor of their room and read while sipping ale. 

“There’s no way I could turn a profit fast enough to pay back this loan.”

“What does ‘defaulting’ mean?”

She looked at it, and her shoulders slumped. “Pretty sure it means if I miss any payments, they can take it all from me.”

And Reggie seemed so nice, too.

“I guess that’s it,” said Raggy, disappointed on her behalf.

“No.  There’s one more person with more gold than he knows what to do with.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“Well, you’re on your own.”

“I understand.”

But she wasn’t quite on her own. She walked into the toughest tavern in the city and hired two big beards with even bigger, double-bladed axes to escort her to the Dreamer’s lair. It was a week’s hiking through the mountains before they even reached Zmar’s territory, instantly identifiable because the flora was still growing back after the last time his body went on a hungry rampage.  No Folks lived within his range, except those on the run or War Folks daring a short cut, so for another week, each Mountain Folk took a turn standing guard all night, letting their employer sleep and dream of steam engines and a river of gold.

At the base of his mountain, they camped to rest. As Daggi slept, her dream self stood in a strange palace built of softly colorful stones. None of the doorways had doors, just arches into other magnificent rooms or porches with wonderful views, except the views didn’t match. Could a palace have views of the mountains, the ocean, a city, and a vast marshland?

“Yes, it can, if it is all in my dreams,” said a slithery voice, and she spun around. Zmar looked like a spry old Valley Folk, but with serpentine eyes and a red gown the same cut as Lady Leaf’s. “You are Daggi.”

“You know me?”

“You have strong dreams, my dear.” He grinned thinly. “I watch the dreams of all who enter my domain, because they are usually out to kill me or steal from me.”

“This is your mind?”

“And my home, wherever my body might happen to reside. I also know what you want, but wonder what you are willing to give me for it.”

“I can’t answer that question until I know what you need.”

“I need gemstones, like every Dreamer.”

“But for what? Why do Dreamers care about gemstones if your dreams are so magnificent?”

“Let’s sit for a moment. Tea?”

A table suddenly appeared, and they sat on a porch overlooking a vast marshland with tall, slender mountains stabbing upwards in seemingly random locations, green with trees.  Zmar explained that Dreamers were not natural folk. Long ago, they had walked on two legs and built cities and developed amazing magic. Instead of using magic to change the world, they used magic to change themselves. Wars dwindled their numbers but forced them to become more powerful as individuals, which led to more dwindling of their numbers as their battles grew in power. The last of their kind became as she saw him, flying away from each other, spreading over the world and beyond, but when they did mate, they needed the earth magic within gemstones to create their children, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to fly, breathe fire, or live in dreams. They’d just be big lizards no more magical than City Folk.

Then he told her how many gems he needed.

“I can’t get you that many in my lifetime.”

“That’s fine. I won’t wake for another five centuries. Your grandchildren can settle the bill.”

“And if they don’t?”

“Then I’ll eat them.” 

That sounded worth the risk. “But there’s the problem of Lady Leaf. She won’t allow me to put so much dirt in the air.”

He smirked. “I do have a better appreciation of the aesthetics of your engine, but there is a solution for you, right back home, if you can find it.”

“Really? What?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Jonny and I are bound to keep each other’s secrets.”

“Jonny? How do you know Jonny?”

“Big dreams that lad, but diffuse, like army ants swarming all over. I had to help him find some focus out of self-defense. And say hello to his mother for me.”

“You know her, too?”

“I ate some War Folk who tried raiding my horde. Turned out their priest was wearing a demon as armor. I’d never had indigestion before, but she makes the most amazing tea, doesn’t she?”

Daggi approached Dirti’s home, a mound of earth with a steel pipe letting steam out, giving the impression of a green kettle with flowers dabbed on. She had a large mound, as benefited someone who made a lot of coppers selling her teas abroad.  She’d explored a lot of the world looking for ingredients, but now her apprentices did that.

She knocked on her door respectfully. When the herbalist answered, wearing a flowery apron, the first streaks of grey in her hair, and a long nose for floral scents, she smirked. “Well, Daggi comes a calling. What do you want, dearie?”

“Zmar said your son has the solution to my problem.”

“If he says so. He’s usually right when he isn’t playing a joke, wasting our years as if we have them to spare.”  She stood aside. “Go on down.”

Taking off her boots, she hurried down the newest tunnel, following the hot scent of alchemy.  She found Jonny among the magically reinforced glassware common to labs and wearing more leather armor than most City Folk did into battle. When she greeted him, he turned around, pushed up his visor, and smiled. “What’s up?”

“That’s what I’m here to ask you.”

“Well, I found a distant, ancient empire too self-satisfied with itself to bother reaching out to the world. They had dug deep into elemental lore, finding elements within elements, but for them it’s mystical, requiring decades of meditation and spiritual purity to control.”

“So you spent all that time gone purifying yourself?”

He snorted. “Celibacy I could have handled, but vegetarianism? I don’t think so. It’s a year there, a few months proving I deserved to enter their magical library, a few years reading, a year back, and the rest of the time I brewed my mother’s herbal teas for a living. I was quite the fad for a while, and shipped back in a cabin all to myself.”

“What did you learn?”

“Lots of stuff. Right now, I’m drawing heat out of water, but I’m generating too much to control as yet.” 

“But this is perfect! You have a powerful, clean new heat source with fuel running down the mountain every day!”  She gave the confused man a great big hug and sloppy kiss.

Years later, the Water Snake made its first trip from the Mountain Kingdom to Flemin, where the married couple finally took off for their honeymoon, looking to find libraries where old ideas could become new visions.