Lingua Aeterna

Chapter 6

Verisà

    Perhaps I hadn't thought this mark through entirely. When it was just the wealthy gentleman I was tracking, my only thoughts were of the take I would capture and just where I'd place the idiot once I had him. I hadn't truly counted on there being anyone of any real intelligence within the Dark Army before this and nearly falling for the trap was embarrassing. Even more so, the prevailing thought that I'd saved the Everan swine from the creature was nearly too hard to bear.
    "Ladies," I said, tipping an invisible cap toward them as I passed.
    The one who was always weeping burst into another song of wailing while the other let fly an impressive volley of curses for a gentle lady. I'd positioned them together with a bouquet of wildflowers growing a top each of their heads and stalks of flowering garlic spreading over one arm. I'd meant the scene to resemble the game in which the wealthy used an ornate cane to bat around a ball for nothing but idle leisure. The angry lady's final pose before she'd completely changed made the scene wholly unrealistic as her flailing arms and open-mouthed scream did not speak to a calm afternoon round of play. I stopped to tuck a piece of the small shrub between them back in to place, satisfied that the round shape did help to add to the illusion.
    "The mouth on this one," I said to one of the first gentlemen I'd brought to the garden and placed out in the open and away from any lively scenes. When I had more inspiration, I'd move him to a more interesting position.
    I was being more careful these days. Quite literally, in the last four days I've had to be on guard constantly. And I only had myself to blame. Sure, I felt remorse over the villages that had been burned by the Dark Army as they searched for this idiot, but I still contend that it's not entirely my fault. I was provoked.
    I turned to look at the soldier who was propped against one of the maple trees until I could build a proper base for him. I hadn't planned for this one to have been in a prone position when I'd turned him, but I could make it work.
The idiot was currently screaming at the top of his voice in every language and with every curse he could think of. That would wear off in a couple of weeks, as it always did, and I'd have my peaceful garden back. If the soldiers didn't discover it by then, of course.
    As expected, the other Clay-Throwers had gone into even deeper seclusion. I hadn't seen a single member of my tribe since the soldier came to live in my garden. I did find a few hex bags left behind for me and although I'd gotten a nasty rash in places I'd rather not speak of and my dark hair had turned orange on one side near the back, I knew they were still mine. And I was still theirs. The hex bags were simply a way of them saying Nice Going, Arto, and Let us know when it's safe to come back home.
    Most of them were like me and for a tribe of only eight, that was a pretty significant gathering of magic-using Clay-Throwers. What set me apart from them was that the magic that I favored was tainted—they either didn't know how to access it or they outright refused to use it. Magda, the leader of our tribe, hated the garden and threatened more than once to have it destroyed. I couldn't blame her since the garden was a blatant gob of spit in Xal's eye, should he ever find it and although it was well-hidden and had a transformative layer of protection over it thanks to Magda and the others, someone would find it someday. I hoped it was Xal himself who came upon the stone corpses of his gentlemen and ladies he'd transplanted from Evera and the other lands he'd conquered. He lived to brag about his power and ability and I lived to rub it in his face that a kid like me thwarted him every day.
    "Boy!" the soldier cried out when I'd drifted into his very limited line of sight.
    The fool had shut both eyes and grimaced as I'd turned him, but just before he was solid, he'd slipped one eye open. He looked like he'd been caught eating something sour and tried to attack it—his hands were permanently caught in clawed gestures. He shouted again.
    "The name is Arto the Ruthless," I told him. I'd come up with the moniker awhile ago since my statues always looked so helpless against the monster who'd turned them. Magda and the others didn't like it and went as far as to hiss curses at me when I used it. "Have you finished your screaming?"
    His features were permanently fixed but I can always tell what kind of expression one of my statues would have used. I wasn't sure that was a gift or just my imagination running wild. The idiot soldier was perplexed. I rolled my eyes. I repeated my name in Everan.
    "How can you use those words so freely?"
    "You can too, if you're not too stupid to learn it," I said in Everan. The words felt like mud on my tongue. I hated it. I added a few colorful names in Clouri.
    "You used that one before," the soldier remarked.
    "He's a vulgar boy, don't waste your time, good friend," the lady who spoke with an acid tongue both in life and as a statue called over.
    I shivered at her use of good friend—it was an Everan custom and it was like one devil calling out another. We had our own customs in Clouri, of course, but we couldn't use them.
    The soldier attempted to use the Clouri word for idiot, bnesiac, and butchered it mercilessly. The statues couldn't move an inch and therefore couldn't push their teeth against their lips for the proper sounds, but at the same time had no problems speaking their natural languages. I understood the strangeness of hearing the statues speak as a twist of the magic that had allowed me to make them as they are. Not everyone could hear them but I, their creator, of sorts, could hear them plainly. As was my punishment for what I'd done to them.
    "The words you spoke. Before, with that creature. They hurt it," the soldier continued.
    I imagined a studious look on his face. He could ponder it all he wanted but he'd never understand what the creature was. I myself had only encountered something like it once before and it seemed intrigued by the song I'd been singing, but grew to hate it. For some reason, the Clouri words burned it as badly as the hex burned any normal person trying to use the language. Like its ears—if it had ears—were being burned away, it screeched and fled the time before and then again when I'd saved the soldier from it.
    "I can't tell you what the creature was, soldier," I spat. I hated using Everan almost as much as I hated the rash on my lower regions that was still a bit itchy. "I've never seen it."
    "It was right on top of me, boy," the soldier said.
    "Arto," I corrected.
    "I'll use your name once I'm free and running you through with my sword," the soldier said.
    I imagined his face being stern and menacing, but the half-wink he had frozen on his face nearly brought me to laugh every time I saw it. I saddled up to him from across the garden and stood in front of him. From the loop of leather I'd made for it, I pulled out the short sword he'd had down his trousers while he was convincingly dressed as a gentleman.
    "Do you mean this sword?" I chided. I rapped the tip against the soldier's shoulder and then poked him in the eye for good measure. "And how exactly do you expect to become free from this?"
    I wasn't exactly happy with my translation of what was meant to be a satisfying quip into Everan, but I made it work. I was fully fluent, but I likened using Everan to cleaning my teeth with stink-sap.
    "Come closer and I'll show you," the soldier pressed.
    Curious, I sheathed the sword and pursed my lips into a smirk. I shook my head.
    "What, so I'll touch you—"
    I cut myself off with a gasp as my feet caught on the creeping vines I had around the perimeter of the garden. I flailed momentarily but ultimately fell forward, using the soldier to catch my fall.
    "Oh! Oh no," I cried. "You're...you're...going to stay just as you are, bnesiac."
    The soldier cursed in Everan and this time I imagines that he had a defiant look on his face that was trying not to appear betrayed.
    "There's nothing and no one who can turn you back, soldier," I said, smirking. "You stole our tongues, I'll turn you all into stone in return."
    "Matthias," the soldier corrected.
    "I'll use your name once I'm free."