The Year of the 17 Moons
Blue moonYou saw me standing alone
Without a dream in my heart
Without a love of my own...
Blue moon
You knew just what I was there for
You heard me saying a prayer for
Someone I really could care for.
- Lorenz / Hart -
"Kazhuye.. am I a part of a wager you have lost?"
"Mmmm." In answer to her unspoken question, (yes, it was good!), I smiled around a rather large mouthful of food... then shook my head while trying to swallow it down. "No, Aiyana."
Then wiping away a bit of the gravy from my chin onto my sleeve, I chuckled for a moment while regarding her. "What makes you ask that?"
"No reason I was just wondering."
"Had I wagered on you, perhaps I'd not have lost." I chuckled just moments before another small stone came sailing across from one of the men on the opposite side of the fire.
Just then it was the Bead Maker, Sakmeta who'd arrived. They
must eat real fast at the First Wagons. "Well Tal there," she said.
"Hey, Year Keeper! How's about a story before you start kissing over there!" They were just not going to let the newest subject of raucous teasing die too quickly. No way. Amidst all the merriment, I threw the stone right back at Cornwall and hit him. My aim is much better than his.
"You itchin' for a fight, Cornwall?" Did anyone ever notice that many a Tuchuk had the strangest names? Harold, Conrad... Glover. Cornwall?
"No. Well... yes. And I wager I'll kick your ass too! But after a story, huh?" All the men laughed again, bringing the din of noise to rise above the level of the music once more. Tuchuks did love the stories afterall. Did they not?
"Perhaps I tell the story of how the Year Keeper took you up on your wager, and made Cornwall cry like a girl after kicking his ass!" I joined in their laughter amidst the ooohs and aahhhs... wager wager wager!
"I seen him throwin quivas at that Kassar the other day, Cornwall. He's pretty sharp," said another fellow, who was laughing at Cornwall by now.
"Pfft! He throws like a girl!" Cornwall scowled as he tipped his paga cup to his mouth. Paga drooled down his chin before he wiped it away on his sleeve.
I did end up telling a story. The Year of the Seventeen Moons, to be precise, and held my audience captively enthralled for more than an ahn. It was a year which had occured precisely in the middle of two Omen Years... exactly twenty-five years ago. It was not the presentation of celestial anomalies that had really been the gist of the year, but rather that the gathered Haruspexes had had a recount of the omens. And something that no Tuchuk had ever known. Til tonight.
While the actual reading of such omens was not revealed to me, the events of the night certainly were. For I am a Year Keeper. And it is my duty to record in the annals for posterity and commit such to memory. I have memorized the names and particulars of over a thousand years.
The nearest I can say for the Year of the Seventeen Moons is this: It was a foreshadow of things to come. Precisely two and one half Omen Years and these things shall come to pass. Things so great and terrible that the lips of every Haruspex from all four Tribes has sealed his or her lips shut and sworn an oath. Can there be a thing greater than the election of a Ubar-san, I wonder? One who shall unite all Wagon Peoples and lead them under one banner?
What I know is this... by the melting of the last snows. By spring when the men meet on the Field of a Thousand Stakes, the Omen foretold shall be revealed. Whether here... or whether far far away, I cannot say for certain. But the Tuchuk Haruspex surely knows.
