FICTION
PHILIP STYRT
Tomislav Silipetar, artist
IPSOS CUSTODES
He’d watched the human, of course.
He wasn’t going to mention it unless someone asked specifically. You didn’t lie to Alcon—much less to Briera, though the odds of the chieftainess herself showing up and asking him anything directly were just as low as the chance of his successfully lying to her—but no one would survive in the deep woods without a clear ability to avoid things: humans, their devices, questions you didn’t want asked.
Omission was only a sin if they found out.
He’d watched the human wander…no, not wander, walk, with purpose just like an elf except with that distinctive straight-legged, stumbling stride that told of a creature unused to the unstable footing in the woods. It hadn’t seen him, he was sure of that. It had been too focused on the device in its hand, which had been talking to it in what must have been some kind of language: he could not understand it, but the human clearly did.
It seemed almost as if that were its world, rather than the physical one in which it walked with its attention focused solely on the little chirping device.
Perhaps that was how it had gotten past the wards. He remembered back to his youth, then laughed a little at himself (softly, softly, so as not to let the human hear) for thinking of it that way. He was barely out of his weaning time—a few years, maybe a decade—so it was silly to think of it as something in the deep past as if it were Alcon’s childhood instead of his own. Now that would be remembering back! But either way, he’d been taught that active precautions only piqued human curiosity, so the wards were all passive, based on the will-o’-th’-wisp: humans simply wandered the wrong way along the ancient paths, their easily swayed attention distracted by sounds or sights that were not quite true but not quite false either. It was the traditional way of protecting the deep woods: nothing so gauche as a barrier, but equally impenetrable to the easily swayed mind of a human.
Or so he had thought. But if this human was not paying attention to any of the wards…perhaps they were in more danger than they’d realized.
The device chirped again, its black screen lighting up into brilliant white. He wished that he could understand what was clearly speech. But of course speaking human language was a dangerous practice reserved only for those who could hold incompatible thoughts at once and not lose themselves. Certainly not for junior hunters still wet behind the ears from the application of a little precious sacred water in the initiation rite.
But surely it was not a danger just to watch, as long as he himself remained unseen. And if humans were truly capable of invading the deep woods, then it was almost his positive duty to discover how. Comforted by this thought, he followed, leaping from tree to tree down the path.
Silly humans: they never thought to look up.
However, that was only helpful, he discovered, if he remembered to look down. A branch snapped. A foot struck air where it had expected to find purchase. And worst of all, the human’s head whipped around, its distressingly wide mouth opening and more unintelligible sounds coming out of it before it began to sprint down the narrow path between the trees.
He landed on his feet, of course. A sorry hunter he’d be if he didn’t. But the human was long gone, and he could hear the echoes of its frantic footfalls rippling through the forest.
So much for quietly monitoring it.
But in its haste, it had dropped the device, which now blinked white, black, yellow. He picked it up. How had the human been holding it? With one hand, he thought, its oddly-shaped fingers caressing the strange outer surface—‘plastic’, he remembered it was called—along with the more familiar glass.
It glittered in the dappled light coming through the pines, reminding him of stars.
At his touch, it lit up again, brighter than the sunlight. Of course he could not tell what he was looking at, he thought with disgust at himself. Why had he imagined he would? It was all gibberish, just like the language he had heard it spouting before.
His senses tingled in the way that told him something was going to emerge into the clearing at any moment. He let the device fall from his fingers—it was bad enough to be found in the clearing with it, let alone holding it—and turned. If he was lucky, it would be one of the other juniors, or perhaps one of the more curious seniors: he was fairly sure he’d seen Sheera staring at something orange in her hand a few days ago, before she’d slid it out of sight, and there was very little natural orange in the evergreen forest.
Of course, given his luck this afternoon, it would be Alcon, and he’d be busted back from hunter down to sentry, never leaving the village again.
The crunch of needles reassured him: anyone incautious enough to let him hear them before he saw them was unlikely to notice that he’d been trying to use the device. And yes, there they were: the other two juniors from his crèche, slapping each other on the back as they exchanged blame over who had made the noise. Not that he could cast aspersions anyway, since it was his own folly that had sent the human running and called them here.
But then, from the other side of the clearing—and properly inaudible, like all of them were supposed to be—stepped the tall, imposing figure that he most respected and simultaneously most feared.
“Report.” Alcon did not snap. There was never any need for him to snap. He simply spoke quietly and you could infer the snap yourself.
Oh, he was so screwed.
He wasn’t going to mention it unless someone asked specifically. You didn’t lie to Alcon—much less to Briera, though the odds of the chieftainess herself showing up and asking him anything directly were just as low as the chance of his successfully lying to her—but no one would survive in the deep woods without a clear ability to avoid things: humans, their devices, questions you didn’t want asked.
Omission was only a sin if they found out.
He’d watched the human wander…no, not wander, walk, with purpose just like an elf except with that distinctive straight-legged, stumbling stride that told of a creature unused to the unstable footing in the woods. It hadn’t seen him, he was sure of that. It had been too focused on the device in its hand, which had been talking to it in what must have been some kind of language: he could not understand it, but the human clearly did.
It seemed almost as if that were its world, rather than the physical one in which it walked with its attention focused solely on the little chirping device.
Perhaps that was how it had gotten past the wards. He remembered back to his youth, then laughed a little at himself (softly, softly, so as not to let the human hear) for thinking of it that way. He was barely out of his weaning time—a few years, maybe a decade—so it was silly to think of it as something in the deep past as if it were Alcon’s childhood instead of his own. Now that would be remembering back! But either way, he’d been taught that active precautions only piqued human curiosity, so the wards were all passive, based on the will-o’-th’-wisp: humans simply wandered the wrong way along the ancient paths, their easily swayed attention distracted by sounds or sights that were not quite true but not quite false either. It was the traditional way of protecting the deep woods: nothing so gauche as a barrier, but equally impenetrable to the easily swayed mind of a human.
Or so he had thought. But if this human was not paying attention to any of the wards…perhaps they were in more danger than they’d realized.
The device chirped again, its black screen lighting up into brilliant white. He wished that he could understand what was clearly speech. But of course speaking human language was a dangerous practice reserved only for those who could hold incompatible thoughts at once and not lose themselves. Certainly not for junior hunters still wet behind the ears from the application of a little precious sacred water in the initiation rite.
But surely it was not a danger just to watch, as long as he himself remained unseen. And if humans were truly capable of invading the deep woods, then it was almost his positive duty to discover how. Comforted by this thought, he followed, leaping from tree to tree down the path.
Silly humans: they never thought to look up.
However, that was only helpful, he discovered, if he remembered to look down. A branch snapped. A foot struck air where it had expected to find purchase. And worst of all, the human’s head whipped around, its distressingly wide mouth opening and more unintelligible sounds coming out of it before it began to sprint down the narrow path between the trees.
He landed on his feet, of course. A sorry hunter he’d be if he didn’t. But the human was long gone, and he could hear the echoes of its frantic footfalls rippling through the forest.
So much for quietly monitoring it.
But in its haste, it had dropped the device, which now blinked white, black, yellow. He picked it up. How had the human been holding it? With one hand, he thought, its oddly-shaped fingers caressing the strange outer surface—‘plastic’, he remembered it was called—along with the more familiar glass.
It glittered in the dappled light coming through the pines, reminding him of stars.
At his touch, it lit up again, brighter than the sunlight. Of course he could not tell what he was looking at, he thought with disgust at himself. Why had he imagined he would? It was all gibberish, just like the language he had heard it spouting before.
His senses tingled in the way that told him something was going to emerge into the clearing at any moment. He let the device fall from his fingers—it was bad enough to be found in the clearing with it, let alone holding it—and turned. If he was lucky, it would be one of the other juniors, or perhaps one of the more curious seniors: he was fairly sure he’d seen Sheera staring at something orange in her hand a few days ago, before she’d slid it out of sight, and there was very little natural orange in the evergreen forest.
Of course, given his luck this afternoon, it would be Alcon, and he’d be busted back from hunter down to sentry, never leaving the village again.
The crunch of needles reassured him: anyone incautious enough to let him hear them before he saw them was unlikely to notice that he’d been trying to use the device. And yes, there they were: the other two juniors from his crèche, slapping each other on the back as they exchanged blame over who had made the noise. Not that he could cast aspersions anyway, since it was his own folly that had sent the human running and called them here.
But then, from the other side of the clearing—and properly inaudible, like all of them were supposed to be—stepped the tall, imposing figure that he most respected and simultaneously most feared.
“Report.” Alcon did not snap. There was never any need for him to snap. He simply spoke quietly and you could infer the snap yourself.
Oh, he was so screwed.
Philip Styrt lives in Davenport, Iowa with his wife, toddler, and toothless dog. His fiction has been published in Ab Terra and his poetry in Trouble Among the Stars, carte blanche, and the Eastern Iowa Review, among others. His work focuses on the collisions and connections between different worlds across time, space, and culture.
Artist Tomislav Šilipetar was born in Zagreb. In 2014 he graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb in the class of Igor Rončević-Painting Department. In 2015 he became a member of HDLU. In addition to many group exhibitions, he has had a number of solo exhibitions in Croatia as well as other countries. He is the winner of the rector's award for excellence in 2013. The paintings are mostly made in acrylic, and the themes vary from solitude and isolation to human existence in the society that condemns. It favors the simple colors, and the line that goes perfectly with the total preoccupation of getting out of the 'boxes' of academy. In 2016 he gained the status of an independent artist.
