An Old Bosmer Receives a Visitor.

An Old Bosmer Receives a Visitor

The Visitor had, on a previous visit, once seen a shrunken head in a stinking swamp. The skin was grey-brown, parched and leathery, pulled tightly over an angular skull. Depending on the shift of the light, its tiny face seemed to be either gasping for air through its gritted teeth, or smiling with grimly enigmatic satisfaction. The Old Bosmer appeared eerily similar. His wizened brown skull sat atop a nest of furs and feathers, more like a prize on a pile than a head on shoulders. A single skeletal arm lay draped around the mass, clad in a jangling sleeve of beads, from which protruded a thick down of feathers. The Visitor was unsure if they grew from the Old Bosmer or merely shielded his frail form from the night air, for the two were exposed, high in the forest canopy on the Old Bosmer's bough. As far as The Visitor could ascertain, the Old Bosmer sat cross-legged. The Visitor, of course, had no such option.

For several hours, the Old Bosmer simply watched. His narrow black eyes showed no movement whatsoever as they studied the minutes of his Visitor. Finally, his dry lips closed over his ghoulish bare teeth, only to be parted again by the Old Bosmer's bloody tongue. With a sucking noise his lips were reinvigorated, and he eventually scratched out a greeting.

“Gentle Visitor, you have keen eyes, I wish I had seen their pupils, but they look the other way, I think. Welcome.”

His words were nigh-incomprehensible, so laden were they with accents and inflections, and his voice was that of an old, sick mer. The sounds as they passed over his vocal cords seemed to do so as through a rusted flute. A scarred voice. But The Visitor was adept in understanding, and inclined his heavy head in acknowledgement.

“I am-”

“I know your keen eyes, cruel Visitor.” The Old Bosmer waved his bony hand in dismissal. “You are the smart one, I think, but a puzzle to those who think to know. You would learn from an Old Bosmer?”

The Visitor felt the Old Bosmer was in no hurry. He took his time before he responded.

“I would. I am learning tongues.”

“You are learning languages, strange Visitor. Pray, what is 'tongue'?” The Old Bosmer's fingers undulated rhythmically.

“A tongue. A language. Or a muscle in the mouth. Or a Nord-”

“A muscle in the mouth... the tongue is flesh. As is it all.”

The Visitor turned his head to a sound. The soft feet of another Bosmer approached along the bough, this one not so old, and carrying a dark bundle. The Bosmer crept around The Visitor, fearfuly averting her eyes, and laid her burden between the Old Bosmer and his Visitor. The Visitor observed immediately that it was meat. A hunk of bloody raw flesh, the blood quite black in the moonlight. The meat-carrier vanished quickly into the trees, her task complete, and the Old Bosmer was quiet for a few minutes more.

Once again, he broke his silence with a sucking, and a scratchy croak.

“It is flesh, obvious Visitor.”

Slowly, his gnarled talon extended down to the hunk of meat, tugging painfully at a wet corner until it came away with a rip. It shook slightly as he bore it to his mouth. His teeth were sharp, and the morsel left cold blood on his fingers and lips.

“To eat it, humble Visitor, is to have it intimately. Magnus by Lorkhan by Y'ffre to Nir to Mer by beast by sap. This is but a little strand of the whole language.” He pulled at a bloody tendon to illustrate his point. “Not all language will follow the same trail, but it. Is. All. The. Same. Do you understand, proud Visitor?”

“Language is a process, a transferral. A transferral of meaning.”

“Yes, yes, starved Visitor.” The Old Bosmer appeared genuinely pleased. “Can your people sing in Bases?”

“Basses sometimes, but never Bases. The logic of song is restricted and unnumerical to most.”

“Is it.” The Old Bosmer tore another piece of meat away. “Only as unnumerical as a singer might think it. Even here the singers find it hard. You are the smart one, I think, definitely a numerical one.”

The Old Bosmer expected no answer and the Visitor volunteered none. Silence reigned for a few minutes more as the Old Bosmer tore another piece from the hunk of flesh.

“Language is a process, a transferral.” The Old Bosmer parroted the Visitor's words. “You are smarter than an Old Bosmer, bloated Visitor. You came here learn by provocation, not to be taught. Meat is a process, a transferral. Not a metaphor for teaching, understand, but truth in its abstraction.”

“A rare treasure.”

“A rare treasure, rare. We speak many languages, but one in particular. The one language Y'ffre taught to my people, and taught my people in. So few speak it and know it. But eat of the bloody flesh and you know it.” The Old Bosmer's second morsel had hung in his fingers for some time now, he finally held it out to the Visitor.

“Green and red,” he murmured, as the Visitor took his gift. “Not the colours of learning in your lands. That is the provocation you sought, in-looking god.”

“I think it was. Thank you.” The Visitors lips were bloody.

“All language is based on meat. Do not let the sophists fool you.”