Every three generations, a new Custodian was chosen and allowed inside.For four hundred years, the Elders had appointed gatekeepers at each entrance and armed them with crystal swords engraved with the sacred words of protection, the words that keep the cyndrilles safe from blight and corruption: "Ellestral formigum sumptra cyndrillianus." Or in the Lowspeech of the Valley, "May the strength of Ellest the Eternal protect our cyndrilles forever."
As a turfboy of the Valley, my chances of even glimpsing the Orchard's outer wall were exceedingly slim. In the first fourteen years of my life, I had not been closer to the Orchard than the Procession Arch, and then only at night when the only evidence of the Orchard's existence was the phantom glow from the swords of the gatekeepers, an eerie grey light like the reflection of the moon on a mist at sea. By order of the Elders, no one was to approach the wall without the messenger's mirror, a square panel of polished silver that would reflect the gatekeepers' swordlight and announce the coming of someone from the Valley. This procedure was the direct result of the tragedy of Ferfton the Tiller, whose ill-advised visit to the Orchard one summer's eve had cost him his right leg.
The Elders' precautions were somtimes deemed too strict by a small faction of the people of the Valley, but the bulk of them understood that the Orchard Guard had been established for the good of all. The power and enticing beauty of the cyndrille trees, the silvery boughs of which were just visible above the stone wall that ran around the Orchard, could drive men mad with desire. The story is still told of how once, before the great wall was constructed and the Guard established, a crew of fifty lumbermen looking for new logging grounds ventured into the open Orchard and set up camp. By sunset on the first day, many of the men had lost their minds in the midst of the silver trees. Each began to threaten anyone who came too close to the special cyndrille tree of his choice, and before the passing of two days, all fifty men had perished at the hands of their friends.
At the time of the Annunciation, there had not been a breach of the Orchard wall for many hundreds of years, and most believed this to be due to the vigilance of the Guard. Their unwavering calm and swift defense in the course of their duty was legendary: it was said that the gatekeepers did not sleep, and that in their constant surveillance of the lands surrounding the Orchard, they had even trained themselves not to blink.
But when the 20th Annunciation drew near, and the Elders began consulting the Ancient Writ to determine what sign the next Custodian would bear, something strange began to happen to the members of the Guard. I accidentally heard of the trouble from the High Messenger Byornon Konvaya, who arrived with a spray of soft earth on his black horse Plota one evening at dusk, after the diggers had hung up their spades and the fireflies were beginning to glimmer like sparks in the dark places of the pasture.
"Boy, Ima need yo ta hustle this message on up the hill'n right quickly," said Haim Konvaya, "and just yo ta sure Haim Vaylen gets it 'for enny else." His thick, matted hair was pulled back into a ponytail and cinched with a silver locklet, and he knitted the carefully groomed eyebrows that curled like the twin arms of a vine over his commanding green eyes to emphasize the gravity of his order. As he tossed a parchment roll on the ground at my feet, he flung his huge arm back toward the Master's House, and I knew at once that I had better hurry.
"Ya, Haim," I said, "As quick'n I may." And I hurled myself across the furrows as fast as the soft soil would let me. But as I neared the yards of the Field Master's House, my foot caught on a shrub-root I had overlooked in my haste, and I fell splayed across the cool, wet grass. When I pushed myself up from the ground, cursing my foolish clumsiness, I noticed that the wax seal on the parchment had broken beneath my weight, and the message lay partially unrolled in the fading light.
Instinctively, I cast my eyes up to the evening sky, for to read a sealed message before its addressee meant a violent flogging at the very least, and blinding at the worst. I realized with dismay, however, that I had already seen the first line of the letter, written in the silver ink of the Secretary of the Elders, and it burned in my mind's eye like the white spots that float in one's vision after glancing too directly at the sun.
"My Most High Servant, Haim Vaylen,
Thy assistance is needed most immediately at the Temple of the Ancient Writ. Bring the strongest of thy house, for the wall is breached and the Guard has fallen..."
Futurus Persevero
Forky's Place (Dramatic Recreation)
2. Drop a steaming cup of egg drop soup off the top of the Empire State Building?
4. Ask several people on the subway where Spider-man lives?
5. Go see Mary Poppins?
Your imagination is the only limit. I will be in The City for six days in August, and I solemnly swear to perform the three wackiest ideas / activities / misdemeanors you can come up with. Think of me as your New York puppet: you pull the strings and I dance & sing!
