Cavern Scents Journey

Between completion of The Publication and The Plans of Instruction, I have not had much time to write up the growing stack of notes on my desk.   I really must find time to record my observations, or I will be unable to remember the nuances of the oils’ effects.  At least the committee has set a Meeting Date to review the work I have done up to the present; once that is over I will be able to breathe more easily about at least one project.

My conversation with Ruby about the letter from Dolly: http://cavernscents.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-friends-are-for.html

No sense in repeating myself.

I’ve decided to leave for the White Mountains tomorrow.  I hope it is time well spent.

I stared at the letter, read it again, and again.  My aunt Dolly had lost her mind for sure this time.   What could she possibly mean?

What people?  What am I writing?  I’m not writing about anyone…  unless the dead women I study are alive again and talking back — which they do in their texts, but I haven’t yet heard ‘voices’ from their graves.  Such Nonsense.

I have no idea what she means.  Dolly does tend to ramble at times.  She’s just an older lady who gets her irritations with one side of the family confused with irritations with the other side of her family.  It is a very large family we have — when my grandparents had their 50th anniversary there were 300 children, spouses, and grandchildren (plus a few great grandchildren).  I don’t know any of her husband’s family and she never names them even as she complains they’ve done this or that yet again.  Uncle Stanley was always fun.  He took us kids fishing and told us stories.

Oh, I don’t have time to go to the White Mountains!  Dolly, Dolly, Dolly…   Meeting in the Cavern would be much easier.

Sigh.

Dolly’s Letter pdf file

The first time I noticed the fragrances was in the newest age the DRC had opened.  It rose up from the ground immediately after the rain.  I thought at first it was the puffer plants; or rather, I thought it was the spores the puffing plants were ejecting.  But after checking, I discovered those had very little scent.

The fragrance was floral, and a little fruity, like summer wine.  I spent two hours searching but never found the source.  It began to wane, then the rain began falling again.  I left the age with the mystery unsolved.

(August, 1992)
“Hello again, Ghaelen.  I’m glad to see you.  Did you manage to find the testing center?  I did try very hard to meet you when you arrived, but I was delayed by a patient with a very ill newborn.”

I looked at the thin woman in front of me; saw the shadows from her brown hair cross her face; noticed how the suns in this age cast a double shadow on everything.

“Yes, I found my way there with the help of a gentleman at the station.  Will the baby be alright?”

“We expect no more complications.”   We are worried that our methods are inadequate.  Something in the medicine no longer takes affect as it should.

I tipped my head as she spoke, then noticed her lips didn’t move.  ”What…?” What? “Good.  I’m very glad to hear that.  Losing a baby must be the worse pain for any parent.”

“Yes.  Well,”  she shook my hand warmly.  ”Let’s have something to eat.  You must be hungry.”

I stopped walking and looked around toward  the building on our left.  I could see it’s bright colors against her warm mauve suit.  ”Oh, I’m sorry.  I must have misunderstood.  Yrs. Solaken didn’t tell you?”

She swung around with hardness in her eyes.  A moment later it was gone.  ”Tell me what?”

“We are lunching with the committee.”

She stopped and the hardness reappeared.  ”That’s today?” Seconds later she smiled softly.  ”Of course it is.  New applicants always lunch with the committee during the first day.  How many of you are in the group?”

I felt the muscles in my brow tighten.  ”Well, I don’t actually know.  I’m not….”

“Of course not.  It was foolish of me to ask you.”  She began walking again.  ”You will enjoy this.  They make a celebration of it.”  Take care as I take care and watch how they behave toward you.

I walked as well,  noticing we had not turned left.  ”Why?

“Pardon me?”

“Why…. a celebration?  Um, I mean, we’re only applying for a two week retreat and herbal course.”

The wrinkles around her dark brown eyes began to deepen.  Then the corners of her mouth turned up and she smiled more than she wanted to.  A second later, that, too was gone.  ”Do you know how long a day is in Giloveelay?”

“Ah…” I laughed.  ”It is two weeks of Giloveelay time.”  I laughed again.  ”Oh my.  I really have to get used to this.

“You will.  Everyone does.”  Time enough for you to understand, to see the reality, to remember it.

“Jurel…. What is…?”  She turned left and beckoned for me to follow, then stopped.  ”Enjoy your lunch.  You are coming to the Harvayen fields this afternoon?”

“Ummm…”  I looked at the suns, then around for a clock I knew somehow I would not find.  ”I don’t know.  Jurel, I am sorry, I’m still disoriented.”

At that she laughed.  ”Of course you are.  You all are.  I think I saw your name on the fields list.  If not, in the second afternoon as you call it.  Turet on Giloveelay.  Turan and Turet, the times of sunshine.  They’ll explain it again after lunch.”  She turned and walked away.

Now I did frown.  ”You are not coming?”

Turning back again, she smiled less genuinely.  ”No.  I was….   uninformed before I took up another engagement.”  She looked at the building then back at me.  ”Did Grinoreth- Yrs. Solaken – meet you at the station?”

I thought back quickly.  ”No…  he wasn’t waiting for me.  I had been there a little while when we started talking.  He noticed I was waiting, and thought I looked like I could use some help.”

“He said that to you?”

“Yes, and then when I told him why I was there, he introduced himself and said he was going my way.  I thought I would be late, and I did recognize his name from the packet of materials you had sent me.”

She frowned again and suddenly nodded rapidly.  ”Oh yes, of course.  He was the assistant field technician at the time.  Forgive me, I did try very hard to meet you.”

“I am certain you did, but a sick baby takes priority.  Jurel, I mean it.  It is quite all right.”

“Yes, yes, of course.”  Nodding again, she then shook her head and rubbed her brow briefly but hard.  ”You’d better go before you miss the introduction.  It is informative and enjoyable to hear.”  Again she smiled, and again she walked away.

I watched her for a second, then moved toward the colorful door I knew led to the dining hall.  She was right, I was hungry, and whatever they were cooking smelled very good.  As I reached the door I glanced back toward her departing figure.  She walked in long strides, covering a lot of ground with each step, confident or angry.

Second afternoon.  We will know in the second afternoon.  You can see then.

Not Cinnamon – more like Allspice – different…  Try witch hazel — something interfering.

Remember pipets!

February 8, 2010

Is it really true?  I have to go find out.

Rats, my KI isn’t working now.   That’s odd.  It worked a couple months ago…  Hmmm, maybe that earthquake shook a relay and the frequency shifted slightly.  We’ll see whether a new one fixes the issue.

Yes it does!  Hey, and there are others here! People — in the city!  Tai’lahr, and Witch, and JW, and CristGer, and Zrax, and … oh, my surface phone is beeping.  Hey, that’s nifty.  Since the Cavern closed technology has advanced quite a bit.  It sure makes cavern-to-surface communication much easier.

Jane and Ruby both called me to say they haven’t made it past the gate yet.  Apparently there are so many explorers there now that progress is incredibly slow.  Well, I can set up the Healers Hood and open the doors.   Oh neat, the stained glass hangings are still here!  I am so glad the earthquake didn’t destroy those, too.

There we go.  I am getting tired.  But I have to check….  That plant — is it still there?

It is terribly late.  I have to sleep.   I’m a little angry to hear that some DRC members have secret stealth KI’s that allow them to show up in our Reltos.  I hope they disabled them now.  Because I don’t have to sneak in here any more so tonight I sleep in my own home.

And I don’t really feel like having any DRC company.

I should not have taken the box.  That really gave it away.  Removing some of the material from the Little Box may have certainly made someone suspicious, but that could have been a fluke, to them at least.   A wander — no.  I keep coming back to the fact that a wanderer would have taken the whole thing.  I only took what I normally take — a sample.  They had to have noticed that the scoop was gone, too.  Was it that item that caught their attention?   Maybe that was the dumb thing, taking that scoop.  But shoot, it was just a silver scoop, nothing of value.  Till it….   crap.

Apparently the material was of some import, because whoever it was then took the whole box, the Little Box, but left the Big Box.  Empty.

Just looking at me, empty.  Just try returning the material now, clever woman.

Well, if they left that to ‘catch’ a thief, they succeeded.  At the same time, I did try later to put that box back too.  What am I going to do with an empty wooden box?  If I ever find that tavern and a chair like the other I will.  Now they are gone, too.  It seems the more I try to put things back the way they were the more they become irreversible.   I’d worry, but I don’t know what to worry about first.  A box, a box, or a tavern disappearing?  Pick one and worry.

If I hadn’t taken a sample would the box have disappeared?  That one will bug me.

All actions have an equal and opposite reaction.   All potentials manifest somewhere.

Oh boy, I really don’t like the thoughts I’m thinking.

It is interesting how a simple fragrance remains a memory.  Not a word, not an image — I have often wondered what it is in our brain/body/psyche that actually remembers smells.

Things had gotten so busy I nearly forgot the brief moment of wonder at Devokan last summer.  I’m still not sure it happened, but after talking with Dot today I don’t feel so much like I must have imagined it.

Last week, Jane and I spent some time with Dot discussing the upcoming GoH Ride for Joy on the 17th.  As we walked and talked, we passed by what looked like a natural stone wall.  The boulders were huge and rough — not weathered as if they’d been there a long time.  I didn’t think much of that until something triggered the memory of a fragrance I’d experienced last summer.  That itself was even a brief memory before I forgot about it as Jane and I walked on with Dot in search of suitable places for JoyRiders to gather before embarking on the ship and boat journeys.

Of course I couldn’t find the location of the flowers again.  And Jane wouldn’t remember — I had returned after she, I and LC had taken our own joyride on a sailboat around the rather bare island.  They were only there for a moment and I was so slow in remembering my camera…

I’ve never known a flower to bloom so beautifully for such a short time.  I might not actually have seen anything.  But today as Dot and I discussed the Ride for Joy yet again she did mention that the place where I remembered the fragrance had been affected by the land tremors.  Much of the land had been changed, and perhaps the flowers have been buried.

There was that deep pool… nearby…   I am certain I walked only a short distance from it before I spotted the blooming flowers.  The deep, rich, reddish, purple or blue hues amazed me because they seemed to be illuminated from within the petals themselves.  They were similar to Irises, but were not irises.  Akin to DayLilies, but not lilies of any kind.  The butterflies swarmed about them, landing, flitting, landing,settling, leaping… and suddenly they and the blooms had disappeared.  Dissolved, dissipated, vanished… I was stunned and saddened.  At least until the fragrance reached my nose.

I tried to sit and let the memory come to me, but couldn’t settle in one place.  I did finally sit on a wooden bench for a few moments, watching the sun come up. Then, again restless, I walked around the waterfall and turned around to watch it begin to sparkle and shimmer in the slow illumination of the morning. It was beautiful.  I sniffed, sniffed, hoping perhaps I could follow my nose to the flower patch of last summer?  I did follow the boulder wall around and back to the gate, chuckling at myself.  The yellow lilies were very pretty, but no fragrance there.

I’ve not smelled anything so heavenly before.  Not just a floral fragrance, but with a hint of fruit — exotic fruit I didn’t know?  Not just fruit, but a hint of earthiness that freshened the air around me?  I could not tell, but I knew it was something amazing.  I don’t know why I forgot, or why I finally remembered.  But now that I did remember, I am determined to find it again.

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This message is for Ghaelen D’Lareh. Ms. D’Lareh, this is Troiana at Dr. Rugalin’s office. I’m calling to remind you of your appointment tomorrow at 1:45pm. Please remember to avoid eating, smoking, or drinking coffee or alcohol for twelve hours before your appointment. If you cannot make this appointment, please call us at least twenty-four hours in advance.