Lightbringers and Rainmakers - Felix Gilman [7]
Hello May.
It seems only fair, after my last letter to you, that I let you know I’m okay, though I’m sure you will have heard from our sisters, if I ever get to a place where any of these letters can be mailed. In fact I guess you will get these letters all at once, so you may read them out of order and know I am okay before you knew I was in trouble. That is not so different from the jumbled-up way Time gets out here anyway. For me it is always one day into the Future. For Disorder it could be fifty years ago or it could be four hundred years. For the Line it is always wartime, and for the Folk up on Big Witch maybe it is a million years ago. May, I had a drink tonight and you know I ordinarily never drink but I had to look confident for the people of Disorder, who are now counting on me. So forgive me if I get confused.
Anyway I was asking you before if you knew what Founding Day is. I have had it all explained to me, and that is what got me thinking about Time.
Adams from the hotel is a Webb on his mother’s side and the Mayor is a Nimmo. That may not mean much to you and it didn’t mean much to me, but it means they are direct descendants of families from Founding. And so are a lot of other people in town. One of the lawyers traces his heritage back to Governor Self himself, or so he said, and I nodded and smiled. I never cared for History, but I know that Founding was the first colony in this world on this side of the Mountains when everything was just woods and before anything anywhere had names or at least had names in our language. That must be three or four thousand miles from here, or more, and four hundred years ago. Every summer at high summer they celebrate Founding’s survival. Survival against what, I asked. Against the dark, Jo said. Ask Jess about Jo. The Mayor said, survival against the wild Folk of the Woods, who came at night and clawed at the walls. They have built a kind of stage for the celebrations. It has painted trees and painted darkness and part of a high wall. It looks fun in a morbid way. To these people it is like a religion and no dumber or less dumb than any other religion. I am sorry, May. That is rude and I should strike it out.
It is night and there is a Vessel going overhead again. Down on Main Street on the wall of the lawyer’s house someone has posted up WANTED posters in the gray-black print of the Line, for a John Creedmoor and a Doctor Lysvet Alleroosyn and a Drunkard Cuffee and some other people I do not remember the names of. It said that they were Agents of you-know-what. I do not like the Line, but its enemies are even worse, of course—thieves and murderers and bandits and bank robbers and wicked, wicked men and women, or so everyone says. I felt sorry for them anyway.
I do not know what Time is like for the Agents of the gee-you-enn, but I imagine for them it is always just now, like it must be for wolves or snakes.
Anyway Founding Day is in two weeks. Near the stage is Flood’s Pole. It is thirty feet high and painted white, and it has a shining metal crown.
So here is who Flood is. He is a Rainmaker. Three weeks ago he came into town and promised to make rain for them. He has a Process, he says, for making rain, and the Pole is part of it. It looks like a lightning rod, in a way. That is Electricity, and you know I consider that my territory. I do not know whether the Pole is intended to attract clouds or swell them or pierce them or to do nothing at all—I suspect the latter. They have promised him 300 dollars plus expenses if he brings Rain on or before Founding Day, which leaves no money left over for Light.
For three weeks Flood has made no rain, but has proved instead a prodigious conjuror of expenses.
Here is his excuse. There are Hill Folk up on Big Witch, living wild and free. They do not often trouble the town, but everyone