Stone Seeds by Jo; Ely

Would want to protect the true third Seed. Jengi has learned to make such deals with himself. He slopes back toward the lights of the OneFolks’ village, the shop.

THE GENERAL’S WIFE
    â€œAYE,” SAYS GADDYS APPROVINGLY, “That’s the creed of the ladies of the flower fund of Bavarnica, we LOVE flowers!” She says, with a flourish of her jewelled hands and her heavy bracelets clank together. Cattish fingernails extend and retract. And then she says it again, raising her voice to drown out the thumps and rhythmic hollers of the edge farmers’ rain dance, sounds rising up over the killing forest and past the fence. Seeping in through the air vents and the narrow slats in the windows of the general’s great house, followed by the rising shriek of the Egg Men’s sirens, the low sickening rumble of the general’s drones mobilising. Scrapping and cawing of crows.
    The clamour of the feast table rises.
    Small puffs of raspberry coloured smoke is regularly emitted from the flower table decorations, colouring the OneFolks’ faces a deeper and deeper pink, one cheek at a time.
    The general’s wife, a little drunk and over-pollinated, seated closest of all to the grotesque table flowers, sways uneasily to her feet and gets a little off-message, “The edge farms …” She begins. “The edge farmers have become paralysed by fear since their rains were taken.” She slurs the last three words, so that they run into one and seem to lilt up at the end like the rain dance drumbeat. Long pause as if she’s listening then to the low rumble of drones and the silent feasters listen with her. Now she raises her huge violet eyes toward the chandelierabove the feast table. It gently shudders.
    Now the general’s wife teeters a little on her stilt heels. Dips suddenly to one side. She falls off one stilt and it clatters on to the tiles and slides out from underneath the feast table. The man beside the general’s wife catches her, only just, supporting her by her left elbow. Now he gently entreats her to sit down, which she does, a little bemused and rubbing at her left ankle. Someone fetches her fallen left stilt.
    Gaddys sniffs. She pats her coiled hair.
    â€œThe general’s wife was once the most famous beauty in Bavarnica,” Mamma Zeina tells Zorry now. She seems to Zorry to be describing someone other than the feeble looking woman in front of them. “She was strong.” Mamma Zeina says, inclining her head slightly toward Zorry, “And you must understand that I am only talking about physical strength now, Zorry. Which must not be mistaken for real strength, for resilience Zorry. She had athleticism. Swagger.” Mamma Zeina sniffs dismissively. “It’s a surface element, not the real thing … The Sinta who remain finally know better what true strength is. What real resistance is.” Turning gently toward Zorry. “Strength is endurance. We bend first and break last. Above all, we go on Zorry.” Searching gaze. “We talk. We share what we know. What we’ve learned. Do you understand me?”
    Zorry turns away. “Tell me more about her.” Flicks her eyes discreetly toward the general’s wife.
    â€œSome Sinta claim to have witnessed the general’s wife hurdle a five bar gate, fall to the other side of it, laughing and flushed. But she barely broke a sweat doing it. That was in the last era of course. Before the Diggers’ revolution and the general’s Reckoning which came after it. There were highhopes in the early days of Bavarnica. Hope was the spirit of the times then, and joyful. Not the thing it has become for us now. It was a time when all manner of things seemed possible.” She stops talking for a moment. “The wind of that early hope has changed direction. Leaves gather, rise gently before the storm, Zorry. And we are the coming storm.” Zorry feels a shiver.
    Gentle rain is