Chapter Text
Many years ago, a river flowed through a mountainous land. During the warm months, the water tumbled downwards, gaining momentum, joining forces with other streams, until it was a thunderous torrent, treacherous and impassable. In the coldness of winter, the headwaters froze and the river became calm. For a time each year, fords appeared and the river could be crossed.
On the sunset bank of the river lived the Ash People. The Ash People made cloth and rope from the stringy fibers of the hathem vine, they dried the bitter berries of the atherem bush to eat during the long winters, and they cut the towering rockwood trees to fashion shelters from its trunk. What the Ash People were best known for was a closely held secret. The Ash People knew how to turn the dense, light colored wood of the rockwood tree into black chunks, charcoal, that burned with an unparalleled blue-hot heat.
On the sunrise side of the river lived the People of Green Mountain. From the surface, Green Mountain looked like any other mountain. It was covered in a dense growth of the fragrant mist-bush. Mist-bush smelled pleasant, and its characteristic small whitish leaves made it look like the mountain was covered in dew, but it produced no edible fruits, it inhibited the growth of other plants in the same soil, and it produced little heat when burned. For all that the surface of Green Mountain was useless, inside Green Mountain there was treasure. Veins of blue-green ore, as thick as a man’s arm, were shot through the rock. The ore, when harvested, could be heated, driving waters and gasses from its essence, leaving behind a gold-brown malleable metal that could be shaped into jewelry or vessels, or combined with tin to make an alloy that was hard enough to hold an edge.
When the coldest of months tamed the raging torrents of the river, the Ash People and the People of Green River ventured into each other’s territory, each carrying the goods they spent the warm months crafting. To the Ash People, the pounded copper vessels and the bronze cutting edges created by the People of Green Mountain made it possible for them harvest the hathem vines, dry the atherem berries and cut the rockwood trees. To the People of Green Mountain, the clothing they wore was fashioned from the Ash People’s cloth, the winter food they ate was augmented by the atherem berries and the smelting of the green ore was not possible without the Ash People’s charcoal.
For many years, the Ash People and the People of Green Mountain lived side by side, separated by the raging river, and they thrived. Their children grew more numerous and they ventured out into the world, bringing trade goods to other peoples. Karth of the Ash People, and Rastle of the People of Green Mountain, were such traders. For many years, Karth and Rastle journeyed together during the warm months and then returned home when it became cold, bringing with them trinkets and treasures: stones that glittered, shells from the distant sea, carved figures and soft cloth made from the fur of an animal that, it was said, lived in a part of the world where it never snowed.
Not only did Karth and Rastle bring home trade items, they also brought stories. Some of their stories were fantastical, others were allegory, and some told of discoveries. One story told of a way to harden mud into a stone.
Karth and Rastle were not only travelling partners, they also swore kemmering to each other. A child with bright green eyes, like her parent of the flesh, was born to Karth in early winter. When summer travel season began, Rastle strapped the infant to her back and the three of them walked off together. A few months later the child took her first steps, toddling between Karth and Rastle as the wind howled outside their tent, three souls alone in an unexpected summer blizzard. They named her then and there, without the pomp and ceremony that the Ash People usually used to bestow names on their children, after the howling wind and driving snow that accompanied her first steps. They called her Gor.
Gor, though she spent her early days travelling with her mothers, did not take to that life. When Karth bore another green-eyed daughter a few years later, Gor was happy to stay with her cousins among the Ash People through one summer, and with her cousins among the People of Green Mountain through another summer.
She did not play like the other children. She was quiet and she spent hours with the elders, fetching and doing small chores, gradually learning the crafts of the charcoal makers and the smelters. As she grew, she became more and more withdrawn, disappearing into the forest for an entire cycle of the moon at a time. Years later, she showed her mothers what she had learned. She had learned the magic that Karth and Rastle had heard of. She had learned to turn mud into stone. Gor’s mud was truly a union of the two peoples. It contained a black powder extracted from the smelter’s slag, a viscous, dark substance that coated the inside of the charcoal ovens after a successful burn, and crushed stone from the river between.
Gor, with her solitary ways, choose the celibate’s path. She had no children of her own. She chose magic over the pleasures of the flesh. As she grew older, she taught her magic to anyone who would learn. One of her sisters’ children, a girl who had grown up among the People of Green Mountain, wondered why the Ash People wintered in long houses fashioned from the limbs of the rockwood trees, when caves were so much warmer. As she grew, she figured out why: there were no suitable caves in the territory of the Ash People. Gor’s magic gave her an idea. She knew how to cleave a stone into a rough shape from the miners of the People of Green Mountain, and with Gor’s mud, she was able to make something like a cave. It was not very big, and the roof was of rockwood, because she could not figure out how to make the stone support its own weight, but it had four solid walls to block the winter’s wind. The structure gave others ideas. Within a few generations, the Ash People had learned to make sturdy stone shelters with graceful arches to support the roofs.
It was a great, great, great, great granddaughter of Rastle, a stonesmith, master of a trade that was equally of the Ash People and the People of Green Mountain, who thought of the bridge. Why, she wondered, should we not cross the river throughout the year? Why wait until the coldest of months? And so she began work. She recruited dozens of young backs to help. They built the footings and foundation during the summer using fieldstone found on the banks of the river. They quarried only the best stone, stone without flaw for the arch, and painstakingly dragged the rough blocks of rock back to the site. They built warming huts on the banks of the river. They built the frame to support the bridge’s arch until the capstone could be fitted in place. Finally, after years of preparation, they built the bridge during the bitter cold when the river trickled to a stop.
The mortar they used was a dark grey. They mixed it in small batches on the bank. They measured the prepared powder into buckets - just enough to coat one or two stones at a time. Care had to be taken with the mortar lest it froze before it set. They used water hot enough to burn, and the rocks were warmed through in the huts, before they were set in place. Once in place, the stones were covered with heated blankets that were changed hourly.
Come spring, with the full torrent of the spring meltwater roaring through the river’s banks, all of the Ash People and all of the People of Green Mountain, a vast crowd of hundreds, met at the bridge. They stood on their respective sides, feeling ground vibrate under their feet as mist soaked their clothes. The priests and leaders stepped onto the damp stone with mincing steps. The booming of the great rockwood drums voiced the thumping of their terrified heartbeats as they looked down at the frothing water. After the elders had crossed, others tried the bridge, nervous at first and then, when it held, running across with brazen delight.
The bridge was a great boon to both peoples.