Winds of Tammerlan

Story (warning: spoilers!)

On the aquatic planet Sioulann, the floating city of Tammerlan holds a contest of gomshak, a strategy game well appreciated in the Chh’tyl Empire. Questor Sirius kho Delsi, an excellent player, has been invited to participate by the prefect of Tammerlan, Virion kho Soude. But Sirius and his young assistant Chaaas are in fact tracking down dangerous drug smugglers who escaped from planet Ch'lokan. Illegal trade of the azan, a powerful hallucinogenic and euphoric drug, has already caused hundreds of dead in Tammerlan.

Sioulann is a fast-spinning planet, so the ocean bulges on the equator, leaving the poles emerged. As the axis in very inclined, the planet seems to “roll” on its orbite. Its year is so short that the dayear is 32 krels (a time unit, about 1.7 hours) long, two times the circadian optimum of Chhhatyls. (This leads to an apparent spiral path of the sun in the north hemisphere sky). So the Sioulann settlers learned to fit a long siesta in the middle of the dayear. The Wind of Tammerlan timeline is expressed in dayears.

The questor and his assistant are introduced to the Capitule, the city Hall where dwells the city’s artificial intelligence, the Umbrella. Kept hidden under an interieur pond, the IA registers the visitors' presence. They meet Paviet, the city's tribune, who is also the head of security.

The gomshak contest begins. Sparks soon erupt between the gomshak favorite, arrogant Kirsom, a biotechnician specialized in conditioning devices, and Plezar, a burly general’s aide whose path has already crossed Chaaas’s. An orphan without descendants, Plezar’s gruff appearance has the public doubting his playing skills. Nevertheless, he manages to evade disqualification. In the following banquet, Chaaas also meets Juunus, a plump and clumsy prefect from Kour, the north Pole city.

Dayear 1

A dayear later, Chaaas finds Plezar gazing at flying kites, a “lady” activity that attracts many male viewers. Each young girl has fashioned her own colorful and aerodynamic kite. Chaaas observes a contest of skills and strength against the capricious winds of Tammerlan. As the contest closes, a young girl's kite is violently tossed by the wind, and the wind mistress, a black-garbed lady, intervenes. Together, the two females manage to land the kite, who breaks under the impact.

As many of the spectators have already left, young thugs advance to intimidate the kite mistress, ridiculing her "soft belly". As a female Chh’tyl, the kite mistress wears a protective covering over her fragile abdomen. Plezar intervenes and scatters the ruffians, gaining the lady’s gratitude.

Dayear 2

The next day, questor Sirius and Chaaas are shown by Vradal, Virion’s brother, who manages the undercity plant. There, the main wealth of the floating cities, fishes, are raised, guarded by conditioned fallous, a local predator species. Hundreds of wary workers gut the “crop” of fishes, their migration around the aquatic planet completed. In a lab, they find Kirsom installing a locating device on a young fallou. Disturbed in his work, the angry specialist bids them out.

Chaaas walks to their visitor's pavilions, near an exercise field. Among the young vigils dueling there, Chaaas is surprised to recognize Plezar, who displays a high level of skill. Later, the adolescent learns that Plezar had never married because a war accident had left him sterile. He also encounters an humble worker, Teram, who attend their pavilions.

The next dayear, a happy crowd fills the observation deck around the city. Chaaas and Plezar, the burly player sporting a nice tunic, watch the boat race, the first of theTrials of adolescents running for their Quest. The two are separated in the crowd, but Chaaas is too excited to notice... until the young thugs from the other day push Chaaas over the rail. He plummets helplessy into the sea. The boy, drowning, encounters the impressive life-forms of Sioulann, the fallous, shark-like carnivors, who play and toss with him, until he rans out of air... He is retrieved by Plézar, who has plunged to his aid. The two are rescued from prowling fallous by a young boater, Tussel.

Back on the quay, they meet his mother, Adalou kha Narri. The two males recognize the kite mistress from the other day! His new tunic now in tatters, Plezar bows civilly to her. Adalou kha Narri is the widow of Vvemik. Tussel’s father, a biologist, was lost at sea six years ago.

Chaaas is intrigued by Tussel, who looks too young and frail to be undergoing his Trials. They quickly find out that Adalou is Kirsom’s cousin, as the irritated player makes his way toward them. He and Plezar have an acid confrontation.

Chaaas practice combat with staffs against Plezar, who is relentless.

Dayear 4

Chaaas and Tussel, early sketch

After the siesta, Tussel shows to Chaaas the floating vegetable gardens, a latticed mosaic of patches. Chaaas learns that all criminals (penitents) are sent the Kour, the north Pole continent city. They work together, plucking vegetables, when suddenly a rogue fallou attacks the garden, nearly killing him and Tussel...  Chaaas manages to save them, and to rescue a injured worker from the beast’s maws. Vigils, lead by Tulmus kho Domn, intervene and kill the beast. Chaaas notices a device protruding from the dead fallou’s head...

Traumatized by the event, Tussel falls asleep in the floater car getting them back to Tammerlan. Chaaas cannot help noticing how frail the boy looks. Sirius has asked Plezar to fetch Tussel’s mother. When she arrives in a soiled tunic, Chaaas understands that Adalou works all day in a fish plant.

Plezar and Chaaas drive the boy and his (very tired) mother to their home, a luxuriant residence in the first spiral. They put the sleeping Tussel in his basket. Upon finding Adalou asleep in the kitchen, Plezar prepares the whole complicated dinner. As a general's caretaker, he had years of cooking experience... Helping him, Chaaas discover a vial of brown grains, that Plezar identifies: sugar, a rare ingredient since the sun gives out all the glucose that Chh'tyls need. Plezar reveals that older adults need it sometimes to supplement their failing energies. But no old-timer lives there, Chaaas thinks.

When the mistress awakes, she finds the dinner table ready. Moved, Adalou invite them to stay and eat with her and Tussel. Chaaas thoroughly enjoys the familial atmosphere... until Kirsom comes home, drunken and furious. He lashes on Plezar despite his cousin’s protests. Plezar, being only a guest, must leave with Chaaas.

Dayear 5

Chaaas is depressed: he learned that the injured worker he “saved” died in the hospital. He confides in Sirius that he hated all indentured workers since two of them cast him in the water. The older Chh’atyl comforts Chaaas, while they watch the vigils exercise. Plezar manifests his fury as he slashes wildly against the vigils, even breaking Tulmus'staff in two...

sketch, Plezar and Chaaas

Later, on the docks, Chaaas discovers that Tussel has sustained physical abuse from his uncle. Chaaas'own father never beat him once (even when his son broke an apple-tree in general Dziunn's garden.) Tussel cowers when he sees Kirsom talking with a red-headed fisher. At the end of the day, Chaaas helps Tussel to his home. Walking back, he crosses a park where he finds out that gruff Plezar, despite his resolution to remain celibate, has fallen for the beautiful kite mistress... Chaaas sees them together on a number of occasions.

dayear 6

After another gomshak joust, Chaaas meets Juunus. The plump prefect of Kour introduces him to the underbelly of the bright city. Chaaas is taken aback by the fetid district, where thousands of workers live in unhealthy conditions and obscurity. Here, hope is a sparse article. Many are tempted to gain prestige points with petty crimes or by playing games, or to evade their condition using drugs. And it is Juunus, the prefect of the prison city, who has to manage those poor souls who never had a chance...

dayear 7

Chaaas and Sirius pursue their investigation, asking Vradal about the piece found on the rogue fallou. Annoyed, Vradal examines de fragments, then he declares it a usual part of a locator. The questor and Chaaas leave for the tournament.

Plezar’s play against Kirsom is sluggish: the warrior seems at a loss, making long pauses before each move...

Against all odds, Plezar wins the match, leaving Kirsom flabbergasted. His victory causes an uproar among Kirsom’s fans who throw odd objects, injuring Sirius, and the place must be evacuated. Accompanied by Tussel and his anxious mom, Chaaas finds his master and Plezar, under the care of the female doctors. Neither has been severely wounded, but another of Plezar's tunics is hopelessly beyond repairs...

dayear 8

The favorite of the contest is found dead. Chaaas follows Sirius into Kirsom’s home, to provide Tussel some company. He learns that Kirsom has been poisoned. From Tussel’s window, he spies Plezar speaking earnestly to Adalou, who seems under a shock. She does not react. The warrior leaves. Later, Vradal comes and leads Adalou out of the garden. 

dayear 9

At the cremation ceremony, it is now evident for Chaaas that Adalou has changed partner, as she stands near Vradal and lives at his home.

dayear 10

The tournament resumes, Sirius and Plezar earning victories. When Chaaas goes back to his room later, he is hailed by a worker, Teram. The injured worker in the gardens was a friend. Teram thanks Chaaas for staying in the gardens with his friend, who did not die alone.

dayear 11

The tournament’s finale, opposing Sirius and Plezar, attracts a record crowd. Adalou is also present... close to Vradal. As the match draws to a conclusion, Vigils enters the premises with Tulmus. The prefect Virion loudly denounces Plezar as Kirsom's murderer. As the warrior reacts angrily at the accusation, a nervous vigil uses his neural whip. The magnetic discharge strikes Plezar, who falls paralysed across the board. The investigator, Paviet, takes a badge from Plezar’s hair.

Chaaas and Sirius are separated and interrogated in length by Paviet, who finds that all clues and motives points towards Plezar.  As he waits for his master, Chaaas spots Teram, but the worker doesn’t see him. Later, the questor confirms that the keulm flower, a rare poison, known only by the Chh'tyl militaries, was used, and that Plezar, a retired warrior, had a keulm insigna in his hair. A rare poison plant’s grains had been found in his room.

dayear 12

The accused is kept in controlled lethargy inside a holding cell. All his decorations and insignia have vanished. Reanimated, he reveals to Chaaas that young Tussel is gravely ill. His mother toils in the undercity plants to pay for his treatments because Kirsom is a too greedy. (Plezar asked Adalou to side with Vradal, the magistrate being rich enough to provide for Tussel's treatments.) He also tells Chaaas that Kirsom used azan to enhance his concentration while he played. So Plezar, a good strategist, had let the game drag long enough for Kirsom to lose his advantage...

Chaaas asks Tussel for a clue about his uncle’s frequentations. The boy mentions a contact by the name of Koulmid, and an undercity establishment called Koudriss’ cave. When Chaaas brings his findings to Sirius, the questor discovers that no such citizen inhabits Tammerlan, according to the Umbrella. Moreover, Teram, the worker that took care of the guests’ pavilions, has been found dead. As Teram was his main informant, Sirius’ investigation is left without a lead. Furthermore, he prohibits Chaaas from going again in the undercity.

dayear 14

Plezar is found guilty despite Sirius’s best efforts to save him. He bravely undergoes the Pendulum, watched by a raucous crowd. The cruel punishment tears out his luxurious hair. Adalou, forced to watch by jealous Vradal, faints.

In the after-siesta, Chaaas watches Plezar, in a red penitent tunic and his head bandaged, embark among other convicts en route for the penal city of Kour. Convinced of his innocence, Chaaas is determined to do everything he can to find the real culprit, who must be a drug dealer.

Taking advantage of his short hair, he disguises himself as a young girl, borrowing a gown and an ID bracelet from grief-stricken Adalou. Chaaas descends to the entertainment district and finds Koudriss' Cave. He manages to approach Koulmid, a scrawny drug trader. But the pirate sees easily though his disguise and overpowers the adolescent. Chaaas inhales azan powder, losing consciousness.

dayear 15

Some time after, the adolescent awakes in the dark. With his senses sharpened by the azan, Chaaas deduces that he is on a boat heading towards Sioulann's dangerous equator. The pirates use specially-prepared fallous as cargo to ferry the drug between the floating cities. This is why the cargo searches did not turn out any drug. Chaaas manages to get on the bridge, but is discovered by the red-haired pirate. As Chaaas berates him for Plezar's treatment, the male pulls out his red hair, in fact a wig. Gloating, he tells Chaaas that he can get anywhere... The adolescent understands that Koulmid killed Teram. 

The pirate explains that Kirsom had conceived a special pleasure-pain conditioning implant that controls the fallous. Kirsom was killed because one of their accomplices felt threatened. Chaaas can guess who: Vradal. 

As they approach the equator, a vista of endless clouds, the waters a filled with debris and algea weeds. The gravity falls as the centrifugal force makes the Equator waters bulge. Chaaas notices something on the pirate’s head. He snatches the wig  and plunges into the cold equatorial waters. He watches helplessly as the pirates raise a hidden spaceship from the murky waters, escaping the planet... He is now alone in a furious ocean.

Meanwhile, on Tammerlan, Sirius has discovered that his young assistant is missing. He searches actively for him.

dayear 16

Questor Sirius ascends the stairs to the Capitule.

It is the end of the long dayear. He goes to see Virion, who is still at his desk. The prefect asks for Chaaas, but Sirius says that his assistant hasn’t been found. They play a game of gomshak, chatting. Suddenly, Sirius shows the prefect a metallic object: a valor insigna belonging only to Plezar. They found it on the pirate ship. Virion alleges that it must be forged copy, since the City had confiscated Plezar's insignas. Sirius declares that Virion, secretely profiting from the drug trade, is the real murderer of Kirsom.

Virion closes all the Umbrella's functions. Sirius continues, brushing his pectoral. Knowing that the board sides are attributed in advance, Virion had Teram cover a piece of the gomshak game board with poison, and later had the worker planting some in Plezar’s things. He reveals also that Kirsom had been trying to blackmail Virion, hoping to leave the backwater world of Sioulann. He then had the poor Teram killed. The questor is irated because Virion shows only disrespects for the workers.

Virion knocks out Sirius. While the AI is unactivated and nobody else is in the building, he carries the meddlesome questor down to the city’s composter, in the deepest level of Tammerlan.

Coming to himself, Sirius finds himself tied up with his own braids, near the composter's chute. He gains some time by making Virion talk. The corrupt prefect was also behind Vvemik’s disparition, as the honest biologist had found a suspicious device on a captured fallou. Vradal, Virion's brother, knew nothing about the drug-running operation and was about  to send Vvemik on another mission. Warned, Virion had Vvemik's boat sabotaged...

As the prefect pulls Sirius towards the composter’s maw, Chaaas, Vradal and Paviet erupt in the room. The questor is painstakingly freed from his ties. They had been following a faint trail of pollen released by the questor’s pectoral. Sirius explains that they found Chaaas in time, almost drowned, and with the boy’s story, he was able to deduce the identity of the true murderer.

As they make their way on the main level of the Capitule, they find the chief of vigils with Juunus, the prefect of Kour, and Plezar, freshly released from the prison, his head bandaged. Plezar and Vradal have a confrontation, which ends with the vain magistrate being thrown in the pond.

Eight dayears later

Chaaas and Tussel's boat cross the finish laser beam of the race, earning an honorable third position. Adalou beams proudly as the questor hands out a decoration for Tussel. Alas, deprived of his luxurious hair and his (vanished) decorations, Plezar refuses to see anyone.

Chaaas and Sirius visit Plezar in his little room near the Tower. Plezar’s shaven and scarred head is repulsive to any male Chh’tyl. The warrior explains that he could not bear Adalou’s pity. He has given all his tournament’s points to her family, so she can leave with her son for Luurdu, where her family started off. There, Tussel can get better medical care.

On Tussel and Adalou’s departure dayear, Chaaas and Sirius trick Plezar into coming at the departure area. Sirius holds a pair of scissors. Threatening to cut off all his (very long) braids, the questor convinces the warrior to declare himself to his love. After Sirius parts with two of his own silver braids, Plezar runs towards the departing travelers. Tussel launches himself at him, oblivious of his capillary condition. Adalou gazes tenderly at his scarred head. She gently chides Plezar: it was not his hair that saved a boy (Chaaas) from drowning, nor his prestige that won the tournament, nor his decorations that cooked a wonderful meal. She loves him as he is, as brave and generous as a Bota tree (the ancestral protector of the Chhhatyl people). In front of all the shocked passengers, Plezar formally asks Adalou to accept him as Tussel’s adopted father. She accepts him, and their marital pledge is valid, witnessed by Paviet, a tribune, and Tulmus, the vigil’s chief. Plezar becomes Lar Plezar. The ardent kiss that Lor Adalou gives him casts away all ideas of pity... The happy family leave Sioulan for Luurdu.

Original sketch of the cover, with the floating gardens on the far right.