{"id":965,"date":"2014-06-08T10:57:30","date_gmt":"2014-06-07T22:57:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/?page_id=965"},"modified":"2014-06-08T11:08:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-07T23:08:37","slug":"sample-beastheads","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/sample-beastheads\/","title":{"rendered":"Sample: Beastheads"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Beastheads\"\u201cWhat do you mean, leave?\u201d
\n\u201cLeave. Go somewhere else,\u201d said Stone.
\n\u201cWhy would you want to do that?\u201d said his father.
\n\u201cWell, let\u2019s see. Fern\u2019s going to inherit the farm\u2026\u201d
\n\u201cWhich you agreed to.\u201d
\n\u201cI did, because I\u2019m perfectly happy about it. I don\u2019t want the farm. She\u2019ll run it a lot better than I ever would, but the fact remains, I don\u2019t really have a place here.\u201d
\n\u201cOf course you do.\u201d Stone\u2019s father scratched his bald spot. His sleeves, still rolled up from the day\u2019s work, showed thick, hairy forearms to match his heavy body. He rested them on the scrubbed table in the stone-flagged kitchen where all family business was done. Neither Stone nor his father was tall, and Stone very much suspected that when he reached his father\u2019s age he\u2019d look exactly like him.
\nHe wouldn\u2019t, however, be like him in other ways.
\n\u201cWhat I mean, Father,\u201d he said, \u201cis that I want to go out and experience life, see the world.\u201d
\n\u201cOur family\u2019s farmed this valley for generations.\u201d
\n\u201cYes, exactly. And nothing\u2019s changed here for generations, either.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, you know that\u2019s not true. Just in the last ten years, we\u2019ve brought the average yield per cow up by a clear sixteenth, and the butterfat\u2026\u201d
\nStone sighed. \u201cFather,\u201d he said, \u201cI don\u2019t care about butterfat.\u201d
\nFaced with this incomprehensible heresy, Stone\u2019s father sat speechless, his mouth hanging open. A cow-follower bird called outside the window, and its mate answered: pwit pwit pwit, tee-yip, tee-yip<\/em>.
\n\u201cI\u2026 I just want a chance to see other places,\u201d said Stone. \u201cOther ways of living. I\u2019ve never felt like I fit in here.\u201d
\n\u201cHow can you not fit in here? You\u2019ve never lived anywhere else.\u201d
\n\u201cFather, that\u2019s exactly the point I\u2019m making. I want to try living somewhere else and see if\u2026 see if I\u2019m happier.\u201d
\n\u201cWell,\u201d his father said, \u201cI don\u2019t understand it. But you\u2019re an adult now, so I suppose you can suit yourself.\u201d He turned his head aside and didn\u2019t look at Stone, and Stone knew he\u2019d offended him.
\n\u201cFather,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019ll appreciate this place a lot better, I\u2019m sure, if I see what other places are like. I just\u2026 I want to leave. For a while, at least.\u201d
\nHis father nodded, still not looking at him. After a moment, Stone stood and went to find his sister Fern. She wouldn\u2019t understand either, but she\u2019d support him, at least.<\/p>\n

Stone stood by the dock, clutching his bag, while the cheese-boat loaded and prepared to depart. Only Fern and Father had come to see him off.
\n\u201cWhere\u2019s your friend?\u201d said Fern. \u201cBark? I would have thought he\u2019d come.\u201d
\n\u201cWell,\u201d said Stone, uncomfortably, \u201cBark\u2019s busy now that he\u2019s courting River. He\u2026 we don\u2019t see each other much any more.\u201d
\n\u201cThat\u2019s a pity. You used to be close,\u201d said Fern, and Stone\u2019s heart lurched, thinking about just how close they used to be, and how that had ended when Bark\u2019s family decided it was time he was oathbound and started pushing him towards River. At least Stone\u2019s father, for all his faults, had never insisted on that.
\n\u201cWell, take care,\u201d said Father, his gruff voice even more congested than usual. \u201cWrite as soon as you get there and let us know how you\u2019re getting on.\u201d
\n\u201cThanks, Father,\u201d said Stone, and they clasped big, hairy hands. He kissed his sister on the cheek, and she pushed a small packet into his hands.
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s this?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201cKeep you going for a bit,\u201d she said.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s money?\u201d he said, shaking it.
\n\u201cLittle bit. We had a good year, and you worked hard.\u201d
\n\u201cThanks, Sis.\u201d He embraced her, and the captain called, \u201cPrepare to cast off!\u201d
\n\u201cBetter go. Thanks again!\u201d he said, and hurried to climb aboard the river craft.
\nThey all waved until after the boat had passed the bend and they couldn\u2019t see each other any more.<\/p>\n

The boat stopped in Riverbend Market, capital of the Eastern Province, on the way downriver. Stone had been up to High Rapids, the capital of his own Inner Province, once, and couldn\u2019t help contrasting that prosperous, tidy city with the scruffy appearance that Riverbend Market presented.
\n\u201cNot much wealth in Eastern,\u201d said the captain, when he remarked on it. \u201cRough country, hilly, not like those plains you have up north. All they run here is sheep.\u201d They took a barge full of raw wool bales in tow for the rest of the trip down to Gulfport. \u201cDon\u2019t want it on the boat,\u201d said the captain, \u201cthe stink gets into everything.\u201d
\nEven Riverbend Market, though, couldn\u2019t match his first sight of Gulfport. The capital city was\u2026 grand. That was the word, he decided. Everything seemed on a larger scale, from the wide streets to the tall buildings. Even the street trees looked bigger.
\nAs he stared around, the captain cleared his throat beside him, then laughed when he jumped. \u201cYou got arrangements?\u201d the man asked. \u201cPlace to stay? Work?\u201d
\n\u201cNot yet,\u201d he admitted.
\n\u201cWhat are you looking for in the way of work?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2026 don\u2019t know yet. Something that has nothing to do with cattle.\u201d
\nThe captain snorted. \u201cThat would be pretty much everything. You read and write?\u201d
\n\u201cOf course,\u201d said Stone. The school at home was excellent, and prepared students for the correspondence college, which taught animal husbandry, agricultural methods, the basics of accounting and business as it applied to running a farm, and a little theory of lifemagic.
\n\u201cNo \u2018of course\u2019 about it,\u201d said the captain. \u201cYou might oughta look into this thing the new Realmgold\u2019s started.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d said Stone. He\u2019d heard the news, of course, that Victory, the Provincegold of Western, a woman about his own age, had recently been elected by her fellow Provincegolds to succeed old Glorious.
\n\u201cShe needs clerks to help her make her changes,\u201d said the captain. \u201cShe\u2019s started a college for them up in Illene, that old elven city we passed a ways back.\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know if I want to be a clerk,\u201d said Stone. It didn\u2019t sound very exciting.
\n\u201cOh, it\u2019s not just pieces of paper, what I hear,\u201d said the captain. \u201cYou look into it, young fella.\u201d
\n\u201cAll right,\u201d said Stone, not intending to do any such thing.
\nThey docked, and there on the wharf stood a booth with an awning, and a row of men and women sitting behind a table. A banner stretched across the front of the awning said \u201cRecruiting\u201d accompanied by a picture of a stick figure with a shovel, the widely-understood symbol for \u201cworkers wanted\u201d. At the front of the table, five smaller banners held large icons, presumably intended for the illiterate. He saw the military (a sword), mages (a bracelet), healers (a round hat), and the figure with the shovel again, indicating general hiring, but the fifth one was unfamiliar: a beast with a lion\u2019s body and tail, but with the lion\u2019s foreparts replaced by an eagle\u2019s head, body, wings and talons. Curious, he approached the woman at that table.
\nShe smiled brightly and asked, \u201cCan I help you, sir?\u201d
\n\u201cWhat is it you\u2019re recruiting for?\u201d he asked.
\n\u201cThis is the Gryphon Clerks,\u201d she said, touching a silver seal hanging around her neck. \u201cWe\u2019re Realmgold Victory\u2019s eyes and hands, and voice when we need to be. Have you heard about her reforms?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve heard my father complain about them,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cWell-off, is he, your father?\u201d
\n\u201cWe didn\u2019t want for anything,\u201d he said. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t call us rich.\u201d
\n\u201cNo offence intended,\u201d she said, \u201cit\u2019s just that most of the opposition to the reforms comes from people who were doing well under the previous Realmgold. The new Realmgold wants to spread the prosperity around more, and not everyone who has it now is happy about that.\u201d
\n\u201cBecause it will come at their expense?\u201d he said.
\n\u201cNot necessarily. More that they\u2019re used to being on top, I think, and don\u2019t want anyone else coming up and joining them. But enough politics. Can you read?\u201d
\n\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\u201cFluently?\u201d
\n\u201cYes.\u201d
\n\u201cRead this for me,\u201d she said, and handed him a book. He read the passage she indicated aloud without difficulty.
\n\u201cYou fancy being a Gryphon Clerk?\u201d she said.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t know. What\u2019s it involve?\u201d
\n\u201cOh,\u201d she said, \u201ctravel, if you want. Meeting new people. Convincing them to take part in what the Realmgold is doing.\u201d
\n\u201cYou know,\u201d he said, \u201cI might look into that.\u201d
\n\u201cHere\u2019s a pamphlet,\u201d she said. \u201cSit over there and read it, and come back if you\u2019re still interested.\u201d
\nWithin an hour, he was on a ferry back the way he\u2019d come, heading for the Clerks\u2019 College in Illene.<\/p>\n

Three years later, Stone returned to Gulfport to work in the Office of Trade and Industry as a junior clerk.
\nAt his interview, the Leading Clerk who hired him had strongly implied that if he worked hard and did good work he would have a chance of travelling later on, and since he still wanted to see new places he gave the job his best, even when it fell into routine \u2014 as a junior clerk\u2019s work inevitably did.
\nPromotion was rapid in the Clerks for good workers, and he soon managed to drop the \u201cjunior\u201d and become a full clerk, transferring to the Northern Office, which dealt mainly with the neighbouring realm of Denning.
\nThere, at the next desk, he met Glorious of Littlemeadows.
\nNamed after the previous Realmgold by his ultraconservative father, Glorious had rebelled against family expectations by joining Victory\u2019s Gryphon Clerks. \u201cAnd so Father won\u2019t talk to me,\u201d he confided to Stone, \u201cwhich was exactly what I was setting out to achieve. What about you? Do you talk to your father?\u201d
\n\u201cI send him letters,\u201d said Stone. \u201cWe don\u2019t see eye to eye on a lot of things, but\u2026 we stay in touch.\u201d
\nGlorious nodded. He was everything Stone wasn\u2019t: tall, slender, handsome, refined, a member of the Gold ruling class and, at least nominally, of the Asterist religion. He was fascinated by Stone\u2019s name.
\n\u201cI thought it was only peasants who had Earthist names,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI suppose strictly speaking we are peasants,\u201d said Stone. \u201cI mean, we\u2019re farmers. Well-off farmers, enough to count as Silver class by income, anyway, but that\u2019s really all that distinguishes us from the Coppers.\u201d
\n\u201cWell, that and education.\u201d
\n\u201cVictory\u2019s encouraging education of the Coppers,\u201d Stone pointed out.
\n\u201cOh, true, and how wonderful of her,\u201d said Glorious. All the Clerks took a loyalty oath that bound them to Victory and the realm, so they tended to think highly of her, but Glorious behaved as if she made the sun come up each morning.
\nGlorious came in one morning to find Stone already at his desk. \u201cYou\u2019re in early,\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI wanted to get to work on this file,\u201d said Stone.
\n\u201cWhat is it?\u201d
\n\u201cTrade figures. Takes concentration, you know, and I thought if I was in here by myself I could get a good start on it.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, do I distract you?\u201d
\n\u201cNo, no,\u201d said Stone, which wasn\u2019t true. \u201cIt\u2019s just that when the office is quiet, it\u2019s easier to sustain a line of thought all the way to the end.\u201d
\n\u201cQuite,\u201d said Glorious. But Stone noticed that he didn\u2019t talk to him as much the rest of the day, and wondered if he\u2019d offended him.
\nIt was Threeday, the day before the usual day off, and when the time came round for the office to close, Glorious stretched his long limbs and cracked his knuckles.
\n\u201cWell,\u201d he said, \u201cI\u2019m for the tavern. Coming?\u201d
\n\u201cMe?\u201d said Stone.
\n\u201cWhy not? I\u2019ll drink in a tavern with any man. You more than most, if anything.\u201d He grinned, and Stone grinned back. He must have just kept quiet out of consideration, Stone thought.
\n\u201cWhat would your family think of you going drinking with a Copper?\u201d he said, pulling on his coat.
\n\u201cYou\u2019re not a Copper. Gryphon Clerks are Silver class. But I don\u2019t care what they would think, as I\u2019m sure you\u2019re well aware.\u201d
\nThey stayed at the tavern late into the evening, sharing a bottle of wine and a meal. They started out talking about Leading Clerk Felicity and the other clerks they worked with, but soon Stone was telling Glorious about growing up on the dairy farm and how boring it had been, and Glorious was talking about being bullied at the Academy of the Triple Star.
\n\u201cAll the Golds send their children there,\u201d he said. \u201cThe upper end of the Silver class, too, the ones who want their grandchildren to be Golds. We\u2019re supposed to make alliances and connections that will last us the rest of our lives.\u201d
\n\u201cAnd did you?\u201d
\n\u201cI\u2019ve never seen a single person from there since I walked out the gate on my last day,\u201d said Glorious. \u201cNever wanted to, either. Graduation from the Academy counts as adulthood rites, and I walked straight over to the Clerks\u2019 College and signed up the same afternoon.\u201d
\n\u201cWhat did your family do?\u201d
\n\u201cOh, there was a huge row, but there was nothing they could do about it. I don\u2019t see any of them, either.\u201d Glorious leaned back as he spoke, and gestured largely, like a man who didn\u2019t care, a man who had put his past behind him.<\/p>\n

Without further discussion, the tavern became their regular Threeday destination after work, a place where they could talk about their dreams and plans over a meal and a bottle of good wine. Glorious wanted to be a diplomat, \u201csomewhere exotic, you know, to the centaurs up in Coriant or something\u201d. Stone wasn\u2019t sure exactly what he wanted, but he knew he wanted to see more of the world. Perhaps, he thought, he and Glorious could go and see centaurs together.
\nOne night, when a second bottle had joined the first, Stone eyed his friend with an unsteady gaze and said, \u201cYou know, you never speak about any plans to get oathbound.\u201d
\n\u201cOh, well,\u201d said Glorious. \u201cI don\u2019t really have any. I mean, young yet, and so forth, right?\u201d
\n\u201cYou don\u2019t speak about women either, though,\u201d Stone persisted.
\n\u201cWell, no more do you.\u201d
\n\u201cAh, well, the difference is, though, women speak about you. I\u2019ve heard them, you know. And you are a handsome fellow, there\u2019s no denying it.\u201d
\n\u201cThank you,\u201d said Glorious, and glanced around the tavern. They were among the last people there, and nobody else was paying any attention to them. \u201cTell you something,\u201d he said, leaning in and dropping his voice.
\n\u201cWhat?\u201d
\n\u201cI don\u2019t really like women. I mean, I like them all right as people. But not as women<\/em>, if you know what I mean.\u201d
\n\u201cI know exactly what you mean,\u201d said Stone, filled with hope (and wine). \u201cExactly<\/em>.\u201d He reached out and covered Glorious\u2019s hand with his. Glorious looked at it, looked up at Stone, and they both burst into laughter.
\nSomeone like me at last<\/em>, thought Stone. And he\u2019s so handsome<\/em>.<\/p>\n

That was Stone\u2019s last clear memory when he woke, hung over and stinking of his own vomit, on a bed of straw in a stone cell. A wooden bowl of cleanish water stood nearby, and after taking a few minutes to get his body back into working order, he crawled over to it and drank.
\nIt did something for the dry mouth, not much for the headache, and stimulated another urge, the receptacle for which was in the opposite corner of the cell. He managed to get most of it in the pot rather than on the floor, and staggered back to the straw, where he tried, around the headache, to puzzle out what had happened. He seemed to have some bruises that he couldn\u2019t account for.
\nWith a headsplitting crack, the hatch in the cell door flew back, and a man peered through the barred window thus revealed. He wore a military fore-and-aft cap with warden\u2019s markings .
\n\u201cYou awake?\u201d he said.
\n\u201cI think so,\u201d said Stone.
\n\u201cYour boss is \u2019ere to get you out,\u201d said the warden, and Stone groaned, for several different reasons.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWhat do you mean, leave?\u201d \u201cLeave. Go somewhere else,\u201d said Stone. \u201cWhy would you want to do that?\u201d said his father. \u201cWell, let\u2019s see. Fern\u2019s going to inherit the farm\u2026\u201d \u201cWhich you agreed to.\u201d \u201cI did, because I\u2019m perfectly happy … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","template":"","meta":{"content-type":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/965"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=965"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":972,"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/965\/revisions\/972"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/csidemedia.com\/gryphonclerks\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}