In the years to come, I was to wonder that often.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Forgings
The POCKED MAN is a well-known figure in the folklore and drama of the Six Duchies. It is a poor troop of Puppeteers who does not possess a marionette of the Pocked Man, not only for his traditional roles, but also for his usefulness as an omen of disaster to come in original productions. Sometimes the Pocked Man puppet is merely displayed against the backdrop, to cast an ominous note to a scene. Among the Six Duchies, he is a universal symbol.
It is said the root of his legend reaches back to the first peopling of the Duchies, not the conquering by the Farseer Outislanders, but the most ancient settling of the place by earlier immigrants. Even the Outislanders have a version of the most basic legend. It is a warning story, of the wrath of El the Sea God at being forsaken.
When the sea was young, El, the first Elder, believed in the people of the islands. To that folk he gave his sea, and with it all that swam within it, and all lands it touched for their own. For many years the folk were grateful. They fished the sea, lived on its shores wherever they would, and raided any others who dared to take up abode where El had given them reign. Others who dared to sail their sea were the rightful prey of the folk as well. The folk prospered and grew tough and strong, for El’s sea winnowed them. Their lives were harsh and dangerous, but it made their boys grow to strong men and their maids fearless women at hearth or on deck. The folk respected El and to that Elder they offered their praises and only by him did they curse. And El took pride in his folk.
But in El’s generosity, he blessed his folk too well. Not enough of them died in the harsh winters, and the storms he sent were too mild to conquer their seamanship. So the folk grew in number. So grew also their herds and flocks. In fat years, weak children did not die, but grew, and stayed at home, and put land to the plow to feed the swollen flocks and herds and other weaklings like themselves. The soil grubbers did not praise El for his strong winds and raiding currents. Instead, they praised and cursed only by Eda, who is the Elder of those who plow and plant and tend the beasts. So Eda blessed her weaklings with the increase of their plants and beasts. This did not please El, but he ignored them, for he still had the hardy folk of the ships and the waves. They blessed by him and they cursed by him, and to encourage their strength he sent them storms and cold winters.
But as time went on those loyal to El dwindled. The soft folk of the soil seduced the sailors and bore them children fit only for tending to the dirt. And the folk left the winter shores and ice-strewn pastures and moved south, to the soft lands of grapes and grain. Fewer and fewer folk came each year to plow the waves and reap the fish that El had decreed to them. Less’ and less often did El hear his name in a blessing or a curse. Until at last there was a day when there was only one left who only blessed or cursed in El’s name. And he was a skinny old man, too old for the sea, swollen and aching in his joints with few teeth left in his head. His blessings and curses were weak things and insulted more than pleased El, who had little use for rickety old men.
At last there came a storm that should have ended the old man and his small boat. But when the cold waves closed over him, he clung to the wreckage of his craft and dared to cry El for mercy, though all know mercy is not in him. So enraged was El by this blasphemy that he would not receive the old man into his sea, but instead cast him up upon the shore and cursed him that he could never more sail, but neither could he die. And when he crawled from the salt waves, his face and body were pocked as if barnacles had clung to him, and he staggered to his feet and went forth into the soft lands. And everywhere he went, he saw only soft soil grubbers. And he warned them of their folly, and that El would raise up a new and hardier folk and give their heritage to them. But the folk would not listen, so soft and set had they become. Yet everywhere the old man went, disease followed in his wake. And it was all the pox diseases he spread, the ones that care not if a man is strong or weak, hard or soft, but take any and all that they touch. And this was fitting, for all know that the poxes come up from bad dust and are spread by the turning of the soil.