THE YNGLING AND THE CIRCLE OF POWER by John Dalmas

Domestication of the Ogre

In earlier times, when ogres existed in nearer proximity to human settlements, ogre infants were sometimes captured and reared through childhood. Thus not only their intelligence but their trainability became known. It also became known that with pu­berty, at about age nine or ten, these one-time win­some and interesting baby ogres became surly and dangerous. They were almost invariably killed then for safety reasons.

Ogres have a voice box and mobile lips, and as cubs are taught to talk by older pack members. They are not articulate by human standards, but wild ogres do have language of their own, and in the Sino-Tibetan empire, juvenile domesticated ogres are taught to speak functional Tibetan, being intelli­gent enough to grasp and learn a foreign grammar. The structure of their ice apparatus, particularly the elongate mouth, prevents the pronunciation of the velar sounds. Thus they pronounce k and t as g as d. The loose, mobile lips permit easy pronunciation of the bi-labials, but the large canine teeth make mastery of the voiceless labio-dental f difficult, and it is usually pronounced as th.

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Imperial Domestication & Training

While still a young man, King Songtsan I ex­tended the boundaries of his family’s rule from the Gulf of Tonkin north to the Yellow River, and east­ward to its confluence with the Siang, creating the first large Sino-Tibetan state of the post-plague era. His eldest son, who would later become Songstan II and take the title of emperor, knew of baby “yetis” being trained like children. There were telepaths in the royal service, and it seemed to the crown prince that ogres reared in proper circumstances, with tele-paths to monitor their minds and whatever might be troubling them, could be trained to drill, stand guard, and fight. And surely no other ruler in the world would have such a guard force. How much he thought to depend on ogres for security is not known, but certainly they’d make a impressive look­ing royal guard unit.

Training did not go well at first, but well enough that the project was continued. Actually the ogres proved more intelligent than expected, but more in­tractable as well, from puberty on. Handlers were killed and maimed, but royalty could always con­script and train new handlers. Emperor Songtsan III was the first to have an actual guard force of armed and drilled ogres. By that time the ogres being worked with were the third generation born in captiv­ity. Their recent ancestors had been brought up under the careful direction of telepaths, and given a ready-made and partly factual “tradition.” The surliness and dangerous rages characteristic of un­conditioned adult ogres was reduced in the guard to occasional moodiness, and during the rut, to trucu-lence. In the rutting season, they were therefore taken off duty and sent to stud.

Ogres were healthier in the relatively dry climate at Miyun than in Yunnan, despite the cold winters, against which they were warmly dressed and housed.

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The emperor Songtsan IV had an ogre guard force numbering eighty. Its eight squad leaders had been bonded to him personally as cubs, and beyond that, all eighty had been hypnotically implanted in cub-hood with a command of loyalty to the emperor. . . .

EIGHTEEN

The first storm of autumn had darkened the palace at Miyun. Rain snarled against walls, and rattled like flung gravel against windows and shutters. Gusty winds swatted and whuffed. The wind chimes had been taken in to prevent their blowing away, and servants had lit censers to placate the house gods they persisted in believing in. The emperor, who preferred a free flow of fresh air through the palace, weather permitting, tolerated the censers and the beliefs they reflected. Their fragrance was preferable to unperfumed domestic odors.

Tenzin Geshe hardly noticed. His gomba, his monas­tery, smelled always of pine and faintly fragrant lamp oil. After holding his bow for an appropriate time, he straightened. “Your Magnificence,” he said, “the Circle and I have just visited the mind of the raven elemental we created. Ravens have found the barbarian you are interested in. The elemental has gone to him, and the three men with him, and shown them to us clearly. The man is a giant, as I’d sensed before, with eyes that are dead and do not see. He sees without them, using wizard powers.”

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