Myrmidian Murmurs

“Put those down. You won’t need them on this assignment.”

I swear, if one more person, place, or thing, told me that my new plans for streamlining the mining operations weren’t necessary, I was going to scream with frustration.

My beloved could see it building in me, and put a calming hand on my shoulder. “Rest easy, dear. My cousin, she speaks truth. No, she is not trying to destroy your mind, one nerve at a time. This is still our home, and will remain so, though we will be away for a long time. For this move, we will take what we need – equipment, work clothing, supplies. Preserved food. Subsequent trips will show us what we need, so plenty of correspondence supplies. Medical supplies. We’re going into the great unknown, following the traces of whispers, not improving an existing mine.”

This time, I think I heard her. “Wait. No mine?”

“None, dear. Barren wasteland. Definitely no room for anything delicate, or extraneous. Loathe as I am to admit it, I am bringing only two books for reading pleasure, and both are copies on sturdy parchment. The originals are like old friends, and they stay here. Safe.”

I looked at the delicate paper I had used for the intricate technical drawings, all the schematics I’d had to improve production at the main garnet mines. Things that would improve working conditions. Things that would make our workers safer. Useless.

Her cousin chuckled. “That was such a loud thought, even I heard it. No, cousin-in-law, not wasted. I did not say ‘throw them away,’ I said ‘they will be of no use to you on this assignment.’ Precision, indeed, is important. But now that your beloved there has finally married, the first assignment to the newlyweds is to do a House task. Why she chose this one… well, I am baffled.”

My beloved answered her. “Call it whim.”

“You don’t have whims. You are as steady and methodical as the rest of us.”

“Then call it a bad habit I learned from my husband.”

“Again, nonsense. That he would reach for structural designs as a treasure to take with him speaks volumes to his compatibility.”

“Indeed, I chose well.”

High praise, but I still felt like I was missing a great deal of context. I tend to miss any subtext to conversations. If there is such a thing as “emotional situational awareness,” I lack it in spades.

“Then call it intuition. You know I have spent much time with our House Founder’s journals, and that he was brilliant. And mad. I do think he had an experience out there, in the desert, that was more unexpected interaction than hallucination, and he did not have the words to convey it. I will see myself if this thing exists, is replicable. And there is no better time.”

“You know, most find a new way to cut gems. Or create a new style of setting them. Or even gleaning those plans of your husband’s, I’m sure that would elevate the House in five or ten different ways.”

“I will leave those things for others, and may they enjoy the process. Me, I will return, like the cat, with satisfaction to my curiosity.”

“Just so you return. There is a reason our House has not explored the barren lands. You were ever an odd one, Myrna, even in this family.”

“And that, I pledge you, dear cousin, shall never change.”

***

“My beloved, I know you have explained what we are looking for out here, many, many times, but please enlighten me again. I confess, I’m baffled. Perhaps hearing it for the thousandth time will make it make sense.”

We were sitting in the shelter of a cliff-like overhang, which my beloved, and the bunch of servant-cousin-miners that ventured out with us, swore on their lives was perfectly safe. My own life wasn’t as sure, but they are all of House Granatta. Yes, romantic pomegranates feature heavily in the décor; they hate it. Wonderful fruit, terrible decoration. Quite organic, and unpredictable. My beloved favors clean, elegant lines. It is one of the things I adore about her.

House Granatta, the House of the Blood-Red Garnet. There are many other colors, I know; different branches of the family have taken to the rich green of tsavorite, or the light green of demantoid. Even the lush richness of the pumpkin-colored spessartines. There are rumors of purple, and clear, and black, but instead, my beloved chases the wisp of a rumor, of a special type of red.

“I think you’ve memorized it as much as I have, dear. House Garnet is such a strange mix of people and personalities, like the Five Reds that make up the central core of the House. Almandine, Pyrope, Rhodolite, Grossular, and Andradite. But the mix of particles that goes into each of these comes from different minerals, and are therefore found in strange and different locations. We generally hear the calling of one of the Five, whichever sub-House we are born into. But Rhodolite is already an eclectic mix of Almandine and Pyrope, and my own parents were already an odd mix of sub-Houses before the Tsavorites and Spessartites split off, that I don’t know what trace I’m following. I've found comfort in the ramblings of our founder, because though they are a random jumble at times, they also have all the precision and clarity of a map one can follow.”

“So, he claims to have found a mine out here, in his wanderings.”

“I’m not sure. He never uses that word. He kept mentioning a 'source,' and that’s what intrigues me.”

“Brilliant and mad is a dangerous combination, as well as contradictory.”

“But he also gave us our motto, Follow the Process. It is rule, tradition, and the basis of our lives. Instinct is all well and good, but the order in which we do our daily tasks is what has kept us alive and healthy. Order, regulation, even some calculated moderation.”

“Said by the person following his instincts as he wrote it.”

“And watching people die when they didn’t follow procedure. We wear wetted dust masks when grinding for a reason. We cut the host rocks underwater for a reason. We foil with gold, not silver, for reasons. We shore up our mines for obvious safety reasons. We do not cheat our customers for many reasons. All designed for the economy, our comfort, and the safety of us all.”

“An excellent business model.”

“A sustainable one. We do not wish to kill ourselves, and we want a legacy we can pass down.” She gestured at the other helpers, setting up a small camp. “Various cousins, some wild talents who also feel the call of the gems, they volunteered to come on this exploration. If we succeed, they share in the profits.”

“So, the map the founder left. What does it say?”

“This distinctive outcrop is mentioned. From here, we travel eastwards for two days. Then it breaks down: ‘Find the stream, the well-trod trail, and listen to the wind.’”

“That’s quite vague.”

“’Tis. But, true to our House, we will follow the process.”

***

Two days later, I was lying on a rock, in shade I had erected with my own hands. Canvas is a marvelous invention.

Two days’ worth of travel put us in the middle of a flat, arid area. One of the cousins was a dowser, and led us to some water seeps, but we still had to dig deep to get moisture, and then had to fight the desert creatures every night for the resource. Each time, my beloved was quite insistent we install some type of ramp so the creatures wouldn’t get trapped in the well. Apparently this was a part of the early process of digging a mine, because they all knew how to create a creature ladder, and had brought the supplies to do so.

And collect enough precious water to continue, though the dowser said this land was drought-stricken.

I was listening to the wind.

What I heard, instead, were the drips of my own sweat hitting the rock with tiny pling-plings, and the whistle of my parched lungs.

Follow the process.

We found no stream; the winds had scoured everything bare. Sun baked it flat. As to a source – which? Water? Garnet? Caves? No idea. The most sensitive among our group, including my wife, could hear the chiming of garnet, but it was muffled. Diffuse. No trail to follow to a possible mine’s mouth. No one had any idea what that meant, and none had ever had this strange experience before.

So, why on earth not? I would give the wind a listen, but everything was still.

And the only thing I was hearing were my own thoughts, saying this was the dumbest idea ever. What if you all die out here?

At least the rock was comfortable, which shouldn’t happen either.

I was sleepy. I was hydrated, so no chance of dying of thirst. I could afford a nap.

A puff of wind hit my face, gentle in its touch.

Follow the trail, follow the trail, follow the trail-

I’d never dreamed while still awake before…

The dance, the dance, follow, follow, precision, direction…

My eyes were open. I lifted my head, looked around. No one. The camp was far away. I could see them, dots in the distance. No animals, either, tying to sneak up on me in daylight to take a bite of juicy meat.

Performance, precision. Methodical, deliberate. The dance is our life, and we follow the steps we’ve been shown, the pattern traceable for more generations than you can count…

Well, if I’m going to hallucinate, this was quite an interesting thing to eavesdrop upon. I don’t speak like this, so, something else? Someone?

Orderly, systematic. Even what looks like aimless wandering is based on precise mathematical formulae, patterns refined by millennia for maximum foraging with minimal effort...

It seemed to come from my left. I turned my head, my scalp already dry, to look around.

It is a dance. It is movement. It is a sashay of sisters, bristles rubbing, hustle bustle within our snug walls, a safe fortress against all usurpers...

Definitely not my own thoughts.

I saw tiny movement, near the base of the rock. Glints of light, shiny brown sparkles. A stream of movement, from the crumbs I’d brushed off my chest, the remains of my lunch.

I followed it back to its source.

And then I saw it.

I jumped up, whooping with joy. Our group was too far away, but I pulled out a clever fitted rod, pieces that joined securely. And a flag the color of blood-red garnet, a signal flag of strongest silk. I stepped carefully off the rock, watching where I trod, found a clear space, waved it for all I was worth.

I found it.

***

“Ants? You heard the ants talking?”

We were spread out, hunched over. Tweezers and collection bags, around every ant hole we found, plucking garnets off the detritus piles of each entrance.

My beloved held a rather fine specimen to the sun. “Such a deep color! Such clarity! So, there’s no mine, it is a collection zone, this whole basin. To the ants, they are trash, and an obstacle, they drag them up and out. Throw them away.”

The dowser nodded. “The water source here is deep, very deep. During drought, they dig down to it, and the garnets are in the way. Dozens of feet, perhaps even a mile? Out they come, because water is more precious. Amazing engineering and strength.”

“Amazing. Yes indeed.” I was picking up my share – the first ones I spotted, scattered, glinting, around the ant hole I noticed. One very large gem among them would be my first piece of jewelry in the House. The group had come running to my signal, but I’d stopped them as soon as they were in shouting distance. So when they arrived, it was gingerly, avoiding the tiny creatures barely discernible from the sandy ground. Crumbs were deliberately scattered by us, crumbs were gathered by the ants, and ants were followed back to the holes by the humans. So we could collect their trash.

Neat. Tidy.

Follow the pattern.

Follow the stream of living creatures to their holes.

Listen to the wind.

We would return home soon, laden with treasure. We will purchase this whole area, come again, collect more trash from our industrious miners. But above all that, no triumph, no joy. Just the deep satisfaction of a puzzle solved, a founder justified in desert madness, and the beginning of a sixth sub-House.

The dance, the dance, the precision, follow the trail...

**

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Author's note: if you're curious, look up the history of Ant Hill Garnet, the garnets that look like rubies. We live in a strange world! Here's one write-up: https://myeldesign.com/blogs/journal/the-fabulous-story-of-anthill-garnets