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snippet: the lithophagus
This is fiction that isn't fanfic, oh my god. Also, it goes nowhere and it just something that occurred to me while I was trying to steam away my worries.
The lithophagus does not move fast, but he does not need to, because for him one century passes by the same as another, and rocks are always there. He grinds along in his grey skin with its quartzy streaks and veins of brown, and eats the rocks as he goes. From a distance, you would think the side of the mountain to move. Up close, his voice tumbles slowly down the gravel path of what he wants to say, and he will explain the vintages of rocks, and how the best ones--the rare ones--are the ones that come from the sky.
One day, the priest in the mountain saw what he thought was a small rockslide coming down the mountain. He was not alarmed, because the pools of the sun and the moon had told him to expect this, that it was the lithophagus come to tell him news that would change the world. Neither the pool of the sun nor the pool of the moon would tell him what that news would be.
The priest caught the lithophagus snacking on the cornerstone of his temple gate. I am sorry, the lithophagus rumbled, I am hungry; it took me two months to cross the mountain, and that is very fast for me. I rolled the rest of the way here.
So? the priest asked impatiently.
I have seen marvels, the lithophagus answered. He gazed wistfully at the half-chewed cornerstone, accepted the small piece of granite the priest offered him instead. Creatures who go on two legs like the Blemmyae and have faces like the Blemmyae, two eyes and a nose and mouth, only their faces are not in their chests.
They do not speak, they scream and shriek when anyone approaches them. A huntress-giant and her leopard came down to the watering hole where they were resting, and they screamed and shrieked and ran away, even though it is well-known these leopards are tame. I couldn't blame them, the lithophagus continued, for they are tiny, they are giants, I suppose, to pygmies, but to the cynocephali, they would be puppies. If, the lithophagus added, they had snouts and hair, but they don't.
They come in many colors, continued the lithophagus after he swallowed the stone. Their hair is on the top of their head, like a mane, and is jet or silver or copper and their eyes are lapis or jade, but they do not glow like the lamp-eyes of the serpents and dragons. Some of them have skin gold as the golden mountain we Lithophagi consider sacred. Some are mahogany like the trees near the outposts of Babylon and some are ebony and some are the color of the dragon's tusk, ivory.
But, the lithophagus said slowly, the one miraculous thing about the ivory ones is that, if you put them in the sun, they change color, like the chameleon, only they do not become invisible. Instead, they become red.
He said this and much more, and the priest fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve until the lithophagus finished.
After sternly admonishing the lithophagus not to eat his temple wall, the priest reported this marvel to the soothsayers, who know the speech of all creatures, and they told it to the mouthless ones, who eat only air and their speech is made with vowelly eyeblinks and the consonants are the motions of their heads and shoulders, and when they learned about these creatures their nostrils flared, which meant they were amazed and did not quite believe what the soothsayers said. Then the soothsayers went to the Panotii, who stroked their long ears and were not impressed because these creatures had small ears, good for nothing except hearing, and then the Monopods who did not come out from the shade of their feet but asked the soothsayers if they were sure these creatures had two legs, and how fast they could hop.
They do not hop, said the soothsayers, they walk. When they saw the lithophagus, they ran.
Ah, said the president Monopod, whose single foot gave enough shade to rival a great plane tree. He generously offered this shade to the priest, for Monopods consider shade a gift, and they are hospitable. Ah, said the president Monopod again. They run. Well now, that is something.
The lithophagus does not move fast, but he does not need to, because for him one century passes by the same as another, and rocks are always there. He grinds along in his grey skin with its quartzy streaks and veins of brown, and eats the rocks as he goes. From a distance, you would think the side of the mountain to move. Up close, his voice tumbles slowly down the gravel path of what he wants to say, and he will explain the vintages of rocks, and how the best ones--the rare ones--are the ones that come from the sky.
One day, the priest in the mountain saw what he thought was a small rockslide coming down the mountain. He was not alarmed, because the pools of the sun and the moon had told him to expect this, that it was the lithophagus come to tell him news that would change the world. Neither the pool of the sun nor the pool of the moon would tell him what that news would be.
The priest caught the lithophagus snacking on the cornerstone of his temple gate. I am sorry, the lithophagus rumbled, I am hungry; it took me two months to cross the mountain, and that is very fast for me. I rolled the rest of the way here.
So? the priest asked impatiently.
I have seen marvels, the lithophagus answered. He gazed wistfully at the half-chewed cornerstone, accepted the small piece of granite the priest offered him instead. Creatures who go on two legs like the Blemmyae and have faces like the Blemmyae, two eyes and a nose and mouth, only their faces are not in their chests.
They do not speak, they scream and shriek when anyone approaches them. A huntress-giant and her leopard came down to the watering hole where they were resting, and they screamed and shrieked and ran away, even though it is well-known these leopards are tame. I couldn't blame them, the lithophagus continued, for they are tiny, they are giants, I suppose, to pygmies, but to the cynocephali, they would be puppies. If, the lithophagus added, they had snouts and hair, but they don't.
They come in many colors, continued the lithophagus after he swallowed the stone. Their hair is on the top of their head, like a mane, and is jet or silver or copper and their eyes are lapis or jade, but they do not glow like the lamp-eyes of the serpents and dragons. Some of them have skin gold as the golden mountain we Lithophagi consider sacred. Some are mahogany like the trees near the outposts of Babylon and some are ebony and some are the color of the dragon's tusk, ivory.
But, the lithophagus said slowly, the one miraculous thing about the ivory ones is that, if you put them in the sun, they change color, like the chameleon, only they do not become invisible. Instead, they become red.
He said this and much more, and the priest fidgeted with the cuff of his sleeve until the lithophagus finished.
After sternly admonishing the lithophagus not to eat his temple wall, the priest reported this marvel to the soothsayers, who know the speech of all creatures, and they told it to the mouthless ones, who eat only air and their speech is made with vowelly eyeblinks and the consonants are the motions of their heads and shoulders, and when they learned about these creatures their nostrils flared, which meant they were amazed and did not quite believe what the soothsayers said. Then the soothsayers went to the Panotii, who stroked their long ears and were not impressed because these creatures had small ears, good for nothing except hearing, and then the Monopods who did not come out from the shade of their feet but asked the soothsayers if they were sure these creatures had two legs, and how fast they could hop.
They do not hop, said the soothsayers, they walk. When they saw the lithophagus, they ran.
Ah, said the president Monopod, whose single foot gave enough shade to rival a great plane tree. He generously offered this shade to the priest, for Monopods consider shade a gift, and they are hospitable. Ah, said the president Monopod again. They run. Well now, that is something.
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Monopod (http://www.theoi.com/image/postclassical-sciapods.jpg) (or Sciapod) | Blemmya (http://www.theoi.com/image/postclassical-blemmyae.jpg) (they have their faces in their chests) | Panotos (http://www.theoi.com/image/pictures-panotii.jpg) (they have gigantic ears they use like blankets to stay warm at night!) | Cynocephalus (http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/29/Saint_christopher_cynocephalus.gif) (dog-headed man)
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And now to post this in the right place ...
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The funny thing is, they are supposed to be very fast :D Most of the catalogues that mention them talk about how swift they are--apparently, they could hop at great speed.
Now I just need to see a lithophagus.
That is the only one I couldn't find an image for! Partly that's because I recall the lithophagus only from a footnote in a book I'd read, and I don't think one appears in any of the illustrated catalogues of marvels and monsters that this little thing is based on.
I sort of imagine the lithophagus as looking like The Thing from Fantastic Four, except greyish :D
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