Barbuak leads the way through the thicket of the dry forest, Sunni’s small blunt Tekahnian axe in hand. Maine walks behind Barbuak wielding a rock sling, improvised using strips of his own clothing after having seen Sunni make one many years ago.
Lenshu is walking behind
Jaklyn and Chrifty’s children Luc and Alesandra. When Alesandra stumbles,
Lenshu lifts her up onto his back.
‘We’re close now,’ said
Barbuak as he hefted his weight over the fallen trunk of an old tree from which
new ones were growing, ‘ears open.’
Over the general chorus of
bird song in the forest around them, an alarmed group of birds could suddenly
be heard screeching loudly nearby.
‘Noisy miners,’ noted
Barbuak.
Jaklyn gasps, Lenshu explains
to Luc and Alesandra, ‘That bird, the big black and white one, he was trying to
carry the dead one away but they stopped him.’
Jaklyn points out a fallen
bird to Luc and Alesandra that the small noisy miners are now taking turns to
swoop at. The miners brush its feathers as they pass, yet it doesn’t stir.
‘That’s not a miner,’ notices
Lenshu, speaking of the fallen bird of the same coloured feather. ‘He’s
slightly bigger.’
‘Are they trying to pick him
up?’ wonders Luc.
As the large black and white
bird advances, stepping forward on its spindly orange legs, the smaller birds
cast down from the branches of nearby trees and drive it away.
The birds continue twittering
excitably to one another and some stand beside the body on the ground cheeping
loudly at the unmoving bird.
‘They’re trying to wake her
up,’ suggests Alesandra.
‘They‘re protecting him,’
suggests Luc.
Realising they have all
stopped walking to watch, Lenshu says, ‘Let’s keep moving,’ as he gently pushes
Luc forward.
‘Bah, they’re not protecting
him,’ says Barbuak, rousing himself and continuing to walk off, ‘they’re
wanting his feathers for their own I’d say.’
Jaklyn removes Sunni’s
carry-shade from her back and smacks Barbuak across his shoulders as Alesandra
stares, wide-eyed, from atop Lenshu’s shoulders at the birds boisterously
twittering away to one another around the motionless bird.
~
‘Are you sure it was this
way?’ asks Edy as she stops to catch her breath and tighten the band holding
her short gold hair back.
‘Yes, keep going,’ urges Mica
as he redistributes the weight of his backbag by pulling on its straps then
tightens the wrap warming his baldhead. ‘If he’s gone and injured himself he’ll
be needing us.’ Mica uses the small trees around him to stop himself falling as
he stumbles over the loose rocky ground down the steep mountainside. Rain is
making the moss and leaf litter slippery, he is grateful for the old boots
Mario gifted him last time he was in Asher.
‘Those are very heavy use
boots,’ chided Edy, ‘did you get them in Asher?’
‘Hm. Mario gave them to me
when I told him I was leaving Asher for help.’
‘Mario Guilermo?’ huffed Edy.
Mica nodded as his backbag
caught on a branch.
‘So…do you know Richard
Rinehart too?’ asked Edy intrigued.
Mica shook his head, tugging
at his bag. ‘Never met him myself.’
‘Wow,’ breathed Edy, ‘So you
think Jullee’s idea will work?’
Mica shrugged, and tugged his
backbag free of the branch by breaking it. ‘It’s worth trying.’
Bouncing tiredly into vines,
which shakes excess water from the light canopy above them, Edy sighs, ‘it may
be worth it but I’d rather not be the one to carry that sugar glider back up
this slope today!’
‘Don’t worry,’ said Mica,
‘someone else is sure to offer when we get back. Besides, he looked to have
more control today, so I don’t think we’ll be testing them like this much
longer.’
≈
I’m rushing along with the
wind but the light rain begins to blur my vision. Distracted, I slip from the
current of air that had carried me here and find myself losing height. I should
have been firmer in insisting this wasn’t good weather to be testing in. I’m
slipping from the grey skies around me, edging closer to the forest canopy
below. I grip the timber frame with firm hands, hold myself more firmly to the
sling, tight across my hips and chest. The sound of tree tips battering my
wings grows louder as I’m suddenly struck across the face. Stinging, I hear the
snap of wood and feel the frame being ripped from my hands.
Tired, heavy head, slowly
breathing in I can feel my chest as it rises. My skin begins to burn, despite
the chill of light rain. Thank goodness, I still have a body. Breathing out, I
can feel my toes, but I can’t move them.
I breathe in and try to move
my toes again; nothing. I breath out more heavily, my arms are so heavy I can’t
move them. My fingers don’t respond to my mind, they’re frozen.
An uneven sound disturbs the
steady shush of tree leaves in the wind being struck by falling water droplets.
I hear the barely disguised murmuring of men’s voices. My heart quickens.
Panic, it’s coming, a cloud threatening to engulf me.
~
As her long chameleon coloured and plaited hair
unwove under the water and the enormous wave passed overhead, Jullee waited for
the dull sound of its crashing wall before allowing herself to be lifted to the
surface.
Once in the sunlight, its
crystals piercing her eyes, she took air to lung and gasped with joy.
Rising on the following
swell, she became aware of a single feather drifting in the water. Her
enchantment over its delicate structure was broken by the realisation that
there were many feathers around her.
She hastily checked the water
surrounding her arms and legs. Her dreadful search for a body was interrupted
by the appearance of someone waving to her on the sandy shore.
~
There were ferns growing in
this part of the forest and it made moving silently very difficult for Barbuak,
Maine, Lenshu, Jaklyn and Chrifty’s twins.
‘Quiet. Still. There,’
motioned Jaklyn with her free hand, as she held Luc’s hand with her other. Lenshu lowered Alesandra from his
shoulders and into the ferns.
‘You two stay here together,
lie low,’ instructed Jaklyn to Luc and Alesandra as Barbuak, Maine and Lenshu
kept lookout around them. Jaklyn gave Sunni’s carryshade to Luc and Alesandra,
plucked some ferns from around them and fixed them onto the top of the shade.
Luc and Alesandra quietly
lowered themselves into the ferns as Jaklyn left them to lead the men to where
the flying man had fallen.
After Jakyln pointed it out,
Maine was the next to spy an unusual material hanging from the branches of a
tree a few hundred yards away. Barbuak and Lenshu walked ahead so they could
spread out through the bush and close in on the area together from different
directions.
~
‘Joan? Min Thurman?’
‘I can hear you,’ sighs Joan.
‘Min Thurman, do you hear me?
Please respond…’
‘Yes! Bugger this,’ Joan
turns down the volume and returns her attention to who is left of the group.
Three geologists and two commandants standing close together, wide-eyed and
alert.
‘Nobody breathes, till I say
so,’ said Joan. ‘Gerard, get over here. Explain this to me.’
Gerard stumbles forward
anxiously and pulls out a hand held device to scan the tree leaves.
‘What’s that gunna tell us?’
said Joan flatly. ‘It’s pretty obvious we’re in some kinda freak forest. Why
are we standing in a fake forest when we’re supposed to be on organicville
deluxe? And these leaves, they have the same pattern as solar plates, now why’s
that?’
‘Well if you’ll just give me
a moment,’ stammered Gerard. ‘I’m wondering how old this all could be…are you
sure this isn’t an experimental field for the Channeled Forces or some other
company-’
‘No Gerald.’
‘Gerard.’
‘Gerard, Gerald, what does it
matter; we may all die here if we don’t figure out what on Netech is going on.
I thought you guys knew what rocks were down here.’
Joan suddenly feels a peculiar
and overwhelming wave of cloudyness in her head. ‘Are you serious…!?’ slurs
Joan as she watches Gerard keel over and slump to the ground and then blacks
out herself.
~
‘Is he alive?’ asked Lenshu.
Jaklyn, kneeling beside the
battered body of a man, nodded as she pulled her hand away from his chest.
‘Geez, what is this thing?’
wondered Barbuak as he inspected the once tightly stretched leather that was
now hanging in strips from broken wooden poles.
‘He was using it to fly,’
explained Lenshu, ‘When we saw him he was gliding over the tree tops here.’
‘Well where did he come
from?’ asked Maine. ‘We should be careful, there must be others around here
somewhere.’
Jaklyn stood up; an
unfamiliar fragrance caught her attention. ‘Look out, we’re not alone,’ she motioned.
Barbuak turned around to
realise a young man was standing there, looking up at him with dark eyes and a
faint smile.
Before Barbuak could lift a
hand to strike, the other proffered one hand whilst holding the other to his
chest and muttering ‘Sa Mica, sa ahn?’
Barbuak hesistated. After
gauging the threat of the guy by his size, Barbuak took his hand and looked
around the forest. Behind him, Lenshu and Maine were looking at a tall young
woman with short gold hair and hazel eyes holding out a small paring knife in
front of her, she conspicuously dropped it to the ground and pointed towards
the man lying at Jaklyn’s feet whilst holding her other hand empty palm up.
‘We saw your friend fall,’
said Jaklyn to Edy with her hands. ‘We have been walking together for a long
time, looking for one of our own. There was a cloudy sky and a flood of earth.
We are still looking.’
Edy nodded in comprehension
before repeating this to her companion Mica in their own language, not known by
the Amacites.
Barbuak was still holding
Mica’s hand firmly, suspiciously.
‘They are Amacite,’ guessed
Mica, looking up at Barbuak. ‘Their eyes, they are every colour of the forest.’
‘You can let him go Barbuak,’
said Lenshu as Maine nodded in agreement.
Barbuak scowled.
‘Let him go,’ clapped Jaklyn,
though Barbuak didn’t see.
As Edy watched, Jaklyn
roughly yanked down a piece of the broken glider frame and frustratedly threw
it at Barbuak’s back. He ignored it.
Mica slowly placed his other
hand over Barbuak’s without touching it.
‘Aargh,’ grumbled Barbuak as
his fingers instantly released Mica.
Mica smiled politely as Maine
scolded Barbuak and Lenshu apologised. They all began to retreat away from the
body so Mica and Edy could approach to lean down and check their friend.
Edy kneeled down and looked
into his face, ‘Samuel, Samuel?’ When he didn’t respond, Edy looked up at
Jaklyn.
‘He was sleeping when I found
him,’ explained Jaklyn. ‘He has broken rib and broken arm, he will be okay,
maybe, we will see, his head, I don’t know,’ sighed Jaklyn expressively. Edy
understood.
‘Where are you going?’ asked
Mica, in a tongue foreign to Amacites, though Lenshu seemed to understand.
‘This way,’ motioned Lenshu,
‘to find our friend.’
Edy and Mica exchanged grave
looks. Edy shook her head.
‘You can travel some way
there,’ began Edy trying to simplify her words though only Mica could
understand her, ‘but then you will find the edge of this place and a bad place
beyond that, you must go around.’
Lenshu, Maine, Barbuak and
Jaklyn followed the tone of Edy’s voice, they didn’t like the warning they
could hear.
‘What bad?’ asked Maine.
‘This way?’
‘Bad lands?’ said Barbuak
using Jaklyn’s style of communication to her reserved surprise and amusement.
Edy nodded. Speaking in her
own tongue and attempting to use motions like the mute Jaklyn, she said, ‘Come
with us, we are many. We will take you this way.’
‘I think she wants us to go
with them,’ said Lenshu.
‘We can’t, we have to track
Sunni,’ said Maine.
‘I know,’ said Lenshu.
‘We’ve already gone off track
looking for this guy,’ said Barbuak, ‘why not find out more about these people,
this place, maybe have a proper feed and be on our way?’
Lenshu looked agitated
momentarily.
Edy was taking cloth from
Mica’s backbag and splinting the fallen man’s arm.
Jaklyn nodded earnestly.
‘What if Sunique is lying
injured somewhere like this?’ asked Lenshu looking at Edy.
‘We have the twins,’ said
Barbuak. ‘We have them here and now. We need to make sure they are taken care
of too, right now first. Besides, it’s going to be hard to see which way she’s
gone now with this rain.’
Lenshu bowed his head and
nodded.
‘Sunni can look after
herself, we all know that,’ admitted Maine hesitantly, ‘and who knows, maybe
she has met some of these people and gone with them.’
Lenshu suddenly looks in the
direction Edy had warned them about, Maine bites his lip and looks away.
Edy notices Jaklyn glancing
off into the forest again.
‘You’re not alone?’ accuses
Edy.
Jaklyn makes eye contact with
Edy.
‘They have children with
them,’ said Edy for Mica.
~
Nearly ninety in number now,
the Tekah Ahn are wandering between the pale trees of a dry forest beside a
wide freshwater river. It is late afternoon and strong shadows stretch cooly
across the warm amber light of the evening sun. The front of the group has
ceased walking and begun to set up camp for the night on a bend in the river
where there is a sandy beach. Some people begin setting up sleeping places,
while others set up fireplaces. Men and women enter the river to fish while
children bathe and play in the shallows.
Tharwa is carrying Eva, his
newest granddaughter in his arms as he walks beside Urik, conversing about
Jon’s fishing abilities. Redbark interrupts Tharwa and Urik’s conversation to
ask Urik for help with two boys fighting up ahead. As Urik follows Redbark
away, Tharwa hears his son’s voice.
‘Eva...Eva!’ calls Lei from
amoungst the crowd behind them, he is waving a head cover Eva’s Mother has
finished mending.
Orana laughs heartily as Eva,
eyes still closed, smiles.
‘The hardest to bring from
sleep, is the one who pretends,’ murmers Orana for Tharwa to hear.
Iris appears beside Orana as
they are walking. ‘Hey Eva...’ she teases in a gentle voice as she lifts a
purple flower to Eva’s nose as they walk.
‘Iris!’ smiles Eva as she
opens shiny milky white eyes.
‘Hello beautiful,’ smiles
Iris and Orana together.
‘Hey, I thought you were far
away,’ said Tharwa.
‘Eva,’ puffed Lei as he
reached them. He squeezed Eva’s cheek and pulled her headcover down onto her
head.
‘I’m hungry,’ said Eva to
Iris.
‘Well come with me and we’ll
see what nanay has back here for you,’ said Lei holding out his arms.
Eva hugged Tharwa tighter,
Tharwa laughed.
‘Here, have some of these
Eva,’ said Redbark as he leaned behind Jon and skipped behind Urik to pass his
own shoulder bag full of fresh Byu nuts.
‘Thanks Rark,’ smiled Eva.
‘Iris, can you make me another faure ring?’
‘Sure,’ replied Iris, what
about with some of these,’ she asked whilst holding up the purple flower that
matched her purple hair ties.
Eva nodded.
~
‘What’s going on here?’ asked
Urik as he approached two young men circling one another, glaring into one
another’s purely pitch black eyes, oblivious to the scolding voices of the men
and women around them.
At the sound of Urik’s voice,
Nile and the other young man, Kyle, stopped moving but would not take their
eyes off one another.
‘Haha, Nile and Kyle under a
tree…’ laughed a young boy.
Urik shook his head and the
boy covered his own mouth.
After a man had stepped
forward and was shaken off by Nile, a woman stepped forward to place a firm
hand on Kyle’s arm. ‘Son,’ she pleaded gently. Kyle resisted shaking her off.
‘Nile’ said Urik. ‘Explain to
me why you are taking anger.’
‘I was just helping build
this fireplace when he came up to me.’
‘He thinks he’s clever
getting back at me for something I didn’t do by-.’
‘It’s your fault!’ spat Nile.
‘It was not my fault!’
groaned Kyle.
‘What happened?’ asked Urik.
Nile’s face burned red.
‘He wont even tell me!’
exclaimed Kyle. ‘All I know is that I didn’t get him a bag latch when I said I
could, I couldn’t get this piece that I needed from someone I thought would
have it. No big deal. It’s a bag latch. You could just make one yourself out of
something else now you know I can’t help you.’
‘Is this the story?’ asked
Urik.
Nile looked furious, he
tilted his head back harshly to say no.
Kyle, still being restrained
by his Mother, contemplated for a tense few seconds as Nile fumed.
Urik, sensing Nile was about
to burst, looked around at the family members who were watching them. He
noticed Nile’s cousin wearing a hooded jumper and waved at him to approach
after signalling to remove it and pass it to him. After Nile’s cousin removed
his jumper and passed it to Urik, Urik threw it at Nile and dismissed everyone.
‘Throw this on, let’s walk,’
said Urik as Nile inspected the item of clothing.
Noticing a hood, Nile
wrenched the jumper on quickly with tense hands and covered his face. Pulling
up the hood of the jumper he left Kyle, walked past Urik and away from the
reluctantly departing group, his face hidden.
As Urik turned to follow Nile
away, he could hear the approach of fast footsteps on dry leaves, someone
running towards him. He turned to see Vinae, an exceptionally slender woman
approaching in haste followed by two other scouts, people entrusted with
running ahead to check the terrain.
Some of the Tekah Ahn that
were walking around or setting themselves up, gravitate towards Urik to hear
what the scouts who have returned in haste have to say.
‘Urik,’ says Vinae slightly
out of breath. ‘There’s a camp ahead. Two days,’ she says before Urik can greet
her properly.
‘How many?’ asks Urik.
Vinae is shaking her head
with wide eyes as the other two scouts behind her, Akhtar and Elstir. They take
a deep breath and look at one another.
Akhtar holds up his hands and
looks to the sky as a smile flickers across his face and is replaced with a
look of shock to match Elstir.
‘How many?’ repeats Urik.
‘Like the leaves,’ said
Akhtar.
Urik stared into space for a
moment. He took a few slow steps away, crossing the shade of trees and amber
light in succession.
Interrupting his thoughts,
Elstir says, ‘Cari is with them now.’
Alarmed, Urik threw Elstir a
questioning look.
‘They’re waiting for us,’
says Vinae.
Urik turns his face to the
warm evening sun. Daring a faint smile, he says, ‘Maybe they’re who we’ve been
looking for.’
~
Jaklyn struggles with her
long hair in the wind on the edge of a large cliff, Edy hands her a tie from
Mica’s bag. As Jaklyn fastens her hair back like Edy’s short hair, Luc and
Alesandra point and marvel at the view.
The grey sky is clearing and
rain clouds are moving away in the distance as they look upon a damp, red,
rocky and barren land, sparsely scattered with lifeless looking trees and
shrubs.
Against their memory of green
and colourful tropical and temperate rainforest, it was an astonishing sight to
Luc and Alesandra.
‘Wow,’ exclaimed young
Alesandra.
‘Wait till you see it in a
few hours, now that we’ve had rain,’ smiles Edy.
Barbuak, Maine, Lenshu and
Mica are carrying Samuel, the fallen glider pilot, on a carry bed made from the
broken glider. They lay him down for a moment to rest their arms.
‘How much further?’ asks
Jaklyn.
‘We are here,’ said Edy.
Mica whistles very loudly.
Barbuak frowned and exchanged
glances with Maine and Lenshu.
A heap of sand suddenly burst
into the air nearby, startling the Amacites.
Alesandra yelped and hid
behind her brother.
A large area of earth began
sinking before them, Barbuak gripped Sunni’s axe and Lenshu looked at Edy and
Mica, gauging their reaction. They seemed relaxed, so he tried to relax too.
As the earth sunk away before
them a tunnel angling down into the earth began to appear.
Alesandra began shaking her
head. ‘No I don’t want to go in there!’ she cried.
‘Neither do I!’ exclaimed
Luc, turning to stand between Barbuak and Lenshu.
‘It’s okay,’ said Edy. ‘We
live here, eat, sleep, pray. But not for long.’
‘Remember the store, by the
cliff,’ said Maine unexpectedly. ‘Well?’
Luc and Alesandra looked up
at Maine as tears began to run down Alesandra’s cheeks.
Jakyln bit her lip; home was
a painful memory.
‘We are going to visit Edy
and Mica’s home and then we can leave at any time. I will be the one to go
first, okay?’
Luc nodded as Alesandra
continued shaking her head.
Maine looked at Mica, who
then turned to enter.
Following Mica, Maine said to
the twins, ‘You will see the sun again, I promise.’
~
In the darkness broken now
and then lit by city flame lights, Prahla and Jade are lightly burdened with
back packs as they scramble over a low broken wall, into the manicured forest
of what they know is Richard Rinehart’s estate.
Behind them, people are
hastening around in panic after seeing a light streaking the sky beside the
moon, and looting has started where ground tremors have caused buildings and
walls to collapse.
‘I wish we had taken the boat
down the river,’ sighed Jade. ‘It’s going to be scary in the forest in total
dark.’
‘Not as scary as thinking
that gladiator was going to hit me for stealing his weapon. You don’t have to
come,’ said Prahla again.
‘But I want to,’ said Jade.
‘Whose going to watch your back if the Raken come for you?’
‘I’d rather fight a Raken
than eat another piece of Prime,’ said Prahla.
‘So is it true?’ asked Jade
as they stalked between the edge of a row of sharp shrubs and the city wall.
‘Your Father died working there?’
Prahla shrugged, ‘I’ll never
know.’
‘What is Prime made of
anyway?’ asked Jade.
‘I don’t want to talk about
it,’ said Prahla. ‘Look, there. No wall so he can get a good view and probably
come and go too…No Raken.’
‘How can you say that!
Everyone knows about them, since you’re a baby they warn us about them.’
‘Have you seen one?’
‘No. But that’s not the
point…’
‘Sure it is. Has anyone ever
seen Marie?’
‘Huh?’
‘I don’t thinks she’s real. I
think the Hiidean’s made her up. Like how faurie stories are made up.’
‘No they’re definitely real,’
said Jade. ‘Your brother told me he saw them once.’
‘No.’
‘Yes.’
‘Ouch!’
‘What is it?’
‘I cut myself. Never mind,
okay run across to there now.’
‘Wait a second, someone is
over there,’ whispered Jade.
~
Camelia lightly touched her
tightly bound hair. ‘Mario,’ she said,
‘this changes everything.’
‘No, it doesn’t,’ replied
Mario, ‘If anything it will make it easier. Jullee’s idea will work.’
‘But we are scattered. If
people try to leave the city because of this, Richard will assume tighter
control. He’ll rebuild the walls, employ more Armin.’
‘Then we will appeal to the
Armin,’ said Mario firmly. ‘If we can convince the Armin of the truth of our
situation and have them recognise that they are important in securing change
for all of us by not working for Richard, we will have an even greater chance
of succeeding in freeing the people from his order, from this way of being.’
‘The Armin you say?’ said
Camelia pensively.
‘Hang on,’ said Mario
quietly. ‘We have company. I think it’s a couple of children in the garden over
there. They must of come through that broken part of the wall.’
‘Children!’ called Camilia
loudly and sweetly.
Suddenly two small figures
rose out of the bushes and dashed off towards the other side of the estate,
towards the wild forest.
~
‘Now we’ll never know what
the Armin are about to do!’ said Jade as he ran in front of Prahla.
‘Maybe we don’t want to
know,’ said Prahla as she stepped over a low bluestone wall into the wild.
~
Tharwa walks behind Urik and
Vinae through the narrow cliff pass at the head of the line. Looking up at the
narrow strip of blue sky between the faces of rock around them, he wonders if
anyone will attempt to ambush them from above.
‘We’re almost there,’ said
Vinae, leading the way.
‘Coo-whoo!’ she calls as they
pass a large painting of a face with enormous eyes on the rock.
‘Can it be?’ murmurs Tharwa.
‘Larawan…out here? Stop!’ said Tharwa.
Urik tapped Vinae’s shoulder.
She stopped and turned around.
‘What’s wrong Tharwa?’
‘How do we know there’s no
Ashen here?’
‘Oh there are,’ said Vinae to
Tharwa’s surprise. ‘There are many. They are deserters, many urchins that have
runaway.’
Tharwa was thinking about
this when he felt Orana behind him. She squeezed his arm reassuringly.
‘Remember when we ran away?’ she said in a low voice.
‘Greetings!’ said a friendly
voice ahead of them as a particularly tall girl appeared.
‘Kathrine,’ smiled Vinae.
‘Welcome!’ said Kathrine
warmly to Orana, Urik and Tharwa. ‘Jullee is excited that you have come, you
will meet her first thing.’
Behind them, Aigel burst into
song.
~
Stand as tall as a tree
Be as gentle as the mist
Be as strong as the earth
beneath your feet
And carry the fire of the
hearth within your heart
Into either ether
Into either ether
~
At Katherine’s directions,
Urik approaches Jullee who is sitting alone under a tree, weaving a narrow band
with the fresh stalks of reeds. She pauses to lift a hollow gourd and drink.
Looking up and noticing Urik, she smiles and proffers the flask.
Urik leans his heavy frame
down to take it from her hands, ‘thank you,’ he says.
He takes a sip. Cold, sweet
water.
Urik is distracted by the
yellow hair of a short woman teaching a group of children nearby how to pick
and split Byu nuts. She is smiling at a child in scruffy fabric as dark as coal
who is wearing a portion as a hat.
‘I like it with these
flowers,’ explains Jullee as she brushes her hand over a magenta flower beside
her.
Urik nods interestedly and
hands her back the drink flask.
He becomes self-conscious of
his towering frame because she is still sitting down and considers where to
sit.
‘There’s a nice spot,’ said
Jullee, pointing to a grassy patch.
Urik sits himself down on the
ground. ‘My friends call me Urik. My Mother’s name is Aesa and my Father’s is
Adalbraht. They are no longer with me.’
‘My friends call me many
names, but it is safest to call me Jullee.’
Urik smiled.
‘I’m sorry to hear about your
parents,’ said Jullee. ‘Mine are over there. They never stop bickering over how
best to make timja cakes or arguing over song words. My Father thinks she
changes her mind too much, he doesn’t recognise that the situation changes too
much.’
Jullee is weaving almost
absently as she talks.
‘What are you making?’ asks
Urik.
‘Bands, for my wrists so I
don’t cut them when I am harvesting shaolgm.’
Jullee misinterprets Urik’s
silence.
‘It’s a strong sharp plant
that is mushy inside,’ she explains. ‘We use it on our skin and in drinks.’
‘I know shaolgm,’ said Urik.
‘My…my love, she used it. She is no longer with me.’
A large creature standing
upright on two legs carrying a baby in its front hopped up to Urik. Urik turned
his own pitch black eyes to see its dark brown eyes and black lashes as it
inspected his head and sniffed around.
As Jullee watched, she
thought she noticed green in Urik’s eyes as he looked at the creature, though
she couldn’t be sure as they were black when he returned his attention to her.
‘Would you help me to
understand Urik…’ began Jullee slowly, ‘what is the special gift of the Tekah
Ahn? We have many things that are happening and time is sweeping us forward as
surely as it seems to hold us back. Perhaps you can help us?’
‘I cannot say. Perhaps Orana
will know. We are too many from so many different places, as you are here. I
cannot speak for everyone.’
‘Excellent,’ smiled Jullee,
‘then I shall enjoy getting to know you all with what limited time we have.’
With that, Jullee took another drink of her flask and knotted the ends of the
band she had finished weaving.
‘Jullee,’ said Urik, in a
loaded tone that made her give him her full attention. ‘Edy and Mica told us
about your plan to reclaim Asher.’
Jullee nodded very slowly,
knowing he hadn’t finished saying what she was hopeful to hear.
‘I don’t know what this means
yet, or if it will affect any or all of us. But you should know…’ began Urik.
Jullee suddenly had no idea
where Urik was going with what he was saying, she felt nervous.
‘There
are ones who stand as high as these trees,’ said Urik to Jullee’s disbelief.
‘And they’re moving, they’re moving in numbers.’
