Using sign
language and facial expression, Sisseku helped Alithea gather up various medical
supplies, some bandages and poultices that would help with minor injuries. Sisseku
handed Alithea a package of the miner’s food carefully wrapped. Alithea wished
Fallon were there in the long house to translate but she guessed that it would
help comfort someone in great pain from an animal bite or broken bone. Sisseku
indicated that it would spoil within two days. Alithea thought it might be more
bother than it was worth. Hadn’t they spent the summer traveling through the
valley and forest without strange potions?
She heard
Drindl and Erthen outside the long hut and ran out to meet them. Erthen threw
out his arms and Drindl handed the boy to Alithea. “What did Alanis Drindl show
you?” Drindl blushed at the honorific.
“What’s
Alanis?” Erthen asked, mispronouncing the title.
“It means
honored teacher,” Alithea said.
“I learned a
lot. We almost saw a wolfbear,” Erthen said. Alithea looked to Drindl who gave
a barely perceptible shake of his head. “It was a broken branch and a piece of
its fur. We found hairs in the bark of a tree where it rubbed its head.”
“You will become
a master tracker one day,” Alithea said as she kissed the top of his head. “You
are getting so big.” She lowered him to the ground and voiced a silent thank
you to Drindl. She was afraid that he would be traumatized by the events of
these past weeks but he was at an age of looking forward, not back. She wished they
could stay here even a day or two before subjecting Erthen to the rigors of a
journey.
“Here’s Bebe,”
Drindl said, turning toward the slope that led to the castle. Sisseku signaled
that she would rejoin Mellen in the hut. Alithea thanked her, then turned to wave
to Bebe as she led the elephant forward. Drindl helped her disconnect the
travois from the elephant harness.
“I want to
show you something,” Bebe said to Alithea. “Drindl, could you show Erthen where
the elephant corral is? They don’t need much leading, Mileku told me. They know
where the food is.”
Drindl
gathered up the boy in his arms and came alongside the head of the elephant,
allowing Erthen to touch the large ear. The boy snapped his arm back as the ear
moved under his touch. “That’s his ear,” Drindl said as he touched Erthen’s
ear. “He waves it to help keep him cool.” He touched the boy’s nose and pointed
to the curled trunk. “That’s his nose.” He let Erthen touched the wrinkled skin
of the trunk.
“He smells
with that?” Erthen asked in disbelief.
“He can do a
lot of things with his nose. It is like a hand and an arm and a nose all together.
Come on, let’s go take the elephant to his home,” Drindl said as he walked forward
next to the elephant.
Bebe unwrapped
the bundle on the travois. “I didn’t know which medicines you would want. I
brought what I could carry for our trip.”
“Oh, thank
you,” Alithea said as she rummaged through the medical supplies. “I was so upset
yesterday.” She didn’t want to tell Bebe what she had done. “Do you think we
need to leave so soon? There is so much we could learn at the palace.”
“That’s what
I wanted to show you,” Bebe said, unwrapping another bundle. She held out the
cornerstone plaque she had buried weeks ago on the beach below the palace. “This
is from when Marten built the palace.”
“See we
could stay there. So much history,” Alithea pleaded. “You especially, Bebe, know
what this means. We need to teach the others of our heritage, the time before
the great war between the tribes.”
“No, you don’t…,”
Bebe handed her another plaque. “These were in a cabinet in a room next to the
clinic.” She pointed out an unfamiliar symbol. “That’s the symbol for the queen
and her kind. Read it.”
Alithea
browsed the symbols, stopped at a halfway point, then began again. “These
people have a sickness like the Glitl snake?” She traced her finger over the
symbol for the snake, then looked up to Bebe. “I have been with the queen. She
touched Erthen. We are not sick.”
“It’s not
all of them, just some of them,” Bebe said. She picked up another plaque, then
set it down and picked up one below it.”
“How many of
these are there?” Alithea asked.
“More. Maybe
a lot more in other places in the palace, Alithea. But the smell. A wolfbear,
maybe several, came by after you left and had a meal with some of those
soldiers. I didn’t want to come near them.” Bebe handed the plaque to Alithea and
waited while she read.
Alithea
pointed to several symbols on the plaque. “This is how they lost the war
against these creatures. They got sick before the war barely started.”
Bebe pointed
out the symbol for a bargaining tent. “They were trying to come to some negotiation
with the furless creatures and got sick.”
“They all
died?” Alithea asked.
“Most of
them. That is on another plaque but I don’t have it,” Bebe said. “Not all of
them have the sickness but some of them do. Either we kill all of them or we
stay away from them.”
“How do they
not get sick?” Alithea said.
“How does
the Glitl snake not die from its own poison?” Bebe asked with a shrug.
“The queen
might not have the disease but is not susceptible to it either?” Alithea asked,
not expecting an answer from Bebe but intrigued by the possibility. She had cut
up a Glitl snake once. “The snake has an organ where it keeps its poison. I
wonder if these creatures have such a thing? How do they poison us? By biting or
simply by touching?”
“Have you
ever thought that is why they keep their distance from us? You came in contact
with the queen but only because she wanted to use your skills.” Bebe paused, a
stricken look on her face. “I have been in contact with one of the soldiers.”
“When? This
morning?” Alithea asked.
“No, a week
ago. I was in the clinic. He tried to copulate with me,” Bebe said. “I used the
cripple kick. The queen came in. She thought I was you and was so sorry. I ran
away.”
Alithea
suddenly understood why the queen had been apologetic yesterday. “Did he touch
you or bite you?”
“Touched me.
Not there. Just my arm, I think. I got away,” Bebe said.
“You would have
showed signs of sickness by now,” Alithea said. She stood up, looking toward
the elephant corral. She reached out a hand to Bebe. “We can’t carry all these
tablets, can we? We must leave them in a safe place. Maybe we could stay
another day.”
Bebe stood,
shaking her head. “Every two or three days, the caravans come from the south to
take away the energy they dig in the mine.”
“Well then,
Mellen and Sisseku should come with us. That’s what I told Fallon,” Alithea
said.
“The journey
would kill him. You know that,” Bebe said.
“The
soldiers who come might kill all the villagers,” Alithea argued.
“No, they
won’t. They depend on them too much. The soldiers want only what the miners dig
up. The calf had some kind of sickness that poisoned the soldiers and the
queen. That’s all,” Bebe said. She knelt again to bundle up the plaques. “We’ll
make two bundles. One to take with us. One to keep here. We’ll bury them on the
hillside behind the long house.”
Alithea looked
at the sky, then lowered her gaze to the slope that led to the palace. Should
she tell Bebe what happened? Maybe later. She looked toward the direction of
the corral but Drindl and Erthen were not in sight. “Hurry. We’ll need food for
the journey. Here, give me a bundle of the tablets.”
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