by Inmon, Shawn
Versa-eh and Senta-eh packed up the camp, and within the hour, Alex and Harta-ak were on makeshift litters and being dragged along the trail.
By nightfall, they were safely within the village, and the healer and her assistants cared for them in a small hut with only two cots.
Senta-eh, Monda-ak, and Versa-eh sat outside with their backs against the wall, waiting for word.
Eventually, the healer emerged and said, “I’ve never seen anything like it. I don’t know why they are not dead. We always believed that six stings will paralyze you, and ten or more will kill you. By all rights, they should be dead. You did the right thing by bringing them to me. Out there, they would have died. They still may, but I will do what I can.”
Three more days passed with no change. The women and dog never left them except to relieve themselves. The healer brought them nutritious food, but they had a difficult time finding an appetite.
That afternoon, Harta-ak took a deep, shuddering breath and opened his eyes. He cried out in terror and Versa-eh rushed to his side. She stroked his hair, smiled, and laughed through tears. “It is about time you woke up. You are so lazy!”
The next morning, Alex did the same. His eyelids fluttered, then flew open and he gasped for breath.
“You were far away,” Senta-eh observed.
“I did not think I was ever coming back,” Alex agreed.
They spent another week in Rinta-ah. Initially, Alex and Harta-ak puttered around like ancient men, barely able to walk. A few days later, they were upright, and a few days after that both men had regained much of their vitality.
Rinka-ak, the young prince, visited them. “I thought you were foolish to try to beat godat-ta. I didn’t know it would be the wasta-ta that nearly killed you.”
Alex glanced at Senta-eh. “We’ve banished godat-ta twice now. I hope to never have to see another wasta-ta.” A sudden thought occurred to Alex. “Where are our horses?”
Rinka-ak waved the concern away. “They are safe on the other side of the river. I stationed a contingent of men there to care for them. When you are strong enough, they will be waiting for you.” He paused thoughtfully. “In fact, I’m thinking of building a small settlement on the other side of the river. Over time, we could improve the bridge, so we could move more and bigger items from one side to the other.”
Harta-ak and Versa-eh lit up. “We have an idea.”
Alex sat back and looked at the three young people. They were all less than twenty years old. They were the new generation of Kragdon-ah.
Maybe progress is not so easy to stop.
“The difficulty,” Rinka-ak mused, “is how to make a small settlement defensible, both from man and beast.”
“That’s exactly our idea. We’d be happy to work with you on it.”
“Tell me!” Rinka-ak said, a glint of excitement in his eye.
“Have you been to the salt deposit?”
Rinka-ak put two fingers to his forehead. “My father took me several times.”
Harta-ak formed his hands into a bowl. “So you know it is a round bowl, with a single entrance that doesn’t involve climbing to the top.” He waggled his pointer fingers to indicate the opening. “Our idea is that we could build a gate that would block that entrance. Then, we could put dwellings for a few people inside. It wouldn’t take many people to defend it then. A few guard houses on the ridges would be all it would take.”
Alex wandered away, still trying to work strength back into his limbs. Senta-eh joined him as he walked to the bottom of the amphitheater that held Rinta-ah. “Are you not interested in Harta-ak’s plans? You went to great lengths to make this happen for him.” She didn’t say You almost died for it, but those words hung between them anyway.
“I went to great lengths to give them the opportunity. That’s all they ever needed. Now they have that. Our young friends are all bright and ambitious. They will figure out how to make things work without this old soldier.”
“You are not so old. You still look good to me. For one who is so small, that is.” She added the last with a smile.
Alex turned and looked up into Senta-eh’s beautiful face. “You know how I feel about you.”
“Do I? You have said I am a good person. There are many good people among the Winten-ah.”
As usual, Alex found himself tongue-tied at the onset of a conversation that dealt with issues beyond his ability to express.
“Let me tell you, then. I want to spend every day with you. Every minute.”
“We already do,” she pointed out.
“You are not making this easy. You are frustrating.”
“So people have told me since I was a young girl.”
“Here it is, then. I want to be with you. In every way. I want to bind our lives together. You are more than the best person I know. You are my first thought in the morning and my last at night.” He hesitated, thought of a Tom Cruise movie from his youth and considered saying You complete me, but that wasn’t right. “I want to commit my life to you.”
“Then why haven’t you?”
“Because I cannot until I know it is impossible for me to return home. To my daughter.”
“I thought we knew that when we took you to where your door had once been and it was gone.”
Alex put two fingers to his forehead. “I have seen one other door.”
“Ah,” she said, the light dawning. “Denta-ah. There was a door in Denta-ah that the slug-man used.”
“Yes,” Alex confirmed.
“Come then. Let’s tell our host and our friends we are leaving. We are going to Denta-ah.”
Chapter Ten
Return to Denta-ah
Four days later, Alex and Senta-eh saw the first guard on the forest path to Winten-ah.
“Gunta, Manta-ak, Senta-eh.”
“Gunta,” they both returned.
The guard lifted a horn to his lips and announced their coming. He leaned over his platform and said, “We have other company as well.”
“Nothing that will slow us down much, I hope,” Alex said quietly to Senta-eh. Things had changed between them since Alex had finally, if somewhat ham-handedly, told Senta-eh how he felt. There had been times over the years when an electric charge had jumped between them. It was a constant thing now. Alex was anxious to make a final decision.
They kicked their heels into their horses and hurried along the path, greeting each guard in turn.
When they turned east toward the cliffside, it filled Alex with a sense of home, as it had for years now.
His sharp eyes saw a small contingent of people sitting at the edge of the field near the cliff. Three of the people sitting there wore orange robes.
The children of Winten-ah ran out to greet them. They oohed over the scars Alex still wore. The swelling from the stings had gone down, but each place where he had been stung still had a small white dot. He did not know if they would ever fade away.
When they drew closer, Alex could see it was Lanta-eh and three holy men from Matori-ah. They sat cross-legged in the soft grass, facing each other. When Lanta-eh saw them, she jumped to her feet like the young girl she still was, and ran to them. “One of the holy men says he knows you!” Only then did she notice Alex’s many scars. “Are you all right?”
“Never better,” Alex said, and slid to the ground. Alex immediately recognized Trema-ak, the young monk who had taken him snowshoeing the winter they had spent with the monks. Alex hurried to greet him and the other monks. They were all familiar, but Alex remembered Trema-ak best.
“I am almost afraid to ask, but how is Tokin-ak?” The ancient monk had indicated that he was near the end of his life when they had last seen each other.
“The same as always,” Trema-ak said. “Telling everyone who will listen that he is dying while he continues to live another day.”
Alex had assumed the ancient monk was dead, so it heartened him to hear he was still on this side of life’s curtain.
“In fact, when he kne
w we were coming here to see both you and The Chosen One, he wanted to come. Our master told him he was needed at the monastery, though.”
Alex turned to Lanta-eh. “We didn’t mean to interrupt. I’m sure you’re having an important conversation.”
“You can never interrupt. We are speaking of important things, but you are welcome to join us.”
“I don’t think I would have anything to add, and we are tired after so many days on the trail.”
“I will come find you after you have rested,” she said, kissing Alex on the cheek. It was an unusual gesture in Kragdon-ah, but one she had adopted with Alex.
Alex and Senta-eh separated—Alex to find Sekun-ak and Senta-eh to seek out her family.
Alex climbed through the cave system until he found Sekun-ak sitting in one of the low chairs, speaking to several members of the council.
“Am I interrupting?”
“Never,” Sekun-ak answered. “If I had known how much talking and how little actual work went into being chief, I never would have agreed to serve.” He glanced at the other council members, who stood and walked past Alex, each laying a hand on his shoulder in greeting.
“We have brought back several saddlebags full of danta. I will meet with Jimta-ak and show him how to use it to preserve meat.”
“This will be helpful to us in many ways,” Sekun-ak said, “but it looks like you paid a heavy price for a few bags of danta.”
Alex’s fingers unconsciously touched the white scars the wasta-ta had left him with. “It’s more than just a few bags. Harta-ak and Versa-eh are setting up a new village at the danta deposit, working with the young chief from Rinta-ah. They have given us permission to gather as much salt as we want or need forever.”
“Or at least as long as those people are alive,” Sekun-ak observed.
“Being chief has made you cynical.”
“Being chief makes me miserable. Do you want the job?”
Alex held up his hands and backed away so fast he almost tripped over one of the chairs.
Sekun-ak laughed and for a moment it was just two old friends together.
“I don’t like giving advice, but if it was me,” Alex said, “I would be training someone to be my successor.”
“We are on the same trail. I have begun asking my daughter to sit in on the council meetings. She is smarter and more capable than I am. I hope she will be willing to assume the role before too many solstices pass.”
Sekun-ak looked deep into Alex’s eyes. “There’s something else, isn’t there?”
“I told Senta-eh how I feel about her.”
Sekun-ak lifted his hands toward the ceiling. “Slow as pitch on the winter solstice, but eventually you get there. When is the binding ceremony?”
“I don’t know. I was honest with her.”
“I can’t imagine you being any other way.”
“I told her that I couldn’t complete my commitment to her until I knew for sure there is no way for me to get home to my daughter.”
“I thought you already knew that.”
Alex touched his throat lightly. “There is still another door.”
“Would that door take you where you want to go?”
“I don’t know, but if the door Doug-ak came through still stands, I am going to find out. I owe my daughter that much and more.”
Sekun-ak absorbed that, then said, “So you are going to where Denta-ah once stood?”
“Yes. If I can see that the door Doug-ak used is also gone, I will know there is no way home. This will be my home, and we will have the binding ceremony.”
“She is a patient woman.”
That gave Alex pause. He and Senta-eh had been friends and companions for three years. She had stood beside him in the face of every danger. More than a few times, she had saved his life and accomplished what he could not. Now that he knew she was willing to be with him, he realized how patient she had been with him. Courtships among the Winten-ah were typically measured in weeks and months, not years. He remembered back to when she had become agitated at being thought of as old and things came into focus.
“I do not think I deserve her.”
Sekun-ak laughed. “Probably not. Do any of us deserve the women that bind themselves to us? Some of us are lucky. When do you leave for Denta-ah? Going to rest for a few days first?”
“I’ll rest when I’m dead. We will before first light tomorrow.”
KARGA-AK, WHO HANDLED the animals for the Winten-ah insisted on giving Alex two new horses for the journey to Denta-ah.
“I don’t know what you did to the two I gave you, but they are worn down. They will stay and rest and I will yell at you for doing the same thing to these when you bring them back.”
“Good enough,” Alex said with a smile. Karga-ak often berated him, but the man was also aware that without Alex bringing the horses back the previous year, he wouldn’t have had anything to breed and trade for more.
The road to Denta-ah was not unfamiliar to Alex. He had made it on foot several times and it was much easier on horseback. The journey of several weeks was cut in half, though they did end up walking the horses over some of the steepest inclines.
Alex continually glanced at Senta-eh as they rode. He had wondered if things might be different between them, but there was no evidence of that. If she saw him looking at her, she did not comment.
Monda-ak simply did his own thing. He left the trail when he wanted, hunted when he pleased, and was always with them when they stopped.
The trip was pleasant, especially once they climbed over the mountains and could ride at an easy pace. Each night, they set up camp by a stream where the horses could drink. Alex would gather wood and build a fire while Senta-eh hunted for their dinner.
Their first milestone was when they turned a bend and saw the island village that had once been Stipa-ah. The village had been partially destroyed and fully enslaved by Douglas Winterborne. Alex did not know what he would see there—how quickly the buildings and paths might have deteriorated.
As they drew nearer, he saw that it had not deteriorated at all. Instead, it looked better than the last time he had seen it. There were two large men standing at the spot where the one path led to the island.
“Gunta,” Alex offered with a raised hand.
“Gunta,” one of the guards offered non-committally, one eye warily on Monda-ak.
“I am Manta-ak. This is Senta-eh.”
The guards looked at him, their expressions unchanged. Alex was interested in going in to the island village and seeing what improvements this new tribe had made, but an invitation was not forthcoming.
And then, a flash of insight.
It’s possible there are almost no warriors here. They post two men as an early warning system, but there may not be more than eight or ten more backing them up. For all they know, we might be the advance party, checking out their strength.
Alex gave a casual grin, hoping to put the men at ease, then turned toward what had once been Denta-ah.
When they were away from what had once been Stipa-ah, Senta-eh said, “Did you notice that there were no other people in the village?”
“Yes. I think a family or wandering group came upon the deserted village and are trying to make it look like more than it is. More power to them.”
“Another of your odd expressions,” she answered, but she smiled at him.
By late that evening, they crossed onto the plain that had been one part of the bloody Battle of Denta-ah.
Almost three years removed from that battle, the landscape was changed. No one had appeared to try and rebuild Denta-ah. The field was just that—a field. The spot where the outer fence and gate had once stood had returned to nature.
No wonder I can’t find any signs of our technology here. Given enough time, the Earth always wins. Denta-ah has completely disappeared in only a few years. What can possibly survive the passage of tens of thousands of years?
Alex recognized the spot where the hills
rose up and funneled into a single point as the spot where Denta-ah had once stood. He tried to get his bearings, to think about where the door would have been in relation to the village.
He had seen the door after chasing Douglas Winterborne through an underground tunnel that had stretched forever. That was not helpful in locating the door a second time.
“I have an idea,” Alex said, tightening his knees on his horse’s side.
“Of course you do,” Senta-eh said, but Alex did not hear it, as he was too far ahead. Senta-eh smiled, leaned forward over her steed’s neck, and whispered into its ear, urging it forward. The horse broke into a run and blew by Alex’s trotting horse. As she passed him, long hair flying behind her, she felt so free, she couldn’t help but laugh.
Alex shook his head, but couldn’t resist the challenge or the language of the cowboy movies of his youth. “Haya! Giddy up!” The horse did not understand English, but it did get the meaning and raced toward Senta-eh.
Her lead was too great then and he could not catch her. When he finally caught up, she had turned her horse sideways and was waiting for him casually, as though she had been waiting for him for days.
“Very funny,” Alex said.
“I do not understand why people think I do not have a sense of humor.”
“Maybe because they are more afraid that you might pin them to the ground than make them laugh.”
She considered. “That’s reasonable.”
Alex turned his head away so she wouldn’t see his smile. “Come on, I want to see what was once Denta-ah.”
They rode past the pinch point where the imposing interior barrier had been. The only sign of it now was a few black scorch marks on the rocks that had touched the barrier when Alex’s Army had burned it to the ground.
Alex and Senta-eh both dismounted at a spot where raised earth ran for more than fifty strides. That was where the fallen warriors of both tribes had been buried together in the Kragdon-ah custom. They stood in silence and remembered those who had fallen, friend and foe alike.
They left their horses to graze and walked to the southeastern corner of the small canyon. That had been where Douglas Winterborne had built his log cabin. All remnants of the cabin were gone, just like all the buildings, but Alex thought something might have survived.
