by Inmon, Shawn
Versa-eh saw that he was awake, and came down the ladder, smiling. “Who is your favorite refugee?” she asked, smiling.
“You?” Alex guessed.
“Yes, me! I have been talking to our completely adorable captain this morning while you slept. You’ll never guess where he is from.”
“You’re right. I don’t even have a guess.”
Before he could even get the words out of his mouth, she whispered, “Lasta-ah!”
Alex shot a look up at the captain and caught him staring at Versa-eh.
Is our savior also our sworn enemy?
Versa-eh went on, “I can already see what you’re thinking. But, I’ve been talking to him this morning, and I’ve found out a lot of interesting stuff about Lasta-ah.”
Just then, Senta-eh stood, stretched, and walked to railing on the side of barge. She pulled her pants down, balanced on the railing, and relieved herself. Still yawning, she joined Alex and Versa-eh. “It looks like you two are up to something.”
Versa-eh caught her up, then said, “There is a war going on in Lasta-ah. There is a leader there who has built a strong military and is extremely ambitious. But, not everyone agrees with him. Many people have left Lasta-ah to start their own settlement, or taken jobs like Harta-ak and his father did—running a barge up and down the Okrent-ah. There is a resistance in Lasta-eh itself, but it is underground because the chief there is ruthless.”
That was a lot for Alex to digest, but what Versa-eh said next stunned him.
“He’s seen your kidnapped girl.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Harta-ak
“What?”
Versa-eh placed two fingers firmly against her forehead.
“Did you tell him that we were looking for her?” Alex’s head spun with possibilities. More than that, he wanted to jump up and down and pump his fist. Across thousands of miles of desert, mountains, and plains, with no real idea of where he was going, Alex had found Lanta-eh.
“No. I do not know what you wanted me to say, so I didn’t say anything.”
I like you a little more each day.
“When did he see her?”
“Harta-ak makes round trips from Lasta-ah to Grinta-ah. He said it takes him about one moon cycle to do that. He saw her when he was in Lasta-ah last, but he didn’t think she had been there before.”
“So, did he just mention this to you out of nowhere?”
“I guess. We were just talking about things. I told him that my father had promised me to a man in Grinta-ah, but that I didn’t like him and that I am a woman who thinks for herself. I didn’t tell him that I stole so many valuables from the man or that I still have them. He doesn’t need to know everything.”
Alex impatiently waved his hand, as if to say, come on, come on.
“Oh, right,” Versa-eh said, getting back on track. “That’s when he told me about what was happening where he was born. How his father had hated the man who was now the chief, and how they had left Lasta-ah years ago and made a living trading goods back and forth and all along the Okrent-ah. He said when he unloaded his cargo, a group of men arrived on horseback, carrying a young girl. When he asked who they were, someone told him that was The Chosen One, and that she was going to make Lasta-ah supreme in the world.”
“Supreme in the world,” Alex muttered. “How is a young girl supposed to do that?”
Senta-eh looked at him. “She is The Chosen One.”
“Right, right. The Chosen One. But, she lived in Winten-ah all her life. Was Winten-ah supreme in the world?”
“We never wanted that,” Senta-eh reminded him. “We are not ambitious. We just want to live our lives. But, when she blessed you when you were sick, what happened?”
“I got better,” Alex said, but it wasn’t with any enthusiasm. I was already getting better when she blessed me. Does that count as some sort of miracle?
“And what happened when she blessed our army before we fought the Denta-ah?”
“Okay, I get it,” Alex said, but Senta-eh was not finished.
“And what did she do in Rinta-ah and Tonton-ah?”
Alex waved. “Okay, she’s The Chosen One, and can do whatever she wants.”
“I feel sorry for you, Manta-ak. You are never going to understand. But I’m sorry for trying to make you understand. That is wrong of me. It is your business to believe whatever you want to believe.”
“If only everyone believed that, there would be fewer wars,” Alex said.
“What are you going to do now?” Versa-eh asked.
“I would like to talk to Harta-ak if that’s okay with you. I won’t if it would embarrass you.”
“Why would it embarrass me?”
“Good,” Alex said, then climbed the short ladder and approached Harta-ak. “Versa-eh said you are from Lanta-eh.”
“Det,” the captain replied. “She is a beautiful, spirited girl, isn’t she?”
“Yes,” Alex said, trying his best not to get sidetracked. “She also said that when you were there last, you saw some men return with a young girl.”
Harta-ak looked surprised. “I did. Why does that matter? It was just an oddity I mentioned to Versa-eh.”
Alex weighed his next words carefully.
How loyal to Lasta-ah are you? Are you a little put out with them, but still have that native loyalty? Or, would you rather see a more peaceful time return to the land of your birth?
“Other than Versa-eh, the rest of my group are from Winten-ah.”
Harta-ak was listening, but his expression was blank. “I’ve never heard of Winten-ah.”
“I wouldn’t expect you to. We have traveled from one summer solstice to another to get here.”
Harta-ak looked up and to his left, calculating that distance.
“That’s not important. What is important is that the kidnapped girl you saw is also from Winten-ah.”
There, my path is determined. If I’ve judged wrong, he will do everything he can to stop us. He might even try to kill us. He wouldn’t be the first.
Harta-ak’s face clouded over. Alex could see he had bet correctly.
“They took that girl from your home, and brought her this great distance?”
“Someone told you she was the Chosen One. We believe that is true.” Or, at least most of us believe that is true.
“Do you know, was she born with that tattoo on the solstice?”
“I wasn’t there, but the woman warrior who is with me was, and she swears it to be the case.”
“His evil knows no limits,” Harta-ak mused. “He must be stopped. With the child under his control, he won’t stop at Lasta-ah. He will try to spread everywhere.”
That’s a stronger reaction than I had anticipated.
“When you came aboard, I told you I would tell you my story of how someone so young came to be the captain of a barge like this. That story is long and the fullness of it is better told when sitting around a fire, watching the stars. I will tell you the shortened version.”
“Wait, just a moment, if you would.” Alex leaned over the railing and quietly said, “Senta-eh. Werda-ak. Come up here.” Alex turned back to the captain. “We all came from Winten-ah. They have traveled a long time with me. They should hear this, too.”
Moments later, Werda-ak and Senta-eh climbed the ladder, leaving a disgruntled Monda-ak plopped at the bottom, looking earnestly up at them. Alex quickly brought them up to speed on the story, then said, “All right, tell us now.”
Harta-ak hesitated. It was obvious he was not accustomed to telling stories to a group of strangers. He licked his lips, then said, “My father was a good man, respected by many. Our family has always made our living on the water, so we were not wealthy or powerful. The man who leads our tribe now is called Draka-ak. He worked as the advisor to our previous chief, but even though our chief was not old, he died suddenly. Many of us in the village believed Draka-ak had something to do with that. There was no evidence, so nothing ever came of it.”<
br />
Harta-ak looked from one to the other of his listeners to see if they were paying attention. They were.
“Our village decides who will be our chieftain by a vote. Everyone who has seen sixteen summers or more has a voice. Draka-ak made it known that he wanted to be our leader, but the cloud of suspicion still hung over him. A group of men came and asked my father to stand against him. My father was hesitant. Our life is on the water, not making decisions that affect us all. Still, he was persuaded, and said that although he would not speak against Draka-ak, he would serve if chosen.”
Suddenly, Harta-ak looked his age, which Alex guessed might be seventeen or eighteen.
“We never found out if my father would have been chosen as chief or not. He was found floating face down in the Okrent-ah, right next to this barge. It was reported that he had slipped and drowned. My father, who had been on the water since the moment he was born, suddenly slipped, hit his head, and drowned.”
Anger suffused Harta-ak’s even features as he relived the injustice.
“No one else would stand against Draka-ak. That was three summers ago. I was told that if I began making the Lasta-ah to Grinta-ah route and didn’t have revenge on my mind, I would be left alone. I wasn’t told what the other option was, but I knew it wasn’t good. There was nothing else to do, so I accepted.”
He took a deep breath and collected himself. “Now my father is dead, I am a barge captain, and I rescue strangers as a side business.” He smiled as he said that, though his eyes were still wet with unshed tears of anger. “But that is why I am not surprised that Draka-ak would kidnap The Chosen One. The prophecy is that wherever she would be born, that is where she should stay, but Draka-ak would never listen to that. He believes he can bend the world to his will.”
It was obvious that Harta-ak was done with his story, but no one spoke for several long moments as they considered what they had just heard.
Finally, Alex said, “There are so many things about what happened that don’t make sense. Can you help me understand?”
“If I can.”
“Last year, on the summer solstice, our tribe and others banded together to fight an enemy who was growing strong and was trying to enslave all the villages around them.”
That’s an easier explanation than trying to establish what stama is.
“We took almost all our warriors and traveled a great distance to fight that battle.”
“Did you win?”
“We did,” Senta-eh answered.
“While all our warriors were gone,” Alex continued, “the raiding party from Lasta-ah hit us. We never stood a chance.”
Harta-ak said, “Yes, that is how Draka-ak would do it.”
“They invaded us while our children were in the field. They killed them, but did it slowly, so they could draw our minimal defensive forces into the open and kill them as well. It wasn’t difficult. All that was left behind was one true warrior, some old people, and children. In the end, they killed them all.”
Alex wasn’t sure how Harta-ak would respond to that, but the young man—not so far removed from being a child himself—spat on the ground and his eyes blazed.
“I tell you that,” Alex continued, “because that points to some of the things I don’t understand.”
“Like what?”
“From the time we decided to declare our war, began training our army, and marched away from Winten-ah, only a few months passed. But, Lasta-ah is at least a year’s journey away from Winten-ah, even riding horses. So, there are a few things I cannot figure out. How did Draka-ak find out that Lanta-eh was in Winten-ah? We certainly did not tell anyone. And, how did he get a raiding party there so quickly? Even if he had dispatched them on the day we declared our intention to leave our tribe mostly unprotected, they would not have arrived until long after we had returned.”
Harta-ak thought for long moments, then turned to Alex. “I know how he could have accomplished all those things.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Possible Answers
Alex forgot about everything—the year’s-long journey, the hardships, nearly dying half a dozen times—and focused solely on Harta-ak.
“How?”
“With Draka-ak, there is never a single answer. Killing the man who was our chief and killing my father were the obvious parts of his plan, but there were a thousand things he did before that. First, you should know that Draka-ak has spies everywhere.”
How is that even possible in Kragdon-ah? There are no communication lines, and fast travel is impossible. How could you maintain spies spread across a continent?
“I can see what you are thinking. ‘There were no spies in our village. All our people were born and raised there.’ Right?”
“Yes,” Senta-eh said. “That is right.”
“And it is very possible in a small, out-of-the-way village like yours that he did not have spies there. I say he has spies everywhere, but of course that’s not possible. But, let me ask you this. Before the Chosen One was kidnapped, were there many strangers in your village?”
Alex thought back. Of course there had been.
“Yes. We brought warriors in from tribes all over our region to train together. We were facing a superior force with superior weapons. We needed to act together to have a chance.”
“And, did all the warriors all stay with you from the time they arrived until you left to fight the battle?”
“No,” Alex said. “That’s almost impossible. Some men didn’t belong with us and I sent them home. Some men didn’t like the way we trained and went home on their own.”
Harta-ak smiled at Alex.
Alex drew a deep breath. “So, you are saying that one of those men could have been a spy for Lasta-ah.”
“That’s possible. Or one of those disgruntled men could have let it known how unhappy they were about being sent home within earshot of one of Draka-ak’s spies. He is always willing to trade well for valuable information. And, knowing where the Chosen One is, that is valuable information.”
“That is a possibility,” Alex admitted. “But, if that person had the information at the earliest stage of our preparations, there’s no way they could have made it to Lasta-ah by the time we returned, let alone get to Lasta-ah, give them the information, then get back to Winten-ah. It’s impossible.”
“You are thinking that they would need to travel all that way.”
Unless there are a bunch of underground telephone lines I don’t know about, or the internet still is up and running.
“Yes, of course. How else?”
“Birds.”
“Birds?”
“Birds. It is what Lasta-ah has been famous for as long as anyone can remember. We have Traka-ta. We breed them and have for many generations. Like almost all living creatures, they always know their way home.” Harta-ak turned to the others. “Which way is your home?”
Werda-ak and Senta-eh immediately pointed in the same direction. Versa-eh pointed slightly to the right of them.
“See? Everyone can do it.”
Well, not everyone. Some of us, particularly those of us born in the twentieth century, are trunti—those who can be lost.
“Our birds are like that, but they don’t just point. No matter how far you take them, when you let them loose, they will fly straight and true home—to Lasta-ah. Every day, they will fly until they are exhausted, then find a place to rest for the night and at first light the next day, they will do the same thing, until they are home. We’ve used it for one-way communication to stay in touch with our parties as they go out hunting, or to map the entire world.”
Alex followed along, nodding his head at each beat of the explanation, trying to picture it in his head.
“So when your traveling parties leave Lasta-ah, they take one or two of these birds with them?”
“Or more. Sometimes, many more. If a party was going a great distance—say a year’s journey—then they might leave initially with an entire wagonload of birds. D
ozens. Or even hundreds, depending on how many times they thought they would need to send information back.”
Alex had to laugh at the ingeniousness of it. “But, the information has to be limited, right? I mean, how much can a bird carry?”
“There is a limit, yes, but traka-ta are strong flyers.”
“How big are they?”
Harta-ak slid gracefully down the ladder. He jogged around to the part of the barge that had the cargo, then returned a moment later. He held a wooden cage that was approximately two feet square. Inside was the Kragdon-ah version of a carrier pigeon. It was mostly white with gray feathers at the tips of its wing, but its head had the recognizable, graceful curve of a twentieth-century pigeon. But, this was no Central Park pigeon, easily dispatched. This looked like it might provide a Thanksgiving meal if plucked and baked.
“This is a traka-ta. I use it to communicate with my family back home.” Harta-ak said proudly, holding up the cage.
Alex marveled at it. To Senta-eh and Werda-ak, it was just another bird. To Alex, it opened an entire world of possibilities. It wasn’t exactly instant communication, but it was more than he would have thought possible when he woke up that morning.
“This explains a lot,” Alex said, “but not everything. Let’s look at your scenario. Draka-ak has spies everywhere. One of them learns that Lanta-eh is in Winten-ah. They dispatch a traka-ta with that message. But, Draka-ak is still thousands of miles away, and has no way to communicate back. You said it yourself—it’s one-way communication.”
“I like the way you think things through,” Harta-ak said.
“That’s why we’re still here and alive,” Werda-ak chimed in. From the deck below, Monda-ak woofed his agreement, waking several people who grumbled and closed their eyes again.
“But,” Harta-ak continued, “you are not thinking it through far enough. When our parties leave, they take breeding pairs with them. Wherever those birds are born, that is where they will return to when released. So, in each area that we travel to, we breed birds, cage them, and have one of us return them to Lasta-ah. It is a long, laborious process, but once it is set up, we have the advantage over every other village or tribe in the world. Until now, we have never used that for evil, but with Draka-ak in charge these last few years...” He did not need to finish that sentence.
