The Days of Peleg

by Jon Saboe

  Eventually the flames died down, and only a charred skeleton could be seen resting on the coals. They remained silent out of respect. The power to undo creation was astonishing, but it was nothing compared to the power which created life from ashes.

  The priest brought out large shovels, and collected the smoldering bones and ashes and placed them in a wicker basket which had been soaked in water to prevent it from igniting. Clouds of smoke billowed out as the basket was raised high above the crowd, and flashes of light shot out from it as the sun reflected off of the gold threads woven into its sides.

  That evening, the wind would follow Apu Inti as he traveled westward, and it would carry the ashes of Manno Capak, returning them across the sea to the abode of the sun.

  Peleg shook his head in despair. They had passed the point where any interpretation of Kupé’s map offered hope of finding the former home of the islanders. He stared off into the north, hoping for one last glimpse of the port city which Kupé had claimed would be here.

  Thaxad (along with his ever-present apprentice, Serug) had presented him with one of his new toys. It consisted of two simple glass discs—one slightly larger than the other. They reminded him how pools of water caused light to bend, and similarly, how some crystals and oddly shaped pieces of glass distorted images.

  Thaxad claimed that the larger disc collected light and turned it towards the center, and if one were to look at it through the smaller disc, the image would expand giving the illusion that one was much closer to an object than he really was.

  This evening Peleg was looking forward to see if he could make the moon and stars move closer after the sunset. He was riding Zini where he was supposed to be watching for his evening’s sunset measurements, but he kept looking astern and scanning the coast with its towering mountains for any hint of humanity.

  Trees jumped out at him as he placed the two discs in alignment. He moved them upward slowly, and saw where the mighty mountains soared so high that trees were apparently unable to grow. Perhaps the winds that descended into the sea every evening depleted the mountains of their air so that no life was able to flourish.

  All he wanted to see was a house, a small observatory, or even smoke from a fire, and he could go down and get Captain Phaxâd to turn the ship around. If Kupé’s seaport could be found, it would mean a possible new center of commerce.

  The sun was starting to set, but Peleg was searching the tops of the mountains along the coastal curvature to the north. He held his refraction discs steady and saw a small dark cloud rise from behind the mountain’s edge.

  It was a perfectly clear evening and a storm cloud was definitely out of place. He looked at it more intently, and saw that it was speeding westward; and was actually much smaller and closer than he had originally thought.

  This was no storm cloud. It was a ball of smoke riding on the high winds. Suddenly a gold flash emanated from its base, and Peleg realized that something had caught the reflection of the setting sun.

  It abruptly pitched, and began a fast descent as it caught the winds which flowed down the slopes. Although it kept its westward momentum, the smoking object began to move straight towards the Urbat and within minutes it would surely plunge into the sea behind them.

  He shouted down to the deck hands and began reeling Zini in to her platform.

  “Captain Phaxâd!” he yelled below. “I’ve found something! Turn the boat around! Back to the north!”

  He could see the strange smoldering ball clearly now. There was a smooth black covering over the smoke, and he realized that it was a canopy not unlike the envelope which kept Zini aloft.

  It was a small hot air balloon. And whatever was in the gondola was certainly smoldering! It was probably just cinders by now, but the heat had brought it over the mountains.

  Other men could see it now, and Captain Phaxâd ordered the sails lowered and all oarsmen to their posts.

  By the time Peleg arrived on deck, steersmen had already plotted the object’s splashdown position and the Urbat was on its way.

  He pulled the emergency vent-cord and Zini’s bubble of hot air escaped into the evening sky.

  They arrived just in time to prevent the smoldering basket from sinking as it swiftly became waterlogged. Knives were used to cut the cords that held the black balloon which seemed to be made of cotton, and the gondola with its contents were hoisted up the side of the ship and placed in the center of the foredeck.

  The basket was about one meter in diameter and was made of tightly woven reeds which were saturated with smelly black smoke and seawater.

  “Whoever made this is certainly a candidate for commerce,” Peleg offered hopefully to the Captain.

  “I’ll grant you that this is a sign of civilization,” Phaxâd nodded impassively. “But anyone can make a balloon.” Captain Phaxâd was not easily deterred from his cartographic mission—and of getting home.

  The men gathered around making rude comments about the stench that came from the basket. The soot that wrapped around the braided reeds dripped like black tar unto the deck.

  They began digging through the charcoaled contents of the basket which had been quickly cooled by the seawater. It was mostly burnt pieces of wood and…

  The men stopped abruptly as Serug extracted a blackened object which looked like a human femur. There was a collective gasp, and then a renewed effort to excavate anything else that might be comprised of something other than wood.

  Soon more bones were found, and a rib cage was discovered which had its sternum carved out. Finally, in the bottom corner of the basket, submerged in the soot and cinders, they found a large human skull.

  “What is that awful smell?”

  Utebbibassu emerged from the small hallway leading to their cabin. She stopped in puzzlement, and then approached, studying the sides of the basket.

  “Gold!” she exclaimed. She approached the basket and studied the twisted reeds more closely. The other men drew in and they all saw what she meant.

  Weaved throughout the braided reeds was a gold thread which decorated the basket and, in some places, outlined patchwork figurines. Her fingers brushed the fibers as they glinted in the evening sun and she announced that it was genuine. A cursory cleaning with the cotton balloon cloth revealed additional gold artwork.

  Phaxâd studied the workmanship and finally made his pronouncement.

  “Any civilization that can produce this would certainly be a fine candidate for trade.”

  Anguished wailing was heard throughout the city for several days. Their High Minister had been slain! Women slapped their hands on their heads and men either huddled in the streets with disbelief, or shouted their rage to the skies. There were some attempts made to find relatives of Reu-Nathor and slay them—but most were unsuccessful.

  The despondent mourning continued for weeks, and the citizens kept themselves covered in ashes. Their grief eventually abated from exhaustion, and their attention turned toward the widow of the one who had revealed so much to them. In a unanimous voice they demanded that she, Mentor Inanna, take the place of her husband and become the new Ul-Minister of Knowledge. Although she had certainly suffered more than them all, she placed her own grief aside and graciously accepted.

  Mentor Inanna now sat in the top chamber of Heaven’s Gate and thought back to that day when the streets had erupted with screams and anger. She was also intrigued by the phenomena which had converted a city of reasoned citizens into a mass of disciples who were so obsessed with one man that their devotion had escalated to religious fervor at his demise. Although she missed her husband, one could learn much in this newly discovered art of crowd control.

  Chapter 21

  Ascension

  “Faith is believing there is a law which surpasses the law of gravity—even when falling off a cliff.”

  Hundreds of new stars leapt into his face as Peleg studied the heavens through his new refraction discs. It had been a month since he had first used them to look at the night sky, b
ut now, high up in the mountains of this new land, the clear, cool view with no moon was even more breathtaking.

  What was even more incredulous was how wrong the Academicians were back at the Citadel! They taught that there were between four and five thousand stars in the cosmos, and a few, who claimed that the star-field was denser to the south, extrapolated that it must be closer to six. Yet for every star that Peleg could see without the discs, he could see dozens more with them!

  They had turned and anchored the Urbat at the mouth of the river where they had first collected fresh water in this new land. Captain Phaxâd selected Peleg, Serug, Mentor Thaxad, and Untash to travel up the river and attempt to make contact with the people who had launched the funeral pyre balloon.

  Untash was a Chief in ship design and repair, and claimed to have experience in mountain climbing and living off the land. He was extremely muscular, and almost as tall as a Mentor with thick black hair which he wrapped in a large knot on top of his head. Supposedly he had spent several years hiking and climbing the Himalayan Mountains which towered above the Sutlej settlement. Peleg had spent his entire adult life in the city and would definitely need his expertise.

  After several days of preparation, they had left the morning before the full moon. They each carried a small waist-pack which contained some dried food, rope, and navigation essentials. The pack itself was really a loose-knit webbing made of braided flax, and could be unfolded for use as a hammock.

  Phaxâd had given them two months for their mission. Peleg still hoped to find Kupé’s city of Tiwanaku, although he couldn’t imagine an inland seaport high in the mountains. The raging, jagged river they were about to follow certainly was unusable for navigation and shipping.

  Since leaving the island of Irawaru and his men, Peleg had begun to teach Serug and Thaxad their language. Now, with the onset of this new expedition, their training had greatly intensified. Peleg was certain that this tongue would be recognized by anyone they might meet since this was the land from which the islanders claimed to have been banished.

  They had now been traveling upriver for almost three weeks and were camped along a ridge hundreds of meters above sea level. Their journey was rocky and difficult with many twists and switchbacks as they slowly determined the best course. The air was thin and cold at night, and Thaxad explained that air pressure was thinner the higher one went since there was less air pressing down upon them. Peleg silently worried about traveling too high and running out of air.

  They still had seen no indication of human life, and, in another week or so, they would have to turn back in order to meet their deadline. Captain Phaxâd had been serious when he said he would be forced to continue without them. There was no way to launch search parties in this unknown land, and the Great Discovery must continue.

  Peleg turned his discs toward Enki and recorded the positions of the tiny lights that weaved slowly around it. He had marveled when he first saw these shiny dots and thought they, too, were stars, but he soon realized that they traveled with Enki. Soon he would establish a pattern for their movements, and if successful, he would have another source of timekeeping.

  Finally, he was unable to force his eyes to stay open, and he returned to his leaf-bed, hoping that tomorrow they would finally discover the people behind the flaming gondola.

  He awoke to the sound of a crackling breakfast fire. Serug and Untash had caught some spider monkeys and Untash was teaching him how to prepare them. They had discovered these small monkeys a few days earlier, and they had become a real treat.

  Thaxad was staring off into the northeast at an even higher mountain range before them.

  “You can see where the trees stop growing,” he said to Peleg as he sensed his approach. “This river comes from up in that valley.” He pointed to a divide between two of the mountains with a large index finger.

  After eating, they broke camp and continued along the river. By mid-afternoon, they were near the foothills of the next range, and the river could be seen crashing down the mountainside more like a waterfall than a stream.

  They started climbing and eventually reached a ledge where the river had formed a large pool before making its plunge. They circled around the pool to find its source and found themselves entering an ever-darkening jungle.

  Mountains towered on either side of them, and they made their way through the undergrowth, with small breaks in the treetops creating shafts of light.

  Suddenly Serug stopped and pointed between the trees.

  “Look!” he shouted.

  The others gathered around him to follow his finger. Through an opening in the tree coverage were two sheer mountain ridges which formed a deep gully. High along the tops of these mountains was a thin black line which seemed to connect the two mountaintops.

  They studied in silence for a while, until Thaxad spoke.

  “It appears that someone has placed a large rope connecting one mountainside to the other.”

  “Either that, or this land has some really big spiders,” said Serug.

  Peleg pulled out his discs and studied it.

  “No,” he said finally. “It’s not a rope. It’s three ropes and they seem to be connected in some way. It’s a large foot-bridge and it’s a lot further away than it looks.”

  Thaxad spoke. “I believe that the chances of finding other humans by following a footpath are much greater than following this river.”

  “Yes,” said Serug. “But how are we going to get up there?”

  They looked at the nearly vertical climb of the ridge. They had walked and even crawled up some steep landscapes, but nothing like this.

  “I can get us up there.”

  Untash stared from under his bushy eyebrows with contemplative resolve.

  “I have climbed mountains much larger than these. I can easily teach you the techniques. However, we will need a full day, so we should not start until morning. In the meantime, I will need to collect the ropes so that I can plan.”

  The other three regarded his confidence with suspicion, but in the end agreed that it was the only course of action.

  No one asked aloud how they planned to come back down.

  They broke camp the next morning and made their way to the ravine. One of the rocky walls was to the north, and the other to the south.

  Untash was studying the southern ridge and finally announced, “We will climb this side.” He apparently had not found the time to put his hair up, and it flowed in thick waves over his massive shoulders, reaching halfway down his back.

  “But we’re trying to go north,” said Serug. “That’s the way the river appears to travel.”

  “The northern face is much too smooth and has no resting areas,” Untash responded. “I could make it, of course, but we only have so much rope.”

  “Besides,” added Thaxad. “Assuming that footbridge is secure, it really doesn’t matter which side we climb.”

  Untash produced two lengths of rope of about fifty meters each. During the night he had managed to splice them together from their supplies.

  Peleg looked up at the tiny bridge and, even though they were directly below it, it was so far above them that he could just barely make out the three separate lines.

  How had they managed to get the first rope across?

  Untash tied one of their ropes around his waist, allowing the excess to drop.

  “Wait here,” he instructed. “I’ll be right back to show you what to do.”

  With that he attached himself to the mountainside and began crawling up the rocky face. The rope trailed below him as the men watched in awe. Somehow Untash was finding every little bump and crack and pulling himself up the side with his fingers, toes, knees, and it appeared, even his chin.

  A cold chill went through Peleg as he pictured himself trying to do the same. Again he had remembered too late about his fear of heights.

  They watched his progress, and it soon became apparent that Untash was heading towards a narrow outcropping where a sm
all tree could be seen curving away from the cliff edge. When he arrived, he stepped onto the ledge and untied the rope from his waist. He fastened it securely around the base of the tree, and then wrapped a section of the rope over one shoulder, around his waist, down around his buttocks, and between his legs.

  Then he jumped off the ledge.

  The three men below gasped as Untash bounced with his feet against the mountainside in a speedy descent. Apparently, he was controlling the rope as it passed around his body.

  “That’s step one,” Untash announced when he had landed. He wasn’t even breathing hard. “Let me show you how to wrap the rope around you. Chief Peleg, do you wish to go first?”

  “I’ll go,” offered Serug as Peleg breathed a sigh of relief.

  “Fine.” He handed the rest of the rope to Serug who gave it a tug. It seemed to be fastened securely to the tree above.

  “Wrap the rope around yourself like this,” Untash instructed. “This way you can control your ascent, and if you need to rest, you have a ready-made seat. Use your weight to press your feet into theside. Just take your time—we have all day.”

  He turned to Peleg and Thaxad.

  “After Serug has arrived at the resting spot, you two will follow him in the same manner. You will always go in this order: Serug, Peleg, Thaxad. Mentor Thaxad, your job is to pull the rope up each time and tie it to Peleg’s waist so he can bring it to me.

  “Everyone understand how this works?” He reached for the second coil of rope on the ground. “Good. I’ll meet you up there.”

  With that he placed the coil of rope over a shoulder and began scaling the rock face, following the path of his first rope.

  As Serug began his slow climb, Untash quickly passed the first arrival point and continued on to another outcropping. There he tied the end of the rope to a large root that was protruding from the cliff-face. Peleg assumed he had tested the strength of this root in some manner.