The Lexal Affair, DM Arnold [i wanna iguana read aloud .TXT] 📗

gone. Then, a flame leapt up and became a dancing, writhing serpent. Other flames transmogrified into many legged animals. A sense of warmth and community filled him as he watched the fire- beings act out a drama -- the serpents were vanquished and bird-like creatures took wing and flew overhead.

Morning came. Nyk felt as if his head were stuffed with sponge. “How are you this morning?” Andra asked.

He groaned. “If everyone feels like this, there'll be little work done in the village this morning.”

“It appears most of the work is done by the women,” Nayva said. “They're sent to bed early without benefit of ... whatever that was you indulged in.”

“Kyto tells me today is a ceremonial hunt, to celebrate Ylak's recovery. With luck, tonight we eat well.”

“Are you participating in the hunt?” Andra asked.

“I suppose I must, to bond with the men of the village.”

Kyto appeared at the door and gestured to Nyk.

“What was in that pipe last night?” Nyk asked.

“In the forest grows a special plant, one that has no color. It produces a fruit, which we can eat. If the fruit is left to mature, it splits and fills the air with a cloud of dust.”

“Spores,” Nyk said. “You inhale the spores.”

“We collect the fruit before it opens and dry it by the fire. The resulting dust opens the gateway to the spirit world. Did you see the spirits of the forest last night?”

“I saw hallucinations.”

The old man regarded him. “Yes... The dust releases something in the subconscious -- something we all share. It promotes a sense of community.”

“The villagers believe these spirits live alongside humans?”

“They wish to believe. They need to believe.”

“Don't you feel badly telling them things that aren't true?”

“Come here,” Kyto said and led Nyk into his workshop. “When I'm not collecting plants or making potions, I spend my time reading and writing.”

“I thought you said you couldn't read.”

“I can't read the old words.” The old man climbed a stepstool and took down a staff from a rack under the workshop roof. “I'll imagine you can't read this.” Nyk regarded the staff. It was covered with symbols the likes of which he had never seen. “This is the formula for an herbal remedy for diabetes. That was written by my predecessor, eight generations ago.” He replaced the staff. “We simplify for the benefit of the villagers, who need answers to how the world operates.”

“Why not simply teach the villagers the truth?”

“If everyone knew the magic words,” the old man replied with a wry smile, “we'd have no need for wizards, would we?”

“Kyto, do YOU believe in spirits?”

“I believe that, given the choice between a natural explanation or a supernatural one, the natural one is more likely to be correct.”

“If that's the case, then why the sacred cave on the hill? Why the altar with the clay spacecraft, and the old words copied onto the wall, and the incense?”

“Nykkyo -- you will find there are phenomena that do not support a natural explanation.”

“So, you are hedging your bets.”

“It can't hurt and it might help. Come, the hunters are gathering.” Kyto gestured with his staff toward a band of men heading into the woods. “Bek is our best hunter,” Kyto said. “Go with them.”

11 -- Hunting the Hunter

Nyk joined the band of village men as they headed into the forest. He observed that most of them were carrying metre-long staffs similar to the one carried by the chief, and wearing small baskets of plaited fiber.

“Step quietly,” Bek admonished Nyk. He attempted to modulate his tread.

Bek gave a signal and the troop stopped. He pointed into a tree.

One of the men opened his plaited basket and removed an object that looked to Nyk to be as long as his little finger. It was pointed, with a fiber- wool plug at the end. He slipped it into the end of the staff, brought it to his lips and exhaled.

The dart hit a four-legged bird-like creature. It took wing, flew a short distance and fell to the ground.

“That was a fire plant thorn,” Bek explained. “Very deadly -- one can kill a man.”

“Is that our dinner?” Nyk asked.

“Oh, no. That's the bait. Today we're hunting the hunter.”

Bek carried the dead bird into a clearing. Other men in the troop produced lines of fiber cord. They tied the dead bird to a log, and tied lines to the wings and head. Some men climbed trees and together they operated the bird carcass like a marionette, causing it to strut and flap.

One of the men motioned Nyk to take cover behind some brush. They waited as the puppeteers manipulated the dead bird. Another man imitated a call.

The Lexalese blue sun reached its zenith, casting its harsh light onto the clearing. Bek nudged Nyk and pointed in the distance. A large six-legged creature was making its way into the clearing. Nyk glimpsed the animal's face and assumed it was the carnivore to which Nayva alluded.

Bek grabbed Nyk's shoulder. “We wait until our prey has seized the bait,” he whispered. “At that point, he is committed and much more vulnerable. Patience is the art of the hunt.”

The animal slunk low to the ground and approached the flapping bird. The puppeteers made the bird stop and appear to look in the direction of the predator. The animal stopped in its tracks. The bird resumed its mating display. Now within striking distance, the predator reared back, grasped the bait with its forepaws and sank fangs into it.

The brush around the clearing erupted with the village men, each loading and shooting darts into the carnivore. The creature dropped the bird, rolled to dislodge the darts and yelped in pain. It turned and began to run, but the fire plant toxin was doing its work. Paralysis spread to its limbs and it fell to the ground. Its eyes clouded over and the beast expired with a groan.

The men stood and whooped. They brought poles, tied up their prey and headed back to the village.

Once there, the men turned their catch over to the women, who skinned and dressed it. A group of women took the hide, laced it on a stretcher and began scraping it with bone and metal tools. Another group impaled the carcass on a pole, placed it over the fire, and supervised youths who took turns rotating it.

One of the village men gestured to Nyk. “Help me to construct a screen,” the man said. “My ward is tending the roast.”

Nyk walked to a spot near a pile of long, thin sticks. The villager picked up a pole and stuck one end in the ground. He grasped a tool made from a hollow log with a rock lashed to one end, slipped it over the end of the pole and hammered it into the ground. He pointed to where he wanted other poles driven and Nyk obliged.

The villager showed Nyk how to weave the sticks around the poles. Nyk picked up sticks and took turns with the man building up a panel of woven twigs. “My name is Gan,” he said.

“Where do you gather these sticks?” Nyk asked.

Gan pointed toward a section of forest near the village. “That's a coppiced wood,” he replied. “We cull out the sticks to keep the growth straight.”

“What do you use to cut them?” Gan held up a saw. “This looks like bronze.”

Gan nodded. “Deposits of copper and tin are found in the hills.”

“Do you have iron for steel?” Nyk asked.

“I know of iron,” Gan replied. “That blade you gave Kyto is of iron. It's too much trouble, too difficult to work. Long ago we used it, but not now.”

Nyk continued to weave the sticks onto the poles. He noticed a village girl standing near him. “Hello, Vipsa. Doesn't Kyto need your services this afternoon?”

“I've washed his crockery. Now, he's busy studying his staffs, so he sent me on my way.”

“Can you read the staffs?” Nyk asked.

“Some -- a little.” She picked up a stick and drew in the dirt. “This means leaf ... this is blue ... blossom ... low ... vine. This means leaf from the low, blue-blossomed vine. Kyto doesn't know I know this.” She smiled and rubbed the symbol from the dirt with her foot. “I've just come from delivering Savi her pills.”

“Who is Savi?”

“She's an old woman on the far side of the village -- over by the pottery kiln. Years ago, Savi was paired with the chief's sponsor when he was a youth -- he's dead now. She's ornery and cantankerous, but the chief is fond of her. Savi has a weak heart...” Vipsa thumped her chest with her fist. “She must take medicine each and every day. I hate visiting her -- she's such an old scold.”

“So one of your responsibilities is to deliver pills to her.”

“Yes -- ten days' supply. I'm happy for it. It means I must endure her questions and scolding only once each ten days. I deliver medicine to others, too. Most are happy to see me but not Savi. I made her pills this morning.”

“You made the pills?” She made a shy smile and nodded. “Kyto trusts you to do that?”

“He watches me, but I make them without his assistance.”

“How do you make pills, Vipsa?”

“I shouldn't give away Kyto's secrets.”

“I won't tell a soul.”

“You do seem to have his confidence already...” Vipsa bit her lip, looked around, smiled and her eyes sparkled. She lowered her voice. “First we must know which herbs and how much. For Savi's condition, we use three leaves from a blue herb, and one root from a red blossom -- that's one dose. If we're making ten days' worth, we gather thirty leaves and ten roots. Sometimes we add other herbs or some sweet syrup to hide a bitter flavor.” She giggled. “Kyto and I agree that Savi is so bitter already she won't notice the taste. The leaves and roots we prepare the usual way...”

“By chopping, grinding and steeping in boiling water?” Nyk asked.

“Yes. Then we strain it and reduce it to a third. The resulting liquor we mix with flour from a dried tuber and some sticky gum from a shrub. It makes a thick paste, which we roll on a board until it's long and narrow. This we cut into twenty equal parts...”

“Twenty?”

“Yes -- two pills for each dose. Each one we then roll into a ball to make it easier to swallow; and these we dry by the fire. Once dry we put them into a small jar; and then I take them to Savi and get my scolding.”

“What does she have to scold YOU for, Vipsa?”

“She complains about the pills -- sometimes they're too big and hard to swallow; other times they're too small and hard to pick up. Of course, they're all the same size... If it's not the pills, it's something else. Sometimes I arrive too late and sometimes too early. Savi always has some complaint...”

“It sounds like a lot of work ... making pills.”

“We started yesterday, after the mid-day meal,” Vipsa replied. “Some pills are easy -- the ones in which we make dried leaves into powder and mix it with the flour. That won't work for Savi's pills. The easiest are the bark sticks. We just cut those to length ... and, of course, the tisanes. Kyto has some complicated recipes that use burned stone. I don't know how to make those, but he said he'd let me help the next time he needs some.”

“I'm amazed at how much you need to know, Vipsa ... at how much you already know.”

She looked into Nyk's face. “There -- I've told you about the pills, Nykkyo. Now, you tell me of your world.”

“Which one?”

“You have more than one?

“I have two. Floran and Earth -- three if you count Lexal.” He bent a twig around the end pole and tucked it among the others. “Lexal is another world right here on this planet.”

“Tell me of your homeworld, then.”

“Floran -- it's where I was born. Andra was born there, too.”