Nine

Sandon and his three companions wound their way into the Atavist camp proper. The padder's motion beneath him was not exactly uncomfortable, but the animal smell was all around him, making his head feel thicker than it already was. The Atavists walked on in silence; during most of the journey, the only thing to disturb the quiet progress had been the occasional grunt and snort from the padder. Sandon watched the three men as he rocked gently along, trying to pick up any clues, but their gazes remained fixed ahead, the hoods partially concealing their faces, leaving him nothing to play with, though he was barely in the mood for it the way he was feeling. They seemed intent only on reaching their destination, wherever that might be in the midst of the approaching cluster of tents, wagons and cookfires.

Although there seemed to be many Atavists gathered here, the greetings between members of the camp were few. A brief nod, a slight lifting of the hand, that was it. If Sandon's head would just stop throbbing for two minutes, he might be able to pick up some relevant details, but it was all a confused jumble of impressions, of strangeness. He'd never been even close to an Atavist camp, let alone right slap bang in the middle of one.

“Here we are,” said Badrae, drawing the padder to a halt.

His two companions reached up to help Sandon down off the animal's back. He regained his feet unsteadily, swaying slightly, feeling as if his knees were about to give way. Badrae motioned Melchor and Arnod to lend support. They stepped forward, one on either side, placed hands on his arm and beneath his armpits, steadying him. Feeling a little more comfortable with the support, Sandon looked around, trying to determine exactly were he was.

They stood in front of a low wagon, hard wooden wheels high and round at its sides. The wagon body and the wheels were painted a deep blue. A cloth roof covered the back, stretched taut above wide curving wooden ribs beneath. At least Sandon presumed they were wood. At this moment, the front spars of the wagon lay at rest, its animals tethered elsewhere. The owners clearly weren't planning on going anywhere in a hurry. Beneath the wagon bed an arrangement of shelves was affixed, packed full of cloth-wrapped bundles. He briefly wondered what might be in those bundles, goods, provisions; it could just as well have been laundry, for all he knew. The cloth was rough, woven, slightly yellow-cream or pale brown.

He only managed brief glimpses of the ordered encampment that surrounded the central firepits; it was hard with Arnod and Melchor on either side. A line of padders stood tethered off to one side in a line. Children ran in and out between the animals. They might have been anybody's children, anywhere on Aldaban, if it were not for the simple homespun clothing they wore, all in plain, drab colors. Apart from the wagons, each picked out in a different simple blocked hue, with wheels to match, there seemed to be a singular lack of color in the camp.

“Alise,” said Badrae. “You are needed.”

There was a stirring inside the wagon, followed by the appearance of a head at the rear — a round, pleasant face, clear blue eyes and dark hair tied in a tight knot behind her head. She quickly took in the scene and gestured them forward.

“Bring him here. What happened?”

“His groundcar fell over,” said Badrae.

Strange way to put it, thought Sandon.

The woman called Alise simply nodded and waved them closer. “Well, help him up, you two,” she said, reaching down to take Sandon's hand and help him up the steps at the wagon's rear. She led him inside the cluttered interior, and once he was seated on a simple wooden bench that ran along one side of the interior, she poked her head out the back again. “That's it, brothers. I will look after him from here. I'll call you if I need you. You too, Badrae. Go on now.”

Sandon took in the wagon's interior. There were shelves and bundles everywhere. A simple sleeping pallet lay at one end toward the front. At the wagon’s rear stood what was obviously a stove, fixed tight into one corner. He frowned at that — surely, it must present a risk — and winced at the sudden pain across his face. He could feel the heat emanating from the stove, even where he sat. How could you have a stove inside a wagon? A simple curtain was drawn across the front, blocking his view of the outside. Alise pulled down the rear curtains, closing them tightly to the interior. It was darker, but enough light filtered through the canvas roof for everything to be plain enough.

She leaned forward, casting a critical gaze over him. “Well, you don't seem to badly hurt, but it pays to be sure,” she said. She reached up to shift the hair away from his forehead and inspected it closely. She felt the skull, gently probing with her fingers, and withdrew when she encountered the lump and he gave a sharp intake of breath, wincing.

“Nowhere else?” she said, standing back, her hands on her hips.

“My arm and my shoulder,” he said.

She came and sat beside him, gently probing at the arm and the shoulder where he indicated. Sandon sat there through it impassively, trying to ignore the ministrations and concentrate on the jumble of materials on the wagon's shelves. This close, he could catch the smell of her — clean, fresh, unscented soap. Not what he'd imagined at all. And there was something else: the smell of plants, or herbs, or perhaps earth. It wasn't an unpleasant smell, but it was clean and different. Finally, she seemed satisfied and she stood, smoothed her dress and moved across to crouch in front of one of the many shelves.

“It's mainly bruising,” she said. “But I'm more concerned about your head. You could have a concussion and we need to be careful. I'm going to mix you something, which I want you to drink. It will take away some of the pain, though not all and help steady you. I want to keep an eye on you for a few hours. There’ll be no sleep.”

“I — ”

“No, don't try and talk. Just try and relax.”

He watched as she placed a pot on the stove, filled it with water from a jug sitting nearby and then proceeded to pour a mixture of things from various packets into the pot. She stirred it slowly, mixing the ingredients. All the while she concentrated, barely taking her eyes from the task at hand. Sandon watched her, trying to guess how old she might be. It was hard to tell with the simple homespun dress, the lack of personal decoration. She could be late twenties, perhaps early thirties, but no older than that. Finally, she seemed satisfied, and she dipped a plain pottery mug into the brew, and returned to him, cupping it between her hands.

“Careful. It's hot. Sip, don't swallow,” she said offering the mug. “What are you called?”

“Sandon Yl Aris.”

“Well, Sandon Yl Aris, drink this slowly.”

Sandon took the proffered mug. “And what about you? I know you are Alise. But what else? Alise what?” She hesitated, looking slightly confused. “Oh, I forgot,” he said. “Badrae told me. You don't have family names.”

“No, we are all one family here.”

“Well, you can call me Sandon,” he said. “Just Sandon is fine.”

He took a tentative sip at the mug, expecting the worst. It didn't taste too bad, after all, slightly earthy, but not too bad. He took another sip.

She fussed around the shelves, looking for something, then returned with a pot and a small wooden spatula.

“Sit still,” she said. “I am going to apply an ointment to those cuts on your face. It will stain the skin, but you must keep it there. It will make sure there’s no infection.”

He hadn’t even been aware of the smaller cuts, but as she first patted his skin clean with a moist cloth, and then dabbed the preparation over his forehead, he very quickly knew they were there. Everywhere she smeared the ointment, there was a sharp hot stinging, tracing the lines of damage. The cut that ran across his cheek and over his nose burned like fire and he sucked air in through his teeth. Finally she sat back, inspecting her handiwork and nodded.

“When you have finished that, we will find you somewhere where you can stay undisturbed and I can look in on you, but take your time. There's no hurry. Give it time to work.” She moved to sit cross-legged on the sleep pallet, watching him.

“So what are you doing here?” Sandon asked, after another sip. He reached up with one hand to probe his injured face, but quickly withdrew it in response to a stern look.

“We are where we are, where the Prophet takes us.”

Sandon slowly lowered the mug. “But I thought you believed the cities and all they represent were evil. Why so many of you so close to Yarik?”

“We are where we are.”

“But — ”

Alise shook her head. “Drink.”

Sandon bit off his next question and took another sip at the medicinal brew. He was itching to find out more, but she was right, he was in no real state for logical thought. Despite his curiosity, the pounding still thumped inside his head. Better to drink whatever it was she had prepared for him and let it do its work if it was going to do anything. Then he remembered. On the journey to the camp, Badrae had mentioned a healer, but he had the distinct impression that whoever it was had been a man.

“So,” he said. “Are you the healer?”

“I help in that regard. I am not alone in this task. We share the work amongst those with the knowledge.”

Sandon nodded and immediately regretted the action. He grimaced and returned to the brew, feeling slightly uncomfortable under Alise’s gaze.

By the time he was nearing the bottom of the mug, he was already starting to feel something. The dull throbbing in his head was beginning to subside, the ache in his shoulder had diminished, and suddenly he was overcome with a strange feeling of unreality. What had she done to him? He knew he should be concerned, but he just couldn't be bothered. Still she sat watching him. He took a last swallow and placed the mug down gently on the bench beside him. Alise gave a satisfied nod, stood and disappeared out the back of the wagon, motioning him to stay where he was. Moments later she returned, this time with Badrae's head following her through the canvas flaps.

“Good,” he said. “Help me get him to his feet.”

Badrae stepped into the wagon and with Alise's assistance, helped Sandon to stand. He felt numb, but despite the strangeness, alert. The stinging on his face had faded too. Now the skin felt merely warm. It throbbed faintly, in time to his pulse.

“Come, Sandon,” said Badrae. He led him down the steps and out across a patch of open ground to a small group of tents. Sandon wobbled as he ducked to enter, Badrae guiding him down. Inside, the tent was bare, except for another simple sleeping pallet. They weren’t high on comfort here. Badrae disappeared, and then reappeared moments later, bearing a large book beneath his arm. He stopped and handed to Sandon.

“Here. This will help you pass the time: The Words of the Prophet.”

Sandon took the tome, wincing slightly with the weight of it. “Um, thank you,” he said. Badrae watched him as he nestled the book in his lap, then, with another brief satisfied nod, ducked out of sight.

The Words of the Prophet. Just what he needed.

#

The book was old. Ancient yellowing leaves and a worn leather binding creaked as he turned the pages. He scanned the painfully lettered text, all hand worked, barely taking anything in. He’d been sitting for hours. From time to time, Alise had appeared, ducking beneath the tent flap, then crouching beside him to look at his face, his eyes, and poke and prod. He put up with the ministrations, instinctively knowing that she had his best interests at heart. Last time she’d visited, he had even attempted a smile, but found his face hard to move. That had been over two hours ago. Bored, and with the aches starting to return to various parts of his body, he closed his eyes. Within moments, he was starting to drift.

Bilious orange swept behind his lids. A crack and rumble. The noise of padders straining against their tethers, skittish movement, filtering through canvas walls. He opened his eyes quickly, groaned and shifted, regretting the move immediately as he put sudden pressure on his hip. Canvas walls? Flat sleeping pallet. Ancient text. What was he doing here? He lifted an arm, the wrong arm and groaned as sharp pain shot up from his elbow. His hip was sore too now, along with everything else, from where he'd been sitting on the hard ground. How could people live like this? He lifted his other arm and gingerly explored his head. The bruise was still there. He didn't know what he'd been expecting. At least the strange sense of unreality seemed to have faded a little.

More noises came from beyond the tent walls. Voices issuing commands, the sound of padders again. He felt it too, a tension in the air, an expectancy, waiting for — what? Then suddenly, all was still. He levered himself into a more upright position as another boom and crash lanced light across the narrow space, sharp yellowish light, harsh against the deep orange. Silhouetted figures stretched against canvas walls, distorted in their length. Damn it. He wasn't supposed to be here. He had to...he had to...

He felt the first stirrings of the ground as he struggled with the thought, chasing the idea away with realization. A gentle trembling flickered through the ground beneath him. Then another. Throwing his arms back, he braced himself, waiting. One moment. Two. An eternity. Then there it was; the ground slammed up against him, throwing him flat. He sprawled, his arms offering no support at all. He knew as he bucked and rode the heaving ground that he'd have been better off staying flat. Now there was fresh pain in his shoulder, and his wrist on the other arm had been wrenched as well. He screwed his eyes tight shut, ground his teeth together and waited for the endless shaking to stop. Then it was gone.

Sandon let out a breath, took another. It wasn't over yet. Again the ground rose, taking him with it, motion shuddering through his bones. Eyes screwed tightly closed, he opened his mouth and yelled, forcing the air from his lungs, screaming into the storm of motion. Soon, soon it would end. It had to. The ground was still once more. He lay where he was panting, waiting, and waiting. It couldn't be over yet. The ground shuddered gently beneath him, again, once, twice, three times, and then all was quiet. That might have been the last of it. Very tentatively, he raised his upper body, ready to throw himself flat at the first sign of anything more.

Then came the noises. A padder screamed, then voices, called queries, the sound of feet and more shadows casting bizarre angles against the tent walls. Cautiously he poked his head outside.

One wagon lay overturned. Off on the tether line, a padder lay on the ground, its legs splayed. One or two tents had fallen, but for the most part, everything seemed intact. It hadn't been too bad then. Within the tent's confines, it had seemed enormous, but there was no sense of scale in such a confined space. In small groups and singly, Atavists, both men and women, and children too, Sandon noticed, wandered between the tents and wagons inspecting for damage. An older Atavist in homespun headed purposefully toward the tether line, a broad flat knife in his hand. Sandon looked away, not wanting to watch what was about to happen. A group of men clustered about the side of the overturned wagon, already preparing to right it. They grouped evenly around the base, around the set of wheels that faced skyward and around its ends. Then, as one, they heaved, pulling it upright. The wheels held, but its roof sagged on one side where the struts had been cracked by its impact with the ground. Sandon stood and watched, not wanting to get in the way.

“Sandon, it is you. Are you all right?”

It was Alise. He turned to face her, one eye still on the proceedings around the damaged wagon. “Yes, I think so. Thanks. But I don't think it's done my head any good.”

A concerned look flickered across her face, and then she gave a shy smile and nodded. He gave a short laugh in return, then immediately wished he hadn't. “But you shouldn't be worrying about me. What about the others? Is everyone unhurt?”

She nodded, and then glanced over toward the tether line. “Yes, except for, well, whatever is the will of the Prophet.” She looked back at him. “Come,” she said. “You must drink another dose and keep calm.”

“But isn't there anything I can do?”

“Everything will be taken care of. Now come with me.”

Feeling useless, he did as he was told. The ache in his head and the throbbing through his face and body were back. She was right. He was in no real position to argue. He glanced up at the sky, still covered in thick cloud, marked by the occasional flash of light. Storm Season was going to be heavy this cycle. A quake of that force up here and so early did not bode well. Storm activity often occurred early, especially on the Yarik plateau, but this storm looked ugly. So far, the winds had not started, but they could come at any time. He turned his attention to Alise who walked unhurriedly in front of him. He wondered whether she was keeping her pace slow to spare him. It was not until they reached her wagon that she finally turned and looked at him again.

“Sandon Yl Aris. It is a strange name,” she said, then gave a little frown, climbed the steps to her wagon and disappeared inside, beckoning him to follow.

#

The next few days progressed in much the same fashion. Sandon either stood or lay around feeling completely useless. They rode out the storm, and Sandon found himself poring for hour after hour over the text in the large book Badrae had left with him. At intervals seemingly known only to Alise, she would appear, escorting him to her wagon for more of the restorative brew. Once or twice, she washed the paste away from his face, and then carefully reapplied it.

He couldn't understand how an entire people could live like this, divorced from the comforts of modern life: their simple wagons, the basic clothing, the hard sleeping pallets; they all had the feeling of penance rather than normal life. Yet Alise, whom he saw most of, seemed perfectly content. On a couple of occasions, he had tried to question her about her life, about the way they did things, but she would not be led. Most of the time she replied with a simple stock answer: As the Prophet wills. As the days wore on, his frustration grew. Alise was clearly not the route to the answers he needed, and he needed those answers if he was to follow through the plan that was gradually forming in the back of his mind. He decided to seek out the older man, Badrae. The only time he had seen him since entering the simple tent, it had been when he’d appeared just to look in on him, to see if he had any questions about the book.

They all dressed alike, these Atavists. The older men wore beards. There was only slight variation in their frames. One might be a little bit heavier, another more slight, but generally, they all looked alike. As he spent more time observing, he became more adept at distinguishing the individuals. Five days now, he had been among them. There was thick stubble on his own chin. No one had offered shaving materials, and he had none of his own gear with him. That had all been back in the groundcar. His clothing was starting to become worse for the constant wearing as well, and he was starting to smell of the potion Alise had been feeding him day after day. He had bathed, daily, in a large metal tub with the unscented homemade soap they provided, but it did little good if all he had were the same clothes to step back into. The paste on his face remained working on the cuts, despite the bathing. For the most part, the Atavist community simply ignored him. He was there, but they stepped around him, or out of his way. None of them offered conversation, and they shared very few words between themselves.

He scoured the camp, but Badrae was nowhere to be found. Asking was pointless. The first time he tried, he was met with a blank stare, a slight shrug, and then the person had simply walked on, ignoring further questions. The next was a repeat of the first. Not even a word. He then tried to find either Melchor or Arnod, the two who had been with Badrae when they brought him in, but both of them seemed to be missing too. He needed to find the old man. Already days had passed, and in those days, he had no clue what might be happening with Men Darnak. Badrae was the only one who might be able to provide the answers that would let him return, let him help the Principal in the only way he knew how. The more time that passed, the further he was from being able to do anything.

In the end, frustrated, he returned to Alise's wagon. He stood at the bottom of the steps, feeling slightly foolish. He didn't want to just climb the steps and walk inside. He knew she was in there, because he could hear her moving about, but with the Atavist avoidance of unnecessary talk, he was reluctant to call her name as well.

Finally, after he'd stood debating with himself for several minutes, Alise's face appeared.

“Sandon. What are you doing here? Is the pain back?”

“No, no,” he said. “I, well, I wanted to ask you a favor or two. I cannot seem to get any sense out of any of the other members of your, um, family.”

She nodded and beckoned him up, disappearing again inside the wagon's interior. He followed, ducked beneath the entrance flaps, then stood, still feeling awkward at one end. She gave him a slight frown, and waved at the bench. “Sit, Sandon, sit.”

He nodded and complied. “Alise, I ... I would not want to impose, but there are two things you can do for me.”

She stood waiting, and when he said nothing further, shook her head. “Speak, Sandon. Tell me.”

He gestured down at his clothes. “Well, these, I've been wearing for almost a week now, and, I wonder if you could find me something else to wear.”

She looked at him and laughed. “You should have asked before. We thought you would be more comfortable in your own clothes, made of such fine cloth. We did not think you would be at home in our simple garb. We have robes aplenty. All you needed was to ask.”

“Hmmm,” he said, looking down at the floor. “All right, I'm asking.”

“And the other? If it's as simple as that.”

“I need to talk to Badrae. Do you know where he is?”

Her face became serious again. “He is not here.”

“I know that, Alise. I've looked for him. So, where is he? And Melchor and Arnod.”

“Where the Prophet wills.” She looked away.

“And where might that be?”

“Where the Prophet wills.”

Sandon grimaced. It was the same set of stock answers again. “All right. I understand,” he said.

Alise nodded, her face still serious; then her expression lightened.

“Then let us find you a worthy robe,” she said. “Come.” She held out a hand, and smiled.

Chapter Ten