_________________________
A.R.Yngve DARC AGES Book Two _________________________ |
|
Chapter 3
When dawn came, Darc was faced with the enormity of the task before him. He searched his fading memory for experience in medicine and science: what did he really know? The effort was so much greater, because he had no peers in this time, no one to test his skills against. From the hidden pockets of his cloak, he produced his foremost scientific instrument: a thick notebook and a set of pencils. He made a mental picture of his role: A detective, on a mission to solve the great mystery of the new Dark Ages -- and perhaps he was. A crusader in dirty clothes, with disreputable female company. And yet, the challenge excited him. He entered the investigation. After a breakfast in silence, Darc accompanied Claw and his following down to the bottom of the canyon, where he could study the villagers' daily life. Shara had decided to stay above in their room -- a choice she quickly regretted, when she discovered that a big, cloaked Leper armed with a spiked spear was guarding her. Stoically, without a word, he followed her every movement across the cliff shelf. When Darc had been away for an hour or so, Shara awoke from her state of shock. Fear had been paralyzing her mind since the Lepers captured them, to the extent that she could not remember one conscious thought from that moment until this morning. The desert sunlight seemed to make the surroundings hyper-detailed, even the colors of things here were alien to her. Darc is my only hope, she thought. I must put all my hope in his powers -- because if he isn't the miracle-worker he appears to be, we're doomed. It might be too late. I touched their food... Slowly, so as not to raise the guard's suspicions, Shara treaded toward the shelf's edge. She sat with her legs resting along the edge, and looked down the canyon. The sun was breaking through the rift to the east, where they had entered the evening before -- but the air was still cold. She pulled the cloak tighter around her curvy, shivering body. Shara knew that she could put an end to the fear, right there and then -- one jump over the edge, and she would fall twenty meters. It would have been so easy. Yet she was holding on to life, in a situation where any decent, law-abiding citizen would have chosen a quick death. Her brooding was interrupted; the Leper guard grabbed her cloaked shoulders, and brusquely pulled her away from the cliff's edge. Shara screamed, filled with the mindless fear of the unclean touch. He held her, facing the panicked woman for a couple of seconds. She screamed and twisted in his grip, as his curious eyes searched hers. The hood slipped off and his head was exposed to the sun; Shara's scream died in her throat. The guard had two normal eyes, slightly bulging -- but his face was twisted on his skull, turned almost completely upside-down at a sloping angle. His eyebrows grew under the slanting eyes, like little beards – and his thin-lipped mouth was located directly below the ridge of his brow. The upside-down nose snorted every now and then, as dust blew into the upturned nostrils. His face was framed by a distorted jawbone which began up at the ears, narrowing down toward the thick, folding neck -- in a way, the man's tattooed forehead was a bloated, independent chin connected to his skull. If a surgeon had cut up and peeked inside the man's forehead, he would have discovered a pained tangle of nerves, tubes, veins and muscles, that just barely functioned. Disappointed to find only fear in Shara's face, the guard let out a snort and released his hold of her arms. Shara, reeling away from the big man, thought she saw a leer on his lips. She ran inside Claw's house and into her room, then blocked the door with the bed. She sat trembling in a corner, listening to the heavy steps of the guard outside. Only a little while later, when Shara needed to go out, she realized what the guard's leer had been. His face had been full of grief, of hurt feelings -- but turned upside down. Through the fear, she felt a tinge of shame. She waited a little more, before she carefully removed the bed and peeked outside. The guard was not around. She slipped outside and washed herself. When finished, Shara began looking for the guard. The cliff shelf was narrow, so it did not take her long to search the entire place. He was not in the clay-brick house, and the elevator sling was untouched -- the sets of ladders had been removed before, and lay at the canyon floor below. Then a notion struck her, and she got worried. She ran up to the cliff edge and peered down. There was no body lying at the foot of the cliff face, no angry voices shouting up at her. Shara spun around at the sound of falling pebbles, and caught sight of the guard. He had climbed out onto a narrow path at the eastern end of the shelf, where the blinding light of the sun hid him from Shara's sight. When she had rushed outside, he had treaded his way back to the house. They both stood watching each other, the distance between them no more than ten meters, and waited for the other to say something. After a minute, Shara broke the silence: "I -- I was afraid that you had... j-jumped o-over the edge. I'm so-sorry that I screamed... you s-s-scared me." The guard's mouth, placed where his eyes should have been, made a sour grimace -- that is, a happy grin turned upside-down. He snorted again, a sound that evoked fright but actually was just an acquired habit. Even as she impulsively flinched at the sight, Shara knew that the Leper was no monster. What was it Darc had said yesterday? All humans are Lepers. Nevertheless, she still feared the contagious touch. "Please... I ask you... not to touch me. The Plague... you understand, do you? Can you speak?" They both remained still. Then, surprisingly, the guard spoke -- a forced, high-pitched voice squeezed out between warped vocal cords: "I... can... speak. But... hurts." He coughed and snorted, holding his face in pain. "What is your name?" she asked quickly. "I'm Shara." The guard looked at her, and now she knew his face was expressing joy: "I am... Up-Mouth." He coughed once more, and added: "Not be... afraid. I... will not touch... you." He sat down on the ground, and put away his spiked spear. Shara sat down too, and decided to continue the conversation; what else could she do? Shara did not think of it as such, but she was a historical pioneer: the first healthy woman in several centuries who actually talked to a Leper. Change which otherwise would have come much, much later, was now proceeding at a fantastic pace -- thanks to Darc's influence. She found out a few things during their awkward conversation. The adult Leper named Up-Mouth sincerely believed Darc to be some kind of holy man, and Shara his blessed bride. The very idea of hurting her would have been sacrilege to him. If I ever get out of this alive, nobody in Damon City would believe what had happened to me, she thought. As she carried on stuttering, fractured small talk with the deformed man sitting at the other end of the house, the hours passed... her heartbeat relaxed and the goosebumps receded from her skin. When they had agreed that Up-Mouth could nod or shake his head instead of speaking, the conversation went much easier. Up-Mouth was several years younger than Shara, she found out, and one of Claw's several family members. Apart from his upturned face, he suffered very few effects of the Plague, except for his toes which also grew upside-down. At Shara's request, he showed her his feet; and indeed his toes grew with the nails on the underside. "You poor creature," she mumbled. "Does someone help you with... your health? A doctor?" Shara managed to explain what she meant. Up-Mouth used his spear to draw figures in the sand, and told her in few words what she wanted to know. No doctors. Only shared knowledge of herbal remedies, a few cures, and crude surgery. He himself had been born unable to breathe, and his windpipe had been artificially repaired. He said this without sadness or asking for pity. And Shara wanted to hold his hand and comfort him, even as she dared not touch the deformed, smiling Up-Mouth... |
|