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A.R.Yngve DARC AGES Book Two _________________________ |
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Chapter 2
The sun was setting in the west, as Darc finished his tale -- and his recital of music from another time. He had nearly lost his voice in the process. The Leper tribe sat in awe around the rock that would have been his last stand, but had become the place of his greatest triumph. His words and his promise of hope had won over their fear and hatred. The spellbound Lepers had begun to believe in him, almost to a man. And hearing the ancient, nearly forgotten words of the Singing King repeated by Darc, had finally convinced even the dumbest among them. To the Lepers, Darc was now a messenger from another time, a holy man. They failed to grasp much of his scientific talk -- but they understood now the idea that their disease was not permanent, and that the same knowledge that created the Plague could also destroy it. What Darc had not revealed to them, was his total lack of clues to whether the Plague actually could be cured -- the condition of these Lepers' seemed, at first glance, beyond all improvement. He could only try to collect as much physiological evidence as possible and stall for time, before the Lepers' patience ran out -- or Darc and Shara became Lepers themselves. Claw ordered his party to return to their village -- the desert was host to dangerous animals, which his tribe usually hunted. Lighting their way with torches, the tribe marched toward the nearest canyon of steep cliffs. Darc and Shara stayed close to Claw; Shara still trembled, and was careful not to touch any of the deformed characters around her. In her mind, she kept saying prayers to Kristos, over and over again. The Leper chieftain remained closed and silent all the way back home. He waited for Darc to make some fatal mistake, that would reveal him as a fraud -- then Claw would kill him for mocking the cursed existence. What, Claw thought bitterly, could this Darc know about what it was like to be a Leper? To be ever out of shape, to not even know what one's children would look like, to always be denied the wealth and unlimited energy of the cities? To see the silvery airships streak across the sky, and know that one would never fly like the city people? And worst of all: to observe undistorted nature all around oneself, its untamed beauty and symmetry, all blessed by the Goddess, and above it the boundless skies of the Singing King's realm -- and then to look down upon one's own twisted limbs, and know. Claw's favorite wife, Double-Mouth, kept watching the newcomers with an outwardly neutral expression. But under her cloak, she could feel the drooling mouth move in the little outgrowth that was her second face. By some stroke of fate, the face on her back possessed a small mind, attached to the woman's spine. They could hear and see each other's thoughts in their minds, and were closer than lovers or siblings could ever be. Now, as they headed homeward through the darkening desert, the second face thought loudly in Double-Mouth's head: You hate the pretty woman. She is prettier than you. I hate her too. I'm your friend. We must kill her, kill her! Or she will take your place. Double-Mouth thought in response: Quiet. It is not so easily done. If the white-haired fool can cure us, we need him. I'll let him prove that he can cure me -- cure us -- first. Then we decide what to do with the black-haired woman. The other face sent a hateful thought: You lie, I can feel it. You want White-Head to take me away from you. Me, your only friend! Kill him! Kill him! Darc peered uncertainly at the back of the Leper woman walking next to Claw. What were those muffled noises and movements from inside her cloak? It seemed she was carrying something on her back -- a deformed baby, perhaps. He cast a furtive glance at his other company, shivered, and returned to staring forward. In the flickering light from the torch-carriers, the Lepers turned eerier and more grotesque than in broad daylight. He began whistling the Popeye tune, to keep fear at bay. The Lepers were impressed by the stranger's courage: he was whistling, in the desert at night, surrounded by the most feared outcasts of the earth. Darc hoped they wouldn't notice his shaking knees. The local Leper village lay cleverly hidden in a long, narrow canyon. It consisted of several square stonework and clay brickhouses, built into the sides of the vertical cliff faces. The ends of the canyon faced the respective directions of dawn and sunset, enabling limited cultivation of the canyon floor. The party walked past lines of cornstalks; at a closer look, Darc noticed that the little cornseeds were hexagon-shaped, like honeycombs. This, he thought, had to be some new hybrid that had been created while he was frozen in suspended animation. Campfires and crude chimneys spread smoke, light, and warmth through the canyon. Many of the huts were placed so high, that they would have been inaccessible -- if not for the ladders and elevator slings which reached up along the smoothly eroded, vertical walls. Claw's house lay at the highest shelf, more than twenty meters up. Shara quietly refused to mount the elevator sling. Darc was eager to get indoors -- and unwilling to fight off things that went bump in the night, again -- so he lifted her over one shoulder and sat down in a sling, holding her in his lap. From high above, men slowly hauled a net loaded with of rocks, tied to a rope, down the cliff. With a jolt, the weight of this sinking load pulled the sling up the wall. Ropes, tackle, and wheels creaked ominously; freezing winds rocked them. Shara took one look down, shrieked, and clung harder to him. "Don't look down," Darc told her, "don't look down. You won't fall, I'm holding you..." When the couple reached the top of the elevator, they were pulled in from an overhanging crane and came under the escort of some strong-looking Lepers with only minor deformities. The net was unloaded at the canyon floor, and the men hauled it up again. Another load of rocks from the large supply was then tied to the rope at the top. When the sling had been thrown down to the bottom and mounted anew, the boulder was coaxed over the edge of the top again... and the next passenger was pulled up by its weight. Thus it went on, until Claw and his following had arrived at the top residence. On his command they entered the welcoming warmth of his large house, where dinner was being prepared. "We may be Lepers," Claw slurred gravely, "but we are not dumb because of that." Claw was addressing his two captives from a rough wooden table with fixed stone seats, where they sat waiting. Darc and Shara were offered water and flat loaves of freshly baked cornbread, together with the other guests. Darc accepted and devoured his piece of bread with only slight hesitation -- he hoped that whatever caused the plague, probably wasn't hidden in freshwater or hot food. Shara didn't dare touch the food for an hour; but eventually, thirst and hunger forced her to. "From early age," Claw elaborated, slowly, as he watched them eat, "our children learn to read one another's minds by looking at the little details. They learn to appreciate small tokens of affection... a smile, a friendly wink, a word of comfort. Earlier this day, you looked me straight in the eye and tried to reach me. You are the first city-dweller who ever paid me such respect." He stopped, studying the faces of his company with a squinting eye in the dim lamplight. He especially scrutinized Darc and Shara -- as did his three wives, his two older advisors, and the two heavyset guards. In these regions, visitors from the cities were very rare, and Lepers seldom got the opportunity to see one face to face. On an impulse, Claw's second wife -- a deeply tanned woman with wrinkles in her oddly warped face -- stretched out and touched Darc's hand. He started a little -- and so did she. Out of pure nervosity, Darc laughed; before they knew it, the Lepers were laughing too. Claw grinned briefly, which made him look hideous. "You are not afraid?" he probed. The healthy side of Claw's eye remained watchful, and his voice calm. Darc understood that this man was much smarter than he looked -- the question was a test. "If you wish to know," Darc said carefully, "I am afraid... because I have never been in these lands before. The previous night, we encountered a huge beast. I managed to chase it away." "If you did, you were lucky," Claw stated. "The big desert rats eat anything smaller than themselves, or they eat each other. They grow bigger and meaner with each generation... those that remain, that is." Hearing this, Shara started to tremble again. Darc held her shoulder, comforting her with his presence, for what it was worth. Very politely and painstakingly, Darc explained the state of things to Claw so that the others could hear. "Excuse us, Claw, but we are very tired from the walk through the desert. I promise that tomorrow, I will start to examine... your people, and see what I can do to help you. Since you are the chief of this village, I need your promise that neither of us will be hurt during our stay. I must learn everything about you, before I can act out a proper cure." Claw finished his meal, and wiped his mouth. With a fine cloth, he washed his bloated right eye clean. Before he drew the eyelid down with his fingers, he dripped a herbal extract into that eye, to ease the pain during his sleep. Then he nodded, almost imperceptibly, and said: "I give you my word as chief, that no one shall lay a hand on you while you stay here." Claw added, after some consideration: "And you must give your word to us, to do everything you can to give us relief from the Plague." "I swear upon my life," Darc said solemnly. He could mean no less. The two guards escorted Darc and Shara to a separate, narrow chamber with a single bed -- small and hard, but dry and reasonably clean. They pressed together in the bed, preserving whatever bodily warmth they could produce. To feel Shara so close to him again, made Darc think. Until now, they had not made love to each other once. And annoyingly enough, his body wanted what his mind was too jittery to care about. He tried to think of other things, and recalled the horrendous shape of the woman who had touched him at the dinner. His excitement vanished instantly. I'm not the one in the greatest danger, Darc thought before falling asleep. Shara is. She has good reason to be afraid. I must protect her, it is my fault if... He slept, dreaming of uncertain, dim shapes which made strange sounds. Shara did not even dream. She had experienced her worst nightmares while awake. That same night, while Claw was asleep with another of his wives, Double-Mouth rose from the bed in her own small private chamber. With trancelike, unseeing eyes, she took a candle-lamp and sneaked into the household kitchen. She bent down over the water jars, and spat in each of them. A week's supply of grain lay in a sack in the opposite corner of the silent kitchen. Double-Mouth pricked her finger with a needle, and let a few drops of blood fall onto the grain. The face on her naked back smiled, and told her with a thought: Sleep. Sleep. When you awake, you will thank me. |
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