Beyond the Valley of Mist (8 page)

Meanwhile, Ador, who had
learned medical skills from her father, a medicine man, tended to
Lela’s wounds. The scrapes caused by the lion’s claws weren’t deep
and probably wouldn’t even leave a scar.

***

Chapter 10

The First Night

While Zen was sleeping, his
companions had caught a fish and were trying to cook it. After the
long and arduous effort of rubbing dry wood together, they managed
to get a fire going. They cooked the fish and ate it with gusto. It
was the first solid food they had eaten in a long time and the fish
was delicious.

It was only mid-afternoon,
but they needed a place to spend the night … as far away from the
Valley of Mist as possible, since it was a breeding ground for
large predators.

They looked downriver and
saw rolling meadows with a few small trees, but none large enough
to provide shelter from lions. There must be a safer
place.

Across the river they could
see a gap in the mountains, and through that gap were undulating
plains that extended into the distance. They looked like a good
place for herds of grazing animals, but not a place where there
might be either a cave or a large tree. They knew there were large
cats lurking in the background, just waiting to pounce upon them,
and they needed shelter from those cats.

They found the raft broken
up, but they managed to save most of their weapons. Now they had no
choice but to walk.

“
Let’s walk in the direction
of those mountains,” Zen said. “There are sure to be streams
draining that melting snow.”

“
Okay, Zen, you take the
lead,” Jok said. “Girls, you walk between us, and I’ll cover our
backs. Keep a sharp eye out for danger, and look for a safe place
to spend the night. Let’s stay close to the river; it will provide
some protection from the lions.”

Most of what was left of
the afternoon was gone when they came upon a medium-size stream
flowing into the river from a cliff on their right.

Lela said, “I see a large
overhanging of rock about halfway up the side of that cliff.
Perhaps there is a cave up there where we can spend the
night.”

“Let’s go see,” Jok
replied.

“
We’d better take water with
us, and the rest of that cooked fish. The climb to that ledge is
going to be difficult. We’ll be hungry and thirsty before we’re
ready to come down from the ledge tomorrow morning,” Zen
said.

“
If it is difficult for us
to climb,” Ador remarked, “it will be difficult for large animals
as well. We should be safe when we get onto the ledge.”

“
Jok,” Zen said, “you carry
the food, and I’ll fill this pouch with water to take with
us.”

“
Let’s go,” Jok
replied.

They began scaling the
cliff. The girls carried dry wood to make a fire, which would be
very comforting during the long night.

The climb was even more
difficult than they had anticipated. Loose rocks kept sliding out
from under their feet. After quite a struggle, they reached a ledge
of flat sandstone, with a good overhang of rock to keep them dry.
The find pleased the two couples, who were too tired to look any
more.

“
It’s unlikely that an
animal large enough to harm us could climb the face of the cliff
without causing a rockslide,” Lela observed. “On this side, the
ledge ends at a sheer cliff, so there’s no chance that an animal
could climb up that way, but it would be possible for an animal to
approach us from the other end.”

“
Why don’t we build a rock
wall at that end?” Ador suggested. “We have all the loose rocks we
need. If we block the entrance with heavy rocks and make them into
a wall, it will completely block that end. We’ll be secure, and we
can get some badly needed sleep tonight, especially with a fire to
protect us.”

“
Wonderful,” said Zen.
“Let’s get started while we still have light to work by. We’ll use
the heaviest rocks possible; no animal will be able to move them.
We can pile smaller rocks against the larger ones, which will wedge
the large rocks into place. Then the only place we’ll have to guard
is the face of the cliff.”

Some of the rocks were so
heavy that the four had to drag them into place by making ropes
from the skins they had brought with them. They completed building
the wall just as it was getting dark. Even though they were tired,
they built a fire and ate the remainder of the fish, then sat
contentedly, watching the shadows growing longer while sunlight
reflected off the snow-capped peaks in the distance. The river of
the Valley of Mist wandered on through the flat plain beyond the
mountains.

Between their lookout
shelter and the snow-capped mountains, they saw what appeared to be
another river joining the one they had rafted on through the
valley. The rivers continued far into the distance. The view was
magnificent. They couldn’t see the Valley of Mist, though, because
it was hidden by the hills the river had cascaded
through.

Suddenly, Ador began to
cry.

“
Why are you crying?” Jok
asked.

“
I miss Mother and Father. I
wish I could tell them that we made it through the Valley of Mist
and that we are safe. I think they doubted that we would make it.
It would be wonderful if we could bring our families here to live
with us and start a new village. We would all be free from the
terrible priests and their awful God.”

Tears came to Zen’s eyes,
too, but he turned away so the others couldn’t see. Now that he had
accomplished the nearly impossible, he was shaking so much he was
afraid they would notice. “One day soon,” he said, “we’ll find a
way around the Valley of Mist and rescue our families.”

“Do you think that is
possible?” Ador asked.

“
Yes, I do,” Zen replied.
“We know there are two sides to the valley, and I believe there is
a beginning and an end. It might take a long time to find it, but I
believe we can. Our families helped us to escape, and now we must
do everything in our power to help them.”

Jok said, “I think many
Lalocks would want to join us if we could give them a reason to
hope there might be a way to escape from the priests and a place to
escape to.”

“
We must find a place,” Lela
added, “where everyone can live without fear of being killed by
those who believe differently.”

They all agreed that this
would be their lifelong goal. This new village would be a place
where everyone would have the right to think and believe as he or
she wanted. Everyone would have the right to worship as he or she
wishes and love the man or woman he or she wants without having to
undergo religious practices that cause so much pain.

They talked until the last
light faded, and the distant hills were just shadows, and then
banked their fire so it would last through the night. They would
all remember this day.

***

Chapter 11

Lox

The sun blazed with a
blinding light as it peeked over the horizon. The two couples awoke
rested and feeling good, but very hungry. Zen tied a strip of skin
to a rock, climbed down from the cliff and returned with a supply
of wood.

“If you girls will rekindle
the fire,” Zen said, “Jok and I will get something for our morning
meal.”

The two young men gathered
their weapons and went back to a place near the river where Jok
remembered seeing fruit growing on trees. They picked the fruit and
also killed a buck, quartered and skinned it. They had accomplished
what they came for and decided to return by taking a different
route.

As they walked near the
wall of a canyon, they heard a muffled moan.

“
That sounded like a human,”
Zen said.

“
Nah, can’t be; we’re the
only ones here.”

“
There! I heard it
again!”

“
Yeah, I heard it, too.
Let’s look, but be ready for anything. There’s no telling what that
might be.”

They followed the sound to
a cave and cautiously looked in. A wounded man had barricaded
himself behind a wall of rocks. Barely clinging to life, he had
been seriously injured by some kind of animal, but had managed to
drag himself into this small cave. When he saw Zen and Jok, his
eyes grew wide and his lower jaw dropped.

The man spoke words in a
language they couldn’t understand. He was small, no bigger than
Lela or Ador, and his skin and eyes were brown. Jok gave him a
drink of water and he tried to smile, but he was very
weak.

“
What are we going to do
with him?” Zen asked.

“
I don’t know,” Jok replied.
“We can’t leave him here to die.”

“
He’s small. If you’ll carry
our food, I’ll carry him back to our camp. Perhaps if we feed him
and get him warm, he might recover.”

“
He’s very sick, but I think
we should try.”

As Zen started to carry him
out from the rock enclosure, the man began to complain. He was
pointing at an object lying in the corner of his cave, a stick that
had been shaped by making the ends smaller than the middle.
Something that looked like the sinew of an animal was tied to pull
the stick into an arc. To please the man, Zen retrieved the
stick.

But he wanted something
else. Beside the stick was a bundle of tiny spears with stone tips
at one end, and a feather attached in a slot at the other end.
Since the man insisted, Zen picked up the spears. The injured man
looked satisfied, smiled and nodded. Jok and Zen washed him off in
the river and carried him and his things to where the girls were
waiting.

Zen had to set the man down
when they got to the base of the cliff; he couldn’t endure the pain
of being dragged up the rocks. So the girls brought the fire down
to him, made him a bed with straw and skins and laid him on it
while the men cooked the deer.

Ador and Lela didn’t know
what to think of the little man. He was too small to be afraid of,
so they cleansed his wounds. The claw and teeth marks on his legs
were red and irritated. Ador selected leaves that her father had
taught her had medicinal values and made a bandage to draw out the
poison. She then made tea from the bark of a willow tree that she
found growing nearby. This tea was well known among the Lalocks for
its ability to relieve pain. They fed him broth, and his eyes
became brighter.

The girls built a wall of
stone around their new campsite, kept the fire burning day and
night, and cared for the little man for several days. Ador
continued to apply poultices to the wounds. The infection went
away, and the man became stronger and tried to talk. They couldn’t
understand his language, but in time, he conveyed to them that his
name was Lox, and that he had come from a place where the river
emptied into a large, salty non-flowing body of water.

Lox tried to tell them that
the elders of his tribe relayed stories about a man named Zor, who
had come down the river many lifetimes ago and had shown them how
to create fire. Zor had eyes and hair the same color as those of
Ador, Lela, Zen, and Jok. Lox's people thought this blue-eyed man
was a god, and that is why he was so surprised when he first saw
Zen and Jok. He thought he had died and that they were
gods.

Zor told the villagers long
ago that he came from a place on the other side of a Valley of
Mist, and that the river that emptied into the sea near their
village came from beyond the Valley of Mist. No one had ever heard
of a Valley of Mist, and they thought Zor was just making the story
up.

Two summers ago, their
tribal leader sent Lox and two other men to find out if such a
valley existed. They found the valley but as they were crossing it,
the other two men were killed by lions. Lox managed to escape. He
was so badly wounded he was dying when Zen and Jok found him. Lox
was afraid that his tribe would never know that there really is a
Valley of Mist. He wanted Zen and his companions to accompany him
to his village so he could tell his people what he had
found.

“
We would be afraid to go
into your village; your people might harm us,” Zen said.

“
Oh, no,” Lox replied. “They
won’t harm you; they will treat you with great respect. The
legendary Zor looked just like you, and he taught my people many
useful things. He cautioned us never to worship fire, but to
worship Sun and Earth, that Earth is the mother of life and Sun is
the father of life. Together, they are the givers of all life. He
taught us that the first man and woman were fathered by Sun and
born of Earth, and that when we die, we go back to Earth to be born
again. He said the gods are good and that we must never make human
sacrifices to them because that displeases them and diminishes us.
We believe Zor was a messenger from God. My people will think that
you are also messengers from God.”

“
We are not messengers from
God,” Zen replied. “But Zor was my ancestor. He said that Fire was
not God, and that they should not worship Fire. In turn, the
priests said that Zor was smart but was a very bad man. Our people
banished him into the Valley of Mist to die. We thought we were the
first Lalocks to make it through the Valley of Mist, but Zor must
have survived and followed the river until it ran into the sea. We
would like to meet your people. We'll go with you, and we’ll leave
as soon as you are able to travel.”