Gods of Green Mountain (9 page)

"Why," he said to no one in particular, "the pretty little things taste good!" They had no definable flavor that he could identify, but it was pleasing. What he ate satisfied his hunger, and most remarkably, satisfied his thirst as well! Far-Awn sat back on his heels, reflectively staring at the flowers growing all around him. For the very first time in his life he had a full stomach--one that didn't plead for more. It felt odd to be so satisfied, so full, without the perpetual ache for more food. He had just eaten, for a fact, the most enjoyable meal of his life! Even sitting here in the sizzling heat, and frying winds, he felt good, happy, expectant. Suddenly he began to laugh--laughter that doubled him over to his knees. Oh, how astonished his father would be to see where he was, sitting in the middle of Bay Sol, and laughing! Two young puhlets came and nuzzled his neck, bringing him back to reality.

The flowers had been here, yet those five men had died. They hadn't found them because they had entered Bay Sol without puhlets to guide them. Far-Awn put a loving arm over Musha's shoulders, as the big animal was standing close, watching his master with large calm eyes, deep with ageless wisdom. Far-Awn met those eyes, trying to delve into just what Musha was thinking, and trying to express without words. "You are not dumb after all, are you?" asked Far-Awn with new insight. "You are an animal, but you have a brain, and you can think. All these centuries we have taken your kind for granted, and used you in any way that suited our purpose. How can you look at me so kindly?"

Musha made a soft rilling noise deep in his throat, giving Far-Awn a long meaningful look that the boy tried to fathom; then Musha put his nose to the flowers and began to eat.

"I know what you want, Musha," said Far-Awn in deep sincerity. "From now on, life for you and your kind will be different, I'll see to it."

Yes, from now on life would be different for all of them, humans and animals alike. The clever puhlets had found food here on the desert wastelands, just as they had discovered forage on the ice of Bay Gar. Never again would he allow one single soul on El Sod-a-Por to call them stupid again! Why the puhlets were smarter than all of them put together. In gratitude he ran to each animal and caressed it. All the time food was available to all of them. All they had needed was the courage to journey into the unknown and find it!

It was then Far-Awn plucked one small, star-shaped blossom and studied it closely. It had five short white pointed petals around a centering cluster of multicolored seeds. Each minute centering seed was of a different hue, and each radiated its own vibrating light. The opalescent white petals glowed with their own luster, and even the green leaves shimmered with iridescence. It was exactly the same flower the puhlets had found in Bay Gar, and he had carried so long in his pocket. All that time he could have planted those seeds!

Far-Awn sat there in the hot sun, unfeeling of the heat and the winds, as the second sun came up and added its heat and bedazzling light. Thoughts like bees whirled in his brain. The star-flowers grew without water in the terrible heat of the desert. They grew without sunlight in the dark ice of the winterlands. Just what would they do with water, with sunlight, with fertilizer to nourish them? Marvelous visions flashed before his eyes...daydreams...things he had seen but never expected to materialize.

Flooding with monumental excitement and anticipation, Far-Awn pried a plant loose from the sand, exceedingly careful not to damage the extraordinary long roots that webbed out in every direction. Amazing to see such a small plant with roots thirty times its growth above ground. And when he felt the meshy root growth, they felt damp and cool to his hot hand.

His shirt was hanging in shreds, so he didn't feel the loss when he tore it even more and used the strips as strings to tie bundles of the uprooted plants in the only shade that was available--and that was under the very bellies of the twenty puhlets. He was extremely worried that the hot burning light and intense heat would dry out the delicate, hairlike roots before he reached the borderlands. Far-Awn didn't know then that it wouldn't have mattered.

In his arms, he carried as many of the plants as he could, and turning about, he headed back, toward home, toward his father, his mother, his brothers and his one sister.

Funny how quickly he reached the cave, when it had taken him so long to trail the puhlets into the heart of Bay Sol. "I must hurry home with these plants," he said to Musha, "for they are dying there from starvation, and that blizzard will surely have wiped out all the crops..."

He prepared for the journey, and was ready to leave, when a female puhlet began the mournful rilling that meant her birthing time was near. Frantically Far-Awn put aside his plan to speed quickly home with the life-giving flowers and leaves. He had made a promise to Musha, to all of the puhlets, and he couldn't desert them now. All alone, he assisted nineteen females through the ordeal, many of which were in their first labor. Every young puka came out into his hand violet and shining, and exceptionally strong. In no time they were nursing, and running about all shining and naked.

While Far-Awn waited for the pukas to grow their yellow-green fuzz, he set about digging holes and planting seeds from the white star-flowers. Some he planted where they would receive full sunlight all day. Some seeds went into the ground where they would receive only partial sunlight, and still others he planted in the dim shade of the cave. A few he carried down into the deepest, darkest cavern he could find, and planted the seeds there. Instinctively he knew the plants would survive anywhere he put them--for hadn't he found them twice in the ultimate extremes of nature?

The pukas took on the yellow-green fuzz, but they were still too young to make the long journey back to the farmlands. Determined to use this time of waiting to the fullest advantage, Far-Awn experimented with the little plants that sprouted quickly from his agriculturing efforts.

He treated each bed of star-flowers differently. Some he gave a full draft of water each day, some only received a light sprinkling, others he deprived of any water at all. Some he lavished with water, enough to drown them. On a wall of the cave he chiseled the date.

Far-Awn's sleep was full of dreams: He saw the future, the way he would make it, the changes in their lives the star-flowers would bring about. He saw many things, but not all.

The Gods never reveal all, even to those they sometimes favor.

And when the pukas were well furred, with silvery smoke-blue, Far-Awn set out for home, trailed by Musha and his nineteen wives and twenty-one offspring. In that flock, Musha had seven new sons. Musha heard his master singing as he led the way. At the very end Musha guarded the rear, keeping a watchful eye out for warfars.

"Musha!" called back Far-Awn, "I'm keeping my word. You and yours are safe. Never again will puhlet meat be served at our tables. Though I find my family starving, they will eat of the flowers, and what they have produced. To you, I will raise a great monument in the heart of a huge city, and puhlets will be cared for with love and respect until they die a natural death."

Musha, far in the back of his wives and children, grunted deep in his throat.

A day's journey away, Baka and what remained of his family, sat in the sun, near death from the dim-despairs, from starvation. In deep lethargy, all still alive on the upper borderlands sat and waited. Some had their toes already buried in the earth, even in the sunlight. Food.
Oh, Gods of Green Mountain...have you forsaken us? Where are the puhlets, your gift to us for developing legs and moving ourselves out of the ground?

"What are you thinking?" asked Lee-La of her gaunt husband.

"Of ham," he said weakly, "of a roast hot from the oven. I would sell my soul for a slice of meat."

Book Two

El Dorraine

Prologue

A
fter El Sod-a-Por became known as El Dorraine, a way to record spoken words into written symbols was developed by a man named Sal-Lar. The genius of his discovery elevated him into the honored position of national historian. He could put his pen to paper in a grand and glorious way, swirling his letters with sweeping, flourishing loops that despaired the children of El Dorraine, who sat tediously in school struggling to imitate what came naturally easy to Sal-Lar.

Sal-Lar was still a boy when that most monumental and momentous storm struck from the ice lands of Bay Gar. How many died in the underground caverns was never known, for the population of the upper borderlands had never been counted. There were very few left alive when the people crept out of their holes, weak from hunger, and so caught in the dim-despairs that their limbs were almost too heavy to move. The dead were stacked like logs for burning in a remote dark and cold cave, awaiting the day the living had the strength to bury them.

Far-Awn Returns

B
aka, grown skeleton thin and facially gaunt, carried his single daughter, Bret-Lee, and laid her down in the sunlight. The ten-year-old girl had paled into tan, and brown was the color of death. Her deep purple eyes were faded and without luster. She couldn't speak, or move, though her toes curled constantly, restlessly seeking to bury themselves in the earth.

"She will die soon," said Lee-La as she knelt beside her husband and studied her daughter's face. "Perhaps it would be kinder to let her root herself into the ground than to keep her here in agony."

"Never!" shouted Baka defiantly, his voice grown small in comparison to the roar that had been his formerly. Already he had lost four sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandsons, and his flock of puhlets. (Two of his boys sent out to search for Far-Awn died on the day of that horrendous storm.) He turned bitterly on his wife. "Not one of us will root our toes! Hear that?"

Before dark, Bret-Lee was carried into the only house still standing. Tenderly Baka laid her down on her bed, and stood above her with tears in his eyes. He had never appreciated this girl; he had taken her for granted, like she would always be here to fetch and carry, to weave and spin, to clean and cook, and eventually to provide him with multitudes of grandchildren. The day of full sunlight had only tinged her sickly complexion with healthy green. Rough handling would break off a limb, or a finger, she was that brittle. Turning away, he went stiffly to a chair and carefully lowered himself down to the seat. All is hopeless...we are all too far gone...even the suns can't save us, ran the flow of his thoughts that he would never speak aloud.

He turned his head, once great and noble, and stared at his wife and what remained of his family, all sitting crouched on the floor, waiting for darkness, for the instant sleep that would take them into oblivion and out of the dreadful need for food in their rumbling stomachs.

It was then a faint scratching was heard on the trapdoor that covered the tunnel to their underground lodgings. The trapdoor was raised a cautious few inches, and a boy's face showed. "Baka Valente," began the boy Sal-Lar tentatively, "I have come to bring you very grave news."

"What other kind is there?" asked Baka sourly. "But come up and tell it, I have grown accustomed to somber news. Good news would shock me."

"Sir," began Sal-Lar very respectfully as he glanced at Bret-Lee lying so still on her bed. Deeper anxiety shadowed the boy's purple eyes. He looked again at Baka. "I risk my life to come and tell you this, but they are whispering in the caves against you. They say everyone is suffering because the Gods are angry with you alone--for you have defied them by refusing to move underground like all of us. They say the Gods want the top of the earth, and the sunlight only for themselves."

"They say? They say!" Baka snapped. "Who are
they?"

"Everybody," Sal-Lar replied meekly, "even my own grandfather--and all the elders. At this very moment they are in the council room, taking a ballot on whether or not to sacrifice you, and all your family."

This so sombered Baka, he forgot his weakness, his stiffness, and he jumped to his feet, then howled with the pain of his too quick action. "Have I not suffered too?" he shouted out angrily. "Have I not lost four sons, plus others--and take a look at my daughter! I have not gone unscathed! My family shared our food--we are as hungry and as desperate as any others!"

Sal-Lar hung his head and awkwardly shuffled his feet on the raw dirt floor. "They have many faults to find with you and yours. Not the least being your son Far-Awn, who ran off with the last puhlet flock alive--leaving us all to survive on tortar flesh--and you are responsible for Far-Awn's actions. They say Far-Awn should have been thrown into the abyss soon after birth. He is a freak who has brought the wrath of the Gods down on our heads, so that nothing will grow, can grow with the storms coming so often."

"So," said Baka with his eyes hard and bitter, "the cowards below send a boy to tell of their grievances. Why don't
they
come here, and look me in the eye, and tell me themselves?"