Ember of a New World

by Watson, Tom

  The mink had been struck in the head and neck leaving the remainder of the body intact. The body was still warm and would remain fresh long enough for Ember to cook. The body would need to be cleaned and some of the organs set aside for cooking. Ember was glad she still had her obsidian dagger. With the mink in one hand and an owl feather in the other, Ember strolled on sore feet down to the river’s edge.

  A short while later, Ember sat by a pile of drift wood and dried leaves briskly rubbing her hands together with a stick between them, forcing the stick in a downward motion. Ember was weak, and the stick was dropped several times before the first motes of puffy white smoke smoldered in the dry wood she had used as the base for the stick. Ember quickly applied dried leaves and blew. Within a few moments, she had a small fire of kindling and sticks. Ember carefully nursed the flame into a full cooking fire. She moved the mink near the fire to guard against scavengers and left for the woods to gather some wood and long grasses to construct a cooking frame and make a spit.

  By midday, Ember sat on the ground by the now raging fire with a full belly and oily fingers. She had fully skinned the mink and roasted it over the fire. She had originally intended to keep some of the meat, but she was simply too hungry. The mink meat, giving her strength, would do much to help her get more food. The organs had been carefully cleaned and cooked as well and provided Ember with much needed nutrition as well as some additional food in her stomach.

  Towards the evening, Ember decided she would discard the mink hide due to the difficulties of tanning it and the owl talon marks preventing scraping the hide effectively. Generally, a cleaned hide would be soaked for many days in clay pots with wood ash. This would have the effect of causing the hair and outer skin to more easily be removed from the pelt. Ember had spent long periods of time scraping hair from the skins of red-deer, hard work indeed! After the hair was gone, the skin would be soaked in a wooden tub made using the same techniques as a dugout boat. Water would be boiled in clay pots with tree bark to make a sort of dark “tea”. The resulting brownish water would soak the hide for as much as half of a season. During the soak the hide would be turned and the solution replaced often. Ember simply didn't have the time and the mink pelt would be too small to create anything of use for her.

  Mink was normally of use in making small, soft, and delicate leather goods. In fact, her breechcloth was probably made from mink, as many were, because of the softness of the leather. What she really needed was the hide from a larger animal like a deer. Sadly, Ember left the mink pelt and remains a short walk from her new camp where the owl might find a small meal later. Ember hoped that the owl spirits would not be too angered.

  That night, Ember sat with her feet by the fire letting the radiant heat heal them. Fire had always been useful for healing wounds. Ember didn't know why the flame cured people, but she knew that a cut would be less likely to become red and sore if it was held near a fire for a time. As the fire raged, Ember sang aloud a song to the fire spirits asking for their healing powers. Ember had not sung loudly in many days and the sound of her voice was somewhat distant to her. It took a long while to get into a rhythm, but eventually, Ember let loose a powerful healing song. She only hoped that the fire spirits heard her.

  That night she slept by a warm fire with her cleaned and pampered feet on the mend. The wind was cooler, and somehow Ember knew that the colder seasons were not so far off. The end of the warm season meant that the water in the river would be the warmest, but that soon she would have a real need for better clothing and protection. She would sleep with her clothing fully on, tonight. Hopefully, before the cold season fully set she would find her way west and conclude whatever foolish “destiny” there was for her.

  The more she thought about the whole ceremony, the more she wondered if the “sign” had not really been meant for another.

  Perhaps one of the boys? Ember again thought of the men who had taken her and how she truly felt about what had happened. The big man was beyond her compassion. As for the other two, she somewhat blamed Calpano, if that truly was his name, and she still would have killed the big man if she could have. Her trouble was with the younger man, Pak. He had seemed different from the others. Perhaps he was a flint in the rough, as the expression went. With thoughts of the ridiculousness of her journey in mind Ember slowly drifted off to sleep. As she slept, an owl circled overhead several times giving Ember a strange expression before settling by the mink body to feast on the remains.

  Chapter 8: The Others

  Humanity is often more goodly than it is cruel. This is a mechanism of humanity's social nature and a powerful evolutionary trait for any social species. The basic and intrinsic secular moralities found in social species exist because members of a social species who do not exhibit them tend to not perpetuate themselves as well as those who do. For this reason, most of the people Ember meets display various levels of basic morality. They understand the concepts of what is socially “good” and “bad”. Good and bad, beyond the most basic principles, exist as relative terms and are defined by each society and individual preference.

  Given this moral complexity, it is hard to condemn Pak for his part in Ember's capture. In the world in which both Ember and Pak grew up, a woman was not trained in what skills were needed to live in the wilds, a place fearful to most people. Pak may have seen Ember as needing his protection. Capturing her provided that protection and possibly an eventual resolution of what had brought her to the midst of the wilds. Her capture may have been a return to the norm, and a reconstitution of Pak's natural order, or so Pak may have supposed. It might even be true that he fully intended to save her in some fashion.

  It is always easy to condemn actions of the past using current moral standards, and without having been faced with such a situation. In the end, humans are truly the product of their own ability to deal with their world and the limits they impose upon themselves. Perhaps Ember will one day come to understand this, perhaps not. If she ever does, she would become a goodly and powerful force, much like her father before her.

  For the next two days, Ember remained by the river at her new makeshift-camp, always vigilant and with a clear plan of what to do if the men came. She had planned a place to run and hide if attacked, and even placed traps as an extra step. Around the perimeter of her camp, she had dug little holes in the wet sand and placed upright-pointing sticks she had sharpened with her dagger. She covered these traps with the same leaves and grass which littered the shore. Stepping on one of these traps would impale a foot with the sharpened stick. Near the traps and the camp, she placed as many dried twigs as she could. If anyone approached they would possibly injure their feet gravely and certainly break many a twig in the process, alerting Ember.

  The traps were all she knew how to make. She had seen defensive traps crafted by people of her tribe, but she wasn't really into traps and trapping, and so she was forced to use the only methods she knew of. Ember was no hunter, or warrior, and she was not truly violent in nature, but she was starting to understand that she would have to take matters into her own hands if she wished to survive. Other animals were not bad or evil and yet they fought tooth and claw to stay alive. Ember was growing up in many ways.

  After a total of seven days since her escape, Ember decided to leave her camp and continue her travels North West along the river. Her feet had healed reasonably well from three full days of either resting or light walking. Ember had even fashioned a pair of reed “shoes”, but these had quickly worn away, though they had provided a full day of walking without the pain.

  Before she left, Ember removed the spikes and left them on the ground as a warning if the men were following and found her camp. She was starting to suspect they were not following her, or at least that they were far away from her now. Revealing one of her traps might be a poor idea, but leaving a warning to the men would possibly deter them entirely. More importantly, Ember didn't want to risk that animals or other people might fall victim to the traps long aft
er she was gone.

  Ember walked for a long while through warm sunlight reflecting upon her recent encounters. She had truly lived an adventure beyond anyone of her tribe, and yet she had still not finished her journey. Ember was starting to have serious concern over the mental state of Morning Dew when she had given Ember her task. Why did a falling star have anything to do with her? Couldn't lightning, falling stars, or other such events occur randomly, and at the moment of some great speech or event? Why did a sign actually have to be a sign, or specify her? Ember often threw rocks at the water and other strange acts of fun when she was board. Couldn't the Gods just be bored, throwing their own sort of “rocks”? Why couldn't the Gods also have a sense of humor? Reflecting on her trip so far, perhaps they did and a dark one indeed. She did not even know how far she was from her goal! She walked along the deer trails near the river deep in her thoughts but always far enough away from the river that she wouldn't bump into anyone walking along the banks. Ember wouldn't soon find herself at anyone's mercy.

  Sometime near the setting of the sun that same day, Ember heard the sounds of laughing and talking. The sounds had the unmistakable tone and cadence of females, though the language was foreign to her. Ember dropped low and stayed close to the tree-line as she approached the river bank from which the sounds emanated. There had been no evidence of women, or anyone, traveling with the three men she had just escaped from, and women were never generally far from a camp with men...

  “Well that is not always true, is it Ember...” she said, more to hear herself speak than for any other reason, laughing ironically. Ember was not far from the river and quickly made her way to the bushes and bramble just before the river bank. She kept low, concealing herself behind a large tree-trunk and gently pushing the branches of a small bush aside to have a better look at the scene by the river. Her obsidian dagger was in her hand as she kneeled. The feel of the handle in her hand brought a since of security and control over her environment.

  Before her, at least eight women stood waist deep in the river water holding small spears to catch fish. The scene was quite familiar to Ember; she could easily have been one of these women, spending long days fishing and gathering reeds and shellfish in the river before it became too cold. Each of the women wore reed skirts, common to those who worked in water. Leather simply couldn't handle the water without smelling badly and disintegrating. Their upper bodies were bare but adorned with beaded necklaces and feathers. It was normal for women from Ember's tribe, and most of the tribes she had heard of, to remove their upper clothing on extremely hot days, but never the bottom, unless swimming. Even though this day was quite warm, it wasn't really quite warm enough for such measures. Tunics and shirts would be put on soon enough, given that the unseasonably warm weather couldn't last much longer.

  They must find it warmer than me. Very strange..., she thought.

  Each of the women wore black lines across their faces from ear to ear crossing their eyes, like a mask. Each line was a finger thick, which made sense as they looked like the women applied them casually with their hands. This was apparently a tribal marking and probably made of soot, judging by the way it had run down some of their faces from the splashing water. Ember noticed that the youngest woman was barely of adult age, but not more than a season younger than Ember and the oldest was perhaps ten harvests older than she. This confused Ember. If this were a normal tribe, where were the old women? There were also no children; very odd for a village, as well. Ember continued to stare at the women trying to learn their secrets.

  On the beach, there were small wooden frames setup to hang caught fish. During the cold season, fish were generally dried from such racks using salt and smoke, or even flash freezing when cold enough, but this was not a good idea for the warm season, especially this unexpectedly hot season. As she sat watching the women working, Ember soon recognized this gathering for what it was: a small hunting and gathering group from a tribe elsewhere. Such groups were common place in the warm seasons. Groups of perhaps a dozen or so men and women would journey for a ten-day or more from where they lived to create remote outposts where rare materials could be obtained via trade, harvest, or labor. Fish, common throughout most of the rivers which crossed the lands, were not a reason for an outpost or encampment of any size. Ember wondered what the actual reason for these people was. She decided the sneak closer and observe the women. Perhaps she could join with them for a time and evade the men who might still be following her. Before she would reveal herself, she would ensure that these were good people who wouldn't see Ember as a threat or resource for exploitation.

  Ember crawled on her hands and knees from bush to bush slowly approaching the laughing women. She noted that her arms and legs, though slightly tanned, stood out from the brush too easily. Worse, the black paint she had applied many days ago had long worn off. Ember decided she would need some mud to aid her in her spying. Mud could shield her from a skin burn and also make her harder to see as she crept closer to the women for a better look. Ember found several muddy patches in the ground as she crawled closer to the women. She smeared the cool mud on her bare arms, face and legs. Ember hoped she wouldn't be caught with the mud all over her, creeping around in the bushes as she was. It simply would not do. She imagined herself being caught, and what she would say sitting in a bush covered in mud.

  It's not what it looks like! I swear, she mused.

  Now resembling a woman-shaped bush, Ember moved closer and got a better look. The women were definitely fishing for small fish and doing a good job of it too. Every short while one of them would announce a catch and deposit the fish in a pile by the bank with a toss from her spear.

  At that rate you will eat all of the fish in the river before you return to your own lands, her mind tried to conjecture, but she might have just been a bit jealous of their skill. All eight women were laughing and talking as Ember finally got close enough for a good peak. Ember was hiding behind a large berry bush barely ten lengths of a man away, casually chewing on a berry as she listened and observed.

  The women were darker than Ember with very tan skin and thin facial features. Most of them had light eye coloring, predominantly blue and hazel, with blonde to nearly white hair, though a few had dark hair. One of the women on the river bank sported red hair, though lighter than Ember's.

  Ah, they came to our lands to get a tan, and it looks like it worked! she laughed in her mind. Ember felt her old jokingly-silly personality returning a little. She was glad to have her sense of humor back. It felt to Ember that the act of being near these people was restoring a little bit of what made her who she was. She wanted to stand up and rush to the women and say “Hello”, but she was fearful of the results. No, she would have to wait and see what more could be learned.

  The women were laughing and talking in a matter-of-fact way to each other. Every now and then one would wave her hand dismissively at the others and then laughing would ensue. Though she didn't understand their words, the talk was the same as the women in her village. The thought made Ember smile and feel her first sense of calm in a while. Their language was slightly guttural and had no words which Ember immediately recognized, aside from a few similarities in some of the word sounds. When a woman threw a fish she might say, "eh-kappa-pashka", which sounded something like the words "I have one" sounded in Ember's language, but aside from a few such incidents, Ember could not hope to learn their language in a few moments of watching them, or even in a ten-day, she supposed. Learning the words of another people was common enough when traders came, but never to any exceptional detail. Most people understood the trade language, a common set of words which traders used. Perhaps she would try the trade language if she spoke to one of these people.

  Ember watched as a man came down to the shore with his right hand held high, and yelling a greeting, Ember guessed, at the women.

  "Essa-oog-herr!" he yelled, to which the women all repeated back with several variations. The man had shoulder length light brown hair
and what looked like nearly gray eyes. He seemed to have seen at least twenty seasons and wore a long leather apron covered in mud, but with a familiar gold sparkle to it. His body was otherwise covered with dirt and the same golden colored sparkles as the apron. Ember watched as the man stepped towards the water and removed his clothing as the women giggled and teased. He laughed at them and dove into the water scaring the fish away. This caused many of the women to yell unflattering things at the man. Ember didn't need to understand the language to understand their angry intents.

  The golden speckles answered the question of what the people were here for. These people were gathering the heavy yellow stones that traders sometimes valued. The rock was useless as a tool as it was too soft, but that same softness made it exceptional for jewelry. Such jewelry was extremely rare and normally only came from the southern and far eastern traders. Ember's people had found a few handfuls of the rocks in her lifetime, and many of the rocks had been ground for use in medicines or traded for plant fiber cloth, a particularly expensive material. As useful as the yellow colored stone was, there could be more important things to obtain, such as flint or animal furs. Ember hoped they were after more than just that stone. Ember felt an odd sense of adventure as she watched the people. She felt like some sort of sneaky fox as she moved closer, very close, for an even better look.