Yngve, AR - Darc Ages

by Darc Ages (lit)

  Darc grabbed the word "different" in his mind, and hurled it back at the crowd.

  "Yes - I am different! All humans are different from one another! That's why all humans are Lepers!"

  The leader was seized by a new, unfamiliar sensation - he could not name it, which made him afraid.

  He pointed his claw-like hand menacingly at the white-haired stranger, and boomed: "Who do you think you are, to talk like that?"

  Darc grinned at him, surprising even himself with his boldness: "Who are you , my good man?"

  "I am Claw , chief of the Southern Eksako tribe. Who are you? Where do you come from?"

  "I am David Archibald, also called Darc . I am from England , from another time. I have come from the past, from 900 years before this time!"

  Claw shook his head; surely this outcast had spent too many hours in the sun.

  "You are crazy, that's what! You cannot prove anything you say!"

  "Yes I can! I can show you how little difference there is between you... and the people of the cities!"

  "How?" a voice in the crowd asked.

  Darc hesitated, almost too long - a hesitation that might have ruined everything - and blurted out:

  Gasps of astonishment came from the Leper tribe. They had expected desperate pleas for mercy, offerings of ransom they would have taken anyway - but never, ever the promise of salvation. They stared at the white-haired stranger, then at each other, then at their leader. They did not know what to do.

  Claw, a bright man hardened by a brutal life, felt a sting of pain in his heart. Deep inside, he wished to be healthy as much as any man, woman, or child of his tribe.

  All his life, his sore eye and deformed teeth had given him constant pains, ruined his sleep and given him the look and sound of a mean-spirited, glaring brute. He had lost many deformed children, and some wives, to the Plague - lost more than he wanted to remember.

  Instinctively, Claw hated Darc for torturing him with false hopes. Who had ever heard of a cure for the Plague? His people had always been born deformed, and would always be. It was the punishment of the Goddess, for betraying her and the Singing King.

  Stirred by feelings of guilt and hope, Claw slurred ominously: "You say you are from the Golden Age, stranger. If you lie, you will be infected with the Plague, and truly become a Leper. But if you convince me of who you are, I shall let you live. So speak. Tell us all about the Golden Age, and how you got here. We have all the time in the world!"

  On Claw's command, his people sat down; this group appeared to have healthy legs, at least. A few protests came from the younger warriors. The man with no eyes or lower jaw gibbered confusedly, asking what was going on. The eye in a man's palm blinked repeatedly at Darc and Shara, as if suspicious of them.

  Claw's favorite wife leaned close to the chieftain and said softly in his ear: "That man is a fool, just another madman. Let him go, but do not listen to his crazy talk. It would only serve to make us unhappy."

  He met her hard gaze with his healthy eye. She had an undistorted, adult face - almost painfully beautiful compared to the other women's features - but she also had a second face on her back, which used to mutter while she slept.

  This woman's name was Double-Mouth , and sometimes the mutterings of her second face frightened Claw.

  "I gave him my word," he replied.

  Claw turned away from Double-Mouth and sat on a rock, facing Darc again. He gestured impatiently at the stranger to begin. Darc scratched his head. Here we go again, he thought. Better take it nice and slow, and repeat myself often so they get the words right. All the way from the beginning. These are simple people. Ought to have music too. Like the old Greek storytellers...

  He sat down and clutched the shivering Shara, who clung to him like a wide-eyed baby.

  Looking at his frightening but curiously attentive audience, Darc spoke: "I said I am from the past, and that is the truth. I am Darc, and this is the true story of who I am, where I came from, and how I got here. Think back in time, nine hundred long years... before the wars... before the Eternal Ice. Think of the Golden Age, the first time of the Goddess and the Singing King. I was born then, and I heard the King's songs from when I was a child.

  "I can still recall many of his songs, as I heard them..."

  Chapter 25

  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 also 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 repeated prayers to Kristos, over and over.

  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 their 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 underneath 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 turne
d eerier and more grotesque than in broad daylight. He began to whistle 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 brick-houses, built into the sides and shelves of the vertical cliff faces.

  The ends of the canyon faced the respective directions of dawn and sunset. This alloed for limited cultivation of the canyon floor. The party walked past lines of cornstalks; at a closer look, Darc noticed that the little corn-seeds 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 levels, 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 his shoulder and sat down in a sling, holding her in his lap.

  From high above men slowly hauled a net loaded with 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 down on the canyon floor, and the men hauled it up empty.

  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 highest 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 touch, 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 nervousness, 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. Claw's healthy eye remained watchful, and his voice calm. Darc understood that this man was much smarter than he looked - the visitor was being tested.

  "If you wish to know," Darc said carefully, "I am afraid... because I have never been to 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 harmed during our stay. I must learn everything about you, before I can create a proper cure."

  Claw finished his meal, and wiped his mouth. With a fine cloth, he washed his bloated right eye clean. Before he pulled the large, folded 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. Instantly, his arousal shrank away.

  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 noises.

  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 chamber. With trance-like, 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.

  Chapter 26

  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 one. 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 objects 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.