"You were a little hard on that young female, weren't you?” Wudrick admonished the caretender as he helped carry Tyter to Bourg's room.
CB didn't answer. He couldn't explain his inconsistent, insensitive behavior. Now, that his young patient was recovering, he just hoped everything would return to normal.
CB was either an optimist or a fool - or, perhaps, like any of us, a little bit of both - if not by happenstance, then, perhaps, by choice.
Chapter 14
A sporadic series of tremors continued to shake the little town of Nuttinnew all the next day, causing the rather large crack in the earth to enlarge into what was ominously referred to as The Great Gorge.
Although there were no rains, the snow, which had all nearly all melted away by noon, refreshed the ground and fooled the veget plants into responding as if spring, still months away, had already come. Their stalks became pliable, once again, as the life-giving fluid rushed up their shafts, filling their cells. All along the rejuvenated stalks, infant branches extended in every direction like the rays of the sun. From these, bright lime-colored leaves unfurled, heralding the false advent of a new spring. While, at the very tips of each branch, cradled in pods, buds of encapsulated puffs began their progenic journey. However, the burning midday sun, eventually, betrayed the deception and the un-replenished earth, once again turned brittle under its scorching rays.
For the better part of two days, the eastern constructors worked on making pallets from veget stalks which were strapped together in short, flat bundles, then attached together end to end. Eventually, the resulting platform extended from the edge of the Great Gorge to the smooth stones of the well wall. It was a rather ingenious endeavor, if not totally ill-conceived.
At the break of dawn, Pentalope saw to it that the people of the west were all gathered along the western edge of the gorge, where they engaged in a coordinated effort of political spontaneity, viciously mocking their eastern counterparts. After all, Mayor Pentalope had ordered them to fill every cup and bucket with the cold, white fluff. So, when it melted into a liquid which was virtually indistinguishable from water, each huthold soon had an abundance, well over their regular rationed amount. And with the rains coming any day, there seemed to be little immediate need for the well water.
Even the constructors of the east had worked rather half-heartedly on the intended well platform, for they, too, had discovered the mystery of the melted snow. If it hadn’t been for Loden's insistence and his rebel's coercion, they, like the westerners, would gladly have sat back and reaped the benefit of their harvest of melted snow. As it was, it was especially difficult to keep them concentrating on the task at hand, especially after the platform accident.
With each successive tremor, the ground had pulled further and further away from the well shaft. Soon, the Great Gorge extended northward half way to Center House and equal distance to the south. With each quake the eastern constructor’s platform was extended to cover the expanse. In no time, it was spanning a distance for which it was no longer suitable, for it was yielding under its own weight. Hurriedly constructed braces and supports were added, but still the structure bent and creaked over the deep, dark crevice below. Eventually, no one was willing to risk their lives climbing out to its dipping, swaying end.
Eventually, a couple of apprentice crafters were coerced into taking on the dangerous task. Although they worked quickly, their inexperience and carelessness, lead to a series of mistakes, causing the southern supports to break free. The tip of the platform, like the releasing of a bent branch, snapped upward, catapulting the “volunteers” high into the air. Upon reaching their apex, they plummeted earthward, disappearing into the mysterious dark depth of the gorge. Their chilling screams could be heard long after their writhing bodies with their flapping appendages disappeared into the dark, dense fog that hovered just forty stones below the surface.
This mishap did not instill in others the courage to volunteer, coerced or not. Especially since it was obvious the design of their makeshift platform wasn’t suitable for the current long stretch to the well’s rim. They needed something much sturdier, and extendable. Especially if The Great Gorge should widen even further.
What they needed was a bridge, the Hooded One informed them. And fortunately, there was one male in Nuttinnew who knew something about bridge building. To their consternation it was the mayor's bumbling husband, Wudrick Pulpitt. A male not highly esteemed among his peers.
***** ***** *****
"Report!" Loden barked. Joudlier snapped his heels together, extended his thumb and forefinger to shape the letter "L". Then he briskly raised his hand to his face, placing his extended thumb against his temple. It was a salute to honor Loden as the rebel leader. Dampy had started the gesture, and Joudlier and the other rebels were gradually beginning to use it as a signal of greeting to fellow rebels.
To most easterners, not committed to the rebellion, it looked a bit foolish, especially when everyone would stop whatever they were doing so that everyone could salute and return salutes to everyone else. It was, in fact, quite a comical sight to behold. However, the children loved it and soon it began to spread rapidly from huthold to huthold until, soon, every father began to consider it a sign of disrespect if his youngster didn’t reply with a snappy salute when told to do some menial chore around the hut.
Loden wished this salute business had never started as he stood staring at Joudlier, knowing that the male was waiting for him to return the honor. Loden raised his flush hand in the vicinity of his head and gave a half-hearted response.
It was enough for Joudlier who quickly released his own salute and reported. “Crack’s only three reeds from the porch. Mayor’s staying put."
This didn’t surprise Loden. Joudlier paused to give his leader time to reflect, then went on with his report. "Having a bunch of meetings...." With this, Joudlier broke into a spontaneous smile, "... on the western side. Won’t come to the east side. During a meeting, another shake could rip Center House in two. Don’t want to be stuck on the east, I suppose."
Loden, too, smiled. Somewhere, from behind Joudlier, he could hear Dampy's muffled laughter. "Of course, anyone caught right in the middle would surely end up in the gorge. It seems, even undying devotion has its practical limits,” Loden mused aloud.
Joudlier regained a more serious demure and continued. "They want to make their own bridge. Been a bit careless with their melted snow. About used it up - already.”
Loden took advantage of Joudlier's pause to look into the shadowed corner of the room. It was vacant, as it had been for the past two days. Still, Loden's eyes stared into the darkness as if asking important questions which could mean the very survival of the people of the east.
Joudlier became uncomfortable with Loden's distraction in the empty corner. He knew his leader put much faith in the odd, little, hooded fellow - too much faith, he reckoned. But then Joudlier both envied and despised the faceless creature, so he was hardly an impartial judge.
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"Have you found anything, yet?" Sollie asked with an urgent whisper as she popped her head through the opening which led to the secret room at the top of the Center House staircase.
"Shush!" Wudrick chastened and motioned for her to enter through the passage quickly.
"Oh, don't worry. Your wife is totally engaged in the torturing of her pitiful seamstress. The latter's muffled whimpers are loud enough to cover any sounds I, the shadow of the secret chambers, could possibly make, even if I were trying to make noise."
The bitter sarcasm in Sollie's voice irritated Wudrick. He knew of her covert activities, sneaking around where she didn’t belong, prying into the unsuspecting lives of her fellow Nuttinnewians, spying on even their most intimate moments. He didn’t approve of such activities unless, of course, they were for scientific purposes, which Sollie’s were not, as far as he could tell.
Wudrick peered down the long hall as he grabbed the secret panel to replace it after So
llie entered. He could hear his wife's snarl, "Beg me!” Then, he could hear a muffled response. "No! No! Oh! Oh! Oh, yes! Yes!" He quickly replaced the panel. He’d heard those same sounds and even worse horrors, since he’d returned to Center House. He could hardly bear to come out of the placidity of his hiding place. Luckily, Pentalope had taken to totally ignoring him. She had a new playmate and didn’t need him to humiliate anymore.
Wudrick was so disgusted with her increasingly truculent behavior, he knew that, just as he no longer loved her, he now, no longer pitied her. Whatever circumstances had brought her to this wickedness, it would take a theologian, not a scientist, to discern whether she controlled it or it controlled her.
When he turned, Sollie attacked him. Throwing her arms about his short, thick neck, she began peppering his large, round face with kisses. It tickled him. It excited him. He embraced her, hugged her, hard, then released his grip and gently pushed her away. However, she was unyielding and they remained conjoined by their compelling passions.
Finally, the scientist overpowered his physical predilection. "I think I know how to build a sturdy expanse to the well,” he panted in her ear.
Sollie pushed herself back to arms length and stared at Wudrick. Her hands gripped him on the shoulders, squeezing them. "Really? That's great! The Hooded One must get that information to Loden - immediately. Those idiots have been working on that platform for two days now and all they’ve managed to do is get two young males killed. Have I ever told you how incredibly amazing you are? When the revolution is finally won, you’ll have been the true architect of its success. A real hero." Her eyes filled with tears of inspiration as she stared into the confusion in his eyes.
"I'm no hero, whatever that is. I want nothing to do with this crazy rebellion. I'm just a scientist. If something I discover helps to make everyone's life better, then I feel it is my responsib...."
Sollie dove at him, rolling him over backwards. Yanking his pullover up over his rotund stomach, she kissed and caressed every inch of his pale, exposed flesh. For the next half hour, or so, both science and the revolution were held at bay.
***** ***** *****
In the room down the hall, Pentalope torturously twisted a tender portion of Fleetra's flesh. When she didn’t receive the desired acknowledgment of pain or pleasure, she tore her hand away leaving a rough, red abrasion. Disappointed and disgusted, she untied one of Fleetra's hands. "What good are you to me, if your body so easily numbs to the pain I take so much pleasure in inflicting? Untie yourself! Then, go wash off your body. You're a mess - and clean these cot coverings, too. Really, Fleetra, you should have better control over your bodily functions." Pentalope turned and spun out the room, closing the door behind her.
Fleetra sighed with relief when she heard the door close. At the same time the sensitivity of the nerve endings in her body came back to life, causing her to emit a long, uncontrollable, painful groan. Then, she heard a loud chuckle just outside the door. She had pleased Pentalope after all.
Sitting up on the cot, she felt sticky all over. There were places on her body that burned. Others that throbbed. Perusing the wounds she could see, she was glad there was no blood, this time. "Pentalope must be slipping,” Fleetra mused, sarcastically. At first it troubled Fleetra that for the past two days she had found pleasure in receiving such harsh physical abuse. Lately, however, she neither found pleasure nor pain in it. She had gradually faded into oblivion. Mentally, she was slowly crossing the desert, over the vast rolling hills of life and into the place where the beast-male, Bourg had so cruelly dispatched Mardrith.
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"Osgrove! Osgrove! Wait up, dearest. I - I can't keep up with you. Are you sure it’s just over this next row of hills? Oh, they all look just alike! Are you sure we haven’t climbed over this one already? Osgrove?" Brindolin Hope, Brindle's mother cried.
"Of course, I'm not sure! I've been wrong seven times already, haven’t I - or was it eight? Who's counting? Are you counting? Why can't you keep up? Come along!" Osgrove Hope barked as he began the slippery trek up the gentle slope of yet another sandy dune.
"But this sack of pieces is too heavy. I'll just stay right here and rest. You go on dear. I’ll be okay. I - just need to - to rest." Brindolin fell backwards as the weight of the pieces and the heat of the pre-noon sun boiled away her last drop of strength.
Osgrove didn't stop to look back. He was determined to see whether or not their Nuttinnew lay just over the hilltop. Gripping his sack of pieces even tighter, he trudged forward with a singular purpose. He hadn’t noticed that each sandy hill they came to was slightly steeper than the last. With the sun directly overhead, he had no idea which way Nuttinnew might lie. Besides, he had absolutely no sense of direction. He never needed one. In the little town you were either east of the well or west of it, and Center House told you which way was north. What more did a person need? Even then, he had only ventured west of the well three times in his entire life and found even that to be quite an ordeal. But that all seemed so long ago as he pushed himself forward with a curse on his parched lips.
"Whoa! What’s this?” He gasped, staring across a wide ravine at a red-backed creature scurrying along on its four legs (two blue, two beige) up the steep slope of the biggest hill he could have ever imagined existed.
At first Osgrove thought it was just another illusion. He had experienced so many since he and his wife began wandering about this strange earth which defied normality, with its unceasing propensity toward up and down angles over horizontal plains. It was where they ultimately wound up after being swooped up by a gigantic, swirling cloud, spun around and around, then ejected high into the air, where, by gravity’s insistence, they returned to fall safely to the earth with a thud.
Fortunately, they were disembarked on loose sand at the edge of a shallow cleft. The former provided them with a miraculously safe landing, while the latter furnished protection from the sun’s heat, and by the grace of Fate, an adequate supply of liquid refreshment via little slimy creatures that dwelled therein and remarkably consisted totally of water.
The desire to live will allow people to do the strangest things. By the morning of the second day, however, they had consumed all the little, liquid creatures and decided they had better set out to return to Nuttinnew, a task for which they proved ill-suited.
“What is it dear? Is it Nuttinnew?” Brindolin called as she struggled to pull her sack of pieces to the ledge upon which her husband stood.
“Some kind of creature.”
“Creature? Oh my, what sort of creature? Where?” she moaned as she struggled up behind him.
“There!”
“Well don’t let it get away. I’m so hungry, I could eat a creature whole.”
“I think that’s just what this creature did. It’s all red on top. Like its covered with....”
“Hm, if that’s a creature, it’s a human creature.”
“Human, but I saw it crawling along on all four legs, right up that far slope.”
“Oh, Osgrove, you know you can’t see anything clearly if it’s out of arms reach. I tell you, whatever it is, it’s human. That means it’s got food. Oh look, it’s leaving. Call to it! Call it back, Osgrove!”
“Why? So we can be its next meal?”
“Oh, for the love of Veget. Hello! Hello, there, kind sir, could you help, ugh...?”
“Hush female! It’ll hear you.” Osgrove clapped his hand over her mouth.
“I want it to hear me. I’m hungry! If I can’t eat, then I’d rather be eaten, and put out of my misery!” she cried after slapping his hand away.
“I’ll put you out of your misery, you silly female!” And with that, Osgrove pulled back his sack of pieces and swung it around, just missing Brindolin’s head, but not his own. Winding around his head like a tether, the impact of the blow knocked him off balance. For a brief moment he teetered at the edge of the ridge, then tilted away from his wife’s reaching arms and disappeared from view. By the
time Brindolin reached the edge and looked down, no sign of Osgrove could be seen.
Brindolin sat on the edge of the ledge clutching her sack of pieces as if it were a newborn child. “Just you and me now baby. Just you and me now,” she repeated over and over until she no longer had the life within her to say anything at all.
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"Psst!" The hissing seemed to come through the sleeping room window. Tyter perked up his ears to it, then decided it was nothing. "Psst!" came the sound again. This time Tyter’s body tensed as he suspiciously turned his head, and, peering through the darkness, surveyed the room. Seeing nothing out of the ordinary, he turned his attention through the sleeping room window. Given the barely star-studded sky, he guessed that night had just fallen.
He closed his eyes to go back to sleep, but he was all out of sleep. It was all he’d been doing since his return to consciousness. What else can you do when the caretender keeps giving you some sort of potion that makes your head feel like it’s floating two rods above your shoulders?
Earlier that afternoon Tyter fooled the caretender by not swallowing the sleeping potion. Now, lying there in a dark room, wide awake, hearing hissing sounds which were starting to scare him right out of his wits, he wished he hadn’t been so clever.
"Thyda, du ewuk?”
Tyter stared back toward the darkened window. At first, he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary, but then his eyes gradually focused in on a half arch of moonlight beaming off a head of oily, blond hair.
"Who - who's there?" he inquired in a thinly drawn voice which almost squeaked.
"Es meh, Bwindle," came the reply.
"Bondel? Bondel, who?" Tyter asked, pinching himself to see if he wasn’t really just dreaming. “Ow!”
Pieces: Book One, The Rending Page 47