"Nah, Bendal, Bwindle!" the gentle voice was tweaked with irritation.
"Oh, Bwindle." Tyter responded, not desiring to agitate the stranger any more than he already had.
"Kohs ehnuff," the stranger sounded satisfied with Tyter's second attempt.
"Bwindle? Who is Bwindle?’ Then it struck him, “The foul-mouthed one of the east," Tyter thought. "Brindle!" he exclaimed.
"Shash, waneh wehk ZB?"
"What are you doing outside my window? What’s happened to me? Where's Bourg? The caretender won’t tell me anything. He just keeps giving me more of that yucky tasting stuff that puts me to sleep. Am I to be the only one in Nuttinnew who doesn’t know what’s going on?" There were tears in Tyter's voice, as he fumbled in the dark to kneel on his cot in order to look out through the window.
Brindle had pulled back from the window slightly and her full face glowed in the moonlight. She looked so pretty, so radiant, Tyter felt like he had swallowed his heart. The urgent thoughts that had filled his head vanished as all the impulses of a young adolescent in love for the very first time overwhelmed his entire being.
"Look!" he continued, as his fingers dug around in a small pocket located just over the tie in his pullover. Soon a smile filled his face and he withdrew his fingers. But immediately this smile turned to panic. "Oh, drat!" he swore, then dropped to all fours and began to frantically search among the cot coverings for the small object. Brindle stuck her head back inside the window.
"Wha oo du?" she asked, puzzled at Tyter's strange behavior. Maybe he really wasn't normal after all, she considered.
"Wouldn't you know it? When it’s dark, the stupid thing refuses to show itself. Come on, give me a glow. Glow! You stupid ... ah ha! There you are!"
Brindle saw Tyter appear to clutch something in his hand, but she couldn't see what it was. She withdrew her head from the window, as he rose, holding his hand out towards her. Cautiously, she stared at the approaching closed fist. A warm, but eerie, glow seeped between his clutched fingers. It reminded her of the one emitted by the Gatekeeper’s Key.
"Look at this. It was stuck in my butt, right smack in the center of where that stupid piece I took out of the well burned me. The caretender says it’s what gave me the fever. He let me have it as a souvenir." Tyter slowly unfolded his fingers, revealing a small, slightly glowing chunk, which appeared to throb, as if it had its own heart beat.
Brindle’s mouth dropped open. She reached for it, but Tyter clamped his fist and pulled his hand away.
"Leb meh tauch, preez,” Brindle begged.
The pleading of her most frail female voice, ripped through his young male pride. How could Tyter refuse her gentle, heartfelt plea? He’d had a crush on her for so long. Sufficiently succumbed, he stretched his hand out to her and slowly opened his fingers. "Okay, but be careful. Just touch it. Don't take it!" he warned.
Brindle stuck out her index finger and moved toward it more swiftly this time. She didn't want Tyter to change his mind. As soon as her finger made contact, she felt her body transformed into something more than it had ever been before. "It's incredible!" she exclaimed in a hushed, worshipful tone. Closing her eyes, she inhaled deeply, savoring the breath. After a moment she opened them and saw that Tyter was staring at her with a most stupefied expression. "What?”
"I understood you. Brindle, you can talk."
"Yes, I know,” Brindle purred, still caressing the piece in Tyter's hand with her extended finger tip, and feeling deliciously warm all over.
Tyter watched her continue to caress the object as if it was something she had grown to be quite fond of, rather than something recently plucked from his behind. “It’s because of this chip from the piece isn't it?”
"Yes. That's how it was when I held the whole piece: the one that burned you; the one that saved you when it exploded."
"Exploded? What? How? Brindle, tell me everything - everything I missed.”
For someone who had never been able to utter an understandable word, Brindle turned out to be quite a storyteller. Every fiber of Tyter's body was bursting with excitement. His eyes had grown as big as veget bulbs. The life-fluid raced through his small body with terrific force. He was amazed. He was stunned. He was terrified. He was confused. He was everything a listener of a well-told tale should be. Even the fanciful part he was sure she had made up about a talking little summer breeze only added to the adventure. So much so that in his excitement his quivering knees could barely hold him upright, but he dared not collapse onto the cot, lest Brindle lose connection to the magical piecechip.
So Tyter persevered, and Brindle's tale went on as she leaned inside through the window and looked down upon him. There they both remained until Brindle had revealed to him all that she knew and all that she had heard, and then some. For as much as Tyter loved hearing the story, Brindle loved being able to tell it even that much more.
***** ***** *****
It had been three days since Bourg had trudged through the veget field behind Center House. He wondered if the female he was supposed to have killed was still alive. First there was the cold, then the heat. He had no idea how any human could survive such extremes without the usual amenities of civilization. Her clothes were surely filthy by now. One could only imagine how she must reek after three days without a bath. He wondered what she had been eating and drinking. For although he’d promised to bring her food everyday, the mayor had kept him confined to Center House. She didn’t give a reason. She didn’t have to.
The water he’d given Mardrith was only a day’s ration, maybe two, and, she would, undoubtedly be hungry - if she wasn’t dead. There was no way to eat unprocessed veget, as far as he knew. Few had ever tried to eat it raw. Of those that did, none survived to tell their grandchildren about it.
Unable to bear his guilt any longer, Bourg put together a parcel of food and water, then escaped the confines of Center House, racing as quickly as he could through the dry, crackling veget plants toward the clearing. Despite his haste, he figured he had sufficient time to accomplish his self-appointed task, for Pentalope had just begun her latest quest in the humiliation of her seamstress.
Over the past two days Bourg had heard more than he cared to of Pentalope's personal amusements. He had a feeling that today she was in an especially wicked mood. This, he figured, would give him ample time to seek out Mardrith. Although he had told her he would only leave the food out for her, he honestly hoped he would find her. However, search as he may, he couldn’t catch sight nor sound of her whereabouts. Even calling her name in a low, but substantial voice, produced no results.
Then, some twenty paces from where he’d last seen her, he spotted a piece of torn pullover which had snagged on the sharp point of a dried veget stalk. Looking about, he discovered another piece just to the north. He ran to it and again, still further to the north, he saw another piece. Together, these laid out a well marked path which guided him to the northernmost border of the Great Veget Field; to the place where the little town of Nuttinnew ended, and the vast perimeter of sandy, rolling hills began.
With the extreme glare of the bright sunlight reflecting off the white sand, Bourg was forced to search the landscape through squinted eyes. Even then all that he could see looked like everything else he saw. But then, as Fate would have it, he saw something different. Halfway up a sandy slope, there was a dark patch that looked much like the upper portion of a human body partially sticking out of the sand. He was sure it was the female. Who else could it have been? Instinctively, he took several tentative steps toward the slope, but paused and looked back, just to make sure the veget field was still in sight.
There was something eerie about venturing beyond the border of the field and Bourg wasn't sure what to expect. Some said that if you ventured out too far (which wasn’t very far at all) the whole town would just disappear from view. No matter how hard you tried, even if you retraced your steps exactly, you would never again be able to find it. Since no one who had ever left Nutt
innew had ever returned, the fable held merit.
With this in mind, a wiser Nuttinnewian would have turned right around, there and then, and given up the female for dead. But, even normal, Bourg was not necessarily a wise person.
Taking large steps, Bourg marched off toward the sandy slope of the hill which held the partially buried object. More than once he glanced over his shoulder and released a deep sigh of relief upon finding the veget field still in view. Sooner, perhaps than he might have hoped, he was at the foot of the hill, close enough to recognize that the object was, indeed, a pullover protruding through the sand. Squinting his eyes, he looked into the glare of the sun off the white, hot sand, and tried to get some glimpse of the female's flesh, but saw none.
“The sand must have swallowed her up and spit out her covering.” The very thought soured his stomach. Still, what else would explain what he was witnessing? He returned to the veget field straight away, lest it might yet vanish.
There was nothing he could do for her now. Despite the horror of it all, his guilt was overshadowed with a sense of relief. The oddling was dead just as the Lord Mayor had assumed. And although the sun and the sand had actually performed the gruesome task, her demise was due in part to his own negligence. So it was with a semi-clear conscience and sickened stomach that he stepped back into the veget field and headed south toward Center House.
Bourg was already deep into the field when a breeze blew across the very spot where he had been standing at the base of the hill, and whipped up the sandy slope to the partially revealed material. After blowing away the sand which held it down, the breeze blew beneath it, billowing the material and sending it sailing high into the air. Revealing that, although it was a Nuttinnewian pullover, it adorned no body, either dead or alive.
***** ***** *****
On the evening of the second day after the snow fall, the shelter that had protected Mardrith from the cold, now threatened to take her life. As her body was losing the struggle to keep the interior of the shelter warm, her mind engaged in its own struggle. A part of her wanted to just fall asleep and never wake up. But another part of her was afraid to fall asleep for fear of dreaming how her world had once been. So in the end, she fought to stay awake.
It was in the context of this life and death struggle that Mardrith passed her time beneath the leaves. She was only semi-aware that a night, a day and a night had passed as morning light on the tall veget stalks revealed the white fluff had mysteriously disappeared. Unfortunately, the cold hadn’t.
Tired, hungry and emotionally exhausted, Mardrith’s mind was persuaded into pursuing death over life. If only she wasn’t so cold and uncomfortable. Who could possibly die under such miserable conditions? To make matters worse, a breeze had come out of nowhere, relentlessly threatening to blow away her leaf covering, further exposing her to the cold.
The more she tried to keep herself covered, the more uncovered she became. Until, as if by purposeful intent, one last great blast sent every leaf of her shelter high into the air, scattering them about the clearing. With a rush of adrenaline filling her arteries, Mardrith sprang to her feet to recapture whatever she could of her shelter. But her legs were paralyzed with numbness, leaving her momentarily immobile. Unable to sustain herself upright, she collapsed backwards into the soft, white Nuttinnewian sand, and found herself staring up into a clear, pastel grey, sky.
Surprisingly, she felt somewhat warmer than she had since first being sheltered beneath the leaves, so she continued to lie where she had fallen until the morning grey melted into a bright blue. It was only then she realized that the shelter which had originally kept the cold out, had also kept the cold in. She might well have frozen to death on a bright, hot, Nuttinnewian day.
How odd that a random gust of wind should come along just in time to save her from such an abhorrent plight. For in truth, she had decided it was far better to die in the comfort of warmth than the vexation of cold.
By mid morning, as the sun rose over the tops of the tall veget stalks, Mardrith felt her physical strength return. With no particular place to go, she pushed herself slowly up from the ground and could feel her life-fluid pumping through her, as if someone had poured warm water into each limb. She was very much alive and now glad of it.
The time she had spent in her cold cocoon had given her much needed rest. Now, the warmth of the sun invigorated her. She had half a mind to return to Nuttinnew and rescue Fleetra from that evil female who had enslaved her. But then what? Where would they go? The mayor would never let them live in peace, not even in the east. She would hound them until they either left Nuttinnew of their own volition or were banished by a mock court. Either way she would only be rescuing Fleetra to a short life of starvation among the barren hills, and whatever lay beyond. She loved Fleetra too much for that.
So instead, she listened to the other half of her mind which fortified her to face the unknown alone.
Turning northward she made her way through row after row of tall veget stalks, each of which seemed determined to rip her pullover from her body piece by piece. Eventually she passed through the last row and found herself staring at the great white, rolling hills surrounding Nuttinnew. The very sight of them up close overwhelmed her senses. Never before had she seen anything so tall and magnificent.
Sucking in her breath for courage, she stepped forward, one foot after the other, until she began to ascend the foothill directly in front of her. Its sandy base proved softer than it appeared, making the climb up the ever steepening slope all the more difficult with each step.
The morning sun which had warmed her back to life earlier, now sat high in the sky, threatening to sap every ounce of energy from her body, as it mercilessly intensified its rays on her. Sweaty, hot, and worn out, she yanked at her sticky, sweat soaked pullover to yank it over her head and away from her steamy flesh. The veget material from which it was made had begun to rot during her two days in the damp shelter, and shredded with each pull, making the simple task of disrobing just one more frustrating ordeal.
Eventually, she managed to free herself from its clinging grasp and cast it to the ground. Panting, she stood over it as a victor might a vanquished foe. That’s when she first noticed the swirling sand at her feet. In no time at all her pullover was nearly covered over with the fine white granules, as were her feet. “Ack!” she screamed pulling up one foot, then the other, to free them from being buried like her pullover, but this obtrusive wind was as relentless as the first. As soon as one foot was planted, so the other could be raised, the planted foot was immediately blanketed by layers of sand.
It didn’t take much of this for Mardrith to decide that being buried alive under the warm sand was not necessarily a more pleasant way to die than shivering to death in the cold. It was all Mardrith could do to jump, hop and dance her way back down the hill slope to the edge of the veget field. As soon as she did, the tormenting wind ceased its attack, and not a grain of sand shifted from where it lay: it was as if, the spirit of the hill had driven her back - back to Nuttinnew.
Yielding to the will of the wind, Mardrith turned southward and made her way through the veget field, past the clearing to the southern edge just behind Center House. Hiding behind the last row of plants she watched as several males passed by. They appeared to be circling the house, guarding it from intruders, she assumed, which was exactly what she planned to be, if only she could find the hole in the earth through which she had exited on her escape. But hard as she tried, she couldn’t remember exactly where she had surfaced. Nowhere was there a sign of a secret passage entrance, which of course is why it remained a secret.
When the male guards disappeared around the western corner of the building, Mardrith decided if she couldn’t sneak back into Center House through the underground passageway, she’d just have to use more conventional means - like the back door.
“Humph! Some guards they are,” she mused as she stepped out into the clearing and walked casually toward the back door porch.
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“Just let one of them try to get by us!” exclaimed a boisterous male voice led by an elongated shadow at the eastern corner of the house.
Being exposed in the open, Mardrith turned to run back among the cover of the plants, but realized it was too late not to be seen. They would come after her and if they found her, they would surely want to know who she was and why she was naked. She could lie about the “who”, but the why was going to be a bit trickier. No doubt she would ultimately be taken to Pentalope, who would expose her ruse and make sure her wellkeeper beast slew her right this time.
Turning back towards Center House, she could only see one possible place to hide - between the back wall and the porch paneling which enclosed the area beneath the steps. Springing out on her two strong legs, she dashed, like a leaf on the wind toward them at an incredible speed which surprised even her. Diving into the sand, she half slid, half crawled her way into the corner where the vertically mounted, porch paneling boards met the outer wall. Panting heavily she listened to the approaching voices.
“What was that?” one asked.
“What was what?” asked the other, sounding more annoyed than curious.
“I don’t know,” replied the first.
“Did you see someone?”
“No, just heard it.”
“Well, what did it sound like?”
“I don’t know like - like sand.”
“Sand?”
“More like something sliding through sand.”
“Sliding? Hm, could be one of those eastern rebel spies. Veget, if we could catch us one, the mayor would probably put us in charge of her - her - what did she call them other fellows?”
“Keepers of the Pieces.”
“No that’s not it. Keepers, pieces, pieces, keepers. Piecekeepers. That’s it. Now, that would beat the blast out of what we’re doing. Come on! Let’s catch us a rebel. But be careful - could be a trap.”
Mardrith could hear the shuffled sand of their footsteps as they cautiously approached. It wouldn’t be long before they passed by the porch steps and saw her. She didn’t know what they’d do to her when they caught her - beat her with their sticks? Probably. Molest her - worse? She was naked after all and she couldn’t imagine anyone coming to her rescue, especially when she was sure Pentalope would whole-heartedly approve of her abuse. Of course, no matter what they did to her, she would eventually be turned over alive to the mayor. She could only imagine what would lay in store for her then. It wasn’t a thought she relished.
Pieces: Book One, The Rending Page 48