Hardt's Tale: A Mobious' Quest Novel

by Gwendolyn Druyor

  Only then did the bloody hunter give in to her exhaustion and fall unconscious into the old men’s arms.

  Two

  ∞

  “Mobious!”

  Sheaves of skins and wood and paper were piled up around Mobious in the small Vize’s Bower. A variety of nut shells were strewn about virtually every surface and stuck to the side of his face as Mobious started awake at the sound of his name. A small pile of woven clothing was matted on the ground where he’d spilled and tried to mop up an entire pitcher of water earlier that morning and flexing his right hand inside the wide shirt ties he’d hastily wrapped it in he felt a fresh sting from the slice he’d given himself picking up the pieces of the pitcher. There was no food on the sleeping platform which was the only clean and uncluttered space in the bower so Hardt hadn’t visited yet which meant it was before high sun.

  Mobious blinked against the fugue in his brain and refocused on the small painting he’d been dozing on.

  “Mobious!” Hardt’s voice called again from far off to the west. This time the boy leaped up and ran out to answer him.

  The harsh winter had taken a heavy toll on the vizet. Food had been scarce for all eighty-seven dTelfur living in the village and Mobious had sacrificed his own portions for the older telfs. Due in part to this malnutrition and the stress he was forcing himself to endure, his sixtieth shedding had come late and hard. He had only just escaped from Edwarg’s infirmary two days before and had immediately pushed himself too hard pouring over the records again to find what information he had missed or misunderstood which might provide the solution which would wake the dragons, heal the telfs, and restore the whole dTelfur species.

  He’d found nothing.

  Running down the gentle hill to his atchs and the small group of people trailing along with him, Mobious remembered the joy of playing out in the sun even as his weakened legs threatened to buckle beneath him. Just last spring Konifer had scolded him for galloping up and down this hill bouncing dTella on his shoulders. Now Konifer was gone, Mobious’ desire and ability to gallop were gone, and dTella was off in the western wilds with Janen and other frightened telfs.

  Or, was now sleeping soundly in Hardt’s arms as the man struggled under her weight, Janen and four other missing villagers at their side. Mobious pulled up short as he reached the bedraggled group and slipped dTella easily from his friend’s arms. He nodded at the architect and the others and turned to lead them slowly up the hill.

  “There’s food at the Vize Bower. And I can go for fresh water. You’ll want to rest for a bit before you go the rest of the way to the village? Have you come all the way from Peltine’s farm?”

  He’d forgotten that Hardt had gone with the party intending to plant Peltine’s lands in hopes of more food for the next dead season. Without Pelty’s care, the farm had failed to yield much when the telfs had trekked the long way there during the harvest season. It wasn’t convenient as it had been when distance was measured in dragonspeed, but it was the best growing soil not currently obscured by sleeping dTur. Gardens planted around the village would supplement their summer diet, but if they were to survive next winter, they would need the rich, Vize blessed farms of the distant west and Peltine’s was closest at only a day’s hike from the village proper.

  “We spent the winter there. We’d been hoping to make it back to the burrow, but the storms as you know, hit unexpectedly hard and early and by the time the snow let up enough for us to risk exposure in what little clothing we had, we were none of us strong enough to make the trek.” Janen had deep dark circles under her eyes. The hand she used to brush back dTella’s hair showed every bone and vein. “The others stayed to help with the planting, but we had to get the hatchlings back here to see a healer if there is one left.”

  Hardt placed a reassuring arm around her back and gently led her away from her compulsive watch over dTella. “Edwarg is with us and he is training others to help.”

  Mobious realized that the other hatchling she referred to was a boy of about his own age who had found no special friends during his time in the nursery. Tavich, his name was. Quiet would have been the best adjective for the hatchling when Mobious had known him. Akai had gotten the most conversation out of him and most of that had been through the sand stories they formed and melted together. Now his eyes were turned to the ground, his hands wrapped tightly about himself and he didn’t appear to even be listening to the conversation which slowly led them to the bower.

  Hardt cleared space for the three adults and Tavich to lay down in the messy bower as Mobious hustled down to the small creek with the travelers’ journey sacs and a fruitbowl in lieu of the broken pitcher. The trip didn’t take him very long still he returned to find each would-be outlander reclined on some cleared soft surface and Hardt passing around the small store of fruits and nuts Mobious had packed into the place when he left the infirmary. Janen, sitting up on the sleeping platform, was explaining, again it seemed, if Mobious could judge from Hardt’s expression, why they were returning to the village.

  “…but the outlander’s burrow had no storerooms and none of us were hunters or farmers. Tav,” she gestured to the boy who’s eyelids were fighting to stay open while he used both hands to pack his mouth with not quite ripe berries, “turned out to have the most useful array of skills from everything he learned in the nursery. Still, it didn’t take long for us to figure out we could never survive without the dTur.” She was overcome with grief for a moment and fell silent against the onslaught of tears which poured down her face. Hardt hoped that she wouldn’t go on as he watched Mobious freeze, reminded of his continuing failure.

  But as Janen took a breath to continue Mobious straightened up from where he’d been cleaning and announced that he would run in to the village for real food and Edwarg while the travelers slept. Hardt tried to offer to go with him but Mobious ignored his words, scooped a messy-faced dTella up and into his atchs’ arms, and ran out of the bower. So Hardt settled himself in the comfortable tree chair by Mobious’ workshelf with dTella happily cuddled into his embrace and joined the others in their snoring.

  A small celebration was held to reassure Janen, Tavich, and the others that they were welcome back to the village and that no one would hold it against them that they ran away. Similar celebrations had been held for each dTelfur who had found his or her way back to the shadow of the dragons. As much as a welcome, they also provided the eighty or so remaining telfs with an opportunity to get together and brainstorm ways of waking the dTur or finding the telfs who had disappeared. Mobious sat silently at the center of these discussions, hoping to hear an idea which would inspire him to the answer. The newly returned telfs might ask him questions but the veteran villagers knew better. When spoken to at these events, Mobious would leave without a word.

  At this celebration however, Mobious felt a responsibility to care for dTella. She was his sister in the lander way and since Konifer had kept her from the nursery, Mobious was the only other dTelfur she knew well. So Mobious followed the young hatchling as she moved from cluster to cluster of murmuring adults, searching for her sire.

  After a few hours of watching this unendurably hopeful hatchling charming smiles out of the somber and unsuspecting adults who refused to answer her simple question, Tareay turned from the group of hunters with whom she had been discussing the newly complicated matters of conservation and swept dTella up into her arms just before she toddled into the circle listening to Janen rehash her tragic winter.

  “Konifer is gone away, dTella.”

  “Tareay! I can care for her.” Mobious protested, reaching for the child.

  But Hardt’s lover deftly shifted little dTella away from the vizet’s grasp, holding her closely on her hip.

  “She is of me, Mobious. I claim her.”

  More than a few telfs turned away from Janen at hearing that statement and a hush fell over other nearby clusters as well but Tareay went on, heedless.

  “She should be in the nursery a
s she should have been before. dTella is not the vizet. You are.” Her tone softened and with an understanding sigh she added, “And you have work to do.”

  Though it wasn’t her intent, Mobious felt rebuked by the reminder, but still he was reluctant to abandon his teacher’s hatchling. “But, Konifer loved her.”

  “We’re dTelfur! He should have loved all the hatchlings and he should have shared dTella with us all. You’re a better man than he, Mobious, and you are more a part of this community. You focus on preparing to be the Vize our community needs and I promise I will keep a special eye on dTella.”

  Mobious reluctantly nodded. He leaned forward and won a kiss from the little twenty sheddings girl. “You holler if you need me, dTel.”

  She nodded, her newly washed black hair bouncing on her shoulders, and he turned to walk away from the celebration. He’d barely reached the bending of the corridor when dTella cried out for him and burst into giggles. He turned and there was silence in the common room as his little ‘sister’ flapped her arms at him and yelled, “bye bye!”

  That night, Tareay tucked Hardt under the covers in the rooms they’d chosen to share As she rubbed a salve into his arthritic shoulder, she told him she couldn’t bear to watch Mobious struggling to wake the dTur.

  “He is the only one who can do it.”

  “I know this. But I tell you again, I don’t think he can do it until he is Vize.”

  “And what should he do till then?”

  Her sure hands paused. “I’ve been wondering what we all should do until then.”

  Mobious turned to look at her face, but she avoided his eyes and finally turned away picking at knaps in the rough cotton shift she’d pulled on for bed. “And you’ve found an answer.”

  “I can’t stay here and watch Mobious. I can’t live in the shadow of our sleeping friends. Many of us believe that there aren’t enough of us to sustain the community, especially with all of our eggs trapped beneath Deg. At the same time, there are too many to feed from farms that are too far away and game that we can’t hunt sparingly.”

  “You know I’m staying with Mobious and so you’re afraid to tell me you’re leaving.” He wrapped his old, spotted, rough-skinned arms about her smooth, muscular shoulders and laid his cheek on the top of her bowed head. “But I already thought you were gone after the battle. I’ll go myself soon, but you’ll live to see the dTur awaken. Don’t start making your plans around me now, lover.”

  “There are about forty of us.” She spoke reluctantly, sadly. “We’re going to move into the lander village that burned itself down, Pace. Konifer blessed the lands there and what woods and buildings remain were saved by our dTur so we feel it could make a good home. We will try to appear like the surviving Pace landers.”

  “When do you plan to go?”

  “As soon as we all gain the courage to say goodbye. It will have to be before the next full moon if we are to successfully cultivate the gardens.”

  “You should take dTella.”

  “Mobious won’t like that.”

  “Mobious is barely old enough to leave the nursery himself and as you said, he has work to do.”

  Tareay extricated herself from his arms and turned to face her old lover. “Will you help us, Hardt?

  “What do you need?”

  “We’ll need you to teach us how to behave and live and look like landers.”

  Hardt sighed, hoping he himself could remember how landers lived. “I’ll teach you whatever I can.”

  “Thank you.”

  The mismatched pair climbed back under the covers, Hardt tying back his long white hair with a blue ribbon as Tareay covered the bowl of salve and pushed it farther back on the hardened shelf reaching into the wall over the platform. As they lay back, each trying to settle their thoughts into sleep, Tareay absently played with the rough and pliable textures of Hardt’s hand. After a while she let go of his hand and curled up to whisper in his sleeping ear.

  “You’re very old.”

  She was surprised when he slowly responded. “This is true.”

  “When did that happen?”

  “You’ve been watching it happen year after year.”

  The deep tired silence fell between them again but Tareay’s mind was still racing and Hardt waited for her to speak again. When she did, he was too close to sleep to answer.

  “How will we ever blend in with landers? We’ll seem immortal to them.”

  Three

  ∞

  Tareay’s concerns weighed on Hardt’s mind. He could forget death until he was reminded that he lived with people twice his age who had half his wrinkles. Death wasn’t frightening to Hardt, it was cruel. He knew he would get barely a fifth of the time his friends had to enjoy each other. He knew that he would never see Mobious reach his full height, however short that may be. Never had he dreamed Sophie would go before him, but even though she did, Hardt had been comforted that Mobious would still have Deg and Nahni to watch over him. Now they were gone.

  The thought that he really couldn’t get out of his head was that even if Tareay were right and Mobious were unable to wake the dTur for another century, most every other telf would live to greet their friends again. Hardt would not.

  A fortnight passed between Tareay’s midnight request and the Pace settlers departure. During that time, Hardt held informal classes on lander language, behavior, and social structure three times a day which were attended by far more than the forty telfs planning to settle the burnt shale. Clothes were woven and pieced together in the lander fashion. Hatchlings ran about selecting adult telfs to be their ‘mom’ and ‘dad’ and spoke nothing but lander. Far fewer dTelfur spoke up against the split than Hardt had expected and Gyari, the leatherworker joined the group.

  All in all it was a hopeful group who departed the village one bright spring morning. Hardt hiked with Tareay at the back, an eye on Mobious, who had returned to his lean-to study at Kerander’s muzzle, until the boy finally looked up from his scratchings in the dirt and waved him on. The astronomer, Sesch, had agreed to keep Mobious fed and in clean clothes. He and Kahrier had built a small bower in the trees not far from Mobious’ lean-to to keep an eye on him in the night until Hardt returned.

  When the dTur were out of sight behind them, the large party grew more animated. Constant questions and quizzes were flung between the dTelfur and their lander for the entire week it took for them to hike to the burnt village.

  “How far have we traveled, Uncle Hardt?”

  He looked down at the tiny girl pulling on his pantsleg and was annoyed that he couldn’t remember her name. “Five megg though it took us turtles eight suns to do it and how am I your uncle?”

  “I’ve made Gyari my father and he calls you his ‘brother tanner’ which makes you my uncle.”

  “Very sound. Don’t you want to run ahead and pick a house like everyone else?”

  “Gyari promised to pick us a very nice house if I stay and take care of you.”

  “That’s nice of him, but you don’t have to take care of me.”

  “Don’t you miss Sophie?”

  “Yes I miss Sophie, but she wouldn’t want me to keep a girl from her house.”

  Tareay returned at that moment from a survey of the village with two of the older settlers, men Hardt thought of unkindly as a couple of stags locking flaking horns in battle over his place in Tareay’s bed.

  “Somebody has been camping in the buildings.”

  “Several somebodies,” Dab, a white-haired chef especially adept at lander history, clarified. “One dTelfur possibly and several landers. One of the encampments looks recently occupied, one of the lander style encampments, but there is no one in the shale at the moment.”

  As Tareay slipped an arm through Hardt’s in an unusually public show of favor and led him into the shale, he realized he’d been standing just outside the demarcation line between the settled shale and the wild-growing grasses of the forest. “Come on, we’re gonna jump right in and start
building roofs for these places. We’ll build one for the encamped house as well as a good will gesture if the occupants return. I am taking the house next door. Come and see.”

  Unlike the chef, Tareay spoke in lander. It was the way of their future.

  Language lessons continued most persistently as the telfs repaired the town. Hardt was not asked to help in the building but he wandered from project to project providing vocabulary and correcting grammar and accents.

  The vast majority of the settlers were over and under the age limits set for the thousand who marched and the resulting distribution of duties was naturally quite similar to lander social structure. The older telfs made plans and decisions and the hatchlings executed them, just as lander shales were regulated by the elders.

  Unlike typical lander shales, however, hatchling raising would remain everyone’s responsibility. The gaming yard, a tired patch of badly boarded ground was improved and expanded to serve as the nursery while they planned to rehab the community building for the winter nursery. There had been some concern that the grouping of young ones would mark the dTelfur of Pace but Hardt had pointed out that they were going to have to hide the hatching-ground, when they created one, in any case so ostentatiously presenting a group environment for the children as a quirk of the shale’s community might distract landers from looking more deeply into the mysteries of the shale. In truth, Hardt saw the nursery as one of the most admirable aspects of dTelfur life and would deplore seeing it abandoned.

  Hardt taught the dTelfur how to quarry stone and how to fashion the trunks of trees into roofs and by extension, houses. He taught them lander methods of farming as far as he knew. He told them about lander methods of breeding and herding certain animals for a steady meat source which wouldn’t know to elude the kill, but they found it too unfair, though they did elect to herd cloth-providing creatures.