“Sorry about this, but I cannot help but be passionate about this. No one person should control this. It’s just too important, and it’s the reason that I’m in this fight right up to my ears. I’ve watched as Sabohl has changed and twisted the facts to fit his ideas and theories, and he is so closed minded that he refuses to allow any competing idea or theory, and crushes any unmercifully. You see I was one of those he crushed. And no, before you ask, it is not the reason that I am doing this. I’m not looking for revenge.” He smiled before continuing. “Although I suspect that at the beginning of this it was that. And if we look at our past I’m sure many of the battles that we fought had revenge as the motive. Now it’s more to do with the restriction of knowledge and what this knowledge could do for us if we could get it out there. I know with life as it is, not many have time to do other than what is necessary to survive, and so much of this may seem unimportant. Yet, if we are to better ourselves, we really must know who we are, who we were, and what has changed, why we’ve gone the way we have, and so many other things. Without this knowledge, and it must be as accurate as we can make it, we will find ourselves repeating things that at best should be left alone and never repeated.
“Okay, again, sorry about this. It’s just when I have an audience, and in your case a captive one at that, I kind of preach. Anyway, I’d better head over and join the others, and you can join shortly and we’ll make the introductions and then begin to decide how we’ll tackle this project as well as the protection of this site from not only Sabohl and his minions, but once word goes out, there will be looters and others who just want to see our past. We have to try and work this in a way that anything that we recover can be authenticated and not messed up because we have someone here who just wants to dig everywhere because they think that there might be some treasure here. In truth the only treasure that truly is here is the knowledge about our past, but we of the learned would only see it that way.” At this point Trehe turned and left heading over to join the others leaving Jura and Kal alone.
Both were quiet and then they looked at each other. “Wow,” Jura exclaimed, “passionate about this isn’t he? I guess if we both think about it we won’t have to worry about them being secretly part of Sabohl’s team. At least I don’t think so.”
“I think I have to agree. And unless he’s that good of an actor you could really see, as you said, his passion for this work, and his dislike for Sabohl and what he is doing.” Kal took a deep breath, and looked over at the other group who were in a separate camp. “I guess we’ll see some others set up in their own portable shelters since, if I heard right, there are other mated couples in that group. At least I’m happy that there will be other females here now, but the only downside is that we don’t know them. Still if I’ve learned anything since we’ve been together, it won’t take too long before all of you will be chatting like old friends.” Again he looked up and across to the other gathering and saw that Trehe was signaling the two to come and join them. He breathed out heavily before continuing. “I guess we’d better go and join them then.”
Arm in arm they headed over to the others with no expectations of how this would go. After all the rest knew each other, and even though this site was their discovery, they were still the outsiders. As they approached they could hear the voices of the many as they talked among themselves, but as they got close it became silent with an air of anticipation. Smiling first at them and then turning to the rest Trehe said, “And here are our discoverers. As you know this place has, in many ways, been our special and probably one of the most important sites that had never been located. It was here that the leader was able to create the first alliance that eventually led to what we are now. But with so much time that had passed since his time as leader, this place, and its location has passed into the realm of myth. And in many ways the history that we study reflects that. Well, now with the location known maybe we’ll be able to find if other parts of our history that is marked as this was, myth, may in fact be real. Not that you don’t know but these two are Kal, and Jura. Kal’s family history says that he’s a direct descendent of K’jor, and this clan. Again, with the way things were done back then, and he agrees by the way, it would seem to be impossible to know who one’s sire was. Still if that cannot be determined, at least it can be said that he is from this clan.” Trehe then introduced all the new members that had just joined them here at the site, and they all seemed to be friendly, and just about as passionate about the past as he had assumed Sabohl had been.
Later when both of them were back inside their portable shelter Jura said, “Well that was a spirit-spiral introduction and evening. With all these new names it’s going to take me a while just to put the faces with the names, but I suspect that we’ll not be having a lot of contact with them anyway. I’ll, most likely have more contact with the other females since with me there are only four of us, but there are now thirteen males including you. And from what I could gather from the conversations, most of them will be setting up areas to begin to learn about this place with all of us taking our turns at guarding this place from Sabohl and his cronies. But this is only the first night, so who knows, things might and probably will change.” Smiling she looked deep into his eyes and said. “Not to change the subject, but to change the subject, I would really love to have you very close tonight,”
What could he say about that? He had to admit that he just loved to get as close as he could. He smiled back and said, “For me that’s never a problem. I love getting as close as we can, and enjoy each other’s bodies.”
* * *
The following few 9-days just flew by as they continued the reconstruction of the gates, bringing in the additional wood for their fires and began the tedious work of working this site. And, of course, the weather refused to cooperate with storm after storm hitting them with a fury that none of them were comfortable with. And as another storm raged pushing all of them back into their shelters Kal looked out stating, “If I had a choice, and from what I’ve learned so far, this would not have been a place that I would have chosen to live. Yeah, because of the lay of the land it is one of the most defendable areas that we’ve seen. But that is just about the only good you can say about it. This is surely a miserable place to live during the Season of Cold. And if our history says anything, nobody moved in that season. So why not find different Season of Cold headquarters and avoid all of this.”
“I’m sure that it crossed their minds a few times. But I suspect that if they abandoned this place for a warmer location that when they returned they would have found someone else occupying it. And from what I can see it would have been nearly impossible to take it back. So they would have just stayed and suffered.” Jura could understand, since she had to admit that it wasn’t a very nice place to live this time in the cycle of seasons. As of yet she or Kal for that matter, had no opportunity to experience it in any of the other seasons. It had been close to the Season of Cold when they had discovered it, and had returned back to their home in High Trail almost immediately.
Both of them heard the crunching of the snow as someone approached their shelter. While they were still living in the portable shelter that they had brought with them, it had been reinforced with other materials to keep it from being torn and destroyed by the winds. Trehe then called out, “Are both of you decent?”
They looked at each other and then at the portable shelter flap and Jura replied saying, “Yes, just trying to keep warm and out of those wicked winds, and why wouldn’t we be?”
Trehe laughed as he replied, “Oh I don’t know, let me see … very cold, by yourselves, mates, trying to keep warm – you know, things like that. Conditions like this have led to new lives.”
She laughed and said, “I guess that’s very true, and it does seem like when you get close together to keep warm that it does go further than that. Yeah, we’re decent, so come in, come in.”
They could hear the stomping of feet and then the flap was pulled back and Trehe crouc
hed down to get through the opening, entered, and sat down next to the entrance. With him came a blast of cold air that immediately sent a chill through the two of them. Seeing their reaction Trehe said, “Sorry about that, but there’s just no way to keep that cold air out when you enter a place. In a way wish we could build some more permanent shelters, but until we know more about the layout of this place we can’t afford to mess something up.”
Looking at the two of them Trehe leaned forward placing his hands over the small fire. He noticed that the fire was close to smokeless and what smoke was produced curled up towards the roof and out through a small opening that was there for that very purpose. The materials that the portable shelter was constructed from made it somewhat stiff, but with these winds it still flexed and snapped giving the illusion that it could fall at any time. “Look, first off now that we have close to a full team here, you truthfully don’t have to stay here. Once the Season of Green arrives it would be a great time to be here, but now it is just miserable. As you know we’ve been more involved with making this place defensible once more than actually doing any research. And the way these storms are rolling in here I suspect that we won’t be doing much research until this season is over. Now I’m not telling you to leave, but I want you to know that it is as option – not that traveling in this kind of weather would be easy. And if you decide to go nobody will feel that you just cut and ran. In fact some of the others suggested it. In a way we’d love to just leave a very small crew here, someone to just occupy this place to keep it under our care. But with what may show up here at any time we really don’t have much of a choice, but you do.” He could see that they were about to protest so he held up his hands to cut them off and continued. “Look, we don’t need an answer right now. Discuss it between the two of you, come to us and ask questions, anything. Just be sure if you decide to ask any of the other mated couples here that you announce your arrival. That way nobody gets embarrassed when one walks in on a compromising situation.” Here he laughed again and said, “After all like we both agreed it is quite cold and such situations does lead to other things.”
He paused a moment cleared his throat and said, “Not to change the subject, but enough on that. I understand that the two of you have a general map of the layout to this place, is that right?” He waited as again Jura and Kal looked at each other before looking back at him. “Look, we know at least this much, and while we never discussed it directly, you had information that led you to this site. It was obvious from our field operations, as the two of you searched all the areas that you did. There was nothing random about it at all. So if you do have something that would help us when we are finally able to actually work this site it would be much appreciated.”
Kal looked at Jura who just shrugged. “Look, I know that you know that I’m supposed to have been from this clan. A little had been passed down through the generations, and I guess either because I had an interest in history, or maybe because this is the first time in history that it would be safe, well not truly safe, but maybe the first chance to actually go out and search I was sort of elected. So, yes, I had something to go on. But what surprised me, and I know Jura, is just how large an area this is. So I, we feel very lucky to have located this in our first season of searching. And yes I do have a very rough drawing of what this place was supposed to look like when there were people living here. I know that we’ve tried to be very careful, all of us that are here right now, of avoiding any obvious areas of past occupation, and from what I can see we have. I know that note taking is a very big part of such an operation. Besides all the digging and sifting, and so many more tedious things, so if you could give us some paper I could probably transfer the rough drawing I have, which I want to keep since it is part of my family, and then you would have exactly what I have. Look, it still worries both of us, even with the assurances, that we could lose this site. So we are trying to be so very careful.”
“That’s a very understandable position,” Trehe shrugged, “and even now there’s no way that there can be real trust between us. Too much has happened. And in that I mean this has all transpired rather quickly, and the two of you have had to react more than having the time to really think it through.” Again he paused and took a deep breath. “Look, I don’t know why but life just seems to be that way. So much that happens is unplanned, unforeseen, and all we can do is adjust as it happens and hope that what we decide is the right decision. Yet, as you well know, many times those decisions are made with too little information and, usually, too little time to make those decisions. It’s no wonder that so many times what we decided, once we have the time and a chance to look back makes us think that if we only had better information, or more time, then what we decided would have been so much different.
“In the games that we play when we are young we find that we can always start over and do it again, but life doesn’t give us that opportunity. So we muddle along from one decision to the next, never knowing what our future or the outcome of those decisions will be. And many times we sit there and curse ourselves for being so stupid or reacting in a certain way, wishing that we could go back and change it. But I guess the real question would be, would we? Even if we knew all the facts, and knew what the possible outcomes would be, would we truly make a different decision or go in a different direction? But since we cannot go back and try, all this is no more than an exercise in futility. So all we can do is go on with our lives, and hope that we’ve learned something from our past, and this is the whole past – you as an individual, the two of you as a couple, the places that you live, our society, and even all of us – if we don’t, then its shame on us, and rightfully so. And I guess that’s one of the reasons why I do this, and go against Sabohl. What he does is to maintain his position of power and appear to the rest as the one in the know. But what he really is doing is quite wrong, since his version of the past isn’t necessarily the correct one. And as you have seen he is ruthless in his pursuit of maintaining that position. It leaves the rest of us searching for ways to defeat him. And it’s sad, in some ways, because if he would be willing to accept what there is out there, work with the ideas and such that have been presented, then we’d know so much more, maybe understand much more. But alas, it’s not to be. So here we are fighting our own little war. And like in any war there are casualties, but most of these casualties are the destruction of knowledge instead of individuals, but the tragedy is no less.
“By narrowing and restricting what we know of our past and why we are where we are is truly a dangerous stance to take. It means that somewhere in the future, because of what we think is the way we were in the past, the decisions could be completely wrong and lead us to our own destruction. If you think about it, not that you haven’t, what we did in our past put us here where we are today. Sometimes the changes took a very long time to happen, other times very quickly. I guess a good example of this would be how some tribes over time established more permanent homes and became the clans. Yes we still had the nomadic people, and in some ways we still do. But this change continued until we now have our villages and such – a very slow change for sure. Then we have the forming of the alliance, no not the small ones, but this really major one that was brought about by your ancestor. This was a rather rapid change, and from what little we can understand about it, it was outside influences that brought about. Yet at this very moment, we have no idea what those outside influences are. This was followed almost as quickly with the disillusion of the same alliance by the mythological meeting of the gods in the mythological valley. Still when one looks at the brief time it existed this was the real beginnings of change. But we know so little and with Sabohl using his power to keep the history as he sees it, there’s a great chance it will remain that way.
“Look again I didn’t mean to spout off to you like this, but whatever your decision, to stay or to leave, it’s up to you. Again I know that there’s no way if what we, the group I represent, are being honest with you or not. I know I can s
tand here, well it’s really not that easy to stand in these shelters, but you know what I mean, and tell you that we are here to learn, to help you establish this site, and still be lying. In fact everything I’ve just said could be a lie. So again with too little information, and too little time, both of you are left with making a life changing decision.” He shook his head and smiled, “But as both of you know too well, that’s life.” He turned to leave stopped a moment before exiting and said, “I don’t need an answer now, so think about it and when the two of you are sure come to us and let us know. Either way, stay or go, we’ll back you.” Taking a deep breath he steeled himself for the cold harsh weather outside of the shelter and exited leaving a fresh blast of frigid air behind as the flaps opened and closed.
Again both looked at each other and remained silent. Trehe had been quite passionate in what he had relayed to them, and what he said was very true of life. “Wow!” Was all that Kal could say.
CHAPTER NINE
SABOHL RETALIATES
Sabohl sat inside his study. It was warm and comfortable, but he didn’t feel the comfort. Whoever this was that was attacking him they had beaten him at every move. He was not used to losing, and soon with his spies in place he would learn who was behind this, and when he did they would pay. He’d been too long on top not to know how to play the game, to find out who was behind this. Obviously it couldn’t be those two naïve ones who, unknown to themselves, had located this most important site for him. All had gone just as everything in the past had up to a point in time. It appeared that once again he had won, and soon the accolades would be coming forth praising him and his efforts to advance their knowledge of the past. He had to admit that it had felt great to be back in the game, of taking advantage of those minor players. It had been a long time since such as this site had been found. And he had heard rumors that he was starting to lose his place, his position because he hadn’t found anything new, hadn’t advanced any new ideas, and appeared to be set in his ways, like that old bull herd beast who was beyond his prime still fighting off the younger to keep the right of breeding with the females that he ruled.
A Taste of History Past Page 20