So when Kal had approached him with those questions he knew that here was a chance to prove his detractors wrong. Once again one of his students would provide a new site, new research, and conclusions – his conclusions of course. He knew, because of his experience that his conclusions were the only ones that mattered. No matter how logical, or how much the facts might have supported others out there, he ruthlessly suppressed both their theories and the ones presenting them. He had immediately put this Kal and his mate Jura under observation. Knowing that eventually they would slip up and reveal what he wanted to know. And if not then he would use his underworld connections to steal it. It didn’t matter, as long, and in the end that he had the information and received due credit for the hard work, even if this hard work wasn’t his own.
It was night and the soft glow from the candles created a room that was both cast in shadows where the light didn’t reach, and yet at the same time comfortably lit, giving the feeling of warmth. He could hear the fire snapping and popping, and every once in a while the sound of water sizzling as a drop found its way down the chimney. There was a rain storm raging out in the night, but as well as his shelter was built he barely noticed. Again his anger seethed. I’d better get myself under control. I know about my temper and if I release it, which has happened much too often lately, I could get careless, and that’s something I cannot and will not do. Someone out there is beating me at what I do best. Well, so be it. But once I find out who this is, then we will see who wins in the end. This is only a skirmish in a small battle, and it’s a battle I intend to win. So whoever you are, enjoy it for now. Because in the end I will have my victory, you can count on it. He started to sip the wine that he had in the glass that was in his hand but noticed that the glass was empty. Sighing he got up went over to his supply and refilled the glass returned to his chair and sat heavily staring out at nothing, not even hearing the winds that were buffeting his shelter.
Tomorrow would be another day, and it was a day full of classes, so he wouldn’t be able to devote any time to the problem before him. Besides, he had to maintain this front of the learned, the one who wanted to teach, to assist. It had worked well for most of his life, and he saw no reason to change now. It had given him all that he needed. He was the leader in his field, he could have female companionship whenever he needed it, but not the attachments that lesser males seemed to need. With his place of power it had brought him wealth, and with his contacts he controlled so much more than any realized. Yes, so why change now? Yet he felt restless, unsure, as for the first time in for as long as he could remember, it hadn’t gone his way. Was he losing his touch, his ability to move, to outthink his opponents? He snorted at such a thought. Again this was only a minor setback, and soon he would counterattack and be on top once again.
After refilling his glass a second time he sat back down and again stared into the fire. He could feel his anger once again trying to control him, and he fought desperately to bring it under his iron control. If he didn’t come up with something shortly, maybe this very night, then that thin veneer that marked him as one of the betters might just be destroyed – but, what to do? Yes, there had to be something that he could do to retaliate even if it was against his former student. He knew from his network that they were presently on that site that they had discovered, proving that they indeed were the discoverers and not he. Again from that same network he knew that there were others with them, so making a direct attack and blaming it on the many criminals that lived on the edges of society would prove to be impossible. And, from the ones who were monitoring the site, there were too many there, and the original place where there had been protection through that gap had been replaced making the site virtually untouchable. Even the archives spoke of this location being impregnable, and continually occupied, until abandoned when such places were no longer required. But there were other ways to defeat any enemy. This thought brought a smile to his face. Yes, definitely, there were other ways.
At this very moment a heavy blast of wind struck the shelter shaking it to its very foundation, snapping him briefly out of his thoughts, but at the same time a glimmer of an idea was forming. Yes, yes, there are so many other ways of attacking and still leaving no evidence behind that I am responsible. He laughed, even though it was dark and the laughter had no humor in it. This storm is perfect. It would cover what he would do, and so very few would be out in such nasty weather, and with the rain falling as hard as it was, it would wash away any tracks that might be left making this appear to be an accident. Then once he had accomplished this he would head for the down side of the village pay for a female, and afterwards head back here, show up at the higher learned center and feign surprise that such a tragedy happened. After all, with all this wind and rain how could such a thing happen? With his mind made up and the anger still boiling just below the surface, again threatening to erupt, he got up from his chair, dressed in dark clothing appropriate for both the night, and the weather, gathered the materials he needed, and prepared to leave. This time he would do this himself, something that he hadn’t done in a very long time – actually since he had attained his position as the leader in his area of study.
* * *
The two who were watching the shelter shivered when the last gust of cold wind struck. There just wasn’t any place they could go to get completely out of this miserable storm. It would have been easy to abandon their post, since Sabohl rarely went out in such weather. Yet, from time to time he did, and because of this they stubbornly remained watching and waiting. Soon, others would relieve them and they could, at the time, get out of their wet clothing into something dry, and get warm before finding something a little strong to drink and head off to get some sleep. But until that time here they were. The one in charge turned to the other and said, “This is bad, and it just sucks. It would be so easy just to go and just say that we were here, but I know better. The moment we would do something like that would be the time he would decide to leave.”
The other smiled, although it was a smile of misery, and just shook his head in agreement. Who’d be stupid enough to be out on a night like this? He asked himself. Then he laughed quietly when he realized that he and the other was out on a night like this. “Yeah, it would be so much nicer if we could be out of this looking out instead of being in it.” He shrugged before continuing, “But what can we do? He has beaten us time and time again over the cycle of the seasons. And as time has passed he’s gotten only stronger and more cunning, holding on to his position with the tenacity of one of the old clan leaders. I guess what they say is true …”
“True?”
“Yeah”, he laughed, even though it was a bitter one, “theories and ideas change within academia and science, one death at a time.”
The leader thought about the statement and had to admit that it was very true. It seemed that even when something was presented with all the proper research and data to back it up, that if it went counter to the thinking of the time, this person would be belittled, black listed, and ostracized, and could even be destroyed. And, if later, much later usually, what he had originally presented had proven to be accurate, vindicating the person who had presented it originally, it was much too late. “I can’t disagree with you. Not at all, I’ve seen it happen … hey, he’s leaving, and dressed in really dark clothing. With the night like this, he’s really going to be hard to follow. I wonder where the ole anarchism is heading now.” With the cold and dampness that had become a part of them, all of this was forgotten as they set to follow Sabohl, and remain hidden.
Sabohl didn’t head for the main thoroughfare through the village but immediately headed for the back trails to remain hidden from sight. That he was up to something was quite obvious, but what, was the question. With the lateness of the hour and the miserable storm there was little chance that any would be out and about, so why go this round-about way? All they could do was speculate, and follow. That he had a destination it was obvious, but from other times of foll
owing, this was not a common direction for him. Sabohl was keeping up a very fast pace making it more difficult for the ones who were following to remain hidden. Thank the gods for the storm and darkness. Without such they would have been discovered. Eventually Sabohl turned a corner around one of the many shelters and headed out into an open area. It became obvious that he was heading to the storage shelters.
With the winds blowing as hard as they were, driving the rain before it, so when it struck the raindrops felt like spikes, it hurt. Both of them stopped and watched as he disappeared into the storage shelters before moving across the open area between the shelters where business was carried on, and the shelters that were used for storage. The one looked over at the leader and asked, “What do we do? We can’t follow him too far into this area, there’s really no place that we can be out of sight.”
Shaking his head the leader replied, “I don’t know, I really don’t know. Somehow we’ve got to figure what he’s up to, and why he decided to come here.” The leader looked around, even though there was little to see with it being as dark as it was. “Look let’s slip in a little closer and get out of this wind. At least between a couple of the shelters we’ll be out of most of it and maybe something will come to either of us as to how we can cover this.” The other with him affirmed the thought and they carefully moved deeper into the storage shelters, trying to peer around them and locate Sabohl.
Even though he had been told the location by his spies, Sabohl, with the deep black of this stormy night, had problems in locating the one he wanted. And with the frustration of the failures of the near past his anger threated to break free once again and become a furious rage, uncontrollable until it burned itself out – taking its revenge on anything or anyone who happened to be near. He fought hard to maintain control, and stood there motionless as he fought this inner battle. Finally after who knew how much time, he had the anger under control once again, although he could tell that it would be easy to give in to it. Looking around the many shelters he finally located the one he was searching for, and with his strength and tools he brought with him, broke the hasp that kept other than the owners out. Once inside and out of the weather it was as if a weight had been lifted. By being out of the storm it was almost deafly silent. Well, it wouldn’t matter as he was only going to be here for a short time and be gone.
From under his clothing he pulled a small candle and using the striker lit it. Then surveying the surrounding floors he began to spread lamp oil on many of the items within. Near a stack of flammable items he placed a small saucer filled with the lamp oil. And on this he floated another small, short candle. Then into this saucer he placed paper that would absorb most of the oil and trailed this paper over the sides. So with what he spread throughout the shelter and this timer, it would give him time to be away, but not too far because he wanted to see his handiwork. He repeated this in a couple of other locations, lighted the short candles, and exited, heading now in a different direction and not back to his personal shelter. When this succeeded he would celebrate. He smiled. So you think you can beat me do you? Well, we will see about that.
The two remained hidden behind one of the supply shelters watching for Sabohl when suddenly he reappeared and headed off in a different direction. There was a small open field that he was heading across, completely open, and even in this darkness the two would have to wait until he finished crossing or take a chance on being discovered. Just what was he doing here? They moved towards the last row so that they could continue to observe when the heard what sounded like a “whoomp”. Turning towards the source of the sound they saw a fire’s glow in one of the shelters. “Of the gods”, exclaimed the leader. “The fool has set one of the shelters on fire. You continue to follow; I’ve got to get some help. If this fire gets out of hand, and with these winds we could easily lose all of these shelters. The only good thing out of this is that they aren’t very close to the village. The bad is much of what the merchants own is here – now go!”
The other took off to continue to follow while the leader ran back to the center of the village and sounded the fire alarm, a bar of metal hanging from a chain with a striker. By the time, since it was the middle of the night, people began showing up the fire was quite visible and raging among the storage shelters. Quickly a fire team was organized and they began to attack the fire. But it had gotten a strong foothold and was now beginning to ignite the other shelters around the one that was burning. The winds were roaring and rain coming down in sheets, but the rain had little or no influence on the intensity of the raging fire. As the villagers fought desperately to put out the fire they found that either they were soaked by the pouring rain, or scorched by the heat from the fire. “We’ve got to knock some of the shelters down!” Someone yelled. “We’ve got to create a break or we’re going to lose them all.” There must have been close to a hundred shelters here, for which at least one third were presently either burning or about to burn. And as each new shelter exploded into flame, the heat and intensity of the fire increased to the point that no one could approach the flames. No one needed any light to see as the fire with its great yellow flames leaping high in the air lit the surrounding area in its yellow light turning the black of this stormy night into day. Soon shelters that were rows away from the head of the fire began to smoke and then burn. Even destroying rows of the shelters wouldn’t work now as the sparks and coals being thrown into the air by the massive fire storm began to rain down on other shelters, and since all were constructed of wood, began to smolder and burn. It soon became obvious to the desperate villagers that there would be nothing they could do but watch as the roaring ever increasing beast of flames spread beyond anything they could do.
How’d it start? What and maybe who was responsible? In the chaos from the first alarm to the present no one knew who had rung the alarm, but it hadn’t been soon enough. And standing there in awe as they were watching the power of the flames continued to destroy. It was no surprise to them that their ancient ancestors had assigned a god to this force of nature. From the intensity of the fire and the heat being generated they were forced back away from the destruction, and with trepidation watched as, for some, their life work was disappearing before their eyes. Many would be wiped out by this, others would recover, but it would be many cycles of the seasons before the village could be as strong as it had been before this devastating fire. With shoulders slumped and depression setting in they watched helplessly as shelter upon shelter collapsed into flaming ashes.
* * *
Once away from his handiwork Sabohl turned and watched for a short time before heading deeper into poorer side of the village. He needed a female to finish out this evening; one he felt was going to be quite successful in his revenge against Kal and Jura, and the unknown ones that seemed to be behind them. He heard the fire alarm and was surprised that it was discovered this quickly. Oh well, probably some passer byer. So he turned once again and looked towards the storage shelters and even though he couldn’t directly see them, he could see the yellow glow reflecting off the low cloud cover. He laughed quietly. Success! Let them try and stop me. Let them try and topple me from my position! He then continued his interrupted journey and headed down towards one of the smaller rivers that flowed on the edge of the village. Here was where the females who sold their bodies to any male were located. And for either a short time or for the night a male could have a female companion. It came down to what one was willing to pay. Yet when he reached the entrance he was barred from entering. “What’s this?” He demanded.
“Sorry about this sir, but you have been banned from this establishment, and are not to be allowed inside or to be with any of the females who work here.”
Sabohl could feel the anger rising again. With the fire he had just set some of it had abated, but now with this new aggravation it threatened to engulf him once again. “What do you mean barred?” He bellowed.
Without batting an eye the guard, bouncer really, stated, “It seems that yo
u were overly rough with one of the females last time you were here, and she was unable to work for almost a full season. And while your coinage is good your behavior is not. None of these females who work here will have anything to do with you or your ways. So I suggest that you leave and not return.”
“And if I decide that I don’t want to leave, what can you do about it?” Sabohl asked angrily.
“Then we will make you find reasons to leave. There are more here than just me, and if necessary all of us will be sure that you leave, and, I might add, we will not be gentle. Consider it a reminder that roughing up can work both ways. Plus it would be easy to get word out about your activities down here. And while this is something that is known about, this place here, it really is never mentioned in polite conversation, nor is the males who use our services ever identified, unless there are problems – if you get my drift. So please just move along and nothing need to be said, or acted upon.”
Taking a deep breath and barely able to keep his rage under control Sabohl smiled, although it was quite forced. “Okay, you’re point is taken. I’ll quietly take my leave.” He turned and with the blind rage filling him, headed in a direction that he had never been, deeper into the poorer and bad side that all villages seemed to have.
From the shadows the second watched and listened to all that had transpired, and all he could do was shake his head and continue to follow. But where Sabohl was heading wasn’t safe for anyone. Especially one of his rank. But he couldn’t do anything about it other than follow, keep his notes, and eventually tie in with the leader of his team, who at this moment, was quite involved with that conflagration that Sabohl had caused. And if Sabohl got into trouble what could he do about it? Nothing, nothing at all. Heck, he would be putting his own life in danger by following him into this area. So with all the stealth he could manage he continued to follow and remain hidden from all. And shortly what he feared began to develop as he lengthened his distance. He could see a small group begin to gather and follow Sabohl, who appeared to be completely unaware of the danger he was in or even that he had gone in the wrong direction.
A Taste of History Past Page 21