Contacting the rest of the family, who by now had a number of bakeries throughout the region, being operated by his siblings and overseen by their parents, much information was available. Available simply because the supply caravans, the contracts with the farmers, and the many bakeries provided a continual flow of what was going on. And because of this the forward thinking of his parents the whole family was becoming quite wealthy. Yet, it was hard work, diligence, and the many hours of planning that made this possible. Also because of their growing importance and having such a great source of information, the family became sellers of information. This wasn’t known to the general population, and was never to be revealed to the same, for obvious reasons. So when word was put out to be watching for Sabohl, there was confidence that if he had survived his ordeal that this would be known. Yet, all inquiries came back negative. So with no body, and no proof, everything hung in limbo. Still the general feeling was that he had died and his body washed out to sea.
When the word went out of the fire and loss, the Kaygor family and their many workers descended upon the village and offered assistance wherever they could. They cleaned up the burned shelters, helped the many families that had lost everything to the fires, and had only their personal shelter and little else to live in. Kal remembered his mother and father saying, “There’s enough evil in this world, and as we continue to grow and become more successful, when something like this happens it is important that we help, that we provide what has been lost – all within our ability, of course. You see, a little charity now, can benefit not only the ones in desperate need, but can provide a favorable image of us and our business. It is easy to be greedy and turn one’s back on others who have not been so blessed, to let one’s ego get in the way of helping where it is needed, all because one is above such things, such suffering. Yet, were these same ones not customers, the same ones who were buying our products? Yes, we do provide a good product, and with care we’ve done well, and built our business. But, if we are not willing to give back, then, no matter how good we are, the quality of what we sell, in the end it will leave a bitter taste in the people’s mouths and they will look elsewhere, and then we will be no more. No more because of our indifference, of our failure to show compassion to those who through no fault of their own need help. Yes, some will never recover from such as this, but others will. And all of them will remember, and remember who helped and who turned their backs. And while they may say nothing, those feelings will be there deep inside. And while it may not show immediately, eventually these who observed will use their abilities to move away from those who turned their backs.
“And if they, the ones who ignored the plight of their fellow villagers then run into dire straits, it will be then that they learn, the hard way, the cost. Most are willing to help where they can. But most do not have the means in which to do too much. Most of the time it comes down to their physical selves, and of this they give freely, and when it is over, whatever the emergency or loss, they will return to their lives, and go about the day to day thing never looking for rewards or even recognition for what they did. It takes families like ours who have prospered to be able to help beyond just the physical, and as long as we are in charge of this family it will always be that way. And, in the end, we hope that once we have left this world that it is the same with all of you.”
It was a good philosophy to live by, and once the work had been done they all returned to their interrupted duties and lives, not looking for any personal reward, and it was time, since the seasons had moved forward, as they always do, to prepare for the next search. Word reaching them from the ancient site that they had discovered was promising, as the different areas of habitation had been mapped out, a graveyard discovered, which was strange – not that there was a graveyard, but the method and markings used were so different. When they had inquired how so, the response simply stated, was, “These graves were vastly different from any that have been uncovered in the past, and most appeared to have been female skeletons, although there were some males. And because of the type of landscape, and weather all that remained were the skeletons. So no further answers could be drawn.”
Both Jura and Kal discussed this, but by not being on the site they personally hadn’t seen these burial sites, and the drawings really held no clue. Was it the beginning of another change in how their ancestors viewed life, or was it something else? “I don’t know about you, but when we both started this search because of your family archives that were given to you, I thought this would be easy. Well,” Jura paused a moment, “well, easier than it turned out to be. And who’d have thought that we’d become part of some larger intrigue, so naïve that’s what we were.”
“Yeah, really. Here I thought that I could get help from Sabohl, not realizing that it was one of the methods he used to increase his reputation, and to steal discoveries from his students and others in the field. May the gods look well upon him.” He smiled and said, “Yeah I know, we don’t believe in those gods anymore, but the saying has been with us for who knows how long.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SEARCH
They decided that this time since they had a starting point, the old clan home, that they would attempt to discover the location where the warriors hunted every Season of the Green to replenish their meat and skins after the tough Season of Cold. Because it was here that the story in that archive really began. For generations they had traveled to the same general area, and while, at times there had been rare confrontations with other clans and tribes, this was the norm. If that one wounded herd beast hadn’t darted into the desolation at that very moment when K’jor was the clan leader, then their history and how they lived presently could have been very different.
Buoyed by the success of finding the original clan home, well the one mentioned in the records, they felt that it would take no more than a season to locate the clan’s hunting grounds. But they were wrong. They worked the areas to the south of the clan home covering every space from the clan site to a number of the smaller villages and farms that existed in the great grasslands. While the location of the clan home was mapped out, and had assisted them in finding its location, there was no such thing for the hunting grounds. Only brief descriptions, and because it was common knowledge among all of the clan, nothing was written, other than it was a few days travel to the south, by a small stream, with trees, and close to the desolation to the west. While the description of the actual camp was very specific, time would have changed even that. Trees die; streams change direction or dry up, even the land itself changes. And with the description, by being as vague as to the actual location, it could have been thousands of places that all had similar layouts. If one wanted to be honest, the desolation ran the full length of the continent from the north at the Sacred Mountains to the southern foothills before meeting the seas to the west.
And the final direction, south, didn’t help at all other than point them in the right direction. The warriors could have just as easily headed directly west until they made contact with the edge of the desolation using it as a barrier against attack from rivals, and then proceeded south. And if this had been their route, their final location would have been vastly different than if they had gone directly south or had stayed in the foothills weaving their way through protected trails and valleys before emerging into the grasslands and heading for their camp. Sitting by their campfire during the middle of their second season in searching Kal said, “This is so very frustrating. Here we are in the middle of another season, and on the verge of the Season of Falling and we’ve found nothing, no hints, and are no further along than when we decided to look for their hunting camp. I know, I know, this camp was just a temporary place that was convenient, and there were no permanent shelters built, but one would think that with the generations that used the same place that there would be something. And to think that there had been a meeting with one of the tribes during the time of the alliance meant that others knew of its location also. So wh
y can’t we find it?”
She shook her head, “You know why, and while the location was known at that time and in that world, so much has passed by, so much has happened since that time that what was once known by all is now known by none.” She sighed and took a deep breath, “I know that we’ve gone over the notes at least a hundred times, but we must be overlooking something. There’s got to be some kind of hint that we’ve missed and are continuing to miss.”
“Yeah, you’re right, and I think part of the problem is our way of thinking has changed.”
“Changed, I don’t understand.”
“Okay, look we are no longer a warlike people. Yes there’s still fighting, and there’s a lot of bad people out there, but it is so different from that time where anyone away from their clan or tribe was fair game. If the person was a male, they’d be killed, and if a female she’d be bred. The clans and tribes fought all the time, and until that first true alliance had been formed it remained the way of life and death. Yes disease and childbirth took many also, but if one was a male, the most likely form of death was battle against any of the rivals out there. So this camp had to be such that it would have been easily defended, and while known by others, it was such that they wouldn’t attempt to attack them. So we probably need to look at factors that make a location good for defense as well as for the required hunting.” He took a deep breath, paused, and shook his head, dropping his voice to almost a whisper. “The only problem with this is what would fill all those requirements? I mean it could have been a small ravine, or depression where the water ran close by, or it could have been wide open not allowing any to approach unseen.”
She laughed, “Oh yes, that really narrows it down. I think you just described just about any place and area out here. I’m glad you thought it out. Now I’m sure we’ll just go out and find it in the morning.” This brought laughter from both of them. As they settled back down she said, “You’re right you know. We have no need to be continually on watch for a rival clan or tribe looking to attack us, so in some ways we’ve grown less watchful, and aren’t always looking for the best trail, the best direction that would give us the advantage during a fight. This will take some thinking. Maybe we should stay here for a couple and start trying to put ourselves in their situation. Maybe, by starting in the daylight, we can study where we camped, and see if we can find out how badly we did in choosing our camp, from their point of view.”
“You know, that might be a great way of trying to get our minds going in the right direction. But, in the end, I’m sure that we’ll only appear to be babes when comparing what we will come up with, compared to them who lived this life for as long as they remained alive.”
“Very true, but at least we’ll begin thinking like they did, and I’m sure that will eliminate many areas that we would have searched.”
With the rising of the suns in the morning and after the first meal of the day, taking care of what nature did to everybody, they looked at their present camp with different eyes – finding both good and bad in their choice of a campsite. First, the good; water close by, camp located against a small hill that hooked around in such a way that it was partially hidden, and very defendable from at least one of the approaches. But both had to admit that the bad far outweighed the good. Their choice of camp allowed too many approaches, so that an enemy could be almost in their camp before being seen, the hill they were camped at the base of allowed easy access to an enemy approaching from the back, giving them the higher ground, and most of the approaches from that position were protected. So all an enemy would have to do would be to keep their attention drawn forward and then make the attack from the top of the hill, and that would have been that. “You know, at first I thought we had done pretty good job of picking our campsite. We’re close to water, partially hidden, plenty of dead wood for our fire since there were many trees close to that stream, and we were far enough back not to keep any of the beasts who might get their water from this point. But I can see how poor a job we did from the defense part of it, and as you said last night we are just babes at this.” As Kal continued to look around he was seeing more that made their choice a bad one. Taking a deep breath he said, “If we had been here back then we wouldn’t be here now, and I can see that quite clearly.”
“Yeah, I see it also. Of course there would have been more than just the two of us. Nobody during those times went out alone, let alone with two. And if it was just two it was usually the warriors who used their skills to remain hidden and out of sight as they moved. And while we’ve improved since we’ve been out here for so long, I’m sure that we again are poor at doing just that. This means that even when they hunted they worried about being hunted, so all their concentration couldn’t be just on the hunt. They must have always had other members of the hunt being lookouts for rival tribes and such.” She paused a moment as another thought entered her mind. “So how did they determine the lay of the land? I mean we get up on top of a high point and look it over and plan how we are going to travel, but to do that would expose you to being seen, and seen from a very long way off. So they must have had other ways.”
As she asked those questions he realized that they really knew so very little. What is common knowledge is rarely recorded or written down since everyone knows. So when such is lost there are no records to recover that lost common knowledge. And it would only be through similar circumstances that that knowledge would be rediscovered. “Yes, very good question. How would one go about figuring all that out and not reveal their position?”
“Nothing in those pages about that that I can remember.” Jura walked over to a log and sat down with Kal joining her, actually standing behind her and massaging her shoulders and neck. “You’re so good at that,” she whispered
He hadn’t realized that he was doing that, but knew that he enjoyed it and that she did also. “It’s one of those joys, and I’m glad that you like it. But like you, back on that original subject here, I don’t remember anything on those pages about this either. So here we are so many cycle of seasons later, and we don’t have a clue. Maybe if that character that came into our camp that rainy night showed up we could ask him. He seems to know how to disappear into the lands. I know it was dark when he showed up, and it rained most of the night, and once we were up that next day he was gone, yet he moved with a grace that made it seem like he and these wilds were one and the same. He probably does much of what our ancestors did with little or no effort, and probably doesn’t even think about it. It’s as much a part of who he is as is breathing.”
“I almost forgot about him. But you’re right. He seemed to just flow, to move in such a way that it appeared each and every move he took was planned, but at the same time you could tell it wasn’t a conscious effort, and it was just a part of who he is. Yes, but I suspect that if we asked he probably couldn’t tell us – probably doesn’t even think about it or how he does it. He just does it and it’s become part of his nature – who he is. Just like you’re a male and I’m a female.”
He laughed at that and said, “Amen!”
She looked at him questioningly and asked, “What?”
He smiled, “Oh what you just said. I’m quite happy that I’m a male and you’re a female. It works out well for both of us.” He then got this wicked grin on his face and said, “Shall we go and prove it?”
“Oh you males, always have that on your minds.” She smiled and just shook her head.
“Can I help it if you bring the male out in me? After all I love all of you, and that definitely includes your body.” He began to teasingly touch her in places that would get her interested, and she put up a token fight but he could see that she was beginning to respond to his touches. At first he was only going to tease her, but he could sense the passion rising in both of them, and they, hand in hand headed for their portable shelter.
Later, after both of them had bathed in the stream and were absorbing the warmth from the suns, he reached out lovingly and touched her hand, an
d she returned the touch. “I love times like this. I guess one of the advantages of being out here trying to find those places from the past, that we can explore each other and learn more about each other, and get even closer.”
At this she laughed, and said, “Now I don’t think we could have gotten any closer than what we were, but I know what you mean. And yes being out here like this allows us a little more freedom on our loving each other.” She sighed, took a deep breath, grabbed her clothes, since both of them were lying on the grass naked, allowing the suns and the heat to dry them, got up and headed back to camp. “I know we could spend all day doing what we did, and I’m sure that we’d enjoy every moment of it, but we’ve got to get our journal up to date, and then begin again.”
When she got up and he could see her in her full naked glory he could feel the passion rising in him again, and reached up and pulled her down to him for which she giggled, and said, “Never satisfied are you.”
He smiled lovingly up at her and asked, “Can I help it if you do that to me? After all you looked so inviting I just couldn’t resist a second chance.”
With a look of devilment in her eyes she said, “Okay, but after this we really have to get something done.”
He laughed and said, “I thought that is what we are doing.”
All she could say was, “You!” And she then laid a very passionate kiss on him which excited him even more, not that her naked body didn’t.
Later as the suns were setting and they were back in camp both looking over the journal Kal asked, “So how do you want to word our discoveries?”
She looked up innocently and asked, “Discoveries, which ones – the ones where we decided to attack this problem by trying to think like our ancestors, or the one where we discovered our bodies?”
A Taste of History Past Page 25