All Kal could do was nod his head in agreement. They really didn’t have any idea what the interior of that place held. There could be plenty of rocks for them to use, or like the edges have none. Stones added up to much weight, and that would mean that something else would have to be left behind. The beast could only carry so much, and even with their packs they were limited to what they could carry. “At least there are plenty of stones here by this stream but with that dust how large of stack would it take to remain visible, or not get buried?” It was a very good question, and another for which they had no answer.
Jura took a deep breath and let it out slowly, saying, “I guess we can finish out this day here, sleep on it and try again tomorrow. With the after-zenith still ahead of us we can begin to pack some of these river stones and at least try setting up a few inside the desolation to see how many we will need, and what the maximum distance will be to allow us to see them. I think for the next couple of days we should experiment and see what works and what doesn’t.”
“Good idea and I think we probably should do that away from where we plan to finally go in and explore. That way we won’t get confused by some of our experiments if we tripped across them. Of course if we did, and we had set them up somewhere else, then we’d know that what we finally settled on didn’t really work since we would have come out in a different area than where we went in.”
* * *
For the next several days they tried a series of methods and found that on some days the dust wasn’t as bad, but others it was worse. They finally settled a method that would use the smallest amount of stones, and yet point them in either the direction they headed going in, and the direction necessary to head back out, and finally after a 9-day, they were ready to attempt it once again. They were hoping that as they headed deeper into the desolation that they would come upon markers left by their ancestors, especially if this cairn represented the entrance that they had used. Their strange visitor never entered their camp during all of this time. But that didn’t mean that he wasn’t watching them. He had already shown them his ability to stay hidden. So there was no way to know if he was around or not. So with hopefully enough stones, and enough supplies and water packed, and with the rising suns, they began their trek back into the unknown.
Once again inside the desolation the cairn disappeared from sight and the mud hills became more visible and were closer than they thought. The clouds of dust made it appear that they were further away than they really were. Upon examination they were of a crumbly type soil that once wet probably made clay of some kind, but once dried out would break apart killing any plants that might try and grow. Here the land was very broken, with the hills and the small depressions all looking similar, making it easy to become lost. So far the supply of rocks that they had brought with them was holding out, and that was a good thing since they had yet to locate any within the areas that there were traversing. The dust was less of a problem the deeper they got in. It seemed that these mud hills provided a partial wind block, which was nice, but the downside came as the suns rose higher in the sky. With no vegetation, and little wind the ground began to heat up and shortly it was almost unbearable – it was downright hot.
Taking a break in what little shade they could find, they could see that their clothes were becoming soaked from their sweat, and this wetness was picking up the dust, creating a mud layer on their clothes making the situation even more uncomfortable. “Why would anybody want to live here?” Jura complained. She was uncomfortable, hot, and felt dirty from her head to her toes. And while working on a farm, such work could get one dirty – this was far worse. She itched, felt like she was in that oven that they used in the bakery. And there was no place to get relief. What made it worse still was the fact that they hadn’t reached the time of day yet for the maximum heat. They were still short of the zenith when it would become the warmest, hold that way until late after-zenith, and then begin to cool. Now the worry was, did they bring enough water? Oh they had plenty, but they were sweating it out almost as fast as they drank it. Looking around where they were they could see their last marker, which was a good thing because no matter what direction they looked, it all looked the same. All the hills were rounded, the depressions slight, and only the shadows gave a hint to direction. Once the zenith had been reached, even that would be taken from them.
“I’d say we need to find a place out of the direct suns, find shade and wait until it cools a little before continuing, but there’s just no place to do that. This just sucks. Why would anybody want to live here?” Kal swept him arms around to emphasize his question. After all there were so many other places to live than this. Still, at this time, they stopped to take a break.
“I don’t know, and I don’t know if we’ll find proof one way or the other. But maybe, whoever they were, they had little or no choice. I know, there are always choices, but we really have no idea who these people were, if they were, so I don’t know.”
“I know, I was just spouting off. This place is unbelievable, miserable and whatever other words I can come up with to describe it. I know one thing for sure; I wouldn’t want to live here. The grasslands during the Season of Heat gets warm enough for me. This, this is so much worse than I ever imagined it could be, and we’re in the Season of the Falling.”
“Point taken, and to add to that is the fact that we are only a few 9-days out of the Season of Cold, which means that it’s not nearly as hot as it would be at the beginning of this season.” Breathing out heavily and standing back up, she asked, “Shall we? Sitting here or hiking and being uncomfortable isn’t going to make much of a difference, and we can’t find anything sitting here.”
They began moving off in a southwesterly direction, now being surrounded by these mud hills, small valleys, ravines, depressions, and nowhere water or vegetation of any kind. It was a very dead world. No wonder their ancestors had considered it the land of the spirits. Nothing living could survive here and this only deepened the mystery. How would anyone survive in this, let alone a clan or tribe? There was absolutely nothing to support life. Since entering these hills they had been forced into the direction they were taking as any of the other directions were blocked, and the trails, if that is what you could call them, were narrow and went through the small breaks in those hills. Eventually they came upon another cairn and from that picked up a trail marked in stones. Most of these markers were half buried in the fine powdery soil that they were hiking through. Each step they took created a small cloud of dust at their feet, and their clothes from their knees to their feet were heavily caked with it.
With the stones that they had brought with them, they added to these old markers to make them easier to find when they left. And because they couldn’t be sure that this old trail would lead them back out, the made sure to heavily mark where their markers joined this one. They knew from the writings that the hunters had trailed the wounded beast deep into the desolation, although it was still on the edge when compared to the actual size of these lands. It had taken the hunters about half a day to do what they did here and to return with their tale that they had passed on to K’jor. Then once they had returned to the hunter camp the following hunting season, K’jor had explored some of this area trying to get answers to his nagging questions, finding , in the end, that hidden lair of “magicians and sorcerers”, as they had called them. It meant that they were presently walking the same grounds that their distant ancestor walked. And all who had followed him, to destroy that hidden lair in the distant past.
And one of the lessons that they were still learning had to deal with distances traveled in a day by their ancestors’ verses what they could travel in a day. Their ancestors could go double the distance as they flowed over the landscape, moving with stealth and grace, covering vast distances with little or no effort. So, taking that in consideration, they felt that it would take them at least a day to get to where their ancestors had found the beast they had wounded, and of course, those two strangers.
At least for now, with the existing stone markers they were traveling much faster than they had when they blazed and marked their own trail – eventually, as the suns were setting only to enter another bowl like area, where they found another cairn. It was too late in the day to do any more exploring so they set up camp here, and once set up began to look this area over. There were a couple of small caves, and from the descriptions in the writings this had to be the place where this encounter had happened. Although how they determined it was an unknown, since once again, those writings spoke of confusion and the similarities of the landscape, which they could now personally attest.
They had packed fodder for the pack beast and water for all of them. Their plan was simple, be here for no more than two or three nights and leave on the third or fourth day to be back at their camp they had set by that cairn that marked the division between the two areas – the grasslands to the east, and the desolation to the west. Yet as the shadows began to grow and the suns set, there became a chill to the air that was unexpected. Still if they had thought about it they would have realized that with nothing to hold the heat of the day it would just evaporate as their sweat did. And once the suns did set it became a very cold and uncomfortable night. With their fire burning, again from the wood that they had packed with them, it was silent, a too silent world, making them feel that they were being watched by unseen eyes. But there was no one other than the two of them and their beast. But the feeling was overwhelming and they became jumpy. No wonder their ancestors felt that the spirits roamed here – it was a dead haunted land, and once they were done with their exploring they would be glad to leave, to be gone. And if they found nothing, there would be no reason to return, which was fine with both of them.
Eventually both them fell asleep, although they awoke often thinking that they heard something approaching their camp. They would listen hard but hear nothing, only to fall back into a troubled sleep, and with the first gray in the sky found both of them shivering and building a warming fire. Both were blurry eyed and exhausted as if they hadn’t slept at all. No word was spoken as it would have taken effort and energy which both felt that at this moment there was none. Sighing Jura finally said, “Bad night, hate them.”
He shook his head in agreement, not having the energy at this moment to put it into words. In a way he thought it was funny that right now as both of them sat shaking from the morning chill trying to get this fire burning hot enough to get some heat out of it, and that he, and he was sure she, looked forward to the rising of the suns and the heat they would provide them, only to curse them later in the day.
Eventually as the suns touched the horizon they began to move a little. Anyway they looked at it; this would be a tough day. With as little sleep as they had, even thinking clearly would be hard if not impossible, and they would have, also, to be careful with their tempers. Both knew that they would be short today and it would be easy to find faults that could set either of them off. Again, with the lack of concentration, it would be easy for their minds to drift off the task, and here, especially, it was very dangerous. While they were still close to the edge of the desolation and the grasslands, they were far enough inside that if they got themselves turned around it could mean failure and their very lives.
So with these thoughts, they picked up the trail and followed the old stones with care. And as the previous day they added their own to be sure to keep this pathway visible to them. The trail wound through many of the mud hills, small depressions, shallow valleys and ravines giving one no idea where it was leading. Soon they were longing for the cold morning as the heat became oppressing, closing in on them, and with the small breezes giving only temporary relief as they dried their sweat soaked clothes, leaving them worse off as the heat sucked the life right out of them. In the distance through the heat waves there appeared to be a third cairn which lifted their spirits a little. At least they knew that they were still on the marked trail even if there was no true trail there. When they reached the cairn they found themselves in an enclosed bowl which concentrated the heat even more, making it almost unbearable. It appeared to be a dead end. Had they come all this way only to find nothing? It surely appeared to have been a waste of time. Jura looked at Kal and asked in a tired frustrated voice, “Now what?” She was exhausted and quite done with this, and finding this apparent dead end caused her flagging energy and spirits to collapse.
He was at loss for words as he looked around this sun baked landscape. Why place a cairn here of all things? There seemed to be no reason, none at all. In the unbearable heat and the waves of heat, causing the lands around them to shimmer, he walked further into this bowl and began to walk the perimeter, and hidden in a fold that was invisible from where they had been standing, he found an opening. Turning around and facing Jura, who hadn’t moved, and to his eyes, appeared to be on the verge of collapse, pointed and said, “Looks like it might continue here. This is kind of hidden unless you get in the right place.” He signaled her to follow and found himself in a narrow ravine or small canyon, the floor covered in loose sand. It wound and twisted through a number of turns and then the hills that formed the sides began to drop away with the path he was following change and began to widen and open up. As he made the final turn he stopped and his jaw dropped. He was at a complete loss for words. It was as if the words in those writings had come alive and he was now standing as his ancestor had described the scene.
Jura was trailing a little behind and when she saw him stop, even though he was still partially hidden by the twists of this trail she wondered what happened. Only to stop as she came up beside him and see the very same thing he was staring at. Both were silent for a while and in silent reverence entered into this hidden area that his ancestor K’jor had first set eyes upon. The very thing that had set their world on the path it was presently on. Before them sat those same shelters that he had seen. Only time had not been kind. Still because of the dryness of the area these shelters were still somewhat intact. Although the roofs have collapsed a very long time in the past, and many of the walls had collapsed together forming piles. Yet enough remained so that they could be identified for what they had been – shelters. As they approached these long empty and abandoned shelters they could see that original strip of vegetation, now long dead that had blocked the view of that wall, and below and ahead of them the other shelters constructed as the tribes had, again showing the wear of time. “It’s just as described in the writings,” Jura whispered.
It was almost like they had entered sacred ground. For this had been one of the strongest myths, and one, that any in their world thought would always remain as such. Yes, in the past others had tried, and many had died in their attempts. Making most believe it wasn’t worth the cost to prove it one way or the other. Yet here they stood as K’jor had. Only in their case they wouldn’t be facing the same issues, the same problems or puzzles, since these had been solved so long in the past. The present puzzle was; why did someone live here in the first place? Now, from personal experience, it made no sense. It was a land of the dead not the living; unbelievably hot during the day, and very cold during the night – making this land uninhabitable for all. They had yet to find any living thing be it plant or beast, in the torn ragged land. “I really don’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s got to be a mirage. But we can reach out and touch this so I know it isn’t.” Kal was almost as quiet in his response back to her as his eyes took in the sights. The heat forgotten, they quietly walked the area where the two places were located – the clan home and the tribe home. In a way it was a learning experience since there hadn’t been anything like this in at least a thousand cycles of the seasons so no one really knew what these shelters truly looked like or how their ancestors arranged them.
After spending some time among these ruins of their past, they headed towards the wall that was visible beyond the dead vegetation that had originally blocked the view of any who had entered this small hidden valley, and began to follow in the footsteps of t
heir ancient ancestors. For them it was just as it was for their ancestors. From this point on it was into the unknown. What was it that lay just beyond that wall? That wall that was still too high to climb, too high to see over, leaving everything that existed beyond to speculation. Yet the writings had described what had transpired back at that time, and the killing of the ones who had lived in this place. As they approached, their appreciation for the ones who had constructed it increased. Its sheer size dwarfed them, and while much of whatever had covered it had been blasted by the winds over time, there was still a slight hint of the color that it had originally been. Sort of an off white that rivaled the colors of the surrounding hills leaving just enough of a contrast to make the wall stand out from the barren land.
Again silence was upon them. How was something like this constructed? There had never been found in any of the discoveries anything like this. And, as far as they knew, they had no ability to do this today. Kal reached out and touched the wall and found that it had the feel of a rough rock surface, and of course was warm from the heat. As he ran his hand over the rough surface he could see small grains of something falling off. Both stood there in awe of this massive construction, so simple, and yet so beyond anything they could do themselves. “It’s no wonder that our ancestors thought that whoever built this was magicians and sorcerers. It had to be shocking to find this kind of barrier and know that it wasn’t natural. By the gods, I almost feel that way. This is just unbelievable.” Looking up he felt that it had to be at least twice his height and maybe more.
Jura remained silent as she stared at it. Who could have done such a thing? With what they had discovered so far, she was expecting something completely different than what was here. Even now, like Kal, it would have been easy to pass this off to the supernatural. Quietly and with reverence she said, “Shall we walk along it and see what we can find? But if this is what these people were capable of, I’m almost afraid of what might be on the other side of this wall. I mean look at this! Really look at this. It’s so simple, but at the same time demands our attention. It reflects strength and power without being obvious. And why is it here and why did these people do this? From what we can tell there’s nothing in the desolation that could require such a thing. Yet, here it is. And if I remember, in those writings, every lair that they attacked and destroyed had one of these surrounding it where there were openings in the land. So what we are seeing here isn’t isolated, it was common.”
A Taste of History Past Page 28