Everyone among elvish children were taught to do basic needle and thread work. Our economy used enough deer hides that it made sense to just teach everyone to do that, rather than to leave the matter to specialized tailors.
An important part of human history is most women spent most of their free time sewing. Or spinning thread from raw wool or cotton. That took a lot of time before spinning wheels were invented. The spinning wheel was an epic productivity enhancing invention of the fifteenth or sixteenth century, and it multiplied the productivity of thread production by a factor of ten and completely changed the economics of cloth production as a whole.
And that led to the Renaissance as cities in Flanders and northern Italy specialized in turning massive amounts of this newly cheap thread into cloth. The profits of this trade funded all of that learning, the purchase of the books from the new printing presses, and some epic Papal parties.
But even though Cassandra was familiar with sewing, it was not the same thing at all to poke a needle through a deer hide and draw that together as it was to use the same needle through the flesh of a man.
She stared at the wound in Marcus’s chest rather disconcerted holding both the needle and thin thread. There was still a small seep of blood coming from the wound, though somehow, despite the running, whatever special clotting ability he had, had caused a scab to already begin forming, despite the depth of the wound.
Marcus smiled at her, and he used one of the bandages in his pouch to wipe much of the blood and gunk out, opening it again.
He took Cassandra’s hand and tapped on his skin in several places. “Through here and here and here.”
I spoke to Cassandra in her mind, hoping to distract her from the grotesqueness of what they were doing, He isn’t very bothered by his own blood.
Cassandra giggled, and she poked the thin pale white bone needle through Marcus’s skin.
He did not even wince, instead he just watched with a moderate amount of concern. Another poke on the opposite side, and then back on the first side.
“Very good.” Marcus smiled, without looking away from the work. “Very neat stitching, Cassie.”
She smiled at him.
Tell him. Tell him that I have been desperately pleased and grateful for all he has done for us. And that though he has disapproved of my leadership, I have always approved of his vital role in protecting us all.
“Our guiding spirit wants me to say he really likes you.” Cassie giggled again. “Of course you never disapproved of our guiding spirit. He is great. But he wants to tell you that he really, really likes everything you do for us. And I do too.”
Marcus grunted and smiled.
I had never seen him smile much at all. “I must confess that I have not always approved strongly of his leadership, but I have not disapproved of him, not at least since our great battle where we defeated them by ambuscade. I had been wrong then to mistrust his leadership, for we would have lost far more men with the tactics I intended to use.”
“Was that the battle when I was born and my mama died?”
“It was.”
Cassie frowned rather sad. I said to her, I am sorry I could not save her. It was in part my mistake.
“He is always present with us,” Cassie said. “Watching. I know him to be often around, near me.”
Marcus asked quizzically, “What does the guide look like? Is he a great lizard like Amzlat was?”
Cassie laughed. “A lizard? No of course not. But I don’t actually see him. Just a shadow of him. But I am sure that he looks like a human like you. Rounded ears and tall and all. But he is missing an arm, and an eye.”
“A proper guide. One ought be scarred by battles.”
It was not in a battle. I only was unlucky. Tell Marcus that, I never want him to misunderstand me.
Cassie laughed. “He says he was only unlucky in the battle when he lost his arm and eye.”
“That is how most wounds happen.”
No. It wasn’t in a battle at all.
She replied in mind speech. Then how did it happen?
Do you know what an explosion is?
No.
I tried sending her an image of that day, me seated calmly at a cafe, sipping my cappuccino, enjoying the sea breeze and the beating surf.
The black bearded man, stepping out of the car, the briefcase with the bomb in it.
The flash of light, and then pain.
“Wow.” Cassie smiled and said to Marcus as her tiny fingers bound together the last of the stitches with a neat little knot, “I don’t understand all of the vision he gave. But some evil men ambushed him while he relaxed, instead of facing him openly in battle.”
Marcus nodded. “Stratagem by ambush is an important tool. It speaks well of our guide that after being injured in such a way by ambush, rather than sadly obsessing upon the loss, he instead has used that experience to drive us to master the use of ambuscade to defeat our enemies. I now understand where such ideas, as that of dropping rocks from the high trees and hiding behind every tree came from.”
I wanted to sigh and bang my head in frustration. That was not what I wanted to say at all, but I decided that this was close enough.
Also, I hadn’t come up with most of my ideas for that battle on my own.
Cassie giggled again. “He still thinks I’m not saying it right. But I think I am. And he wants you to know that it wasn’t his idea to use the rocks in that battle, but that he got the idea from a story that was well known in his lands.”
Marcus laughed loudly. “A humble guide.”
I’d never heard him laugh in the nine years that we had been here. Marcus was in his own way as lonely and committed to this duty as I was. If I was the guide of the tribe, he was the guard. “You may promise him that I shall not think him as of greater brilliance than he truly is.”
Cassandra giggled. “I think he likes that.”
Marcus laughed again, a gay sound, though it pulled at the stitching in his chest that Cassandra had now finished binding together. “Most good ideas come from someone else. If you do not use everything you can from every source you can, you are stupid, not trying hard, and you deserve to lose. The brilliance is in knowing when to use an idea, not in being the first to use an idea. Do you think I trained myself?”
And here was the chance to satisfy some of my curiosity that I’d had about Marcus for years. Ask him about how he was trained. I know he trained somewhere called Tantalus. But nothing about the details is written in his biography sheet. How it could have created such a warrior as Marcus.
What is writing? Cassandra asked in return. But I found this was a matter on which I was bound to silence by the system not allowing me to give concepts of technology to her.
So Cassandra repeated the question to Marcus. “Do you know what writing is? The guide cannot speak of it.”
“Writing. I remember writing. Writing was important, of great importance. I remember that. But why… a magic that gave and stored knowledge in square objects instead of human heads. There was some alchemy made of tiny pictures. But how…”
Marcus blinked and shook his head, as though thinking upon the subject was almost painful. “It is one of those strange things. I know it was a simple thing. Books, whatever they were. Not magic. But I cannot think how or why. There are many skills we had trained into us — when we were in Tantalus, skills that I cannot think upon any more. That one. Writing. Writing was of greater importance than most skills.”
Marcus pulled the sword out of the barbarian chief’s scabbard that he had stolen.
He pulled the sword out of the leather and wood scabbard and he studied the weapon with a curious gaze. “This is iron. I had forgotten until I saw it in his hands what iron was, but we were made to understand its importance for it was hoped some of us would live long enough for our tribes to learn to fashion iron, though we had not expected such a long life. Alas, there was no way to gift us with the length of life that your people have, Cassandra. At least n
ot in the time after it became known to Amzlat that this was necessary.”
There were many of them trained like Marcus? Of course there were. And other tribes. Amzlat, from what I knew, had ruled a vast empire. And he had said I was in the nature of an experiment. Perhaps there were thousands of such people as myself, right now developing civilizations and tribes, and no doubt every other one doing a better job than I was.
That was unfair, I thought on consideration. I at least deserved a C- — that’s barely enough to pass for those of you who were educated outside of America.
Some of the other leaders were probably wiped out the first time they were attacked by barbarians.
Another thought crossed my mind. Perhaps there were thousands of copies of my own consciousness, doing this across many worlds.
But I thought that unlikely, as if nothing else he would wish to see how I performed before creating many copies of my consciousness. But I knew it was possible for Amzlat to do that. Or maybe he had tested out my mind before, and it had done well, and I was one of the thousands of later copies of my consciousness.
Marcus still was turning the sword around in his hands. “The history of the manufacture of such weapons is interesting. But I cannot remember the details, except the obvious, that iron is a metal like that copper, that something is done allow it to be worked it into such a shape. Iron is extremely hard, but able to bend rather than shatter, and iron can cut through wood easily and bronze with difficulty. This is a fine, expertly balanced weapon. I wonder where he may have gotten it. It was no coincidence they were so desperate to capture a prophetess. And he was too skilled. Another spirit guide gave him resources, and some ability to draw upon a blessing despite the great distance. I suspect our enemy was not a barbarian at all.”
Cassandra smiled. “Well our guide was better.”
She had threaded the needle with a new length of twine and with more confidence bound up the long deep cut through the muscle in Marcus’s arm.
I suspected that in our world it would take more medical skill to allow a full recovery from such an injury than we had, but I also felt fairly certain that Marcus would heal fully and quickly.
I said into Cassandra’s mind, We were lucky, not better.
At the same moment as I said that Marcus said, keeping his eyes carefully on her stitching work, “We had luck on our side.”
The young girl giggled. “You are both convinced it was luck. Luck, luck, luck.”
Marcus grinned. “So the guide also cautions you against excess of confidence?”
Ask him about Tantalus, and what Amzlat’s plans were, I repeated to Cassandra.
She rolled her eyes. “He wants to know about something called Tantalus. Because it is written in something talking about you. And about that tall lizard all you adults had as a guide before we came here.”
“Ah, Tantalus.” Marcus spoke in a slow voice. “I remember… our memories from the old world are strange. Fragments, since so much would give forbidden knowledge, and thus must be ripped out, leaving just a hole. But I was trained to notice such holes and what I do not truly know, so I cannot create a comfortable false and coherent memory, as many amongst you elves can. Tantalus. I remember Tantalus clearly. It was another place, another dimension. All of those with the greatest potential amongst us were sent there, to train and learn. We fought a thousand battles to the death, using the weapons of a dozen eras, and after each battle ended with us bleeding out to death, we were brought back into life, ready to fight again, and learn from the lesson of our first death. I… I learned to be among the best, even amongst the geniuses of the place, but that did not mean I died less, only that I was faced with greater enemies.”
Valhalla. A training dimension. The coolness of being able to fight and die, and then fight again and again was something I had thought of before. Human brains learned best in danger and violence how to be dangerous and violent.
“That’s terrible.” Cassie’s anguished voice broke my thoughts. “And the old God Amzlat did this! I thought he was good.”
Marcus snorted and laughed again. He ruffled Cassie’s hair in amusement.
“It was. Terrible. To die again and again. Like a hell. I’m sorry for you even if you are not.”
“It’s not like those deaths were really real. They only felt real. And such pain and suffering taught the lesson.”
“It would have hurt a huge, huge deal!”
“If a warrior cannot suffer. If a warrior cannot deal with pain. If a warrior cannot face the chance that he will be hacked to bits so that he can win, then he has no business being a warrior.”
“Terrible.” Then she spoke to me, through our connection. You would never do that, kill your men again and again to train them.
I… I stammered in reply. I slowed down time’s passage so I could think of a reply the young woman would accept. Of course when I slowed down my passage of time, it also slowed down Cassandra's passage of time.
I see. She rolled her eyes. You think it would be fun.
She spoke to Marcus again. “You were like all the silly boys who just want to prove they can take more pain than your friends.”
“Perhaps a little.” Marcus smiled. “But to train was a holy act. A preparation for what I have done. We would have died. This entire tribe would have died without my skills. And this was how my skills were trained. Today, I would not have been able to win, or to live, if the idea of allowing myself to be struck so that I could gain an advantage was not familiar to me. And I would have died anyway, if I had not had ample chance to test and learn exactly how hard I could be struck, and exactly where, and yet live. I was sworn, sworn by Amzlat to protect you, and to serve his servant, who has now proven worthy in my eyes.”
Marcus’s wounds were now stitched together, and Cassandra wrapped the honey covered bandages made of thoroughly cleaned deer fur around Marcus’s shoulder, and he’d wrapped another around his massive chest, keeping the wound covered and closed.
Marcus stood, and picked up Cassandra again in his uninjured arm. “I shall need to rest every hour or two to change the bindings, and we shall go much faster if I carry you.”
I talked to Cassie and through her to Marcus all day and all evening as they walked back to our borders. Marcus did not rush, though his not rushing meant he still managed a ground eating pace. I quite neglected my other duties to keep talking to her without break.
I was desperate for conversation, and even speaking to an eight-year-old girl did much to satisfy this need. And through the intermediary of Cassie I could talk with Marcus.
I felt like he was beginning to become a real friend at last. At least I hoped so. His status sheet now showed that he had a strong approval of me. But this said nothing about how he thought about me in detail.
Chapter Twenty-Five
They reached the border of our territory shortly before the summer sun set. Arnhelm in a watchtower along the forest saw them from a great distance, and he quickly clambered down the rope from the platform to the ground, and ran up to Marcus and Cassandra.
He was followed by the dozens of soldiers in the trees, who crowded around, happily cheering Marcus and Cassandra.
There was something in how they all looked at Cassandra that had changed. They became happier and of greater morale simply from being near her, and they all instantly knew that she had that deeper connection to me, their guide.
Arnhelm made fun of Marcus’s wound, he said, “I had not known such a thing was possible for you, for you to be wounded.” And then he grinned. “I’ve been wounded before, if you want suggestions on how to feel about it, I shall happily give them.”
And Marcus laughingly slapped Arnhelm, softly, in the back of his head, even though Arnhelm tried to dodge the blow.
Things were not perfectly happy for always after this victory. For that night Cassandra woke screaming from a nightmare that mixed the fight and her abduction. Her nightmare bled into my consciousness. The giant barbarian leader, leering ov
er her. Promising to cook her. His spear, stabbing Marcus through the heart.
Death. Defeat. Us losing.
And I felt her racing heart, and the terror of the nightmare myself, and it was my shouts to Cassandra once I realized what was happening that woke her up.
After this the small militia army that we’d gathered, except those soldiers who remained stationed at the border, returned to the village at a pleasant walking pace. The army travelled by easy stages after they’d run full speed to the Southern border. They marched — though they were too graceful and disorganized in this travel for march to be the correct term.
They sauntered.
At a quick pace, for five or six hours a day. At night they made big cooking fires to feast under the open stars upon deer and rabbits fat from the ample summer forage, and they roasted apples and pears. They took water from one of the ample streams that flowed through my territory, and boiled handfuls of grain gathered from the wild grasses along the plains to the south by the guards to make their diets more interesting.
We returned back to the settlement, which now was almost a city by the standards of such a time, with more than a hundred low buildings, mostly buried in dirt, and more than five hundred of the tree platforms where everyone lived during the warm months.
There were great cheers, and a great feast to reflect the happiness of my people when we arrived back home.
The prophetess being awakened was an event to celebrate, which boosted everyone’s morale for six months, and provided an even bigger boost to those who were spiritually sensitive, or religiously minded in my community — which because they were hippie elves meant everyone.
All of the elves in the settlement crowded around to see Cassandra, and to touch her. They treated her differently now that she was special and now that they knew that by speaking to her, I would always hear what they said as well.
She also got a great deal of complaints from everyone, asking for me to give someone a blessing, change a work policy, promote someone into a higher ranked position, allow someone more free time and so on.
Civilization- Barbarians Page 25