Part Three
Chapter 28
LOST and FOUND
Monwyrt turned his back to the relentlessly hot, blinding sun and mopped his brimming eyebrows with his forearm. An invisible haze bathed the entire plain in pure heat as far as he could see. It was the kind of a day where the shadows themselves refused to lay still on the burning ground, shriveling up to become as small as possible as if trying to escape their responsibility to appear cool. The pale yellow shoam stood shoulder-high, stock-still without any breeze to stir it, like so many uncountable sentinels of silence, insignificant individually, but confident and unconquerable in solidarity.
The pale, distant sky allied itself with the shoam in defense of the plain today. No cloud offered itself as evidence that anything could move. Monwyrt pushed through the brittle, clacking stalks, allowing them to close back in around him as he passed, and took a few more steps. It was an amazing thing. No matter how far he walked, it seemed that he had not moved a step. The scene was monotony itself.
He passed his arm across his forehead again, hitched his pack up with a practiced shrug, glanced up at the sky, and grinned.
"Um," he said out loud to the heavy air, "it's time for another swim!"
He was in the middle of his third day out of Todymody. The whole first day, and a good part of the second, his road had been straight and easy through the shoz of the Laizuvries. Even after the cart-roads had failed in favor of vaisohs on the Luhvluhv, Monwyrt trotted steadily on along the edge of the shoz, falling into his old morwetraeppe lope, reveling in the openness and the sweet exertion. The Laizuvries who saw him approaching watched with disbelief as he ran with surprisingly easy speed from horizon to horizon without breaking stride. Late in the afternoon of the second day he left the last of the Laizuvrian shoz, and since then his progress had been much slower, forced as he was to push his way through the shoam.
Now, he was surrounded by the unending stuff. It was simultaneously infinite and claustrophobic. If he had to judge his advancement solely on his surroundings, he wasn't sure that he wouldn't already be lost. But there was one sure, constant guide he could rely on despite the utter lack of all other landmarks: the river. He found a bare patch near the river's edge, dropped his pack off, untied the knife-thong, and waded out into the cool water.
The days when there was no wind on the plain were pressingly peaceful, and the sound of his legs sliding through the water came as a pleasant reminder that there was such a thing as disorder. Out here, disorder was a relief. The plain was so uniform, so homogenous, and so unbelievably huge, that Monwyrt needed every bit of evidence he could find just to assure himself he was more than a figment of his own imagination. The river impassively provided all the proof of that he needed. Its gentle meanders told him um, he was advancing; its constant flow said, "I am going somewhere!" He once passed a stream joining the Luhvluhv on the far bank, a landmark! but the only one, and now he dipped himself under the water and stood again to look ahead, downstream.
How flat everything was! It was terribly depressing. But Monwyrt thought again of the conversation he had had with Paisohnprahn before he left Todymody, and took heart.
"The plain will seem endless," Paisohnprahn had confided to him during the interview. That was the sum total of the information about the lay of the land that Monwyrt had been able to squeeze out of the Waeccelang. But that word "seem" implied to Monwyrt's mind that the plain was not actually endless, and was in fact traversable. That gave him the hope he needed to brave the vastness.
The Waeccelang had summoned him to its hut the day before he was to leave, and they had had a long private intercourse. Monwyrt learned that Paisohnprahn was quite different from Cnawaneall in some ways, and exactly alike in others. Paisohnprahn seemed to scoff at Cnawaneall's aloof attitude toward the Traeppedelfere, calling it a waste of time to idly watch from a distance while they struggled through life unguided. Monwyrt remembered that Cnawaneall had never seemed concerned at all about the passing of time, much less about the wasting of it, and had spoken as if time was the province solely of mortals. Paisohnprahn's argument surprised him.
And when Monwyrt had told him that Cnawaneall had introduced him to the Libbannawiht, and that he had heard the music, and even participated (or tried to participate) in it, Paisohnprahn became irate, and ranted against Cnawaneall's rash foolishness to an extent that made Monwyrt uneasy. Cnawaneall had never shown any emotion whatsoever. He had led Monwyrt to believe that all the Waeccelangs were just alike; that they all thought the same, and believed in the same ideal, or they would have never returned from the Libbannawiht, would never have left the music.
Before long, however, Paisohnprahn had mastered this irritation with Cnawaneall, and asked Monwyrt why he referred to the Waeccelang by that name, and Monwyrt related his insistance at knowing it. Paisohnprahn smiled that same secretly condescending smile Monwyrt had received before from Cnawaneall, and suddenly the Traeppedelfere uncomfortably felt their eerie resemblence to each other in his bones.
But after they had conversed a while, Monwyrt began to feel more at ease, and Paisohnprahn began to show some of the simple delight in exchanging thoughts that Cnawaneall had shown. It turned out that Paisohnprahn was a little disappointed that Monwyrt knew how to mask his thoughts already, but as Monwyrt was honest with his answers it didn't matter too much. The Waeccelang was surprised and impressed with the Traeppedelfere's quick understanding of its situation amongst the Laizuvries. Paisohnprahn gave Monwyrt the right to decide his own fate, to go or to stay, and made it clear that he was free to change his mind at any time.
"Yours is a timeless heritage, Monwyrt," Paisohnprahn had said. "Your coming has been anticipated since before the advance of either the Laizuvries or the Traeppedelferes, but to both races you are without birthright. So, you are both shunned and welcomed.
"You feel a calling which I, at any rate, did not foresee. Whether future members of your new race will repeat your long journey or not remains to be seen, and I will not speculate on the possibility of it, or the necessity for it. Neither will I comment on what you are likely to learn, for it is possible that the reward you earn will be other than that which you seek.
"But some things I can foresee, and with some of these I feel I can comfort you, without influencing your mysterious path. One day, you will again walk in the forests of the mountains, and you will again see caves underground. You will find what you seek, Monwyrt, when you know what that is. You are not of your time, but with help you can make it your time."
Monwyrt remembered thinking secondarily at the time, "Why can't they just say what they mean?" The ponderous ambiguity of the Waeccelang's words buried the message to Monwyrt under so many layers of moc that he was loath to attempt to uncover it. That, too, was like Cnawaneall, he thought.
After he left Paisohnprahn's hut, he had spent the rest of the day with Nuzhunpa and Zholybet. They made a parting gift of a vashlymoss to him, and he had butchered it two nights before (after dark and out in the shoz - Nuzhunpa wanted to keep the whole thing as discreet as they could). They had been cooking and smoking the meat in their hut since, under Monwyrt's direction, and Monwyrt realized what a sacrifice it had been for them, and was properly grateful.
Nuzhunpa had bravely tasted a piece of the hot, juicy roast. Monwyrt had tried it first, of course, and declared it the best thing he had ever eaten. He went so far as to hypothesize that it might taste even better than oxagrete, although he had never tasted it other than in the air. When he went on to say that the Traeppedelferes would trade richly for a taste of this meat at the Bazaar, Nuzhunpa's interest had been piqued, and he tried a piece. But he couldn't get the image of the live vashlymoss out of his mind, and the strange, slightly chewy consistancy of the meat kept reminding him that he was eating living flesh, and the taste was so utterly unlike anything he had ever eaten before, that he could barely force himself to swallow the tidbit. Zholybet had watched her prahnum eat it with horrified eyes, and she refused to touch it. The best she could do was reluctantly admit that the aroma did not make her ill.
They questioned Monwyrt's resolve to leave Todymody on foot, instead of by batohram. If he was following the river anyway, Nuzhunpa reasoned, why not ride? He told Monwyrt that he would have given him a small batohram himself, but that his had been lost at the Ealdlazay Fair and never recovered. Unfortunately, though, no one else could be found (not unexpectedly) to give something as valuable as a boat to the Zhonoy, and as Monwyrt did not want to wait several hand-days until Nuzhunpa could finish a new one, he decided to run. That suited Monwyrt, anyway; floating on the water didn't seem active enough, somehow, to be real transportation.
Finally, he was ready to leave. His old, worn skin was patched and darned, his knife sharpened, the spearcastans clicking in their pouch at his side, his water-bladder tested and ready, but dryge. Paisohnprahn himself gave him a gift of a new rope, many, many ells long, which Monwyrt packed alongside his frayed snare-cords. The vashlymoss strips didn't dry quite the way he had expected; they became very crisp and brittle, but he found that they softened in his mouth after a while, and he rolled up all that was left of it, along with the great quantity of pahnbatohn Zholybet had baked for him.
Nuzhunpa followed him to the mounds at dawn. Zholybet had been very quiet for some time, and she could not be talked into seeing him off. It was just as well, thought Monwyrt. He was excited at the prospect of the run, and he knew he would have disappointed her with his eagerness to be gone. He and Nuzhunpa clasped forearms.
"Goodbye," Monwyrt said. "You have been good to me. I owe my life to the care you and Zholy have given me, and I want you to know that I am grateful to you."
"Monwyrt, you are a good um," Nuzhunpa returned, stiltedly. Unknown to Monwyrt, it was a ritual recitation. Implicit in this simple statement was his acceptance of the Zhonoy as a member of his shainu, as a possible mate for Zholybet. It was a difficult thing for him to say, as it was a difficult thing for any Laizuvrian prahnum to say. Monwyrt was ignorant of the significance of his words, though.
"And you are, also," Monwyrt returned politely, to Nuzhunpa's brief consternation.
"The Nemornivini surely must watch over you, I think," said Nuzhunpa. "I would like very much for you to return to Todymody."
Monwyrt looked downstream. "I - I think I would like that, too, Nuzhunpa," he stammered, "but I do not know what lies ahead. That is part of the reason why I must leave: to find out what lies ahead."
"Only part of the reason?" Nuzhunpa questioned.
Monwyrt was silent. Nuzhunpa's seemingly careless mention of the Nemornivini had filled him with a sudden vague suspicion, and he did not answer. Finally, he spoke again.
"Goodbye, Nuzhunpa. Say goodbye for me to Zholybet. Tell her I am glad she did not come this morning. It is hard enough to part with you." He released his hold on Nuzhunpa's arm, turned his back, and immediately began jogging down the outside of the mound.
"Good luck!" Nuzhunpa had called out to him. He watched the swart Zhonoy run off, to the road through the shoz, and away out of sight in the haze of dawn, though Monwyrt never turned back to see.
All that was three days ago.
The clear, drained, soft shoz of the Mocwalwians was a distant memory to him, now. He had put Todymody and all its population behind him, just as he had his own birthplace and race, in the dusty neglected bins of his past. He was moving forward now, to new days and new places; and lore, even that of his own life, held no more relevence for him than yesterday's meal.
He dunked his head underwater one more time and reluctantly waded ashore.
If the plain was maddeningly devoid of life during the hot, dry day, it was just as maddeningly full of it during the cool nights. That night Monwyrt was scooping up a mound of sand just off the bank, creating a little island on which he would store his food to protect it from the orvays, when he heard the startling rush of a wild vashlymoss hurtle through the shoam. He was surprised; it was early for them to be about. The orvays had not yet begun their monotonous clicking, and there was still the last fading hint of daylight on the edge of the sky.
Monwyrt hated the nights. The vashlymoss, with their unexpected careening sprints, always managed to interrupt his sleep a few times a night; and the sound of the orvays made his flesh creep. Walking through the shoam was slow, prickly work during the day, but he didn't mind that so much; at least he was moving, doing something. But at night he invariably was reminded of the float from the Ealdlazay Fair, and he wished he had a boat.
He smiled to himself. A Traeppedelfere actually wanting to be on a boat! Well, what of it? It was true. He lay awake, with the orvays seeming to click from inside his ears, jumping nervously when some unseen vashlymoss went on its mysterious brief rampage, rustling uncomfortably on his improvised and scratchy shoam mat, wishing he had a boat. "I can't help it now," he would tell himself. "I don't have one. Forget about it." And then he would think, "I still wish I had one."
Two more days of pushing through the thick stalks, and two nights of restless sleep, did nothing to improve his spirits. The plain was just as intransigently uniform as ever. Monwyrt was getting very tired of it.
In the middle of another baking, cloudless afternoon he threw down his things and waded out into the river for the one-hand time already that day. The light breeze seemed only to bring more stifling hot air, and did nothing to relieve the panting twatunge. The river was very wide just there, but shallow a good way out from the bank, and Monwyrt had to walk out pretty far to be able to indulge himself in swimming underwater, but he eventually struck a deeper channel, and he disappeared under the surface. When he came up for air, and put his foot down to touch, it struck something which was obviously not sand, and he was gripped by a flash of panic, but he soon recovered. Feeling more carefully with his foot again, he could not discover what he had hit. "Truhthalig," he concluded, scanning the river for the leap of the creature as he treaded water. There was no flash of silver to be seen, but something on the far bank did catch his eye, and he swam to a place where he could stand and look more steadily across the water.
Some sort of bulky object was washed onto a sand bar, far across the river. He couldn't make it out. It was obscured by distance, and distorted by the sun's heat reflected from the surface of the water. He could only tell that it was big. A sudden saelig notion that it might be an oxagrete siezed him, and he couldn't talk himself out of it, even though he realized how ridiculous an idea it was. Could he swim that far to find out? he wondered. He decided to try.
He waded back, strapped his knife to his leg (he could dry it later, he reasoned) and started out across the river. Soon, he was struggling in the current. It was surprisingly strong and swift; the shallows he usually swam in were nowhere near this fast, and he wasn't ready for it. But finally, mercifully, his foot touched bottom, and he waded tiredly to shore, and looked around himself.
The carcass was nowhere to be seen. The current had carried him a long way downstream, he suddenly realized, and he began to curse himself for bothering with this foolish expedition. Now he would have to wade a long way, perhaps, to find the thing, and as far again before trying to swim back to his gear on the other side. Tungebunge!
But he soon saw the thing ahead as he trudged through the shallows, and his mood swung around completely. It was a batohvahn! He ran up to it excitedly, trying unsuccessfully to right it on the sand bar, inspecting it for signs of damage. It had a lot of sand washed over the gunwales, which he quickly began to scoop out with his hands. His hand struck something hard, and he dug to uncover it.
He soon had a tidy pile of obviously Traeppedelferean knives, ingots, and metal pots drying in the sun. There was also something he recognized from his work in the Mocwalwian shoz: a cleverly constructed fo. This was a puzzle, but he didn't stop to try to figure it out. He was more interested in learning how to operate the batohvahn.
Monwyrt had never handled a boat during his stay with the Laizuvries. He'd seen them, of course, and he felt reasonably sure he could manipulate a pairsh, but a batohvahn had no pairsh, just a short ram with a wide blade, and Monwyrt inspected it curiously. Which end was pushed against the bottom? The vahnsack, presently bound neatly to the boom but soaking wet, was raised, he knew, and caught the wind somehow... he vainly tried to remember how the batohvahns he had seen from the mounds of the city had been maneuvered. He'd just not paid that much attention to them then.
He had to get back across the river, he thought. All his gear and food was over there. Either he could take the batovahn over, somehow, or he could just swim back and abandon the boat. He could never get across the current carrying his pack; he knew that. So if he really wanted the boat, he would have to try it now. He decided to take the batohvahn. He quickly stowed the knives and other treasures away in the bow, and pulled the hull out into deeper water, righting it.
It wasn't long before he began to regret his decision.
The short ram worked as a pairsh for a while, and Monwyrt managed to push out into the river a little way before he couldn't reach the bottom any more. Then he tried to propel the craft by paddling, but he only succeeded in turning the batohvahn around in circles, while a little water was shipped every time he leaned over the fargs to stroke with the ram. He tried to alleviate this problem by clambering back and forth across the boat every few strokes, but this proved ineffective, and he was frustrated by the interference of the center-vane, and the idling boom, and he scraped his legs on pegs jutting out for no apparent reason, and he bumped his head more than once on the boom. When his ram accidentally caught a stray loop and untied the vahnsack, which flopped down in great unmanageable folds all over the cabin of the craft, just when Monwyrt was stumbling over the center-vane and shipping a larger than usual amount of water over the gunwale, he gave up trying to paddle, and sat down in the sloshing bilge in exasperation. He looked up to see what, if any, progress he had made, and uttered a little shriek.
There, on the far bank, lay his gear, rapidly disappearing in the distance. The batohvahn was in the current of the center of the Luhvluhv, and his hind was wet. Disgustedly, he resolved to figure out how to use the vahnsack. If the Laizuvries could do it, he thought...
He soon found the cord, pulled the vahnsack up to what looked to him like the right position, and tied it fast. His hunter's experience with rigging snares stood him in good stead with the sheets, and he stepped back toward the stern to look up and survey his handiwork as the breeze fluttered the vahnsack.
Just in time to be struck soundly in the side of the head and knocked clean out of the boat.
The vahnsack filled with air, of course, and swung the boom violently across the cabin of the batohvahn, and Monwyrt never saw it coming. Somehow, he managed to keep enough presence of mind to quickly swim a few strokes and catch hold of the trailing bowline. Pulling himself in hand over hand, he also pulled the craft about into the breeze, and the vahnsack flapped noisily while he tried to boost himself over the farg and back into the boat. Once he had accomplished that, he just laid on his back in the bilge watching helplessly as the batohvahn slowly spun in the current. Suddenly, the vahnsack exploded to life again, and the boom raced over his head, and he could feel the hull surge through the water; but after a while, the craft seemed to ease its pace, and swung into the wind again, and the vahnsack rattled, and the boom hung almost to the floor of the cabin. This was enough for Monwyrt. He decided to end this wayward, dangerous business, and he began to untie the sheet.
But, he discovered, it was the wrong sheet. As he removed the last loop from the peg, the cord whistled out of his hands, and the heavy center-vane fell with a heart-rending crash. Monwyrt had no idea what had happened. But he didn't have time to worry about it: at that moment the vahnsack caught the wind again, and he found himself dragging his legs in the water and hanging desperately from the swinging boom. "Moc!"
His weight on the boom was dragging the end of the vahnsack down into the river, and shipping water over the gunwale, and by the time he had managed to work himself back over and into the cabin the batohvahn was almost completely swamped. "Moc!" he spat, feverishly untying the right knot this time, trying to lower the vahnsack. But when he had got it completely loose and the sheet was hanging free, the vahnsack refused to come down. Amazed, he stared up at the billowing expanse of material. The wind had pinned the loops against the mast. "Moc!" He stood on the deck to reach up and pull the vahnsack down by hand. But he didn't get the chance.
The instant he raised his arms to grab the stubborn vahnsack, the batohvahn rammed full-speed into a flooded sand bar and grated to a sudden halt. Monwyrt, however, did not. He flew backwards off the bow of the batohvahn like he had been thrown, and landed head-first in about three hands of water. It seemed to him as though he was trying to drink his way out of it by the time he had collected his bearings enough to know which way was up, and he sat there, spluttering and swearing and trying to catch his breath. "Moc! Never, but never, would he ever set foot in that thing again!" he thought, eyeing the craft resentfully. Then he gasped.
The craft he was looking at was a batohram, a little batohram, not the relatively large batohvahn he had just sailed. How could that be? He jumped to his feet, still coughing, and looked around. There, behind him, was the batohvahn! He whirled back toward the shore. He had found another boat! He ran as fast as he could through the shallows and inspected the batohram. It was empty, except for one item miraculously cradled in its place outside the gunwale and half-buried out of sight in the sand: a long pairsh! Monwyrt fairly danced with glee, and actually did let out a whoop of celebration when he noticed one more thing: he was back across the river! He had been so occupied with the awkward mechanics of the batohvahn that he hadn't even noticed crossing the Luhvluhv again. He quickly sobered, though, and wondered how far upstream his gear was. He suddenly felt very hungry.
His pack turned out to be an amazingly long way upstream. It was beginning to get dark before he finally picked it up right where he had left it, and realized with a sigh that he would not have time to get back to the batohram. He had decided to walk back to his pack rather than risk being swept away in the current again before he could master the boat. Now, he glumly unrolled his skin and prepared himself for one more night amongst the orvays.
"Oh, I hope the batohram is still there next day!" he worrited. "Why didn't I drag it up onto shore to make sure?"
But his worries proved to be unfounded, and on the next morning, after an anxious walk, he found it still securely embedded in the sand (where it had been for several hand-days), and the accursed batovahn was still there, too. His worries had not been completely for naught, however: they had instilled in him a little prudence. He showed this by pulling the batohvahn, despite his disenchantment with it, out of the river as far as he could get it. It was heavy and somewhat water-logged, and the mast, boom, and vahnsack made it ridiculously awkward, but he satisfied himself that nothing short of a flood could move it off its new perch.
His prudence showed itself in his testing of the batohram before entrusting his gear to it, also. He gingerly stepped into it, having first floated it in a shallow eddy near the bank. It was a near thing. The batohram, he discovered to his chagrin, was ever so much more unsteady than the unreliable batohvahn, and he found he needed to exercise extreme care when using the pairsh. He accidentally dumped himself into the water several times before he felt confident enough to try it with a load in the boat. When he did so, though, he was pleasantly surprised to learn that, although the water was closer to the gunwales, the batohram seemed quite a bit steadier. When he finally replaced the pieces of metal ballast he used to simulate the load of his pack with the real thing and pushed off into the current, he had another pleasant surprise; he could trail the pairsh in the deeper water, and that helped to steady the craft even more.
Monwyrt was exultant. As much as he loved the run, he had to admit the hindrence of the shoam did diminish its appeal, and the current in the middle of the river was so much faster than he had imagined. Nuzhunpa was right again: it was much better to travel by boat.
Monwyrt spent the rest of that day, and all of the next several days, lazing down the Luhvluhv. He husbanded his provisions; he knew he didn't need to eat as much as when he had been running all day. He became quite adept at handling the little batohram, and he even swam right out of it in the middle of the river to cool down from time to time. He had everything he needed, and he couldn't imagine, simply couldn't think of a thing, that he would change if he had the chance. The river carried him ever on and on, and the sky was clear, and he had ample food, and of course plenty of water... what else was there, anyway?
But then, nearly two hand-days out of Todymody, Monwyrt saw the late-afternoon sun illuminate something far ahead that filled his heart with longing. Suddenly, he was eager to move faster, and he began using the ram (which he had appropriated from the batohvahn), paddling all day, and allowing the batohram to drift at night instead of beaching it. The wonderful apparition slowly approached; it seemed to be impossibly far off, somehow, but it was drawing nearer however agonizingly slowly. He almost couldn't believe his eyes, but there was the sight before him to feast them on, just as Paisohnprahn had promised:
Mountains!
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