Chapter 14
The Qech
Kehyo was surprised by the desert, surprised to see that some familiar creatures, Tokos and Sunworms for example, were out even in the intense heat of midday, but there were many more unfamiliar plants and animals in this landscape. There were spindly Hisk bushes and indeed even some gangly trees hanging on at this southern edge of the desert. Strange rubbery grasses, some taller than a man, grew in great stands amid the encroaching sands. As for animals, Hobri had told Kehyo that it was better not to see any, for they were all dangerous, all survivors, barely clinging to life.
Among their other gear, the Traders carried pole tents with them. The poles, made of sharpened kapo branches, were driven into the crumbly soil with great wooden mallets, and then bags and packs were placed around them to keep them from shifting in the high winds, which whipped up nearly every night. The tent fabric was heavy woven daokan fiber. The tents were relatively lightweight and were easily set up and taken down again when necessary.
Kehyo bedded down in Hobri’s tent the first night at the suggestion of the Trader himself. Hobri said it would be best if he kept an eye on Kehyo in these dangerous surroundings. The boy felt a bit annoyed that even here, in the desert, he must endure the same lack of trust that he was accustomed to receiving from his uncle. But the boy changed his mind after hearing Hobri around the fire that night tell of the scavenging Druik, a nocturnal lizard with razor sharp teeth, and of the Neerut, a rare insect with toxin so potent that it was said a mere scratch from its claw could kill you. Hobri said that the insect burrowed and hid beneath tarps or cloth of any kind, drawn by the cool of the shade. Kehyo was not quite sure if Hobri was serious, but he remembered it and thereafter he never once slept directly on the ground as many of the men did, but lay down with his gahl spread under him as an extra layer of protection.
As a rule, Ryela remained hidden and slept during the day. She also kept quiet both day and night, which was not an entirely natural thing for a qeegog to do. She came out at night to eat the food that Kehyo secreted away for her in his gahl and to trance with him from time to time. She was always on her guard on the occasions when she came out of hiding. Ryela was very cautious around the traders. She told Kehyo that she distrusted and feared them. They would just as soon kill her for her pelt as look at her, she said.
The Trading Party had brought a great deal of wood with them and they set great fires at night both for warmth and for comfort in this land where comfort was scarce. Ryela kept a watchful distance from these bonfires. She feared fire instinctively, of course, but there was yet another reason for her caution. She told Kehyo that the flames reminded her of the terrifying dreams she was continuing to have on an almost nightly basis.
Ryela often left the tent after Kehyo fell asleep, and one night he discovered this when he had a particularly urgent need to relieve himself. Kehyo said nothing to Ryela about what he imagined were her secret errands.
On the twelfth day out, they came upon a second caravan, this one from Lomeka, a village near Orbacha, along the coast. Apparently, the men were some of Hobri’s kinsmen. That night the traders had an impromptu celebration, with food, music, and more drink than was necessary. Kehyo tried the sour smelling Cood only at the urging of Hobri, who seemed to be enjoying himself like no other in the group. It was a brew made from fermented beshri milk. It was bitter, and went down only with an effort of will. Kehyo left the circle of the fire to relieve himself, and he took his flask with him. He dumped the remainder of the drink out on the sand. Above him, the stars were brighter than he had ever imagined. The Dance of the Ancestors was nearly obscured amid a cluster of stars that were foreign to Kehyo. As he stood looking at the sky, he listened to the musicians’ haunting string music drifting on the wind. The repetitive pulse of the skin drums and the clear tremolo of the young singer’s voice set his mind adrift. He felt a loneliness steal over him, a feeling of deep sorrow that nearly shut out the beauty of the stars. That night the reveling continued well past when Kehyo went to bed, but when he climbed from the tent in the half-light of morning it was as if the other caravan had vanished in the night. The only sign that the whole affair had not been a dream was the soft line of damp sand that climbed the dune ahead, made by the wide feet of the beshri as they had churned doggedly up the slope.
The evening of the fifteenth day the winds began just after midday, and by late afternoon, the sky ahead was a howling wall of dust. The traders stopped the caravan and quickly set up camp amid a flurry of activity and much shouting of orders. The sleeping tents were pitched down-slope from the nearest dune to get as much protection from the wind as possible. The beshri were staked out on the leeward side of the tents for the same reason. Kehyo lent a hand with the beshri, as it was noticed early that he had a way with them. By the time they had nearly finished with the tents, the sand and dust were upon them. Kehyo dropped the mesh bag and ran for his pack. It was lying in the shade of a hisk bush and he had to dig deep into the bottom to find what he needed. He fished out the bent piece of bone that Nene had said was a “sand breather”, a tool for defeating the dust that was threatening to suffocate him. Stuffed into one end of the bone was a small piece of curled up parchment. He pulled the parchment free and unrolled it. The page was covered with strange symbols marching in three columns from top to bottom. The signs were familiar, yet strange; he couldn’t read them. He rolled the paper and tucked it safely into the breast pocket of his gahl.
When he slipped the bone into his mouth he was amazed to find that he could breathe almost normally. The only difficulty came when he turned his head to the side when his hood was down, then the slender tube seemed to act as a funnel sucking the dust into his lungs, choking him. Kehyo learned quickly to keep his hood up and his head down and away from the direction of the wind. All around him, men were doing the same, fitting their “breathers” and wrapping their faces with lightweight gauze, leaving only thin slits to see through.
When he, too, had wrapped his face, Kehyo felt cut off from the outside world. He was cocooned in the gauze and in the cloth of his gahl. With the hood clasped tight, the sound of the howling wind was dampened a little. The sand breather made a natural function seem labored and calculated. He looked about and noticed the rest of the men clustered together in an attempt to erect the large cooking tent. It was the last of the structures set up due to the number of men needed to raise it. Kehyo joined them, and for many minutes they struggled to control the violently flapping material. The wind seemed bent on lifting it skyward. The men fought, trying to reclaim the fabric with many hands. They worked as a team, each man practiced in his role, and Kehyo fumbled to find a spot to latch on. Then as it became apparent that he was more harm than help, he kept out of the way.
At last, their work was finished and the men, exhausted and hungry, made for the cooking tent. Their meal that night was a solemn affair, a cold ration of opana and beshri cheese washed down with bitter cood. There was no fire that night and so the traders went to sleep early.
As the winds whipped against the tent walls, Kehyo tried in vain to sleep. His mind wandered well-worn paths of worry. He thought about where he was heading and all that he had left behind. As he lay there, his thoughts fixed on Ryela. Usually he would have her in the tent with him, protected from prying eyes by the heavy cloth of his gahl. He had not seen her since the confusion of the sand storm had changed the rhythm of their evening. Suddenly he realized that she was still out there where he had dropped the mesh bag, in the stinging sand and the choking dust! He pulled the covers off and sat up. Then he panicked. She does not have a breather, or a face covering! All at once, he had a vision of her, trapped in the bag, her soft body slowly covered by the blowing sands. I must find her!
With trembling hands, he pulled the sand breather from his pocket, knocked the red dust from each end, and fitted it once more into his mouth. Then he wrapped his face with the roll of gauze. As he worked to pull the hood of his gahl over his head, one of the weather-beaten men who had bedded down near to him lifted his head from the ground and spoke hoarsely.
“Careful out there, young brother. Do your business and get back in as quick as you can; the sands will not stop for the needs of men.” The man thought that the boy needed to relieve himself. Kehyo nodded, and now, prepared for the worst, he exited the tent as quickly as he could.
As soon as he stepped outside, he was hit by a terrible blast of wind. The air was reddish and wan, the dust hung like a shroud over the sky. The sound was deafening. Kehyo was disoriented, and he stumbled about, trying to find the spot where they had staked the beshri not two hours before. He could just make out a darker mass amid the whirling dust to his left, downwind from where he stood. He made for it, careening wildly as the wind buffeted him this way and that, pushing at his back. He had to lean back into the wind with all his strength to stay on course and his legs trembled with the effort of it. Soon he bumped into the broad flanks of one of the huge resting beasts. They lay on their sides in a circle, heads facing toward the inner edge of the ring of bodies. Their packs had been piled in the center of the circle. Carefully, Kehyo walked around the animals, looking for a way into the protected circle. He found a gap between the animals and stepped cautiously over the thick curved horns of two beshri that had lain down facing one another. Immediately the wind dropped; the massive bodies of the animals shielded this inner space from the assault of the wind.
It took many anxious minutes to locate the qeegog. She was huddling amid the furs in the mesh bag, in the lowest basket that Kehyo could find. Someone had apparently moved the bag to safety in the storm. He thanked his luck as he opened the drawstring and Ryela crawled cautiously out. He took her into his arms. Her eyes were wide, terrified of this hostile night. He carried her under his gahl to the safety of the wind-wracked tent, and slipped inside.
In the morning the desert was as quiet as a tomb. Kehyo left the tent, ostensibly to relieve himself, but truthfully to help Ryela to the safety of her hiding place. A layer of fine red particulate covered everything. Kehyo marveled at the power of The Qech. It was a place of fragile flowers and surprising life, a quiet land, which could turn in an instant into a wild fury. The storm had buried several tents on the northern edge of the encampment in sand. The tents had collapsed in the night, and had to be dug out with great effort. With a heavy heart, Kehyo passed the scene of men digging for any survivors. The men worked silently, with tent poles and bare hands. All present recognized that it could just as well have been them.
Kehyo walked slowly, aware of Ryela just beneath his gahl. He was alone in the vast desolation of this desert, but her small, warm body, comforted him and was a sweet reminder of home. Nestled against his chest, she seemed so vulnerable. She shifted herself, and he quickened his gait to reach the circle of hisk bushes and the cache of storage baskets. He had come to set her safely in her basket of pelts and to see what had happened to the beshri in the night, but what he saw there caught him up short.
The beshri had risen and were standing in a rough circle looking down. In the center of the other animals were four who would never wake. The storm had suffocated them in the night. Their fur was coated with the red dust and their muzzles were caked with it, the nostrils invisible. Kehyo held the mesh bag open as Ryela settled in. Then he took the bag with him as he headed back to his tent.
In the camp the news was no better. They had found six bodies in the sand under the tent that had collapsed, and all six were dead. Along with the loss of human life, the traders were dismayed at Kehyo’s report of the four beshri that had died. This would mean that the remaining animals would have to share the load. There would be longer be any leisurely riding on this crossing. All would have to walk. The desert had dealt the travelers a devastating blow.
After the men had buried the dead, they said a few solemn words of remembrance. They passed daokan bread and beshri cheese among themselves, and after, washed it down with beshri milk. Then the party set out. Their path ran straight into an enormous ridge of sand lying east to west, a new barrier that had been raised by the storm, another test on this difficult morning. As they struggled up this new dune, they were still in shadow. Once they crested it, the land on the other side blazed before them, golden in the morning light. After the storm of the past night, the sun seemed to shine all the brighter in the crystal sky overhead. To the North, the sands gradually yielded to great purplish peaks that marched away into the haze. On their eastern sides was a faint tinge of green -- the forests on the southern border of Sanang territory.
The traders each wore an oket, a loose-fitting one-piece garment of black cloth that covered them from head to foot. Kehyo had only his skimpy gahl, which covered much less of his skin, and thus he suffered more than the others did in the sweltering sun. As the morning wore on the heat became nearly unbearable. Kehyo felt his head swimming; the heat and lack of sufficient food had weakened him. In addition, his ration was being shared with Ryela. His pulse was pounding, his body becoming weaker with each labored step. He gasped, and then collapsed. Suddenly Hobri was at his side, shading his face with his body. The men made a circle around the boy. They stripped off his sweat soaked gahl, and he was given a black oket like the others. When he noticed the clothing change, Kehyo panicked. The gahl was a gift from Nene, and aside from its sentimental value, it was his only legitimate mark of adulthood.
Kehyo allowed himself to be cared for only after Hobri assured him that he would personally guard the garment. They gave him many sips of the warm and sour beshri milk and fanned him with tent fabric. Hobri prepared a makeshift litter for him out of tent poles and the fabric, which he tied to the harness of one of the beshri. He would not let the party continue until the boy had been given a full day’s ration of food. For the remainder of that day Kehyo rode in comfort, dragged behind the beshri on the litter, under the improvised sunshade.
Though the desert was sweltering hot in the daytime sun, the nights could be quite cold. The sand became cool to the touch almost as soon as the sun set below the dunes, and many nights by the time the stars came out the air was crisp. The warmth of a fire felt good. Here, in the higher elevations, the air was clear and the stars and moon seemed close enough to touch.
The night of Kehyo’s collapse, the party’s fifteenth since setting out from Ilnai Village, was calm and balmy. The fire was twice as big as Kehyo had seen it before. This was because the wood had been portioned out to last the full crossing and no wood had been used since the night before the sandstorm. Many of the younger men forsook their tents, intending to sleep out under the stars. Kehyo joined the fire, sitting as always on his outspread gahl. The young men laughed a little as they ate, pointing to where Kehyo sat, and he realized after a moment that they were laughing at him. Evidently, his collapse in the heat had become that day’s big news.
As the laughter died down Hobri came up beside Kehyo and sat on the sand near to him, cross-legged. The trader was strangely watchful this night. Several times Kehyo caught the man casting furtive glances at him from under his hood. Kehyo wondered at the odd change in the older man’s habits. Usually Hobri was the center of conversation around the fire. He regaled those within hearing with story after story. He told of his wanderings over the mountains to the South and his boyhood years in the deep forests near Orbacha. This night he was taciturn, and pensive, barely acknowledging those around him, except for Kehyo. This unsettled the boy more than any other thing he could have done. Kehyo did not want the attention or pity of this hardened wanderer. He had come to feel comfortable with the man, and owed thanks to him for coming to his aid. Still, Kehyo wanted to fit in, to be simply one of the travelers on The Crossing. He watched the flickering yellow light dance over Hobri’s hawk-like nose and profile and he thought: He looks lonely, and sad. The boy could not say how he knew this; he could just see into the man on this night. As he sat watching the fire, Kehyo felt the pull of his family across the many miles of sand. He thought of Nene and Tahr, and smiled.
On the evening of the eighteenth day, after dinner, Kehyo was watching the sky. He stood silent, some distance from the others, whose lively conversation and laughter only made him feel more alone. He missed home. He missed its familiar smells, sounds and faces. Kehyo worried over his vague plan to find his mother. He had formed it bit-by-bit, piecing together facts gleaned from the idle talk of the traders. He would travel with the traders east to the coastal towns and then sell the furs to get enough money to go by boat up the coast. He had heard that this would be the fastest way into the Sanang lands, and he didn’t want to waste any time.
The colors of sunrest were incredible: pale yellow, deep orange-red, and lavender-pink with thin patches of clear blue above all. He marveled at the shifting play of light, standing as one rooted to the earth for many minutes. He stirred, and to his surprise, Ryela was beside him, not ten feet away. She had popped out of his pack to watch the sky. The sun had set and it was nearly dark. Since the fire circle was a safe distance away, Ryela hopped onto Kehyo’s shoulders to catch the last wisps of pink as they faded to grey, and the first faint stars beginning to show high above the horizon. Their shared silhouette made an unusual shape against the deep blue of the sky.
Suddenly, the stillness of the evening was broken by a harsh voice shouting nearby, startling Kehyo and sending Ryela into a panic.
“Hayup! What’s this! There is something...a creature, here in the camp!” Ryela leapt from Kehyo’s shoulders to the sand, but there was no easy escape. In the confusion, many voices were raised in alarm. Kehyo turned to grab up Ryela, to shelter her under his gahl, when, to his surprise, she leapt into his arms. She burrowed into his pack as quickly as she could, but she was not fast enough. Several Traders, already closing in on the place where they had heard the call of alarm, saw her as a dark form that seemed to be attacking the boy. The Traders formed a rough circle, surrounding Kehyo. They hoped that whatever had come at him out of the darkness would be trapped within their circle. Some of the Traders carried unsheathed durkas. Two of the men put their backs to Kehyo and scanned the darkness all around. Seeing nothing, they turned and then many voices spoke at once.
“What was it?”
“Where did it go?”
“Are you all right?” This last was directed at Kehyo, but he made no reply. Then many hands were searching him at once and Kehyo, acting out of fear, resisted them. When they reached his pack and saw movement within it, they pinned Kehyo’s flailing arms at his sides.
“Here!” one of the men exclaimed, and pulled aside the flap of fabric that covered Ryela.
“By the Mother, it’s a qeegog!” someone shouted. When they saw that it was true the men began shouting in earnest. Ryela clung to Kehyo in fear for her life. She bared her teeth and shrieked at her attackers. Kehyo tried in vain to be heard above the tumult. Suddenly Hobri broke through the circle. He held a long durka in his hand.
“Let him go!” he shouted savagely. “If anyone touches him, or the animal, they will have to answer to me!”
He brandished the curved weapon as he shielded Kehyo and Ryela. The men fell silent. He stared down the two who held Kehyo’s arms to his sides. They let go, raised their hands, and backed up into their comrades. Some of the men behind voiced objections, but when Hobri turned his blade toward them, the group dispersed, silently.
Kehyo and Ryela were both distraught by this time. They held each other, shaking all the while.
There was a slight cough behind them in the darkness.
“Kehyo, will you walk with me?” the voice was a barely audible hoarse whisper.
Kehyo turned and walked to where Hobri stood waiting. The Trader pointed east into the darkness where the stars disappeared behind the darker mass of the dunes.
“I must talk with you...alone,” he said, and backed away. Kehyo glanced down at Ryela and she nodded, indicating that it would be all right. She hopped down and ran to the tent, but she did not go inside. She climbed the tent pole and perched atop it, away from the reach of the humans.
“By the Mother, it’s a qeegog!” Time for some rising action!!