Part 6 (1/2)

The river rounded a bend, and I came around it and saw an a.s.sortment of women, all young from the look and sound of them, standing knee deep or near the sh.o.r.e. They appeared to be was.h.i.+ng clothes.

The outfits they themselves wore were almost entirely white. White, wide-sleeved robes, it seemed, with the bottoms hiked up and tucked into wide sashes or belts wrapped around their waists. Beneath those they sported loose white leggings that came down to the knees. Furthermore, on their heads they wore extremely curious, wide-brimmed hats that were so flat they looked like large plates that came to a point.

I couldn't be sure, but it seemed that the hats were constructed from that same material that the staff trees were made of.

There were a few children there as well, dressed in simple one-piece knee-length white tunics, splas.h.i.+ng about or playing quietly as their elders tended to their wash and chatted amongst themselves in a language I couldn't even begin to comprehend. It was rapid-fire and extremely guttural. I had no idea what to make of it, but knew that if that was all they spoke around here, I was going to have some problems. I was able to pick up languages fairly quickly, but I was a stranger in a strange land, and it would have been nice to be able to communicate withsomeone. I tried to tell myself that it wasn't necessarily a disaster, even as I noted that their skin color was slightly different from mine. More of an odd tint. Slightly yellow, it seemed. I reasoned that perhaps they had some sort of vitamin deficiency that caused their skin to retain such a curious hue.

Then one of the women happened to glance in my direction, and she gasped, as did I. The poor creature was deformed. Something was disastrously wrong with her eyes, or perhaps her eyelids. They looked almost slitted, although they opened wide enough upon spotting me. Certainly, I reasoned, it was some strange and unfortunate birth defect that had caused this to come to pa.s.s. My heart immediatelywent out to her in a way that only someone who was born deformed could possibly feel.

She cried out something in her native tongue, and the others turned and looked at me as well.

They all looked like her. So did the children.

I stepped back, gasping, horrified. It was far worse than I had thought. I had wandered into something akin to a leper colony. Some place where people who had been born with this disfiguring condition had been sequestered so others wouldn't have to look upon them and be as thoroughly disconcerted as I.

They were all shouting by that point. They looked no less stunned to see me than I was to see them.

The children were calling to their mothers and pointing to me and to their own eyes in obvious bewilderment. The women were shaking their heads, gesturing helplessly, having no answer to give their inquisitive youngsters.

That's when it finally dawned upon me. I wasn't in some area where deformed people had been cast out from a more round-eyed society.Everyone in this land looked that way. As far as they were concerned,I was the freak. They were probably more right than I was. After all, I had never seen anyone who looked the way they did, but they had apparently never seen anyone like me, and there were a lot more of them than there were of me.

Then I heard more voices, deeper, rougher, male. They were coming from the field all around me, and I felt the situation was deteriorating rapidly. I started to turn with the intent of heading back down the river, and suddenly my retreat was cut off, because the males of whatever-they-were had emerged with stunning silence from the fields behind me. There were five of them, of varying ages, and they seemed no happier to see me than I was to see them.

They were obviously warriors, holding some sort of weapons that were totally alien to me. They were gleaming steel, held by handles not unlike daggers. They were longer than daggers, though, but shorter than short swords. They looked somewhat like miniature tridents, but the p.r.o.ngs weren't of equal length.

A spike protruded from the middle, and the guard consisted of two smaller, upturned twists of metal, one on either side.

Everyone was talking at once, and naturally I didn't understand a d.a.m.ned word any of them was saying. On the other hand, I knew an attack when I saw one. They were advancing slowly, babbling to each other, moving in a tight formation. I didn't like the odds I was facing. Generally any odds greater than one against one, with my opponent having his back to me and being oblivious of my presence, was more than I liked to handle. In this instance, although I was at a distinct numerical disadvantage, they were all smaller than I was. But I wasn't ruling out the possibility--with their uncannily different faces--that they might actually be magic-based creatures, capable of doing who-knew-what to me.

I reached around to my back and yanked free my sword. They jumped back, startled, as the blade whipped around, and I held it in a guard position. ”Just keep your distance!” I shouted, shoving my cloak over one shoulder to clear my sword arm.

As I did that, the little boat I'd picked up downstream fell out of the inner lining of my cloak. It clattered to the sh.o.r.e and lay there.

I heard an exclamation of joy and turned just in time to see a small girl dash toward me, oblivious to any chance of danger that might be presenting itself. Obviously it was her boat. Her mother cried out toher, grabbing for her, but she easily eluded her grasp and darted over toward me. Everyone was shouting, and I kept hearing ”Jun!,” which was either her name or ”Get the h.e.l.l away from the man with the huge sword!” in their tongue. Whichever it was, she blissfully ignored it, indicating that either she was an independent thinker or else stone deaf.

She ran right up to the boat, not more than a foot or so away from me. If I'd been of a mind to, I could have whacked her head off with one blow. Instead I simply stood there, sword still poised, but making no move toward her. Why in the world would I have done so? I was no slaughterer of innocents.

All right, technically, Iwas a slaughterer of innocents, but I'd had a bad year.

The child picked up her boat and smiled, clearly happy to have recovered her toy, which had apparently gone sailing away from her. Then she turned and looked up at me and grinned. I suppose I should have grinned back, but instead I just stared at her, not quite knowing what to make of her and the whole situation.

Then she startled me as she briskly slapped her arms to either side of her body and bowed stiffly at the waist.

I wasn't about to lower my sword. This still didn't have the makings of a friendly encounter.

Nevertheless, while keeping my weapon in a guard position, I stiffly mimicked her bow. She bowed once more. I bowed once more. Seemingly satisfied with that, she splashed back across the shallow river to the woman whom I a.s.sumed to be either her mother or elder sister.

By that point all the cross-talking and incomprehensible chitchat had ceased. Instead silence hung in the air, as the people were clearly uncertain of what I wanted, and I didn't have a clue what they wanted.

And we didn't have the language skills to bridge that gap, or so I thought.

Then one of the men took a step or two toward me.”Hunh,” he said, not so much a comment of general bewilderment as it was a sort of noise to get my attention. To announce that an attempt at communication was about to be made.

He indicated the sword in my hand, mimed stabbing with it, and then shook his head in a firm negative manner. One of the women I remembered had likewise shaken her head. It was comforting to know that there were some universal constants, and shaking one's head to indicate a negative was apparently one of them.

His meaning was clear: They were off-put by my sword. They wanted me to put it down or sheathe it.

They considered it a potential means of attack.

Which it b.l.o.o.d.y well was, of course. They were armed as well, remember, with their pointy steel sticks of death. I wasn't about to leave myself vulnerable to a.s.sault. So I shook my head vigorously and said for emphasis, even though I know they didn't understand the words, ”I'm not lowering my guard.

You have weapons, too, you know,” and I pointed at the lethal objects they were carrying.

There were bewildered expressions for a moment as they exchanged looks. Then one of the men, an older fellow whose hair was as straight black as the others, seemed to ”understand” something. I doubted he suddenly spoke my language, so I waited.

He held up his ”lethal fork” and I raised my blade in automatic defense.”Hunh,” he said once more.

Then he said something in his language that I couldn't hope to comprehend while pointing at his own weapon. I shook my head to indicate I had no idea what he was saying. For some reason he spokelouder and more slowly as if addressing one who was either deaf or stupid or both. Again I shook my head.

Everyone was watching the fellow, apparently waiting for him to get across to me whatever it was he was trying to say. Then he went down to one knee upon the sh.o.r.e and slowly drew the points of his weapon along the ground, churning up the dirt. Watching me intently as he did so, he then took the weapon and stabbed the longest p.r.o.ng straight down, making a small hole. Then he held his hand over the hole and waggled his fingers, as if he were sprinkling something into it.

I watched him blankly for a long moment.

He pointed at the hole in the dirt and then at the white stalks that stood upright nearby.

And d.a.m.n me if I didn't suddenly, in a burst of comprehension, understand what he was saying.

Those things they were carrying weren't weapons. They were farming implements. They used them as miniature hoes to turn the ground and dig holes, into which they would then drop seeds, from which these stalks had grown.

Warriors, my a.s.s. These weren't warriors. These were farmers.

”Hunh!”I said, as much as in an amused laugh as anything else. Very slowly, hoping I wasn't making a disastrous mistake, I sheathed my sword. Watching me put my weapon away, they visibly relaxed. There was still tension in the air, but it seemed as if the immediate threat had pa.s.sed.

The same man who had so deftly mimed the planting of seeds then spoke to me once again. He gestured widely, pointing in various directions, looking at me and shrugging in bewilderment. But it was an ”artsy” sort of bewilderment, meant to put across a mind-set. Clearly he was inquiring from whereabouts I had come, since I was so obviously foreign to their land.

My mind raced, and then I suddenly turned to the girl who had so fearlessly approached me earlier. I snapped my fingers to gain her attention and gestured that she should come back toward me. She automatically started to do so, but her mother briefly restrained her. The man said something though in a soothing tone, his hands palm down, apparently putting across to her that everything was going to be all right. Clearly as a matter of trust--perhaps the man was her husband or some other relation--she released the girl.

The child came toward me and I went down to one knee at the water's edge. I put out my hand and pointed at the girl's boat. She hesitated only a moment, then handed it over to me. I held it upon the water's surface, pointed at the boat, then pointed at me. The man's face clouded for a moment, but then cleared and he nodded in understanding: I had been a pa.s.senger on a sailing vessel.

Obviously I wasn't about to go into detail as to specifically what had transpired to s.h.i.+pwreck me.

Even if I spoke their language, I doubt I could have made them understand it.I barely understood it.

Instead I simply indicated the s.h.i.+p cruising along, and then suddenly angled it sharply downward and pushed it under the water, conveying the notion that my vessel had gone down. He nodded excitedly to show his comprehension. I then mimed swimming gestures, gasped deeply to indicate exhaustion, and then walked two fingers in a staggering fas.h.i.+on up onto the riverbank to put across that I had made it to sh.o.r.e.

The man spoke in a loud tone, not to me but to his people. Obviously he was explaining to them, forany who might be mime-impaired, the short version of my ordeal. There were oohs and aahs and gasps of comprehension and--could it even be?--pity for what I had gone through. A foreigner with a strange face, surviving a disastrous voyage and managing to make it to sh.o.r.e of an unknown land. It was a dramatic notion, certainly, and one that served to make me a most sympathetic figure.