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| wIn which Madrul carries more water... and falls down. and takes a 2k bath o.o: Friday, November 18, 2005 | |
Chapter 6 By the time the sun woke Madrul for the day, the torch had long since been blown out. Drademar still lay asleep on the cave floor, and Madrul was amused to find him snoring slightly. He pushed himself up onto his elbows and winced at the gesture. A quick inventory of wounds showed bruised knees and shins from where the buckets had smashed into him on the trek, and a fine set of blisters on both hands. The muscles in his legs screamed with effort as he got to his feet, and he was so shaky that he almost fell over. He took the opportunity of Drademar’s slumber to eat breakfast with his legs spread out before him, trying to get them to calm down, but it seemed hopeless. At length he could put it off no longer--he straightened his bedding, found the two buckets on the wall, and started down the now dawn-lit little path along the mountainside. At one point his legs gave out on him and he slid for several yards on his rear down the path, raising a great cloud of dust and putting another stone-rip in his toga. He examined the garment with some unhappiness--it was caked in yesterday’s dust, but he had not had time to wash. Now when he finally reached the bottom of the mountain he scampered across the rise and fall of the stone and earth medley towards the stream. When he finished with the filling of the water maybe he would have time to take a bath. He had never before looked forward to a bath but the cave was dusty and the path was dusty and the ground by the stream was muddy and he had fallen down so many times that he had begun to assume the same color as a patch of good earth. He filled the buckets, scaring away a wild goat with his splashing, and then turned back to the mountain. The path seemed to loom even more steeply than he remembered that it did, and inwardly he gave a groan of horror. As he lurched along, the handles of the buckets rubbed painfully against the blisters, and his kneecaps seemed to creak with every step. The mud had made the bottom of his sandals? slippery and he took the time to try and wipe them dry on the grass, though relatively ineffectively. “Come on now,” he said to himself. “Chores! Up the hill.” He stared up the hill and his feet seemed unwilling to move. “Come on,” he said again, and then again more vehemently, and the right foot lifted and stamped itself on the earth below the path. Then it lifted, and it made the first step. “First step done,” said he. “Now for the second step.” The left foot moved, shifted, struggled, and then took the second step. “The rest is easy,” said Madrul, and started to plod up the hill. He took the time, as he rounded a slight corner and his burning thighs pushed him further and further up, to watch the flight of a particularly large bird over the distant trees. It hovered, like a grotesquely oversized bee, over the canopy before flapping heavily off, and its call was a raucous cacophony in itself. It was not a bird he recognized and he wondered if he had merely never seen anything of the sort before or if it were from the mainland, blown across the sea by a good blast of wind and survived the journey with a good blast of luck. It swept off, and he returned his attention to the path. As soon as he had turned his attention back to his own feet, he became aware of the agony biting at his heels, toes, and soles, the pain of his sandal straps digging into his skin and the agony of the handles cutting into his palms alongside yesterday’s blisters. He groaned between gritted teeth, and tossed his head to clear it of the pain. His feet, however, kept moving of their own accord, and one straining sole caught at a patch of the loose shale that littered the path. That foot slipped, and his eyes opened wide as his body slid forward. He waved his arms just a bit, trying to catch his balance, and then more frequently, and then he was falling forward, and he lost hold of a bucket as he shot an arm out at the ground that rose up to meet him. The impact of the collision jarred the other bucket loose from his hand--it went flying some where, spraying him with water, and he cried out as he hit the ground. The slope was steep enough that as soon as he was no longer climbing he started to slide. Desperately, he shot out a hand and clawed ineffectually at the hard surface of the path--he slid over a rock and winced as it bruised his ribs, though it slowed his fall. At last his clawing at the slope brought him to a slow halt, and then the dust rose up all around him in a great blur, and he coughed and coughed against it. The hit had made him dizzy, and the rock had knocked the breath out of him, making it hard for him to breath. He lay gasping and choking on the dust laden air until a breeze touched the surface of the path and pushed the dusty air away. Even after that, it was a good number of minutes before he had caught his breath and was able to push himself up from the ground. The action made his wrist twinge with pain--fortunately, however, it did not seem to be broken, merely bruised. He took inventory. His kneecaps and his palms and his fingernails were a bloody mess; his wrist throbbed, as did one elbow; when he touched his ribs they ached with the sensation of prompt bruising. Beyond that, he seemed to be all right, although his toga was now badly ripped and he was sure that if he had done this at home his mother would have retired the cloth to turn it into a cleaning rag. A trickle of water came running down the slope past his right knee--he looked up suddenly and watched in despair as the damp patch of earth spread itself slowly and uselessly down the slope beneath the upside down bucket. Madrul flopped himself over onto his back and lay for a long moment panting against the surface of the path. Unbidden, tears worked themselves out of the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away at first, with one smudged and bloody finger, but the salt stung at his ripped fingernails and after a while he let them fall. They gathered along the length of his eyelids and then poured abruptly down the curve of his cheekbones before dripping off of his earlobe and splattering against his tousled hair, pushed up against the surface of the path. They continued their march down his face for a long time. It wasn’t fair. Why hadn’t he just told the dragon that he was never intended to be his apprentice--that the men had not even remembered Drademar’s request, much less considered it? Why had he even bothered to show up those laggards back home--why had he not just left well enough alone? Why had the dragon allowed him to stay? Why did he have to have the most miserable luck in the world? Why was he such a klutz? Why was he such a weakling? The tears pooled up and fell down, leaving pathways along the dusty curves of his face. He would climb back up the path and leave the buckets where they were--he would tell Drademar that he had never been intended as his apprentice anyway. He would have the dragon take him home, right then and there, and he would see Pedrac and Niruy and his mother again, and even Rebe would be glad to see him... Why, asked a small, quiet, internal voice, Why would they be glad to see you when they knew you ran away? Why would they be glad to see you if they knew you broke your contract? The thought hit him in the stomach, and for a moment he was almost physically sick. Of course he had not taken a formal written contract with the dragon but that did not really matter. Once an apprentice started working for a master, it was a horrible, horrible breach of etiquette for the apprentice to leave the master before he had finished training. The act was all but considered taboo throughout not only the village but the whole island. He would not be able to face anyone--Jorreked would call him an old woman again. The thought of that old insult made his blood boil like hot metal, and pushed back the self pity. The tears steamed away in the heat of that anger. Some old woman he was, after all! He had approached the dragon--and the dragon had taken him as an apprentice. He was far braver than any of those nasty rotten thumbsuckers anyway. They had spent their night cowering behind a tree trunk. He had spent his flying... The thought of the flight, his first night with Drademar, made his heart skip a beat. The beautiful sight of the expanse of the world, spread open before him--the sun lighting one pale horizon, darkness consuming the other--the proximity of the stars, the feeling of the hugely muscled back beneath him. He could not give that up--no, he could not give up that memory, anymore than he could betray his family by breaking contract. No. No. He could not leave, if only for the sake of that beautiful memory. The tears were dry. He pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the twinges in his wrist and elbow, and wincing as the dust ground itself into his scrapes. He clambered up the slope and picked up the bucket--it was dented but not broken. Where was the other bucket? A cursory glance up and down the slope revealed nothing, and for a moment he wondered how far it could have rolled. But then he glanced over the edge of the path to where its smooth surface broke off into a rock-pocked wall that one might be able to climb, and far away down this pseudo cliff the metal bucket glinted in the rising sun. He stifled a groan--he had chosen! he would stay--and then limped down the path until he was relatively close to where the metal bucket hung, on a dehydrated little tree branch sticking out of the cliff’s surface. Then he lowered himself over the edge of the path and began to climb. It was difficult to do with the blood from his scrapes and the blisters on his hands making them slick and wet, and twice he almost lost his grip. At length, however, his lowered foot brushed against the slick surface of the metal. He lowered himself a little further, and then reached out and snatched it by its handle. With that laid against his wrist--it was by now all but empty of what water it had once held--he stared back up towards the path. For a moment he did not move, and the buckets at his wrists slid down to his elbows and clashed against the rocky slope. It would be easier to get to the ground first and then find his way to the stream. But then, he hardly knew his way around the mountain--he could easily get lost without the path. He stared up the slope, marking the spots where his bloody palms had made him slip and left red smears on the rock strewn surface, and grimaced. He would take his chances on the ground. With the buckets clanging at his elbows, he slid himself down and further down the steep side of the mountain until it gentled out and he was able to roll over, push himself to his feet, and run helter and skelter the rest of the way down. When at last the dust covered rock gave way to sparse weeds and then the mixture of grass layered earth and moss coated stone, he heaved a sigh of mingled relief and resignation and bent to the stream to fill the buckets. By the time he made his way, this time more carefully, though much more wearily and with a great deal more pain, it was shortly before noon, and the dragon was gone. As he was about to empty the buckets into the barrel he noted with some chagrin that it was a little lower now than the day before, and a thin layer of soot hung over the surface. He scowled slightly and then he realized perhaps Drademar had gone to his forge. So he emptied his buckets in with a sigh. It would take three more buckets full of water to bring it to the mark on the side that indicated full. He made the trek down to the stream and back up the path once more. By this time the blood on his knees had dried to a dark colored crisp covered in pale rock dust, but where his hands clenched the handles, blood welled up from his scrapes and ran down the thin metal to coagulate before dropping into the water with a slight splash. The crimson spread itself out along the surface of the jostled buckets in ripples and waves, and as he climbed, laboriously lifting one foot at a time and placing it ahead of the other, checking his balance and his footing, and gritting his teeth against his throbbing wrist, he watched the droplets as they dissipated into the water. Each step was an agony, and his actions were so slow that he worried that he would never reach the cave. Eventually, however, as he mounted the next rise of the slope, he did reach the place where the path widened out into the ledge, where the rock was marked with deep scores from the dragon’s talons. He trudged into the cave--Drademar was long since gone--and made as if to empty the buckets into the barrel, but checked himself. The barrel was slightly more empty today than it was yesterday, and ash had covered the surface of the water like his blood had entered the bucket he carriedxxoopsthisisheretwice. He scowled briefly, and then made himself consciously shrug. It would be the last trip he had to take down the hill before the barrel was full, and he sighed deeply, determination lining his face. His dark eyes glittered with a light at long last. He took down the bucket that was meant for his own water supply. He had drunk so many times from the stream that it seemed unnecessary but he knew that he would not want to make the trip down the hill just when he was thirsty. Into the bucket he put the cloth and the bar of soap he had taken from home, and the hard sea coral for scrubbing, and his spare tunic. He left the other bucket empty, repacked his satchel and leaned it against the wall. Then he went down the path again, as he had so many times this day and the last. This time, however, he swung the buckets almost happily. He had never been entirely willing to bathe when he was at home simply because it took away from his time with the other boys, but now the thought of getting into water and stripping the dirt and blood from his skin was highly appealing. He had never felt so dirty and he had never been so glad at the thought of getting clean. The sun was just past high noon as he trod hurriedly down the dusty path, and he realized belatedly that he was still hungry. As if reminded of the fact, his stomach sounded its hunger and he flushed slightly, then grinned as there was no one around to hear him. When he reached the bottom and stepped onto the grass he almost skipped as he approached the stream (all but completely out of character, sadly). He found a fairly deep, calmer spot in the passing water, scaring away a wild goat that had been drinking, and laid out the soap and other items on the slightly muddy, sandy bank. Then he sat down on a nearby rock and began to untie the straps of his sandals. As he fumbled with the ties he glanced around. It was a pleasantly hot day, brilliant and toasty, and all the boulders that lay about were warmed by the heat of noon. The sun was shining and the sky overhead was blue and sunny (doh!) er, blue and clear of clouds. The cicadas and the insects in the jungle forest that lay only yards beyond the stream were worked into an overheated frenzy. Somewhere a bird sounded its raucous call, and a butterfly flitted gently over the stream, dabbing at the water before floating away. It was an idyllic, smarmy scene that seemed just over perfect and wonderful, and it made the author almost sick to write it. But it was a very pleasant day overall and despite the pain of his wounds from the fall earlier and his equally earlier despair which had been just recently vanquished, Madrul was very happy all of a sudden. “How strange,” he said to himself. He had not expected to be this happy. And then he was struck by how very alone he was out here in the middle of nowhere. No villages were located near the volcano--though it was dormant and had been so for many decades, there was no point in taking risks like that. There was of course among the island the story of Pavari village, which had after a long time of peace and prosperity built itself closer and closer to where the mountain slope joined the grassy meadows and lengths of forest land all around. They had lived there close to the volcano for years and years--decades, generations perchance. But when the earth had moved and the volcano had erupted they were obliterated. Occasionally those who took pilgrimages to the volcano found layers of ash or lava-flow rocks with bones or household items contained within them. Nevertheless, though he was completely alone here, he felt strangely happy. He felt… as if something had changed within him, as if he had successfully changed something inside that he had been trying to alter for a long time. He investigated the bottoms of his sandals and found that they had become worn down and scored with the heavy treading he had down over the past two days. Also one of the straps was wearing down. He did not quite know what he would do if it broke--he had no experience in repairing such ties. Maybe if he could get a bone needle like the ones Tenari and Niruy used, he might be able to repair it. He placed the sandals aside and untied his belt. It was dusty, and he scowled at it before tossing it on the ground next to the sandals. Then he unwrapped the folds of his toga and pulled the long length of cloth off of his body. He scowled at its rips and stains and threw it aside as well. He shimmied out of his tunic, threw it down, and then plunged into the river. “No son of mine,” Waef had said, “Is going to grow up without knowing how to swim.” They had been on the shore of a small bay right off of the sea, where Waef launched his fishing boat early in the morning, and Madrul had been smaller than little Rebe was now. The waves had pulled at him, and he remembered being safe in his father’s hands as he learned how to swim. The sun had risen then. It was already up now, and had fortunately warmed the stream waters slightly, but the water was nonetheless slightly shocking with its cooler temperature. He gasped, and then plunged under the surface. As he moved through the water he left an aura of dust behind him, like the blood of his wounds had left an aura in the water and the ash had left a film over the barrel. Now, however, the movement of the water carried his dust away. He splashed around happily for some time and then at length reached for the soap and scrubbed his hair until it came out clean. Then he worked on the rest of his body, massaging the soap into sore muscles. It took a great deal of scrubbing to clean his wounds, and he winced and bit his lip as they were reopened and the soap and cold water bit into them. His wrist still gave off a twinge now and then but the cold water seemed to help. The palms of his hands were laced with sensitive, slightly puffy welts that showed red once he had worked all the dirt out of them. He scrubbed the bottoms of his feet and rubbed the length of his thighs and calves, weary from all the climbing, and the backs of his shoulders, weary from all the carrying. Then he turned to his clothing--throwing the soap at the wild goat, who had returned cautiously while he bathed to investigate the flavor of his toga. He pulled the length of cloth into the water and watched as the puff of dust it left got carried downstream by the movement of the water. He swished it back and forth in the water and then he soaped it up, took the piece of coral, and scrubbed. Fortunately the blue dye was well adhered to the cloth, and for the first time he whispered a thanks to his mother’s skills as a dyer, or not only would it be faded but splotchy and just strange. The rips and the frayed spots he could do nothing about except treat them gently. The blood was fresh enough to come out quickly, but it left a ring or stain that he had to scrub with the coral and soap for several minutes until they disappeared. Next he washed the tunic; without the bloodstains it was not nearly as big a hassle as the toga had been. He even pulled the belt in and swished it around a few times. He climbed out of the water at long last with shriveled fingers and toes and pushed himself up the bank. He felt refreshed, though the wounds, freshly opened and swollen with water, stung in the air as they dried out. He pulled on the spare tunic and wrung out his clothing, the water trickling down across his feet to join the stream. Then he spread the toga and the tunic out to dry on the largest, hottest boulder he could find. Then he stretched out on the ground, his hands crossed behind his head, to wait for the intense sun to dry both him and it. He reflected idly that back home it would be about time for the afternoon peacebreak, but he did not feel tired. He was well past the age where he needed a nap in the afternoon to keep up his energy, like Rebe did. That drew his mind to his family. He did not miss Rebe’s whining, nor did he miss Pedrac’s nitpicking. He wondered then how her apprenticeship was working out. She had been so interested in the telling that she had begged Waef and Tenari to approach Siqan Drema. When they finally had it took much discussion but they had at last arranged her apprenticeship, and Pedrac had almost screamed with delight to hear that it was successful. Her first night back from her apprenticeship--since she was apprenticed with someone within the village there was no reason for her not to live in the same household as her family, unless the Siqan had wanted otherwise--they could all see that she had been crying. Tenari and Waef had talked it over amongst themselves and thought to see if the Siqan would be willing to cancel the contract, but Pedrac would not let them. Despite her tears she had had a genuine interest in the telling, and even though she came home many more nights crying she did not once suggest to them verbally that she was displeased with the arrangement. His mind wandered. He thought about his friends--Jorreked, Zetsoi, and Keirun especially, but also about the other boys in the village. What would they be doing now? How had his mother responded to his not coming home that night? Waef had assuredly told her the situation, but not even he knew what Madrul would be doing--Madrul himself hardly knew. And then he wondered if he would be able to learn how to forge swords, or fight with them, or if maybe Drademar had only requested a servant and not an apprentice, and was only teasing him with temptation of tutelage. Eww, alliteration galore! Scary. He dozed lightly in the warm sunlight, his mind flickering from thought to thought, and the sun passed an hour’s time in the sky.
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