Jalia in the North (Jalia - World of Jalon), page 5
“Is he your servant?” Yeta asked, speaking for the first time since they found them.
“No, he is not!” a voice protested from the fire, and Jalia, first making sure that Daniel could not see her from his position, nodded vigorously as she put a finger to her lips.
The girls opened their mouths in big and silent O’s.
Daniel soon had a pot of stew cooking on the fire. As always, he used a selection of herbs he had gathered from along the road to make what he was cooking taste delicious. When Jalia’s father had been at his richest and taken his daughter to the finest restaurants of Bagdor she had tasted the best cuisine the civilized world had to offer, but Daniel’s stew on a warm summer’s night was better than anything she had eaten in those days.
The children ate as if they were starving, which was a little odd because there was plenty of food in the wagon. Possibly their parents had been conserving food, for the journey to Telmar was reputed to be long and arduous.
“Tell us a story,” Maya and Yeta begged and Daniel echoed them with a grin on his face. He was the one who usually told stories on the road and he had a seemingly inexhaustible supply. Jalia usually entertained any travelers they met with her knife throwing skills, but that didn’t seem appropriate for the children.
“Very well,” said Jalia sitting down cross legged across from them, “But you must be quiet and not ask silly questions or I shall stop.” The girls nodded solemnly, giving their word.
“Once upon a time the great desert that is now known as Attribar el’Dou was a wonderful forest. It was made of trees that never shed their leaves and fruited all year around. Water dripped from their leaves and, though you would rarely see them, birds voices could be heard everywhere along with the strange calls of creatures that looked a bit like men but had long bushy tails.”
The little girls giggled at the thought of men with long bushy tails. Daniel was fascinated, he was a collector of stories about the ancient times when the Magician Kings ruled the world and the fairies were tall and strange, but he had never heard this story.
“The ruler of the forest was a creature known as Coyote. Some said he took the form of a wild dog while others said he looked like those strange half human creatures with the bushy tails. But everyone agreed that Coyote was the cleverest and most devious ruler the world had ever known.”
“Coyote ruled over the animals and trees in the forest and only allowed people in to pick fruit and collect the strange nuts that fell from the trees. The people of Jalon resented these restrictions. As the great city of Akbar Arout grew in size, people became more and more annoyed, because it was known that if you cut down a part of the forest and burned it, the land would grow rich crops for many years before it was spent.”
“The caliph of Akbar Arout sought to make a treaty with Coyote, so that a little of the forest could be used to feed the people, but Coyote refused. He told them the forest was fragile. That if you cut down more than a few trees, the desert would sweep in and wipe the forest from the face of the earth.”
“The Caliph of Akbar Arout laughed in Coyote’s face, for the forest stretched for thousands of leagues and even from the tops of the High Mountains, you could not see it all. Coyote became angry and stormed out of Akbar Arout in his rage, never to return.”
“Everybody believed that Coyote was lying to them because he was known for his cleverness and the way he misled travelers going through his forest for the fun of it. Nobody thought for a second that he might be telling the truth.”
“More people came to live along the edge of the forest and the desire to turn some of it into farm land became overwhelming. The very first Magician King came to power and the people begged him to cut Coyote down to size and to allow the people to turn a part of his forest into fields. Surely the Magician King had enough power to accomplish this.”
Jalia looked to see if the girls were sleepy, but they stared at her with their eyes wide with wonder. To her annoyance, the look on Daniel’s face was not all that different from that of the children. Her mother had told her this tale when she was little and she didn’t even know she remembered it until the girls had clamored for a story.
“Coyote would not talk to the Magician King because of the insulting way he had been treated in Akbar Arout by the Caliph. The Caliph bowed down to the Magician King, as did all the other rulers and so Coyote regarded the Magician King as just another human. Since Coyote would not come to him, the Magician King set a trap to lure Coyote out of his forest.”
“He persuaded the Fairie to help him build a wonderful garden. Some say this garden was just outside Akbar Arout and some say it was closer to Enbar Entar, but the truth is that nobody knows these days. This garden was built in terraces and each terrace was fed with water from the terrace above. The Fairie brought flowers and trees from places beyond the knowledge of man and used their magic to make them grow to maturity in a very short time.”
“The Magician King knew Coyote could never resist such a beautiful garden and would visit it. Coyote knew that the garden was a trap, but as the years passed, and stories came to him of how beautiful the garden was, he could no longer resist its lure.”
“Now Coyote in his forest was invincible, because the forest grew to his word and the branches of the trees would wrap themselves around a person and strangle him at Coyote’s word. But outside the forest, he was only powerful in personal magic and might not be a match for the might of the Magician King and the eight royal families. It would be a battle that neither could be certain of winning.”
“Coyote changed himself with a spell so that he looked just like you or me, and he entered the gardens as a visitor, as the Magician King encouraged his citizens to do. Coyote was wily and looked for the Magician King’s traps to fall upon him, but nothing happened.”
“It was possible to stay in the garden for as long as you wanted. The King provided free food for guests, though it was rumored that if you stayed too long someone might throw you out. But nobody threw out Coyote and he stayed for many days, admiring the wonderful plants and animals that resided in the gardens.”
“One day, he noticed that the sky was black towards the south. The wind had previously been blowing from the north, but its direction changed and foul black clouds hung in the sky. Coyote ran from the gardens and hurried back to his forest in great fear. When he arrived at where his forest had been he found only burning stumps.”
“For the Magician King had not sought to confront Coyote, but had awaited his arrival in the garden and then started his carefully worked out plan. For three hundred leagues into the forest, men had travelled and started fires to clear the land for farming. The Magician King had reasoned that once this section of the forest was cleared, Coyote would accept it, so the people and the forest could live in harmony once again.”
“They say that Coyote’s howls of anguish were heard across the world when he saw what man had done to his forest. Exactly as the Magician King had reasoned, Coyote saw no point in war and the land was conceded.”
“For many years, the people of the world lived in harmony, tilling the land that once had been forest and the population grew to vast numbers the like of which had never been seen before. Then the land began to fail, as did the crops. It turned parched and dusty and the soil blew away in the hot winds of summer leaving only sand behind. The High King travelled to where the edge of the forest was supposed to be in the hope of stealing yet more land, but he found that it was already dead or dying as rain no longer fell from the sky as once it did.”
“No one knows what happened to Coyote, or whether there is still a forest if you travel far enough. The Attribar el’Dou desert formed in only a few summers and you cannot travel through it. It is so hot and dry that its sand cuts into you and chokes the life from your lungs.”
“Many people died in the decades that followed and the Magician Kings banned the cutting of the forests to the north. When the Magician Kings were killed in the war with the Fairie, the forests of the land grew back and the people grew fewer still. But the great raining forest where Attribar el’Dou is now never grew back and there is only desert.”
“It is said that in the old tongue, Attribar el’Dou means ‘the stupidity of kings’.”
Jalia noted that Yeta and Maya had fallen asleep and put a blanket over their curled up forms. Daniel watched her with something that looked suspiciously like respect.
“It was only a story my mother used to tell me, Daniel. It couldn’t possibly be true.”
A Dish Served…
Daniel awoke to the sound of a badger snuffling among the remnants of their evening meal. It was well before dawn and the fire had died down to little more than grey embers. He looked over to where Jalia was sleeping and saw to his amusement that the little girls had snuggled close during the night. Since Jalia’s senses were razor sharp, he knew she must have decided to let them. The children were probably the reason she hadn’t woken to the sound of the badger, it was unusual for her to let anyone sleep so near to her.
Daniel mused on his own relationship with Jalia. They had sex when it suited her, which was not often and they certainly fought from time to time. They never slept together. On the road it was safer to sleep alone.
There was a scent of autumn in the air and that was slightly worrying because he had heard tales of the bitterness of northern winters. It rarely snowed in the south and he had only seen deep snow twice in his life.
Ranwin was reputed to be a thousand leagues north of Delbon. He considered what little he knew of the geography of this part of the country.
The land rose to the south while narrowing in size, forming a wedge of mountains with their tallest peeks just north of Delbon in the area known as the Delbar Heights.
When the River Jalon reached the rising edge of the Delbar Heights in the east, it turned south to skirt the edges of the heights and went all the way around them. The river flowed from Telmar, down south to Delbon, and then north to Ranwin.
They were following the Magicians Road east. The road ran between Ranwin and Telmar along the northern edge of the wedge. The hills to the south were largely barren, sparsely littered with whatever plants and grasses could survive on stone hills regularly swept by harsh winds. To the north of the road was undulating grassland with stands of trees wherever some natural feature discouraged animals from foraging.
The Magicians Road was well over a thousand years old, but had stood up well to the passage of time and represented the swiftest route to Telmar for travelers with wagons. On the other hand, wagons could be seen for miles and they were an easy target for robbers. That had been the fatal mistake of the children’s parents, that and their stupidity in travelling alone.
Daniel knew they would have to take the wagon with them when they left the camp. If they had only been taking the girls he would have lightened the load on two of his donkeys and brought them on those, but a baby was too delicate for that sort of travel. While Daniel had heard stories of nomads carrying babies while riding on horseback; he had no idea how they managed it.
The wagon came with a sturdy looking carthorse, which was a good thing because he was not going to use his horse to do something as menial as pulling a wagon.
He built up the fire before feeding and watering the horses and donkeys. When he got back to the fire, he found Jalia putting a kettle on to boil. That was close to the limits of her culinary skills, but she did try and help out now and then.
“It wasn’t worth getting up for the badger,” she said as he wished her a good morning.
“You’ll be driving the wagon?” Daniel asked and smiled at the poisoned look Jalia gave him. As he expected, the wagon and children were going to be his responsibility. However, he drew the line at baby changing and told Jalia to get on with it, though he noted that she ended up supervising Maya, who seemed skilled at the art.
After they finished breakfast, Daniel loaded up his donkeys and tied the ever patient Ferd to the back of the wagon with the other donkeys strung in a line behind him. With the baby safely stowed with the girls in the back of the wagon and Jet tied so he could walk behind, they set off down the road with Jalia leading the way on Swift.
They travelled less than a mile before Jalia led them off the road and into the vast expanse of grassland to the north. Daniel nodded sagely, because though they had not discussed leaving the road, Jalia was every bit as aware of their visibility as he was.
The wagon swayed alarmingly as they ploughed through a sea of tall grasses. Daniel relied on Jalia to have scouted the way well enough to allow the wagon to pass, but there was always the danger a wheel would fall into a hole she had missed and crack an axle.
They stopped at noon to rest the animals and to eat. Jalia was impatient to be off and harried Daniel as he watered the donkeys. He pulled her to one side, well away from the children, to find out what was going on.
“Nothing, Daniel, I just want to get to Telmar as soon as possible,” said Jalia, giving Daniel her most innocent look.
“That’s not it,” Daniel mused, and a thought occurred to him, “We wouldn’t be following the trail of those raiders, now would we?”
Jalia’s face flushed a little and Daniel knew he had guessed right.
“We’re hardly going to catch them with a wagon, are we? Their horses must have put them days ahead by now.”
“If they were on horseback that would be true, but they’re on foot,” Jalia said triumphantly, forgetting she had not yet admitted to Daniel she was following them.
“This is a bit much for petty revenge, isn’t it?”
“I do not regard being saddled with a baby as a petty matter, Daniel. Let alone those girls. These robbers are scum and deserve to die.”
“And when were you going to tell me? When I drove the wagon’s wheels over them? You take me and the children into danger and you say nothing.” Daniel’s anger mounted as he spoke.
Jalia looked a little embarrassed. “I didn’t want you frightening the children. You are hopeless at keeping secrets.”
“Why I ought to…” Daniel could not bring himself to complete the sentence. Jalia gave him a wicked grin.
“Spank me? You couldn’t do that in front of the children, now could you?”
“I suspect Maya would happily cut me a switch if she knew the danger you are putting her sisters into.”
Jalia shrugged.
“No matter, these robbers deserve to die and I intend to help them achieve that state.” She turned to go, but Daniel pulled her back. He held her by the shoulders and stared at this woman he loved.
“Didn’t you tell me that you were proud to be a thief?” he said, smiling warmly as he spoke.
“I’m a thief and not a robber.”
“What exactly is the difference?”
“I only steal from those who deserve it and can afford to lose it, and I don’t kill anybody while doing it… mostly.”
“So you steal from the rich and give to the poor?”
“There wouldn’t be much point in me stealing from anybody poorer than me.” Jalia lifted his hands from her shoulders and turned to go.
“When Gally Delbar stole your money belt, she was being a thief and not a robber?” Daniel shouted at Jalia’s retreating back
Jalia turned and smiled. Daniel felt a chill as it was not a normal smile, but the baring of teeth in the way a tiger might, “Gally Delbar is a thief, and I would not dream of killing her because of it.”
Jalia walked away and said so softly that Daniel missed it completely, “I couldn’t make her suffer long enough if I killed her.”
Daniel went back to tightening the straps on his donkeys’ packs. Maya appeared out of the tall grasses, which were taller than she was, and stared solemnly at Daniel. “I would cut a long thick switch if you were to ask me to.”
“Do you always listen to private conversations?”
“Only to those of people who might get me killed,” she said and vanished back into the sea of grass.
A few hours later it was time to make camp for the night. Jalia rode back to the wagon and pointed out a stand of trees in the distance.
“If we light a fire, we will be visible for miles and these robbers are very likely to come and attack us,” Daniel pointed out.
Jalia grinned. “I like to know where my enemy is and chasing people is boring.”
“Where will we hide the kids?”
“There’s a small hollow we can put the girls in. The baby will have to stay with us because if she starts crying the robbers will hear her.”
Later that night, Daniel squatted by the campfire while eating stew from a plate. He had built the fire high so he was easy to see. Jalia washed clothes in the small brook below the campsite. She wore one of the skirts she found in the wagon and looked like a farmer’s wife. There were no weapons visible.
Daniel and Jalia were acutely aware of the eyes watching them. After their last experience, the robbers were wary of rushing in without making sure they would win. Jalia was getting bored washing the clothes and wished they would get on with it.
It was when the baby started crying that she got her wish. She dropped the clothes by the side of the brook and made her way back to camp. Daniel put his plate down and turned to the wagon. He should have been partially blinded by the bright flames of the fire. This would have been true if he had not kept his eyes shut while he ate.
The three men ran towards them with swords raised. They yelled as they ran to frighten their prey. Daniel dropped to one knee and retrieved the knife in his boot. He could have used his magic dagger to kill them all, but Jalia had insisted this would be unsporting. He threw the knife, which imbedded itself in the leading robber’s stomach.
Jalia pulled off her long skirt the moment the men started yelling. She had her leather skirt on underneath. Her sword was lying behind a fallen tree; she picked took it and swung her body over the trunk.
