This part collects the stories from Sonmatia Three by winners of the past Nebador Writing Contests, 2010 - 2014, all of which are prequels or spin-offs of NEBADOR Books One, Two, Three, and Four. They have been placed in story-chronological order.
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Rini and the Old Slave
by Terri Snyder
This story takes place about four years before Ilika arrives in the kingdom in NEBADOR Book One: The Test.
Rini was about nine when he wandered away from the farm where he was born for the last time. He knew his family wouldn’t really miss him. He had strong brothers and sisters who were happy doing farm work. Rini didn’t mind working, but he was skinny and couldn’t do some of the hard work.
Also, he knew there was something else out there he had to find.
The girl down the road who liked him, who was about eight, cried a little when she heard he was gone, but couldn’t do anything about it. She grew up and married Rini’s brother who was big and strong.
When Rini left, it was late summer and there were plenty of berries everywhere. Rini wandered into the hills near Bee, where he visited many places he liked. As he sat alone on the hills, watching the sun set over the ocean in the west, he knew this time was different. He knew he wasn’t going back. He just didn’t know where he was going.
For weeks he wandered in the grasslands north of the hills, playing hide and seek with the rabbits, running with the foxes, and howling with the wolves. One or two farmers heard him, but just thought it was a sick wolf.
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When fall came, he walked north, thinking he could find a cave, or make a little house, in the woods. He looked through tree branches at the little village of Huk, but didn’t let anyone see him. Dogs heard him and smelled him, but he was so much like a wild creature by then that they didn’t even bark.
Rini found a cave, but it was taken by foxes, and they didn’t want to share it. He built a little house with tree branches, but a storm knocked it down. He said thank you to the pile of tree branches and walked deeper into the woods.
The fall started getting frosty, and Rini shivered until the sun finally warmed him. He was crossing the road from Huk to Lumber Town when he found an old box that was only smashed on one side. He dragged it into the woods and made it into a house. Another storm came, but his house was strong enough this time.
After a few more weeks, the days were frosty all day long, and very cold at night. Rini put dry leaves in his house, and they helped a little. Bugs sometimes tickled him when he was trying to sleep.
But he had a bigger problem. The frost made the last of the berries go moldy. He couldn’t find anything to eat. Just for a moment, he thought about being a hunter. The thought made his stomach twist up into knots, so he forgot about that idea.
Rini was just about to give up and get on the road to Huk, or maybe Lumber Town, to find some work he could do in trade for some food. Then he saw an old man walking very slowly in the woods. Rini hadn’t talked to anyone in about two months, and he was getting a little lonely.
“Hello!” he called down from the rocks where he was sitting.
The old man shaded his old eyes and looked up. Then he walked slowly on along the path.
Rini thought the old man didn’t want to talk to him, and that made him feel a little sad. But a minute later the old man came to a log and slowly lowered his old bones onto it.
“I don’t know if you are a good boy, or a bad boy, but either way I could not get away from you,” the old man said. “In fact, I don’t think I will be going
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much father from here.”
Rini quickly climbed down from the rocks and stood looking at the old man.
The old man looked right at Rini. “I can’t see you very well, but you haven’t tried to steal my pack yet, so maybe you are a good boy.”
“I would never steal your pack,” Rini said. “I’m just a little lonely and would like to talk to someone.”
“You got anything to eat?” the old man asked.
“No,” Rini said. “The berries molded, and I’m not much of a hunter.”
The old man took his pack off and opened it with his stiff fingers. “Let me see. Bread to keep your belly warm, fish for your muscles, and fruit for your heart.”
Rini took the pieces of food that the old man handed him, and could feel his stomach churning just smelling the food. He was about to gobble it all down, but noticed the old man eating very slowly, so Rini ate slowly too.
“What are you gonna do to survive the winter?” the old man asked after slowly eating some bread.
“I don’t know,” Rini said. “Maybe go to a village and ask if I can work.”
The old man was silent as he ate some fish. “That might work. You’ll have something to eat some days, but not others.”
Rini thought about it. “What are you gonna do?” he asked.
The old man finished slowly eating a piece of dried fruit before saying anything. “There’s a stream up this trail about a mile. I played there when I was little. I kissed a girl there when I was a youth. I hid there from soldiers once. It’s special. I have enough food to get me there, maybe keep we warm for a week or two. That’s enough.”
Rini wondered how that could be enough food with winter coming, but didn’t say anything.
Rini carried the pack as the old man slowly walked along the trail. He used his walking stick all the time, but didn’t stumble much with Rini carrying the pack.
As they walked slowly along, the old man asked Rini to stay and share his food until it ran out. Rini felt guilty about eating the old man’s food, and said
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so, but the old man told Rini it was worth it to have someone to talk to.
When the sun started to set, the old man said they were about half way there, so Rini made a little house for them with tree branches. Luckily there was no storm that night.
All the next day they walked slowly through the woods. They couldn’t talk much because the old man only had enough breath for walking or talking, but not both.
Late in the day they came to the stream, and the old man almost seemed to be young again. He walked around, telling Rini about the old cabin that was falling down when he was young, and now was just a pile of rotten boards. He showed Rini the place where stones made a pool, but now some of the stones were scattered down the stream. He pointed to a piece of old rope hanging from a tree and told Rini about the swing that used to be there.
Before the sun set, Rini gathered tree branches again and made a little house for them. They ate bread and dried fish, then fell asleep.
The fall days after that were cold but clear. With bread in his belly, Rini stayed warm. The old man had a cloak that kept him warm. Sometimes the sun would warm them a little just before setting.
As the days passed, Rini thought about what the old man had said, and realized he wasn’t going to leave his special place ever again.
“I was a slave most of my life,” the old man said when they had been there about a week.
Rini had seen slaves, but didn’t know much about it. He begged the old man to tell him more.
“Slavery happens to people who aren’t smart enough to see dangers and avoid them, or smart enough to see chances and take them. That was me.
Always a little too slow. I thought someone was going to hand me life on a platter. Doesn’t happen that way.”
“Was it a good life?” Rini asked, knowing the man was not planning to live much longer.
The old man thought for a long time. “Yes and no.”
Rini looked at him and waited.
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“It taught me what people are all about. I saw very good people, and very bad people. I learned to tell the difference, even before they said or did anything. And it gave me work and food every day. That was the good part of being a slave.”
The old man was silent as he listened to the stream gurgling.
“What about the bad part?” Rini asked.
“The bad part was staying a slave too long. Remember what I said about being too slow to see the dangers and chances?”
Rini
nodded.
“A few years as a slave, especially while you’re young and strong, is good for any young man. You’d learn many things. You’d get stronger. Any softness in you would be worked off.”
Rini waited because he knew the old man wasn’t finished.
“But don’t do what I did. Don’t stay. Watch for your chances. Don’t grow old as a slave. When they finally have no more use for you, you’ll get some bread, fish, and fruit. Maybe an old cloak and a little pack if they like you.
But winter will be coming. Winter comes every year.”
Three days later, their food ran out.
The old man walked around to all his favorite places again. The cabin.
The pool. The swing. One place, a little grass hidden by some bushes, he never said anything about. Rini guessed that was where he kissed a girl.
The next day, the old man asked Rini to do one more thing for him. He asked Rini to move the little tree branch house up onto a low ridge that was above the stream. From there, he could see all his favorite places.
Rini knew it would be colder up there, but took the rest of the day doing what the old man asked. When he was done, he added more branches to keep out the wind.
As the sun set, the old man drank from his stream one more time, but there was nothing to eat. He asked Rini to help him up to the little house.
With a far-away look in his eyes, he sat in the entrance until the light faded.
Then the old man crawled inside and went to sleep.
When Rini woke up the next morning, he could not wake the old man, who
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had become all cold and stiff.
Tears ran down Rini’s cheeks. “Good bye. And thank you for everything you told me,” Rini whispered.
Suddenly Rini knew why the old man had asked him to move the tree branch house. He didn’t want to die by his favorite stream, and maybe ruin the water.
Rini stayed at the special place most of that day, looking at the old cabin, the pool, the broken swing, and the hidden place where a young man had once kissed a girl. Up on the ridge, he covered the entrance to the little tree branch house with more branches.
As the sun started getting low in the west, Rini walked down the trail, back the way they had come, toward the road from Huk to Lumber Town. When he came to the road, he thought for a moment, then started walking toward Huk.
Rini had been to Huk once before. It had a mill, a small inn, a grocer, some houses, and a little guard post. He arrived just as the sun was setting.
He looked at the inn and grocer. Both had lamps and candles lit, and people were going in and out. Rini knew both those places were for people who had copper pieces in their pouches. Rini didn’t even have a pouch.
He looked at the mill. A sign said, “Need strong men.” Rini glanced at his skinny arms and walked on.
Rini stood in the middle of the road remembering all the things the old man told him. He walked to the little guard post, stepped inside, and said,
“I’d like to be a slave.”
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Kibi and the Search for Happiness
by Katelynn Persons
This story takes place a year and a half before Ilika arrives in the kingdom in NEBADOR Book One: The Test.
“Learn your place! You’re a slave, our slave, and nothing more.”
I stared blankly at the ground as I heard another whip lash toward me.
Covering my face, I immediately yelled in pain.
“Now get moving, slave girl!” his cold voice barked as he grabbed my bruised and bleeding arms and pushed me back in line.
I watched my friends turn and look at me with knowing eyes, but not a word was spoken until the guard cracked his whip, making us yelp and whimper in fear.
“I said get moving!”
We all turned around and walked slowly back out to the field.
“Why do you let him do that, Kibi?” the tall boy asked as he looked up from his shovel.
I stared at the gashes in my arms and legs for a long time before finally looking up. “What would you do, Miko?” I asked, frustrated, careful not to let the guards hear us. “Fight back?” I jabbed my shovel back into the soft soil, throwing the dirt over my shoulder onto the pile behind us.
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“I guess so . . . I don’t know. Something is better then nothing.”
“If you come up with a way to get out of here and not get us all killed, you let me know.” I looked down at my shovel as it sliced through the rich soil again.
Miko looked slowly down at his work. “Kibi . . . I want out.”
I looked up at him as he continued working slowly. “What do you mean?”
I stammered with hesitation.
“Hey!” one of the guards yelled, cracking his whip. “Get back to work!”
We nodded and quickly picked up the pace.
“I mean I want out, Kibi. There is so much more out there for me, I just know there is!”
“But, Miko,” I replied, not daring to take my eyes off my shovel, “how would you ever do that? Trust me, I feel the same way you do. We’re too smart to be here, we know that, they know that, everyone knows that . . . but we can’t! Not right now at least. Not while those guards are looking at us.”
“Kibi, I’m not stupid. I know. I’m going to get out of here, and you’re not going to stop me!”
“I don’t want to stop you, Miko,” I quickly replied, choosing my words carefully. “I just don’t want to see you get hurt!”
“I’m not going to,” he replied sternly, glancing up at me. “I’m going to be free. And I’m doing it tonight. Neti will surely be on my side and go with me, even if you’re too chicken.”
“I don’t want trouble,” I replied, staring at my shovel.
“You’ll never be free if there isn’t any trouble, Kibi.”
I stared down at the ground as I swiftly kept digging.
“I know your logic and realism are probably in the way of seeing that, but you have to put them aside and think about freedom! Isn’t that what you want?”
“Of course that’s what I want . . . but . . .”
Suddenly the alarm clanged and we all hit the ground, slamming our stomachs against the dirt. Uh oh. Trouble.
“Everyone on the ground!” one of the guards yelled.
We could see a man running through the field, one of the smaller slave boys in his arms. It’s Jalo, the young boy of about seven that I hold so dearly
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to my heart.
“Jalo,” I whispered softly as tears began filling my eyes and rolling down my cheeks. I knew in that moment that I might never see my little friend again.
“Another kidnapping,” Miko whispered, obviously detaching himself from the situation. I didn’t take my eyes off the man and crying child until they were tiny specks in the distance, some of the guards still charging after them.
“Everybody up!” the remaining guards yelled.
We all scrambled to our feet.
“Back to work!”
Later that night, back in our shelter, I sat alone on my mat as a figure walked toward me. I scooted over and made room for Miko beside me.
“I’m leaving, Kibi!” his sharp words pierced my ears.
I stared ahead, emotionless. “Where do you plan on going?”
“Anywhere, anywhere but here. And Neti is going with me,” he quietly but firmly responded, gesturing to the small, pretty girl sitting on a mat against a wall, holding her knees. “Are you coming?”
I looked sternly into my handsome friend’s eyes. “You’re serious?” I asked dryly.
“Do I look like I’m kidding? Come on, Kibi! We deserve better then this!
All of us do, and you know that.”
I felt my face flush as I looked at the ground for a long time.
“Are you with us or not?”
I sighed and played with a small rock, running it over my fingers and back again. “What are you planning?” I asked slowly, looking up at him.
His eyes lit up with enthusiasm. “We’re going to wait until all of the guards and the master fall asleep. We’ll go through the door as quietly as possible, dash through the vegetable garden, through the nook between the far cabin and the river, and out where that man took Jalo this morning.”
I cringed at the memory of the little boy. “How do you plan on living? We have no money, no food, no other clothes, no shoes.”
“It’s better then living here,” Miko responded softly. He stared at the ground for a long time. “Neti has a couple of copper pieces; she found them
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while digging a few weeks ago. I know a couple of others have coppers they’d be willing to give us too. That should give us enough to survive until we know what we’re doing.”
I looked up at him. “Why is Neti going?” I asked playfully.
He blushed a little bit. “She’s one of my best friends, Kibi,”
I smirked. “You sure there isn’t anything going on between you two?”
He giggled and nudged my shoulder. “She’s pretty . . . and I could see myself with her, sure,” he shrugged. “But . . . right now . . . I have my eye on another girl,” he informed me as he looked back into my eyes.
I looked at him with slight confusion.
He leaned in and softly kissed my lips.
I kissed him back, still somewhat confused.
He gently pulled back and looked into my eyes.
I took in a deep breath; looking into his dark eyes, I told him softly, “I’m going.”
“Everyone is asleep,” Neti whispered after she tiptoed to us in the cabin.
Miko and I looked at each other, both with unsteady stomachs.
“Guess this is it,” Miko responded, swallowing.
“Now or never,” I whispered back as I glanced around at my friends in the darkness for what may have been the last time.
“Are we going or not?” Neti urged. “You know they’ll be up soon to keep guard. They don’t think any of us knows that they leave us unguarded at this hour.”
“Surely they have some sort of security system . . .” Miko started.
I grabbed his arm and looked into his unsure eyes. “Miko,” I whispered.
“Do you want us all to have a shot at freedom, or is your logic and realism in your way of seeing that?”
He swallowed again as he looked at me with a smirk.
“Lets go,” he whispered.
We gathered our copper pieces, collected from our friends when we said our goodbyes earlier. We were sure not to mention it to anyone who would tell the guards.
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Neti offered to go ahead. We let her, agreeing to follow her once she had made it.
Miko and I huddled together in the small space between two of the slave cabins, just barely wide enough for Miko’s large body to fit in.
“Are you ready?” he whispered, looking into my eyes in the darkness.
“As ready as I’ll ever be,” I said as my stomach churned and I looked down at our feet, just inches away from each other. He took a step towards me and put his hands on my waist, pulling me to him. I looked up into his eyes as he kissed my forehead.
“We’re going to make it, Kibi,” he said as he ran the back of his hand down my cheek.
I smiled and put my hand over his, confused about why we went from a simple friendship, to so much more in a day. “I know . . . this has to work,” I said looking into his eyes.
He smiled and kissed my lips once more. “Kibi . . . I love you.”
I took a step back in confusion, looking into his eyes breathlessly. “What?”
I said dumbfounded.
“I . . . I’m sorry,” he stuttered. “I shouldn’t have said . . .”
Suddenly we heard footsteps, and we fell to the ground in the little space, our dark clothes blending in with the rotten wood of the cabins and the dirt surrounding us.
Miko gripped my hand tightly as we both held our breath. A shadow from the moonlight came toward our niche.
Miko turned his head to silently watch. One of the slave boys about my age, fourteen going on fifteen, rounded the corner and I looked up, ready to make a dash for it.
“Zoko!” I whispered as I stood up.
“What are you guys . . .” he started.
I dashed to him and put my hand sharply over his mouth. “Shh!” I hissed into his ear. “They’ll hear you!”
“We’re escaping. We’re getting out of here,” Miko murmured quickly.
I released my grip on Zoko’s mouth, as he looked at us with wide eyes.
“You guys can’t leave! What about all of us? I thought you guys were kidding earlier . . .” he responded through his teeth, realization taking over.
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“Well, we are leaving, Zoko. You’re free to come with us. If not, go back inside,” I told him sternly.
“Kibi . . . you can’t go . . . we need you . . . you teach us things. And Miko
. . . how are we going to do all of the work without you?”
I ran my hand down Zoko’s face. “We need to go. Are you coming?” I asked softly.
“I can’t go . . . I can’t . . .” he said, tearing up.
I smiled weakly. “I understand. Go back inside. We’ll meet again someday, I’m sure of it.”
He stood there, motionless, and looked at me.
I looked back at him.
“Go on,” Miko hissed, as he waved him away.
Zoko looked into my eyes and pulled me into a tight embrace.
I kissed his cheek and whispered that I’d miss him too, and to take care of himself and the young ones.
He pulled back and I saw tears glistening in the moonlight on his cheeks, just as I felt tears on my own face.
I wiped the moisture away from his eyes and he gripped my hand for a second, before he quickly turned and went back inside his cabin.
Miko put his hand on my shoulder as I fought back a waterfall of tears. He tenderly wrapped his arms around my shoulders and held me against his warm chest, where I cried. I cried for the unknown, I cried for little Jalo, I cried for the friends I was leaving behind, I cried for my confusion about Miko, and I cried for my future.
We met Neti in the garden behind a tool shed. Neti embraced us both when she saw we had made it okay.
“We need to hurry,” Neti declared. “Dawn is coming soon. They will catch us easier if that happens.”
Miko and I nodded. “Run quickly, and quietly until we reach the nook where the cabin meets with the line of the river. We’ll cross there,” I said quickly, looking at them both.
Miko and Neti nodded as they glanced at each other.
“I’ll take the lead,” I continued. “Follow me once I make it behind the
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cabin. Follow quickly, and one at a time. But we don’t have too much time.”
They both nodded with understanding and I peeked out from behind the tool shed. Everything was still, and hadn’t moved. So with one look back at Miko and Neti, more specifically Miko, I took in a deep breath and walked low and quickly through the tall wheat and grass. After dodging a couple of holes that had been dug into the ground earlier that day, I found myself behind the cabin. I breathed deeply as I waited for the next person to come running. I leaned back against the cabin wall and looked up as I closed my eyes, trying to catch my breath and settle the butterflies in the pit of my stomach. Am I really doing this?
Next thing I knew, Neti came around the corner, out of breath. She smiled and threw her arms around me for a long embrace.
“How are you holding up?” I supportively responded, rubbing her back.
She nodded into my neck and shoulder.
I pulled back and smiled.
“Miko will be here soon,” she whispered, her face getting a little pale, even through the darkness.
“What’s wrong, Neti?” I asked with uncertainty. She looked down, but said nothing. “Neti?”
“Kibi,” she said finally. “How . . . how do you feel about Miko?” She looked timidly into my eyes.
I took in a breath and rested my hands on my waist. “Honestly, Neti?” I admitted, letting out a breath. “I don’t know right now. Why do you ask?”
She ran her tattered shoe through the dirt and back again. “I think he likes you.”
I hesitated. “I think so too,” I said, nodding as I tripped over my thoughts.
“But at the same time, I think he’s just confused, with everything that’s going on. I think he’s taking his emotions for me as a friend to unprincipled extents.
Why do you bring it up?”
She looked down for a long time, and then back into my eyes. “Kibi . . . I think I love Miko.”
“Made it!” Miko said rounding the corner.
Neti smiled and wiped away the tears that our conversation had brought to
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her eyes.
Miko immediately wrapped me in his arms to embrace me. I smiled weakly and accepted a short hug. I kept urging Neti with my eyes to embrace him next, which she did with grace, as she does everything else. I couldn’t help but feel a hint of jealousy as she held him . . . jealousy that she wanted him too.
“Now what?” Neti said, reluctantly leaving Miko’s grip.
I forced myself to smile, before bringing my focus back to the task at hand.
“The bridge over the stream is down there,” I said, pointing to the left of us about fifty feet. “But it’s through an open field. So we’ll have to move quickly and not look back. Neti, I’d like you to go first this time. Once you get across, I want you to go a little ways into the forest, and hide behind the first large tree you find. When Miko and I come across, one at a time, we’ll whisper your name. I want you to whisper your name when you hear us coming to you, and we’ll hide beside you until all three of us are across. Got it?”
Neti nodded with a gleam of eagerness surrounding her face. “Keep watch for me, just in case anyone’s coming,” she whispered uncertainly.
I smiled. “Of course, Neti. Now go, we all need to get across.”
She nodded solemnly as she scanned the area around her before quickly making her way down to the bridge.
We watched her for a moment before I lost sight of her in the darkness and leaned back against the wall. I remembered Miko’s presence beside me and smirked, happy to be alone with him again. I looked up at him and smiled once our eyes met.
He came closer and slid his arm around my waist, gently kissing my neck and whispering in my ear how much he cared about me.
I smiled as a chill went down my spine, and wrapped my arms around him. He held me against his chest for a long time, before finally kissing my lips and letting me go.
“I better get moving,” I murmured reluctantly. “We have a lot of ground to cover.”
“Of course,” he said, running his fingertips down my cheek.
I smiled as the butterflies flooded my stomach once again, and observed my surroundings as I made my way across the open field and across the
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rickety bridge, taking a last look back at Miko’s figure in the darkness. I looked ahead of me and ran forward, whispering Neti’s name over and over until I heard a faint whisper coming from behind one of the trees. I stopped and listened to where it came from. I whispered her name again and she stepped out from behind a large oak tree. I jumped before I realized it was her.
“Shh, Kibi! It’s only me!” she said as she took a step towards me.
I put my hand over my quickening heart as I went and hid behind the large tree with her, neither of us saying much of anything until Miko showed up, where we both unconsciously and jealously fought for his affection.
We soon were walking through the large, dark forest, all of us making small talk. Miko held my hand for a while, which I felt fortunate for. I really did care for Miko . . . and still I felt guilty about Neti. She had been trying so hard to get him to notice her. We kept walking through the forest until dawn rose. I looked at Neti as she yawned.
“We should probably get some rest,” I said finally.
Miko looked at me and I saw Neti smile briefly at the idea.
“Here look good?” Miko suggested as we came into a clearing with trees, and minimal rocks covering the ground.
Neti and I nodded and immediately found trees to sleep against for the night. I sat against a large tree and leaned my back against it, closing my eyes.
Neti was soon fast asleep, with her girly little snore that made me giggle to myself.
Suddenly I heard slow footsteps and my eyes shot open. It was Miko coming to sit next to me. As I had done earlier that evening, I scooted over to the side and Miko sat down with me. Soon Miko has his arms around my waist and I was nuzzled into his chest, fast asleep.
“No! Neti!” I heard a voice yell as my eyes flashed open, squinting instantly at the bright morning sun.
Men were surrounding us and had Neti’s arms held back, one man throwing her over his shoulder.
“Neti!” I screamed, scrambling to my feet. I ran and hit the man who was holding her, obviously not fazing him any as he grunted and shoved me to the
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ground, yelling at another man in a foreign tongue and pointing to me.
I felt Miko jump over me to protect me, just to get thrown down by a large man with a whip.
The man holding Neti started to run and I grabbed his ankle. As I made him stumble, he let go of Neti, who instantly fell to the ground. I saw Miko run to her aid, and hold her to his chest as she yelled about a pain in her arm.
A small man picked me up and swung me over his shoulder as I kicked and screamed. I saw Miko grab Neti’s waist, and even through my conscious jealousy, I yelled for them to run.
Neti held Miko’s hand as she went to take off into the forest. Miko reluctantly followed behind her, staring back at me with regretful eyes.
I nodded and mouthed for them to go, and saw a tear falling down his cheek as he turned to run with Neti back into the forest.
“You really thought you’d get away, didn’t you, girl?” the man holding me asked with amusement.
“It’s Kibi,” I responded bitterly.
He and the two men following just laughed.
The large man that had thrown Miko to the ground was following us, and ran his hand down my cheek. “Pretty girl. What business do you have in the forest?”
I coldly pulled my face back. “Independence, just out of my grasp. If you lugs wouldn’t have held me back, I may possibly have had it by now!”
The man smacked me across the face as I yelped. “You will talk to us like superiors. Words like that should not be said from the tongue of someone like you. Shut up before I shut you up.”
Tears filled my eyes in pain as I felt a trickle of blood slide down my cheek from where he had struck me, but I remained strong and held back my tears.
“Your friends may have escaped us this far, but they’ll be back,” the third man informed me with a chuckle.
I stared back the way we came, soberly wondering where my friends were now.
“Kibi!” all of my friends yelled as I entered the cabin. Hugs and kisses
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surrounded me instantly.
Tears filled my eyes once again at the sight of my brothers, sisters, friends, and what I considered to be my family.
“You came back,” I heard a boy’s voice say as I looked through everyone surrounding me. It was Zoko.
I smirked with a hint of embarrassment as he smiled. I broke through the crowd and went to him.
“I hoped that you’d make it,” he uttered softly as he looked into my eyes.
I smiled. “Yeah, I wish we all would have,” I murmured with sadness in my voice, staring down at the insecure floorboards of the leaky cabin. I felt Zoko hold me in a warm embrace, which felt good after so much uncertainty.
His friendship comforted me, even if only for that brief moment.
“Where are the others?” he asked me through our teary-eyed hug.
A tear fell down my cheek as I whispered that I didn’t know.
He held me tighter. “Maybe they made it,” he said, trying to reassure himself, more then me, of his confidence.
“Thanks,” I said, running my hand up and down his back before reluctantly pulling away from his arms.
He smiled and ran his hand down my arm.
“Okay excitement over! Everyone get to work!” the guards said as they threw shovels, plows and gloves outside of our cabins.
We impulsively jumped as we all headed outside.
I ran and grabbed my routine shovel and gloves, when I felt a hand on my shoulder.
“Oh no no no, pretty miss. We have a special day planned for you.” I took a deep breath and turned around: the guard who had smacked me.
I kept my eyes closed the entire time; whip after whip after whip, screaming as I felt my blood trickling down my body, wearing only my torn and tattered rags for protection.
“Get in there!” I heard a voice yell as the beating came to a pause.
I saw two guards come in, and throw Miko and Neti onto the ground beside me.
“Miko! Neti!” I yelled, instantly grabbing them both in a hug and kissing
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Miko’s cheek, all of us crying.
“Get off!” the cruel man yelled as he whipped us all.
We screamed and jumped back, each of us getting whipped by separate masters.
They beat us and beat us and beat us, until they finally wore me down and I couldn’t fight back. I fell down onto the brick floor, holding my body, my head hidden by my arms as he whipped me mercilessly.
I opened my eyes hesitantly, only to reveal a layer of darkness surrounding me. I went to sit up slowly, but instantly shot back down. I looked around, only daring to move my neck at this point. It was a dark room with one small window up in the corner, letting in a stream of pale moonlight. I looked across the room to see Neti and Miko fast asleep, holding each other. As much as it pained me to see them that way, so happy together, I kept my focus on the throbbing pain in my ribs. I had obviously cracked one of them when I hit the brick floor after being beaten. I looked around the room; it was one of the security cabins for any wannabe runaways, which was now being kept guarded during all hours.
I looked back over at Miko and Neti, and saw Miko looking back at me.
I smiled weakly as tears filled my eyes.
He gently untangled his arms from around my pretty friend, and came to sit beside me. He touched my shoulder gently and looked into my eyes.
“She loves you,” I muttered weakly, holding back tears.
He nodded solemnly. “I know, Kibi.”
I looked down at my shattered ribcage, trying to imagine myself anywhere but there. “Do you love her?” I asked, not daring to look at him in fear of me completely losing it.
“Yes, Kibi,” he sighed, “I love her.”
I closed my eyes in pain, both emotional and physical, as tears ran slowly down my cheeks. I felt his hand being removed from my shoulder. “I am so sorry.” He whispered softly, as he went to stand up.
I held his arm to keep him there. “It’s . . . okay, Miko,” I said dryly, surprised that I could say it honestly. “You two have always been cute together.”
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He smiled. “Thanks, Kibi . . . that really means a lot . . . coming from you.”
I smiled weakly as he kissed my cheek, stood up and went to a mat in the far corner of the cabin by myself, curling up and going to sleep.
Tomorrow is another day, I thought to myself. I lay there and remembered my tender moments with Miko, and the not so pleasant past; the fighting, the anger, and the most recent affairs with one another. How could I have thought it would ever last? His heart is obviously with Neti. But, as long as Miko’s happy, I guess I’m happy too. I closed my eyes as I felt a cool breeze coming in through the high-up window. I put my hands gently on my cracked ribcage for comfort, and softly drifted off to sleep to the sound of my friend’s breathing.
“Kibi,” he said looking up into the stars. “What do you see?”
I smiled and ran my hands down his arms. “A beautiful starry night.”
“What are those stars, Kibi?” he said looking at me tenderly.
I looked back at him, smiling, then back at the stars up above. “Holes in the sky. The universe shedding little lights.”
The man laughed and kissed my forehead. “My Kibi,” he whispered softly.
I nuzzled into his shoulder and looked up into his eyes.
He looked down at me and kissed my lips.
I gazed into his eyes, and felt a wave of comfort come over me, being completely at peace with life. Something that I had never known existed until lying there, in that man’s arms. “Thank you,” I whispered through my tears,
“so much.”
The man smiled and pulled me close to him. “Go to sleep, Kibi. You deserve it.”
I rested my head on his chest and gently closed my eyes, thinking that maybe this world wasn’t such a bad place after all.
I felt him kiss my forehead and whisper words of affection in my ear, as I fell into a deep sleep.
I woke up to the bright sunlight streaming in through the window high above me.
I looked around and saw Miko and Neti gone, but I was covered in the old
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blanket that Neti was using last night, and felt the comfort of my friends.
I lay there, and recalled my dreams of that night. I dreamt of a man, a slightly older man, one I had fallen for. I couldn’t recall the young man’s name, but he was smart, very smart. He taught me words that I didn’t even know existed, even with my large vocabulary. I couldn’t recall if he was another slave boy . . . but he seemed too educated and well dressed to be a slave, and I couldn’t imagine him being a slave master or guard. We didn’t look like we were in a slave camp . . . and I don’t remember ever seeing his face in real life. All I knew for sure was that there was something about that dream that called to me. Maybe Miko isn’t the one for me . . . he’s Neti’s man.
I’ll just have to find my own dream man some day. The one that will hold me like Miko holds Neti, and kiss me how Miko kissed me, except actually mean it. I smiled softly as I took one last look around, and snuggled into the comfort of my blanket, drifting back into sleep, into my dream man’s world for one last visit.
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First Taste of Freedom
By Katelynn Persons
This story takes place when Miko and Neti are buying pouches in the marketplace and the nearby streets of Rumble Town in NEBADOR Book One: The Test.
Miko and Neti stepped into Rumble Town for the first time on their own, with nothing but each other and the money pouch Ilika had given them with two small silver and eight copper pieces inside.
“Where do we go?” handsome Miko asked uncertainly as he stared uneasily into the busy streets of Rumble Town.
Neti looked around, more determined than frightened. “Well,” she said, thinking, “Ilika said we need to do some of the shopping for the group. We need money pouches, enough for all eight of us, so we need to find somewhere that sells them, preferably somewhere close.”
Miko looked at Neti with shifting eyes. “What if we get lost?”
“We won’t,” the pretty girl said as she took her love’s hand. “Trust me.”
He nodded as he looked timidly down the street, and followed Neti’s lead into the crowd, in hopes of completing their first task.
“Look!” Neti exclaimed as she pointed to a group of large, rich-looking men on horses coming toward them.
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Miko watched the men approach as his stomach tightened. “Our old slave masters,” he whispered under his breath.
They stood frozen for a few moments of panic before Neti took Miko’s hand and led him into the crowd, going away from the terrible men. Miko stopped in his tracks.
“No, Neti!” he said firmly.
She turned around, almost running into him. “What are you doing?” she asked with a hiss.
Miko took her hands in his as he looked into her startled eyes. “Neti, we aren’t slaves anymore, there’s nothing to be afraid of! Ilika said to treat everyone we come across with respect, so we can’t run from them. We have to continue what we’re doing, or they’ll think we’re acting suspiciously.”
Neti looked at him anxiously, but gave him a small nod of understanding.
He smiled and touched her cheek gently. “Come on, there’s a leather wagon over there, maybe they’ll have what we need.”
Without a word of disagreement, Neti followed Miko to a small wagon filled with different leather goods. Miko reached down to make sure the coin pouch was still on his belt as he and Neti looked around the wagon with eager eyes.
“There!” Neti said with excitement as she rushed to the other end of the cart, picking up a brown coin pouch off the wagon. “How much for this?” she asked the leather man as Miko scurried to her side.
The leather man turned to face the pretty girl, and saw the nervous boy standing beside her. With a pause for thought, he responded, “One copper piece and it’s yours.”
Neti smiled at Miko as he untied his pouch and dug out a copper piece, handing it to the man.
“Thank you very much!” he called back at the man as he followed Neti into the crowd.
“Those sweet biscuits smell so good!” Miko said as they ambled past the baked-goods cart.
“I know,” Neti said slowly, “but Ilika might be mad if we spend his money on treats. We have to find money pouches for the rest of us.”
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“You’re right,” Miko said slowly with disappointment.
“One copper for three biscuits!” the man said to Neti and Miko as they passed.
“Really?” Miko said, then received a disapproving glance from Neti. “I mean, no thank you.”
Neti smiled and took his hand again, leading him past the lingering aroma of sweets.
They passed one of the bread carts, stocked with good-smelling breads and rolls, but with their stomachs still full from breakfast, it wasn’t as hard to pass them up as the sweets had been.
“Hey, Neti,” Miko began as they continued walking, “what do you think of Ilika so far?”
“Ilika?” she responded, her eyes examining the ground in front of her.
“He’s alright, I guess. I don’t really understand the point of all this, though.”
“Me neither,” Miko said, shaking his head, “I was just curious. He seems so different from the rest of us. I don’t get why he’s treating us this way. For all he knows, we could be escaping right now.”
“I know, it’s weird, but I’m not going to complain. He bought us our freedom. He said that we could leave whenever we wanted and he wouldn’t try to stop us.”
“But he trusts us with his money. Why would he do that if we’re free to walk away?” Miko asked, noticing Neti’s thoughtful expression as she pondered the question.
“I don’t know. He’s just a very trusting person, I guess. I just hope he’s not so blind that he trusts Kodi with his money.”
“Or anything, for that matter,” Miko said with a smile.
Neti smiled back and kissed her man.
“Alright,” she said, looking around, “where would we find more money pouches? I don’t remember.”
Miko looked around. “What about that little shop over there?” Miko said as he looked at Neti for approval before heading that way.
Inside, they found exactly what they needed, money pouches of all different colors and designs.
“These are perfect!” Neti said with excitement, picking one up. “The
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different colors will make it easy to tell them apart if they get mixed up!”
“Right!” Miko said as he chose two colors. “How many more do we need?”
Neti thought for a moment. “Well, if we need eight, and we have one . . .
that’s eight minus one.”
Miko put down the pouches and subtracted slowly on his fingers. “Seven pouches!” he stated as he picked up a few more. When they had all they needed, they joyfully approached the shopkeeper.
“We’d like to buy these, please,” Neti said in her most polite voice, setting the seven pouches in front of the shopkeeper.
“Alright,” said the large man slowly, “that’ll be seven coppers.”
Neti looked eagerly at Miko as he slowly counted out his coppers from the money pouch.
“Seven coppers,” Miko said, handing them to the shopkeeper.
“Thank ya kindly,” said the man. “Have a good day now!”
Neti and Miko smiled as they carried their new merchandise away from the counter. Suddenly they heard the large old man holler at them. “Hey you kids! Get back here with them money pouches!”
They stopped in their tracks. Their skin became cold and pale as they turned to face the man, who approached them and took the pouches from their hands.
“Trying to steal one of my pouches?” the man quickly accused. “Do you know what the penalty is for stealing?”
“We . . . we didn’t steal anything,” Neti said, trying to keep her voice from shaking.
“You’ve already been caught, stop lying!” the man said as he went back to the counter and set the pouches in a row. “You see these right here? You bought seven pouches from me, yes?”
“That’s right . . .” Miko replied cautiously.
“Then would you mind counting how many of them are lying on this counter?”
Neti, lacking good counting skills, turned to Miko in fright, who slowly approached the counter. He counted out loud, one by one.
“There are eight pouches here,” Miko said softly, “but we had already bought one from another place.”
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“You expect me to believe that crud? Get out of here, and don’t you two dare come back!”
“No, honestly!” Neti said, fighting back tears. “We would never steal from you! Please believe us . . .”
“Prove your innocence!” the man said firmly.
Neti, with determination written on her face, approached the counter and picked up the money pouch from the cart. “See this one? It’s different from all of these you sell. The ones we bought from you have different colors and patterns, so there’s no way we could have stolen this one if you don’t sell them!”
The man examined the pouches with careful eyes before looking back at Neti, trying to hide her trembling. He sighed and handed the pouches back to them. “My apologies,” he said in a deep, rough voice. “Be careful, and don’t bring things like that into other stores or you’ll get yourself in some real trouble, do you hear me?”
“Yes, sir,” Neti and Miko said at once as they picked up the pouches and hurried out of the shop.
They stopped and sat on a street corner, setting the pouches next to them.
Neti broke into tears.
“Oh, Neti,” Miko said, wrapping his arms around the pretty girl, “there’s no reason to cry, we didn’t do anything wrong!”
“I know,” Neti said between sobs, “but we could have let Ilika down! What if the shopkeeper didn’t believe us?”
“Shh,” Miko coaxed, “no reason to talk like that. Your quick thinking got us out of there, and that’s what counts.” He wiped the tears quietly from her face as she calmed down. Then he kissed her forehead before saying, “Let’s get back to Ilika before he thinks something’s wrong.”
Neti nodded and thanked him softly, but Miko only smiled and took her hand as they stood up, each of them carrying a few of the pouches.
Neti and Miko walked side by side the entire way back to the inn, making small talk about their friends, and about Ilika.
“This life is a lot better than the one we had, that’s for sure,” Miko said with a soft smile.
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“Yeah . . . it’s sure different.”
Miko smirked as he thoughtfully said, “Remember that time where you, me, and Kibi honestly thought we could escape?”
“Yeah,” Neti said dryly. “I do.”
“Doesn’t seem so crazy now!” Miko declared.
Neti looked down and shuffled her feet, something she hadn’t done before.
“I hit a nerve . . .” Miko began softly. “What is it?”
Neti shook her head quickly. “It’s nothing, just remembering.”
“Remembering what?” Miko questioned with raised eyebrows.
Neti stopped and put her hand on Miko’s shoulder.
He turned around to face his girl. Seeing her seriousness, he whispered,
“What is it?”
“Miko,” Neti said softly, “do . . . do you still have feelings for her?”
The handsome boy’s face flushed, as he immediately knew she was speaking of Kibi.
Neti looked at him anxiously. “Well?”
“No . . . no, Neti . . . not at all.” He wrapped his arms around her. “It’s just me and you, I promise. I care about her, but she’s a close friend, nothing more. She will never be anything more, no matter what.”
“Tell me this much,” Neti said, fighting back tears, “tell me that you’ve never actually loved her.”
“I swear to you, Neti,” Miko said softly.
Neti gently wiped the tears from her face.
Miko leaned in to kiss her. “You’re my girl, Neti, and you always will be.
No need to worry about silly things like that, alright?” he said tenderly.
“Alright.”
Miko kissed her again. “Let’s head back, and let other people have a chance to go out, okay?”
“Okay,” Neti said as she took her man’s arm, and wandered back through the streets of Rumble Town, not knowing when she’d get another moment alone with Miko.
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Buna’s New World
By Karen Buchanan
This story takes place when Buna and Toli are buying sweets in the marketplace in NEBADOR Book One: The Test.
Buna danced into the marketplace.
“What are you doing?” Toli asked. “Everyone’s gonna stare at us!”
“So what! There’s nothing wrong with dancing.”
“But Ilika said to watch out for each other, and so I’m watching out for you.”
Buna stopped prancing and thought about it. “I guess you’re right. I’m just . . . really happy! I haven’t been able to just walk around since . . . I don’t know . . . since I was a little kid. It feels wonderful! ”
“We’re supposed to buy something for dessert.”
“Hmm . . .” Buna started to say, looking around. “There’s tarts at the bakery . . .”
Toli scanned the marketplace, looking over most people’s heads. “I think we should look at everything, then decide. Everything sweet, I mean.”
Buna pouted for a moment, then grinned and nodded.
After whispering to the tall boy and the tangle-haired girl, the sweet biscuits thought about standing up on the table and dancing, but the woman
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who made them was watching, so they didn’t.
Candies winked and wiggled, especially when the candy maker had his back turned. The girl holding hands with the tall boy caught a glimpse of them, but when she got close, the man was looking, so they stayed still.
A big bowl of plums, from a farm in the southern valley where hot water gushed out of the ground, could feel the girl’s feet moving to the music. They wanted so much to jump up and dance, and then send plums home with her and the tall boy. They started to wiggle, but the farmer turned around after selling carrots to the innkeeper’s son, so they stopped moving and tried to look like a plain, innocent bowl of plums.
As they walked among the carts, Buna leaned on Toli and looked up at him. “What do you think of this weird master we have?”
“He’s not a master, he’s a captain.”
“Oh, yeah. What’s it like working on a ship?”
“About like being a slave, I think. I’ve unloaded ships, but not sailed on them. I think you have to be good with ropes and stuff to be a sailor.”
Buna frowned. “But you can leave, right?”
Toli laughed. “Only at a port!”
Buna thought about it, then snickered.
A donkey eating hay saw the girl prance by, her feet still tapping to the music as she walked. The donkey listened, and heard the drum rhythm that was the same as what the girl’s feet were doing.
The shaggy brown animal felt something special, like it had just seen a spirit. It knew about wolf spirits and mountain lion spirits, and how dangerous they were. But this girl seemed like a different kind of spirit, a nice spirit.
In a burst of courage, like it had never felt before, the donkey decided to try it. Front hooves started lifting up from the ground, one at a time. Once in a while, they tapped against each other.
Feeling its heart beat faster with the thrill of doing something a spirit could do, back hooves started lifting, then tapping.
Suddenly a booted foot jabbed the brown donkey in the ribs, it stumbled
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sideways over some wooden crates, and landed on its side, calling loudly in pain and confusion.
“Stupid donkey!” the man said, almost spitting out the words.
The donkey stayed on its side until the man left, then slowly got back to its feet.
It always remembered the girl-spirit, now long gone, but never again tried to dance.
Buna and Toli sat down on a log to think about what they had seen.
“I think we should get plums!” she said excitedly.
“They looked good, but I don’t think they were ripe.”
Buna frowned. “Okay, sweet biscuits!”
“There were only six left. We need ten of something.”
Buna
sighed.
“I’ve never had a sweet biscuit . . .” a timid voice said.
Buna and Toli both looked. On the other end of the log, a little girl sat holding a bundle of cloth in her arms, and looking at them with big brown eyes.
Buna hopped up. “Maybe we can’t decide, but you are getting a sweet biscuit, little friend!”
“But we’re not supposed to . . .” Toli started to say, but Buna was gone.
A minute later she returned, sat down beside the little girl, and handed her the sweet biscuit. “Now there are only five,” Buna said, looked at Toli, and stuck out her tongue.
Soon a poor woman came by and the little girl hopped up.
“Mommy, she gave me a sweet biscuit!”
The woman looked at Buna with eyes that said thank you. She looked in her bag for something to give in return, but found only a crust of bread.
Buna shook her head, fished in her pouch, and handed a silver piece to the woman. It brought a smile that was missing several teeth.
When the girl and her mother were gone, Toli stood beside Buna. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”
Buna looked up at the tall, handsome boy, and kissed him on the cheek. “I think the baker probably still has plenty of pastries.”
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“Let’s go see!”
Three crows perched on the inn roof.
“I could have snatched that sweet biscuit, right out of the little brat’s hand, if her mommy hadn’t shown up!” said Ke.
Te cackled. “Afraid of an old hag? That’s not like you, Ke! Did you see the crust of bread she had?”
“What I see, I eat!” said Re.
“In your dreams!” Ke taunted. “Let’s see what the tangle-haired girl and the tall boy get. They’re heading for the bakery.”
“You do recon, Ke. As soon as we know what’s on the menu, I’ll create a diversion, then Te swoops in for the first grab. Ke and me will be right behind for clean-up.”
The three cawed at once.
A slave boy, about nine years old, was cleaning up the marketplace that evening after all the wagons and carts had left. He liked working in the evening because he could look up and see the stars come out.
He didn’t dare look up for very long, of course, or a whip would make him get back to work. But he knew how to take a quick look, memorize what he saw, then cherish it in his mind until he could glance up again.
As he was picking up some scraps of rope and broken pottery near a log, he happened to spot a small piece of a sweet biscuit down in the dirt, partly hidden by the log. He quickly picked it up but just held it in his hand with two fingers and continued to work.
A guard glanced at him but didn’t see anything wrong.
The boy waited until he tossed the junk into the trash wagon, then as he turned to go back to work, popped the little piece of sweet biscuit into his mouth.
Even with a little dirt, it tasted heavenly.
As soon as he could, he glanced up at the darkening sky to see what stars were out. Only the brightest ones were shining.
He smiled to himself and wondered if maybe he could somehow visit them someday. Maybe he could find a way if he got free and climbed the highest
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mountain.
As he started picking up horse droppings, he wondered if they had sweet biscuits in the stars.
It was nearly midnight before Te came out from under the little cart where he had been struggling with his painful broken wing for hours. He hadn’t seen the baker’s broom handle coming, but clearly remembered the guard’s sword slice through Re’s body, then seconds later Ke fell from the sky, pierced by a feathered shaft.
Te looked around, and wondered how he was going to find somewhere safe before a dog or cat found him.
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Sata’s Strength
by Chenice Louise Clarke
Sata reflects on her life and values upon walking into the large bay in NEBADOR Book Two: Journey.
I remember when I would wipe tables and run errands for mother and father at the inn. I would be so happy if a guest would give me a coin, just one small coin, and I remember thinking I was the luckiest girl in the world — well maybe not the world, but in the capital city at least. I would work hard every day to show my father that I was just as strong and able as my brother, even though I knew that no matter how hard I tried, my brother would still be given the inn. That’s how it had been in the past, and my father wasn’t about to change any rules like that any time soon.
When Ilika came to stay at our inn, of all the places he could have gone, I knew that I had a chance — maybe only a tiny chance, but still a chance — that I could do something like have an adventure and learn new things.
I was so scared when I asked Ilika if he would consider girls on his trip, and I remember I nearly dropped the plate I was holding, but was very happy with his answer. I think maybe he was shocked I asked him that question, but I had to ask — I don’t know any girls that are allowed to do the same things as boys, and that’s not fair! I do miss the inn a lot, but looking at the bay now with my teacher and friends, I know that I made the right choice to leave, and
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I’m happy mother and father allowed me to go.
I remember during one of Ilika’s lessons, asking him what I should do if two people asked me for something at the same time. I thought I would have to answer them both really quickly and not give a full answer so that I didn’t upset either person. It reminded me when mother would ask me to fetch some spices and father would ask me to wash the floor. I would worry that one of them may be upset with me, so I tried to do both at the same time, which was very hard and often impossible. I wish I had realized then that sometimes you just have to choose the most important question first and answer it. Sometimes it’s hard but I now know that even if another person is a little upset with me, once I explain why I answered someone else first, they will understand why I made that decision.
That’s what I like about my new family — we talk a lot. We talk about our feelings and our decisions and our hopes, and that never happened back at the inn. My brother would ignore me, and my parents were always busy helping the guests at the inn. I guess back home I always respected my parents, but I also feared them in the same way I feared the steam vent — like I told Ilika when we were talking about the area in general. I was scared and Ilika told me that while I should respect and be careful of the steam vent, I should never fear it. I didn’t know that before.
It was tough being at the steam vent, but I knew that I had to stay that extra day to make peace with the land and myself so I could move on. I didn’t want to be scared of another steam vent, should I see one again, or anything else I had never seen before. It’s kind of like leaving the inn and my family —
it was scary because I didn’t know what was going to happen. I didn’t know if Ilika would decide he had made a wrong decision, even though I tried and still try to be a really good student. I answer questions and make sure I do my share, like back home, so that’s why I arranged for the pouches of salt, dried sage, and dried onions back at the farmer’s cottage. I wanted to show my new family that I would be a good crew member because not only was working at the inn kind of like a crew, but I’m starting to think life is full of lots of little crews.
I get scared because even though I try really hard, I feel like sometimes there are other people who are better than me. That feeling upsets me
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because I want to do well and be chosen for Ilika’s crew. I want to see if Ilika’s ship has white sails because I like the color white. White is clean and it reminds me of when mother and I would put clean sheets on the guests’ beds at the inn. It’s like a new start and I like that. I like that you can make a new start, and even though I’m only 10, a new start is always a good idea . . .
sometimes. I think that Ilika gave me a new start when he came into the inn and he decided that I could come on this journey with him. Despite being scared of the stream vent, thinking I was going to die, I didn’t. I think that I’m going to be okay now. Actually, I know I’m going to be okay. I’m going to be okay because I want to be okay, and if I want something enough and work for it enough, I can do it. I think that means I can be part of Ilika’s crew.
I look at Boro and Mati, and all of my other new friends, and I see that even though they were slaves and dealt with terrible things, they all have hope and they’re all strong. I think that one day I can be strong like them. Sure, I have strong arms from my hard work at the inn, but I want to be strong in my mind. I think I’m getting stronger every day. I mean I don’t get scared so quickly now. Also, I trust more and I think that’s important to being happy and being on Ilika’s crew. Actually, trusting is very important which is why I trusted Ilika. More than that, that’s why I trusted myself. That’s why I still trust myself.
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Neti’s Temptation
By Karen Buchanan
This story takes place the morning after the group is trapped by high tide on the rocky coast in NEBADOR Book Two: Journey.
Neti couldn’t sleep. She didn’t toss and turn because she didn’t want to wake Miko, so she just looked up at the sky and counted stars. It was kind of fun because she had just learned to count not long before.
But soon she got bored with it. Something that happened the day before really bothered her. For the first time in months, maybe years, she wasn’t sure if Miko was the right boy for her.
After lying there for a long time, sometimes counting stars and sometimes just fuming, she saw a little morning light creep into the sky. She carefully slipped out from under her blankets.
“Neti?” Miko called in a groggy voice.
“Have to pee,” she whispered.
“Ok, good ni . . .”
Neti tiptoed through the camp, being careful not to wake anyone. Ilika and Kibi were snuggled close, and Buna and Toli were near each other but not touching. Boro and Sata weren’t sleeping close together yet, but Neti knew they would be someday. When she got near the beach, she climbed a small sand dune partly covered with wiry grass. She sat down on top and looked out
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over the wide beach and the calm water of the bay.
With her chin in her hands, she sat with her feelings, but no clear thoughts about anything came to her. Suddenly a sea gull landed on a nearby driftwood log and looked up at her.
“What is it about boys?” she asked the sea gull.
The sea gull cocked it head but didn’t say anything.
“I suppose you might be a boy. If you are, maybe you know the answer.
Why do we love boys, but they’re never as good as we think they should be?”
The sea gull squawked at Neti.
She felt in her cloak pocket and found a little piece of stale bread. “You’re lucky. There was a time this would have been my breakfast, and I wouldn’t have shared it with you! Here you go!” She tossed the bread toward the driftwood log.
The sea gull kept an eye on Neti as it hopped off the log and grabbed the bread. Before it got back to its log, a man came walking along the beach, so the bird spread its wing and took off.
“Hey! You didn’t answer my question!”
But the sea gull didn’t come back, so Neti gave up and looked at the man.
She knew she should go back to the camp and wake someone, just in case the man gave her any trouble, but she was still in a bad mood because of Miko, so she stayed on top of the dune.
The man wasn’t very old, maybe about Ilika’s age, and was dressed like any fisherman. He carried a bucket brimming with clams. When he got close, he stopped and looked up at Neti.
“Hello, fair maiden.”
Neti could feel her heart pounding. “Hello.”
“Are you all alone?”
“Sort
of.”
He came closer, and Neti could see that he was handsome. Her heart pounded louder.
“Would you like to help me clean these clams, then make a stew? My house is not far.”
Neti couldn’t speak for a minute, so she coughed and tried to breathe. The young man noticed her confusion and smiled.
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“Um . . . maybe . . . if you’ll answer a question for me first.”
“If it will help me win your heart, I’ll tell you anything!”
That’s what Neti was afraid of. Maybe the sea gull hadn’t been so bad. But she took a breath and decided to give it a try. “Why do girls always think boys are so wonderful and perfect, but they never are?”
The young fisherman squirmed and shrugged. “Um . . . because . . . no . . .
maybe because . . . I don’t know . . .”
Now
Neti
was
sure the sea gull had been more honest.
Suddenly the young man found his thoughts and said, “I guess girls are just made that way, and boys . . . are made like they are!”
Neti thought about his answer, then asked, “So what would you do if you were in a waterfall bowl and the tide was rising?”
“Easy. Sing fishing songs until the tide went out, or carve a piece of driftwood if I had my knife.”
“And if you came to a place where there’s hot steam hissing out of the ground?”
He backed up, frowned, and made signs to protect himself from evil.
“That’s from the Underworld, and I wouldn’t go near the place without a priest at my side!”
Neti smiled. She had just learned something, but knew she couldn’t tell the young, handsome fisherman. She almost wished the sea gull would come back.
The fisherman, with his bucket of clams, was still frowning. “Did you go near such a place? Places like that can put curses on people, you know.”
Neti laughed out loud.
“Mocking spirits and demons is dangerous!” He looked around with fear in his eyes. “Are you going to clean these clams with me, or not? If you won’t, there’s a girl up the beach about a mile who will.”
Neti was torn, just for a moment. Then she smiled and said, “I’m glad you have someone to share your clams with. I think . . . I’ll stay here.”
“Good day to you,” he said with a slight bow and headed along the beach, swinging his bucket of clams and whistling.
Neti stayed on the sand dune for another half hour, thinking about what she had learned. The sea gull came back, and another, and they walked back
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and forth on the driftwood log, sometimes looking at each other, sometimes clicking their beaks together. Neti somehow knew that one of them was a boy, the other a girl, but she couldn’t tell which was which. She decided not to interrupt them with her thoughts, so she just watched.
After a few minutes, both sea gulls looked at Neti and squawked, but she didn’t have any more bread, so they flew away together.
When she finally tiptoed back to camp, Miko was still dead asleep, but Ilika was just coming out of the trees, so she went up to him, smiling.
“Guess what I just learned!” she said.
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What’re Friends For?
by Katelynn Persons
This story takes place in NEBADOR Book Two: Journey, just after Boro gets a marriage proposal from Josa, and Ilika tries to reassure Sata that it will be a good thing.
Sata headed towards the rows of trees by camp. Ilika had said a lot, and she had a lot to think about. She knew she had an infatuation for Boro, but would he stay with Josa, or would he say no and let them get closer? The whirlwind of questions flooded her mind until she heard a voice behind her.
“Sata, wait up!”
She turned around quizzically to see Kibi jogging towards her, trying to catch up. She gave a small smile and waited for her friend. “What’s up, Kibi?”
“You don’t want to wander all alone, that’s dangerous. Why are you heading out here anyway?”
Sata looked at her friend shyly. “I was just going for a walk.”
“Oh, alright,” Kibi said, not buying it. “Want a walking buddy?”
“Sure,” the young girl said with a smile.
“Cool, let’s go!” Kibi grinned as she linked arms with her friend and headed into the trees.
Sata kept quiet most of the way, letting Kibi talk about the camp and the people, not caring to mention anything about her conversation with Ilika.
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“Sata?”
She looked up to see Kibi looking questioningly at her.
“Yeah?”
“You’re not listening . . . what are you thinking about?”
“I’m not thinking about anything,” Sata said as she and her friend stopped walking and looked eye-to-eye.
“Uh huh, right,” she said disapprovingly, putting her hands on her hips.
“Come on, Sata, we’re friends, aren’t we?”
“Of course we are, Kibi.”
“Then why aren’t you telling me the truth? Friends don’t lie to each other.” Kibi watched as a sad look came over Sata, so she did what she thought was best and put her arm around the girl. “If you don’t want to talk about it, I understand.”
Sata remained quiet for a long time, and Kibi stepped back, letting her think. “Ilika and I talked, that’s all.”
“You and Ilika?” Kibi repeated, raising her eyebrows. “What about?”
“Boro.”
Kibi smiled. “About his obvious marriage proposal from the goat lady?”
“Yeah . . . I don’t want him to stay, Kibi. I know that’s wrong of me, that I should want what Boro wants, but I just can’t help it! I like him!” Sata threw her hand over her mouth as her face turned an instant beet-red.
Kibi tried to suppress a laugh. “I know you do.”
“How did you know?”
“Sata, you and Boro have been attached to one another since you began talking to each other. You two have been getting closer as people, just as Ilika and I have.”
“Yeah . . . what would you do if Ilika had the chance to walk away?”
Kibi looked back towards the camp through the trees and saw Ilika helping the other students, with his seemingly-permanent smile. “I’d want him to be happy. If I’m not what makes him happiest, I don’t want him to stay. It’d hurt for him to ever leave . . . I like him just as you like Boro. But at the same time, if you like someone like that, you have to be ready for things to change, for someone to decide that happiness would be better found elsewhere. We all hope that it doesn’t happen, but sometimes it does anyway, no matter what
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we try to do about it.”
Sata looked down and thought for a long moment. “I guess you’re right.”
Kibi touched her sad friend’s shoulder. “Boro is a good guy, and will make a good partner someday. But you may learn about him through this. Though I think he’ll make the right decision.
Sata smiled gently. “That’s what Ilika told me, only a little different.”
“Great minds think alike,” Kibi said with a shy smile. “I know you understand where we’re coming from, too. I think Boro really likes you. I don’t think he’d give you up at this point. But if he does, then I know you’ll be just fine. You’re a strong girl, and no boy can change that.”
“I hope so!” Sata said with a grin, which slowly faded after a moment.
“I’ve just been lonely, Kibi. I don’t know how I’d keep being happy if Boro wasn’t here.”
Pretty Kibi looked at her friend with an expression Sata couldn’t place.
“Sata, if you don’t mind me being honest with you, I think that you need to realize something.”
“Go ahead,” Sata said softly.
“Boro isn’t the only thing that can make you happy. You need to be able to make yourself happy before any boy can take on the responsibility. You should be confident and content without Boro there to do it for you. I had to learn that the hard way . . . there was a boy once, back when I was a slave, that I thought would make me happier than I could be otherwise. But I had to give him up to another girl, because that’s what he decided would make him happiest. That was okay, though, looking back on it now. If he wouldn’t have done what makes him happy, then I wouldn’t be where I am now with Ilika, I’d still be thinking that only he could make me the person I am. After he left, I had to make the decision to be happy with myself, and to want to be who I am now.”
Sata looked down and laced her fingers together, playing with her hands as she listened to her friend’s words. “I understand.”
“I have to make myself happy. I have to be happy with who I am. Once I did that, I was able to let myself be with Ilika and feel like I do for Ilika. I’m the happiest I’ve ever been, it all started with me.”
“I know what you’re saying, Kibi. Before anyone else can make me happy,
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I need to do it by myself.”
“See? You’re a quick learner.” Kibi smiled.
“It’s going to be hard,” Sata said slowly, “but with friends like you by my side, I’ll be okay no matter what Boro does.”
“There you go! I knew you’d be able to do it!” Kibi pulled in her friend and hugged her tightly. “Come on, Sata, let’s get back to camp before Ilika gets on both of us for being gone so long!”
“Alright, Kibi . . . and thank you, for everything. I’m okay now, and I know I always will be, thanks to what you’ve done for me today.”
Kibi smiled and linked arms with the young girl. “What’re friends for?”
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Boro and Sata
by Terri Snyder
This story takes place during the last few chapters of NEBADOR Book One: The Test, and most of NEBADOR Book Two: Journey.
Back in the capital city, Boro thought Sata was pretty cute. He couldn’t come right out and talk about it like Miko and Neti could, but he was looking and thinking, and liked what he saw.
Everything was pretty easy until they almost got arrested, and then had to creep under a building to get into the city walls. Boro noticed that Sata was a faithful friend to Mati. That made him smile.
It was the pool of cold, dark water under the wall that really made him take a good look at her. She was strong and smart when some people were freaking out. She could swim, and didn’t start shivering just because of a little cold water. He liked that.
But he only had time to think about it once they got to the old shack and Mati was trying to ride her new donkey. He watched Mati and Tera, like everyone else, but he was thinking about Sata.
She was strong on the trail to Farmer Keni’s place, and then on the hills west of there. Math was a little hard for her, but Boro couldn’t complain, because he was worse!
She wasn’t afraid of the blood when Shepherdess Noni had to deliver a
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lamb, and helped him and Miko carry the mother sheep back to the camp.
Boro was getting more and more impressed.
Then came a big scare for Boro. At the hot springs, Sata got all religious, and started thinking the place was evil. For a while he thought she was going to go get a priest. He told her to stuff it, and she didn’t take it too well. But then Ilika, and everyone else, told her the same thing. He watched her as she swallowed her pride, poked around the hot springs and steam vent by herself for a whole day, and finally got over it.
It was along the ocean when Boro got really curious. Every time Sata came back from the beach, especially when she had been sitting out there alone, it was like she had been talking to an old friend. He knew she had some good talks with Ilika, but the ocean seemed to be telling her things too.
She was nice to Kit, but let Kibi and Buna do most of the talking. That was ok. Boro could tell that the little kid got really antsy when too many people were trying to be nice to him at once.
He noticed Sata was pretty scared when the thieves surrounded them near Port Town, but he didn’t worry about it. Almost everyone was scared. Him too, a little.
When she jumped into the water at high tide to help him with the donkey, that’s when he knew she was the kind of girl he really liked. There was nothing really dangerous about that waterfall bowl. He knew it, and after she jumped in, he could tell that she knew it too.
Miko didn’t get it. Boro kind of liked Miko because he was strong in some ways that Boro wasn’t, like talking to girls. But Miko was carrying some deep, dark fear that Boro didn’t understand. Somehow it made him change the waterfall bowl, which was just a little uncomfortable, into a deadly monster.
Boro didn’t relate to that, and he could tell Sata didn’t either.
It didn’t surprise Boro at all that she was strong and did what he said during the fire at Lumber Town. Maybe he wished she had been a little nicer to Toli, but not much nicer. She kept Toli moving so he could figure out which way to go, and that really helped.
All that day, he felt like he had a huge weight on his shoulders, responsible for saving not just himself, but Sata and Toli too. When they found little Tati, the weight became worse. But all during that day, Sata was there at his side,
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taking as much of the weight as she could. That’s what made it possible for Boro to keep going. He was so glad when they got to the fishing village.
Boro could really see the frustration Kibi was feeling as she tried to keep everyone’s spirits up while they waited for Ilika and his group. He knew he wasn’t doing a very good job keeping his own spirits up, and neither was Sata, but he sensed it was a time to go easy on everyone, including himself.
When they walked back through Lumber Town and there were dead bodies everywhere, he kept an eye on Sata again. She used to be a little freaked out about people dying, because she hadn’t been a slave. She frowned a lot when they looked at the smoking ruins, but was ok. Boro was glad.
Then they came to Farmer Koto’s house, and there was Josa.
She was strong, pretty, skilled in many ways from growing up on a ranch, and ready to get married. She was everything Boro could have wanted. He listened to her bravely tell him all her desires as they walked in the moonlight.
All he had to do was say yes.
While Boro walked with Josa, Sata cried with Ilika.
Something kept Boro from saying yes to Josa. It wasn’t anything about Josa, and it wasn’t anything about Sata. It was how he knew Sata that made him say no to Josa. He didn’t just know Sata, he had already shared a chunk of his life with her. He had shared his entire life as a free grown up with her.
He barely remembered being free as a little kid, so that didn’t count.
He only shared a walk in the moonlight with Josa. That just didn’t compare to working with Sata in the pool under the city wall, and all the other things they had done together.
Even before Boro put his bedroll beside hers, she knew Ilika was right. If Boro didn’t stay with her, she didn’t want him. It was just hard to admit it to herself.
I know. I am Sata.
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Buna’s Search
by Shadow Buffalo-walker
This story takes place after Buna and Misa bid farewell to Ilika and the others near the swamp in NEBADOR Book Three: Selection.
Misa and I didn’t mind walking to the capital city with Neti and Toli. I knew our paths would go different ways very soon. Neti kept saying things about us all sticking together. I could tell Misa didn’t like the idea, and I didn’t like it either. My guts told me we should split up right then, but I didn’t say anything just to be nice to Neti. Then Toli got all dorky at the city gate and it cost us more to get in because of it. I should have listened to my guts.
By the time we got to the marketplace, I was glad Neti wanted to get a room at the inn before doing anything else. Toli was like a little puppy and did everything she said. Misa and I waved good-bye. When they were gone, we both laughed our heads off and took Tera to a stable. The bakery still had some tarts so we got a bunch and sat down on a log to eat our dinner.
“Boots!” Misa said. “I’m gonna get boots!”
We stayed at the witch’s house for three days and Misa got her boots. I’m glad we didn’t stay any longer because the religious orders were getting weird.
I kept seeing things I could spend my money on, but then I thought about how I had to drag everything around while I looked for Noni. I could either buy stuff, and a wagon, and horses to pull it, or I could look for Noni. I decided to
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look for Noni.
We visited the old shack and the corral. I think Tera remembered it, but didn’t like it when I put her inside and closed the gate. She was glad when we left the next day.
Farmer Keni sold us bread and cheese. Kora remembered me, and said she was happy there and had forgotten all about reading and writing and stuff.
While we were there a boy came down the road, and they ran up to the goat pen together. Misa smiled. I think she likes boys.
After that we went into the hills and all the way down to the hot springs. I showed Misa the little camp by the stream, and the sandy place where Noni camped once, but we didn’t find Noni anywhere. Misa loved the hot springs, and so did I. She asked if we could stay there forever. A part of me almost wanted to say yes.
We traveled north to Lumber Town, and some other little towns. Misa asked everywhere about her parents, but never found them. Lumber Town had one little store made of new logs and boards, but no inn yet. No one was trying to rebuild her old burned house.
Winter was coming and snow started falling around Lumber Town so we headed south. We visited the house with good people where all the refugees had gone, and they gave us dinner after we carried firewood, but all the people we remembered were gone.
At the little fishing village called Fish, we had fish stew one more time, and camped in the trees, but didn’t go onto the beach south of there. I told Misa why it was so dangerous. She shrugged and wanted to go that way, and if we didn’t have Tera, I probably would have said ok. I remembered how hard it was to keep Tera under control when she was scared.
On the road south, I saw some sheep for sale by an old shepherd who was gonna live with his son. It was really tempting. I asked if he knew Noni, and he did, but hadn’t seen her in months.
When we got to Port Town, I told Misa about all the thieves, and she spotted them as soon as we walked into town. I was glad I hadn’t bought any new clothes, and Misa’s boots already looked old, so they didn’t bother us.
We stayed with the baker all winter. Misa and Kit were like two peas in a
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pod, and she didn’t care that he could hardly talk. He could laugh and play, and that was all that mattered. He showed her his mother’s grave. After he curled up to take a nap, I pulled Misa away and showed her the cave by the beach.
I asked all around Port Town if anyone had seen Noni. One sheep shearer remembered her, but hadn’t seen her since last spring.
All winter we worked for the baker, and on our days off we walked to little towns and farms and asked about Noni. Sometimes people knew her, but hadn’t seen her in a long time.
The next summer we walked all over the kingdom, except the mountains where Noni couldn’t go with her wagon and flock. No one in the eastern part of the kingdom knew her, and thought it was weird that a girl would be a shepherdess without a man. One person in the middle of the kingdom remembered her, but hadn’t seen her in years.
Even in the western part, people were starting to forget her. I figured out that no one had seen her since about when I first met her. I started to wonder if maybe she was just a spirit that had floated away into the clouds after me and Ilika’s other students had said good-bye and gone down to the hot springs. That now seemed a long time ago.
Misa was getting very tired of looking. She kept talking about Port Town, and the baker and his family, and Kit, and the hot springs.
I sighed and felt in my guts that it was time to let go of Noni.
We returned to Port Town, bought a wagon, twelve sheep, and lots of boards and nails. Misa asked Kit if he wanted to join us. He was confused for a while, but said yes when we told him we were gonna stay near Port Town and visit it often.
We took everything up the green valley and built a little house by the hot springs. The sheep loved the grass and started having babies.
I had forgotten all about Noni when one day, in the middle of summer, a shepherd’s wagon pulled by a donkey came wobbling along the trail to the hot springs followed by ninety-three sheep.
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The Magic Needle
by Kathleen Tully
This story depicts the future of Risan Gor after her rescue by the crew of the Manessa Kwi, at Melorania’s direction, near the end of NEBADOR Book Four: Flight Training.
Timod Gor’s gold didn’t last long. He drank up some of it, smoked some, bought whores with a lot, gave some away to impress people, and gambled.
He was at the card table when he ran out of gold, and thought he had a good hand, so he bet his daughter. He lost the hand, but suddenly sobered up enough to realize what he had done and refused to give her to the winner. The winner didn’t like being cheated, a dagger flashed out, and even before Timod Gor hit the floor, little Risan Gor ran out into the black night faster than anyone could follow.
She didn’t touch her gold, still hidden on the hill, for a long, long time. It felt dirty because it had made her father stupid with drink and smoke and gambling. So she just walked, and when she saw people on the road, she hid in the bushes until they were close enough to tell if they were good people or bad.
Most of the time, the people were good when she thought they were. She asked if she could work for her food. Sometimes they said yes. Sometimes they were too poor and had to say no. Sometimes they were bad and she had
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to run again. Luckily she was too young for them to care much about catching.
For two years she worked doing anything people wanted her to. Slowly she discovered she was best at sewing, because she had long, nimble fingers, and she liked doing it. So when she came to a new village or farm, she started saying she was a seamstress. Often enough to keep her fed, they needed one.
Risan Gor was eight, and getting really good at sewing, when she started saving up some copper pieces. One day she saw some fancy new iron needles in the marketplace, and the woman said they lasted a lot longer than bone needles. The girl dug into her money pouch and counted out the precious coins.
By the time she was nine, she would arrive in a town and people would start whispering, “It’s Risan the Seamstress! Tell the innkeeper! He’s got lots of mending to do!” Soon she had copper AND silver pieces in her pouch, and half a dozen iron needles, of different shapes and sizes, in her shoulder bag along with four colors of thread. She still kept the bone needles, just to remember her younger days.
The years passed, and Risan the Seamstress liked to go on walks in the woods when she wasn’t sewing. She was eleven when she found a pretty, shiny rock, so she put it into her bag. Back in her tiny one-room workshop, the shiny rock was sitting on the work table when she happened to toss an iron needle near it. The needle jumped, and stuck to the rock!
She nearly ran to the blacksmith.
“Sir, what kind of rock is this? My iron sewing needles stick to it!”
“Hmm. I’ve heard of these. Some kind of strange iron that fell from the sky, some say. I can’t think of any use for it.” He tossed the rock back to her.
She couldn’t think of any use for it either, so she just used it on her work table to hold her needles.
Risan was twelve when she happened to drop her smallest iron needle, the one she used for embroidery, into a cup of water. The needle floated on the surface of the water, and quickly pointed toward the shiny rock, only about a
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foot away. She looked at it for a minute, then dried it off and went back to sewing.
About a month later, she set down her smallest needle after some embroidery work that left her fingers sore, and was about to take a drink of water. She looked at the needle and the cup of water, and remembered the first time. But this time was different. She had taken the shiny rock to show a friend, and had accidentally left it there. What would the needle do, she wondered, without the rock near? Would it point toward her friend’s house?
She carefully dropped the needle into the water, and it floated, just like the first time. It started slowly swinging to point at something, but it wasn’t her friend’s house. She stepped outside to make sure. Yep, she was right — her friend’s house was a different direction.
This new thing she had discovered was funny, but she couldn’t think of any use for it, so she went back to sewing.
Risan the Seamstress started dreaming about whatever the needle was pointing to when the shiny rock wasn’t near. She could never quite see it, so far away and shrouded in mist in the dream. But she woke up curious.
Her twelfth year was passing into her thirteenth when she could stand it no longer. She was, honestly, getting tired of dreaming about pointing needles. A dream about a handsome young man, now and then, would be nice.
She started putting a small wooden cup and her embroidery needle into her shoulder bag whenever she went walking. At the town well, just a block from her house, she got a cup of water, found a place to sit where no one could see, and put the needle in. It pointed straight back to her workshop, where the rock sat on the table.
But at the stream outside of town, it slowly went a different way again. At the river two miles away, it did the same thing. At three other places, all a mile or more away from the village, the needle pointed to . . .
“Sir,” she asked an old man pulling his little boat onto the riverbank, “are you a sailor?”
“Was when I was young and strong. Sailed the five seas for twenty years.”
“So you know how to tell directions?”
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“Sure do! On most ships, I was the closest thing they had to a navigator.”
“Can you tell me what direction it is to that mountain that looks like a bird’s beak?”
“Buzzard’s Peak, that’s called. Every sailor ‘round here knows that direction, ‘cause it’s right under the North Star, the star that all the Heavens rotate around. That’s north, little lady, about as perfect as anyone can tell.”
Risan the Seamstress was fourteen when she started remembering something that had happened to her at age five. She remembered a journey by ship, then bad weather, and finally a very cold place with ice in every direction, even floating on the sea.
For some reason, the way she and her father had been rescued was hard to remember. She didn’t want to remember what came next — her father drinking and smoking and gambling, then getting killed and leaving her alone.
But her mind kept wandering back to the voyage by ship, and she started remembering voices.
“What
do
you
mean you don’t know which direction to go?” the captain bellowed.
“I haven’t been able to see the stars for days!” the frightened man whined.
“North could be that way, or that way, or . . .”
The conversation ended when the captain thrust a dagger between the navigator’s ribs.
Risan brought her mind back to the present, ripped out a couple of stitches she had gotten in the wrong place because of daydreaming, and mumbled to herself, “He must not have had a magic needle. He must not have even known about magic needles.”
In the days that followed, she started to wonder if maybe that strange rock of hers had a use after all.
She was fifteen when she realized several things at about the same time, and thinking about them nearly made her sick. She wasn’t pretty enough to catch the eye of any of the handsome young men. She didn’t know how to do anything but sew. And her hands were becoming stiff and sore, more and more quickly, while she worked. It the stiffness kept getting worse, in just a
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few years she’d be unable to sew enough to pay the rent and buy food.
A month later, she quit taking new sewing jobs, finished the ones she was working on, packed a bag, and walked out the door before paying the rent that was due. She took her strange, shiny rock, a few small iron needles, one spool of thread, and a wooden cup, but little else. She was not planning to set up a new sewing business somewhere else. She was casting herself into the wind to see what the world would show her.
After a week of travel, she was wandering along the docks of the port city of her kingdom. At first she was lost in her thoughts, but slowly started to realize that something was wrong. There were four great sailing ships in the harbor, but no cargos were being loaded or unloaded. Each had a man or two standing guard, but nothing else was happening. She became curious and approached one of the ships.
“Hey there, sailor! What news from the sea?”
“You watch your tongue, young woman, for I be not some lousy sailor, but am truly the captain of this proud vessel . . . for all the good it does me.”
“Why would a captain speak in such tones? Is she not a fair ship that races before the wind?”
“She would be, if she had any work to do. Now . . . she just rots in the harbor, and neither she, nor I, like it much.”
Risan the ex-seamstress got comfortable on a crate at the edge of the wharf. “What keeps her from having work, if I may ask. I am without work right now out of choice, but not you, I take it.”
“Certainly not! I’d be hauling cargos back and forth across the sea if anyone dared send them anymore. It’s in my blood. I can do nothing else. If I cannot sail, I might as well lie down and die.”
“Why do they not send cargos?”
“Too many ships lost. Too much bad weather. Hardly half get to the far shore. Some, they say, end up at the bottom of the world where there is nothing but ice. Most are never seen again. One made it back from there, a few years ago, and told of the bones of ships scattered on the ice and the bones of men piled on the shore.”
Risan swallowed. “I’ve been there,” she said softly.
“Have ye? Well, you’re one of the few who can say that and still draw
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breath to boast of it.”
She was thoughtful for a while. “What would be your chances of getting across the sea safely if you had something . . . something magical . . . that always pointed north?”
His eyes grew very large. “My stars, I’d be the luckiest captain in the kingdom! I’d be able to guide the helmsman true even in the worst storm or fog! But such a magical thing does not exist, does it?”
“It does, and I have one.”
“Well, you come right aboard, young woman, and I shall make you . . . you don’t mind soup and bread, do you?”
“I love soup and bread. I was a seamstress, nothing fancy.”
They talked for hours, ate soup and bread, drank ale, and became friends.
But the captain still frowned whenever the talk circled around to his ship once again carrying cargos.
“What bothers you?” Risan asked.
“It takes more than a ship and a magical north-finder. It takes a patron.”
“What’s
that?”
“An investor, a rich man who believes the voyage will be successful, believes it enough to put up the four or five great gold pieces for a crew, supplies, and a cargo to sell on the far shore. After so many ships lost, there’s hardly a patron to be found. And believe me, Risan, me saying I know a young woman with a magical north-finder, an unproven gadget no one’s ever heard of, is not going to shake even a copper piece out of anyone’s money pouch, much less the gold that would be needed. So unless you know of a patron who would take such a risk . . .”
Her mind went back ten years and struggled to remember something . . .
something about gold . . . gold that her father didn’t know about. She glimpsed, in her memory, a shaggy black-haired . . . lady? . . . angel? . . .
burying something . . . a metal tube with something very heavy inside. She saw the log the angel-lady put over the hiding place. She saw the hill it was on from the road to the village.
“How far is it from here to Tolek?” she asked the captain.
“That little sheep and cattle village in the hills? Half a day on a horse, or a
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long day’s walk.”
“I think I know . . . a patron there who . . . would believe in my north-finder. What does a patron get for his risk?”
“If the voyage is successful, he gets his money back and at least another great gold, sometimes two, depending on how well the cargo sells. And with so few ships making it, I know the cities across the sea will pay good money for our wares.”
Risan Gor ate her soup and bread silently for a little while longer.
“I’m going on a little journey. If I find . . . the patron . . . I’ll be back in . . .
two or three days with five great gold pieces. Will you be here?”
He grinned, pulled her close, and kissed her.
Note from J. Z. Colby: It is true that the compass was already in use in the kingdom that is the setting of NEBADOR Books One, Two, and Three, but this story takes place in a different kingdom. It is often the case in history that inventions come to one part of a world before, sometimes long before, another. Even more strange are those moments in history when discoveries are made at multiple locations at about the same time, but without any cross-influence.