By mid-morning they were on the trail again, following the lines on Sata’s map toward the little town of Nug on the main path through the mountains.
Though they sometimes had to gain a little elevation to go from one mountain valley to the next, they knew they were generally traveling downhill. The trees, few and stunted near the monastery, were getting larger, and tasty berries more plentiful.
Sprawled in a bleak, nearly-treeless valley at six thousand eight hundred feet, the town of Nug was a shocking disappointment. It had not experienced any natural disaster, but somehow Lumber Town had seemed more inviting, even after the fire.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 47
Rini squinted at the broken boxes and barrels piled everywhere, sometimes mixed with the bones of horses or donkeys.
Mati frowned when she saw entire families living in ragged tents, flies buzzing everywhere, and no stream nearby.
Ilika set his jaw. “Small groups, eyes open, stay close. Boro, quick scout through the town.”
Boro tapped Toli on the shoulder. They slipped out of their rucksacks and walked through the entire settlement, finding a few flimsy wooden buildings at its center, but no sturdy stone or timber structures anywhere.
The rest of the travelers waited among some boulders just outside the town. Mati stayed mounted, and had no intention of letting Tera out of her sight.
Suddenly someone came running out of a tent behind one of the wooden buildings carrying a chunk of bread. An unseen voice yelled, “Thief!” From out of another tent someone else ran after the thief and brought him down, and a scrappy fist-fight began. Several boys gathered to watch the fight, but no one else paid much attention. A scrawny dog got the bread and ran off.
Ilika saw that his scouts were well clear of the commotion, so he stayed where he was.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 48
“Lots of poor people here,” Sata mumbled.
“No soldiers,” Kibi observed.
A few minutes later, Boro and Toli returned to the group. “This place is sad,” Boro said with a sigh.
“There’s food for sale, just the basics,” Toli reported. “Two shops and an outdoor stand.”
“One inn, but it’s just a few bunks,” Boro added.
Suddenly the group realized they were not alone. A skinny girl of about twelve years, wearing little more than rags, had crept close among the rocks.
As soon as they looked at her, she bravely stood up and faced them.
“Got’ny food?” she asked with mixed embarrassment and desperation.
Kibi opened her rucksack and looked inside. “Um . . . yeah, a little . . . if you’ll tell us about this town of yours.”
The cracker that Kibi held out was snatched and consumed in seconds.
“Not my town. Hate it here. Someone said they found a little gold in a stream, so my stupid dad just had to drag us up here.” She accepted a crab apple from Sata and took a moment to devour it, seeds and all.
“Then he got killed in a fight. He wasn’t thieving. It was over who gets to work the streams.”
Kibi handed her more crackers. “Why don’t you leave?”
The girl cringed for a moment. “Mom’s got a business going. You know
. . . selling herself . . . wenching. We get about a meal a day.” As she spoke, her eyes remained glued to the cheese Buna was slicing.
“Will we run into any trouble if we just buy supplies and then head out of town?” Buna asked, passing the cheese to the hungry girl.
“You got lots of money? Copper don’t do no good here. I remember getting a loaf for a copper or two where we used to live, good tasty bread.
Here it’s hardtack, and it’s usually stale, and it’s a silver piece. But if you got plenty of money, you’ll be okay . . . just watch your back.”
The edge gone from her hunger, she began to chew more slowly. Not knowing what else to say, she gazed off across the valley with a hopeless expression.
“You need to get out of here,” Mati said from atop Tera, “or this place is gonna eat you up.”
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 49
The girl looked up at Mati. She almost smiled for a moment, but then her face fell. “No place to go.”
Mati dismounted and the group got comfortable. They shared the last of their food from the monastery with the girl, whose name was Kali, and told her about some of their adventures.
Kibi asked Ilika to take a short walk with her. She had already realized it would do no good to invite Kali to come with them, as the girl would just be in the same situation in another place in a few weeks, and without the support of her mother. But Kibi had something else in mind. Ilika listened, and felt her plan had a reasonable chance of success, so he agreed.
They returned to the group in time to get the last two pieces of cheese.
“Kibi has asked me for a few hours here so we can give our friend Kali some ideas for her future. During that time, I will get supplies, with the help of . . . Toli and Miko. You’ll need an empty rucksack.”
Miko emptied his pack, and soon the three were heading toward one of the shops. As they approached the town, Ilika explained that they would rotate buying, carrying, and watching for trouble. Knowing their assigned tasks, they stepped into the first shop.
The wooden structure looked like it had seen too many winters and was in danger of collapsing on their heads. The smoke told them it was as close to a bakery as they were going to find.
“Keep the sack on your back until we settle up,” the clerk said in a stern voice.
“Okay,” Toli squeaked.
Another man, large and muscular, sat on a barrel while sharpening his knife and observing the travelers.
Miko stood back, hands in his pockets.
“How’s the bread supply?” Ilika asked.
“Two from yesterday. Eight more out of the oven soon, but I don’t put them out ‘til the old stuff’s gone.”
“We’ll take all ten.”
“You got a great silver?”
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 50
“I do. And I want about five pounds of those porridge grains . . .”
After waiting for the fresh hardtack, and adding some dried apples and small beans to the order, they paid and packed without trouble.
“Why is everything so expensive?” Miko asked on the way back to the group.
“It has to be carried up here on someone’s back,” Ilika explained. “Also, there isn’t much competition. And with gold in the streams, at least a few people have lots of money. All of those conditions push prices up. Imagine the most extreme case — you are hungry, you have a wheel barrow full of gold, and someone else has the only loaf of bread.”
Toli’s eyes opened wide. “All of a sudden the price of bread would be very high!”
Ilika nodded as they came to the group, now sitting down among the rocks and almost completely hidden from view. Even Tera was hard to see when she had her head down, looking for something to eat on the stony ground.
As Miko unloaded the rucksack, they listened as the others told Kali about the monastery, its main hall, guest house, ritual field, and everything else they had seen.
Ilika handed his coin pouch to Toli, Miko took up the empty bag, and they headed for the second shop.
Toli successfully purchased several hard cheeses, dried plums, and small pots of honey and molasses. The matron wanted to see silver before she would even take an item down from its shelf. Two of her grown sons stood guard.
“These ceramic pots are heavy!” Toli complained on the way back to the meeting place.
“But just think how good that honey will taste in porridge!” Miko pointed out. “I’ll carry one if you’ll carry the other . . .”
Toli grinned. “Okay!”
Ilika
smiled.
As soon as they arrived at the boulders, Ilika put his finger to his lips. The rest, including Kali, were sitting in meditation. They unloaded quickly and
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 51
quietly, then headed back toward the center of town.
The remaining shop was just an outdoor stand in what remained of a collapsed building. Miko found several herbs and spices he knew the girls would want, a mixture of dried vegetables, and some small dried peas. He was just about to pay when he spotted something else.
“Is that what I think it is? Candy?”
“It sure is!” the man said as he opened the little wooden box so his customer could see the assortment. “Three silvers.”
Miko looked at Ilika.
“Sorry, Miko. I’m just the beast of burden right now. You have to make the decisions.”
After a moment of thought, Miko nodded, and the clerk added the box of candy to the pile. Miko brought out the two great silver pieces needed to settle their bill.
“I’m glad I didn’t have a wheel barrow full of gold — I might have spent it all!” Miko admitted as they returned to the group.
Ilika and Toli laughed.
As the shoppers unpacked for the last time, Kali was studying the map with Sata.
“Ilika, we don’t need this map anymore, do we?” Sata asked. “If I could just give it to her, it would help her find the trail.”
Ilika sat down on the ground with the others and nodded.
Kali lovingly received the map. “They’ve told me how I’m going to wind up a wench or a slave if I don’t find my courage and get out of here.”
“I think they’re right,” Ilika agreed. “Your mother is choosing her path.
She probably won’t last much longer. You need to choose yours, or you’ll get stuck. I could see you were strong when you faced us and asked for food.”
“I am strong. And Rini told me how meditating will make me even stronger.”
“He’s right. And the monastery will teach you many things, and it will keep you free. You don’t have to stay in the order your whole life. Someday, you may discover that a different path calls to you.”
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 52
“I wanna stay free.”
“The hardest step will be the first step, saying good-bye to your mother and getting out of this valley. Maybe you can’t even say good-bye, and you’ll just have to go. You must make that decision.”
“When she gets back from wenching, she’s usually had wine. I’ll tell her then, and she won’t care. By the time she wakes up the next day, I’ll be gone.”
“You know it’s a silent order?”
“Yep. They told me I should be quiet when I get there and just speak with my eyes, my smile, and my heart. I can do that. And they said I’d learn to work with others without using words.”
Ilika looked at his students. “I need three great silver pieces.”
They looked in their pouches until the coins were located.
“One is to leave as a gift for your mother,” he said, handing Kali the coin.
The girl swallowed and nodded.
“One is for you to get supplies for your journey to the monastery. It took us two days.”
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“The third is to give to the high priestess of the order, along with a letter I will write. It will help them to know that you are serious about learning and becoming one of them. A weak person would spend the money before arriving.”
Kali smiled and clutched the three coins tightly.
The group of travelers spent as much time with Kali as they could, but Ilika wanted to get some distance down the trail by dark. Kibi was tempted to propose they stay for a day or two and see their new friend off. Then she noticed several local people snooping close to the boulders with squinting eyes, so she held her tongue.
As they headed east and passed over a rise, they all shared their concerns that Kali would not find the courage to leave, or she would lose the three coins, or they would be stolen.
Ilika remained silent. Others pointed out that they could only do so much, and that Kali had to take responsibility for herself, or live with the consequences. As they walked along, Kodi’s name came up several times, and
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 53
they remembered a certain gold piece that had not been enough to keep him out of slavery.
Kibi took advantage of the wide main trail to walk beside Ilika at the back of the group. “That’s a pretty serious test you set up. I wonder if she’ll guess the letter tells them about the great silver piece.”
“She’ll probably guess, but at least it will test her self-control. I’ve become rather good at arranging tests during the last few months, haven’t I?”
Kibi grinned. “That’s for sure! I wonder how many of them I can pass . . .”
“Hah! You proved yourself to me the first week we were together.”
Kibi’s hand found his. “I wish we could visit the monastery again someday, meditate with them, maybe see the aurora, see if Kali made it.”
“I think we might be able to do that,” Ilika said with a slight smile.
Kibi looked at him with a puzzled expression, but he said no more.
Deep Learning Notes
A small map shows the area around the village of Nug.
The town of Nug is most similar to a frontier mining town of the 19th or early 20th century, perhaps Skidoo, California, a ghost town that vanished long ago.
The circumstances that made buildings flimsy, prices high, and tempers short can exist in any historical context. As the author writes these words in July 2010, unemployment is rising, unemployment insurance payments are ending, and the same conditions may soon be common any time an opportunity arises, no matter where it is.
Have you ever been hungry enough to beg for food from strangers, and then eat a crab apple, seeds and all?
A wench was usually a combination of tavern helper and prostitute, and the profession has been legal and common at most times and places. With little or no medical care available, it was not a profession with a long life-expectancy.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 54
As we can see in the shops of the town, frontier merchants provided their own law enforcement. Everyone was assumed to be a thief (and many were) until the bill was paid.
When a merchant has a monopoly on a needed product, he can set the price as high, and the quality as low, as his customers will tolerate. Hardtack, therefore, cost a silver piece (impossible in a large town or city because of competition), and was usually stale, as Kali explained. The extreme case Ilika described, of needing a wheel barrow full of gold, would not happen in reality because the store would first be burned down by angry customers, and the merchant killed or run out of town.
What motivated Toli to agree to carry one of the crocks? What materials do we use today to contain messy foods, like honey, that are much lighter?
Kali stood at one of those “moments of truth” in life when she had to make an important decision, the consequences either way were huge, and she didn’t have much time to decide. Most modern people don’t experience these moments until 18 or 20 years of age. Kali was 12. Misa was 7.
Many people join monastic orders, during hard economic times, at least partly because they will get something to eat every day, and stay out of slavery. This was obviously Kali’s main motivation. Many of those people will remain simple monks, working the gardens or other industries of the monastery in exchange for their basic needs. A few will understand the higher purposes of the religious community, and rise in the ranks.
Advising and helping a 12-year-old to “run away from home” would be a crime in most places today. What do you think of the group’s advice to Kali in that situation?
What did the group do to cause the local people to take an interest in them?
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 55
Why do you think Ilika didn’t take Kali all the way to the monastery so she wouldn’t lose the coins, or have them stolen?
Why wouldn’t Kali know that the letter Ilika wrote mentioned the great silver piece?
