Because of the event the previous night, a somber, serious mood filled the camp that morning. The sun had been up for hours when Sata stumbled to the stream to wash her face and fill the pot with water. She returned to find Boro brooding as he kindled a fire, so they worked together silently to make porridge.
When Toli awoke to find Neti still sleeping beside him, he finally accepted that the shadowy visitor from the night before had not been a dream — but he couldn’t bring himself to believe that Neti was expressing anything but kindness. She was a pretty girl, the kind that all the boys liked. He had no fantasies that a pretty girl like her would ever have anything more than sympathy for someone like him.
Buna and Misa sat near the fire slicing apples. When they had nine pieces, they stopped and looked at each other, then reluctantly cut one more.
While others shook out blankets and rolled up bedrolls, Ilika stood, stretched his stiff and sore body, and smiled at Rini who was taking Tera down to the stream to drink and graze on the tender grass growing along the banks.
Ilika set the tone at breakfast, and for the remainder of the day, by chatting about the beauty of the early fall morning, and making no mention of Toli and his actions. Even with Kibi helping constantly, Ilika moved slowly and was clearly in no hurry to pack, and once packed, was obviously not aiming to put many miles behind them.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 122
As they meandered along the road eastward, they greeted the occasional travelers they passed, and always warned them about the food poisoning epidemic in Cattle Town.
Five times that day Ilika listened to his students, always out of earshot of Toli, express their willingness to keep him as a student. But they also strongly hinted that if he was still being considered for the ship, they were no longer available.
Ilika discovered that he only had strength and energy for about a mile of walking before he needed water, food, and a nap. They covered about three miles that day before making camp.
On the second day out, Ilika felt better and began to teach short lessons about the geology or the weather as they walked along. The group was moving from a high desert prairie in the rain-shadow of the mountains, into a grassland that received more moisture. Its eastern edge was a geological fault line where the land was rising compared to the low desert far below. The grassland sloped down to the south, and eventually became a swamp near the capital city.
The village of Pos appeared on the side of the road about mid-day, a cluster of little cottages, but no inn or shops. To make extra money, the wives and daughters ran a simple kitchen for travelers, with a single large table under the eaves of one cottage.
With nothing to remind them of tainted meat, soldiers, or slave markets, and with a certain other topic still off-limits, everyone smiled and chatted as they ate lunch. Kibi talked with one of the women, who agreed to make a rich chicken stew that evening. The older girls of the village begged to help, and when Kibi learned they could bake pies, she requested one apple and one berry. Younger girls and boys ran off to gather the fruit.
For the first time in Kibi’s life, a celebration would be held in her honor.
For the first time in her life, she believed a happy and meaningful future might lie ahead. She smiled and pranced around on light feet as they set up camp among some bushes just outside the village.
As they sat in a circle sharing thoughts and presenting little gifts to Kibi,
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 123
Boro didn’t feel like mincing words. “I know you didn’t come to our kingdom for treasure, Ilika, but you found it anyway. Kibi is not the kind of girl who could love just anyone, or be loved by most men.”
Kibi turned several shades of red, but was still smiling.
“She’s more like a Fairy or Sprite. Anyone who tries to love her had better be strong and true of heart . . . or he’ll get burned. I don’t know where your country is, Ilika, but I know your trip here, and all the money you spent, and this journey to teach us, will all be worth it even if you just take Kibi.”
Ilika couldn’t help but grin, and used that pause to present to Kibi a small gold broach in the shape of a dragon in flight.
Kibi clutched it lovingly to her breast and shivered with delight. Then she reached out and gave Boro a sisterly hug, and Ilika a kiss so long and deep he almost forgot others were around, snickering.
Everyone else had words of appreciation and respect for Kibi. They had all been aided in one way or another by her caring attitude and strong leadership skills.
Toli’s gift for her, a flower made from ribbons for her hair, was a mere trinket compared to Ilika’s expensive gift. He presented it with trembling hands, and could only sputter out a few clumsy words.
To his utter surprise, she thanked him with a warm hug, and he instantly turned red with shame.
A little girl interrupted to announce that dinner was ready, so they hopped up and headed for the village.
The remainder of Kibi’s seventeenth birthday party was marked by good food, more kind words, and additional small gifts. Later, around the campfire, many of their favorite stories were retold. Mati attempted the tale of Kali’s Decision for the first time, and added her wish to see the monastery again someday. Several others nodded.
When everyone had fallen silent and Ilika was beginning to yawn, Buna asked him what he was going to call his own story that took place at Cattle Town.
He thought for a moment. “Ilika’s Big Mistake.”
They all laughed as Boro put more wood on the fire.
Ilika, however, said good-night and headed for his bedroll.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 124
Just beyond the village, the road wound down into a canyon for the long, steep descent to the desert far below. A little-used trail followed the top of the high cliff southward, and a boy was happy to get them started for a copper piece. It was, as they could see on the map, a much longer way than the main path across the grasslands to the next village, but Ilika had many topics to review with his students.
By noon they gathered near the edge of the rocky cliff with the desert spread out three thousand feet below. Several of the students swayed with dizziness for the first few minutes, and had to hold onto bushes or rocks to avoid feeling sick. Tera shook off some flies, found a patch of tasty grass, and began pulling and chewing.
“Wow,” Toli breathed. “The gray rocks at the bottom have tiny bushes growing on them.”
“Alluvial fans,” Ilika explained, “can be hundreds of feet thick, and build up where dirt and rocks wash out of the canyons. Those bushes might be spiny cactus plants taller than people.”
“The white stuff in the low places, is that salt?” Mati asked.
“It could be a sodium salt, a magnesium salt, or something else.”
“If it’s sodium chloride,” Rini pondered aloud, “they could use it to salt meat at Cattle Town.”
Buna shaded her eyes. “Those piles of sand look like ripples on a beach, but I bet they’re a lot bigger.”
“I can see places where rivers made deep gullies,” Boro said, “but they’re
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 125
all dry now.”
“Rivers sometimes flow in the desert during rainstorms,” Ilika explained,
“but they don’t last long or get very far before sinking into the ground.”
Kibi sat silently gazing at the mysterious barren landscape below that had somehow fascinated her long before she laid eyes on it.
Ilika’s educational review consisted of complex math problems, difficult logic questions, tricky chemical transformations, and challenging written essays. The students had all the basic skills — now they had to apply them.
With each problem, after time spent in silence scribbling on paper, smiles would flash and hands shoot into the air, but Ilika always waited for Boro and Buna, and in some subjects Kibi and Mati, to get the answers also.
Neti was happy for her friends, but could not find the energy to do any more lessons, other than the dramatic reading. She would most often sit close beside Toli while he and the others worked on their review problems.
Spending so much time on lessons, the trek along the high cliff took three days. Kibi used her free time to sit and gaze out over the desert. Sometimes Ilika joined her, and they sat with arms around each other as evening shadows crept over the sand dunes below.
“It calls to me, Ilika. It’s where I’m gonna to go if . . . anything doesn’t work out with your ship.”
“If you can wait a couple more weeks, you’ll get both. We’ll do some of our training down there.”
“You mean . . . before we get on the ship?”
“No. We’ll take the ship. Everything will be done on the ship after the four extras go their ways.”
“Ilika!
How are you going to get a ship into the desert?”
He grinned. “You’ll see.”
Deep Learning Notes
The map shows the area from Cattle Town and the roadside village of Pos, to
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 126
the grassland village of Bek.
What qualities did Toli have that would cause a socially well-adjusted person like Neti to not like him in most cases?
When the students expressed their opinions about Toli to Ilika, in what ways was that similar to collective bargaining in a labor union?
Most of the moisture in the air (that causes rain) comes from the ocean.
When moisture-laden clouds move over the land, they lose most of their water in the first mountains they encounter. This causes a “rain-shadow” farther inland, so that area receives little or no rain. As the group journeyed south of the mountains, enough rain clouds got through from the ocean to create a lush grassland.
The high cliff overlooking the desert was an “escarpment” formed when the land on one side of a geological fault line (in this case, the western side) was lifted high above the other side. This escarpment, although it didn’t look like a mountain because of the gentle slope on one side, contributed to the rain-shadow effect that created the desert to the east.
The desert they looked into was not a “valley” because it was not carved by water. It was simply a “depression” that would be a lake if enough water was present.
For the third time, Ilika’s students got practice at examining a landscape far below them, something they had never done before the journey began. It is a very different point of view than we usually have, almost an altered state of consciousness, and explains why “view points” along roads are so fascinating.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 127
Chapter 18: The End of Many Stories
Kibi said a silent good-bye to the desert when a canyon forced the trail back to the west. From that point, the group continued westward toward the village of Bek, deep in the grasslands.
Ranches and farms dotted the gentle, green land. Rain refreshed the travelers that night, the first they had felt since leaving the coast weeks before.
The muddy river they waded across the next morning crept along slowly, as if reluctant to arrive at its fate in the desert sands below.
When the group walked into Bek, they could feel the fear and suspicion.
The people knew their little village was not on the way from anywhere to anywhere. There was simply no good reason for anyone to be on those trails, save the few who had relatives or business in the village.
Since Toli still felt like an outcast, the chilly reception made him wish he could cancel his birthday party.
But to the children of the village, the arrival of ten travelers was too exciting to be ignored. They came pouring out of every cottage and hut, and the teacher and students found themselves pelted with questions about who they were, where they had been, and where they were going.
The travelers set down their rucksacks, Mati dismounted, and soon Toli had two excited children sitting in his lap, and three or four more close at hand, listening to him tell about the ocean, a mysterious place none of them
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 128
had ever seen.
Surrounded by a similar number, Neti spoke of the beautiful snow-capped mountains, and the children’s eyes opened wide with wonder.
It wasn’t long before the matrons, old men, and anyone else not at work in the fields, gathered around to glean some news of events in the wide world beyond their grassy home. They only knew of the fire at Lumber Town by the smoke on their western horizon.
Boro talked about the rumor that sorcerers had set the blaze, but swore it was false, as he had seen the mill where the inferno started. Misa, a former resident of the town, added her opinion that no sorcerers were involved. Then she grinned knowingly at Buna.
When the matrons of the village learned the group wanted to celebrate a birthday, and a nice meal for ten with dessert was worth two silver pieces, they immediately went into action. One ingredient was located in one cottage, another somewhere else, a needed spice in yet another hut. One farm wife offered to stoke up her oven, apparently the only one in town. Boys ran to animal pens, and girls spread out in kitchen gardens to find whatever their mothers called for in loud voices.
Toli was embarrassed. A fuss for his sake was the last thing he wanted.
But it appeared that Kibi and Ilika were going to keep their promise to celebrate his twentieth birthday in this village. Their kind treatment of him, combined with Neti’s affection, made him feel more guilty than ever. He had violated their trust in a stupid attempt to impress Buna, who, he now knew, didn’t even like boys. It was hard to imagine a situation that could make him seem sillier or feel smaller.
Kibi conferred with the head matron, who pointed to an area of soft grass where the group could set up camp and pasture their donkey. When men started coming in from the fields, they looked askance at the strangers until scolded by their wives and told about the silver pieces.
As the group settled down to present Toli with little gifts, he was surrounded not only by his teacher and fellow students, but also eight or nine curious children who could all think of an excuse to avoid chores for a while.
Ilika admitted he was unprepared. He assured Toli he was working on a gift, but that his recent injury had put him behind schedule and it was not
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 129
quite ready.
Toli remembered Ilika lying as if dead, and then sleeping long hours for several days. What amazed him was that his teacher would want to give him anything.
As they started sharing words and stories of appreciation, Ilika said nothing about the bracelet, and Mati didn’t mention the wolf. Everyone knew that Toli’s mistakes had eliminated him from Ilika’s crew, and no further taunting would serve any purpose other than to make him miserable. The one or two people who were tempted to do so, kept their mouths shut.
To Toli’s relief, the older girls of the village shooed away the curious children when they began to serve the feast their mothers had prepared. Toli was again embarrassed, but not disappointed, when a big pot was opened to reveal a stewed rabbit surrounded by herbs and dumplings. Freshly baked bread, soft cheese, and a light malty brew completed the feast, followed by tasty custard.
Once the men of the hamlet convinced themselves the strangers were harmless, and heard from the children of all the traveling they had done to the far corners of the kingdom, they humbly approached and asked if the travelers could share any more stories and news.
Ilika looked at Toli to know his pleasure for the evening.
He had already received his gifts, heard many kind words he didn’t feel he deserved, and feasted. He nodded, knowing it would help remove him from the embarrassing limelight.
So it was that many of their favorite stories were told that evening, excluding those that involved Ilika’s bracelet or the fact that they were wanted criminals. Their audience of about twenty-five seemed to be the vast majority of the local population.
To everyone’s surprise, Neti told of the death of Miko, including a detailed explanation of what happens when sand covers the top of a boulder. The people of the hamlet paid close attention, just as if they were hearing of the movements of armies or the doings of the royal court.
Toli went to his bed that night very happy with his birthday party. He was even happier when Neti unrolled her bed next to his, snuggled close, and
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 130
placed a kiss on his cheek before saying good-night.
The people of the village were delighted to earn another silver piece by providing breakfast. They knew it would be a long time before anyone else wandered through their little corner of the world with silver to spend and stories to tell.
With an autumn nip in the air, clouds crept in from the west even as the group saddled their donkey and shouldered their rucksacks.
Ilika had no more lessons. He knew many questions would come up, and he wanted to leave plenty of time for stories. This was the home stretch. They could probably get to the swamp in two days, but he planned to take three or four. They were approaching the end of the process, and they all knew it.
A few miles south of the village of Bek, Rini sat alone in the grass after lunch, chewing a piece of dried fruit and pondering all the things he had seen and done since Ilika’s fateful test day. The overcast sky above him looked ominous but had not yet released its burden of rain. He lay back and closed his eyes.
The faces of a laughing bootmaker and a vengeful high priest visited him, along with a beautiful farmer’s daughter and a bubbly shepherdess. He could almost smell the stinky hot springs and the salty ocean. A timber wolf’s yellow teeth loomed large in his memory, as did the sinking despair of Mati choosing to stay with the goatherd.
A minute later a pair of real voices made Rini open his eyes. The sound of a crutch swishing through the grass made him smile.
“I want to make sure you understand,” Ilika’s voice was saying, “that for me to consider you for my crew . . . and I assure you I want to consider you . . .
there is something you must be willing to let go of . . .” After that, Rini could no longer catch the words.
But a moment later he clearly heard Mati crying her eyes out. Rini smiled, easily guessing what had been said. He continued to listen, and eventually the crying changed to sniffling as Ilika spoke again.
Suddenly Mati was cheering and clapping, and her earlier sadness seemed to be completely forgotten. Rini couldn’t guess what would make Mati so
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 131
gleefully happy, but he smiled for his dear friend before going back to pondering his own life.
For the next three days, the group journeyed southward, and the mountains behind them slowly shrank while the hills near the capital city grew larger. The rains came, but fell mostly at night, leaving the afternoons and evenings for the students to ask questions about their favorite subjects as they walked or sat around the small evening fire.
And there were stories still to be told.
On the first of those three evenings, six students wove a story called The Stubborn Cooks of Cattle Town, a mixture of frustration and humor, deadly seriousness, and playful mischief.
On the second evening, as the teacher was telling Ilika’s Big Mistake, he realized it contained an important lesson, so he cleared his throat.
Neti rolled her eyes, but Ilika didn’t notice.
“I messed up and came close to getting myself killed because . . . one of the people I was trying to find was Kibi. I should have realized I wouldn’t be thinking straight. Leadership is much more difficult when you’re emotionally involved with someone. Those involvements are impossible to avoid on a ship because we’re like a big family, but there are times to let others make decisions when someone you care about is in danger. I should have taken Boro to lead and a couple of others to watch, leaving me to use my bracelet if needed. I caused a lot of trouble for a lot of people by getting hurt and captured that night. I’m very sorry, and I’m indebted to all of you for pulling my ass out of that fire.”
Grins all around the circle showed that no grudge was held. Neti even smiled at his choice of words.
Buna snickered. “That’s the first time you’ve used one of our juicy words!”
Ilika laughed. “I’m learning. But you know, the most important part of that story must be told by others, because I wasn’t awake.”
Boro called it The Rescue of Ilika. He let others jump in any time they wanted because so many people had been involved. Kibi had the honor of finishing the story, telling of the joy and relief she felt when Ilika finally awoke more than a day later.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 132
On the third evening, the mood was light as Kibi and Toli told Two Birthdays in the Middle of Nowhere.
Suddenly a strange feeling filled the camp. Their telling of stories, for the first time, had caught up with their lives. They knew it was necessary, because they would soon be split into two groups — six on a ship, and four . . .
elsewhere. They needed to tell all their stories before the separation. After that, it would be too late.
The next day, heavy clouds covered the sky. As autumn approached, darkness came earlier, and little firewood could be found on the open grasslands. Ilika knew they were only a few hours’ walk from the end of their journey.
One more story begged to be finished, and they had all grown to care about the people in it almost as much as they cared about their friends. The group of ten travelers made camp early to finish their beloved book before they parted.
Mati was reading.
“Godi sat on a boulder lost in thought. It tore at him that his people could not accept Tima, even though they owed their very lives to the help and protection they had received from her and the other elves. ”
Mati handed the book to Rini.
“Tima knew in her heart that she loved Godi, and that she would gladly live a simple, mortal life if she could spend it with him. But she knew he had to choose her. He had to let go of those who were too small-minded to accept the love that had grown between a young man and an elf maiden. ”
Rini could see Toli squirming, so he handed him the book.
“Suddenly Godi jumped down from the boulder and began to saddle his horse. ‘I am going into the wilderness. I want nothing more to do with people, even if they are my people, my family. I will live with the wolves and the birds, and I will build a house where anyone will be welcome, no matter what color their skin, if they have the courage to journey so far.’”
Toli passed the book to Sata.
“Tima asked, ‘Are you going alone?’”
“Godi replied as he cinched his saddle, ‘If I must. But I would like it more
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 133
if you came with me.’”
Sata knew Boro would do best with a small paragraph, so she handed him the book at this point.
“Tima smiled, . . . shouldered her . . . quiver, and grabbed Godi’s hand to pull . . . herself onto the horse . . . behind him. ”
For Boro, that much had been a serious effort, so he handed the book to Kibi.
“So it was that a cottage was built deep in the wilderness, about half-way between the human and elvan realms, and that cottage grew into a house, and that house grew into a village. Children were born there who learned to speak the languages of both men and elves, as well as the tongues of the forest animals. Stout people, from both realms, slowly made their way to that special place, and often they stayed. ”
Kibi handed the book to Ilika. It seemed only right that he should have the honor of finishing the story.
“Godi and Tima loved each other for the rest of their mortal days, and were laid to rest together on the hill near their beloved home in the wilderness. Of course by then it was no longer wilderness, and they were no longer the only ones with strong children born of two different peoples. The End. ”
They took a break for dinner, but were all very quiet, pondering the last scenes of the story. After getting hot soup and bread into their bellies, they read the entire last chapter again.
When the light finally faded and mist began to fall, they reluctantly put the book away, but went on discussing their favorite parts for hours from under their hoods as Boro and Toli tried to keep their little fire going.
Deep Learning Notes
The map shows the area from the village of Bek to the swamp and the capital city.
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 134
It is natural for any community to have an awareness of who belongs, and who doesn’t. The smaller and more remote the community, the easier it is to tell. Any stranger must go through the process of explaining their purpose to the community, and then waiting for judgment to be passed. What qualities, attitudes, or actions did Ilika and his students manifest that caused the village of Bek to accept them?
None of the people of the village had ever seen the ocean because it was fifty miles away. Such a trip was long, dangerous, and expensive for peasants who might earn only a few copper pieces in a year. Most people would live their entire lives without ever going more than ten or twenty miles from their birthplaces. They would have a home and work in one village, occasionally visit a few neighboring villages, and perhaps have business in Cattle Town or the capital city once a year. Mates were usually found in the home village, or perhaps one village away. Thieves, and the threat of slavery for any mistake, added to the dangers of travel.
What would Mati have to leave behind, to be selected for the crew, that made her so sad?
Storytelling is a kind of myth-making. Myths are narratives that contain facts, history, memories, values, and lessons that people need, in order to make sense of the universe and pass on their culture. Myths contain much “truth,”
but not everything in them needs to be literally true. The stories told by Ilika and his students became myths as they were told and retold, with minor details dropping out and important points emphasized. They helped them to process painful memories and prepare for an uncertain future.
Complex values, sometimes of a “spiritual” nature, are often conveyed through myths that are not literally true. The story The Tortoise and the Hare, by Aesop, is an excellent example. It contains no literal truth, but teaches that a task can be completed even if a person is slow, by being determined and faithful. Can you think of another myth that teaches something valuable without using literal truth?
NEBADOR Book Three: Selection 135
