Chapter 3

Chapter 3

The day was uneventful for Ashira. She and Malimu kept a steady pace, but not so fast as to tire them out. They had left at around eight in the morning. At eleven, they stopped and ate lunch, which consisted of a couple strips of dried meat and some dried berries and nuts. As she ate, Malimu rummaged in his pack and pulled out a needle, a small dish, and his canteen.

“What are you doing?”Ashira asked.

He held up the needle for her to see.

“This needle is made of a metal called 'lodestone'. When carefully balanced on the surface of the water in this dish, it will point toward the north.”

He demonstrated by taking his canteen and pouring a bit of water into the small dish. He took a leaf from a nearby tree and placed it on the water. Next, he took the needle and placed it gently on the leaf. Ashira thought the needle would cause it to sink, but it did not. She watched, fascinated, as the leaf slowly turned, seemingly of its own accord, and then stopped.

“It points north,” Malimu said, gesturing in the direction the needle was pointing.

“That's amazing,” she said. “Is it magic?”

“It's science. No magic was involved.”

Malimu got his bearings, then pointed a little to the right of the direction they had been heading.

“We started to drift to the left a little as we were walking. We better correct our course.”

The sun peaked above them, then started to slowly descend. It had not gone far when Malimu held up his hand and stopped. Ashira halted.

“Do you hear that?” he whispered.

Ashira strained to hear something. There, off to the right, was a low hum.

“Let's get a little closer,” Malimu said. He quietly moved off to the right. As silent as he was, Ashira was more so. Having grown up in the forest, she had learned to walk without making noise over the forest floor. There were many nights she had sneaked out of her hut to go with Clarris to climb a tree and look at the stars.

As the moved, the sound became more distinct. It turned into a low chant, punctuated by the occasional drumbeat.

“What is it?” Ashira asked.

“I don't know. Stay here and I'll get a little closer.” He pulled from his waist a small blue frame drum and moved forward.

Ashira watched, apprehensive, as he moved off into the trees. She waited for a few minutes and he returned.

“There are ruins just over a dale to the north. It seems there are men practicing some sort of ceremony inside,” he explained. “I could see an altar and a few men, as well as a drum and a cloaked figure.”

“What are they doing in the forest?” Ashira asked.

“I don't care to find out. We need to move away from here, though. I worry that they may have people patrolling, and they don't seem like the best lot to get involved with.”

She agreed. They traveled swiftly and quietly to the East. After almost ten minutes, Malimu slowed down, confident that they were far from any watching eyes.

Ashira felt she could talk now, so asked Malimu the questions on her mind.

“You took your hand drum with you. You can't really make magic with just a small drum, can you?”

Malimu looked sidelong at her and raised one eyebrow. He responded with a question of his own.

“How do you define music, Ashira?”

She thought for a moment.

“A series of pitches organized to create melody and harmony,” she said with traces of uncertainty.

Malimu tilted his head to the side a bit, considering her response.

“You hit on something important there,” he said. “I can understand that you would include harmony and melody in your definition; in this land, people use wind and string instruments to create music. You hardly ever have percussion or voices to accompany you. However, in a broader sense, music is simply the organization of sound. Let me demonstrate. This is called a 'bodran' by your people.”

He took his frame drum from his waist, where it had been fastened with a simple leather strap. Stopping for a moment, he sat on the forest floor and positioned the drum vertically on his left thigh. He placed his left hand on the inside of the drum and faced the top toward his right. He closed his eyes to focus. Ashira watched with interest. He started to play a simple beat at first, but within a few measures he was playing the small drum very intricately. Although there was no melody, Ashira found that her foot was tapping along to the rhythm.

The wind in the trees above picked up. A strong draft weaved among the trunks and wrapped around Malimu. It lifted his his curly, shoulder-length hair. It whipped his simple orange and tan cotton robes, causing them to billow out. Leaves swirled around him and spiraled upward. He built up to a climax, then suddenly paused. The wind instantly died, but the leaves stayed still in the air. Then he broke out again into an complicated pattern, and the leaves started flying once more. As he the song a few measures later with the loudest beat yet, the leaves went flying in all directions away from his body and the wind blew outward in a great blast from his position on the ground.

Ashira had been knocked down by the final blast, but sat up now and clapped.

“That was wonderful! I had no idea you played so well,” she said smiling at her maestro.

“It took me a long time to study and become familiar with your land's instruments,” he said, putting the bodran away. “But my people focus on drums, and that is where our talents lie. I am primarily a percussionist. I know other instruments only because I chose to study here in Acustia in my adulthood.”

Malimu was in his mid-forties. Ashira realized he must miss his people greatly.

“Have you been gone from your land for a long time?” she asked. He stood and brushed off the dust from his robes.

“No, not really. I visit every year after the recital.”

“Oh. Do you have family back home?” He mind went to her own father, now many kilometers away. For a fleeting moments, she was tempted to turn back and run home.

He gestured for them to continue on their journey, then answered.

“I have a son. My wife passed away giving birth to him. He is about your age. He is very capable, and so I do not worry about leaving him alone for as many months as I do.”

Ashira was thinking of her own mother now. She wished she could have known her. As it was, she never even knew Ilora, her adoptive mother.

“So you return home to see him every year,” she stated.

“Yes, but there is another reason,” he said. “You know the relics give the people their gifts, correct?”

She nodded.

“Yes. When we turn seventeen, the relic grants us the gift of musical talent that we have worked so hard to develop. It makes it so we can create magic with our music. It lends its power to us.”

“That is so. The relics are not evil, nor are they good. They are simply tools, harnessed by the people, to create magic using music.”

Ashira frowned a bit. “You said 'relics'. There are more than one?”

Now Malimu nodded.

“Yes. My people in Kadencia have a relic, which we keep at Sejungu. The Camenians keep theirs at Aetheris. You keep yours at Vitaela.”

“So each tribe has its own relic,” she stated.

“And each tribe also focuses on a different aspect of music. My people are percussionists. Yours are instrumentalists. The Camenians are vocalists,” Malimu explained.

Ashira nodded, understanding.

“But then what about me? Have you ever heard of someone not being good at the aspect of music they were bor-” but she stopped, remembering that she wasn't born in Acustia, and corrected herself, “-raised with?'

Malimu's shoulders slumped a little.

“No. Unfortunately, this is something that is unique. I've never heard of it happening. Everyone in their respective tribe has a knack for music, yet you don't seem to.”

He saw her expression fall.

“But that's why we're trying this idea. Go to Aetheris and seek out Maestro Mirari. He will help you. He is the best musician that I know of in all Amrahn,” he said, offering a bit of hope.

They walked on, Ashira pondering the turns her life was taking.

The forest didn't seem to change. She knew they were traveling because she could catch glimpses of the mountain range to the north, but otherwise the scenery didn't seem to change. Finally, about an hour before sundown, they found a small stream.

Malimu set up camp not far from the stream. Since they did not have tents, they would sleep under the canopy of the trees. Malimu took the time to walk around the small are they had chosen to sleep. He traced a circle around it, playing the bodran at various points. When he had finished, the air seemed to shimmer around them. He walked back to his bedroll and sat down.

“What kind of spell is it?” Ashira asked him.

“It's a distracting spell. People and animals will get distracted if they get too close and turn away.”

Ashira was tired. She nodded, then laid down on the simple blanket she had packed in her bag. It did not get very cold at night in the forest, and so she had not brought much by the way of bedding.

“Are you confident enough in it that we don't need to stand guard?” she asked him.

Now he nodded.

“We'll be fine. People don't really travel all that much through this area of the forest.”

Malimu stretched his legs out, then laid down. He was asleep within moments, but Ashira stayed up. The day had been a long and taxing one. Her mind did not want to shut down. Finally, her thoughts filled with the melody her father had played, and she drifted off to sleep.

She had a strange dream. She stood at the edge of a clearing. From the trees on the right walked a figure, robed in brilliant white and emanating light. From the trees to the left came a dark, shadowy figure cloaked in black robes. They approached each other slowly at first, but with increasing speed. Soon they were running at full speed. Ashira found herself hoping that the white figure would somehow dispel the dark one. However, to her disappointment, the opposite occurred. The shadowy engulfed the white figure, snuffing out all light emanating from it.

Ashira felt like crying. Why didn't the light win? She watched the dark figure for a moment and saw it shrinking down, becoming a small mass on the forest floor.

She awoke. The sun's rays were shining through the canopy to the north. She sat up and saw that Malimu was packing away his blanket.

“Oh. You are awake. I was going to allow you a few more minutes of rest,” he said.

Ashira thought of telling him about the dream, but decided not to. She wanted to ponder it and make sure she remembered it.

They headed to the west, keeping a straight course for most of the day. A few hours after midday, they started to curve to the north. A few minutes later, Ashira could hear the rushing of water from their right.

“Is that a river?” she asked Malimu.

“Yes. It is the Pressans river. It divides Acustia from Camena,” he explained.

“Are we crossing it?”

“We are. I must go to Barath, then depart from there toward my homeland. You will be able to find a boat traveling northeast toward Ceantir and Premoi.”

They walked the rest of the day and camped on the east side of the river for that evening. Malimu woke Ashira early, before the sun had risen.

“We will head out so you can spend most of the day in Barath. It may take some time to find a ride to Ceantir.”

The day was temperate, but Ashira found herself sweating more than she had the previous two days. She noticed that Malimu had the same problem.

“Why is it so hot?” she asked.

“We have less cover from the forest. Look up and you will notice that the trees do not form as thick of a canopy as back at your home.”

He was right. The trees were getting thinner and more spread apart. She could see through to the sky much more often. She noticed something else.

“There are more pine trees,” she observed aloud.

“Yes. We are getting further north and higher up. By the time you reach Premoi, most of the vegetation will be pine.”

Ashira loved the smell of pine. She breathed in deep and took in the beauty around her. She saw a small creature scamper out of sight into a bush just a few meters ahead of her. She listened as the songbirds sang above.

By mid-morning they had reached the crossing point of the Pressans River. A small dock had been built out over the water. A ferry sat in the water, attached to a large chain that ran the breadth of the river. The width at this point seemed to be about a half a kilometer.

They approached the dock, Ashira intrigued by the mechanisms that sat along one side. There were great wheels and cogs, with the chain winding between them. There was a large handle attached to one of the cogs, a young man in a long-sleeved brown tunic sitting near it.

Ashira was excited. The young man had darker skin than she, but not as dark as Malimu's.

“He is Camenian, then?” she asked Malimu in an undertone.

He looked at the young man.

“Yes. And he will desire a tip for his efforts.”

It took Ashira a moment to understand what he meant.

“You mean he is going to be the one rotating that wheel? He can't move that thing by himself!” she said in disbelief.

“It will be difficult, but I am sure he does it often and is more than capable.”

Malimu took the lead and approached the man.

“Good afternoon, sir,” Malimu said.

“Hello, biwama,” the young man said, standing and bowing slightly. “Desire to cross to Barath?”

“We do. How much is fare?”

“For two, it is fourteen pecuni.”

The money changed hands and the man stood. He opened a small wooden gate and gestured for them to board. Ashira was tentative at first. The water looked deep, and she had rarely been on any floating device before. The gate shut, the man moved to the handle. He unbuttoned his tunic and slid his arms out of it, revealing his chest and bare biceps.

“Hold on to the side rails,” Malimu instructed.

She did so just in time. The man turned the crank, and the ferry lurched into the river. Ashira could feel the power of the current pulling on the small craft.

“Is this really safe?” she asked, trying to breath deeply and stay calm.

“Yes. I take it every year.”

Ashira looked back at the man on the dock. She now noticed that he was well muscled, much more so than she had initially perceived.

Ashira found her legs did not want to support her body any longer, and sat down. Her stomach felt like it was in her throat. Malimu, on the other hand, leaned calmly against the rail and watched as the craft approached the opposite shore.

As she sat on the ground, she looked up. The chain above them moved and clanked, taking the craft across the water.

“Come take a look at the town, Ashira,” he said.

She stood hesitantly and looked out across the water.

Barath was much larger than her small village. The town was built on a hill at the river where it forked, one side heading toward the ocean, the other heading toward the Sallia Lake to the west. The hill was large, and the reddish-pink buildings went all up the sides of it.

“It's really big,” she said.

“The people here use sandstone from the Saburo Quarry to the west to build their homes. They use salt, from the Sallia Lake to the Southwest, as a main trade commodity. They supply salt to all three nations.”

A particularly large jerk on the chain caused Ashira to sit back down and wait out the rest of the ride. Ten minutes later, they arrived at the dock. Ashira thought of the man on the other side of the river and felt sorry for him.

“He must be exhausted,” she said, gesturing back toward the opposite riverbank.

“It is his job. He is likely used to it.”

They waited as another young man opened the gate for them to exit the craft. Malimu thanked him and the two travelers started off toward the city.