Our Little Gods 1: RABATEA, the first World of the Daughters.

Chapter 5

The drowsiness of early afternoon was settling over them as they rode on. The down side was made up of a thick forest of tall iron trees mixed with sender pine and blooming acacias whose fragrance drifted to them from time to time. The up side had been farmed, and the cleared land rolled gently down to the sea far away.

Limero was riding next to Maasil making the boy repeat the lessons learned the day before.

While he was reciting, his clear juvenile voice raised so that his master could hear him, a bee landed on his forearm, the bright insect danced its little dance on the forearm. It startled the kid and impulsively he swatted it and felt the pain of the stung adn he brushed the little corpse off.

"you shouldn't have done that, Maasil," Limero said, "It was not going to sting you unless it felt threatened. Learn to control your fears, and next time you'll have the opportunity to observe the bee before it takes off."

Maasil nodded a grudging ascent to Limero but kept rubbing the spot where the bee had stung him. "Master? It really burns." The boys voice was tiny as if he feared and other lecture.

"I know it does. The more you'll rub it the worse it'll get."

Maasil stared and stopped immediately his intense scratching, he looked down at his hand then at the sting on his arm.

"But it really hurts."

"Well," it was obvious Limero was trying not to smile, "first lesson out of this is: if you act too fast there is a good chance you'll regret it."

"But master, Baalbek keeps telling the opposite to the boys. He says: 'don't think. Act' all the time, doesn't he?"

"It is a different context, they are learning the art of battle not an ethic for a healer's life. The second lesson, now, is understanding why the bee stung you, don't you think? You swatted it, in order to kill it. Why kill something if you could have gently brushed it aside? I know," Limero said to Maasil opening his mouth to interrupt, "you were afraid it was going to sting you, and it did but only because, and rightfully so, it felt threatened. The last lesson is: how? How does it burn so? And why scratching it makes it worse?"

One could tell by Maasil's face that he was putting all his concentration into Limero's words as his masters continued looking in the distance far ahead of them.

"Clear your mind, like you learned in healing class. Focus on something small and then smaller and smaller until you can see with your minds eye how matter is constructed."

There was a silence. It stretched on for a minute or two and then Maasil's strangely aloof voice was heard saying. "I am in the movement place master."

Limero smiled, and went on.

"Now focus on the sting on your arm and pull back until you see the blood-rivers and the flesh walls which are affected." The silence this time was much shorter.

"Yes, master. I see it now."

Limero was frowning a little his eyes were closed. He had projected his mind's eye into the arm of the novice to be with him and guide him. "Tell me what you see." Maasil's voice was halted and somewhat slurred as he said:

"There is too much heat. It is like a burn. There is a substance."

"Good, Maasil, that is the bee's venom. Tell me, what does it do?"

"It fools the sensing roots into believing there is great heat, just here, where the sting happened." "Now I want you to go ahead and scratch that spot like you did before, do it very slowly."

Maasil lift his left hand as if in his sleep and start to scratch vigorously at the spot the bee had stung but he stopped almost immediately.

"Master! When I scratch. It makes the sting enter the skin further and more of the poison is released. And, it also helps spreading it!"

"There, now you know why you shouldn't scratch a sting. Can you isolate the make of the poison?" The novice's face was crunched in concentration, his fingers were twitching as if he was counting something or flicking the beads of an abacus. "I think... I believe... I have it master."

"Good, now isolate the water in it and let it mix in the surrounding fluids. Allow the other compounds to congregate and form crystals. Good, you are doing good. Now use the harmonic pressure in the blood river to push the crystals back in the sting."

That part seemed more arduous for Maasil but eventually, he smiled faintly and said

" Done! Its all back in the sting!"

"Now, I want you to remember the scarring lesson you had with master Hebeny in the first quarter of winter. Do you remember the different phases of scarring?"

"Yes... master... I believe I do." Maasil 's face was crunched up in concentration again.

"Good. Now, we are only going to do part of the scarring. First you will initiate the lower part of the wound so that the growing membrane will push the sting out and then you will only scar that bottom part so that the rest of the wound might heal naturally. Tell me, why do we do that?"

Maasil answered mechanically, "Because natural healing is the best way to heal."

"You did well. I am pleased. You should rest now." And true enough the boy's face was drawn as if he hadn't had a real night's sleep in a month. He leaned back in his saddle and almost immediately the regular rhythm of sleep breathing could be heard. Oneg moved by his side watching over him in case he would start to fall off his horse.

Oneg had tried to act as normal as he possibly could. He took part in the excitation of the barge ride and organised his side of the Castle Run board with as much care as he could. Yet, the games he would invariably loose and under the smiles and the banter he felt like there was a piece of himself that had stopped fitting, had gotten lose, was ready to fall off any moment and reveal a hollow gap at his core. Deep in the dark pit, coiled, waiting patiently for the day it would be released was a shapeless monster called fear.

The feeling, the state of mind had been born on the ride to the Redane.

They were entering a vast expense of grassy rolling hills, dotted here and there with groves of trees, young and thin. Limero announced loudly that they were entering the Tabben Lands of the Lower Mark and Oneg's heart sank like a stone in a bottomless pound.

It was dull: browns and greys; and it was windy and cold, and most of all: it was completely desolate. As the boy fought to hide the tears that burned his eyes, he kept questioning himself. 'what have I been expecting? Vast crowds of happy farmers rejoicing that after eleven years their lord was back at last... Opulent villages filled with happy rosy cheeked babies?'

He knew what had happened, Roras and Limero had told him in details each time he had asked it of them. He understood perfectly that his brothers had been careless and unprepared and that his father had reacted out of grief and in anger. They had lost everything because the Tabben men had not been good enough, because they had failed. The thing that stung the worst, what had kept him awake at night when comprehension finally dawned in his little boy's mind, was that the Tabben land, its farmers, villages, the fishermen communities of the Redane shores and the merchants and trappers along the pilgrim's road had fallen prey to the bandits afterwards. Their wealth and goodwill had been eroded by the insults and the thefts, their courage and spirit had been broken and spat upon as their possessions had been taken from them or laid waste to. One by one, families after families had left the Lower Mark. Roras had tried to fight what he called the pirates off and after six campaigns he had, sort of. The lands were now empty of both gentle folk and savages. There was no way rebuilding a Tall house, however well constructed would make him a better man than his father and all his brothers had ever been.

At night when he fell asleep to the sound of the light respiration of Terey in Farenn's arms and the agitated sleep of Maasil, as Limero snored lightly. Oneg cried silent tears and wished that, like Maasil had done with the bee's venom he could rid himself of fear and find courage.