Through The Storm

Ethan confessed his feelings to Rowida the first day on the surface, he was terrified, complained of irrational fears from the harsh sun, the strange taste of food in this place, and the lack of people.

On the second day, he cried for hours, pleading with Rowida to take him back to Beimini, but she shook her head slowly and said, “I am sorry little brother.”

She kneeled to hug him, he pushed her away and cried even more. She sighed and said, “We will go back, I promise, just not today, not even after a month.”

The next day, Ethan complained of severe pains in his stomach, so, Rowida, unsure what to do, carried him and ran where Violet said there would be a town of surface people nearby.

She ran with a moaning Ethan for almost an hour, until the fields of farms were distinctly noticeable among the forest growth, and eventually, she happened upon a group of huge men.

Rowida stopped all of a sudden as she saw the men coming towards her, the shortest of them stood almost two heads above her, they were not just taller and broader than the men in Agartha, but their skin had a strange color, almost white, with red spots around the nose and ears.

Ethan moaned as he clutched his stomach.

She looked desperately at the men and said, “Please, help my brother. He needs a healer.”

The men looked at her in confusion, then one of them started to talk, a slow, lilting language like she had never heard before.

She pushed Ethan in the man’s arms. “He needs a healer, your food poisoned him.”

The man looked at her anguished face, her pleading arms, and the way she pushed the boy into his arms and nodded.

He took Ethan from her and started to move with large strides to the east, so she followed him while the other men surrounded them, and every now and then, one of the men would eye her with wide eyes, shook his head and said something in their strange tongue.

The procession walked fast, and because of their immense bodies, Rowida, who was short for an Agarthan, almost ran alongside them to keep pace.

Finally, the procession reached a primitive-looking village, where there were shacks all around, and a large building with the sign of warding against evil on top.

The man carrying Ethan proceeded immediately to that building, and he pushed the door. A man all in black rushed to his aid.

Rowida was terrified, her fear transcended the void and flowed out of her in waves, for in Agartha, those men in black are the morticians who care for the dead.

The man in black turned from inspecting Ethan and addressed her. After several trials, she realized he must have used more than one tongue. One of them almost felt understandable, but not quite.

She started to cry silently, if she still had her Vrill, she could have understood them and passed some understanding onto them, she and them would have the common tongue offered by the Vrill, at least to the benefit of poor Ethan. But she had no Vrill, and she watched futilely as they discussed what to do with Ethan.

The man in black kept shaking his head as more and more men tried to talk to him, and eventually, he pointed them outside of the building.

The procession moved again, this time delving deeper into the village. As Rowida followed them, she started to realize this was more a town than a village, even if the architecture was primitive, no village in Agartha had this large number of houses.

Eventually, they reached a house almost at the end of the village.

The men hammered the door until a young man opened, who talked to the men fast, lots of nodding, then they took Ethan inside.

When Rowida tried to enter, a man shook his head and put his arm out to block her. She tried to push his arm, it was impossible, the man was the size of an Agarthan ox. She threw her whole body at him, screaming for Ethan and crying. Eventually, the young man came to the door and said something to the man outside, and she was allowed to enter.

This one must be a healer, she thought, as he had shelves of bottled and boxed mixtures, just like the tonics used by the purple healers in Agartha.

She ran to where Ethan was laid on a huge bed, the size of it matched those giants but made Ethan look like a toddler. He was sleeping, but his skin felt hot. Rowida turned to the healer and said, “Do you have bean extract? It is very good for his fever.”

The healer stopped in his tracks and stared fiercely at her for a moment, then mumbled something and went back to his search through his shelves.

Finally, he grabbed a bottle, removed its cork, sniffed it, then took it to Ethan. He pushed the boy to lick a few drops, then pulled a chair and sat watching Ethan. After a minute or two, he signaled for Rowida to grab a chair as well, so she did.

After some hours, Ethan opened his eyes.

“Rowida, please come.” Ethan opened his small arms to her, and she rushed to hug him.

“I had a very bad dream.” Ethan swallowed and said in a trembling voice, “There were giants running with me, and you were chasing after them screaming my name.”

A tear fell down Rowida’s cheek. “It was not a dream, little brother.”

She hugged him close to her, and said, “I am sorry, so, so, sorry that I brought you here.”

“Don’t cry, Rowida,” he said softly over her shoulder. “I am better now.”

“We have to find beans here.” She stood, “They must have beans, they will fix your stomach and lower your fever.”

“Yes. I feel hungry.”

The healer of the surface village was observing them intently, then he went to the door and left.

Rowida stayed with Ethan for the next half of an hour, then the man who carried Ethan earlier came inside and started to grab Ethan.

“Where are you taking him?” She stood in front of the giant, challenging him to move the boy.

The man said something in his strange tongue, made signs to his mouth, and then put both hands parallel to his cocked head.

Rowida understood. They offered food and lodging, so she nodded to the man and allowed him to carry Ethan.

She followed the man for some time as he went continuously to the north. They went out of the town and headed to a farm, and in it was a huge house, which they entered.

Inside was an equally huge woman, and what Rowida assumed were children, because they looked so young and fresh, but some of them were even taller than her, only one who looked like a toddler was slightly shorter than her.

The man talked fast to the woman, who nodded, then she smiled at Rowida, and rushed somewhere deep in the house.

The man went inside one of the rooms and laid Ethan on an even bigger bed than in the healer’s house, then he covered the boy, and signaled for Rowida to follow.

She hesitated for a moment, then she went after him.

He led her to what might be a dining room, only everything was at least twice that of Agartha. He urged her to sit, and the woman brought her a plate of porridge, and it smelled enticing. But Rowida shook her head. “Ethan needs beans, we will only eat beans.” Then she pushed the plate away.

For the next evening, there were several trials to offer her food, which she refused, and she did the same when they offered food to Ethan, as she knew that only broad beans could help eliminate whatever toxin was in Ethan’s system.

By the next morning, the family who hosted Ethan and Rowida had tried everything they could offer, but not until late in the evening, that they brought the beans.

Rowida started to eat immediately, and pulled some of the stalks, and ran to Ethan, feeding him as much as she could.

Two days after Rowida and Ethan were first hosted by the family, the man in black came to the house. He had a long discussion with the man who hosted them, and Rowida felt some hot topic from the man in black as he kept waving, making the warding against the evil sign and pointing to Rowida, who stood at the corner of the room. After that, the man in black left.

Later that day, Ethan left the room for the first time, but he could barely walk, and Rowida had to hold his hands until they reached the dining room.

Rowida was still not sure if the toxins left Ethan’s body, because he looked very fragile and tired after even a small discussion, so, she insisted on the diet of beans for both of them. Yet Ethan smiled brightly at the children of the house, inviting with his smile to play a simple running game, even though they were twice his size and height.

Rowida wondered about the strange way children of two different cultures and tongues could share a game and communicate without words. And then she reasoned it might be because their aura was not settled yet that they might be able to draw on some rudiments of a green aura inside them, to pass understanding.

By the end of their first week, the lady of the house brought a white dress for Rowida and a matching white tunic for Ethan. Then the family took them to the building with the warding against evil sign on its top, and they entered.

It looked like the entire village was inside, and at the far wall, the man in black had a basin of water in front of him. Family after family would bring a child, and the man in black would dip them in the basin, made the warding sign on them so many times, sang songs, and passed them back to their parents.

Rowida figured it was a cultural event, and since the family accepted them, they meant for her and Ethan to bathe in that basin, maybe like the blood kinship ritual back at Agartha.

“I am scared, Rowida.” Ethan held tight to her.

“Don’t worry, little brother.” She assured him through a gentle pat to the head. “I think we will be accepted to the village through this ritual, nothing to fear.”

When it was time for Rowida to dip in the basin, she climbed into it silently, and then Ethan followed, to much cheer and clapping from the townspeople.

Two days after the ritual, Rowida walked around town with Ethan, and as they walked, she said, “Either these people are all very rich, or iron is very easy to find here.”

She pointed to Ethan that almost everybody carried a weapon made from iron, even the lowest of people had the occasional knife strapped to their belt.

“All I can say is that their color is funny.” Ethan giggled. “Even though they have this harsh and hard sun.”

“And their height, they are huge.” Rowida laughed along. “We both look like children to them.”

“But you are old.” Ethan shook his head. “You must be a hundred or something, I am only six.”

“I am not a hundred years old.” She stopped and looked at him with big wide eyes. “I am only nineteen.”

“Still too old, you’re ancient,” Ethan said it and ran ahead, giggling.

After a few meters of running, he stopped and clutched at his chest. He was panting hard. “I don’t feel well, Rowida,” he said this and fainted in her arms.

Two more weeks passed, and Rowida started to catch essential words like food, drink, sleep. She even caught the name of the place they were in, Woolpit, as everybody was referring to this place as this. She also fitted very well with the family. But Ethan was not getting any better, and to make things worse, for those three weeks, Violet didn’t reach out to her, not even once. In fact, Ethan was weaker and feebler each passing day, and Rowida didn’t know why this was happening, but she was not sure it was any poison in his system.

She tried to urge the family to take Ethan to the healer again, but she just couldn’t communicate it through.

Days passed, and her attempts were not successful, especially as the family treated her as just another child, must have been because of her delicate frame and short stature, and adults didn’t pay that much attention to the pleas of children.

Until it was the sixth day of the fourth week.

Ethan was in a very bad state, and finally, the family called in the healer. The man inspected Ethan, listened to his heart, and poked around his mouth for some time. Then he stood and shook his head. Rowida saw the lady of the house cry softly, and the man of the house nodding heavily to whatever the healer said.

She didn’t need to know the tongue to understand what the healer said, Ethan was dying. She ran to his side, touched his face softly, and Ethan opened his eyes with difficulty and gave her a wane smile. He couldn’t even talk, he just reached for her hand with his and held to her as he searched her eyes, a sad smile was all he could give.

Tears ran freely from Rowida’s eyes, and she held tight to his small hand. She stood beside him, holding his hand long after the healer left, long after the family went to their beds with heavy steps, long after night had come and was almost gone.

Her tears dried, not because of the void, but because her eyes were swollen shut from so many hours of crying.

“Rowida.” Violet’s voice came as a soft whisper. “He will not see the sun of this day.”

“Why?” Rowida whispered raggedly. “Can’t you do something to help him?”

“I can play with fate.” Violet’s whisper came from far to Rowida’s left. “But, I can’t challenge her outright in her domain.”

“He is going to die.” Rowida turned savagely. “And you knew this, you knew this was his fate.

“I did,” Violet whispered. “So that you can have someone to draw on, he is a green like you.”

“No,” Rowida raised her voice, then she lowered it again in fear of waking up the family. “I will not use the staff on him.”

“But you must, he will die anyway.” Violet’s voice seemed to grow slightly stronger.

“Not by my hand.” Rowida shook her head violently, and her tear-soaked collar, spread some of the salty drops to the floor, an ode to finality.

“It will happen whether you do it or not, don’t let his short life go to waste.” Violet was almost material by then.

“But he is my little brother, I can’t do this to him.” Rowida cried with dry eyes, as her body shook with each breath.

“You have an hour to decide, then he will be gone.” Violet’s voice grew faint again, then faded to nothing.

Most of the hour passed, as Rowida still held to Ethan’s hand, which was very cold, and even though she tried to warm it by rubbing it, it didn’t warm to any of her attempts.

She finally shook him, trying to get him to wake up, but he just moved under her hands like a ragged doll.

She kissed his forehead and stood. She headed to their bundle and pulled the staff. Kneeling beside Ethan’s dormant body, she rocked from violent shaking to her entire body, anguish squeezing her dry.

Rowida placed one end of the staff to his forehead, and the other to hers and whimpered as the warmth of his soul entered her body.

But the glow didn’t reach to turn green, the staff just became inert.

She looked puzzled at the staff, and then at Ethan.

She put her hand to his nose, and no air came from it, none at all.

Rowida let the staff fall, hugged Ethan’s body, and wailed.