What Happened at Totanbin I

There were a lot of people at Totanbin, but not millions. As Reur and his companions were led through the little camps of Totanbeni guiders, chiefs and warriors, he quickly revised his count down to somewhere in the low hundred thousands.

Still a terrifying number, he thought.

Each fire represented a community, Tread informed him. The guider s apprentice hovered near Reur's elbow as they marched, his head often less than a handspan away, his body hunched to help make him disappear maybe. The tension rolled off him in waves. Mucker was worse; Mucker kept trying to hold Reur's hand.

The only reason Tread wasn't practically in Reur's lap as they walked was because Raven was already there, or she may as well have been. The raptor kept trying to nip at his ear, and it was on her shoulder. He could feel her body matching him step for step. Hornbeak wasn't much worse.

So they walked, five people attempting to be one unit. Four of them towering, pale-skinned giants. And they made every effort to squeeze into the shadow of one minute, dark-skinned stranger, whose death was inevitable by everything Tread had said the Totanbeni stood for.

Each fire represented a community, and every community had a chief and a guider. After that, there were often one or two apprentices, and three or more warriors. The largest fires had twenty or more warriors, plus a small coterie of women and younger men who would one day be warriors. These hangers-on were most likely to offer words to the small group.

They didn't get much of it, because the escort they had was well-disciplined, but the stares and the language was harsh.

"Vagal! What is she doing unbound?"

"What is that monster they have among them? He is profane."

"I would have them killed by now, not trouncing around like dogs."

"Dogs they are, and soon to be in someone's cookfire, eh?"

Well, those were the nice ones.

After being sighted coming toward Totanbin, several runners had met the group. Immediately, Reur could discern two separate groups among the Totanbeni. It seemed there was some dissension between the sea-faring tribes: those that controlled the shadelshifs and that Tread and Mucker had come from; and the land-based tribes, those that controlled the majority of the north half of this subcontinent and preyed upon the rest of the tribes to their south.

This dissension was most evident in the initial arguments among the runners themselves over who had custody of the strangers. Tread and Mucker instantly were identified as sea-faring Totanbeni, or shifers, and the shifer runners claimed the group for them. Raven and Hornbeak as quickly were labeled Vagal, of a known tribe that warred with the Totanbeni, so the land-based runners, or vertotan (true Totanbeni), claimed them.

Both sides claimed Reur, recognized as being a part of this invasion force that had destroyed several shadelshifs at what was now being called the Battle of Strand.

Quite a bit of discussion and several bruises occurred before Reur asked where their leaders could be found now. After some more wrestling, he walked on, his shadows pressed against his back and the runners sparring alone. The runners caught up to him, and soon the heckling began, and so the shifer and vertotan gathered more to escort them.

So far, they weren't dead yet. So far, Tread had not lied. The Totanbeni wanted Reur alive. And Reur had not lied. His presence protected the other four. But they hadn't run into anyone of consequence yet.

"Is there a ..." Reur sought out the word for emperor, or king. "A chief of chiefs?" he finished. It didn't translate well. "A guider of guiders?"

"It's hard to say," Tread said. "Sometimes there is. In times of war."

"When are the Totanbeni not at war?" Raven said haughtily. The vertotan runner rolled his eyes at her.

Tread hesitated. "There is a cheif captain of the shadelshifs," he said. "Who is probably here. And a chief guider. Who is also probably here."

"What about among these vertotan?"

"Shut your mouth and be quiet," the vertotan runner said. "It will not be your place to ask questions here. It will be your place to answer questions, and then die."

"Sounds familiar, for some reason," Reur said, mildly. "If I had a shadelshif for every time I've been told I'm going to die, I'd have a fleet. Tell me, what is your name?"

"Gert," the man said, puffing his chest out a bit.

"Gert. Where exactly are you taking us?"

"To our leaders."

"I see plenty of chiefs and guiders at these fires we are passing. Which leaders are you taking us too?" He felt Raven's nod and heard Hornbeak's snort. Even Mucker could appreciate the way the questioning turned.

Gert answered before he thought. "Hevagn won four disputes yesterday. We take you to him."

"Do you know anything about this guy?" Reur said under his breath. He didn't need to speak loudly for Raven or Tread to hear. Their silence was eloquent.

"What is Totanbin?" he asked, switching directions. The more we know, the less mistakes I might make, he thought.

"It is this," Gert said, and he gestured ahead, just as Reur tripped over a sudden stone in his way. He landed flat on his face, scuffing his hands and brusing his knees.

"Watch your step," the shifer runner said, grinning maliciously.

Reur was on his knees already, though, scrabbling to get his tablet out. This was amazing! He was standing on a giant, solid stone platform. It looked like it was all one stone, and some type of rock he had never seen before. He thought it was sandstone, but it had some texture of clay in it. And it was -- Reur thought for a long time, his hand touching it and moving away, touching it and moving away -- yes, it was voraciously dry. It sucked water from him whenever he touched it.

"Fantastic," he said, in his own tongue. He could see instantly why the Totanbeni would use their magic for something like this. Something that was -- he paced it out -- 120 paces to a side.

"Reur," someone said.

The magic used for this must be tremendous. But its weight must be less than the ground, because it has less water in it. It has NO water in it, for that matter.

"Reur," a few someones said.

No, it would be heavier, because it filled the same volume with thicker substance. So, how thick must it be really? How long does it last?

"Reur!" Raven shook him, and he looked straight at her.

"About 30 days after everyone leaves," he said.

"Reur, you have walked all the way around the edge of this thing," she said. "Didn't you hear everyone yelling at you? That man over there," she pointed to a man who would be called short by Totanbeni standards, but still towered over Reur. He wore a bone necklace. "He is Hevagn. And that man over there," and she pointed again, to a tall, lean man who was nothing but muscle and smelled faintly of fish, even so far from the ocean, "is Cragh, the shifer leader."

Reur smiled gently at her. "Do you realize that this rock we are standing on is so dry that if it lasted long enough it would cause major shifts in the weather patterns?"

She narrowed her eyes at him, then slapped him.

"What was that for?"

"Reur, we have followed you here, and Vagal knows why, but we have, and we are not going to die because you are interested in construction projects." She pointed at the Totanbeni leaders. "These men wish to ask you some questions."

He looked at Hevagn and his scowl, and Cragh and his murderous eyes. He looked down at the rock they stood on. He crouched down and kissed it, taking care to taste it with his tongue. His tongue nearly stuck to it.

Finally, Reur stood up, and faced down the men.

"Tread and Mucker are my apprentices. I took them in when I found their guider, Hoth, dead, after their shadelshif exploded. I was on the boat when it exploded. Someone wanted me kept alive."

Cragh's eyes grew even more deadly. "The greatfather sacrificed himself for nothing if a vile beast like you still lives. How dare you ..."

Reur rode over him. "Raven and Hornbeak are mine. The Vagal tribe, that they hail from, is dead, or will be dead in a few months." Raven hissed at him. "They have forsaken their better leaders for an opportunistic maniac." He paused. "A lying prosecutor." He tried again. "A poor ... leader," he finished lamely. There just weren't enough words in this language to explain what had happened!

Cragh bristled, but Hevagn's bitterness turned to smug anger, and he stepped forward.

"Tell us their whereabouts, so that we may sow their wild rice with blood," he said.

"Are those human bones?" Reur countered, swiftly approaching him and grasping the necklace. Up close, the man reeked of more than massacred bones. He had bruises all over his body, and dirt everyplace else. But he was nothing but muscle. Reur glanced briefly at his eyes. There was a kind of madness in them, one he remembered seeing in most of the people who called themselves Totanbeni.

Hevagn snatched his necklace back. "I will add yours to them," he said.

Reur still had to look up at him. "That may not be so. I am hoping you and Cragh there can help me. I seem to have misplaced something."

"What is that, oh foul monster from the ocean?" Cragh spat at him.

"My people," Reur said. "I had heard you ran into a few of them. We were on our way there, when I decided I wanted to meet Tread and Mucker's tribes."

"Who are your people?" Hevagn asked.

Reur smiled brightly. "I'll tell you, as soon as I get some food and a rest." Raven cleared her throat. "As soon as we get some food and rest," he amended. "We won't impose upon your Totanbin, either. We'd prefer to sit in the mud."

Strangely, the Totanbeni leaders acceded to their wishes.

"Round one," Reur murmured as they set up a camp near the rock but not on it. Guards from the shifer and vertotan camps watched them.

"What were you doing out there?" Raven said finally, when they were all closer to sitting around the fire. She said it in a harsh whisper.

Reur responded in a normal speaking voice. "It's the most amazing thing I've seen since I've been here. Tread, did you know anything about it?" He gestured to the rock. "The expense alone! We certainly don't make any of our buildings or similar things using our magic."

"Reur!" Raven shouted at him. "I meant with the Totanbeni leaders!" She went on in a quieter voice, "You told them everything!"

He looked at her with a kind of insane grin. "Well? What was I supposed to do? I grasped the initiative, and we're all alive one more day. If I had let them get what they wanted, we'd all be dead."

"What are you going to do tomorrow?" Tread asked.

"I'll cross that road in the morning."

"We have nothing to trade with them anymore! They know everything!" Raven said. "Reur, you have killed us all."

Reur opened his mouth, then hesitated.

Who here dies if I fail? What am I going to do tomorrow? He looked at Tread's hopeful expression, and Mucker's constantly on the verge of crying grimace. He glanced at Hornbeak's glazed expression, and then his eyes met Raven's. In them, he saw anger, hope and fear; every human emotion.

I don't know what I'm doing, he admitted to himself. But I do know, if I start thinking about what I'm doing, something bad will happen. I must trust that what has happened in the past, will keep happening in the future, and no one will die.

Copyright 2005-2007 Eric Zawadzki and Matthew Schick. All Rights Reserved.
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