What I was thinking of didn’t amount to a plan, more a few loosely related ideas, but it was all I could come up with. These creatures or entities currently confined to some structure on the grasslands were known for their ability to deconstruct complex materials to their components. I didn’t know if they could be harnessed or controlled in anyway, and the fact that they were confined at some distance away suggested this was not a reasonable expectation. But if there were some way to use that power and quickly materialize some items, we could possibly distract or lure the increasingly desperate miners away from the barrier and any of the gateways that threatened to join the two worlds.
I hadn’t yet outlined this to my hosts. It was too vague and the mention of those creatures, the disintegrators, had obviously been worrying. If I had any plans that involved them, I needed to know more about them, their powers, and the risks. For that, I needed Therian to return. I had no idea what news he would bring — perhaps they were already loose and breaking the world into it’s fundamental elements — but I hoped he would report a false alarm or an easily resolved problem and we could explore the options of these creatures.
The challenges were many. Assuming the power of these creatures could be exploited, how long would it take to yield some materials we could use? And how would we use them to focus attention away from the barrier and its gateways? There were no obvious surface indicators of below-ground treasures, so we couldn’t reliably seed some distant place with false clues.
I resolved to work on this, and have something I could propose as soon as Therian was able to clear up any questions I had on these possibly useful creatures. And I had to be careful to keep it out of mind when I was around my hosts. It would serve no purpose to have them read my half-finished thoughts and assume I was planning to dissolve their world for its buried wealth.
This land was hard to read, since the grasses and trees obscured the rocks, the bones of the land I was used to seeing. I could see no obvious features or topography that would suggest a good place to explore. I was trying to think like a miner, like the consulting prospector I was, but the terrain was so unfamiliar. It made some sense to look at a stream bank, like the one Therian had taken me to. From that I could inspect the layers of rocks, gravel, and sand and learn more about the makeup of things. I doubted I could find my way back to it quickly, but didn’t think it made sense to wait for Therian to return. I decided to ask Anatha if she knew of the place I sought.
I found her hut, but the old woman who had been there before when I carried her in, asleep, was the only one there and she wasn’t very helpful. I ducked out and looked around outside. Perhaps she was at another hut or around one of the fires. I walked around and looked at the fires and their different uses. Most were being used to cook though some were heating water for cleaning, and one was building up some coals to add to his forge. He added the glowing bits of wood and coal and blew the fire up with something very like a bellows. The heat was intense, almost painful. After heating up a corner of the bed of glowing, coals, he pulled out a form, about 3 feet long and an inch wide. This was heated until it glowed and then pounded flat in a couple of swift blows. Once, twice more into the heat and under the hammer and I began to make out an arrowhead or spear-point. He roughly shaped one, broke it off, then made another. The process went quickly, and I wonder who these were for? What enemy needed to be dealt with using spears or arrows? Had word of a crossing of the gateway gotten out?
I walked further on, pondering what this could mean. I found a group of what I took to be young women gathered in a circle, working on something together. They were weaving and sewing, and there were some boys in the group as well, I saw as I got closer. I noticed Anatha working closely with another girl and the boy she was usually seen with was across the circle from her. She looked up and acknowledged me, gesturing at the work in her hands. I took that as a sign she was busy but would put that aside in a moment or two. She looked across at the boy — his name was Derwin, I was to learn — and I guessed she had sent some message his way. He put aside his work and stood up, stepping carefully over the bench of rocks to join me.
“How can I help? Anatha offers my assistance as well as her own, as the elders have requested.”
I told him of my desire to find that stream and gave a rough idea where it might be, in case there was more than one nearby. He knew exactly what I meant, and assured me we could be there quite quickly. He agreed to lead me there, and with a shared thought for Anatha, we set out.
Derwin was more outgoing than my usual companions. I guessed him to be firmly in the years between childhood and manhood. His voice was a man’s but his manner still had some of the child. It was refreshing to hear a voice with excitement, rather than dread or fear, to hear unfeigned laughter. Therian’s laugh was rich but often his amusement came at someone else’s expense. Derwin seemed incapable of anything like that.
He was a servant to my hosts, or the elders as he called them, as part of his education and of his family obligations. Everyone was required to perform some tasks in the service of the community, and he had been assigned to wait on the elders. It was not a permanent situation, but rotated through all the young people of a certain age. Any who were found to have some promise that the elders — or anyone else they served — could foresee a use for were encouraged to apply themselves in those things. The weaving I had seen was part of that process. Those who took to it naturally would be encouraged to learn more while giving their own gifts a chance to flourish. I gathered there were some who could take a turn working with the smith at his forge, and Derwin confirmed that but said that was for those older than himself. The required physical development, to say nothing of the use of fire, was the deciding factor there.
As we walked along, I learned more about the community and how it functioned. The elders, my hosts, were not as powerful as they seemed. The circle I had witnessed had been an example of how big decisions were made. The group of decision-makers — those of age, rank or other status criteria — assembled and things were debated and discussed with a more or less agreed-upon outcome. Any of the electors, as I think they were called, could raise an issue and call for a decision. The meetings were often called by the elders out of their sense that something needed to be resolved. Perhaps some issue had been distracting people or causing some trouble between some members of the community. As a way of saving face for those involved, the elders would open discussion of the issue, propose a solution, and work toward a resolution. So to the outsider or observer it looked like they were leading more forcefully than they really were. It seemed to work, both in my brief experience and what Derwin could attest to. Admittedly, he was young and perhaps not able to pick up the nuances of things, but his examples were sound. The idea of a guided decisions was better than the chaos of consensus or the more common despotism.
The landscape began to look familiar. We seemed to following the same path to the stream as Therian had used, so we climbed the small hills and enjoyed the views as I had done on my previous trip. The air was warm and the sun bright as the sound of the cold clear water grew louder. Derwin looked at me as if to say, here we are, and I acknowledged with a nod of my head as I walked down to the stream bank and peered at the exposed soil and rock. Derwin watched but as I sat motionless in thought he lost interest and walked along the bank, moving down stream.