Our Little Gods 0.1: ATACHEREL, the Other Side of the Coin.

CHAPTER XXV

The dish they had brought in smelled of grilled fish and some odd looking vegetable with a purple skin that grew on bushes just beyond the sand dunes. The fragrance permeated the admiral's tent but the man remained focused on the wide spread of a colorful map in front of him. Just after they had found the bush was the road, neatly paved and curving elegantly, it had markers once every RiL and a quarter in the shape of finely carved standing stones that bear inscriptions none of them could read. Riders from the Limorite camp went in both directions to explore it. Most of their horses had survived, untethered to chariots they do swim rather well. It was the woman, Throry something, she came back after three days, they all thought she was dead. All except her king, the flaming Radelyes, each time he was asked he would simply smile and say 'she will return' and walk away. She did, with news of a city peaceful and welcoming, people speaking a weird language that kind of made sense in a twisted and illogical way. Artago, that is the name to be branded in the history of this army, infamy and sorrow, and yet as is often the case it had all started benevolently.

The map Atacherel was looking at had been copied from the town hall archives by the leaders of Artago and offered to Atacherel. Since then he had been obsessed with it. Trying days after days to make sense of the distances and to burn the shape of the lands into his mind. He knew he was going to have to navigate these waters, the straights and the furrows, the estuaries and the shallows. He could not read the names on the map but he recognized the mountains from the plains, the valleys from the hills and the rivers from the borders and by the One True Gods there were many borders in these lands.

So far, the admiral had organized the life of the camp on the shores of this strange bay for all the Balà that had survived their catastrophic arrival. The tents, they had plenty of, the people, they had less. The crew of several ships had been completely lost, with no traces to be found, no corpses to give rites to. Whole battalions were missing too, Rehevîmes and Natabs had not fared much better, the few Warlords' that had made it on time to the temple had traveled light and been cast mostly in the dunes, the Limorites regrouped around their king and remained apart, he had not asked about their losses and they had not volunteered the information. The Revered Emissary had elected a small grove where the wounded, the sick and the shocked were taken to her so that she could heal them.

Looking around at the paraphernalia that furnished his tent the Admiral had felt overwhelmed with the pointless nature of the silly objects that had made it through while so many of them had perished or gotten lost. Crates after crates of stone cutter's tools and wood workers but of the craftsmen only a handful of carpenters survived and none of the stone masons. Someone entered the tent and told him that his food was getting cold. Atacherel looked up to see the bright smile of a young Balà woman, he couldn't remember her name but until recently she had been withdrawn, her eyes often wet, she was crying the death of her friends and crew-mates, but not today. He thanked her and accompanied her to the entrance to watch her leap jump towards a chariot where more young ones where waiting for her. It rolled away as soon as she was in and the admiral looked at the smiling Natab guard standing to attention next to the entrance and asked him: "Where is this cart going, do you know?"

"Yes, sir." The Natab replied, "it's going back to Artago."

"I suppose it must be a fun place to go to after the camp and the temple."

The young Natab's smile grew larger and he replied, "they are really nice and welcoming people and the girls like their boys... a lot." The young man blushed a deep crimson red under the visor of his formal helmet. Atacherel smiled too and asked him, "you do not seem to be immune to their seduction, young man, what is it? Boy or girl?"

The Natab had to clear his voice before saying, "a girl sir."

"What is your name young man?"

"I am Kadish Cavenes,."

"Of the family of the old Cavenes?"

"Grandson sir, yes."

"I like your grandfather, I am glad he survived the crossing."

With this as parting words Atacherel went back into his tent and sat at his dining table lifting the terra-cotta lid of the dish with something of an appetite.

'we may still make a home of this place yet. Let us hope for not too long.' He thought. 'I should probably make the trip to this Artago town to thank the kind people who have provided me with the map.' Atacherel decided to make the trip in a couple of days if nothing came up . 'That should give them the time to organize would they want to do some formal stuff.' And finishing his midday meal the wizened sailor called his aide-de-camp to organize some gifts to give the town leaders as token of the gratitude of the cast away that got stranded on their shore.

He spent the day inspecting the digging of pools along the little stream that run to the sea and they used as drinking water. The pools were for the cattle and the horses and some more for washing and laundry. The bay was teeming with fish of the weirdest and most succulent kind, the neighboring bush often covered with edible berries and they had dug some roots up that once stewed and seasoned made for a splendidly hearty meal. This land was not so bad after all.

It was indeed volcanic in nature and the soil very rich. It was divided in two different landmasses: one, the largest was shaped by the presence in its heart of two large mountains, linked one with the other by plateaux crisscrossed with rivers and lakes. The coastlines were jagged and the estuaries cut deep between cliffs of black dross like material. From the great number of town named on the map Atacherel had guessed that theses lands were filled with scores of people. The bay where they had landed was situated on a sea called Leros which bordered the setting shores of the mainland and was almost closed by the second landmass, mush smaller and almost composed of two distinct bodies joined by a narrow land bridge that made them look like a reverse image of the Limores back on Rabatea. In the seas limited by these landmasses were distributed several islands of some significance, the oceanic facade of the second landmass was jagged and dotted with many islets and rocks cut off from the main body by the waves and storms while the closed seas had almost all long curving beaches and smooth coastlines. Most towns were built on the main rivers or in the hinterland; there were few harbors and all seem to have been built on sites with high cliffs. Though the climate where they had landed was hot and dry and the vegetation sparse and scrawny, the large quantity of rivers descending from the slopes of the mountains spoke of powerful rains or rain seasons in the other parts of the land. Surprisingly for the navigator, the lake region, up between the mountains, where fresh water was unmistakably plentiful only had one town or city with a complicated name and above it was the design of a complicated seal. This probably had some religious significance.

On the following days Atacherel was kept too busy to make the trip to the nearby town but he saw some of the people that came to their camp from Artago and they were indeed pleasant and obviously pleased to meet his people. He even had an interview with an official of sorts who could communicate with rudiments of the ManSpeach of Rabatea, he was learning with the aid of the newcomers. He had brought more illustrated maps and some charts that Atacherel had difficulties making sense of but the conversation had been fascinating to the old Balà. That night and the following, celebrating chants were heard throughout camp as the army of the veviensis mixed freshly brewed beer with the local artagan wine and so on, each evening, when the heat of the day vanished with the setting sun, chariots were seen coming to camp and leaving camp: the first brought the wine and the delicacies and the seconds took away people about to spend a night on the town, going from taverns to dining halls and from beer huts to roasting pitts. Several of the wealthy owners of the villas on the sea had opened their gardens and the fountained lawns to the newcomers and the most exotic parties where happening from dusk to dawn.

Atacherel received some officers that had concerns about the unruly state of some of their people and questions on possible disciplinary action they could be forced to take, but the old commander ordered them to turn a blind eye for the time being.

"Our people have been uprooted and cast to shores so far from the gate to our world that it would probably take us a couple of years to simply go back there, and once we would have reach our destination, whole armies are waiting for us on this side and war on the other. The young and the mature who have survived the crossing could do with a little harmless fun, as long as they do not offend our new friends from the town."

The officers left his tent with long concerned faces and went back to their empty paddocks. The feasting city was consuming almost all the men and women of their crews and platoons but since their most esteemed leader had given his blessing they decided to go too and share in the wine and beer.