28

Convergence

Before he left the swamp, Saber had filled both his water containers with the boiled swamp water, as he had no idea when he would again hit a stream or a lake. As it was, it was only three days out when he found one. It was a small stream, three feet across at its narrowest spot, five at its widest. The water was about hip deep on the young traveler. However it was the best thing Saber had ever seen! He had traveled farther and farther away from the rancid swamp, and when he started seeing more life in the trees, and fewer mutations, he knew he was out. And now, real water.

Saber set everything down and stripped. Or rather, he tried to strip. He got as far as one boot, and as far as pulling the jumpsuit down to his knees but he could not get his other boot off. The boy grimaced in pain as he tried to pull it from his foot, and realized that his injured ankle had probably swelled, and with the bandages it was making the boot tight. If he could not get it off, he might have to cut it; he had gotten good enough with the dagger, and it was sharp. He had learned to sharpen it in one of the villages.

But it turned out not to be necessary. He had cried out with the pain when he finally pulled it off, and saw his swollen ankle, but he did get it off. He had been a little scared at how bad it looked, but it was not discolored or anything that would indicate infection, he hoped. He would have to walk without the boot until it healed.

This taken care of, he turned to the stream and jumped in, careful to land his weight on his good foot. He screeched loudly when he stood up, as the water was very cold, but that was only a small annoyance compared to washing the grayish mud from his body. He washed himself from head to toe, feeling the nasty, half-dried, clay-like mud being cleansed from his skin. He sniffed the water, then drank of it, and water had never tasted so good to him, except maybe after the desert. But it was a close second!

The next thing Saber did was to take every single thing from his pack and wash it. There was nothing that could not take a wetting, including the thick parchment and bark he had been using as his journal, and he washed thes too, careful not to scrape off the writing.

Saber laughed as he remembered the time his little bother Drii had discovered that the writing sticks didn;t run. He had been in the bathtub and decided to try writing on the smooth walls. It had not rinsed off as he'd expected. He'd gotten a good spanking for that and spent half the night washing it off with soap and a scrub brush.

After he washed everything he had with him, Saber washed the jumpsuit and boots, and the pack itself, and laid everything out to dry. He could spend some time here while they dried in the sun. It was not particularly warm, certainly not warm enough to be traipsing around nude, but until the clothing dried he had little choice.

The boy hunted down some breakfast as his belongings dried. He had run out of supplies in the swamp, and taken to hunting and cooking the mutated things. They had tasted bland, and made him a little sick as had the water, but again compared to starving, it was tolerable.

He had never cared too much for rabbit, but today, it was a blessing.

***

Meanwhile, Leyati's improvised army had been following Saber's trail. They had asked after him in the villages he'd stopped in, and ended up in Tisatria, the last one he had visited. Saber had made quite an impression there, and there were many that agreed to accompany Leyati and the others; among them the village elder who had spent time talking with the boy. As they journeyed, the improvised army all understood that they were not merely going after the boy to protect or hide him. They knew that this would be a confrontation with evil itself. It would be Kasana-Kai's rebellion all over again, except that she had had a few hundred warriors, travelling to the evil lord's own domain. Leyati's band was almost a thousand strong, with a few carts here and there with supplies and weapons and the like. They wanted to end this They wanted to free their people once and for all and so it was not only Saber they chased, but the evil that pursued the boy as well.

After Tisatria, however, they were a little unsure of where to go. There were no more villages that they knew of, and from here on out, they would have to rely on Leyati's vague knowledge of where Saber's village was. The boy had told Leyati what he had seen and passed on his way, and with Leyati's limited knowledge of the areas around him, he could make a vague guess. They headed southeast.

***

Mumm-Ra, however...

He and the Lunattacks had also questioned the villagers, but instead of the willing cooperation Leyati's people had gotten, they were met with either refusal to talk or incorrect information. They had terrorized the people, but got no better results. This made everyone nervous, including Mumm-Ra, for it seemed they had enough people here to be a threat to him. All because of one human boy. Mumm-Ra needed to put the little beast out of commission. Now.

He and the Lunattacks however, had a disadvantage. While Saber could move and go and stop at his leisure, his pursuers had to keep returning to their own homes. Skytomb had to find ready supplies of the fuel that was once called Thundrillium, and the only place they knew about that still yielded the fuel was Darkside. Mumm-Ra had to keep returning to his pyramid to regenerate.

But, based on the few times Mumm-Ra was able to glimpse the boy in his cauldron, and on what meager information some of the more timid or less scrupulous villagers had given them, they were able to more or less figure out what direction he was going in. And so, like Leyati's army, they began to close in.

***

Saber traveled a good deal more quickly once out of the muddy swamp and back onto dry land. Over the weeks, the weather began again to warm up as it segued into spring, and Saber was soon able to exchange the jumpsuit for his more comfortable loincloth. This he put in his duffel, and hung the boots on the outside. Now clad in only his leather loincloth and the belt with the dagger on it, he continued once more the same way he had started out.

According to his journal entries, which now took up a good deal of space in his pack, it was getting on the end of the first moon-time of spring when things began to feel familiar. Saber once again traveled in dense, clean forest, surrounded by the smells of rich dirt, of leaves, and wildflowers. After weeks of cold winds and barren ground, he once again traveled with the sun shining in dappled patterns through the leaves. As winter left the earth and spring took its place, Saber walked with the familiar, comforting sounds of forest animals by day and insects by night. He had to use a blanket at night, but otherwise, he was perfectly comfortable in his scant clothing.

Saber's ankle had healed, and he no longer limped; he had been happy it was no worse than a sprain. His hair, which had grown considerably longer, was once again held back with a headband he had made, and although he did not know it, he had grown a couple of inches.

He felt more healthy and fit than he ever had at home, and one day as he walked he thought about this and grinned. He thought also about Iyen and his father. Drett was the bravest man of the village, and Iyen was pretty brave too, Saber had to admit. But he did not think the older boy could possibly go up against the Lunattacks and come out alive. His father, Drett, maybe, and Saber's own father if he knew enough about them. But without any formal training, he had already surpassed the cocky older boy.

It was not much later when he saw something that made him whoop with excitement, and jump in the air. It was the fortress! It was the cat fortress, the Cats' lair that he had explored on his way out here, where the Lunattacks had first attacked. And when he first realized that they were not immortal. It was a couple of days away; he was almost home! The boy increased his pace as much as he possibly could. Saber was approaching from behind this time, from the mountain the lair was set into. He thought about the Lunattacks, and for the first time it occurred to him that they had come in through the front! But how had they avoided the fire that the single eye shot? Saber could not, that was why he had had to climb the blasted mountain behind the fortress.

Feeling both a great excitement at finally being so close to home, and also a sudden sadness at the realization that his journey was nearly over, Saber ran and jumped for the top of the fortress, as he had last time. To his utter surprise, he landed on his feet on the floor of the open topped building, that was covered in more leaves and dirt than last time. Before, he had jumped as far as he could and only barely latched onto the side. But this time he had leapt clear over it. This one single feat really brought home to him how strong he had gotten in then months he had been gone.

A little shakily, and with the strong feeling of deja-vu, Saber again walked through the silent, deserted halls of the great fortress. At first taking a few wrong turns, he finally found the bedroom in the lower level that he had spent the night in that one night. When he walked in, his eyes happened on his pack and he almost started crying. He was not sure why. It was as if he was looking at an artifact from a long lost civilization. It made him feel sad.

What had he brought initially, anyway? Saber did not even remember. He cast the pack he carried now, which was larger than the duffel he had taken from home, onto the ground, and picked up his old one. It was thick with dust, as were most the things in this forgotten place. Had he not come back, it would have just become another silent artifact from another time.

He brushed it off and opened it up. There he saw his journal, and grinned as he read the pages. His father's dagger was in there, and although it was meant to be decorative, and it was very attractive, Saber thought his own was far more beautiful. Because it was his own. He knew it, it was familiar to him, he had used it. He could handle it as if it had been his all his life.

He smiled as he pulled out his brother's green hintrin, the blanket the boy had given to him to keep him safe. Although he had not had it with him for months, here he was alive. It must have done something. There was little else, only the few books he had brought and read here and there along the first month of his travels, and the waterskin. There was some food, now long spoiled, and he threw this and the cloth bag it was in away.

Then he carefully put all his journal pages in order and put them in the bottom of his pack. The plain blanket he had been using went next, then his father's dagger and the waterskin he had taken from home. The things he would not use, he put on the bottom. He would use what he himself had gotten, as he had learned just how much more something was worth if one earned it on his own. The dagger Leyati had given him in exchange for his help those two weeks or so was tightly attached to his belt.

Saber spent only one night in here, and saw that the blank square that he had watched the little disks on had been cracked somehow. He wondered if it still worked. Realizing he did still have the little disks in the small pocket of his loincloth, he put one in and grinned. It sparked the whole time, but the magical picture did work, maybe for the last time. Once more, he watched the strange cat warriors fight, and now he knew how they felt. He had fought the same adversaries, at least some of them. And if he had anything to say about it, his people would be too. No longer would they jump at the Lunattacks' every command. They'd been lords of Fourth Earth long enough; now it was time for his kind to be their own people. And there was so much Saber wanted to show them.

The boy did get a shock though, as he saw one of the allies the cat people fought alongside with. He had been drinking from his canteen, and almost choked on it, feeling gooseflesh erupt all up and down his arms and legs. He had seen this particular ally himself, frozen for eternity, in the palace in the snow. He watched the Snowknight, astride the cat he had seen sniffing a bowl of food in the kitchen, also frozen forever. Here, as he watched them when they were alive, it gave him chills. He had indeed been a courageous, honorable warrior.

With a shiver, he took the disk out and put it back in his pocket. He had seen enough ghosts to last him a lifetime. He would give the little disks to Drii; he would like them. He could keep one for himself.

Saber spent that night sketching all the places he had seen, as he had promised Drii. He had not thought about it for a very long time, but the images were still fresh in his young mind, and he had no trouble drawing them out in detail. Tomorrow he would begin the final phase of his adventure. With a mix of excitement, and nervousness, Saber slept on the sturdy bed that centuries ago a warrior named Panthro had once slept on himself.

Part 29: A Warning

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