Kai set the bowl of food down, full in a way he had not been in years. He looked around himself and at the room. Wooden log walls with a simple tan mortar, shelves of trinkets and things the like of which Kai had never seen. The room was lit much in the way of his home as a child, low light like a campfire that hadn't been fed for a time.
The Neanderthal standing before him wore clothes that were fine and unlike the simple, utilitarian garments Kai wore. Besteb’s robe looked to be made from some plant fiber that was foreign to Kai. It was smooth and light but looked to be strong as well. The robe was a deep red color, a crimson, that reminded Kai of blood.
“I was once a young pile of dirt m'self, if you can believe it.” The old neanderthal settled into a well-worn and ornate sitting chair. The individual pieces were lashed together by a firm and expensive-looking leather. The arms and seat of the chair curved to match the backside and underarms of the hunched Neander. Kai eyed him warily, wondering, at first, if this Neander posed a danger but quickly realized he posed more danger to this man.
He was old, maybe one of the oldest people Kai had ever met. “All Ush die young in the Earth Veins,” Kai thought ruefully. He looked into his bowl, half-eaten in the stunned silence of being around another Neander, much less one that would talk to him. No one was allowed or encouraged to speak to Ush, least of all someone who was as statured and tenured as this Neander.
The Neander was slow to choose his words as if it had been many years since he had spoken to another of his kind. “This be my home Y'ungin, dark and cozy. Judging by your looks, you be one of the ones we keep in the Underdark, deep under Mother Mountain.” Besteb inhaled sharply. “I can smell the earth-stink over all your other stinks. The stink of the green rock. Any Neander that touches it smells of it for days.” He set his hands tenderly in his lap, having spent his energy in the long shuffle into the room and the slow process of sitting down. The interaction, while thrilling for Besteb, had started to tax his body.
Besteb rubbed his mouth, wiping some of the sweat away before he spoke. “ I know where you are from. We all know where Ush are made, I mean you, Young Heap. You tried to escape your role in the hole, but where would you have run? You had horizons worth of Neander land to cover. You were on the underside of the world boy. The very bottom of the explored Neanderthal realm. No one crosses the Spine of the world and no one can cross water.” His lips curled at that, exposing a browning smile.
“Where is this place Old One? Where have the Not-Men brought me? What of the monsters of the sea?” Kai kept asking questions until slowly trailing off. He realized Besteb was staring at him intently. His sharp eyes made Kai shudder and bow his head in respect. “This man is important! How did he come to be here?” Kai jumped from his thoughts and looked up again when the man started to loudly proclaim his name.
“I am Besteb Hahlawanz, First-born son of the great Oot Hahlawanz. He was one of the wealthiest traders in all of Olr'du! My family traded to every corner of the Neander world and heard many strange tales and rumors. I traveled from the icy shores in the West to the blazing deserts in the East. I have seen the Spine of the world, mountains so high the tops hid in the sky worlds.” The old 'thal's eyes were distant and filled with a far-off happiness Kai could only imagine. Half to himself the 'thal continued to speak. He started low and gained excitement as he spoke.
“Ha! That’s right, you don’t even know! Your kind, 'shrooms the lot. Kept in the dark and fed shyte. My father was a Goft and hoarded and stacked his way to wealth. His pile was the biggest and best. He sold hundreds of Ush a day to all ends of the ground, to Harvesters and Miners alike. So great was his pile, He took the name of the metal you mined your life away to collect. We called it Hahlawanz, a long-dead tribes word for green. I'm sure you can figure out why we used that word.”
Kai's chest began to thump heavily. The idea of his family and his people, his life and his strife, was being boiled down to nothing but a number. His pit sank further and further, deeper than the Earth Veins and their darkest fathoms. ”This man treats Ush like a prize to be traded, like shiny rocks to be collected and hoarded!” Kai flushed angrily. He looked up to see the old man watching him sadly with what appeared to be tears rolling down his cheek.
“I’m sorry m'boy. I was a very different 'thal in those days with very different guides,” Besteb said softly, his mouth moving slowly as if the words were hard to form.
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Kai's stomach rumbled loudly in the time before Besteb could continue his thought. The grief fell from his eyes, and Besteb once again focused directly on Kai. The gaze reminded Kai of every Goft that had ruled his life. The moment was fleeting. The glare vanished, and was followed by a genuine smile, the first Kai had seen since his family back in The Valley.
“I know how hard your life has been, Little Heap. I made many like yours just as hard. I thought it was the way of things. The way the Forest Father dictated it to the very first Neanderthal Ti at the beginning of things. Handed down to each Neander from our birth, we are taught that the Ush fertilize the world and without your use and death the balance of Nature would be broken. Nothing for the world to grow in and nothing for other 'thal to thrive.”
Kai thought back to all the time spent in the Mouth of the world with its many facets. He thought back to the other Ush working in silence. The competition was fierce among them to find as much of the green rock as possible. The only way to eat was to find rock because production was paid for in food. Some Ush would go so long without food they would die within the earth. The fallen were left to wither away into husks by the other Ush and the Goft patrolled the Veins. Bodies were moved only if another Ush believed it was a good spot for the green stone. Once, when Kai was new to the mine, he was tasked to move a body. He had no idea how to mine or what to do. He got lost and ended up tripping right over the dead 'Thal. The Ush had been there for so long its body was shriveled like an old, dried piece of leather.
“What you know about being Ush. You make us do it all, lifting and carrying and working. You get the piles and hoards, with your forests and huts of stone. What it's like to see a free day- without walls and rocks and chisels! What it’s like to smell the sweet, clean air in Forest Fathers’ arms. You decide we work forever so you don’t have to. Forest Father told the Ti but what if he is wrong? Family can be wrong but still be family.”
Besteb shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He was being singed like meat on a cooktop the longer Kai spoke about their mutual homeland. He raised a hand to stop Kai from continuing on his path of verbal revenge. “ I WAS that way m'boy. They threw me away like I was useless. My body may be frail, but my mind be as sharp as ever. I had it all and it didn’t matter, I paid for the best and it didn’t matter. Someone younger, who knew better than I, paid my guard to abandon me in the wilderness. I was a trader, a merchant- but I was no fighter. The Sabre Jaws and Mangy Laughing Wolves stalked me every day. I was smart enough to hide at night. I found small holes and caves and even climbed trees to stay alive. Do you know how hard it is to climb a tree with these old bones?” Besteb let out a large barking laugh, surprising Kai and disarming him of the last of his rage.
`
Besteb continued, “It took almost two weeks before the Not-Men, as you call them, rescued me. The second week I thought I had seen lights out on the Great River. I thought I was losing my mind. The Ti teach us the water isn’t for us 'thal. If it was, we would be born knowing how to swim! Finally, on the third night that the lights appeared, I built a fire on the shore and made it as large as a man of my age could. It was not long 'fore I saw a creature approaching the shore. It looked like an upside-down turtle shell with people on it. The arms stuck out from the sides and paddled in unison like an ungodly thing. Nothing in nature swims in such order or directly at fire.”
Kai went rigid at the mention of the sea creatures and anyone being anywhere near water. Besteb continued to speak, “I watched it scratch to a stop on the rocky shore and one man jumped from the front into the shallow tide. The person was taller than any I had seen and so thin you would think they were more starved than myself! They wore the armor of an unknown metal, not the hahlawanz from home at all. I watched the man approach the fire and draw his weapon. He stabbed it point down into the ground. I knew then that whatever or whoever these people were, they understood that not everything could be solved by a blade or a thump to the noggin.”
“We couldn’t talk mind ya', but where we Neanderthal have one or two tongues, these people had many. The man seemed practiced in the ways of communicating with many different worded peoples. He was very quick to teach me a simple form of communicating with him involving hand signs and drawings on a wooden tablet in charcoal. I gathered early on, his people were dangerous. So many ways to speak means there were many words for violence.” Besteb shook his head in wonder. “It boggles the head, it does. If they can’t even agree on one way to speak, how often do these people fight? Worse yet, they leave and start a new way of talkin'. Then a few generations on they be fighting among themselves like they're as different as a sabercat and a dire wolf.”
“Those thoughts aside Kai, it didn’t take long for us to establish my need for help and the promise they were not going to kill me the moment I looked away. As they like to say, the rest was history.”