“So, that’s why metal workers and blacksmiths are thought and suspected of being Werehyenas in the region,” Malikah said thoughtfully.
Aiman nodded, “Yes, if of course, the text I was reading is reliable. The Arabic it was written in is old and I needed some help translating, fortunately the librarian was most helpful.”
“How old was the book?” Mary asked.
Aiman shrugged, “The librarian mentioned something about the texts it was written from being close to a thousand years old or so. But I have no way to verify that.”
The group was quiet for a time then Acharya said, “You never said where the village actually was.”
Aiman responded, “That’s because the text wasn’t specific. It pointed to an area north of us, somewhere near Lake Chad, maybe on one of the islands therein. I asked the librarian about the local wildlife and for a map of the region. I asked him about the village of Kabultiloa. He hesitated for a moment then laughed and confirmed the area where I thought it might be, saying it was thought to be near the lake. Other than that, I have nothing more to tell you.”
“So that’s where we’re headed then,” Tara said.
“We’re not going anywhere at this time of night,” Acharya interjected. “Let’s find a place to ‘crash’,” he said looking pointedly at Tara as he said it. “In the morning we’ll head out of the city and go see the lake. It’s one of the big tourist attractions in the area, I hear,” he added with a smile.
The group moved away from the library. The sun would set soon and they decided to not stay in the place they had found the night prior.
It took some time but they found a similar alleyway to camp in. It was deeply set back from the main street; the only problem was the only thing that was between them and anyone just walking down the street and looking into the alley to discover them was a dumpster. They decided to not make a fire that night. They ate cold food and slept uncomfortably huddled against the cold building. The next morning, they headed north.
They snuck out of the city and traveled north. They followed the Chari River as they traveled. The back packs they carried were not terribly heavy but they were a burden and they slowed their progress. They knew they had about sixty miles in between the city and the lake, not to mention all the small towns and villages that would undoubtedly dot the river bank. It would take them at least two days to reach the shores of the lake.
They walked in silence in single file. Asclepius refused to wear a collar and growled at anyone who approached him. He walked with his head up and alert swinging back and forth. His nose rose, every so often, to sample the air for any scents that would warn them of danger.
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The land around them was an arid, wind blasted landscape. They could hear the river to their left, but their immediate surrounding was like something out of a post-apocalyptic science fiction story. The only thing that kept them firmly grounded in reality was that there were trees dotting the landscape. Every so often they would come across a small green belt filled with 50 trees or more. If it wasn’t for the occasional green from the trees, it would be very easy to assume that they were on some alien planet.
The towns were a bigger problem and they gave them a wide berth. Adding hours to their journey. However, the last thing they wanted to happen was to get pinned down in the narrow streets of a village filled with desperate humanity who only saw them as things with food. Things that could be killed to get the food they carried.
The people here were not savages and the river did seem to support them well enough. But it didn’t take an Anthropologist to tell just how poor the buildings were. People were people, when pushed hard enough, and if desperate enough, they would tear each other apart. And outsiders were all the more easily disposed of with no real moral compunctions to the contrary. Why should one care about an ‘animal’ they had never met?
So, they walked around the various towns and clusters of buildings. Sticking to the sparse foliage around them they moved swiftly around the small pockets of civilization. All the while getting closer and closer to the lake.
As the sun started to slide down toward setting in the west, the wind seemed to kick up and sand started to become a hindrance as well. They tied scarfs and pieces of cloth around their mouth and faces to help protect them from the assault.
They reached a small greenbelt and decided to camp there for the night. They hadn’t noticed anyone following them and they hadn’t attracted any attention as far as any of them could tell. Asclepius made a slow circuit around the greenbelt of trees. He returned several minutes later without having smelled or detected anything resembling danger.
The trees protected them from the wind and sand to a certain extent but as the sun set the wind seemed to die down as well. They decided to make a small tactical fire by digging a hole and building a small fire in the bottom. They then covered half the hole with a large somewhat flat rock, this would hide the majority of the light while trapping some of the heat.
They cooked their food and ate in weary silence.
Tara found that even though she was hungry and her appetite was normal, the food, didn’t have much taste. She finished her meal and drank a bottle of water.
Her gaze drifted to the north. Somewhere in that direction, at some unknown distance, was the remains of the village of Kabultiloa. The echoes of a proud people, that had enlisted the aid of the night sky to help them correct an injustice from eons past, still stirred ahead of them. She could feel it. She knew what that hurt was, and what living in the aftermath of it could do to a people.
Her eyes drifted down to the small fire. The embers danced and rose out of the flames, only to bounce off the rock overhead and fall back down to the coals and small burning pieces of wood at the bottom of the pit. The sprites forced to fall back down to earth, never to fly, never to know freedom. A tear escaped her eye at that thought. All creatures wanted to know comfort, all creatures wanted security, but every once in a while it was the creatures prerogative to give up security and comfort and know freedom.
Sometimes freedom was worth the risk of death. Sometimes justice was worth more than life. And sometimes an entire people needed to be woken from their collective sleep and be shown that freedom and justice were worth more than the scraps that they had settled for in order to secure comfort and security. That way was the road to tyranny and enslavement.