I did my yoga, dressed, and climbed the river bluff.
The sun was visible from the top. It hung just above the horizon: a reddish-orange disk, too bright to look at directly. I followed a trail through the pseudo-grass. Leaves brushed against me, wet with dew. In a minute or two my pants were soaked.
A flower bloomed just off the traiclass="underline" large and low to the ground. The petals were pale yellow, almost the same color as the plain. The center was dark. The entire plant was fleshy—like a succulent on Earth.
I knelt and touched the edge of the flower.
Damn! I waved my hand in the air. The flower curled into a ball. I looked at my finger. It felt as if a bee had gotten it.
A shadow fell over me. I glanced up and saw Nia.
“That is a stinging flower.”
“I never would have known.”
“Come into camp. There is a lotion that will make you feel better. My cousin is certain to have it.”
I stood, my hand throbbing. We walked toward the village.
Nia said, “They eat bugs and other animals. Very small lizards. Sometimes an aipit.”
“A what?”
“It is an animal with four feet, covered with fur. The body is as long as the first joint of my thumb. The poison in the plant will kill something that small. But the plant does no real harm to people. It can’t get through a good coat of fur, the kind we have. People get stung if they touch the plant the way you did—or if they are foolish enough to walk on the plain with bare feet.” She paused for a moment. “A bowhorn can walk through a cluster of the plants and feel nothing, unless it is a fawn and tries to nibble. They do that once.”
We reached the village. Nia stopped in front of a big tent. A woman sat at the entrance, large and handsome, dressed in a navy tunic. Her necklace was silver and amber. Her bracelets were gold.
“This person touched a stinging flower,” Nia said.
The woman spoke in the language of the village. A child came out carrying a pot.
“Sit down,” the woman said. “My name is Ti-antai. Nia said your people are like children, always touching and turning things over. You see what happens? Hold out your hand.”
I followed orders. She looked at my finger, which was swollen by this time and bright red. “Aiya! How peculiar!”
“What?” I asked, feeling a little nervous.
“The color of your skin.” She dug into the pot, bringing out a glob of something yellow, grabbed my hand firmly, and smeared the stuff on my finger. The pain diminished at once.
“What is the flower?” I asked. “A plant or an animal?”
“That’s hard to say. When it is full-grown, it has roots like a plant. But it hunts like an animal and it has a mouth—the dark hole in the center. Did you see it?”
“Yes, but I didn’t realize what it was.”
“You weren’t looking carefully,” the woman said. “You must always look carefully before you touch.”
I made the gesture of courteous acknowledgment for good advice.
Nia said, “The flowers have young that move around.”
I thought for a moment. “How do the flowers reproduce?”
Ti-antai looked at Nia. “You are right about these people. They poke into things they know nothing about and they ask a lot of questions.” She looked at me. “The flowers shrivel up at the time of the first frost. There is nothing left except a black pod. That stays the way it is all winter. In the spring it breaks open and the young come out. They are green and like worms with feet. They crawl away into the vegetation. I don’t know what they do under the leaves. But in time they root themselves. They grow. They become flowers. That’s all I know—except this. The lotion that cures the sting comes from the bodies of the young. I gather them in the spring and tie them onto a drying rack. They move for a day or two or three. Then they dry up. When they are entirely dry, I grind them up.
“Other things go into the lotion, but it is the bodies of the young that are important.”
Weird, I thought. And I was the wrong person to be listening. Marina in Sight of Olympus ought to be here.
“Now, go away,” the woman said. “You make me uneasy. Nia has always been friends with the strangest kinds of people.”
I stood and made the gesture of gratitude.
Nia said, “I will go to the boats with you. I have a message from Angai.”
We left the village, following the trail down the river bluff.
Nia said, “Angai has come to a decision.”
“What is it?”
“She will tell us this afternoon. Come up to the village just before sunset. All of you. The women and the men.” She moved her shoulders and rubbed the back of her neck. “Aiya! It was hard! All day we talked and argued. Angai and I and the oracle. The old women. The rest of the village. I got a headache.
“At night there was a feast. Angai sent the oracle away. He had to stay in a tent that had been abandoned by one of the old men. A man who went suddenly crazy and rode off onto the plain. I was allowed to stay.
“We always hold a feast after a big argument. It reminds us that we are one people. But the arguing didn’t end. Anhar told a story.”
“Who?”
“She is the best storyteller in the village. Most people like her. I don’t. She was one of the people who spoke against me the last time I was here. She had many reasons why I could not stay among the Iron People.”
We were halfway down the cliff, moving through shadowy forest. My finger had stopped hurting.
“The story isn’t one of ours. It came from the Amber People. It tells about the Trickster.”
“Do you remember it?” I asked.
Nia made the gesture that meant “yes.” “He came to a village, disguised as an old woman. The villagers thought he was the Dark One. He played many malicious tricks. Do you want to hear about them? I think I can remember most.”
“Not now. Later, when I have one of the little boxes that can remember what is said to it.”
“Aiya!” said Nia.
I asked, “What happened next?”
“In the story? The villagers realized he could not be the Dark One. He was too nasty. Even she sets a limit on her behavior.
“They tricked him into climbing into a pot of water. They put on the lid and boiled him until he was dead. The story ends with a song. It goes like this.” Nia sang:
“The Trickster died?” I asked.
“Only for a while. He always comes back. Angai was furious.”
“Why?” We had reached the riverbank. My boat was in front of us. It smelled of coffee and bacon.
Nia said, “Anhar was saying that you are troublemakers like the Trickster, imposing on the village. But the argument was over. The decision was made. It was time to be pleasant to one another. Anhar could not stop. There are people like that. They pick at the edges of a quarrel like a child picking at the edges of a healing wound.
“I don’t know what Angai has decided, but I know she does not want to make Anhar happy.” Nia waved at the boat. “That’s all I have to tell you. Come up to the village at sunset.”
“Okay,” I said.
She left. I went onboard the boat. The folding table was up. Agopian, Eddie, and Ivanova sat around it.
“Elizaveta has been talking to the camp,” Eddie said.