The thought of water roused her, first with the desire for a drink, then with the sudden pressure on her bladder from the water Kaern had forced her to drink the night before. She rose softly, looking around until she spotted where Kaern was slumbering against the boulder she'd sat on when they'd stopped the night before.
He looked worn out, she thought as she climbed to her feet, then froze in surprise when they didn't pain her as they had the night before. Elan crouched down and looked at her ankles, a soft gasp of surprise coming from her when she saw the pink scars where just the night before there had been ugly red wounds.
How...? That's not possible... She blinked away the crust of sleep in her eyes, staring for a long moment at the injuries that should have been much worse than she was seeing. It was minutes later when she finally jerked out of the shocked trance and shook her head to clear it.
She'd wonder about it later, she decided. For the moment she had the “call of nature” to attend.
When she returned to the immediate vicinity of their camp, Elan went about preparing for the morning in the way that she always had. She fetched water from the pool that had become the centerpiece for the oasis in which they were camped, filling her skins after checking it for any pollutants. She contemplated starting a fire, but she didn't have a flint and she didn't see Kaern's anywhere, besides which, she didn't really have anything to cook.
So she gnawed on jerky, shifting into the shade as the sun's heat became uncomfortable, and spent her time eyeing the odd gleaming silver box that Kaern had brought from the place of the Ancients.
It was beautiful, a fine engraved symbol on the face of it in the shape of a circle with an intricate design within. Elan had never seen anything like it. The design was finer than anything her mother had done with her crafts, and she wondered what it meant as she traced the design with her fingers.
She eyed the case closely then, running her hands around the seam that split it in two, but she didn't find any latches. Her father had a box; it wasn't as nice as this, of course, but it had been bigger. That box had had big buckles on it where you would open or close it. This one was smooth except for a fine line around its center.
She peered closer, looking closer at the engraving, wondering how it had been made so perfectly.
"It's Ancient script."
She jumped, swiveling around to stare at Kaern as he watched her from where he was still lying.
"I'm sorry," she said quickly, pushing the box away. "I wasn't gonna hurt it!"
He just chuckled, shaking his head. "You couldn't if ye tried. It's tougher than that, lass."
"W...what is it?"
He shrugged, smiling slightly as his face took on a serious, almost sad look. "It's...an artifact."
"What's that?"
"It's something that's very old and belongs to something lost," he told her. "The script that you were tracing, it's writing."
Writing. Elan knew what writing was. She used glyphs to record her numbers and to mark hunting traps. This wasn't writing, this was art. It was beautiful.
"No it isn’t," she replied, realizing as she said it that she sounded petulant. "I know glyphs. This isn't them."
He laughed tiredly, nodding his head. "Ye're right, child, it's not glyphs. It’s script, and very old. It says ‘crisis medical unit,’ and tells ye how to use it."
"U...nit?"
He just shrugged. "Just means 'one thing'...like that, it's one box."
"Oh." She blinked, looking down at the silver case.
"Dinna worry about it," Kaern said after a moment, shifting around so the sun wasn't in his face. "It's not important right now. Try to get some more rest, lass. We'll have to move out again when the sun crosses the midpoint and starts to fall."
She instinctively glanced up, noting that the sun was still very low in its climb, and nodded. "Okay."
Kaern closed his eyes then and was shortly breathing very regularly as he claimed some more sleep for himself.
Elan looked at the box again for a while, tracing the etched symbols, the script, with her fingers. Then she moved back over to the sleeping area and crawled back into the furs. The walk the day before had been more than she'd expected, and while her feet didn't hurt as bad now, her legs were still very sore from it.
She knew that they would be worse before they stopped this night.
*****
"Okay, we'll camp here."
Kaern held up his hand, noting the tired breath of relief that came from the girl. She'd stuck out the march better than he had expected, though he supposed he should have known better after the night before.
Her wounds had stayed closed this time, though he'd made her keep them tightly wrapped in order to prevent her ankles from moving much. It made walking harder on her, especially in the soft sand they'd had to traverse, but it was safer.
Again, she'd gritted her teeth and refused to complain, so he'd pushed her hard in order to reach a good place to camp before the night became too cold. And, again, he was impressed despite himself. They'd made good time and had arrived at the rock cliffs that formed the barrier to the south that surrounded the wastes.
"We'll stay in the shade of the rocks this day," he told her, dropping the pile of kindling and wood he'd carried with him the entire day. "When the light is still good, we'll have to climb the cliffs here, lass. I know a way that isn't bad, so don't worry too much about it."
"I'm not worried," she told him firmly.
He snorted, shaking his head. "Then ye're braver then I am. I said not to worry too much, but only a fool isn't a little concerned about traveling in parts such as this."
She didn't say anything to that, so he went about setting up the fire that would keep them warm for the remaining couple hours before dawn. He'd known that there wouldn't be any wood to burn where he was hoping to stop this time, so he'd brought enough for a couple hours’ heat from the oasis. It wouldn't be as much as he'd like, but in truth they were starting to reach an area where it wasn't safe to have open fires.
"Get some sleep, lass," he told Elan as he crouched down and aimed his helio at the bundled wood. A brief flash of light lit up his face, making his hard features and scraggly beard stand out, and then the wood was caught and burning cheerfully.
"What was that?"
"What's that, lass?" He glanced back.
"In your hand..." She was staring. "You...it's not a flint, is it?"
He turned over the small device in his hand and smiled. "Naw, lass, it's not a flint."
"What is it?" she asked again.
"A helio," he told her. "It's a fire starter, better than flint."
She blinked at him. "Helio?"
"Aye, lass. And don't ask me what it means, I don't know." He shrugged. "Something to do with the sun, I think. It's been too long since I thought about it."
"Oh."
“There are many things in creation beyond what you’ve been taught, lass,” he said, not unkindly. “Many times many. Men have, in the past, accomplished true miracles…or as close as any mortals have ever come. This is just a toy. The wonders of the old world, those were things to beggar the imagination and stagger the hubris of even the more arrogant of fools.”
Kaern sighed, thinking of things long lost, then refocused on the present. The girl was bad for him, he decided. She made him think of things he’d long put aside. Things he really didn’t care to think of any longer.
“I don’t understand,” she admitted. “How can things like that exist? My…my…”
She closed her eyes, swallowing hard as she fought down a wave of grief.