Aegis Rising (19 page)

Nageau watched with a stony expression and cautiously moved closer to examine Fiotez. A minute passed before he turned around, his blue eyes saddened with grief, and told the others somberly, “He has passed on.”

He walked up to Diyo and knelt in front of the young boy. As he gazed into Diyo’s light brown eyes, he knew that the damage had been done. Diyo would never—could never—forget this day when his father attempted to end his life. He would never be consolable. For such a young soul to have experienced such a traumatic, disturbing occurrence—the poor lad would be scarred for life.

Nageau stood and gently kissed the child’s head. Diyo burst into tears once more and wrapped his arms around the Elder’s waist, his heavy sobs being the only sound anyone heard for a while until Tayoka and Ashack began warding away onlookers who came to investigate the noises they’d heard.

“We should strap Mitska’s mate down,” Saiyu said. “Else we shall witness this scene repeat.”

“I agree. It perturbs me that we must go to this length to take care of our ill, but now the concern lies with the safety of the community.” Tikina lifted Diyo into her arms and looked at the Elders and her grandchildren. “I will take care of Diyo. You just go ahead and strap our remaining patient down.”

With that she walked straight past the school and convalescence shelter toward Esroh Lègna and quickly crossed a bridge to the west side of the valley.

*  *  *

“Are you sure he is properly restrained?” Akol asked nervously, looking over his sister’s shoulder at Mitska’s mate. The old man lay on the bed with fiber bands wrapping his chest, abdomen and legs. He was asleep, appearing very ill and chalk-white.

“Trust me, Akol, he is.” Huyani checked the straps just in case and stood beside her brother, unhappiness enfolding her. “This feels immoral, to fasten one of our kinfolk to the point where he can hardly move.”

Akol squeezed her shoulder. “I know, but it has to be done.”

The sound of footsteps outside the convalescence shelter alerted the two and they looked over their shoulders in time to see the Elders entering. They walked over and took a long look at Mitska’s mate. Nageau shook his head. “This disquiets me. For many generations we have been safe . . .” He let the sentence hang in the air.

The Elders, Akol, and Huyani simply stood in silence for a while until Huyani asked timidly, “What has become of Fiotez’s body?”

“We have made arrangements for him to be buried this evening,” Saiyu answered.

“And how is Diyo?”

Tikina, who had entered the shelter with the other Elders, replied with a sigh. “I brought him to his mother and informed her of what just occurred . . . The poor boy fell asleep whilst crying in my arms before we reached his family’s shelter.”

The door to the convalescence shelter burst open and one of the youths popped in. Her eyes were wide and she looked frightened. “Oh, thank goodness you are all here . . . Elder Nageau, Elder Saiyu! My brother’s health has deteriorated—he can hardly move!”

“No, no, no . . .” Ashack muttered. “Did this just happen?”

Before the girl could answer, another youth’s head appeared beside hers, wearing the same expression of fear and panic. “Elder Tikina! My mother is extremely ill! She needs help—she is muttering things that do not make sense. Please, you must see to her!” The newcomer’s voice cracked as he tried to control his dread.

Nageau spun around and faced his companions. “Tikina, Tayoka! See to this young man’s mother, please, and bring her here. Saiyu and Ashack, please look after this girl’s brother.” He turned to Huyani and Akol. “And I would appreciate it if you both could prepare a few more beds and bring out more straps.”

“Um, Grandfather?” Akol raised his hand as if in a classroom environment. “There is the urgent matter of searching for our five missing guests . . .”

Nageau nodded quickly, then turned to Huyani. “Are you alright preparing the beds by yourself? I do not like to leave you to handle this alone—perhaps you could enlist a couple of helpful hands.”

“Rest easy, Grandfather. I will cope.” She left with everyone else, leaving Akol and Nageau alone inside the convalescence shelter with Mitska’s mate.

“Akol, I need you to take charge in gathering people to search for the five. I will leave it to you to decide how it should be done.” Nageau rested a strong hand on his grandson’s equally strong shoulder. “Are you able to handle it?”

Akol nodded sharply. “Good then,” Nageau said. “If there is anything you need to see me about, I shall be with Magèo.”

*  *  *

Nageau walked hurriedly from the convalescence shelter toward the edifice beside the greenhouse building. Unlike the other structures, trees surrounded it from all sides. A trodden dirt path snaked between groves toward the door of the building. Constructed from logs, the large structure was quite rustic, but Nageau knew that inside those four walls, amazing inventions and creative ideas were brought to life.

The Elder knocked on the large, wooden door. A voice yelled, “Who is it!”

“It is Nageau.” Moments later, he watched as the door opened, revealing a tall, chubby man in his seventies with sparse white hair on his balding head and a white beard hanging down to his stomach. He had brown skin and two different-colored eyes stretched wide. There were deep wrinkles on his forehead and laugh lines around his mouth. When he saw Nageau, he bellowed a hearty welcome and bear-hugged the Elder.

“Nageau, my old friend! How nice to see you.” He turned around and said crisply, “Come inside, come inside. If you do not mind, please shut that door. It is not my favorite weather that greets us this late morning.”

“I find it curious that you are the only one in this village who does not enjoy the sun.” Nageau carefully closed the door behind him and followed Magèo.

“Well, you should not. We have known each other long enough for you to realize how much I despise that sweltering ball of heat. Makes me feel as though I am cooking inside this old body of mine. Ah, here is a stool you may rest on. Give me a moment and I shall join you quickly.”

Nageau sat on the stool and watched as the elderly man walked up to one of the walls and pulled down a large lever. Blinds lifted from twenty windows set high in the walls. Light entered the building, illuminating its inside.

The building was a laboratory and design house, complete with long wooden benches and clay water-basins. Shelves that held different sizes and types of glass containers lined the walls, as did tall jars of brightly-colored liquids. The workshop was a chemist’s dream come true, which was precisely the reason why this laboratory was made for Magèo; he was Dema-Ki’s inventor and scientist, and admittedly a somewhat eccentric one at that.

Magèo glared up at the windows and muttered, “Perhaps I should design a device that would enable me to see perfectly without sunlight.”

“Perhaps,” Nageau said, adding firmly, “but there are more pressing matters to resolve first.”

“What? Oh, yes, yes, I know.” Magèo hurried to one of the sinks in his laboratory to wash his hands. He then walked over to a bench lined with glass tubes in racks, all of which were carefully labeled. He pointed to Nageau and said, “This is where I am labeling the source of the water samples, but I am not conducting my experiments here.” He became quiet and stared up at the high windows, looking distant.

“Magèo?” Nageau asked, trying to bring the man back. He knew Magèo’s mind worked much differently than many others’. “You were mentioning something about your experiments?”

“Ah, yes, yes.” He reached over to grab two tubes filled with clear liquid. “Tell me if you can observe any difference between these, Nageau.”

The Elder cautiously sniffed both tubes twice, then narrowed his eyes to study the contents closely. “I detect no difference.”

“Well, allow me to tell you first that your suspicion about the water being contaminated is correct.”

“Oh?”

“Yes. Also, one of these two tubes holds the contaminated water.”

Nageau was dubious. “What?”

“See? If
you
with your heightened senses are unable to pick it up, then surely our regular ones will not be able to. However, I have set up an experiment to prove that the contaminant is indeed water-borne. Walk with me.” Magèo led the way to the back of the room at a brusque pace. There, on a long table, were six large beakers, each with a small fish inside. Nageau bent over to get a better look at them and noticed that only two out of the six fishes were moving. The rest were all floating belly-up, dead.

“What in the world is this?” he asked, perplexed.

Magèo wore a big—though grim—smile. “I have labeled all these beakers with the names of the water sources. That day when you sent Tayoka and some men out to collect water samples from various sources, they came back to me with their glass jars and I immediately got to work. As you can see, I have labeled each beaker with the names of the places where the water was taken. I had a young lad bring me these six small, healthy fish, then I placed one in every beaker and watched them. These two that are alive and well were happy in their water.” He motioned to the other beakers. “The others were normal at first, but I spent an hour constantly observing their behavior and over that time they became quite agitated, those four. Some even attempted to leap out of their beakers! They swam aggressively and splashed water everywhere. Within the next one to two hours, they died.”

Nageau’s eyebrows met in a frown. “Have you heard of what happened a little while earlier?”

“No. Why?”

“Fiotez went wild and attacked his son with one of the ancient swords. Blood and foam was dripping from his mouth, and his eyes had a frenzied look. He then fell to the ground and . . .
died
in front of our eyes.”

Magèo’s jaw dropped in disbelief. “That is uncanny! What a terrible loss! A fine fellow, he was. Bless his mate and child—they will need much support to carry on.” He stroked his beard thoughtfully. “He reacted as the fish did, only the fish became hysterical much more quickly because they have smaller immune systems than humans.”

“As you can imagine, I came to tell you to please hasten with your research. We have two more people who have fallen into the clutches of this disease, and who knows how many others will succumb to it as well.” Nageau laced his fingers together in front of his face and walked up and down the width of the room for some minutes, lost in his thoughts. “So you have labeled the beakers, therefore you know from which areas the water is contaminated,” he murmured. “Have you tried to trace the source?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Have you at all attempted to figure out where the contamination is from? With the labels that you have, we could pinpoint it. There must be some sort of pattern.”

“Actually, no I have not. I have solely been trying to find what the contaminant is, not where it came from.”

Nageau rubbed his chin. “Do you perchance have a map we could use?”

Magèo scuttled to a cupboard on the wall opposite from the one they were facing. He came back with an old, rolled-up parchment and set it on the table. He slowly rolled it out until it covered the entire tabletop. Nageau leaned over it, eyes scanning the map. It showed Dema-Ki as the central point and displayed a three-hundred mile radius around the valley, portraying the topography of the entire area. It revealed that the early Dema-Ki settlers had very thoroughly explored the landscape, as the map depicted every detail from mountains to clearings to waterfalls to creeks, and more.

Magèo and Nageau gazed at the map for several moments, then looked at the labeled beakers of water with fish, eyes narrowed. Magèo tapped two areas on the map. “So the two water samples where the fish are alive came from the river in our valley and the river on our sister valley’s western doorstep.”

“The creek to the east of us was where Fiotez refilled his water pelt before falling ill on his hunting trip. It gets its water from this river which forks out—Mayet.”

Magèo nodded. “Indeed.” He peered down at the map once more, then back up at the beakers, then back down at the map again. “The lake where Mitska’s mate camped at is also to the east of our valley, and is fed by this river.” He traced his finger along a river in the direction he knew it flowed. Nageau traced the Mayet River in the same manner. Their fingers moved toward the right side of the map where they eventually met as the two waterways merged. They kept following until they reached the source of the water: a cluster of mountains miles to the north of Dema-Ki.

Nageau and Magèo slowly looked at each other as they leaned over the old map. “The Ayen mountain range,” Nageau whispered. After a couple of moments, he looked at the other man, an idea forming in his mind. “Magèo, how quickly could you design a method to test the water? It should be small enough to be carried in a pouch and when submerged in water, will tell us if it is contaminated or not.”

Magèo scratched his nose and started pacing to and fro, muttering to himself. “Well, it depends. First, I need to find out what type of contaminant we are dealing with. If I cannot identify the specific contaminant, I should be able to at least ascertain a group of contaminants that will react to my test methods. Give me a few sunrises.”

“We may not have a few sunrises.”

Magèo continued pacing and muttering. Without looking up at Nageau, he said, “In that case, begone with you. I have work to do.” He retrieved a pair of thin gloves and scooted to the far corner of the building.

As Nageau nodded and turned to leave, the door of the laboratory opened and Akol took a step into the building, grasping a long metal spear. “Grandfather, we are about to leave.”

“Where are your manners?” Magèo barked from the other end of the room. “Have your parents never taught you to knock and wait for permission to enter?”

If Akol had a tail, it would have been tucked firmly between his legs. He seemed to have missed the twinkle of humor in the chemist’s eyes. “I am terribly sorry, Magèo. I had no intention to be rude or—”

“Quiet your mouth, boy. I am busy, and therefore I simply
cannot
engage in any conversation.” Magèo returned his full attention to his project and paid no more heed to the others in the building. Nageau grinned at his grandson, and Akol finally caught on that Magèo was not actually annoyed with him.