Victims of Nimbo (6 page)

“It smells so good,” she repeated.

“We have some extra, if you’d like some, Enid,” Sarah said in a kindly fashion.

“Oh, I would! I’d love it!”

They dried off as best they could with the rough cloths that Enid had furnished. They were not thick towels, but they had to serve.

The sun was shining, so they dried their hair while sitting on the bathhouse platform and talking to Enid.

“Enid, do women hold any position of importance here in Cloud Land?”

“Women? Oh no! The men are the important ones. We females only serve them.”

Abbey gaped at her and started to speak, but Sarah, knowing Abbey’s rather abrupt ways, said quickly, “Back where we lived, women were considered as important as men in most places.”

Now Enid gaped at the two girls. “I cannot believe it. Females are not on the same level as men.”

“Whoever told you that?” Abbey snapped. She forgot about drying her long blonde hair for the moment. “Of course they’re as good as men!”

Enid looked distressed. “Please do not talk like that! No good can come of it.”

Sarah tried to understand the social structure in Cloud Land. It appeared to her that men had all the rights and privileges, and women had none. They were little more than slaves in the Cloud People’s culture.

When Enid excused herself for a moment, Sarah said, “This is awful, isn’t it?”

“Yes. I never heard of such a thing.”

“I think it was common in certain places back in OldWorld. In some Eastern countries there were harems, and in parts of Africa the women weren’t respected….”

“But that was something we read about in a book,” Abbey said sharply. “This is the real thing! The women here have nothing. We’ve got to do something about this!”

“Now, hold on, Abbey!” Sarah said. “We can’t jump in here and change people’s customs in twenty-four hours. Besides, the big problem of the moment, apparently, is the Earth Dwellers.”

Abbey did not argue. But there was a stubborn set to her lips, and Sarah purposed to watch her.

When they saw Enid coming to take them back to their house, Abbey said wistfully, “I wish we’d waited for the guys, Sarah.”

Sarah Collingwood knew in her heart that she had been wrong to act so impulsively. But somehow it was hard for her to admit this. She just said, “Well, they’ll get here soon. Come on. Let’s go see what there is to eat in Cloud Land.”

T
he meal that Enid brought Sarah and Abbey was not bad, although neither of them had enough. Each serving consisted of a small helping of something like carrots, one tomato, and a little fish that Enid cooked over a tiny fire. A small bundle of dry sticks furnished the fuel.

There was only a meager amount of firewood left, Sarah noted, and Enid said, “Sometimes it’s difficult to get dry wood. We could break off branches, but they would be green and not burn.”

“There ought to be plenty of dead wood on the ground,” Sarah suggested. “These trees are bound to shed dead branches.”

“Oh yes. But the men have to go down and gather them. And that is dangerous.”

Sarah ate her fish. It had a very strong flavor, but she was hungry, so said nothing. She only wished that she had some tartar sauce for it.

“Do you ever go down on the ground, Enid?” Abbey asked.

The young woman seemed shocked by the question. “Hardly ever. I’ve been down only five or six times in my whole life.”

“Is that because of the Earth Dwellers?”

“That and the wild beasts.” Enid nodded thoughtfully. “We have lost many of our young people to the Earth Dwellers. They become slaves—or else they are sacrificed.”

Sarah remembered what Teanor had told them. “What happens to them?” she asked, wanting to know more. “Sacrificed to what?”

“You do not know about Nimbo, the god of the Earth Dwellers?”

“We don’t know much,” Sarah answered.

“He is a terrible god. And their chief listens to Nomus, the high priest. When things do not go well in the tribe, he tells them they must sacrifice a person. They do not want to sacrifice their own people, so they capture others for this. My own best friend was sacrificed to Nimbo,” she said sadly. “I have never gotten over it.”

“That’s awful!” Abbey exclaimed. “It’s probably why your father sent for the Sleepers.”

Enid’s face brightened with hope. “Yes! Everyone is expecting you to help us. Do you think you can?”

“Well, we have been of some help to others in time past,” Sarah said modestly. “It sounds like this Nomus is where the problem lies.”

As the girls finished their meal, Abbey asked curiously, “How do you get fish if you don’t go down to the ground?”

“I will show you.”

They followed Enid across a series of platforms and finally came to one that had no structure on it at all. The platform was very small, no more than ten feet square.

“Now I will show you,” she repeated.

Enid picked up a small line and with a hook on one end. From a bucket she took a piece of raw meat and baited the hook. A little stone was tied above the hook, likely to give some stability. “This is what we do,” she said. She knelt at the side of the platform.

Sarah sat down abruptly, not daring to stand long on such a precarious perch. Then she and Abbey edged forward and watched as Enid lowered the line. Far beneath was a small stream. They watched the girl maneuver the line until it disappeared into the waters.

Enid held the line out to Sarah. “Would you like to try your luck?”

Sarah took the line and held onto it awkwardly. She had always enjoyed fishing but had never experienced anything like this.

“Sometimes we have good luck and catch a big fish. But usually they are very small,” Enid admitted.

Before long there was a tug on the line, though, and Sarah yelled, “I got one!” She jerked the line abruptly and felt the weight of the fish. It was evidently fairly large. She began pulling it in, hand over hand.

Abbey was cautiously peering over the side. “You’ve got one all right, Sarah! Pull him up!”

Sarah’s heart was thumping as it always did when she caught a fish. Finally she brought her catch up to where Enid could reach down, grab him by the jaw, and flip him over. “Oh, this is a nice one!” she cried. “He will feed a lot of us!”

Enid struck the fish sharply over the head with a stick, and he lay still. Then she took a knife out of a small box built on the side of the platform and expertly dressed the fish out. She set aside part of it—for bait, she said—then held up the large fillets. “We will divide this among some who need it.”

“Is that the way you usually do? Divide things?” Abbey asked curiously.

“Oh yes. There are many poor widows here who are unable to take care of themselves. And small children too. I will show you what we do.”

The next half hour was an eye-opener to both girls. Enid went from house to house, at each one cutting off a small portion of the fish. Some of the women they visited were quite old, and other houses had small children. But everywhere they went, the women seemed grateful. They would express their thanks to Sarah as soon as Enid told them that she had caught the fish.

Sarah was made thoughtful by all this. When they went back to their house, carrying very small pieces of the fish for their own supper, Sarah said, “That was very kind of you, Enid.”

“No, we just take care of each other here. All of the women do.” She looked worried for a moment and said with a frown, “And I didn’t think—we should have taken half of the fish to the king.”

“No,” Abbey said suddenly. “He’s got plenty of servants to catch fish for him. Those women don’t have anybody. Doesn’t he ever feed them?”

“My father actually is a very kind man. But he has many things on his mind.”

It was an admission that King Celevorn did sometimes fail to take care of his less able subjects. Sarah noted that and determined that somehow things would have to be different. “Tell me more about your father,” she said.

“The king is a good man. He has had only seven wives in his whole life.”

“Seven wives!” Abbey exclaimed.

“Uh … what happened to the women?”

“My mother is the only one left alive. Her name is Ione. She is the first woman of the king now.”

After Sarah listened to Enid explain the system, she said, “It’s like
Anna and the King of Siam”

“Who is that?” Enid asked.

“It’s a story about a king who had many wives all at one time, and they were all frightened of him. And a woman went to the king’s court and convinced him that women were truly important and should not be treated that way.”

“My father, the king, would never believe that!”

“You never can tell until you try, Enid,” Sarah said firmly.

They spent the rest of the afternoon with the young woman. It was getting late when they heard a strange cry. It was a wailing sound, full of distress and heartbreak.

“What’s that, Enid?” Abbey gasped, her face paling.

“It is not good news. I fear another one of our people has been taken.”

Enid led them to where a crowd was gathered. There a woman sat with her hair thrown in front of her face. She was rocking back and forth and great sobs shook her body.

“What is it?” Enid said, going over to her.

“They have taken my Romi.”

“Romi is taken by the Earth Dwellers?” Enid cried with a gasp.

“He went down to look for food, and they took him. I saw it myself. They took him away. He will be a slave forever—or else he will be sacrificed to Nimbo.”

At once Sarah said, “Is it a child? We will go down and take him back.”

“You cannot do that.”

Sarah turned to see Teanor standing behind them, his face stern. “The Earth Dwellers are already gone. You would never find them, and even if you did, you would be captured, too.”

“We can try!” Sarah cried. “You can’t just let one of your people be kidnapped without doing anything!”

“That is why I came to you for warriors!” Teanor snapped. “But I got only weak females!” He turned and stalked off, his back straight with anger.

For a time Sarah watched Enid try to comfort the mother. But finally she and Abbey went back to their guesthouse. It was getting dark, so they quickly rekindled the small fire, being very careful to use as little wood as possible. They managed to fry the remaining bits of fish, and they ate another tomato apiece.

“What I wouldn’t give for a big fat hamburger as big as a washtub.” Abbey sighed. They had eaten everything and knew there would be nothing else until the next day.

Sarah’s own stomach was far from filled. She said, “It must be awful to live like this. These are small people and very strong, but they don’t get much to eat. Not a balanced diet, I’m sure.”

“Sarah, let’s go down tomorrow, and we’ll kill a deer or something. I’m not as good a shot as you are, but we ought to be able to do something like that.”

There were no candles, and the girls could not afford to burn firewood. Their only illumination was the silvery moonlight that came through the open windows. So there was nothing to do after dark but go to bed. They had just a thin covering, and the air was very cool, so both decided to sleep in their clothes in order to keep warm.

Sarah was exhausted. Still, all that they had seen kept her awake. After a while she broke the silence and said, “Are you awake, Abbey?”

“Yes. Can’t sleep.”

“Neither can I. This is an awful place!”

“It’s worse in some ways than places filled with monsters. I feel so sorry for the women and the children here.”

“The boys have it pretty easy.” Sarah’s voice was tinged with bitterness. “It’s not a whole lot different from where we just came from.”

“Oh, Sarah! Don’t be silly. Of course it’s different. Are you still mad at Josh?”

Actually Sarah was ashamed of herself. She knew that she had been unjust to Josh and the other boys, but she stubbornly refused to admit it. She changed the subject abruptly. “Did you notice how Enid looks at Teanor?”

“Oh yes. I saw that right away. She’s crazy about him.”

“And he doesn’t know she’s alive!” Sarah snapped. “I’d like to pull his hair out.” Now she was cross again.

A breeze kept blowing, making a moaning in the tops of the trees. Finally she did drift off, but she slept restlessly.

     Sarah heard a footstep, and then a voice said, “Are you awake?”

She sat up at once, reaching for the knife that she always kept handy. She was groggy with sleep, but she said, “Yes. I’m awake.” Then she realized that was Enid, waiting for permission to enter. “Come on in, Enid.”

“I have brought your breakfast,” the young woman said shyly. She held in her hand a small wooden bowl filled with fruit. “These are very good melons. I grew them myself.”

By this time, Abbey was awake. The two girls washed their faces, using a small basin, then brushed their hair, tied it back, and sat down to breakfast.

Enid had brought them a small melon each and a bunch of grapes. It was not much, but the melons were indeed delicious.

“These are so good,” Abbey said. “And you grew them yourself?”

“Everyone likes my melons. I can never grow enough of them. Most of them go to my father, of course—for his table.”

Sarah almost spoke out about that, but she didn’t. Instead she said, “This is certainly the best melon I’ve ever eaten in NuWorld. It must be a lot of work to grow anything up here.”

“It is. We have to haul up fresh soil, and we have to be sure the platforms are not rotten. Last year six of our people died from falling through bad platforms. But only five of them were women.”

“Only five! Well, that’s wonderful!” Abbey muttered. She took a bite of juicy melon and wiped her chin as the juice ran down. “I wish you’d stop putting women down, Enid.”

Enid did not understand this at all.

“She means don’t say,
‘Only
women!’” Sarah urged. “One of the things we’ll have to teach you is that women and girls are just as important as men and boys.”

Enid looked around as if she were afraid someone would hear such talk. “Please! You must not talk like that. If anyone heard it, it would cause trouble.”

“I don’t care,” Sarah said. “Look at you. You’re a beautiful girl, and you’re in love with Teanor, aren’t you?”