[Prologue]    [Chapter 1]   [Chapter 2]    [Chapter 3]    [Chapter 4]    [Chapter 5]    [Chapter 6]    [Chapter 7]    [Chapter 8]    [Chapter 9]    [Chapter 10]    [Chapter 11]    [Chapter 12]    [Chapter 13]    [Chapter 14]    [Chapter 15]    [Chapter 16]    [Chapter 17]    [Chapter 19]    [Chapter 20]    [Chapter 21]    [Chapter 22]    [Chapter 23]    [Chapter 24]    [Chapter 25]    [Chapter 26]    [Chapter 27]    [Chapter 28]    [Chapter 29]    [Chapter 30]    [Epilogue]
   

Chapter 18

It was morning, they were to go to the Catlan Marshes that afternoon. Believe it or not, everyone decided it was better for Corina to come along.
    They were getting their gear together. All of them were feeling a little ridiculous because they were wearing nothing but black and white. All of them were wearing white bodysuits, with or without sleeves, with wearing white gloves. Each Taklan was wearing either white or black shoes-most of them were wearing the black ones.
    They were putting on black cloaks (really big coats). Yanthro was getting some stuff out of a box. Some Taklans were putting on their belts which had 2 pouches-that were quite big. One pouch carried a black bottle full of water and the other one was empty.
    “So what’s this pouch for?” Loria asked, holding the empty pouch.
    “That carries your food and mouth sweets,” said Yanthro.
    Loria was about to ask what mouth sweets were when Kuni said: “A mouth sweet is a sweet that cleans your teeth when you chew on it.”
    “These things have hoods,” said Corina, holding her hood.
    Yanthro held up his stuff while the others were still putting on their belts. In his left hand he was holding a black thing that looked like a huge, floppy hat. He shook it. “Better for Tyrons.” He walked to Zana and gave it to him. “It will help to hide your head-feathers.” Zana put it over his head and grinned while everybody laughed.
    “Would you like the scarf Loria?” Yanthro asked.
    “Well, sure.” Loria took it from him. “But what do these do?”
    “The veil and scarf protect your face from the sand storms,” Kuni told everyone. She and the Doglan got more of them out of the box.

The little shuttle that carried them all landed. The pilot landed it under a tree so that it was hidden. The Taklans stepped out.
    Kuni at one point stopped and looked around her. The Catlan Marshes were well and truly marshes. There were many patches of shallow water with reeds sticking up. There were many rivers shallow and deep, that went along patches of grassy land. The land patches were big and small; the smaller ones didn’t have anything on them except for fishing rods and nets and children played on them. The bigger ones had small houses and buildings, children played near there too. There were many palm trees and bushes on the bigger  lands.
    Kuni then ran to someone who was sitting under a tree. He was the skinniest man anyone had seen. He had Zana’s hairstyle, black eyes and hair but his hair had tiny streaks of grey. When he stood up, everyone else started to realise who he was.
    Balka-Rae hugged his daughter for a long time. When he did let go, he looked at the rest of the Taklans.
    “He looks a little like me, but a few inches shorter,” Zana thought.
    “My name is Balka-Rae, but I’d prefer you to call me Balka.” Balka-Rae then looked at Zana and grinned. “But you can call me Dad.”
    “He acts like Zana does,” thought Loria.
    Zana angrily looked away. Balka-Rae looked sad. He waited a bit, then slowly walked to a hill. They followed him and stood at the top.
    They looked down and saw smaller rivers and small hills. There were a few rows of small houses. They could see a lot of Catlans and Doglans-they could tell who’s what. The children were playing and the older ones were either relaxing or farming. Some of them were in the rivers and were throwing nets or poking fish with their pike sticks. Beyond all that was the Sea.
    They followed Balka-Rae down the other side of the hill. The Catlans-who were all farmers-were all very skinny but muscular, like Balka and Kuni. The Doglans came in all shapes and sizes: some had curly hair and some had straight hair. Some had really thick hair and others had really thin hair. Some were humongous in size and some were absolute midgets. Doglan men were the ones who had beards.
    As they walked along the marshes, the Taklans found themselves being sniffed by little Doglan children. Yanthro ran off. The others didn’t know what to say.
    Out of nowhere was a huge splash. Giggles were everywhere. 4 people were standing in the river next to the sea. One man had bronze skin and long, white hair. The other man had shiny green skin with short, royal blue hair. A woman had shiny blue skin and long, silver hair and the girl who looked 17 had silver skin with shiny blue hair.
    “They’re Zamaki fish!” Jaron realised.
    Corina was staring at their hands. They had flappy bits between their fingers. “Corina don’t stare,” Loria told her telepathically.
    The man with the short hair gave his net of fish to a Catlan farmer, children went to the other two and the girl went to the visitors. Balka-Rae wandered off.
    “We’ve never seen you here before,” the Zamaki girl said with a smile. “I’m Selvi.”
    “King Jaron,” Jaron said. “We’re here 'cos of Balka’s plan.”
    “He’s going to have it carried out?” Selvi asked. “That’s great! It’s what all of Takla have been waiting for! We need to get the best cod caught! Why are you staring at me?”
    Selvi looked at the Tellen Princess. Corina was now staring at Selvi’s feet. Instead of having toes, she had duck’s feet.
    Zana started wandering away, Taklans were arguing behind him. He walked up to the Zamaki with short hair. He saw the colour of the body suit he was wearing.
    “Red,” said Zana. (The other Zamakis were wearing white.) The Zamaki looked at him. “That means you’re a trade chief doesn’t it?”
    “The deputy to the chief actually, the name’s Kem.”
    “Zana.” They shook hands.
    “Mind to help me with this?” asked Kem.
    The Tyron nodded. He followed him slowly. Kem was walking into the shallow sea, so Zana started to fly above the sea real slow.
    Kem held up a large fish tail. “You hold onto this.” Zana held the tail, Kem went further into the sea. When nothing but his eyes were above the water, the Kazama held up his head and put his mouth in the air. “Pull the tail on to land.”
    Zana flew backwards slowly until they were both on land and dropped what looked like a dolphin.
    “A Kingdom Whale?” asked Zana. “These are worth a fortune!”
    “They’re also sacred to the seas,” Kem told the Tyron. “The deal is, we hunt a whale for them every 2 months and they give us 4 bagfuls of Marsh Selk Herbs.”
    “What are..?” Kem looked at the bush next to him. “Oh, the salty stuff,” Zana found out.
    Rida walked along the shore and saw the fields of plants. One had potato plants, another had the Catlan styled wheat growing, but he didn’t know what the other plants were.
    Zana tugged his arm. “C’mon, Balka says we should get inside.”
    Rida followed him. “Shouldn’t you be calling him Dad?” he thought.
    They came to one of the houses and went inside. They went down the stairs (there are no stairs that go up) and saw a bed that was pushed forward, showing a small gap in the wall. Through the gap was a few more stairs. The 2 Tyrons went down the steps, then found themselves in a small room of sleeping bags. Balka-Rae was sitting on one.
    “Come in,” he said looking at them. “It’s safer in here. Whenever patrols come along looking for us, they can never find us ‘cos we’re so well hidden.”
    The Tyrons sat on a sleeping bag while other Taklans came in. When Zana, Rida, Loria, Jaron, Corina and Kuni (with Balka-Rae) were all inside, they heard the bump when the bed was pushed against the wall-to hide the gap. They all looked scared.
    Balka giggled. “Don’t be scared, we’re not trapped in here. When we want to go out, all we have to do is push the bed.”
    “Okay,” began Jaron. “We know that the plan is we walk across the desert on top of the secret tunnels. When we get to Imperial, we disable the outer parts like security cameras to let the armies raid.”
    “Are you trying to take my job Jaron?” Zana asked.
    He looked at his Dad. “We’re also meant to tell the sneaking armies if there’s any change of plans or weird things in the tunnels. How’re we meant to do that with no radio?” Balka-Rae held up something.
    “Text messaging?” Jaron asked. “No one’s done that in 50 years.”
    “Nomads talk to each other this way,” Balka told everyone. “But they text each other with the Catlan Imperial’s digital frequency, so their messages are tracked. But we’ve made our own frequency so the messages only go from this to one other mobile.”
    “Where’s the other mobile?” asked Loria.
    “Zammy’s got it somewhere,” answered Balka. “I’ll have to find him. We leave tonight at midnight, until then, lay your cloaks out in the Sun. Any questions?”
    Corina had her hand up. “Uh, if the desert’s really hot, why do we need to warm up our cloaks?”
    “How warm is it at night?” asked Balka.
    “Really hot?” guessed Corina. “I dunno.”
    “At night, there are no clouds. The desert turns freezing cold.” “What a stupid girl, perhaps the desert will knock some sense into her,” thought Balka.
    Balka looked mad so Taklans started to slowly go out of the room. Rida walked up to Balka-Rae.
    “Mm Balka?” He looked at Rida. Kuni was standing next to her Dad now. “You wear black, aren’t you supposed to be wearing white?”
    “The suit I wear to travel the desert is really old so I keep it safe.” Balka smiled at the Tyron. Rida slowly walked away. “I pensa he oz bessa our,” Balka said to his daughter. He had just said: 'I thought he was all better now’.
    “He sax liezat quen peep look mons.” Kuni had just said: 'He acts like that when people look scary’. Balka stared at her.

©Ruth Amy Louise Hüneke 2008