"Tlanextli seems pestered today."
Yaotl sniffed the air curiously, letting the aromas seep in. Nothing seemed abnormal and she sighed with disappointment. "It's as if I could almost sense he was trying to warn me of something." She carefully put her snake down and began to drink from the river.
"Then... you feel it too?" asked Malina rubbing her own cobra companion between the eyes. "We both know that snakes are blessed with a sixth sense...they can sense when something wrong is about to happen."
"Yes... I'm not sure what they are trying to warn us about, let alone if they are trying to warn us of anything. Perhaps it is nothing at all, perhaps we are just being paranoid."
"Paranoid or not, as your high councilor I suggest we hold a small meeting."
"On a non-workday? I do not wish to disturb the elders for premonitions, Malinalxochitl. Let us wait and see what happens. Our people have worked hard during the last four days of harvesting. They should not be bothered by pitiful worries. We have festivals tomorrow - do we need to make them worry about this?"
"I suppose you're right," sighed Malina. "We should return to the city. They are awaiting our arrival to open up the wine caskets." Malina stopped, noticing her friend grinning. "Hopefully you will not shame yourself again this month. Your drinking habit does not please the elders in the least."
"Heh heh. They are just saddened because they cannot join us," she giggled, beginning her walk back to the city.
"Your drinking will be the death of you one day," Malina put in.
"Then I'll die happy. Besides, we only get the drink wine once a month, so why should I not enjoy myself?" The two continued down the road to Citlalmina, bickering and laughing, not noticing as Tlanextli slid down Yaotl's shoulder. He paused, his tongue flickering the air, sensing something close by.
Something he obviously did not like.
It was only when Yaotl shouted for him to come back that he finally slid away from the riverbank and into the city.
For the little flighty bird
That lives in the tree,
Life can be quite dry and barren.
I say leave the air to
The hawk and the bee.
Let's go gliding on the water
Just you and me!
For it's hey ya diddli-da,
Woosha li lo la--carousing
On the watery blue.
With the otter and the fish,
The crabs and turtles too.
Just wander'in on down the
Riiiiver!
"No, no no, Nai, you come in on Life can be quite dry and barren, and then it's woosha li lo, not hi no!"
"Oh Chilali, does it really matter? It's just an old canoeing song."
A turtle sunning itself on a rock in the middle of the slowly moving river opened its eyes and turned towards the sound of the noise. Six broad canoes glided by it, each guided by a single person. A few were pleasantly chatting amongst each other, but the real noise was coming from two girls who were lagging behind the others. The eldest of the six canoers called backwards to the two girls.
"Hey, Chilali, Naida, stop arguing, unless you feel like being left behind. We need to pick up the pace, so we can get to Terrangarak by tonight."
The turtle shrugged and went back to sunning itself.
"I know!" Naida called sweetly, paddling faster. Chilali made a little whine at being left behind and dug her paddle into the water to catch up. Her canoe glided easily through the water, not being laden down with goods from other cities and villages. The wind coming from the river tugged a few rouge strands of sea blue hair that had managed to slip out of her ever-present bun. She quickly caught up to her friend.
"So Nai, what are you planning to do when we get to Terrangarak, after we get the trade items?" Chilali asked.
"Oh, I don't know," Naida replied, watching a fish slip underneath her boat, "I guess I'll go see if I can find a new tent blanket. Mine's getting pretty thin."
"Hmmm..." Chilali muttered, "Yeah, I guess we could all use new tent blankets." Naida blushed.
"Also, I'm hoping I can maybe spot some handsome men. See? I redid my hair just for it." She pointed at her pale brown hair, which had been done up in two looped braids on the sides of her head. Chilali smiled and made a small sigh, shaking her head.
"Nai, you are absolutely hopeless. Is there ever a time that you're *not* thinking about guys?"
Naida thought for a moment. "Nope." Chili sighed again.
Chilali's cousin, Mato, glided up beside them. "Hey Chili, do you have any more of those grass wraps Abey made last night? I'm all out, and my stomach's growling up a storm." She glanced into the bottom of her boat. There were three of the dark green popover-like fish packets left.
"Yeah," She said, and started to smile again. "But why should I give one to you?" Mato put on the cutest pathetic face he could muster.
"Because I'm your darling, loveable cousin who is about ready to starve to death."
Naida sighed dreamily at the face Mato made, while Chilali rolled her eyes and put one of the plant-wrapped packets onto the broad side of her oar, and passed it to Mato. He took it gratefully and immediately started to devour it, nodding a thank you to Chilali.
Naida thrust her oar into the water and stopped so she could get around Chili and sidle up to Mato's canoe. "So Mato, did you notice how I put my hair up today?" Mato just looked at her funny, his mouth full of fish.
Chilali paddled faster to catch up to the others and to leave Naida and Mato alone for the moment. Nai's flirtatious lines became distant to her as she started thinking. The funny, hard feeling in her stomach returned. For the past couple of days, she had been hearing trickling water in her dreams, which wouldn't have been a problem - as she was always around water, it frequently was in her dreams - except that it was more vivid and lifelike than any dream. When she awoke, there would be the loud sound of water in her ears, the hard, water-filled feeling in her stomach, and a strange, warm, smooth water-like feeling on her hand, where the riverstone on her hand was. She looked down at her hand, examining the smooth gray riverstone with the odd spiral marking, embedded in the ring-bracelet net worn on her hand. It looked normal enough. Chilali shook her head.
It's nothing. She thought. Why am I getting worried about my sleeping habits? I'm probably just tired. Abey has been pushing us pretty had with this run through. After this next run through, I'll spend the break days sleeping, and these weird dreams will go away. That's all it is. I'm getting worked up over nothing. Heh, maybe I'm turning into Nai!
"Chilali," A voice called out. Chilali turned to see Abey next to her canoe. "Are you okay?"
Chili shook her head to clear away the clouds. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Abey raised an eyebrow, but didn't say anything more about it. "Well listen, we're going to come to the fork in the river soon, and that's typically where scouts leave markers. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled on the bank for signals, okay?"
"Sure Abey!" Chili said cheerfully, and pushed away to go rejoin Naida and Mato. As she glanced at the trees lining the riverbank, looking for the signals(which were trees that had been partially stripped of their bark in a design that told boaters that there was a marker underneath that tree). As she struck up a conversation with the two, the strange feelings lingered in the back of her mind. She abruptly shoved them down, and continued merrily on her way down the river.
"Okay, uh, Abey...where's this tributary you were talking about?"
After turning into the left river, the Manru, the Carrier team had paddled down the river for what seemed like ages. However, they found no sign of the boulder or the tributary that Abey had spoken of.
"It MUST be around here somewhere!" Abey grumbled, "People don't move boulders, and tributaries don't suddenly decide to go migrating."
"I'm starting to get really worried Chilali," Naida said aside to her blue-haired friend. "We must have traveled at least twenty lakelengths by now, and that is way past Terrangarak. And look at the sun! It is getting ready to set already." Chili just looked over at Naida.
"You are such a worrier, Nai! We'll find that tributary, you'll see! It just takes a little looking. Maybe the boulder is farther down than Abey remembered."
"Twenty lakelengths worth?"
Chilali was about to reply to her friend's remark when Abey called for everyone to go to the side of the river and beach the boats. They gathered at the bank and looked, waiting for Abey to speak. He looked bothered and frustrated.
"I'm afraid I can't quite believe it, but we're lost." The other five Carriers muttered.
"Lost?" Mato asked, "How can we be lost?"
"I don't know. The best way that I can explain it, is that something must have happened to the river, a course change is the only way I can figure it, and covered the boulder, so while we were looking for the boulder, we missed the tributary on the other side. And with this new course, we really didn't notice how far down we were. I think maybe something changed the marker we saw."
"Changed it? What would change it so drastically?" Naida wondered.
Abey shook his head and shrugged. "A scuffle over it between animals? Who knows? What's important now is that we figure out where we are, and then decide the best course of action."
Over the next hour, the Carrier team worked to figure out where they were. Abey sent Chilali and Naida down the riverbank to look for markers that might provide clues as to where they were, as well as the bends in the riverbank, while the others stayed and tried to piece together what they could about the Manru and how far down they could possibly be. After going down a short way and trying to figure out all they could about the river, Chilali and Naida reported their findings.
"All right, I think I know where we are." Abey declared finally after much debate. The sun was almost completely gone from the sky. "We've overshot Terrangarak by about twenty lakelengths. I still have no idea how we managed to get down so far in such a short length of time, but that isn't important now." He drew a line representing the Manru in the damp soil of the riverbank with his finger. "We're in this length of the Manru here. Actually, we're at the point where the bend in the river runs very close to a river a short distance from there. It runs next to the Manru and carries on to another city, the city of the Citlalmina if I remember correctly. Typically the Malila team goes there, but with our current predicament, I think it would be a lot less stress and uphill paddling if we were to go there instead."
"What about Terrangarak?" Chilali asked. Abey sighed.
"The only thing we can do is send somebody back upriver to find the tributary, cut through, and tell them that we had a change of plans. We'll come back on our next run." He turned to Satinka, a strong, experienced Carrier. "Satinka, I want you to go back upstream, and try to find the tributary to save yourself some time, and to avoid the rapids if they really are there. Tell the people at Terrangarak that we apologize, but we had a change of plans. And be careful."
Satinka nodded. "Yes, I will Abey." Within moments she had left, traveling back upriver.
"Why can't I go and do it?" Mato asked in a somewhat whiny voice.
"Because you're not experienced enough and couldn't handle such a long trip upstream," Abey replied. Chilali stifled a giggle. "All right, we'll camp here for the night, and head for the city of the Citlalmina in the morning, and negotiate to go looking for merchants to do business with." He looked at Etu, a large man who was the last of the six Carriers in the Tawana team. "We're going to need to leave the boats here. Can you keep watch of them while we're gone? We should only be gone a few days."
"Yeah, I think I can handle it." Etu replied.
"Okay. Let's set up camp."
Naida and Chilali started to pull out the tent blankets out of their canoes. "So, do you know anything about the city of the Citlalmina, Chili?" Naida asked.
"Not really." Chili replied. "I mean, we've never been there before. I think my family's houseboat went on their river once, but we were told to turn back by one of the people who lives near there, because the waters were supposedly dangerous. I've only heard what the other team has said when we meet back on Turtle Island. They say it's a huge city surrounded by mountains and the river with big stone temples and colorful houses and everything." She smiled eagerly. "I'm really looking forward to seeing the city. It must be incredible! I've also heard something about snakes, but I'm not sure about that."
Naida shuddered slightly. "Snakes. I'm not particularly fond of snakes."
Chili smiled and continued to set up her tiny pup tent. She started to wonder if the strange dream would return while she slept. The intense sound of rushing water returned in her ears, quite strong. She shook her head fiercely and shoved the strange feeling down again. She wasn't going to let this pointless feeling that was probably nothing let her lose some sleep. She was going to need her rest. Tomorrow was going to be a big day.
x
