Dream of Ka'ah'Li

Chapter One

“There weren’t always dragons in the Valley.” The words broke through the filmy membrane of Ka'ah'Li’s dream, reverberations from another world. She saw the colors of the words shimmering in front of her. Felt them bump up against her, one after another. Tasted them on her tongue, before her eardrums finally registered them as sounds. With a great effort, as though her eyelids were iron gates closing out enemy troops, the wafish girl managed to pull them up halfway.

A surge of images from the dreamworld flashed and fizzled across her retina, a last attempt to hold her in their disturbing grip; a woman, who reminds her of Ma’ah’La but isn’t, …Confusion!…a beloved's eyes as he kisses her slowly… Longing!…a brilliant CRACK of lightning…Horror!…the tiny, lifeless body of a baby, small enough to fit in one hand…Grief!…a rushing of dragon wings spiraling around her…Oblivion!.

Ka'ah'Li struggled free of the visions and attempted to bring her surroundings into focus. Shafts of late afternoon sunlight streamed in from small, high windows made of uneven glass, set in a thick cobb wall. The light penetrated the haze of the familiar, one-room cottage. It pierced bundles of pungent herbs hanging from the ceiling and dappled stacks of irregular woven baskets, before falling softly on the hand-smoothed, earthen walls.

Ma’ah’La sat in a flood of apricot light from the open door. Her mass of wiry, dark curls writhed in the glow above her, an impression of Medusa, thought Ka’ah’Li. She was bent over papers strewn across an ornate wooden table, books piled around her like a fortress wall.

“Did you saaay sooomething?”, Ka'ah'Li yawned the question, stretching her lean, freckled limbs languidly across the shabby divan. The divan had once been a prized piece for a ladies parlor, its elegantly crafted curves and rolled back covered with smoky-green velvet. But like the rest of the sparse furnishings in the tiny sanctuary, it was now comfortably shabby. “I said,” Ma’ah’La repeated, in her casual--mildly austere--manner, gaze fixed on her work, “there weren’t always dragons in the valley.”

Ka'ah'Li propped herself up heavily onto one elbow. She pursed her mouth and narrowed her eyes in the other woman’s direction. She had no idea where this strange declaration was coming from, no segway from any conversation she could remember. But Ma’ah’La was nothing if not inscrutable.

At least fifty percent of the time Ka’ah’Li could be sure that the older woman's words were some kind of bait, or doorway into shady realms, that would leave her feeling confused and overwhelmed. Sometimes the things Ma’ah’La would say haunted Ka’ah’Li for days. She couldn’t blame the nightmares on Ma’ah’La though, she reflected to herself, as she reached out absently to stroke the little brown cat purring softly at her side. She'd had the nightmares for as long as she could remember.

______

The girl’s life had been both sheltered and tough right from the start. Her aging parents had already raised eight children in this harsh place before she came along. A place Not meant for human habitation!, according to Ka’ah’Li. When she was born the neighbors had called her “a gift for her parents' golden years”. Later, they called her a curse.

Growing up, Ka’ah’Li’s parents often told her of her birth. “You were born on the first day of Holy Harvest!” her father, Ka’i’eL, always began. She had wondered even as a child why that day was Holy, in a valley where almost nothing grew.

“And, on your father’s forty-ninth Sun Return,” her mother, Io’a’Ni, would chime in proudly. “You arrived with a mighty storm from the West that darkened the summer sky,” Ka’i’eL would go on excitedly. “Those black clouds threw down bolts of lightning that burned old Jo’Da’eL’s po’du coop and the Pad’Mar’s shat shack to the ground!” Then her parents would hold their bellies and laugh.

But her birth had been no laughing matter at the time. Io’a’Ni’s worn body almost hadn’t had the stamina to make it through her long labor. The delivery was dry and painful, the waters having burst three days before. The baby came out with the bag caked around her, along with her own sticky, black meconium. “Even cleaned up”, her father would recall with a wink, “we couldn’t get near you for two weeks on account of the smell!” Then he’d hug her tightly, and rub his nose in her hair, snuffling like a dog. The midwives in the valley told the tale that “a baby born in the bag would be blessed and lucky all her life”. Ka’ah’Li figured she had a proportional measure of good and bad luck on her side, what with the shat thrown in.

______

Ma’ah’La was definitely on the good luck side of things, in Ka’ah’Li’s reckoning. In spite of her unnerving ways, Ka’ah’Li still felt safest and most herself when they were together. But, a time without dragons in the valley? It hardly seemed a point for discussion. Ka’ah’Li was pretty sure that, this time, her scholarly friend was mistaken.

The girl had lived in the O’Te’Ra valley all her life. She’d never heard anyone suggest that dragons were anything but a harsh reality of life, along with the stinging scaratrix and annoying naggits. As far as Ka'ah'Li knew they were a fact of life everywhere.

“I can’t remember a time without dragons,” she countered, taking Ma’ah’La’s bait, “what makes you think they weren’t always here?”

Ma’ah’La straightened her back--bare except for the laces of her scant top--and looked across the room at Ka'ah'Li. There was something of a stone statue coming to life in her movement and weighted stare. She drew in a deep breath as though for the first time that day and let it go with her words. “I thought you’d never ask.” Ma’ah’La smiled cryptically. Then she rose, and began gathering up her star charts and pencils.

“I think we’ve been hanging around this dusty place enough for one day,” she observed, tucking her charts into the brass handled drawer of an intricately carved cabinet. “Are you ready to explore the depths?” she asked, raising her eyebrows dramatically.

Ka'ah'Li knew this meant they were about to enter into some sort of mysterious quest, not a conversation.

______

Ka’ah’Li was usually easy game for adventures, perhaps compensation for the sheltered part of her upbringing. The neighbors all thought that some of the lightning from her birth day storm had gotten into her veins, because “she sure didn’t get those wicked ways from Ka’i’eL and Io’a’Ni”, they’d say to one another.

Her parents were simple, loving souls. But they were also staunch believers in the traditional ways of the Mor’Je’Kai faith. A strict sect of the mainstream Mor’o’Je religion, Mor’Je’Kai communities had been slowly dissolving over the past century. But Ka’i’eL and Io’a’Ni were true believers. They had moved to the valley long ago to raise their large brood according to their beliefs, and away from “the evils of the world”.

Most of the O’Te’Ra valley’s scattered inhabitants were zealots of some faction or another, trying desperately to escape a modern world that had no use for the ways of sky gods or simple folk. The townspeople joked that the valley had “more prophets per square sectaire than a farmer had naggits in his teeth''.

The violence that occasionally broke out in the valley, between opposing factions and families, added a sharp degree of fear and anxiety to daily life. When Ka’ah’Li was twelve, her mother had gone up the lane to buy po’du eggs for morning-meal from their Mor’Je’Rue neighbors. Io’a’Ni returned home hysterical, having found the whole family slaughtered in their bedclothes, down to the two year old girl, who Ka’ah’Li had looked after from time to time. It seemed to her that everyone in the valley was trying to shove their version of The truth down her throat, or marry her into it.

When she was only fourteen, Ka’ah’Li’s parents had tried to force her into marriage with the widowed son of another Mor’Je’Kai family. Her parents believed they were protecting her from the threat of eternal damnation, should she be seduced by one of the other sects. “It won’t hurt for long!” her father half teased. “You’ll learn to love him,” her mother half pleaded. It quickly became clear that her own desires and protests were not going to be taken into account. Always more clever than her parents, Ka’ah’Li decided to bide her time and play along.

During the family’s next visit to the nearest town--a three hour journey--for food and supplies, Ka’ah’Li made her escape. Claiming she needed to use the shat-shacks, she had slipped out the back of the bustling open-air-market and made her way through the narrow streets to a trading post at the edge of town. There, she had exchanged her gold engagement bracelets for a ride to Sal’a’Sai city, in the North. The eccentric, traveling courier she’d ridden with had been a complete stranger, but aside from his frequent hocking and snorting, he’d been kind enough. The highways were a dangerous place, even for strong men to travel alone. She’d been lucky to have made it there in one piece, Kah’ah’Li reflected on her risky maneuver, long afterward.

______

Ma’ah’La had been Ka'ah'Li’s closest friend since she returned to the O’Te’Ra valley three years ago, after several hard months on the streets of Sal’a’Sai city. From then on it seemed like they had never been without the other. Ka’ah’Li frequently spent several days in a row at Ma’ah’La’s cottage, helping her with her work. In the evenings they would lay in the soft sand by the firepit and stare up into the vast desert sky, Ma’ah’La pointing out planets and constellations, Ka’ah’Li telling stories of her life in the city.

Ma’ah’La seemed to understand the headstrong young woman better than Ka’ah’Li understood herself. She had come to take for granted the--often present--mentor-pupil aspect of their relationship and assumed it was based on the difference in age. Ka'ah'Li knew Ma’ah’La was older than her, at times she suspected by a lot, but she had never asked and Ma’ah’La had never offered. It was impossible to tell from looks alone. When Ka'ah'Li thought too much about that she’d get a nervous pit in her stomach, like she didn’t really know her friend at all.

She brushed that aside now. Still gathering her energy back from the dreamworld, she pushed herself up groggily, shoving a tangle of fine, rusty curls out of her face with one hand. She knew there was little use resisting Ma’ah’La when she had determined a course of action. “Are you ready to explore the depths”, hadn’t really been a question.

Afternoon naps always made Ka’ah’Li feel like she’d been using O’Cha. She didn’t feel at all like an explorer, ready to hit the trail into the unknown. But she had pushed through much more than a little post-nap inertia, she reflected.

______

The streets of the wealthy city of Sal’a’Sai, 400 sectaires to the north of O’Te’Ra valley, were much harder living than Ka’ah’Li had imagined. The poor and needy who were not members of the Mor’o’Je religion--which was now more of a political and social institution than a faith--were shunned by the culture and forced to turn to the venal and corrupt underworld for survival. And as the fall wore on, the nights became bitter cold.

Ka’ah’Li had older siblings living in the city, with families of their own, but she feared turning to them would put her right back where she’d started. When she looked back on that time, she figured her luck was the only way she had managed to avoid the slave scouts and flesh macks that were the fate of so many young girls like her.

Huddling for warmth in a public transit shelter one frigid night, Ka’ah’Li met two young brothers, To’Ma’eL and Ga’Vi’eD, who were also runaways. The boys shared their warm food with her, freshly salvaged from restaurant waste bins in a nearby alley. They convinced her that she would be safer with them, and their O’Cha Clan, than trying to go it alone on the streets.

The Clan, normally composed of fourteen filthy, half starved, O’Cha junkies, had lost a member and invited Ka’ah’Li to fill the spot. They lived in a coop beneath the ruins of a hillside manse, left over from the days when keeping dragons and other such beasts was a common practice among the wealthy. The coop was a forgotten relic and out of sight to passers by. The dank, cavernous place smelled of smoke, moldering straw, ancient dragon scat and the rot of its unlucky meals. The youths survived on food scraps from restaurants and garbage bins and whatever else they could steal or hustle.

Ka’ah’Li was informed that if she chose to join the Clan, O’cha use was not optional. The addiction was part of their strategy for safety, and their bond. Upon taking desperate oaths that she would keep the Clan secrets and live by their ways--or suffer death--Ka’ah’Li was fitted with a set of iron anklets, which were worn by all Clan Members.

These irons were gathered from old coops around the city. They had been used to keep deer, cattle and other dragon food, from fleeing into nooks or byways of the coops cavern, thus evading their similarly fettered predator. Each anklet had a loop of metal on the outside edge where a chain could be fastened. The keys to take off the irons were kept locked in a cement chamber under the floor of the coop. Besides being a sign of Clan membership, and occasionally useful in street skirmishes, they were part of the nightly ritual that kept them all safe and bonded, literally.

The O’Cha elixir was prepared each day by a rotating pair of Clan members. The roots and flowers used for the concoction were boiled over a fire pit deep in the belly of the coop. Ka’ah’Li learned that all coops had a self-drawing smokestack built into their center. Because dragons liked their meals well done?, she wondered morbidly.

At the end of each day, the Clan would gather in a circle near the fire. The members were bound to place all of their days' food and treasure in the center, along with the O’Cha for that night. Then they would draw straws. The first two straws were for that night's guards, referred to as The Two. “There are always two guards”, To’Ma’eL whispered to Ka’ah’Li on her first night in the coop, “to keep each other company through the long night, and to keep each other in line”.

The Two were each given an extra portion of food, and payment of some sort from the day's accumulations. They were also reminded solemnly of their vows and--though Ka’ah’Li never saw it happen--warned that should anyone be hurt or anything stolen during the night, they would both have their throats cut. Then they were sent out of the coop while the final straw was drawn and preparations made for the night's O’Cha trance.

The owner of the last straw drawn for that night would be The One. The One would be given a single, small, tarnished key, which they would swallow, everyone taking a first dipper of O’Cha tea. The One was also given payment and an extra portion of food for the next morning, fruit if they had it, to assist with the extraction of the key. A process they often joked and teased each other about, to Ka’ah’Li’s disgust. Every morning after the key was…retrieved…it would be added to the vat of O’Cha, where it would boil until the time came for its nightly journey through the bowels of the next lucky One.

After the first dose of O’Cha, the partakers removed sleeping pads and blankets from the cement chamber under the floor and placed all of their food and goods inside it, along with the anklet keys and other clan valuables. Ka’ah’Li didn’t like to think about what that chamber had been used for during the times of the dragon keepers, or what fowl fluids had left the dark stains on its walls and floor.

The chamber doors were two half circles of solid iron, each with a thick iron loop for a handle along its inside edge. The doors were opened and closed using ropes, threaded through pulleys bolted to the stone walls on either side, then tied to the handles of the doors. After the goods were all stored, the doors were carefully lowered. Finally, the doors were secured with a hinged circlet of steel, like a giant’s key-ring, that slid through the handles and locked when closed. It was this lock that The One protected the key to.

Twelve sections of chain were attached to the steel loop, each with a locking ring at its end. This special piece had been fashioned by a smithy for the long-dead founder of the O’Cha Clan. And its symbol, a circle with twelve rays, was worn as a tattoo by many of the Clan. After locking the chamber, the sleeping pads and blankets were laid out on the floor, in an identical star pattern, the locked handles of the doors at the center. At this point The Two would be called in for their watch, never knowing which of the others was The One, holding the key to all the clan's goods in their belly.

The O’Cha partakers would each then move to a wreaking, flea ridden pad and blanket and secured one anklet to a section of chain with the locking ring at its end. Their ritual would be completed with a chant to the Daemon of the O’Cha. Then The Two would dole out the second doses and the others would finally lay down for a night of oblivion, under the watch of their guards.

Ka’ah’Li wasn’t sure how long she lived like this, scrounging and hustling in a half conscious stupor during the day, following O’Cha into oblivion at night. She had lost her sense of place and time, and almost her sanity when one drizzly, gray day, as she foraged through wet garbage in an alley at the edge of the suburbs, her third oldest brother, Ma’ka’eL, passed by. She never asked him how he’d recognized her, head shaved and bone thin, in rags dripping with fowl. And, she didn’t resist for long when he pleaded with her to come home with him.

Ma’ka’eL’s children were fascinated by their exotic aunt, not much older than the oldest of them. They took turns serving her hot soup and fruit in a little side room of their home, until she finished purging from the O’Cha and began to return to sanity. When Ka’ah’Li’s parents got news that she had been found alive and was returning to health, they had been so relieved that they begged her to come back to them, with promises that they would never again try to force her into their ways. After a few months of recuperation with her brother’s family, Ka’ah’Li relented. She allowed her brother to cut the irons from her ankles, knowing she could never show her face safely in the city of Sal’a’Sai again, and returned home to O’Te’Ra, the valley of thorn covered plants and people.

The people of O’Te’Ra now treated her like damaged goods, or some kind of pariah, which satisfied Ka’ah’Li just fine. She liked being alone and had no desire to be wrapped up in their power plays and agendas. She went out of her way to avoid seeing people, spending her free time away from the family farm, on long walks through the desert with her father’s dog No’Li’a.

She and No’Li’a had both been a bit startled the day they happened upon Ma’ah’La at the spring traugh, not long after Ka’ah’Li’s return. She usually found solitude here, and was annoyed to begin with, at having to break her reverie with niceties to someone she barely knew, and who was sure to say terrible things about her to the rest of the valley. But Ma’ah’La had only smiled warmly and asked for her help getting the spring pump primed.

Of course, Ka’ah’Li’s parents didn’t really approve of the friendship. Ma’ah’La was far from their narrow view of how a woman should be, without husband or faith, that anyone knew of. But they were so grateful to have their youngest child back and alive that they kept their judgments all but hidden behind their aging eyes, which also satisfied Ka’ahLi just fine.

_____

Ka'ah'Li yawned again and rose from the divan. As she made her way clumsily to the door, she nearly stumbled over Tun’Ka’La, the little familiar cat, who cursed her with a wild-eyed hiss and jumped onto a high shelf.

“Isn’t it getting a little late in the day to go hiking?” she asked weakly, as she stepped onto the flagstone porch and looked out over the desert expanse, toward the pinkening horizon.

Ma’ah’La’s hand-built cobb house was nestled between two huge sandstone slabs at the base of O’Te”Ra’s Eastern most mesa. The immense, sprawling valley was surrounded by looming, fortress-like mesas on all sides except the West, which was open all the way to the end of the world it seemed. The ubiquitous pink-orange sand of the desert was dotted with sage and unfriendlier cacti, punctuated by dark scrubby junipers, which accumulated in clusters at the hems of the flaring mesas. Here and there, thin lines of smoke were starting to jut up, as the valley’s hundred or so homesteading families began evening meal preparations.

Ma’ah’La was already at the kitchenette counter, pouring tea into a hydro-pack and pulling dried fruit and the makings for sandwiches out of her ice-box and cupboards.

“The Moon’s almost full,” she answered over her shoulder, “we’ll have plenty of time to get where we’re going.” Ma’ah’La brushed off Ka'ah'Li’s concern lightly, and began to issue instructions. “Why don’t you roll up a couple of blankets and put them in that green pack under the bed, with the sleeping pads .”

Ka'ah'Li wasn’t exactly opposed to the idea, but she didn’t like to feel bossed around, even by Ma’ah’La. She walked over to the kitchen and picked up her mug of cold tea from earlier in the day. “Camping out then?” She ventured, leaning back against the intricate, hand-tiled countertop, next to where Ma’ah’La was slicing and cutting. “We’ll see how things go,” was Ma’ah’La’s well-worn response. Ka’ah’Li gulped down the last of her tea. Then, with one last try at being part of the decision making, she set down her mug--maybe just a little harder than necessary. “Are you going to tell me where we’re headed at least, and what in the world it has to do with dragons?”

Ma’ah’La paused, carbon-steel bread-knife mid cut and turned her head toward Ka’ah’Li. Her deep yellow eyes met Ka'ah'Li’s misty green, sending a pulse of love and something just a little uneasy down Ka'ah'Li’s spine. “It wouldn’t be an adventure if you had all the answers up front, now would it.” Ma’ah’La observed catily, with a wink and a grin, then turned back to her preparations.

Half an hour later they were setting off, side by side through the blooming sage, along a coral-sand trail skirting Ma’ah’La’s mesa to the northeast. Her tiny cottage and garden disappeared quickly behind the monoliths of fallen sand-stone. The pack-beladen pair walked for some time in silent reverence for the pastel and flame magnificence commanded by setting sun. The mid-summer heat still rippled up from the desert floor, but they both knew from experience it would get chilly quickly once the Sun was completely gone.

Just before the last of the light faded they crossed a narrow stream, hopping nimbly from stone to stone, feet bare and skirts hiked up. They paused on the other side to slip back into their kenaf bootkins. As they bent to lace the thick straps up their lean muscled calves, Ka'ah'Li found an angle of approach she was sure Ma’ah’La wouldn’t snub. “Sooo, if you don’t believe the dragons have always been here, then where do you think they came from, and how do you think they got here in the first place?”

She worked to keep the skepticism from her tone, leaning into the question with as much curiosity as she could muster. It wasn’t that she didn’t have any interest in the dragons themselves, it was just that she was holding back her true curiosity about what was really behind this expedition. She knew Ma’ah’La well enough to know that she usually started in at least three steps away from the thing she was really getting at, or leading Ka'ah'Li to. It could be frustrating at times. Ka'ah'Li would have preferred a little more straightforward and a little less mystery. But that was really only because it made her anxious, or more anxious than she already was. At the same time, she also knew Ma’ah’La well enough to know that her stories, or lessons, usually turned out amazing in the end.

Finishing with her laces, Ma’ah’La picked up her pack, slung it over her shoulders and waited for Ka'ah'Li to do the same, then met her eyes again in that unsettling way she had. Ka'ah'Li was pretty sure Ma’ah’La had seen through all of the layers behind her question. Evidently, she found them acceptable.

“Well yes,” Ma’ah’La affirmed gravely, with a short nod, “that is the right question.”. “The truth is,” she shook her head side to side as she continued, “I don’t know exactly where the dragons came from, or how they got here.” Ma’ah’La paused for effect and looked more sharply into Ka’ah’Li’s widening eyes, “But I do know when. So…” she spoke slowly and with quiet emphasis, “I have a pretty strong suspicion about the where and the how.”

Without waiting for Ka’ah’Li to respond, Ma’ah’La turned back to the path and resumed her pace. Ka’ah’Li paused in her tracks a moment longer, then caught up to her friend. The answer had only increased Ka'ah'Li’s driving curiosity, but something she couldn’t quite form into words yet, kept her questions at bay for the moment.

As they got closer to the mouth of a canyon that Ka'ah'Li had never hiked before, the path began narrowing into more of a rabbit-trail, and they were forced to walk single file, Ma’ah’La in the lead. They went on this way for another quarter hour, the sounds of their sandals clapping lightly against their heels and throwing a wake of sand behind them. Now and then they’d hear the skitter of tiny feet, making their way home for the night, or the soft hoot of an owl in the distance.

The truth was, Ka'ah'Li usually needed a few minutes to process new information from Ma’ah’La because her words often evoked a storm of sensations, thoughts and feelings inside Ka'ah'Li. Suddenly she stopped in her tracks, gears whirring behind her eyes. She bent her head to one shoulder and scowled, as if studying an alchemical problem on a char-board. To her own surprise, Ka'ah'Li skipped right past the question of how in the world Ma’ah’La could possibly know when the dragons first arrived--which was the thought that had made her heart skip and stomach lurch--and went straight to the more important question.

“Ma’ah’La!” she almost choked the words out, “when did the dragons come to the valley?” Ma’ah’La stopped in her tracks just a few paces ahead but instead of answering or turning back to Ka'ah'Li she stood stock still, staring straight ahead in breathless silence. For a split second, Ka'ah'Li thought she was admiring the enormous full Moon that was slowly inching over the long hunched back of the canyon ahead. Then her breath caught in her throat too.

As if in answer to Ka'ah'Li’s lingering question, a long, serpentine arc of spiked spine breached the base of the Moon’s toothy frown. Then, they felt as much as heard, the horrifying sound of huge leathery sails, beating the twilight air that rushed down the echoing canyon to meet them. They were both wide-eyed and motionless as the dead for the half minute it took the massive beast to move out of sight behind the cliffs. Still not looking back, Ma’ah’La spoke in an almost hissing whisper, “The day the dragons arrived in the valley, Ka'ah'Li, was the day that you were born.”