Keeping an Eye on the Mark

 

After my audience with Hetura, I quickly repacked my bag, gratefully taking gifts of food and water provided by the Kerith women.  A young girl shyly approached me and held out a bottle to me.
 
I smiled at her and took it.  I turned it over and read the label.  Gin?

“You’re a little young to be hitting the bottle, aren’t you?” I grinned.

“Mama said you would know what to do with this when the time comes. Oh, and she said to take this too.”  The girl took off the orchid lei she wore around her neck.  I stooped down so she can put it over my head.  I inhaled its sweet fragrance.

“Tell your mama thank you, okay?”   I stuffed the bottle into the top of the sack and tied it closed.  A few moments later I was headed down a path in the direction given to me by Hetura.  The caldera was an hour’s walk away.

The Kerithian kept no bladed weapons in their village.  They protected themselves with powerful magic and their famous walking staffs which, I had been told, could pack quite a wallop.  Without asking, I had been given one.  I examined the staff. 

I knew that without training using this weapon would be pointless.  A full assault on the Specters was not a possibility at this point. Getting Albion back by stealth was a possibility but I suspected he was being closely guarded.  Then there was the Antikythera Mechanism.  No.  I could not, would not give them control of Lemuria. I do not negotiate with terrorizers.
 
Stop it, I told myself.  There was no point in thinking about this now.  I cannot plan without knowing what was before me.  I would have to wait until I got there to know what I was supposed to do.  And I had every confidence I would.
 
My experience with Hetura has been remarkable.  My anxiety was gone.  I wasn’t afraid of the situation or the Specters.  Her magic had propelled me to dig deep inside and draw on past experiences to prepare me for this one.   In the Real World I had suffered my share of troublesome people: from the aggressive, in-your-face types striving to exert their excessive personalities on to me, to cowardly weasels who attempted to impose havoc through manipulation, gossip and lies.  The secret to overcoming these difficult people, I found, was to confront them if you cannot avoid it, ignore them if you can, stay focused on the goal at all costs, and keep pushing forward.   Eventually, I found, the brazen ones fall into a powerless state that matches their own personal insignificance, and the gossiping manipulators become overwhelmed with their lies and prove themselves frauds.  The secret is to persevere.

I was so lost in thought, I almost plowed into Sarika when I rounded a curve in the trail.

“There you are!  Where have you been?  I could have used some back-up dealing with your Medicine woman.”

Sarika smiled.  She was no longer in her colorful sarong.  She was dressed in a traveling tunic and pants, green and brown, perfect camouflage in the jungle.   She carried a walking staff.
 
“I’m sorry to have left you like that.  I felt I could be more useful doing—what is your word for it—doing a little reconnaissance.

“Yes?”  I said breathlessly, stepping towards her.

“I saw Albion.”

Text:  L.Gloyd © 2008
Image:  “Keep You Eye on the Mark”, L.Gloyd © 2004