The Index -|-

Kpleeb was in funk. A day passed. Two days, and then four more. He fiddled endlessly with Thoka’s small device. He built a dozen new devices and improved upon them with Thoka’s help.

Thoka, for the most part, was quiet. She answered when Kpleeb spoke, and gave her assistance when he asked, but she was subdued. Kpleeb did not know what she was doing. He only knew that she tinkered with her own devices and was deep in contemplation for the majority of each day.

Kpleeb looked up from where he was hunched over a small table that protruded from the stone floor near the gap between the two caves. Thoka quietly slid pebbles across the many rods of the new counting rack she had made two days before.

[She looks so sad in a way. I wonder if she still believes that we can escape?]

Kpleeb thought back to the voice command and the total annihilation of the device he had built. His anger simmered under the surface, but it was now lined with a worry that had not been there before.

[The gods are so powerful. How can we escape or fight anything so strong and so unknown? Only an evil god would keep us here against our will.]

Kpleeb rose from his sitting position and approached Thoka. She looked up at him but did not speak, so he sat next to her. Thoka continued moving the pebbles around, and Kpleeb waited. In a few moments, she stopped and looked at him.

“What is it, Kpleeb?”

“Are you okay,” he said putting his hand on her shoulder gently. “I mean… you have been very quiet since the voice spoke.” He noticed how soft her skin felt and almost immediately realized how awkward the situation might seem to her.

He took his hand away. “Urh, I- I am sorry for getting so, uh, comfortable. I am just concerned and want you to know that we are in this fight together.” He paused and shifted his eyes downward. “You can talk to me about it if you are also concerned.”

Thoka looked at him strangely for a moment before speaking. “I am fine, just thinking. It is true that I am concerned about what happened. How can we not be worried by this?”

“I know,” said Kpleeb. “These gods command such power. It is a strange magic or some other kind of power that I have never seen.”

“Whatever these gods are, they are very different than the gods I was told about as a child.” She shrugged. “I am worried, Kpleeb. The voice is not cavehuman, and it came at the perfect time, which proves that they are always watching and ready. They can speak instant destruction on stone which means they can do the same to us.”

“Do we have any hope?”

Thoka hesitated and appeared to consider the point for an extended moment before answering.

“What am I supposed to say? On one hand, we are trapped by some kind of unknown and powerful entity.” She raised her other hand. “On the other hand, if we lose hope, we will die here. Maybe it will be slow, but we will die anyways. I refuse to give up.”

Kpleeb was stirred by her statement, and he nodded in agreement.

“Kpleeb, there is something that I have been thinking about for some time. Have you noticed that each time we received these neck wounds that we had after-effects?”

“What do you mean?” Kpleeb shrugged. Do you mean the fuzzy-brain?”

“Yes, and the clear goo and the neck bumps themselves.” Thoka looked at him seriously. “I think that the gods are touching us in some way.”

“It- I guess it does make some sense. It is possible. But why? What is the point?”

Thoka raised her palms slightly in uncertainty. “Each time I wake with a bump, I feel as if I am smarter, don’t you?”

Kpleeb balled up his fist in anger when he thought about it. “So, you are saying that these gods are changing us, making us smarter?” It seemed truly unbelievable to him. [How dare they!]

“Don’t you feel your mind racing some times? I know myself, and these things I think about are new. I am able to do and understand more than before.” Thoka gestured at the counting rack. “The smartest person in my village in the wet mountains only used stones, and the largest number I ever heard of was fifty. Nobody even thought of the five-grouping math. Now, I think I understand that this kind of math is not enough.”

Kpleeb shrugged noncommittally. [More math talk, sheesh!]

Thoka did not stop. “I think ten-grouping math is better now, only today. Only since my last neck bump! Look. Five-grouping math is complex because there are just… well you have to know how it works to make sense of it. Ten-grouping math is easier to understand. When you count from 1 to 9, the next number is just 10.”

Kpleeb did not understand.

Thoka waved her hand excitedly. “Look, you just, start a whole new column from 1! ” She drew invisible numbers in the air with her hand. “It is more logical!”

“Okay, fine,” said Kpleeb. “Math is good, and you are smart and good at it. I want to think about these gods touching us. I want to know why. Why would they make us smarter?” He shook his head. “It is crazy!”

“I don’t know why, Kpleeb. I just am questioning everything that is happening. Maybe this is some form of torture, or maybe this is just a test. Either way, we can use this to escape somehow. “We must escape!”

“Maybe they will make us so smart that we become gods like them.”

It seemed so far-fetched, but Kpleeb contemplated the possibilities anyway. [If I become a god, I will rise up and make these gods pay for their actions.] It was a satisfactory thought that made him smile, even if it was crazy. He looked at Thoka.

“I need to think about these ideas.” He stood and walked away leaving Thoka staring after him.

He sat in his own cave against the wall, put his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands.

[If the gods had this much power, to capture cavehumans, take us to a secret dungeon, speak from the air with such power, and make us smarter… They can do anything, and we cannot escape. I do not understand why they would do this – if it is even true, but I will try to learn more. They will regret this.]

He gently smacked the back of his head against the wall. It seemed so fruitless.

[We cannot even make clothing. The food is easy, but it requires power from the gods. They could stop feeding us at any time! But…  I did make a scratch on the wall. I will make better machines.]

He sighed.

[Thoka is pretty. She is a bit odd, but I like her. How does she keep her skin so soft and her hair so clean and neat? And she is amazingly smart. It is a bit intimidating, but it can be useful to both of us.]

Kpleeb stood and went to the gap between the caves and looked in. Thoka was still sitting with her back straight and moving the pebbles around on her counting rack. Every few moments she would make a dimple in the stone floor next to her with her finger before continuing. From the side, he could see the way her neck cloth draped pleasingly over her chest. He had looked before, of course, but she was very direct with her eye contact, and he always felt odd about staring while she was watching him.

Kpleeb’s loincloth was only a cord around his waist with a cloth in the front that stopped just a few inches short of his knee, but the wet mountain cave-tribe also had a back flap to their loincloth. The cloths were shorter too.

After daydreaming for a long moment, he shook his head. For once in his life, he did not feel terribly confident. Maybe it was just the sheer lack of options.

[Do I really have a chance or…? No, she is too smart for me.]

He turned and went back to his shelf of tiny devices intent on thinking about something else. After a few minutes he decided to make a device that would press against the grey stone and rotate. He thought that the scraping friction and pressure might slowly erode the stone. He began to work and was soon lost in the effort and focus of his task.

He made three different rotating devices for testing, and mulled many things over and over in his head.

“Kpleeb, are you hungry?”

He stood stiffly and looked toward Thoka. She was standing in the shadowy gap between the caves. He noticed that the sun had begun to dim, and her knees were lit in the glow. He could not see her face.

As was the usual, working with his hands had removed his stress and centered his mind in a most satisfactory way. “I lost all track of time,” he said with an easy smile.

He approached Thoka, and she backed out of the way to let him through. “I made food for you, if you would be willing to taste something from the wet mountains.”

“Urh, sure. What is it?” Kpleeb had never been a terribly adventurous eater. “Soup?”

“No, I know how you don’t like soup.”

“It is not that I don’t like it,” he said mimicking her word mix, “it is just so difficult to eat, and does not have the same stuff as meat or dinga root.”

“It is often very cold in the wet mountains, and we find that soup makes us warm. But never mind, I did not make soup.” She waved at the table. In the center was a large pile of small, crispy legs. They were pale in color, and there was a divot in the table that held some kind of sauce. Next to the divot was a small stack of root vegetables with leaves sprouting from one end.

[It certainly smells good.] Kpleeb sat where Thoka pointed and reached for one of the mini-limbs.

“Hold on, Kpleeb,” said Thoka with a smile. “Let me explain what this is first.

He nodded and waited impatiently.

She pointed. “These are frog legs from wet mountain hissing frogs. They are the largest of the frogs where I grew up. And these,” she said pointing at the vegetables, “are parsnips. They are slightly cooked. Both the legs and the parsnips are delicious when dipped in the sauce.”

“Frog legs?” Kpleeb leaned forward and sniffed. They did smell good. He picked up a parsnip and bit off the end. It was a vegetable. “Mmmm,” he said unimpressed.

“You don’t have to like it, but please be honest.” Thoka nodded at the frog legs.

Kpleeb stubbornly ignored the pointed offer and instead dipped the parsnip into the sauce and took a bite. His face changed. “Ahh. What a difference! Wow!”

He reached for the pile and picked up a somewhat stiff frog leg about as thick as his index finger and more than twice as long.

“Wait, taste it before you try it with sauce,” said Thoka.

Kpleeb ate the frog leg and was surprised at how light and moist the meat felt. It was bland, but the charring on the outside added a flavor that he was well acquainted with.

“Okay, I can get behind this,” he said looking at Thoka. She seemed expectant, and uniquely focused on him, which made him feel slightly self-conscious. He picked up another frog leg, dipped it into the sauce, and then ate it quickly.

“Unbelievable!” he said quietly before looking at her. “What – er, why is this so good?”

Thoka had a look of immense satisfaction on her face, and her eyes practically glowed. “This is something my ma used to make for da when I was growing up. It was his favorite meal.” She smiled widely at Kpleeb and bent forward to pick up several of the frog legs.

Kpleeb forgot about feeling self-conscious, and felt his comfort bloom under Thoka’s scrutiny. Their conversation wended its way through various topics and was intermingled with laughter and a sense of familiarity. After a few minutes, Kpleeb leaned back and patted his full stomach with an exaggerated sigh.

“That was… incredible,” he said. He noticed how the corners of her brown eyes wrinkled as she smiled proudly at his compliment. “You- er, your food is so good. Thank you.”

Thoka nodded with what Kpleeb thought was a super friendly smile and then stood. “About time for my sleep,” she said with a nod toward the gap between the caves.

Kpleeb got up and began walking.

[She might be too smart for me, but I am the only caveman available.]

The Index -|-

The sun was just beginning to dim when Kpleeb awoke. He rolled over and immediately noticed that the brain fog that had plagued him was gone. He blinked his eyes. His vision had cleared up as well.

How long have I been asleep?

Kpleeb sniffed. The air seemed normal. He could hear a faint tapping in the distance. It seemed to be coming from the gap in the cave wall. He stood, and stretched, bouncing on his toes. His body felt good, and all of the numbness and motor function issues that he had experienced earlier seemed to be gone. He went to the defecation pit, and then stopped at the food outcropping for a drink.

When he crossed over the gap between the two caves, he saw Thoka holding her other spindly device and moving pieces around. It was that movement that made the tapping sound he had heard.

Thoka looked up as he approached. “How are you feeling?” She put the device down and stood to examine him.

Kpleeb endured the momentary prodding with patience. Thoka looked at his eyes first, and then moved behind him to look at the wound on his neck. It was still slightly sore, but nothing he could not handle, even when she poked at it.

“The white circle has faded,” she said.

“I feel great,” said Kpleeb with a cheerful smile. “What’s that?” He pointed at the device that Thoka had been holding.

She hesitated for a moment and then picked up the device and handed it to him.

The object was a delicate framework a little bigger than both of his hands together and made from thin rods connected to edge pieces on four sides. It was formed in a matrix with five parallel rods running in one direction. Kpleeb held the edge and looked at the knobs that sat upon the thin rods.

“Hold it like this,” said Thoka as she took the object and rotated it ninety degrees so that he was grasping the next edge. The five parallel rods now pointed away from him and the knobs rattled as they slid to the bottom.

Each rod was thin and smooth, and Kpleeb was impressed by the level of detail that Thoka had formed from the stone. “What does it do?”

“It is a counting rack,” Thoka said. “It helps someone count and perform very big maths without having to write everything or keep all of the numbers in their head. Here,” she took the device back from him and laid it on her shelf. “There are four knobs on each of the five rods. So if I want to mark 34₅, or 19, I move 4 knobs up on the first column, and 3 knobs up on the second.” She pointed. “34₅, see?”

Kpleeb nodded. “Okay I think I understand. This is just something to remember the numbers for you.”

“It does do that, but it also helps learn other things.” She moved a few knobs around. “What’s that?”

Kpleeb saw three columns with knobs moved upward. “2, 1, 4,” he said. “214₅. 1 group of 5 plus 4 is 9. What is the 2 for?”

“2 groups of 25. 25 and 25 is 50 and then 9.”

“So 214₅ is 59?” Kpleeb nodded just to make the lesson stop. A significant part of him did not want to spend the rest of his life trying to understand Thoka’s math, especially if it was over his head. He knew that he should be honest about it. “I think this is an interesting device, but…”

“It is modeled after some counting stones that I saw someone use when I was a child. They were grouped into similar colors.” Thoka seemed proud of herself.

“You are very smart,” said Kpleeb carefully trying to pacify her math pushiness, “but I don’t like math, and I don’t want to do it.”

“We must be smart in order to escape, Kpleeb. In time, it will become easier.” She looked very serious. “How can we do anything except be trapped here if we cannot escape? How long will it be? Maybe we will die old and hunched over with straggly grey hair in these caves together.”

That was a very unappealing thought. Kpleeb sighed. “I know. I will make some effort, but I will need much time, and many breaks. Either way, I want to build your other device. Building is more interesting to me.”

Thoka nodded. “I am hungry.” She stood and asked the stone outcropping for soup.

Kpleeb picked up the small device with the rotating rod and went into his own cave. He decided to make the new device at a spot where some of the stone had already been removed from the wall. The grey structure underneath glinted darkly in the dimming light of the sun. He commanded a new shelf next to his building spot, and placed the small device on it.

“Cave, make two tree trunks here. One pace apart and as thick as my body.” He pointed with his knuckle at the floor in two places to mark the spots. “Make them as tall as my head.” The stone began to grow, but as usual it was a painfully slow process. Kpleeb decided to eat while he waited.

Finally, after he had finished his leisurely meal and urinated and assembled and disassembled the device in his head three times, the stone had finished growing. The sun was very dim now. Kpleeb reached up and smacked the top of one of the trunks. Next, he used all of his strength to shove against it with his shoulder. Very strong, good.

“Make a thick rod connecting the trunks.” He ran his hand from the top of one trunk to the other. He glanced at the sun again and growled in frustration. “Sun, stay bright for more time tonight!” Nothing happened, of course. He walked to the gap in the wall, and there Thoka was just walking toward him.

“I wish there was a way to make light at night. We have no wood or fire to make a torch. I cannot work at night,” he complained.

“I am going to sleep,” she said, ignoring his comment.

Kpleeb looked at her sun through the gap and it was exactly as dim as his as far as he could tell. “I will see you tomorrow.”

How can there be two suns, anyway? I already knew this was a strange sun, but… He shrugged slightly to himself. It did not seem to matter what he learned. There was always so much more. These gods clearly have the ability to make light whenever they wish.

Kpleeb sat with his back against one of the trunks and waited as the sun grew more and more dim. The cave was perfectly silent, and the growing stone did not make any sound at all. He nodded off, and later when he woke, he crawled to his sleeping hollow and fell asleep again.

When he awoke Thoka was standing over him with a surprised look on her face. “Thoka, is everything alright?” He stood slowly.

“It happened to me again,” she said. “Look.” She turned and bent her head so that he could see the wound.

He did not have to strain to see because Thoka was a bit shorter than him. She did have a wound just as she described. He reached out and poked it gently.

“Ow!” She turned and slapped his hand.

“You poked my wound and I did not complain,” he said. “Don’t be a thunket. You will be fine. It’s raised. Do you think something is in there?”

Thoka stood on her toes to look at his neck and then shook her head. “No, yours has gone down completely in only a day. I do feel a little fuzzy this morning though. I’ll go eat something and meditate.” She waved her hand vaguely in his direction as she walked away.

Two wounds one night after the other. I wonder what that means? He watched Thoka go and then got a long drink of water.

When he was done he looked at his partially complete structure. The crossbar he had requested was complete, and it was very thick. He reached up with his large, hairy hands and swung carefully from the bar. It certainly supports my weight. I hope it is enough.

“Make a thin rod here as tall as my hand,” he said pointing at the floor about two paces from the tree trunks. He raised his hand as high as he could. The rod grew quickly upward from the stone, and in a matter of seconds it was complete. He could have broken the rod off easily and used it as a spear.

“Now, make a very thick trunk from the crossbar to the rod.” He pondered how he might make the trunk rest on, but not merge with, the crossbar. The stone appeared to grow from other stone in a way that required the merging. When the trunk was done, he traced a line around the crossbar on the horizontal axis and told the cave to make a space there. It did, and Kpleeb stood back to admire his handiwork.

“Hey, Thoka,” he said through the gap between the caves, “come see if we can break through the grey stone.”

In a few long seconds Thoka approached through the gap. “That is very big.” She circled the device once before focusing on the gap between the crossbar and the trunk. “This is a very rough cut. How did you do it?”

Kpleeb felt heat rising in his cheeks. “Urh… I. Well, I just traced with my finger and told it where to cut.”

Thoka nodded. “It is alright. I did that as well at first, but I learned that there is some affinity the stone has with the object that is used to direct it. Fingers are very squishy inside and produce uneven lines. You can make another stone with a smaller tip that will be very smooth.” She must have noticed Kpleeb’s face, for she immediately added, “But, this is perfect for what we are trying today, right?”

Kpleeb nodded and looked over his creation. It was not beautiful or smooth, but it was massive, and he hoped that would count. “This is very heavy,” he said patting the enlarged hammer-shaped head at the end of the rotating trunk.

He struck outward with the palm of his hand and broke the thin rod that held the hammer elevated. When he did, the hammer moved downward, swung around the crossbar. The head collided with the grey stone wall with a resounding thud and a shower of dust. Kpleeb could not help but smile as the floor under his feet shook.

“That was very strong, don’t you think?” he said looking at Thoka expectantly.

She looked thoughtful, and pushed the now hanging trunk with her foot. It swayed slightly. “How can you reset the trunk so that it can swing again?”

“I don’t know yet, but I will work on it,” he grumbled. He could tell that she was still deep in thought as she walked away without saying another word.

Kpleeb commanded the cave to grow another thin rod and another, larger hammer in place of the one that had fallen. When it was complete, he still had not determined how he would reset the hammer once it had fallen, so he requested another entire trunk with a hammer-head next to it.

He slept fitfully after lying awake for hours trying to determine how to pull the heavy hammer to a height above his head. In the morning he was groggy and cranky as he stood and looked at the twin hammers. These trunks, at least, had very smooth edges on the crossbar, and he was grateful that Thoka had taught him how to direct the stone into a more accurate build.

When Thoka entered his cave, he was still frustrated. “Okay, I am ready to try again,” he said abruptly.

She looked at him with a piercing stare for a long moment before turning and coolly replying. “I see you have two hammers now, but no way to raise them again. Why did you not request five or ten?”

“There is no way to position ten hammers that would strike the same spot,” he retorted too quickly. “Anyway, I did think of a way to raise the hammer again, but it would require a cord of some kind and we do not have anything to make cord from.” He fingered the edge of his loincloth. “These are so shabby, soon we will be utterly naked.” With disgust he struck the first thin rod holding the first hammer.

The hammer fell.

“Klo hiut!” a voice said immediately. The huge stone hammer head disintegrated in a puff and the floor beneath it was dusted with a cloud of particles that quickly sank into the stone.

Kpleeb looked at Thoka in shock and then turned back to the device. The trunk swung headless back and forth below the crossbar until it stopped moving of its own accord. He stepped toward it.

“Stop, Kpleeb, it might be dangerous,” said Thoka.

“I don’t care.” He stooped and looked at the end of the trunk where the hammer had been. It was melted at the end as if the stone itself had decided to let go of the hammer. Huh. He straightened and looked around the room. That was the garbled voice, not the silvery voice. He had not heard this voice in many, many days. Maybe I should have made a mark for each voice and each neck wound… Too late now.

“Well, what do we do now, Thoka?”

She walked right up to Kpleeb, closer than she had ever been to him, and leaned in to whisper in his ear. Her breath moved his curls and tickled his neck, raising the small hairs.

“I will speak to the stone and tell it to be strong.”

Kpleeb scoffed quietly and shook his head in disbelief. “You have no magic.” He folded his arms and watched as she stepped up to the remaining hammer-trunk.

Thoka put her arms around the trunk and held it close. She mouthed many words in a way that Kpleeb could not hear. She gently patted the trunk when she was done and stepped away.

“Now try,” she said.

“You’re as crazy as a death-white,” Kpleeb said under his breath. He broke the retaining rod and the hammer fell.

“Klo heeit gah!” The same gravelly voice rang with power in the cave and both Kpleeb and Thoka instinctively covered their ears. The hammer, its trunk, the crossbar, and the base all simultaneously shattered into tiny pieces.

Kpleeb was pelted with bits of stone and rubble, some as big as muskrat eyeballs. It was over in a moment, and within a few minutes, the floor had absorbed all of the pieces. He looked at Thoka, and spoke. “I think the words of the gods are stronger than yours.”

“It is true,” she said without any indication that it bothered her. “True, but I will learn their words and their power.”

Kpleeb walked to the grey stone where the first hammer had struck. There was a mark there. Maybe it was infinitesimal, but it was there.

It can be damaged. The gods are not impervious. Kpleeb smiled with satisfaction.

The Index -|-

“Now, 34₅,” said Thoka.

“Urh… fourteen?”

“No, it’s nineteen. Look,” she held up a hand three times. “Five and five and five is what?”

“Fifteen, right?”

“Yes, three fives and then add four. Fifteen and four.” She tallied three groups of five on the wall and then added four more.

Kpleeb wrangled his fingers a couple of times before it clicked. “Urh, yes. Nineteen. This is hard.”

Thoka had been schooling Kpleeb intermittently for a few days, and he was becoming tired of it.

“What is the point of this? It is too complex.” He rubbed his sloping forehead for a moment before standing. “I already knew how to count to eight, and you taught me nine through twenty. Why do I need this five-grouping math?”

“You need more math for the future, just like you will need to know how to read and write.” said Thoka.

“I know the alphabet,” Kpleeb said, “and a few words.”

“Yes, and I will teach you more each day., but for now, we can stop this for a while and try some more hands-on things.” She walked over to one of her larger shelves and muttered a command at the wall.

Kpleeb could not hear the command, but he saw the wall open. Thoka reached into the hole and pulled out two objects. She turned and handed the first one to him before placing the second one on a high shelf.

The object she handed Kpleeb was a complex stone contraption with a square base. On opposite sides, two fingers rose out of the stone and supported a beam with a rotating piece suspended on it. The rotating piece had another; thicker rod attached to one edge.

Kpleeb turned the object over in his hand and the rotating pieces wobbled back and forth. He looked at Thoka. “What is it?”

“It is a prototype of a machine I want to build.”

“Pro-toe-type?”

She nodded. “Something I want to build, but smaller. For testing. Look.” She took it from his hand and placed it upright on its square base on the nearby shelf. Then, with her fingers, she held up the thicker rod on the rotating piece and dropped it. Gravity took the rod and swung its end down and between the supports before swinging back.

The piece was still gently rocking when Kpleeb picked it up. He looked at the round pieces and the support rod and the swivel-rod. With his index finger he pushed it again.

“What does it do?”

Thoka’s face flashed a momentary spark of annoyance before she took the device back. She placed it on the shelf against the wall. “Imagine that this device is very large, bigger than you, and this wall is the wall over there,” she said pointing to the cave wall a few meters away. She lifted the swivel-rod again.

When she let it go, the contraption swung around and the swivel-rod hit the wall squarely with a light tap. “We could break through the wall.”

Kpleeb could not believe what he was hearing. He shook his head and frowned. “That will not work, and anyway, what if the gods hear us? Will they not stop us?” He picked up the device. “We do not know if this will even break this stone.” He tapped the shelf as if testing its strength.

“These spirits seem to be in complete control, Kpleeb,” she said, “you could be one of them, or even me. They could be standing right here!” Thoka gestured next to herself vaguely and shrugged. “I am not one of them, of course, but the point is that we do not know. We have to learn and try our best to escape.”

She glanced up at the dimming sun. “Are you hungry? We can continue learning math tomorrow.”

[Not more math, please!] Kpleeb sighed and then spoke. “Yes, food is good. I want muskrat leg with dinga root.” He walked to Thoka’s food outcropping, but she spoke up.

“I want worm soup.”

He looked at her. “You go ahead so that it knows what how you want it. I will be back soon.” He walked to the gap in the wall and told his table what he wanted. For some reason he was feeling a little nostalgic for home, and in particular, his mam’s dinga. Thoka ate soup quite often. It was cold with soft and spicy worms. He did not understand the attraction.

He urinated and then looked around the cave while the muskrat leg was made. Almost all of the holes were filled in now. He had proven that there was no way through the grey stone, and it made no sense to keep the holes around. He bent and rubbed the knee that he had skinned two nights ago when he had tripped over one of the holes he had left in the floor.

His daily routine had changed in the few short sun-cycles since he had met Thoka. Having someone to talk to made the days go by far more quickly. He looked forward to waking, but sometimes had a difficult time falling asleep. There was so much to think about, even if he did not understand much of what she spoke about. The lessons could be excruciating, but deep inside, he felt that it must be worth it in the end.

The smell of lightly-roasted muskrat leg wafted through his senses, and he turned to gather his food. Next to the food outcropping was the platter that Thoka had made and named for him. He placed the hot legs on it and then gingerly lifted the dinga root pieces onto the plate. His fingers burned in the short moment that he touched them, but he did like them hot. Licking his fingertips, he crossed back into Thoka’s cave and met her at the low table that she used each meal time.

Thoka sat cross-legged. In front of her was a large and shallow bowl with a fat, stone tube resting on its rim. She smiled at him and wrinkled her nose as he approached.

“I do not know how you can eat muskrat. It is so gross.” She leaned forward and stirred the bowl before placing the end of the tube in her mouth and sucking on it.

Kpleeb watched in fascination. “That is an odd way to eat soup.”

“This is how it is done in the wet mountains,” she replied, taking another sip.

“What happens if you have chunky soup?” He rested his plate on the table and awkwardly kneeled and then shifted to a sitting position.

“We do not make chunky soup, but certainly one could drink it from the bowl.” She paused and lifted the large bowl to her lips in demonstration. “Let us talk about more important things.”

Kpleeb nodded and tore at his muskrat leg.

“There are no stars in the sky here,” said Thoka gesturing at the ceiling. “There is no sky at all, just the sun and moon, and they are false.”

Kpleeb nodded. It was slightly confusing, but the statement rang true inside him. “This is lo-gi-cal,” he said. “The sun does not set, it only dims.”

“Yes, and we are trapped inside a cave with no doors and a false sun. We are captives to the gods, Kpleeb.” Thoka paused and drank more soup.

[She is so smart, and very thoughtful.] Kpleeb ate a piece of dinga root and then spoke. “This angers me. It has angered me for many sun cycl- urh, days. I hate them, and if I escape, I will make them pay.”

“This emotion makes sense, but we must be careful to learn and control our own fate if we can.” She pushed her bowl away though it was not empty. “You and I are young and have much time to discover the workings of these caves, the gods that control them, and learn how to use what we have. Tomorrow, you can begin to learn more about breaking the stones.”

Kpleeb nodded and sank into thought. In a short while, Thoka announced her bed-time and they closed the gap between the caves.

Kpleeb toyed with the device that Thoka had given him for many minutes before drifting off to sleep. [Why does the rotating piece fall? What will make it fall faster or harder?] Full of questions, he finally slept.

Kpleeb sat on a rock overlooking the end of the canyon where the river spread out into the large and flat marsh that bridged the area between the tundra and the ocean. He saw a glint of light in the far distance, but the atmospheric haze covered all distant features in a general blur. The stunted marsh-trees grew twisted and blacked, and their trunks were partially submerged. The river flowed at a snail’s pace through the marsh, leaving a contorted path where little vegetation grew.

He heard a tinkle and turned his head to look over his right shoulder. He quickly scrambled backward on his hands and feet for a few paces. The death-white sat on its white yak a short distance away gazing across the lands below. [Why did I not hear it approach?] Kpleeb rose to his haunches in preparation for a possible escape.

“The river flows, and the world changes with it,” the death-white said in a smooth and emotionless voice. The yak stared directly at Kpleeb, and its eyes glittered with myriad colors.

Kpleeb felt an intrusive force from the yak as it analyzed him. Under its scrutiny all of his sins were laid bare, and he sensed that he was minuscule in its design. Time stretched and for many moments he was locked in place by the yak.

Suddenly, there was a painfully high-pitched buzzing sound, and though he tried, he could not turn his head to look. The yak’s penetrating gaze held him fast. A stinging sensation grew slowly until it was unbearable. His throat refused to cry out though every muscle in his body clenched tightly and his spine arched.

“You must accept,” he heard death-white say just as he lost consciousness.

There was a hand on his shoulder, and he opened his eyes. Thoka looked down at him with concern.

“Are you okay? I heard you scream.”

Kpleeb sat up and looked around the cave. The sun was very dim and the whole cave was draped in shadow. Though he understood Thoka’s words, his ears sounded as if they were stuffed with yak’s-wool. With her help, he stood and walked to the outcropping to gather a drink of water.

“Your neck,” said Thoka. She touched him, just below his hairline and he felt a growing pain. “There is goo here.” When she held out her fingers, he recognized the clear substance that he had seen in the past on his own fingers.

“I saw a death-white in my dream,” he mumbled.

Thoka nodded. “There is not enough light to see your neck. What did it say?”

Kpleeb hesitated for a long moment as he tried to recall the dream. “It said that the world changes and I must accept, but the yak held me in place with its eyes.” He shuddered involuntarily.

“Come sit down,” said Thoka. She led him through the gap into her cave and had him sit on the stool that she had requested the previous day. “Tell me as much as you can remember about your dream. Everything.”

“I saw the land from a high place,” Kpleeb began. “The river was below and flowed into the watery lands that I have heard of beyond the canyon. Then I heard something and turned to find the death-white. It spoke and the yak stared at me. I could not look away, even when the buzzing and pain happened. Then I woke up.”

Thoka smiled and patted his shoulder. “How do you feel?”

“My ears are blurry,” said Kpleeb. He stuck the tip of his index finger into one ear and twisted, but nothing changed. “What do you think it means?”

“In truth, I do not know, but I do recognize the same feelings I had. A dream followed by disorientation. I did not try to write what happened my dream, and now I cannot remember most of them.” She traced some lines on the table with her fingertip. “You should make a special mark on your day markings, Kpleeb.” Thoka stood and walked to her day marking list. “Mark where I touch,” she told the cave. With the tip of her smallest finger, she made her mark and then added an angled accent above it. “I made a mark for you on my wall. Maybe we can combine our markings into one.”

Kpleeb did not feel like making a mark of any kind. “Yes, yes that is fine.” He put his head into his hands.

The sun had brightened noticeably while they were talking and Thoka came to look at his neck. “There is a wound here,” she said quietly. “I can finally see one with my own eyes. It is small, white in the center and surrounded by a circle of red. The clear goo has dried on the surface.”

“Don’t touch it,” said Kpleeb, “it hurts.”

“I know. Do you want to do math today?”

Kpleeb turned to look at her. “Are you serious?”

She looked abashed. “Sorry, I… I guess I thought maybe you might be feeling better. We can wait until tomorrow if you need to rest.”

Kpleeb nodded. “I think I will lay down and rest for some time today.” He stood and went back to his cave. His thoughts circled slowly like tundra-buzzards waiting for a dying animal to cease its movement.

[These gods speak in dreams, but what does it mean?]

[What must I accept? Change?]

[I need to escape. There must be a way.] His thoughts drifted to Thoka’s device. [A heavier rod will break a thicker stone. I should test this, maybe with a smaller stone. If it can break stone, maybe it can be made to break the grey stone as well. It will take much force and a very big device.]

Kpleeb had many thoughts and plans that repeated over and over in his head. Eventually he fell asleep nestled in the warm hollow he had created near the outcropping.