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.
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