In the Shadow of Mountains: The Lost Girls Read online

Chapter Nine

  The Flood

  When the rains came in the following winter, they came in real earnest. It rained for days, and it rained hard. Rolf hadn’t seen such rain since his childhood. He stood by the window, staring out at the darkened skies. He held the window shutter half open, but the rain kept splashing against the wood and it wet his shirt. It was early evening, and Soo-Kai sat by the fire, warming herself.

  “I still remember years when the rain came in such amounts,” she said.

  Rolf shook his head and closed the wooden shutter. “Its force shows no sign of abating,” he said. He came over from the window and sat next to Soo-Kai by the fire.

  “Do you remember the floods?” he asked her.

  She nodded and helped him brush off the water droplets from his shirt as he dried himself in front of the fire. “The floods would follow the rains. They came once in every twenty years. Sometimes less, but never more.”

  She was right. It rained constantly for five days. And when it was over, and Rolf and Soo-Kai went down to the little stream to fetch water together, they found it a wide torrent.

  “The lowlands will feel the force of it,” Rolf said as they both stood by the rushing water. “The coastal villages of Danek and Sintal will be flooded. Even Ellerkan on the delta will be at risk.”

  “Ellerkan is old,” Soo-Kai replied. “The walls that hold back the rivers are strong and wide. Those that built them knew of the floods.”

  Rolf stared at Soo-Kai for a moment. Then he bent and filled the bucket. “Come on,” he said, taking Soo-Kai’s hand. “Let’s get back. It’s cold out here.”

  As they walked back to the house, Rolf said, “I’ve been very selfish and stupid. But I’m going to put that right.”

  Soo-Kai looked at him in puzzlement. “In what way have you been selfish and stupid?”

  “In not thinking about you and your memory.”

  Soo-Kai looked ahead as they walked along. “You cannot stop my memory from decaying. As the compression continues, the more I will forget.”

  “Then the more I will write down.”

  Soo-Kai looked at him again. Rolf smiled and squeezed her hand. “You tell me what you remember, and I’ll write it down. It will be like a journal of your life. Even if you forget things, you can read it and remember once more. That way, you won’t forget, and you won’t change.”

  “But I have already forgotten some things. Even the things I told you when we first met have faded and gone.”

  “I remember what you told me. I’ll write it down, and you can read it and remember once again.”

  “But I cannot read your language.”

  “I’ll teach you.”

  “I will forget.”

  “Then I’ll remind you to read each day. That way you won’t forget, because the words will always be fresh in your mind.”

  Soo-Kai stopped walking, drawing Rolf to a halt by her side. “You will do all this for me?”

  “I should have started doing it from the moment you told me,” Rolf replied sort of sadly. Then he smiled and squeezed her hand once more. “But don’t worry. The winter nights are long, and I will soon catch up. And when I ask you to describe the things that happened to you, it will help you to remember them, and maybe that way, they won’t fade away.”

  Soo-Kai’s eyes filled with tears, and she moved closer to Rolf. She rubbed her cheek against his, and then kissed him. “I know that no matter what, my memories will fade,” she said after their kiss. “But now I do not fear this. Write at the beginning that you and I are bonded, that I am very happy with this, and that I do not wish for it ever to end.”

  In Ellerkan, others watched the passing torrents. Prince Carl L’Hage stood on one of the embankments with his younger brother, Prince Harold. The river was very wide and high, and the water was brown with the swept up soil and debris of the forest and the hills. Branches, bits of wood, lumps of grass and other vegetation, all of it rushed by. Even the broken trunks of up-rooted trees floated by on their way to the sea. Prince Carl leaned over the wall of the embankment, staring at it all in fascination.

  “The water runs higher than ever this year,” he said. “‘Tis an omen, I think.”

  “If that be true, then it is a bad omen,” Prince Harold replied solemnly.

  Prince Carl laughed. “You are too morbid, my brother. Does the sight of this swollen river not excite you? Can you find no joy with the wonders of nature and the greatness of its power?”

  “How can I be joyful when half our kingdom floats out to sea? Have you not heard the news from the coast? Danek is flooded, their fishing boats now journey to the centre of the village, or as far as they can before they hit the rising tide of mud. And Sintal is the same. Their ships find no fish because of the mud that now fills the water. ‘Tis the same mud that fills their villages and houses, and blocks the roads, the mud that was once our land. It is the same for all the villages along the coast of Halafalon. No, Carl, I do not see joy in this scene, only misery and suffering. It is a disaster.”

  Prince Carl’s excitement and good humour were not affected by his brother’s darker mood. “Our father is a forgiving King. He has promised to forgo the taxes for the year. The people will not suffer as badly as you fear.”

  Prince Harold wasn’t impressed. “You think only of money. You will think again when you sit at the table to dine and find no fish or vegetables, but only dried mutton before you. The people on the coast will have less to eat. And the water they drink is tainted.”

  Prince Carl laughed and slapped Harold on the back. “One day, my brother, you will learn how to smile! But until then, we will help the people in their suffering. We will organise water and dried mutton. Come, let us talk to our father, he often says we spend our time idly, so let us prove him wrong.”

  It was many days before the waters finally subsided. In that time, vast quantities of soil and vegetation were swept from the land. What the rains had earlier washed loose from the hillsides and the valleys, the rivers now carried away. In time, the land would recover, and it would be many years before the rains came in such force again. The brief spectacle of nature’s power was over, and even the people in the coastal villages were relieved by the caravans of food and water brought by the Royal Princes.

  But not all the mud was swept out to sea. The green fields of Halafalon in the lowlands were always fertile, no matter how intensely they were farmed. The sight of them flooded by the rains had brought fear to the people who farmed them and relied on them for their lives and their future. But as the waters receded, the mud it left behind brought precious nutrients and life to the tired earth, making it fertile once more. The following year the crops were good. It was a natural cycle, new to the young, but remembered by the old. But this time, what the rains uncovered by washing away the soil from the hills in the forest was more than mere memory.