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[Kiyevanie]

 - ::: [ 22. Discoveries ] ::: -

[The little explorer group, Waytelem, Txa'ren and Ni'ka, are flying out to see if there's actually a 'Frank's Bluff' out there.]


The little group of scouts had reached the stream a while ago.  Waytelem's idea of leaving the stream they had followed before had paid off when a bit later they had spotted another body of water; and this time it had really been a river--not as wide and meandering as the one forming Rockhome, but wide and strong enough to not be another feeder stream.  They'd been following this river upwards for a good while now, at first through forest, but now the land was changing enough to catch their attention.

It was Txa'ren's turn to take the lead.  "Look - the ground's changing."  His finger pointed down to where the land accompanying the stream was indeed starting to change.  On the northern bank the trees thinned out and gave way to bushes, ferns, large areas of moss and some plants that almost but not quite looked like grass.  A bit of that could still be seen on the southern bank too, but the land there was still more forest than something else.

Ni'ka, who was flying a bit behind him, nodded.  "Yes - and your Sempul said that at the cliff's foot there was marshland.  We'd better watch for it now; we might be slowly coming up on the right area."

[Random the Navigator]

Waytelem raised an eyebrow at Ni'ka.  "I'd say maybe not so slowly," he guessed.  "Even on the plains the wetland oases tend to form where two rivers meet, and I remember this place was supposed to be at the angle of two rivers.  They might have even formed the cliff, if water flows there the way it did to make Rockhome."  His eyes took on a look of inspiration as he remembered some of Spaz's songs.  "Who knows; this might even become part of Rockhome after 'millions' in time...  Imagine our home and territory, Txa'ren, if it reached all the way out to here!"

[Kiyevanie]

"There you have even more experience than me," Ni'ka replied with a smile.  "The marshlands I know are formed by smaller brooks and creeks flowing together, or by springs before they decide to become a brook or creek.  Places where the water comes right out of the ground."

Txa'ren, however, was trying to wrap his mind around the image Waytelem's words had painted.  "Rockhome all the way to this place?" he wondered.  "That would be...I don't know...  Wouldn't our part of Rockhome change too?"  He knew that the land changed over the ages.  There were Tsanten's songs about Clans having to decide how to move on after their territory changed from forest to grassland, and of course he knew that Rockhome hadn't always been there, the First Songs confirming that as much as the songs Spaz found in the stones.  "So our offspring, in that 'million' of time, might live here and not know what our Rockhome looked like."  He shook his head at the thought - the timeframe involved kind of blew his imagination.

"Even the mountains change," Ni'ka said, "and they look as if they could last forever."  She blinked ahead into the slight haze that had formed over the marshland overnight and that the Suns hadn't dissolved yet.  Then her eyes narrowed.  "I'm not completely sure," she admitted, "but there's something ahead that doesn't quite look like a cloud."  She pointed at a still small, brownish spot in the distance.

[Random the Navigator]

Waytelem glanced over at Txa'ren.  "Rockhome as we know it would have to be very different, I think," he mused.  "Crevices would become narrow branches; narrow branches would become wider ones; and our most open spaces might even become the new beaches.  All the while the River would continue its patient work, making our home deeper even as the Sea made our cliffs higher and straighter.  But all of this has been happening to our home all along; we don't live in the Rockhome of the First Songs either.  There was a time when the River ran straight and swift, where now it wanders in shallow meanders before fanning out to meet the Sea; but the canyon was too narrow to live in then, and there would have been water in all the niches...maybe we used them for wells?  And there was an earlier time when all the land was level and the River did not have to hurl itself off a cliff to reach the coast.  I am reminded of something every time a stone comes loose under a climber's foot: That our home is constantly crumbling; but it is the crumbling and wearing away that have made it as magnificent as it is."  He pondered a little more, then grinned:  "But if our canyon reaches all the way out to here someday, I wouldn't care to be the family living furthest upriver when it came time for an assembly on the beach!"

[Kiyevanie]

That gave Txa'ren and Ni'ka a good chuckle.  "You'd probably have to tell the families living here a day before," Txa'ren grinned.

[Random the Navigator]

Waytelem squinted in the direction Ni'ka had indicated.  He had the best distance vision of the three, and at their present altitude, looking out over an expanse of forest wasn't so different from looking out over an expanse of grass.  "Yes, there does seem to be a rise or something there...a place where the treetops jut out above the rest.  Don't know what the land under them looks like, but the higher part's not very wide...  If nothing else, it's in the right direction.  A marshland, a narrow spit...could be a cliff; I'd say let's see if another river joins this one to complete the picture."  He had Atan'iheyu drop down to just above the treetops so he could follow the river more closely and so that any uplift in the terrain would be easier to detect.

[Kiyevanie]

Txa'ren, too, looked in the direction his companions had mentioned.  "You have the best distance vision of all of us, tsmukan.  Marshland and a narrow spit with trees jutting out - that sounds good enough to me to give it a try.  Come on, let's have a closer look at that."  He gave Taw'itan the destination and they changed direction slightly to fly towards the spit Waytelem had seen.

The closer they got, the more the place looked like the description Yo'ku had given them.  The land beneath their Ikrans' wings got wetter and definitely marshlike, the trees on the northern side of the river now disappearing completely.  And then Ni'ka spotted a glimmer of water reflecting sun, and it wasn't from the river they'd been following so far.  "Look", she called out.  "There's the river fork!"

Txa'ren looked, then grinned excitedly.  "Yes," he agreed. "And this before us definitely looks like a cliff."  And indeed it was--steep, different-coloured rock falling down from a ridge where treetops were jutting out towards the sky.