local settlement date 35,989
When the time comes that you do not know whom you are killing for what, your real enemy will be near.
King Namor Zujahrah
13 namor see the ocean
"We will go ahead to tell the people that the 108 animal caravan has not come to collect taxes."
Barbaralba and Namor left the others to walk ahead to Barbaralba's village. Russam was the first to see them approach. He dropped his fishing net and walked out to meet Barbaralba. To embrace her.
"You have come back Barbaralba. And you are a woman."
"King Namor, my Drave father, Russam."
Barbaralba answered all the questions Russam had on the way back to the village. At the village, news was spread that a feast was to be had that evening for all who could come. That the caravan approaching the village was a Drave caravan of many animals and wagons.
There was no need to tell of a Drave King. Those words had come before them. The effect of cutting off the tax collectors was a sudden wealth of free time and produce.
It was not difficult, with King Namor as her company, to find Draves willing and eager to take down Castle City. Starting with their tax collectors.
People of the villages all knew how to shoot fish under water with a bow. Making bows and arrows to shoot tax collectors was the first business to be taken care of before sending Draves to all thirty-six tax routes.
Barbaralba worked together with the Draves of the ocean villages, designing new ancient patented weapons. A triple bow to shoot three arrows at a time. Cross bows of various sizes. From something a small fighter could carry in one hand to cross bows mounted on wagons. Requiring two operators. Bows made with boiled down animal ligaments, wood, plant fiber, metal and fire.
Small armies were trained and equipped, one by one, and sent out to ambush tax collectors after their crossing of the dessert. Within three far moon cycles, a boarder was made by the Drave's army to isolate Castle City.
"Barbaralba. It is soon time for an attempt at protocol. Before I return to Castle City, there is a nearby island I want to visit."
"I've heard of the island. Beyond the cliffs down the coast."
They had paddled out to the floating island to have their own place with no eyes other than fish and birds to watch them.
"If you look along the shore to the horizon, you can see the island."
"I wouldn't have known it wasn't part of the coast. Have you ever been there."
"No one goes there. The currents will take you out to the ocean, never to return."
"Zauqir says there is a bridge. He goes over it every few double moons."
"I knew he went many places. I didn't know about his island visits. What is of interest there."
"People to trade with. And he likes it there. Spends a full moon cycles there when he goes."
"What king of people live there."
"People neither Royal family nor Drave."
"What other kind of people is there."
"I don't know, Barbaralba. I didn't know there was another island. Till recently I didn't really know there was this island. That is why I want to go."
"I will come with you. Do we need to take an army."
"No army. Just you and Zauqir."
"It sounds like a good adventure,Drave King. But let us not loose the day. Come to my under water world."
Barbaralba dove off the floating island into the warm water. After a visit that seemed so short, it was again the last day for as long as it took to get back to her home again.
When she resurfaced, she looked up at Namor to see that he was standing naked on the floating island watching her move.
He dove in and swam to Barbaralba.
"Relax, Drave King. The ocean is full of salt. It will hold you if you let it."
"I've always had stone or wood under my feet."
"Lay back and relax. I will hold you."
Namor let himself be guided by Barbaralba. He let her tip his head back so that his ears were under water.
"Point your toes away from you and gently move your legs."
Barbaralba ran her tongue around Namor's face and gave him little kisses. Without words, she instructed him how to take his air from her.
"I'm going to show you my world. Breath only when you feel my lips."
"You are an angel, Barbaralba."
"We all are. Breathe."
Barbaralba took him to the bottom of the ocean. Never very deep inside the reef. She placed a rock on his lap. She pressed his belly so he would let out his air and take her air. Barbaralba resurfaced to grab her bow and some air. She shot a fish that had just swam past Namor then swam to him, pressed on his stomach, then gave him her air.
After Barbaralba came and went a few times, Namor tried to notice things in the ocean other than Barbaralba. He noticed the dancing of the light on the surface above them. He noticed fish looking at him. Sucking on his skin. Darting off and coming back. He saw the festival of colours along the reef. He saw an underwater bird fish. Lying almost invisible on the sandy bottom.
Just when he thought he could sit all day on the ocean floor, Barbaralba came without her bow to take him to the surface. The falling of the rock from his lap onto the ocean floor sent the bird fish flying through the water.
"Breathe some fresh air."
Barbaralba climbed up on the floating island to sit and watch the sky. Namor climbed up beside her and tried to look beyond the horizon.
"Look there, Namor. My name comes from her."
Namor looked out to see a big grey and white bird floating on the air. Barely above the surface.
"She is fishing. Other times she is so high in the sky."
"I love and adore you, Barbaralba."
"Show me."
He showed her what a naked man on a floating island could show the only other living creature on the island. They laughed with each other and attacked one another. They became everything they had been since life had set its path to become them.
Until the sky became dark with storm clouds, Barbaralba and Namor enjoyed dancing around and through each other.
After the wind and rain, thunder and lightning, came the hail.
Barbaralba rolled Namor into the ocean with her, with him still in her, holding her, like she was holding him. When Namor needed more air, Barbaralba gave him her air, went to the surface for new air a few times before taking Namor back up.
"They can be hard on your head the ice balls from the storm clouds."
"I don't remember it ever raining in Castle City."
"The sun seldom shines through all the walls and rooves."
"No. But it is beautiful. Just not like this kind of beautiful. Where everything is so, unprotected from everything else."
"Are you hungry. I am very."
Namor looked at Barbaralba and tried to think what she had just asked him.
Barbaralba did not wait for an answer. She left Namor's body to take her knife to a fish. Namor watched her clean it.
She disappeared under the ocean to gather a few plants, took an oil cooker from Russam's boat and prepared a fish dinner.
"Are we going to spend the night here."
"Yes. Good idea. Drave King. If you feel safe enough out here. We will sleep on our little wooden island."
"If feel better than safe when I am next to you. I feel alive and eternal."
Barbaralba smiled her angel smile. The eternal god inside the beast.
Namor helped Barbaralba make a lean-to with a tarp to keep them out of the rain while they cooked. By the time they ate, the sun had gone with the clouds behind the horizon, leaving the sky full of stars.
The tarp was redesigned into a hammock so that Namor and Barbaralba could lay under the stars and wonder aloud how being in a space ship might be. How such a monstrous thing got built. How to take down Castle City without rivers of blood.
"It's funny to have a life at the point where the world that was for so long how it was, becomes something else. Almost all at once."
"You are what's different, Drave King. You are calling out the gods."
chapter 14
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