Chapter 4: 4 Morris

“Good Lord!”

The voice startled her. She opened her eyes to discover both suns had traveled across the sky and First Sun was close to setting. She’d been asleep for hours and, to her dismay, the vines had grown over her knees. Hurrying toward her was a gaunt, ramshackle man wearing threadbare, ragged clothing. His hands were dirty. A fringe of gray hair circled his head, and a long, disorderly beard disguised his face. She thought he must be a saint. Once beside her, he dropped to his knees and chopped cautiously at the Blood Umbrella Vine with a knife he carried in his waistband.

“Don’t morris yet,” he cautioned when she instinctively pulled her right leg back as the vines loosen around it. He was close enough for her to realize that not only were his eyes tired and strained, but also he was missing several teeth. He adjusted his weight and continued slicing at the vine. “I have to do this carefully, so the Redrot doesn’t get all over you.”

“Where’s Ciph?” she asked, trying to not sound desperate.

“I don’t know who that is,” the man responded without breaking his concentration to look at her. “The name sounds Eolian.”

“He is.”

“Ah. If he comes to help you, then maybe he can help me, too. I’ve hiked for days searching for anyone who could help us get the last of the prisoners free. The handful of people left in Gaolertown couldn’t, or wouldn’t, help. The forge and the farrier were empty and cold. I tried a farm that I’d seen once, but it was deserted. I tried everywhere I could think of. I got the idea to ask the Eolians for help when that surface-to-air blast thrower hit that shuttle and Eolians came from everywhere trying to save the occupants. I hope they’ll help us. Raedwald’s hired thugs didn’t even bother to open the figgict doors. They just left people to die. Human beings left to starve.”

“Prisoners are still in their cells?” she questioned incredulously. “That wasn’t supposed to happen.”

This time he raised his head and glared directly into her eyes. “How would you know what was supposed to happen?”

“I’m Olivia Raedwald,” she replied, casting her gaze sideways to delay confronting his judgment. “This is my planet.”

The man stopped cutting and rested back on his heels. After several long seconds, he swore and resumed releasing her. “I should leave you here for your planet to devour.”

“Please help me,” she responded softly.

“Oh, I ain’t like you Raedwalds. I wouldn’t leave anybody to die the way these things are trying to kill you,” he said, indignantly. “When Cushy-Softs and Blood Umbrellas grow in the same spot, they work together. The tree holds the victim in one spot until the vines grow over their mouth and nose to suffocate whoever has been captured. I’m going to need help to get you out of this. I don’t have the right tools to chop through the wood, and… you’ll soon enough about the other. Where’s this boyfriend of yours?”

“I don’t know. He didn’t answer when I yelled.”

“Did you whistle?”

“I didn’t know that there was a whistle.”

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“Okay, your legs are free. Pull them as close to your hands as best you can and start brushing them,” he instructed as he rose to his feet. “I’ll whistle, and then look for barbs.”  He walked two or three meters out from under the tree and scanned the horizon. “Twuu-twee-twee-Twuu.” As he returned to her, he explained, “The whistle means come quickly, there’s danger, or that urgent help is needed. They’ll answer. It’s a matter of honor for them. If you’re going to live with Eolians, you need to learn to communicate with them.”

He crouched down beside her again, took her left leg in one hand, and dropped his face close to her leg to examine the skin. Olivia wondered if he were near-sighted but had never had the surgery to correct it, although she reasoned if he had been a prisoner his access to medical care would have been callously restricted. After a moment he briskly rubbed her foot and ankle. His touch made Olivia nervous, but he seemed sincere, and frankly, as long as she was pinned down as she was, there was no way to refuse. Soon she had to admit that she could feel the barbs coming out of her skin. She examined the top of his bald head for a minute and then tried to whistle, “Twue, twuue.”

“It’s a low tone, two high ones, and then another low tone,” he corrected without pausing. “Twuu”

“Twuu-” she copied.

“Twee-twee”

“Twee-twee-”

“Twuu,” he finished.

“Twuu,” she repeated, as Ciph and a dozen Eolians appeared in the sky in front of them. “Ciph! Help!”

The man stood up and greeted the newcomers with a respectful bow, “Thank you for coming. She’s in real trouble.”

Ciph waved one hand to acknowledge Wells as he stepped around him and bent to examine Olivia. “Oh, Ol, what happened?”

“I don’t know,” she began. “I was watching the sky and thinking about everything and the next thing I knew I was sinking into the tree.”

“I should have warned you that Cushy Soft trees are dangerous,” Ciph said, as he combed Olivia’s blond hair from her face with his fingers. He undid the tie in his long hair so he could use it to wrap hers in a queue that he pulled forward and draped over her shoulder. He tramped down the vegetation next to her, sat down, and took one of her hands.

“I was just telling her that myself,” Wells chimed in. “Obviously, she got tangled up in Blood Umbrella Vine, too.”

©2022 Vera S Scott

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