The River

Chapter 14

Logan entered the library with a candle in his hand and Laura entered after him. It was not a very big library but it was nice and cozy. Most of the shelves were empty now, but still, there were more than a hundred books there.

Logan started looking at the books, some of them were in different languages, he could not even recognize the letters, some were written by the same letters he was familiar with, but he could not recognize any words in them, he figured they should be in some other languages with the same letters. But there were some books that he could understand some words in them. He started looking through the books.

Laura looked around the shelves first and appreciated the fine architecture of the place, she was proud to be in a nice place created with her own kind. After some time she got bored and started to go through the books, she realized some of them have pictures, “I will check the pictures,” said Laura “And let you know if there were any pictures of water in them,” “That would be great,” said Logan and got back to his readings.

Laura was checking the books one by one, for her, there was no difference between the books, she could not read at all, her family did not know how to read and write and she started working as a child, so she never learned to read, “Maybe,” said Laura to Logan “Someday you could teach me how to read,” Logan looked at her with a smile “Sure, I will be happy to,” said Logan, and then both went back to explore in the books.

They read the books for a while, suddenly Laura found something, “Oh, look look,” said Laura “This must be a river,” Logan jumped toward her and saw a drawing of a river inside a book, it was on a very old book and the picture was not very clear, but he could clearly see a drawing of a river going through some turns inside the rocks, to his surprise there was a drawing of a city in the far back of the picture too, it seemed that the river was flowing out of that city, it was driving Logan crazy, he could swear that he saw the exact same scene in some of his dreams. He looked at the words under the picture for a long time, “What is written under it?” asked Laura, “I can’t read,” answered Logan “It does not look like our language, I can recognize the letters, but the words don’t make sense to me,” “Read it out loud,” said Laura, “Maybe we figured it out together,” Logan looked at her, “There’s one letter that I don’t know it,” said Logan “But it looks like an ‘O’, so I think it may sound the same,” “Ok, just read it,” said Laura, “Ok,” Logan started to read from the book, slowly and clearly “ ‘Elu’, viimane jõgi põhjas,” then he looked at Laura, “Yeah,” admitted Laura “That does not sound familiar at all. Are there any other words in that book you can understand?” Logan looked at the book for some time and said “No, nothing.”

Ubara interrupted and invited them to eat dinner. He also brought them both new clothes. Laura could find new fit clothes, but Logan’s clothes were small for him. “No worries,” said Ubara, “I know how to sew, I will make you proper clothes out of these ones.”

After a day Ubara sewed new clothes for Logan that was fit on him. They stayed at Ubara’s house for several days. Logan spent most of his time in the library with the books trying to find any data regarding the rivers.

Laura spent the first days looking at the pictures of the books but she didn’t find anything useful, except for that one picture of a river. Eventually, she decided to go see the outside. She realized there is storage from the old village near them and went there in search of some arrows for her bow or even a new bow.

Her search was not any more successful than Logan’s. She was stuck with her only and last arrow, however, she could find a goblin forged sword. It was a very beautiful and ornamented sword, the blade was shining gold and the cover was leather. Of course, the cover was old and almost torn, but the blade was clean.

Laura asked Ubara if she could take the sword for herself, Ubara looked at the sword and told her to wait. The next day Ubara took her to a place a little far away inside the hills. On the way, they passed a tall hill that had a different shape than other hills around.

“Is that?” asked Laura pointing at the tall hill “The ship that your son made?” “Yes,” said Ubara “Of course now it’s just the ruins of a ship, in its days, it was taller and had a majestic shape.” Laura looked at the hill again, it was not anything special now, but she could feel the memories being carried by this artificially shaped hill.

Finally, they reached a door and entered a place that seemed like an abandoned blacksmith. It was under a hill like all other houses in the village. Laura understood they were still in the village and then she realized how big the village was.

“How many goblins were living here?” asked Laura while walking inside the blacksmith, “If I recall correctly,” answered Ubara, “We were almost a five hundred.” Laura’s eyes widened, “So how did the savages defeat you?” asked Laura “Five hundred is too many to be defeated.” “Because,” answered Ubara, “We didn’t fight back,” “What?” asked Laura in shock, then saw Ubara going behind a round stone with a wheel.

Suddenly she realized where she was. it was an old dusty room, there were some big tools like the round stone in the room, but mostly it was emptied. Ubara took her sword and while touching its blade said, “You see, it does not cut me,” said Ubara “We never wanted to fight with anybody, even our swords were not made for war, they were simply a beautiful ornament for our houses. We have always been friendly creatures, war is not a part of our culture.”

Then Ubara started to turn the wheel by his foot and put the blade on the turning stone. There were sparkles throwing around. After some time it was done, Ubara touched the blade and it cut his finger, then he gave it back to Laura with caution, “Be careful,” said Ubara “Now it’s a weapon, I hope you may never have to use it.”

Laura took the sword, it was even shinier now, Ubara left the room and Laura went after him while she put back the sword in its cover.

“But,” asked Laura while they were walking back “I don’t understand,” “What don’t you understand?” asked Ubara, “How can you not care about your safety,” asked Laura, “You could easily defend yourself against those savages, but you decided not to,” “I see that it’s hard for you to understand, after all, you have been raised with humans,” said Ubara “Fighting and war is never the answer, it is created by the lower creatures and it should stay within them, we goblins never find the solution of our problems in the war,” “You mean,” asked Laura “Humans?” Ubara looked at her and didn’t answer, “The point is, no creature should allow itself to kill another just because they think they are better, and I think everyone knows it deep inside. that’s why almost in all the wars, both sides try to show themselves as the defender, nobody wants to be the tribe who started the war, even if they admit for starting the war, they will bring some other excuses like how the other side was abusing them or giving them hard time and their only way was in the war, while there is always another way. You can always ignore the fights, you need just to look for other ways.”

“But still,” said Laura again “Being civil and looking for peace, does not mean to let others take advantage of you,” “And we didn’t,” answered Ubara “Let anybody take advantage of us,” “You let them,” said Laura “Run you out of your homeland.” “Homeland is where we live,” said Ubara “It’s not some hills or fields, you can go live where ever you feel more comfortable and that will be your home, where you have born, your heritage, they are all lies told to us to make us kill ourselves for the things that don’t matter at all, for the things that we don’t even understand, when we fight for our land, what are we really fighting for? Does it really matter who rules the land? As long as you live there happily that's your home, but if you are not happy you should just leave it. When we go to war it does not matter who wins after some time life will be worse for most of the people, or the same at the best situation, it is just a few minorities that benefit from war and they can’t make you go to war unless you have some reason to. Land, religion, and even our race is something that helps people from our own land, religion, or race abuse us and kill us for their own benefits. In the end, we are all the same, if we just think about our enemies for a second, we won’t let ourselves to kill them, even if they kill us, I was a king and I know what would war do for me, it would just be a benefit, I could have more power by making my people scared of our enemies, making weapons and prepare them to die for the land of our forefathers. But if you think about it for a moment, you will see how idiotic it is, if our forefathers would go right instead of left, we had a different place as our homeland, and then we would be proud of that land and didn’t care about this one.” “But,” shouted Laura “Just some days ago, you told us about leaving your whole tribe because of your land,” Ubara looked at her and laughed, then stared toward the horizon as they were walking side by side “Oh, dear child,” said Ubara with a sad and serious voice, “That’s a lie I told myself and everyone around me to cover the truth.”

They walked for a while in silence, “I know,” said Laura “That I should not ask it, But I just, can’t, what was the truth then?” “You didn’t get it?” asked Ubara and continued without waiting for an answer from Laura, “I thought it would be obvious in my story, I stayed because I could not let my son stay alone, he was banished from the tribe, and if I would try to use my power as a chief to get him back to the tribe, that would make me a traitor to my own oath. I knew he did a bad thing, he ended a long peaceful life of a village, he could not be forgiven, but I could not punish him, so I stayed to help him continue his path,” “And eventually,” said Laura “He left you,” “I’m aware of the irony,” said Ubara with a bitter voice “But I would do the same again and again. There was no other way for me. And who knows, maybe it was for the best, after all, maybe my tribe had found a better place to live, maybe my son is now immortal, who am I to judge?” Laura put her hand over Ubara’s shoulders “Don't feel sad for me,” said Ubara “I am just seeing the consequences of my own acts, whatever is happening to me right now is nobody’s fault, and after all, I’m not sad, I have had a great life, it was time for me to let go of everything and I’m happy I did so. Sometimes I feel bad for being alone, but most of the time I feel happy for having nothing, I don’t need anything anymore, nothing can make me sad anymore, I don’t have anything or anybody, and yet I have never felt more powerful in my life. Even when I was in my youth and just became the king of the tribe after my father's death, I was worried about many things, I had lots of things to lose and they made me weak, but now even the savages don’t attack me, they now where I am, I see them sometimes in the fields and I know they see me too, but there is no reason for them to fight with me, that’s the ultimate power.”

“Now my daily job is to hunt the fat cockroaches and bring water for myself, and my only hobby is to make candles. I love making candles. I know that even if you have the greatest army in the world, there will be another tribe who could at least fight with you and give you a great deal of damage, but for me, no, you can break my candles, that’s all anyone can do to me. I have found the greatest power of all. My son might be the immortal one but I am the omnipotent one.”

By this time they reached back the house, Ubara was tired  and went to rest in his bedroom, Logan was still going through the books, Laura decided to make the dinner, she found some cockroaches, they were big and full of meat, she emptied their meats and made them in her own style.

Laura realized how much she had missed her old hobby, staying inside her little home and experience with different materials to make new foods, it was the best time of her life and she was not aware of that at the time.

After Laura prepared the dinner she called for Logan and Ubara, they joined her to eat the dinner, Ubara looked a little annoyed “Did I do something wrong?” Asked Laura “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,” “No, it’s not that,” said Ubara and continued after seeing Laura’s puzzled face “I don’t know what this is,” “Oh, I made it my own way,” said Laura with a smile “I did not use anything new, I just cooked them differently,” “She is the greatest cook,” said Logan “Just taste it and you will see what I am talking about,” Ubara was still a little annoyed, he sat behind the table “It’s still a new food,” said Ubara as he was getting up “If it’s not rude to you, please let me make my own dinner.” “Sure!” said Laura, her eyes following Ubara “It’s your home, I don’t want to make you uncomfortable.”

Ubara made his own dinner while Laura and Logan ate theirs and then they went to bed to sleep. That night Logan saw his dream again. After a long time, the far distant big city with its tall buildings came back to his dreams, just like the picture in the book.

The next day Logan got out of the house for the first time in a week. He went by the side of the river and sat there for a while, then he returned back to the library and continued his readings.

Finally, he could find the word “river” in one of the books. He started reading that page of the book. There was some data about farming and how farmers use the water from the river to grow their plants and trees. Logan could not understand some parts of the page, but it was not the point, he finally had a proof. The rivers were not just some myths, these old rusty books were proof of their existence.

Logan was excited and found Laura to give her the news. It was a good day for them. Logan got back to that book to find more data over it. After a day of study he concluded that rivers were the main source of water in ancient times, something like today's underground sources.

He also found something about the vessels that could surf on the rivers, they were being used as transport vehicles, so Utnapishtim was right about the ships. But he did not say anything to Ubara about it.

After some more days, Logan was feeling completely recovered, his shoulder was healed and he felt no pain at all. Laura was feeling good too. For the last several days she was practicing with her new sword and her only arrow. She had one shot left and she wanted to hit her target whenever it was necessary.

Laura spent a part of the day with Ubara and talked about everything. He reminded Laura of her father, she was using his company as much as she could and Ubara was happy about it. He told her everything that he wished to tell his daughters.