Ethan confessed his feelings to Rowida the first day on the surface, he was terrified, complained of irrational fears from the harsh sun, the strange taste of food in this place, and the lack of people.
On the second day, he cried for hours, pleading with Rowida to take him back to Beimini, but she shook her head slowly and said, “I am sorry little brother.”
She kneeled to hug him, he pushed her away and cried even more. She sighed and said, “We will go back, I promise, just not today, not even after a month.”
The next day, Ethan complained of severe pains in his stomach, so, Rowida, unsure what to do, carried him and ran where Violet said there would be a town of surface people nearby.
She ran with a moaning Ethan for almost an hour, until the fields of farms were distinctly noticeable among the forest growth, and eventually, she happened upon a group of huge men.
Rowida stopped all of a sudden as she saw the men coming towards her, the shortest of them stood almost two heads above her, they were not just taller and broader than the men in Agartha, but their skin had a strange color, almost white, with red spots around the nose and ears.
Ethan moaned as he clutched his stomach.
She looked desperately at the men and said, “Please, help my brother. He needs a healer.”
The men looked at her in confusion, then one of them started to talk, a slow, lilting language like she had never heard before.
She pushed Ethan in the man’s arms. “He needs a healer, your food poisoned him.”
The man looked at her anguished face, her pleading arms, and the way she pushed the boy into his arms and nodded.
He took Ethan from her and started to move with large strides to the east, so she followed him while the other men surrounded them, and every now and then, one of the men would eye her with wide eyes, shook his head and said something in their strange tongue.
The procession walked fast, and because of their immense bodies, Rowida, who was short for an Agarthan, almost ran alongside them to keep pace.
Finally, the procession reached a primitive-looking village, where there were shacks all around, and a large building with the sign of warding against evil on top.
The man carrying Ethan proceeded immediately to that building, and he pushed the door. A man all in black rushed to his aid.
Rowida was terrified, her fear transcended the void and flowed out of her in waves, for in Agartha, those men in black are the morticians who care for the dead.
The man in black turned from inspecting Ethan and addressed her. After several trials, she realized he must have used more than one tongue. One of them almost felt understandable, but not quite.
She started to cry silently, if she still had her Vrill, she could have understood them and passed some understanding onto them, she and them would have the common tongue offered by the Vrill, at least to the benefit of poor Ethan. But she had no Vrill, and she watched futilely as they discussed what to do with Ethan.
The man in black kept shaking his head as more and more men tried to talk to him, and eventually, he pointed them outside of the building.
The procession moved again, this time delving deeper into the village. As Rowida followed them, she started to realize this was more a town than a village, even if the architecture was primitive, no village in Agartha had this large number of houses.
Eventually, they reached a house almost at the end of the village.
The men hammered the door until a young man opened, who talked to the men fast, lots of nodding, then they took Ethan inside.
When Rowida tried to enter, a man shook his head and put his arm out to block her. She tried to push his arm, it was impossible, the man was the size of an Agarthan ox. She threw her whole body at him, screaming for Ethan and crying. Eventually, the young man came to the door and said something to the man outside, and she was allowed to enter.
This one must be a healer, she thought, as he had shelves of bottled and boxed mixtures, just like the tonics used by the purple healers in Agartha.
She ran to where Ethan was laid on a huge bed, the size of it matched those giants but made Ethan look like a toddler. He was sleeping, but his skin felt hot. Rowida turned to the healer and said, “Do you have bean extract? It is very good for his fever.”
The healer stopped in his tracks and stared fiercely at her for a moment, then mumbled something and went back to his search through his shelves.
Finally, he grabbed a bottle, removed its cork, sniffed it, then took it to Ethan. He pushed the boy to lick a few drops, then pulled a chair and sat watching Ethan. After a minute or two, he signaled for Rowida to grab a chair as well, so she did.
After some hours, Ethan opened his eyes.
“Rowida, please come.” Ethan opened his small arms to her, and she rushed to hug him.
“I had a very bad dream.” Ethan swallowed and said in a trembling voice, “There were giants running with me, and you were chasing after them screaming my name.”
A tear fell down Rowida’s cheek. “It was not a dream, little brother.”
Life on The Surface World, homage to the Green children of Woolpit.