Free Gods of Green Mountain by V. C. Andrews Page B

saw many things, but not all.
    The Gods never reveal all, even to those they sometimes favor.
    And when the pukas were well furred, with silvery smoke-blue, Far-Awn set out for home, trailed by Musha and his nineteen wives and twenty-one offspring. In that flock, Musha had seven new sons. Musha heard his master singing as he led the way. At the very end Musha guarded the rear, keeping a watchful eye out for warfars.
    "Musha!" called back Far-Awn, "I'm keeping my word. You and yours are safe. Never again will puhlet meat be served at our tables. Though I find my family starving, they will eat of the flowers, and what they have produced. To you, I will raise a great monument in the heart of a huge city, and puhlets will be cared for with love and respect until they die a natural death."
    Musha, far in the back of his wives and children, grunted deep in his throat.

    A day's journey away, Baka and what remained of his family, sat in the sun, near death from the dim-despairs, from starvation. In deep lethargy, all still alive on the upper borderlands sat and waited. Some had their toes already buried in the earth, even in the sunlight. Food. Oh, Gods of Green Mountain...have you forsaken us? Where are the puhlets, your gift to us for developing legs and moving ourselves out of the ground?
    "What are you thinking?" asked Lee-La of her gaunt husband.
    "Of ham," he said weakly, "of a roast hot from the oven. I would sell my soul for a slice of meat."

Book Two

El Dorraine

Prologue
    A fter El Sod-a-Por became known as El Dorraine, a way to record spoken words into written symbols was developed by a man named Sal-Lar. The genius of his discovery elevated him into the honored position of national historian. He could put his pen to paper in a grand and glorious way, swirling his letters with sweeping, flourishing loops that despaired the children of El Dorraine, who sat tediously in school struggling to imitate what came naturally easy to Sal-Lar.
    Sal-Lar was still a boy when that most monumental and momentous storm struck from the ice lands of Bay Gar. How many died in the underground caverns was never known, for the population of the upper borderlands had never been counted. There were very few left alive when the people crept out of their holes, weak from hunger, and so caught in the dim-despairs that their limbs were almost too heavy to move. The dead were stacked like logs for burning in a remote dark and cold cave, awaiting the day the living had the strength to bury them.

Far-Awn Returns
    B aka, grown skeleton thin and facially gaunt, carried his single daughter, Bret-Lee, and laid her down in the sunlight. The ten-year-old girl had paled into tan, and brown was the color of death. Her deep purple eyes were faded and without luster. She couldn't speak, or move, though her toes curled constantly, restlessly seeking to bury themselves in the earth.
    "She will die soon," said Lee-La as she knelt beside her husband and studied her daughter's face. "Perhaps it would be kinder to let her root herself into the ground than to keep her here in agony."
    "Never!" shouted Baka defiantly, his voice grown small in comparison to the roar that had been his formerly. Already he had lost four sons, a daughter-in-law, two grandsons, and his flock of puhlets. (Two of his boys sent out to search for Far-Awn died on the day of that horrendous storm.) He turned bitterly on his wife. "Not one of us will root our toes! Hear that?"
    Before dark, Bret-Lee was carried into the only house still standing. Tenderly Baka laid her down on her bed, and stood above her with tears in his eyes. He had never appreciated this girl; he had taken her for granted, like she would always be here to fetch and carry, to weave and spin, to clean and cook, and eventually to provide him with multitudes of grandchildren. The day of full sunlight had only tinged her sickly complexion with healthy green. Rough handling would break off a limb, or a finger, she was that brittle.