[Chrono Trigger Novel - Episode 23] Those Who Sit Close to the Fire
Ioka Village had no walls.
Instead, its homes faced inward in a wide circle. Huts built from thick wooden posts and animal hides surrounded an open common ground, while sharpened stakes and fire pits stood at regular intervals along the outer edge. It was not a settlement designed to keep people trapped inside. It was built so that whatever came from outside could be seen early and met together.
The children were the first to run when Ayla appeared on the ridge.
"Ayla!"
One child threw both arms around her waist. Another looked disappointed when he saw she had brought back no game. The adults noticed Crono and the others a moment later.
Conversation stopped.
A man sharpening a stone knife rose to his feet. A woman drying hides pulled a child behind her. The travelers' clothing and metal equipment were stranger here than any living creature.
Ayla walked straight into the center of the clearing as though none of that mattered.
"New friends!"
She slapped Crono once on the shoulder.
"Crono. Sword fast."
Then Lucca.
"Lucca. Makes fire. Smart. Talks lots."
"You can leave out the last one."
The children laughed.
Ayla pointed at Marle.
"Marle. Moves water. Weak when hold hands."
Marle protested at once.
"That's because you're ridiculously strong."
This time some of the adults laughed as well.
The tension eased by a small but noticeable degree.
Ayla seemed to consider that enough. She started toward the chief's hut, and Marle fell in beside her.
"Is that how you always introduce guests?"
"Say name. Say what good at. Then people remember."
"You also say what they're bad at."
"Remember that too."
Lucca had not moved from the edge of the clearing.
Her attention was fixed not on the huts but on the things around them—the way a stone blade had been fixed into a wooden handle, cords twisted from animal sinew, hollowed bones used to carry liquid.
"No adhesive."
Marle turned.
"What?"
"That axe. They cut a groove in the wood, wedged the stone into it, then tightened it with wet rawhide. It'll contract as it dries and lock the head in place."
Ayla said, "Lucca talks lots again."
"I'm observing."
"Look, then talk. Talks lots."
The corner of Crono's mouth moved.
Lucca glared at him.
"Don't you start."
The chief's hut was not much larger than the others.
Inside were a low sleeping platform, strips of dried meat, and different kinds of stone and bone hanging from the supports. Red stones had been tied to the central post like ornaments. Lucca stopped in front of them the moment she entered.
They were the color of Dreamstone.
Ayla offered her a bowl of water.
"Drink first."
Lucca took it without taking her eyes off the stones.
Marle asked for her.
"Where do you get the red stone?"
"Across river. Under mountain. Dig ground, find. Big pieces rare."
"Could we have some?"
Ayla did not answer immediately.
She untied a small piece from the post and laid it in her palm. Then she pointed outside.
"Make knife with this? No. Too soft. Put by fire? Pretty. Wear on neck? Chief sign."
She lifted her own necklace.
"Lots of red stone. But big red stone belongs to Ioka."
Lucca remembered Melchior's warning.
If they found someone who possessed the stone, they were not to begin by asking its price.
"We need it," she said.
Ayla's eyes shifted to her.
"Why?"
"To repair a broken sword."
"Fix sword, then what?"
"It might help us stop a powerful enemy."
"Who?"
For a moment the three travelers hesitated.
Marle answered.
"A man named Magus. He lives a very long time after you."
Ayla did not look confused. If anything, the phrase very long time after you interested her less than the part about a powerful enemy.
"Magus strong?"
Crono nodded.
"There may be something even more dangerous," Lucca added. "A being called Lavos."
Ayla did not repeat the name.
"Enemy you never see?"
"We saw what it does in the future."
Lucca's voice lowered. "The world was almost dead."
Ayla set the water bowl on the ground.
"Then why Magus first?"
"We heard he summoned Lavos. We have to find out whether that's true."
Ayla tilted her head to one side.
"Don't know, meet and see."
"Exactly," Marle said. "That's what we're trying to do."
Ayla accepted the explanation.
She still did not answer their request for the stone.
"Tonight, eat."
"What about the stone?" Lucca asked.
"Talk after eat."
"Why does every conclusion happen after food?"
Ayla answered with complete seriousness.
"Hungry, thinking gets weak."
Lucca started to argue, then stopped.
Afternoon in Ioka was for work.
Visitors were no exception.
Marle carried water from the river until she realized she could use her magic to fill other people's hide containers as well. Lucca learned how to bind stone points with leather cord and had to redo the knot twice. Crono began helping butcher game and learned, after a sharp correction, that a blade used for fighting and a blade used for food were not the same thing.
The tools were rough, but their purposes were precise. Short language did not mean simple technology or simple judgment.
Near sunset, a horn sounded beyond the village.
Everyone looked up at once.
Ayla reached the ridge first.
Three hunters were returning across the northern plain. One leaned heavily on another, a deep wound across his shoulder. The remaining two dragged the leg of a huge animal behind them.
The children ran first toward the injured man, not the meat.
Ayla waved them back and examined the wound.
"Reptites?"
The hunter nodded.
"North of river. Five. Tried take meat."
Ayla's easy smile vanished.
"Follow you?"
"Didn't see."
"Not see and not there different."
She immediately sent two people to opposite sides of the ridge. The children were ordered deeper into the huts, and more wood was fed into the fire pits.
Lucca came closer.
"The ones that attacked us earlier—those were Reptites?"
"Yes."
"They use tools. They looked like they could think."
Ayla looked at her.
"Reptites not human."
Lucca opened her mouth, then closed it.
She had heard almost the same words said about Mystics in her own era.
Marle seemed to have made the same connection.
Ayla read something in their expressions, but she did not take offense.
"Reptites talk. Think. Want our land. We want land too. So fight."
She washed the hunter's shoulder with clean water.
"Thinking doesn't make friend. Being different doesn't make beast."
Lucca's eyes widened slightly.
Ayla chewed medicinal leaves and pressed the pulp over the wound.
"Azala leads Reptites. Very smart. Think more than Ayla."
"You admit that?" Marle asked.
"Why not? Think enemy weak, Ayla dies."
There was no hatred in the answer. Only experience.
Crono remembered the children running beneath Magus's statue in Medina in 1000 A.D. An enemy in one age could become a neighbor in another. A hero in one place could survive elsewhere as the name of a defeat. Sixty-five million years did not make such things simpler.
The scouts returned before the sun was fully gone.
There was no sign of pursuit.
As the village relaxed, preparations for the feast began again.
A great fire rose in the center of the clearing.
The meat prepared that afternoon went onto wooden spits. Fruit and roots were piled on broad leaves. Some kind of fermented drink was poured into cups made from bone. Lucca smelled hers once and grimaced.
"If I drink this, I don't think I'll remember tomorrow."
Ayla took the cup from her and drained it in one swallow.
"Then today more fun."
"That is exactly the problem."
Marle was already learning a dance in a circle with several villagers.
There were not many fixed steps. Stamp three times, clap, bump shoulders with the person beside you, then turn. Marle went the wrong way twice. The children laughed louder each time. On the third round she deliberately turned the wrong way again.
Crono sat near the edge of the fire with a skewer of meat.
Ayla dropped down beside him.
"Crono not dance?"
He looked at Marle in the circle and Lucca, who had managed to avoid both dancing and drinking by examining tools.
"Eating."
"Eat and dance."
Ayla caught his wrist and pulled him to his feet.
Crono was used to reading an opponent's movement in battle. He was not gifted at matching the rhythm of several dozen people all moving differently. On the first turn he stepped on someone's foot. On the second he clapped a beat late.
Marle doubled over laughing.
"Harder than sword fighting?"
Instead of answering, Crono watched which way she would turn next and planted himself deliberately in the opposite direction.
This time Marle ran into him.
"You did that on purpose."
His mouth curved upward.
As the fire climbed higher, the voices around it grew louder.
One person would begin a story about the day's hunt and another would add exaggerated gestures. Children who had heard the story ten times laughed as if it were new. Stories of battles with Reptites surfaced too, but the number of enemies killed mattered less than who had dragged whom home alive.
Ayla sat in the middle of them and listened to everyone.
Being chief did not mean she took the best meat first. She pushed the larger pieces toward the injured and the children, then ate what remained.
Marle watched her quietly.
The look on her face belonged to someone remembering the long tables of a palace.
Ayla noticed.
"Why look?"
"I thought chiefs were supposed to eat the best things first."
"Why?"
"Um... there are a lot of people like that in our time."
Ayla chewed a piece of meat.
"Chief gets full first, can't see others hungry."
Marle said nothing for a while.
Lucca spoke quietly beside her.
"Gaspar was right."
"About what?"
"Old doesn't mean simple."
Late into the night, Ayla went to her hut and returned carrying a red stone.
It was far larger than the piece around her neck. She needed both hands to hold it. The surface was rough, but when firelight touched it, layers of red seemed to move inside.
Lucca stood.
"That's..."
"Big red stone."
Ayla rested it on her knees.
"Chief stone. Shows Ioka strength."
Marle chose her words carefully.
"Then asking you to give it to us would be asking a lot."
"Yes."
Ayla agreed without hesitation.
Lucca bowed her head.
"We still need it."
Across the fire, Ayla studied all three of them.
"Ayla heard earlier. Broken sword. Strong enemy. Find out thing you don't know."
She tapped the stone with one palm.
"Good reason. But having good reason and taking Ioka thing for nothing makes Ioka people angry."
"Then what can we do?"
Ayla's eyes lit up.
Marle noticed and immediately looked suspicious.
"Why do you suddenly look happy?"
Ayla pulled a large pot toward the fire.
A heavy smell of meat and spices rose from it. A thick layer of fat floated over dark red broth, and something beneath the surface moved slowly even though it was no longer boiling.
Lucca took one step back.
"No."
"Ioka likes strong people."
Ayla set two bone bowls beside the pot.
"Crono. Eat fight with Ayla."
Marle burst out laughing.
"It really is based on appetite!"
Lucca covered her face with one hand.
"We are going to obtain a mineral older than recorded history through an eating contest."
Ayla, who had not understood a word of the complaint, handed Crono one of the bowls.
"Win, get big red stone."
Crono looked down into it.
Chunks of meat, roots, and unfamiliar leaves floated in the rich broth. It smelled good enough. The problem was that Ayla had already eaten at least three times as much as he had during the feast and showed no sign of being full.
Marle put a hand on Crono's shoulder.
"The future of the world now rests on your stomach."
"Don't exaggerate," Lucca said. "The Dreamstone rests on his stomach."
"If the sword stops Magus, and Magus has something to do with Lavos, that's almost the same thing."
"Please don't give him that kind of pressure."
Crono looked back at both of them, then at Ayla.
She already had her bowl in hand.
"Ready?"
Crono loosened his belt by one notch.
A cheer erupted around the clearing.
The people of Ioka had already formed a ring around them. Some shouted Ayla's name. Marle cupped both hands around her mouth and shouted for Crono.
Lucca began with her arms crossed, but as everyone stamped their feet waiting for the start, she finally raised one hand.
"All right. Rules first."
Ayla tilted her head.
"Person who eats more wins."
"That's it?"
"That's it."
Lucca paused.
"I like the rules in this era."
Ayla laughed.
Sparks leapt into the night sky.
Lucca dropped her hand.
"Start!"
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