kawebbwriting | The World Walkers: Gaelom: Kaori: Growing Problems

Clouds filled the sky. They’d been disappointed too many times before for Kaori to let herself get excited, even though she couldn’t help hoping it might finally happen. She watched closely. When something fell from the sky, something that definitely wasn’t rain, she smiled. Relief flooded her body as she ran the bell to tell everyone to get inside. Instead of it being rain it was what they’d needed for far too long. In not time at all the streets were filled with nuggets.

They hadn’t run out. As it had become obvious they were going to have to wait longer than they ever had done before for the nuggets to fall they’d started rationing what they had. For the town it had been a problem. It had been more than a problem, really. None of them had let themselves think about what might happen if the nuggets never came again, because if they thought about it they were worried it might actually come true. At least that wasn’t going to happen for a little while longer, but that didn’t mean they shouldn’t keep looking for another way of bringing in the income they needed, in case the same thing happened again. Before they wouldn’t have thought it was possible. Before it wouldn’t have crossed their mind that their luck would fail as badly as it had.

Kaori nibbled her lip. She couldn’t help thinking they weren’t going to do what they should. Instead they were going to make the most of the nuggets they had, using them to fix things, in the hope the drought would never happen again. If they did that… she shook her head. They were going to do that. There was no if. She knew her people, she knew what their next steps were going to be, and that meant she had to be someone, even if she was the only one, who planned for the possibility of the drought lasting for much longer.

While she was stuck in the watch tower there was very little she could do, apart from watch the nuggets fall. Kaori knew that everyone else in the town would be doing the same thing. They’d all been waiting, all been watching, all been hoping, because there was nothing else they could do. No one could make the nuggets come. No one could cast a spell to change the way things were. Some had tried. They hadn’t been successful, but, to them, it had been better than doing nothing at all. Maybe they were right. Maybe they were wrong. It didn’t matter one way or the other. All that mattered was that it had finally happened.

Knowing there was a chance she was making a mistake she made her way down to the ground. She mostly stayed under shelter, but Kaori knew it was possible one of the nuggets would hit her on the head, and if that happened she was probably going to die. The nuggets were metal. Most of them were pretty large, and she’d heard about people dying in the past. Doing her best to keep safe she grabbed one of the nuggets from the street. She didn’t bother to study it, because she’d seen it before. She’d even worked with it, but then the apprentices had all found themselves unable to do anything more than clean up after those who knew what they were doing, because every nugget was precious. Every nugget was still precious.

“Kay!” The voice made her jump. Anyone with sense would have stayed inside. “We need to talk.”

Ganix was her fellow apprentice. She stared at him as he ran towards the watchtower. At any moment he could have been hit by one of the falling nuggets, and if that happened he was going to die. Being able to feel one of the nuggets made her certain of that. They were heavy. Even the small one she was holding was heavy, heavier than she remembered it being, and she didn’t know if that was a good thing. Fortunately nothing untoward happened.

“You’re an idiot.” She shook her head as he climbed up to where she was. “You shouldn’t have been out.”

“No, I shouldn’t, but I didn’t feel like I had another choice. It won’t be long until the fall stops, and when it does…” He shook his head. “You and I both know they aren’t going to do what needs to be done. Not now. If they didn’t have any other option they would have found another way, but they don’t have to now.”

“They might still be sensible.”

He laughed. “We both know better than that. Everything will go back to normal, even though it shouldn’t, and nothing we say will convince them otherwise. They believe they’re right.”

“What do you suggest?”

“Doing something I would never have done before.” He studied her. “We need to take some of the nuggets and hide them from everyone else. We then need to work out how to change things, so that we aren’t reliant on this again.” Their eyes met. “I thought you were one of the people who’d agree with me.”

“I am.” She looked down at the nugget in her hand. “We might have a bigger problem though.” The more she looked at it the more certain she was there was a problem with it. “I don’t think this is what we’ve been waiting for.”

“Show me.” Nodding, Kaori put the nugget into his outstretched hand, and he almost dropped it. “You might be right.”

“Either it’s not as pure, or it’s something else entirely. The former is much better than the latter.”

“The colour’s wrong.” He shook his head. “Kay, this isn’t the same thing.” Ganix glanced up at her. “I don’t know why I didn’t notice before.”

“Maybe you didn’t want to.” She brushed a hand through her hair. “This means we need to work out another way. We don’t have any other option. You could be wrong, but you’ve been an apprentice for longer than I have, so you’d know better than I would what we’re looking at.”

“Honestly, I don’t know enough. What I do know is that this is bad.” He looked out at the streets. “There might be other metals out there. What we need could be mixed in with everything else.”

“It could.” Kaori sighed. “I hate to do this, but you need to go to the master. He needs to know what we’ve found before the falls stop.”

“The falls have already lasted longer than they have done before.”

“I know. I think that’s another sign. I think things have changed, Ganix, and we need to be ready for what’s coming next.”