Yitris had always been a very special place
to leave. The few people that lived there, never left but they lived in one of
the best places in the world because it was located in a remote area where no
one would go bother them, whether they wanted it or not. Its location in the
middle of the desert, made it only possible for the best explorers to reach the
city and know its citizens and also, their queen.
Queen Alina was more than fifty years old and
she had been working for her people for at least thirty years. She lived in the
top house of the city but her home was not really different than other peoples
home. It was only above all others house, all built on top of very high trees
in the middle of the green valley, hidden in the desert. It was a very good
place to hide but also a very good place to feel free from everything.
There were less than a thousand people living
in Yitris but hey all had access to good doctors, to the only school that was
directly handled by the Queen and also to food, that never really lacked in any
of the people’s tables. Everyone had to have, at least, some bread and fruit to
eat. Only half of the population actually ate animal meat and they were very
good at using every single part of the animal’s body in order not to kill something
and then waste it all because they only wanted some of the meat.
People were very trusting and, also, always
seemed to be happy. No person of Yitris yelled, unless they were really angry
and it was only for one second. The Queen, of course, set the example for the
rest, always been gracious when she did her daily tour around her small
kingdom. She went from her place, to the jungle floor. There, several people
had settled, specially the ones that were hunters or farmers.
There was a small piece of the terrain that
had almost no trees and that had been specially done by the people with the
permission of the Queen, because they didn’t have anywhere to grow things like
corn and wheat and they also needed land to build mills and kitchens where they
would make the bread and so on. So she authorized a rather small piece of land
to be used for that purpose. It was so small; it was always the first place to
be hit by sandstorms, when they occurred.
The desert was mostly benevolent, protecting
them from the outside. But it’s sand was sometimes the worst thing for them
because it could almost destroy everything that they had build. But they
endured because it was because of that sand, because of the endless desert,
that they had always been protected from exterior influence. Only a handful of
people had made it to Yitris and all of them had died there, whether from
exhaustion or because they had chosen not to go back to their lands.
That was until Jack Freeman, a English
explorer, and two of his men wondered into the desert and stumbled upon Yitris
after a particularly strong sandstorm. The locals were cleaning their homes
when they saw the men approach. It was the first time for many to see a
foreigner and that’s why so many did not seem to remember that they always had
to notify this to the Queen. She only knew about these knew visitors when they
decided to ask for a leader and the people, shy but interested, indicated her
home.
She didn’t like, at all, to have people enter
her house without permission as they did. Alina knew nothing about manners in
the exterior world, but she imagined England and all other lands must have been
really awful places if all people did that to their neighbors. They
communicated with hand gestures and body language because both of their
languages were highly incompatible. Even so, the English sometimes yelled
things in their language, as if the people of Yitris had to understand them.
The Queen, trying to be as generous as she
could, decided to invite them for dinner. She had all the best food prepared
for them and every single person in the small country, which only consisted of
a deep valley, was able to come and greet the strangers in person. Those men
ate differently and seemed to have a second skin that made them smell funny.
That’s what most of the people thought of them.
The English, however, thought the people of
Yitris were nice but also very strange. They thought it was very weird that a
valley like that existed in the middle of the desert. They had been looking for
another settlement, an oasis that they had to check thoroughly because it
seemed to be located on top of an oil reserve. That’s the kind of explorers
they were. Not adventurous men working in mankind’s behalf but just some guys
working to get some money like many others.
When, after the party, they decided to leave,
the Queen denied this and insisted on them sleeping on a house that they would
give them to be alone and to rest. No one would be there, just them. They took
them by a series of stairs and bridges to a lower level where a big house,
normally used for storage, had been cleaned and three beds made of thick leaves
had been set as well as some more food and water on a table in the middle of
the circular home.
The locals left them alone and the foreigners
decided to leave as soon as they could the next day. They agreed that the
people of Yitris were very nice but they also thought that they had some work
to do and that they couldn’t let down the company for which they worked. Oil
was important.
When they attempted to leave the next day, a
group of locals decided to take them, instead, to the mills and fields in the
border between the valley and the desert. The men looked at the sand with
insistence but the people did not realize that they wanted to leave. Even at
the end of the tour, when the English did all signals for them to know they had
to go back to the desert, the people appeared not to understand or at least it
seemed like they had no answer for that.
The English had arrived with an exhausted
horse and some bags of objects and they went straight to the Queen’s home and
demanded their things to be brought to them immediately. Again, she was very
bothered by them entering like if it was their home but she decided not to say
anything. Instead, she told her aides to bring the objects and, as they did,
she told the English with mimic that their horse did not existed anymore.
She imitated a four-legged animal and then
passed a finger over her throat. They understood that immediately and one of
the men launch itself at her in rage but two locals grabbed him and stopped his
attack. He was yelling and crying and having all sorts of emotions that the
people there did not really exhibit on a daily basis. Even for the men holding
him, it was interesting to see how foreigners used their feelings.
They released him and the Queen then spoke in
broken English. They were very surprised. She explained that the horse had been
killed because in their land, animals were not used for work. Besides, the creature
they had brought in was exhausted and wouldn’t have survived another trip.
That’s why they had decided to kill it and use its meat and insides in
different things in order not to waste anything.
The man crying didn’t really hear any of this
but his leader did. He demanded her to explain what that meant and when they
would be able to leave, as they had important matters to attend.
Queen Alina simply said that the horse was in
all that they had eaten fast and happily the day before They had eaten all of
his meat and the organs had been stored for further usage in soups for the
people of the valley. They expect it to
be very nutritious. As for the bones, they could use them to make weapons or
instruments for working on the fields.
The second question was easier to answer: they
couldn’t leave because no one left the valley. They couldn’t afford anyone
leaving and telling the world of their existence. So, smiling, she insisted on
them going back to their assigned home and settling in. They would soon learn
their ways and will be integrated in no time, been able to enjoy all that life
had to offer in Yitris.
The English men complied but not because they
agreed but because they knew when to stop fighting. In their minds, Queen Alina
was now an enemy and Yitris had to come out to the world and be destroyed. Only
because of a horse and the secret of its existence.
