From the Shores of Eden

by Shelley Penner

  Pain shocked Shusha back to full awareness. Blood sheeted down his chest in a sticky flood. A high, wordless keening shivered the air, like the grieving of women. The Bone Dancer shook the blade over the fire, sending scarlet jewels sizzling into the flames. For the first time he spoke, in the voice of Buludumas, the shaman.

  “Taniranai-sha, Spirit-of-fire, in the name of the Father, we ask that you accept this sacrifice of blood and permit these children safe passage through the spirit world, that they may return to be reborn as men.”

  Then the shaman turned blindly toward the dead children and spoke their names. “Kodarosh. Aradumi. Johara. Roazinga. Shusha. You are no longer visible in the world of the living. You can be neither seen, nor heard, nor smelled by any living person. You are amaiu-sha, spirit children. When the sun arises, your sha-haunjo, your spirit journey, begins. You must travel alone, and if you wish to be reborn as men, you must not walk in the footsteps of women or touch anything they have touched. You must gather and prepare your own food, mend your own clothing, make your own shelter. Find a place of solitude and power and build a vadu. Fast and pray to the Father to send you a vision. Seek out your spirit guides, for they will teach you your place in the world and point you to the paths of wisdom. Throughout your life they will stand guard over the power of your shabosha, your life spirit. When Golan’s veil once more covers the face of Jumai, you must come back to this place. If you have not returned by the third night of the dark moon, you can never be reborn, and will wander forever in the realm of spirits.”

  Aradumi swallowed so loudly Shusha felt sure even the living must be able to hear it.

  “Amaiu-sha of the Dan, may you safely find your way back to the world of the living.”

  The shaman gestured sharply and the Ghost-men filed away, not back up the Mother’s throat, but down into the abysmal dark as if returning to ancestral tombs. With his cape pulled tightly around him, the shaman turned and stalked after them, the bones eerily silent. And the hollow air suddenly came alive with the whisper and shuffle of footsteps, as if the entire tribe and all the ancestors had sat attendance and now departed, leaving the boys more alone than ever in their lives.

  They stood frozen, suddenly self-conscious. Kodarosh moved first, sagging to the ground with an explosive sigh. “My head feels as if it could float away like smoke.”

  Aradumi touched the wound over his heart and grimaced. “I didn’t think you felt pain once you were dead.”

  Only Kodarosh responded, with a contemptuous snort. Shusha prowled the fringes of the light, battling the effects of the drug by sheer force of will. Nestled against the stones on the far side of the firepit, he discovered a gourd containing warm, viscous mud, pale as the face of the moon. He scooped out a generous handful and smeared it over his friend’s bloody wound. Aradumi sighed as the soothing warmth eased his pain.

  “Milk of the Mother.” Roazinga smirked. “Perhaps Aradumi will be a woman after all.”

  Aradumi stiffened, casting a dismayed glance at Shusha.

  “Or remain a suckling for the rest of his life.” Kodarosh grinned.

  “The Mother is female, but not a woman,” Shusha reminded his friend. “It is not possible to exist in this world without touching the Mother.” He felt a surge of anger at those responsible for Aradumi’s training, and at the other boys for teasing him. The youngest of the initiates, Aradumi had no father to teach him. “The white clay protects us from dark spirits and marks us as bearing the Mother’s favor.”

  Kodarosh snatched the container and plastered himself liberally. “I can do it for myself, Windy. I don’t need your old-woman mothering.” He finished and thrust the gourd into Roazinga’s arms. Shusha could not remember a time when no animosity existed between Kodarosh and himself. Son of the dai-amon, the vada chieftain, Kodarosh saw leadership as his birthright, and Shusha’s dignified self-containment as the rock which blunted the edge of his authority.

  Johara scraped the bowl and spread a meagre daub of mud across his breast, then handed the empty gourd to Shusha apologetically. Shusha eyed the thick coating of clay Kodarosh wore. His mouth tightened but he would not fight here in this holy place, on this night when childhood ended. He let the container fall with a clatter that echoed through the chambers of the Mother’s heart.

  Dismayed by the sudden tension, and by the thought of Shusha braving the spirit world unprotected, Aradumi scoured some of the bloodstained clay from his own chest and anointed his friend. Relieved, Shusha murmured, “Our blood mingles in brotherhood, Aradumi.”

  * * *

  In the depths of the Mother’s heart, the boys had no way of knowing when dawn arrived. The first indication of an end to their vigil came as a glimmer of torchlight and the appearance of Tingoseth, the dai-amon, followed by Donalatt, and Rabshen the toolmaker. The fire had long since died, and the boys had huddled together for warmth, but they sprang to their feet instantly.

  “Hosan, Kela,” Kodarosh greeted his father respectfully.

  The men set their torches into niches in the wall, then Tingoseth knelt and laid a bundle beside the firepit. He straightened and spoke into the air. “Spirit of Kodarosh, hear me. I bring clothing made by my own hand, and weapons to protect you on your journey. Dream well my son, that the Father might guide your footsteps in courage and grant you wisdom to keep you safe.”

  Kodarosh retrieved the bundle eagerly, before Tingoseth even stepped back. Then Rabshen knelt to place a similar parcel in the same spot. He glanced around the cave without seeing the amaiu-sha.

  “Spirit of my son,” he said softly, “know that wherever you go, in this world or the next, my love remains always with you. It burns as a fire to warm you when you feel lonely and strengthen you when you falter. Journey in wisdom and return to me a man.”

  Love and pride clutched at Shusha’s heart as he watched his father retreat from the cave. “I will make you proud, Kela,” he promised softly.

  While Roazinga’s father said a few words and left his offerings, Shusha opened his parcel and examined the gifts his father had brought: a fringed shirt and leggings of antelope skin, as finely stitched as any woman’s work; knee-high boots with soles of heavy rawhide; a razor-edged, beautifully balanced knife with a bone handle and a blade of black obsidian; a leather sling; an empty waterskin; and a pouch containing three large nodes of flint and a collection of knapping tools.

  “A sling?” Kodarosh sneered. “The finest weapon maker amongst the Dan sends his son on sha-haunjo with only a child’s weapon? He must not want you back.”

  “My kela has given me the skill and means to make my own weapons. I am content.” Nevertheless, Shusha watched enviously as Roazinga unveiled a magnificent spear and far-caster, and Kodarosh examined a new bow and a quiver of arrows, no doubt crafted by Shusha’s father.

  Bobuka arrived, said a few words, and left his offerings to the spirit of his son, but Johara seemed destined for disappointment as well, for his father possessed no great skill with his hands, and he had plainly not sought the toolmaker’s help. The clothing looked crudely stitched and the weapons poorly edged and balanced. While the boys quickly donned their new apparel and prepared to set off, Aradumi continued to wait. Two years ago his father had died, horned and trampled by a wounded buffalo, and Weshtoki, who had taken Aradumi’s mother for second woman, had no use for a son not of his own seed.

  “I will stay with you until Weshtoki comes,” Shusha offered.

  “What if he doesn’t come?”

  “Then you’ll just have to face the spirit world naked and weaponless, poor little pooshtook.” Kodarosh grinned.

  The other boys shifted uneasily, eager to get on with the adventure, but uncomfortable with this callous judgment.

  “No one in the vada can see you. You could borrow what you need.”

  “And take the chance it might harbour dora-sha, a woman spirit?”

  “What about Jubakembo? He has lived without a woman for three seasons.
He makes all his own clothing, and no one touches his weapons.”

  “To take without asking seems wrong. And to begin sha-haunjo with a dishonorable act…”

  “But he’s your dumakela. Surely he would not begrudge you.”

  At that moment, they heard faint footfalls in the passageway. A broad, bearlike figure emerged, torch first…not Weshtoki, but Jubakembo. He straightened to full, towering height and scanned the cave as if uneasy.

  “Spirit of my brother’s son,” he rumbled, “forgive me for coming late. I waited to see if Weshtoki would fulfill his obligation. Since he has not, I come to offer my own humble gifts.” He placed his bundle and stood for a moment, scowling thoughtfully. “Do not let Weshtoki’s rejection weigh on your heart, Aradumi. Feel confident in the knowledge that your father loved you and took great pride in you. I wish you safe journeying, dumakomai. When next I greet you, it will be as a man to a man.”

  * * *

  As unfettered as a cloud, Shusha drifted, allowing the wind to decide his direction. A warm breeze swept him westward, down the long valley, through herds of antelope and wild horses which parted casually to give him passage. He carried the sling in his right hand, a selection of small stones in his left, prepared to fend off predators. At a sweet spring far from the vada, where the water remained safe from female contamination, he drank and filled his water skin. Then on he ran, chanting a repetitive song to the drumming of his footfalls:

  Sha-kela, kela na hotok, Spirit Father, father of all,

  Dama tai es gorosha; Defend me from evil spirits;

  Sha-kela, kela na ho Dan, Spirit Father, father of the Dan,

  Elay tai o sha-coman; Send me a spirit guide;

  Sha-kela, kela na hotok, Spirit Father, father of all,

  Vo Chirasu elay kada; Your Dreaming gives me courage;

  Sha-kela, kela na ho Dan, Spirit Father, father of the Dan,

  Sel tain klatt en ho Set my feet on the path to

  haekajoolan; wisdom;

  Sha-kela, kela na hotok, Spirit Father, father of all,

  Shian tai ho hae ka zalor; Show me the path to rebirth;

  Sha-kela, kela na ho Dan, Spirit Father, father of the Dan,

  Tai rem ho haekamontock. I seek the path to manhood.

  High overhead, a hawk stroked the wind, and Shusha felt certain it was the same bird which had shared its vision yesterday. Was this his spirit guide, watching over him? Though he sighted plenty of small game, he refrained from hunting, living on greens and wild onions. Along the muddy shores of a marsh, he collected sedge nuts, dry reeds for arrow shafts, and bunches of coarse grass for cordage. From a stand of willows he cut several shoots and branches, adding them to his small store of supplies. Toward evening on the second day, the wind shifted, sending him northward into the mountain forests. He slept lightly in the shelter of a pile of boulders and woke to the singing of wolves. When daylight came, he tracked the pack to a recent kill, a deer carcass, mostly eaten, from which he salvaged a long spinal tendon. He cracked open some of the heavier bones to extract the marrow fat, wrapping it in leaves for future use.

  Clouds piled up over the high ridges and spilled down the slopes, and by late morning the weather turned grey and drizzly. From a mountain ash he cut three staves of varying length and used the largest as a walking staff when the rocks grew slippery in the wet. He made an early camp that evening beneath the spreading branches of a giant spruce, finding in its shelter enough dry material to kindle a small fire. While he warmed the chill from his bones, the rain suddenly stopped and a shaft of sunlight speared through the clouds, forming a brilliant, prismatic arch against the darkness of the mountain face. Then he knew…somewhere up there lay the dwelling place of the Rainbow Serpent.

  The next morning, following goat trails that sometimes looked no wider than the breadth of his hand, he ascended the lower slopes, scrambling over old rockfalls, scaling cliffs with only the strength of his fingers to hold him, until finally he reached a broad, green amphitheater of alpine meadowland, adorned at this time of year with a colorful patchwork of moss and wildflowers. Fed by the glacier mantling the shoulder of the mountain, a small tarn mirrored the sky and the stern face of the summit. In the sparkling fall of meltwater, he detected a faint glimmering of color, a single coiling arch of the Rainbow Serpent’s back. And resting in the lap of the mountain like a gift from the Creative Ancestors lay a massive stone outcropping, its smoothly rounded sandstone curves a strange contrast to the surrounding angularity of granite. Its contours seemed hauntingly familiar, yet he could put no identifying name to them. They looked like a huddle of giant beasts, by some primal sorcery transformed, their life energy trapped for eternity in stone. He sensed tremendous potency in every aspect of this place, and wondered briefly whether an uninitiated, unprotected amaiu-sha ought to disturb the ancient powers that dwelt here.

  On the shore of the lake, he built a crude vadu of brush and threw dirt over it for insulation. Inside this rough shelter, he poured water over heated rocks and steamed himself until the inner evils oozed from his pores in oily rivulets. Then, dizzy with the heat, he plunged headlong into the icy tarn and swam deeper and deeper into the green, mysterious depths, until his lungs began to ache and black spots danced before his eyes. He saw a flash of reflected light against the darker rocks and reached for it, closed his fingers around something small and hard. Utterly at peace, he floated toward the surface. Later, shivering beside his small fire, he examined his find, a shard of clear quartz crystal laced by internal fractures, with deep in its interior a hint of a captive rainbow.

  That night he ate nothing except purging herbs and lake water. He contemplated the stone beasts as the peak cast darkness across the meadow, transmuting it into a lake of blue shadow deeper than the evening sky. A mountain goat climbed the crest of the tor and stared down at him, her white coat dazzling in the vestige of golden light that still crowned the ridge. Her kid took advantage of her momentary stillness to suckle, then, as suddenly as they appeared, they drifted away again, like ghosts into the twilight.

  Later, with his fire a flickering beacon in the night, he felt the mighty stone beings waken and press closer like curious herd-beasts, their presence amiable and rather comforting.

  The Serpent came to him that night in a dream. It didn’t speak, just studied him with alien indifference, then opened its great mouth and swallowed him. Floating in the darkness of the Serpent’s belly he saw a glowing, spinning sphere, half dark and half light but wholly beautiful. For a brief instant he comprehended the ultimate pattern of existence, the intricate, interwoven delicacy of life and energy and cosmic awareness. But it became too much for his mind to encompass, even in sleep.

  The next morning, purified inside and out, he explored the massed bodies of the stone beasts, chanting a humble prayer begging sanctuary and forgiveness for the intrusion. Standing on an arched backbone of weathered sandstone, he felt a faint, rumbling reply as, high above, the melting edge of the glacier released an avalanche of ice and snow in a long cascade down the talus slope…a warning he decided, but not a denial. His optimism was confirmed when, overlooking the lakeshore, he found a cave-like hollow, protected beneath a curving flank, bedded with soft sand.

  For five days he lived among the stone beasts, fasted and composed prayers to the Spirit Father while he occupied his hands with crafting tools and weapons from the materials he had gathered. From one node of flint he knapped a spearhead and six arrow points, spending an entire afternoon pressure-flaking a refined edge on them and honing them against a wet sandstone. From a second node he produced a fine axe blade and a hand scraper. He heated a willow branch and wrapped it twice around the axe head, binding the ends together with sinew to create a haft. Then he trimmed and shaped an ash bow stave using long, planing strokes with a sharp flint chip. When heat-cured and rubbed with rancid, highly pungent marrow fat, the wood glowed. He pounded the deer tendon into strings of sinew, which he twisted into a bowstrin
g and stretched taut between two ash stakes. He smoothed it with saliva, then left it to dry. The flint arrow points he set aside, as he had no feathers or glue for fletching and would not shed blood until the Father had blessed him with a vision. For future use, however, he made a dozen light birding arrows out of reeds, with fire-hardened foreshafts and points of willow. Each night he dreamed, but the dreams remained pale, powerless things.

  On the afternoon of his fifth day of fasting, weak and lightheaded, he sat in the sun, weaving water-softened marsh grass into a carry sack, chanting softly, pausing often to marshal his waning energy. Then, abruptly, his vision darkened and he heard a great thundering, as if a huge bird covered him with its beating wings. He heard a dry rattle, felt the gut-wrenching sensation of falling, and knew the Bone Dancer had come for him, found him unworthy, and dropped him off the holy mountain. Forever he seemed to fall, until a shock of brutal agony shattered him on the rocks below. Broken, suffering, he lingered, waited in vain for the final mercy of death. Instead, a white goat carefully picked her way down the steep cliff and came to stand over him, staring down at him with compelling intensity. Her outlines blurred and shifted, and she transformed into a woman, terrible in her compassion, who knelt and cradled his shattered body and suckled him like a child, until healing and a desire for life flowed back into him. Then she broke the sweet root from a kivote plant and threw it away, ate instead of the bitter, poisonous leaves, and offered some to him. Unable to stop himself, he ate too. She thrust the rest of the plant back into the earth, as if it could grow without roots. Then she rose, smiling, and backed away. He reached out to her weakly, awed and bewildered, but she changed once more into a goat, turned, and melted into the rock.