by B. Muze
“Please — go away. Leave me alone!”
She fled into the hut and tightened the door-flap against the chill night full of ghostly faces, but the sky was already lightening before she could at last fall asleep.
The next morning, Difsat awoke her by standing outside the circle at the door and shouting.
“What is this? Come out here. Tell me what you’re doing. Do you hear? Wake up and explain this!”
With great effort, she pushed herself up from the sleeping mat and went to the door. The Gicok stirred in his sleep, coming awake and alert. She could feel him watching.
Jovai had to lean heavily against the door post to keep herself standing.
“Are they gone?” she asked the fuzzy forms that stood outside.
“What are you talking about?” demanded Difsat.
She squinted against the brightening morning haze, and slowly his features began to take familiar shape. He was not alone. Several people watched the exchange from behind him, and more were stopping to stare.
“Ghosts,” she answered, “from the Gicok camp. They were all around here.”
“What do you mean? Here?”
He looked around the ground and shook his head.
“I don’t see any signs — no footprints…”
“Ghosts,” she repeated. “They just stood outside the circle and stared. I…I ah, I didn’t get much sleep.”
A big yawn confirmed her statement.
“Well, are you done with the circle, or aren’t you?” he demanded angrily.
She looked through the crowd of faces watching her this morning to make certain there were none from the night before. All these faces had burnt red skin and dark red hair — swimmers of the river of blood that separates the land of the dead from the land of the living. No Gicok, living or dead, stood among them.
“Come in Shaman and be welcome,” she mumbled.
He crossed the circle, breaking its protection, and followed her back into the shadows.
“The healer was afraid to enter,” he chided Jovai peevishly. “We were all wondering if it were us you feared.”
“I told the woman last night to warn you of the ghosts. I guess she doesn’t speak Akarian well enough to have understood, or else she thought me crazy…”
Difsat cut her off with an angry scowl.
“We do not speak the language of our enemies!”
She stared at him in surprise for a moment, unsure of her understanding.
“But…how else should I have told her? I don’t speak your language.”
“You will learn.”
“But until I do…when there is something important…”
“There is nothing important about ghosts.”
“I have heard that ghosts can do terrible things to the living. I have heard that they are jealous of the life they can no longer live and that they try to steal it from others. They are not like the spirits of our ancestors — free to come and go back to the dead lands. Ghosts are those who are trapped, and they grow angrier and more confused and resentful until they are freed.”
“What you have heard are stories to scare children.”
“I have seen them!”
She looked away, in the direction of the slaughter at the Gicok camp.
“All those people, whose bodies rot with none of their own to attend them…their spirits are not free to go where they belong.”
“I don’t care, as long as they don’t threaten us — and how can anything threaten us that hasn’t enough presence to move dust under its feet?”
“But they suffer!”
“What do we care? They’re not our people — they’re our enemies. Let them suffer. Let their bodies rot and let their spirits wander forever in pain for what they helped the Akarians do to us. If anything, let us rejoice that we can witness it!”
Jovai turned away, sickened, from the shaman’s enraged expression.
Difsat winced in pain at the effort of raising his voice and clasped his hands to his head to mute the echoes that still rang there.
“I am a leader for my people,” he continued after a moment, his voice softer, “the only one we have right now and all my time and all my energy devoted to them are not enough to meet their needs.”
He rose and gathered his robes to leave.
“We sent the healer for the White One this morning. He was afraid to cross your circle, so he made me come. Will this happen every morning?”
“You may give him my permission to break the circle after sunrise from now on, but this morning I would have welcomed the extra sleep.”
“So would I,” responded Difsat, coldly.
In the corner, the Gicok stirred. He tried to lift himself up and grunted at the pain that still held him down.
“Why you fight with magic man?” He demanded after Difsat had gone.
“It’s nothing. He’s sick from last night. The healer will come soon.”
“You stupid. Don’t let “healer” come. Don’t trust Kolvas — nothing Kolvas say or do. They filthy savages!”
“We have to trust them, for a while at least. You leave now, you die. And I have nowhere else to go.”
“We stay here we die — and worse. They eat us, drink blood, steal spirit.”
“They could have killed me, and they didn’t. They could have killed you, easily enough…”
“Death means nothing to Kolvas. They want more! I tell you, fool Vohee. You know nothing. They tie me down. They force me take evil medicine — make me sleep. Make me dream. My wife’s child come to me. Quanorika co. Warrior come. He take my hand. He take me to my wife, her baby. All my people, all well. Wife turn to me and smile, and blood fill her face — eat away flesh, burn hair. Only eyes stare — not in Gicok way but like you, like them, like dead. Still Eyes. She reach for me. I turn to run but she where I turn. Something bite my hand — her child. He eat me, like Kolvas. His hand is bone. It rip me. All come now — come to drink blood, eat flesh, like Kolvas. I push him away. My hand go through him while his hands, his teeth rip me. I fear. I run, run into, through family, friends, people. They chase me. When I fall…”
He shuddered. His breathing was rough. It was a moment before he could go on.
“I wake here. Tied up. Kolvas want me eat more medicine. I eat nothing.”
Jovai stared at him in horror. The Gicok closed his eyes and lay back his head, as though exhausted in the telling of his story. Then, suddenly, every muscle of his body flexed, and he pushed himself shakily off the sleeping mat.
“I go.”
“Where will you go?”
“I piss.”
“Then?”
“I go to my people.”
“You go to ghosts who will eat you?”
“Better people than enemies.”
He pulled himself to standing, his face twisted in pain at the effort.
“Why they let you live?” he demanded.
Jovai shrugged. Her mind felt numb from so much weighing upon it and so little sleep. Ghosts in the night. Ghosts who drink blood and tear flesh. Ghosts to scare children. She didn’t want to think about them.
“What they do?” insisted the Gicok. He wouldn’t leave her alone.
“I saved your life!” she told him angrily. “Take it or throw it away, but I have nothing more to prove.”
“They got you,” he said softly. “You one of them now. You filthy Kolvas blood drinker, flesh eater. You not Dolkati Friend now. You not even Vohee…”
Anger flushed up in her, mixed with shame. It was too much to bear.
“I saved your life, Gicok. If that means I’m not your friend, so be it. I’m not Kolvas. I’m not Dolkati and I’m not Vohee anymore. You can hate me, you can help me. It doesn’t matter, but maybe if you take my help you live.”
The Gicok nodded sadly.
“They got you.”
Just then the healer entered. He was a tall man, even for his people, and very gaunt. He might have seemed a walking skeleton had not dark burn
t red flesh covered the whiteness of his bones. He was an older man with many wrinkles creasing his face and silver hair that fell unbound on his shoulders but did not climb high enough on his head to cover the top. He looked like a man who had carried so many illnesses for his patients that one more might kill him, yet he walked with a jerky kind of energy and his limbs moved with a strange grace that seemed always about to hit something but never did.
Jovai nodded deeply to him as he entered, showing great respect that she sensed, somehow, was due this man. He pulled back astonished and glanced nervously over his shoulders to see if anyone followed. Finding no one there, he avoided looking at Jovai again, but entered, moving around her, and muttering something she could not understand.
With quick movements, he tied open two flaps in the hut walls to let in light. Then he went to his patient, gently easing the weak Gicok back into bed. He seemed not to expect the Gicok to resist and, surprisingly, the Gicok calmly obeyed him. Then he knelt beside his patient and stared at his bandages astonished.
“Quaillic Sal soobirid, fildin morlik?” he demanded.
The Gicok frowned at the unintelligible question and looked toward Jovai as if for translation. She shrugged.
The healer fingered the bandages, shaking his head, and muttering continuously. Jovai watched curiously as he unwrapped the clothes to inspect the wounds beneath. Again, he seemed surprised at what he found — surprised and obviously pleased. He treated the wound with a salve. The Gicok winced but did not resist.
The healer wrapped the wounds in fresh bandages and reached for some rope that was laying in the corner. Carefully he started tying long pieces to the stakes in the ground, in obvious preparation for restraining the Gicok again.
“Thank you for your help,” said Jovai politely. “But my friend does not need to be tied.”
The healer frowned, not comprehending.
“Gohetic sa fer okaim brahami,” said a light, cheerful voice from behind Jovai. She turned to see a very pretty girl, a few years older than she, standing in the entrance, smiling at her.
The healer immediately plunged into a string of words, obviously objections. The young woman stopped him politely with a graceful nod and turned back to Jovai.
“He wants tie White One again. He better tied,” she said, her Akarian awkward and difficult to understand. The healer exploded angrily in another stream of words, gesturing wildly at the girl and almost, but not quite, knocking Jovai aside. The pretty girl flushed but waited politely until the healer’s anger was vented. Then, in a gentle voice, she spoke to him slowly and calmly. The healer sputtered, still upset, and started to push past Jovai. Again, Jovai blocked his way.
“Do not tie the White One again,” Jovai insisted, now directing her words to the young translator.
“He hurt us,” she protested.
“No, he won’t.”
“He hurt him own.”
Jovai shrugged, “If he wants to.”
Once again, with great deference, the girl spoke to the healer. He objected. She sweetly argued. He gestured angrily toward the girl. She nodded toward Jovai. Her voice was always soft, always polite, but Jovai heard a note of threat underneath it. Finally, the healer threw down the ropes in disgust and, still muttering, left the tent.
“I Gilix,” said the girl. Her eyes were now glued warily on the Gicok, and she hugged the entrance, ready to run. “I teach you speak us.”
She tossed a basket into the room. The scent of fruit, meat, and heated grain rose from it.
The Gicok was standing again now. He was very weak, and his body trembled. In spite of himself, he turned toward the basket, kicked off the cloth that covered it and stared at the food, still steaming within it.
“Go then,” Jovai told the Gicok.
The Gicok said nothing. He just stood, looking down at the food.
“You eat?” Gilix asked Jovai, her voice barely a whisper.
“I’ll bathe first,” answered Jovai, turning to her, “if you show me.”
Gilix glanced uncertainly toward Jovai, then back again to the Gicok.
“He?” she asked.
“Come show me the baths,” Jovai answered. She turned her back on the Gicok and left the tent, with Gilix hurrying after her.
Chapter 28
Grasp of the Dead
The morning of this land was but a brighter version of the night. Mists rolled through the forests, around the towering trees, hiding all but their closest branches and chilling the skin with its cool, moist touch. It was alive with the movement of shadowy shapes that took human form only within the arm’s reach and the cheerful noise of friendly people calling out greetings, chatting to each other, laughing, singing work songs, enjoying being alive another day. They were startled by a tremendous crash as one of the great, thick redwoods fell. For a moment, all was silent, reverent, then a loud cheer rose, all voices at once, in triumph, in celebration.
“One day and morning,” Gilix explained. She led Jovai to the crowd of people. On the fallen trunk, the width of a standing horse, six or seven strong young men were resting, their clothes as wet as if they had been swimming in them, their red-brown faces bright from exertion and their eyes glowing with triumph. Already, the sound of chopping was heard from the shadowed distances where the branches lay, and children ran around, laughing, waving leaves and twigs.
“Home now,” Gilix explained, although what she meant, Jovai was not sure.
They had no proper bathhouse built yet, so Gilix led Jovai to a nearby river where her people washed and drank. It was late in the morning, past the time for baths, although a few who had made themselves sick from the feast last night, stumbled to the edge and took a dive. There were some younger children splashing about near their mothers who laughed and chatted with each other while pounding clothes or gathering the seeds that grew on stalks in the shallows.
A woman nearby, tall with heavy eyebrows that grew long and low down on the sides of her head, greeted Gilix eagerly with questions. As Gilix answered, Jovai slipped away. Her own mood was brooding and heavy, like a sky full of storm, and the cheerfulness of these people oppressed her.
She followed the river upstream to a silent, lonely bank. There was only the sound of the water here, and she listened, listened deeply, listened to anything the spirit world might tell her. As she had expected, she heard nothing.
She took a stone in her hand and held it, feeling for its strength, its certainty of being. With her finger, she traced the blue, brown and white designs of it. It was a story. Every stone was a story, she knew, except the stone in her bag. There were no lines, no marks, no story. She examined the designs on the stone in her hand and watched as they slipped into the image of a face with a crooked smile and a single, sad eye. Who was he, she wondered. Why did the earth mark his memory?
“An offering,” she whispered to the river. She tossed the stone and watched the silver flecks of fish and darting little frogs startle away from where it landed. There was so much life right here — brothers and sisters who shared this time this place with her, teachers if only they would teach, if only she could learn. Yet she felt isolated and alone.
“Why do you not talk to me anymore?” she asked. “Please, mighty spirits. I’m lost. I’m empty. Guide me. Help me to know what I should do now.”
The river gurgled along, indifferent, unconcerned. The mist coiled around her but did not even whisper.
She sighed, stripped off the clothes Difsat had given her and plunged into the icy water. She came up gasping, shocked, although she had known it would be cold. It was painful, so bitingly frigid, and delightful. It woke her up as it washed her clean and she laughed at herself, at her own self-pity.
She emerged shivering and shook herself like a dog. There was no sun to dry her, so she dressed still wet. The clothes clung thickly to her skin, binding and chafing, the furs a heavy weight on her shoulders, but promising warmth.
Through the mist, she saw a dark figure approach — Gilix come l
ooking for her. It was good, for the bath had enraged her appetite and Gilix would lead her to food. As the figure approached, however, it seemed to grow taller, until it was certainly too tall to be the young girl. As it stepped gracefully through the mist it seemed almost part of it, and it was before her, near enough to touch, before Jovai could see who it was.
The woman was tall and pale, with long flowing white hair and yellow eyes. A Gicok woman. She was very beautiful with exquisite, delicate features and a slim, though muscular, well-worked body. There was something familiar about her, although Jovai could not remember where she had seen the woman before. She stood before Jovai and stared, deep into her eyes. Jovai could feel the power of those eyes reach into her spirit like a vine, reaching to root a tendril in a new bit of earth.
The woman stretched forth her hand, it’s slender, finely lined palm up, and long, slim fingers open toward Jovai. Instinctively, Jovai shrunk back. The woman stepped closer, still offering her hand.
“What do you want?” Jovai demanded. She had spoken, from habit, in her own language so she asked again in Akarian. The woman seemed not to hear, but stepped forward again and grabbed for Jovai’s arm. Jovai pulled away in panic but not before those long fingers had scratched her skin. She glanced again at the woman’s hand, wondering at the sharpness of her nails. There were no nails, she saw. There was no flesh, just bone. The hand was bone, the arm was bone, the beautiful white shoulder — bone. The face was still beautiful, the eyes entrancing, but as she watched, dark blotches, like bruises, welled up on the cheeks, the jaw, one patch over the brow of one of those still, yellow eyes. The bruises deepened and spread. Her face grew puffy and distorted. The flesh thinned as the bruises grew darker and the eyes glowed brighter. From the bruise on her cheek blood started to ooze, but it was not blood, not bright and red but thick and black and evil-smelling.
She grabbed for Jovai again, and Jovai pulled back screaming. From deep inside her, there welled a chant, a prayer for protection. Jovai was unaware that she sang. She didn’t even hear the song. It was an instinct — a reflex to fear. She backed away as the Gicok ghost advanced, step by step toward the icy, flowing river.