Great Sky Woman

by Steven Barnes

  “I will win!” yelled Fire Ant, loud enough to be heard across Fire River, an easy walk to the east.

  “Never!” panted Hawk. “You will never win. Everyone knows I win every time!”

  Shorter, leaner Fire Ant mocked him. “You are stronger, but I am faster.”

  “Anyone can run away,” Hawk Shadow retorted. “But which of us can stand and fight like a hunter?”

  The footrace ended in a chortling victory for Fire Ant. Hawk shrugged, dunked his brother and immediately suggested that they try climbing one of the dreaded thorn trees: any truly good day was crowned with a glorious new array of scrapes and bruises.

  This day held special possibilities. On this day, their mother, Gazelle Tears, was giving birth to their beloved father’s final child. All wanted to know: would it be a boy, who might grow to be a mighty hunter? Or a girl, to bind them more tightly with another boma and bring new life to the great Circle?

  Either possibility made their hearts proud.

  A few breaths later their younger sister, Little Brook, ran through the gap in the boma’s thorn wall, fat tummy wobbling, stubby legs pumping, her small round face aglow with excitement. “Hawk! Ant!” she called. “Baby come!” Instantly, the two boys abandoned their games and chased her back through the gap.

  Eight huts were clustered within the thorn circle, each sheltering a family of five to ten. Another two huts were for storage of meat and vegetables, another for healing, and yet another for honored guests or special meetings. To the west, at the extreme opposite of the boma wall’s gap, was a trench reserved for nighttime relief of bowels and bladder. Although Thorn Summer shoveled dirt over the waste every morning, a strong sour odor drifted up from the site, wrinkling Fire Ant’s nose. Most chose to hold their waste and water until morning, using a trench a swift eastern walk away from camp. There, the inevitable swarms of dung beetles burrowed beneath the shoveled soil, packing and rolling and carrying away what the Ibandi left as waste.

  From time to time, when the stink grew too strong or the fleas and mites too bothersome, the entire boma moved to another nearby campsite, perhaps one they had occupied a few years earlier. At such a location the waste pits would have dried, the pests crawling off in search of other nourishment.

  A new sibling! Brother or sister, it made little difference, as long as there were two hands for holding, two feet for walking and a pair of keen eyes for tracking or foraging.

  Fire Ant’s ears prickled as the shrill cries brought him up short. The boma’s mother, Hot Tree, was a medicine woman almost as wise as her birth sister, Stillshadow herself. Hot Tree knew the name of every plant and insect for a day’s walk in all directions. If greater magic was needed, help was five days away: two days to Great Earth and three for the return trip, for medicine women could not travel as quickly as hunters.

  Hot Tree crawled out of the hut’s low mouth. She was a bulky woman, thick through the hips but a whirlwind in dancing, shorter than her powerful sibling but twice her width. She had squatted beside the birthing woman since before dawn, and her back was stiff. Tree pushed against her hip with one strong flat hand and winced with pain.

  “Fetch your uncle,” she said. “The family has a new hunter.”

  Hawk Shadow whooped and leapt into the air, somersaulting before he touched back down, grabbing wrists with Fire Ant. The two brothers capered in a circle, lips split wide in smiles. The other children danced with them, even Lizard Tongue, the tall, thin orphan boy with the hollow eyes, who belonged to everyone and no one.

  Fire Ant first beheld his new brother that day, in the waxing of monkey moon. He thought the new arrival was just splendid, a healthy, squalling brat who would one day make Uncle Snake proud. Surely their father, Baobab, danced with joy atop Great Sky.

  The infant’s first days were uneventful. As with all newborns, Fire Ant’s brother was oblivious to anything except the need to cling to his mother, to suckle and to sleep.

  After the first hands of days the boy began to awaken, although his eyes were still groggy and wandering. He cried less frequently during the night, and slept longer. When he did awaken, he avidly sought his mother’s breasts, and gurgled with a child’s contentment as he nursed.

  “He sucks all the time,” Fire Ant said to his mother, Gazelle.

  She nodded, eyes deep-rimmed with fatigue. “When awake. But he sleeps more than you did.” She traced a loving hand along her middle son’s cheek. “You slept less and suckled harder,” she said. Then her eyes closed as if echoing the newborn’s own expression, mother and child in nurturing embrace, his tiny, soft fingers gripping at her skin as if it was all that held him in this world.

  Chapter Four

  Stillshadow and her two hunt chief escorts had been walking single file since before dawn, and now the new sun danced just above the eastern horizon.

  The morning heat reflected from the sand, challenging calluses as thick as rhino hide. This sun was like most others: sung to life each morning, dying every night. It was notable only for being more piercing than most, and Stillshadow wondered if the morning’s sun song had been displeasing to Great Mother’s ears.

  Her old calves ached. Once a year she made this circuit of the four inner bomas, starting with Fire in the east and working around to end north with Wind boma. As a girl, she had eagerly anticipated the annual pilgrimage. As age transmuted her bones to rock, some of the pleasure had drained away. Inevitably, on some not too distant day she would come to dread it, and on that day she would pass the responsibility to another—her daughter Raven, she hoped.

  She crunched across the blackened gap surrounding Fire boma, relishing the sight of her evening’s resting place. Running at full speed, the orphan boy Lizard passed through the hole in the thorn walls. Despite the sadness she always sensed about him, he was quick and inquisitive, and at the moment also excited. “Stillshadow is here!” Lizard called. He was a good boy, of five rains, whose parents had been bhan, the folk who lived among the outer bomas. By family custom Lizard had been adopted into Fire boma. When and if he eventually passed his manhood ceremony, Lizard might one day be considered full Ibandi.

  Lizard’s mother and father had been slain by unknown raiders, perhaps the mysterious beast-men, hulking half-apes some hunters claimed to have seen lurking out on the savannah.

  Did they truly exist? She did not know, could only say that her love, Cloud Stalker, leader of the hunt chiefs, believed them real. For this and other reasons she never left Great Earth’s slopes without an armed companion.

  The entire boma ceased their patching and wrestling and basket weaving as the old woman passed through the thorn wall’s gap. Five paces behind her, the two young hunt chiefs squared their shoulders, aware that every eye—especially every female eye—was upon them. Although hunt chiefs did not marry, they had their pick of widows and unmarried girls. Ibandi nights were always warm, but some were more humid than others.

  The crone straightened her back and sharpened her gaze as she walked, aware that all eyes were upon her. She was glad that none of the young ones could read her fire. A spine could be straightened at a thought, but she was certain that fatigue dimmed her fire, so the least of her students could count her years.

  Ah well. One mouth could not simultaneously praise wisdom and curse old age.

  Other than this yearly circuit, or times of emergency, most Ibandi saw Stillshadow and her sisters only at Spring Gathering, in the shadow of Great Earth. Spring was a chance to see cousins and sisters who had married away, an opportunity to learn new dances and hear new stories to mold their dreams. There she gave names to new babies, something that ordinarily didn’t happen until their second full moon.

  Dream dancers and their guardians were offered lodging immediately upon arrival at the boma gate. Stillshadow waited, hunching in the shadowed recess of the thorn wall’s gap, leaning on her knobby walking stick. Her two young male escorts, hunt chiefs from Great Sky, maintained their usual distance. “I will eat before I sleep
, but I can still bless before I eat. Bring the children to me,” she said, and smacked her withered lips together. The thought of newborns, so fresh from Great Mother’s bosom, warmed her heart.

  Thorn Summer, not a man or a woman, with the rights of neither but with some strengths of both, greeted her with an embrace and a gift of water. His eyes widened joyfully as she accepted his offering and sipped from his ostrich shell. Thorn had studied his name for many years and come to the conclusion that it was his place in life to offer cooling drink and shade to pierce the heat. “Have you walked long?” he asked.

  “A day and a night,” she said, returning the shell.

  The boma began to awaken to her presence, its folk coming to her, stamping the ground and spitting toward Great Sky in greeting.

  “Please,” said a small, dusty woman. “Bless my child before you sleep.” This request was repeated again and again as one and yet another mother brought her young ones forward. All had been born since Stillshadow’s last annual visit. Most had been named already. Two had not.

  Fire boma’s father, Break Spear, was a man of broad shoulders, with a vast belly that had once been flat and muscular. Now it was hard and round, as if he had swallowed a muskmelon whole. It shook as he roared in pleasure and held up his hands. “Not so many! The wise one is tired!”

  Stillshadow laughed, accepting the playful challenge. “No! I am not too old to bless our fruit. Bring me more babies!”

  She weaved a bit, intoxicated both by her people’s nearness and by the herbs and leaves that she ate, drank or smoked to keep herself moving through the long night’s grueling walk. Much of her time was spent combining various roots for effect, teetering on the edge of dream for days at a time.

  It was her place to offer blessings, but she would stay no more than a day or two. During that time she would dance stories, sing songs, answer questions, grind and compound leaves and roots into precious medicines. Then, with her guards, she would travel on to the next major boma. The entire circuit might take her more than a moon. True, she would be exhausted by the time she and her escorts returned to Great Earth, but that was the Ibandi Way, the Way she had inherited from her own mother and teacher, Night Bird. The Way she taught to her own students and daughters.

  “Ah! I know this one!” she said, eyes bright, as another mother offered her naked, squalling babe for blessing. This baby’s face was shiny and wet from crying, his eyes reddened, little lips stretched tight, dark gums shiny. “I knew your father. Threw your father’s name! This one will be strong, but a rascal. And this one…”

  A fourth naked bundle of squirming arms and legs was offered. Stillshadow pressed her lips against the girl’s smooth, warm forehead. She looked slantwise at the child, fuzzing her vision until she could see the life-glow. “This one’s fire is clear,” Stillshadow said. “She will be a great beauty, and men will break bones wrestling for her hand. Watch her carefully—she is sweet enough to draw leopards from beyond the horizon.”

  Break Spear’s broad brown face split in a smile. “Bring Stillshadow water and meat. Welcome her to the boma.”

  So she ate baboon with relish, and pretended to enjoy the zorilla meat, nibbling until she could tuck the rest into the fire pit. Then the villagers displayed dances learned in their recent dreams, and she devised songs and shadow-play to accompany them. As the day wore on the tribe gathered around Stillshadow, all other work and play coming to an end. Finally, the newest baby was brought before her, displayed on the ground upon a yellow eland skin.

  The old woman paused as the infant sprawled before her. The long walk and profligate sharing of num had taken its toll at last. Her eyes watered as she peered at the newborn. The hairs at the back of her neck began to itch. Just fatigue? Or was there something different about this one?

  She closed her eyes.

  In her waking dream she saw his future. He was slender, strong but not tall. His running and jumping were not particularly good, but there was something odd about his num…the fire about his head was brighter, clearer than she had ever seen.

  He jumps with his thoughts, not his body.

  What?

  Her mind spun. Such images, such thoughts, were unknown to her.

  Now he was running. Leaping. Over…what? Dead water. He was being chased by a man with a spear. A man he knew and loved. Then he stood still, the heaviness in his limbs saying that he was prepared to accept death. There was steam and fire and…

  And terrible, terrible cold.

  She blinked her eyes open. What was that vision? Great Mother, she was tired. Strange. Such vivid sights usually came to her when a girl was destined to be a dream dancer, a sign to convince her mother to let the child journey to Great Earth. Boys competed fiercely to catch Break Spear’s eye, that he might nominate them for hunt chief. Only rarely did she have insights into their future status.

  But this one…there was something strange about him.

  This, she knew, was a great moment, a moment that would shape the boy-child’s life, the Circle’s life. Either now, in this ritual, or at the Spring Gathering, every Ibandi child came before her to be judged. She needed to peer into his num-fire, the glow that flickered around the edge of his body when she slanted her eyes just so. It was important for her to inspect the hands and feet to see if those eyes had yet winked open. Reading these signs would tell her things she needed to know, but for the life of her she found it difficult to read this boy. His seven eyes were dim, nothing special….

  But his head. The crown of his head. Such fire!

  So bright.

  A devastating wave of fatigue clawed at her suddenly, rooting all the way to her marrow. Was that natural? Or a demon seeking to cloud her inner eyes when she needed them most?

  “This one is strong,” she said. “Very powerful…”

  She peered into his tiny brown eyes. She saw something, felt her own questions and uncertainty, but made a momentous decision. “He will be a skilled hunter,” she said. “A jumper,” she continued, remembering the vision. “I call him Frog Hopping.” Her eyelids were too heavy to prop open any longer.

  Break Spear discerned what she tried to conceal. “Mother is tired,” the boma father said. “No more. More when the sun rises. Now she must sleep. Come! Show Stillshadow to shelter!”

  As they led her to the meeting hut, she glanced back at the newly named Frog Hopping, wondering if she should have spoken more bluntly about what she saw. But at her age flesh was sometimes stronger than will, and the crone allowed herself to be led away to a place of rest.

  Curled on her side against the matted grass, Stillshadow drowsed, staring up at the darkness, her mind wandering in that odd place between the dreaming and waking worlds. In that place just before sleep, where the worlds of day and night melded, Great Mother sometimes whispered to her.

  Something was amiss, but what, she could not say. A mild, cool wind filtered through the boma’s thorn wall, and then into her hut. She shivered.

  Was that shudder from the cold? Or something else?

  Had she made a mistake? Had she…

  Then fatigue overwhelmed her, and she fell asleep again, trusting that the night’s walk in the world of dreams might resolve the mystery, if mystery there truly was.

  Chapter Five

  Water Chant crouched in the dry streambed, rubbing crumbly gnu droppings between thumb and forefinger. Spit on his fingertips made the flakes gummy. Chant sniffed deeply, then touched them with the tip of his tongue. Judging by texture, the droppings were at least seven days old. The acid taste suggested that the gnu had been sick and tired. The streams feeding Water boma had dried, forcing the shaggy, horned beasts to begin their yearly migration unseasonably early. Their local water holes were now little more than mud.

  Water boma’s folk had taken to eating fill-cactus to still their stomach rumblings, and this was bad. Fill-cactus pulp quieted the belly but did not feed the flesh.

  Discouraged, he trudged back to Water boma’s high, familiar th
orn walls. If things did not improve, they might have to move farther south. The bhan sometimes moved several times a year. In all the world, perhaps only the Ibandi knew where their children would sleep next year. Was that about to change?

  “Chant!” called his cousin Leopard Paw. “We have meat!”

  “Your hunt has been good?” Chant called hopefully.

  Leopard shook his head. “No. Great Father smiled on Earth boma’s hunters. A giraffe welcomed their arrows. They followed until the poison made it sleepy. Then they sent it to Great Sky with their spears. There was meat to share.”

  Water Chant nodded, too ashamed to speak. Ibandi rarely went hungry. By tradition and inclination, the bomas shared. Still, it was not right. Was he not a man, and therefore capable of feeding a family?

  But an even greater shame gnawed like a snake in Chant’s gut as he approached his hut and bowed to crawl through the door. The roof flap was open, and dusty yellow daylight eased the darkness. He would have preferred not to see what it revealed.

  Zebra nursed her daughter with a desperate intensity, flinching as he entered. Even after four moons, his newborn still gazed blankly out at the world, still registered nothing at all.

  Chant felt his breath stop within him, heating until he thought he would burst. Then the words flew from his mouth like angry birds. “We cannot feed such a child!”