Hope of Earth

by Piers Anthony

  “If Wona comes again, paint her spirit.”

  “But that would tie her forever to me,” he protested, laughing.

  “No, it would anchor her to this rock. Then we could move away, and leave her here.”

  “Except Sam wouldn’t leave her.”

  “Sam’s a great man, but an idiot.”

  “About Wona, anyway,” he agreed.

  She gave him a direct look. “Don’t you be an idiot too, Brother.”

  “You had better get back to camp, before it gets too dark,” he said. But she had broken his mood of doubt and despair, as well as giving him a good warning. She was right. He trusted her judgment, especially in this respect, because though she did not look it or act it, she was a woman, and she had always stood by him.

  After she left, he found another crust of bread by his paints. He wasn’t supposed to get two crusts in a day, but Jes must have given him hers. She was like that. She was a great person; how sad it was that she didn’t have a body like Wona’s. Unlike Wona, she deserved it. He knew that she really wanted to be a woman to a man, and only pretended otherwise because no man was interested.

  He settled down on his bed of leaves in the shelter of an overhang. He had set up sharpened stakes to block the access, just in case some large nocturnal predator got a notion while he slept. He was remaining here by the wall until he painted the picture; that was the way it was done. Others could visit him, but he could not go back until he had a spirit pinned. It was a lonely business, but necessary. The spirits of the animals had to come to associate him with the countryside, rather than with the human band.

  He slept, and dreamed of Wona, naked, backing into him, her buttocks soft yet firm, her wondrous breasts under his hands. The hot wet inside of her. He woke, quivering with desire. Oh, she had known what to do with him, how to make him respond! Even the memory of it brought powerful lust. He knew he should not have touched her, yet what an experience it had been.

  He slept again, but the sensations returned. The woman was no good; he knew that. But what a body she had. What joy she had brought him—and what guilt.

  In the morning he hiked to the nearby stream for water, and speared a fish. He was allowed to have anything he hunted or foraged near the picture site, as well as very limited supplies from the camp. It was the ritual. The longer he took to paint the picture, the hungrier he was likely to get. The spirits always came to those who got hungry enough. But he preferred to paint it soon, if he could.

  He stood before the face of stone and willed his gaze through it, as before. At first his eyes would not cooperate, but then they did, and he stared beyond the surface. Would he find the man, or the giraffes? In time shapes formed, too small to be big prey animals, too low to be men. They were hyenas! Trust them to come and interfere with his vision. They were capable hunters, but often preferred to scavenge what others hunted, including what the band killed. They seldom actually attacked men, but neither did they retreat far; it was as if they were making up their minds about whether to fight. A concentrated charge with spears would make them give way, but they always returned. They were wary about arrows, and extremely hard to hit. They were a real nuisance, especially when the children were close. If a child ever got separated from the adults of the band—

  There was a sound behind him. Was it Jes?

  “No, it is me,” Wona said, understanding his thought.

  “Go away,” he said, not removing his gaze from the stone.

  “In a bit,” she agreed. “What do you see in there?”

  “Hyenas. They always appear where they are not wanted.”

  She laughed. “Do you really think of me as such a creature?”

  “Yes.”

  “And you will not look at me.”

  “You are my brother’s wife. I want nothing to do with you.” There: he had told her.

  “Your words are one thing. Does your body say the same?”

  It did not. Her very presence raised a tide of lust. But he did not need to yield to it. “Go away,” he repeated. “I am trying to fathom the spirits in the stone, so I can paint them.”

  “Surely you will succeed. I will leave you to it shortly. I am removing my clothing.”

  Another illicit thrill went through him. He fought it. “How can you be sure Sam will not see, here in the daylight?”

  “I always know where he is. Now I am removing your clothing.” Her hands touched him, doing it.

  He continued to stare into the stone, lest he give her the victory by being made to look at her. But it didn’t stop her. In a moment he was naked. She had at least a half victory, because now his lust was revealed.

  “Shall I face away, again?” she inquired. “You do not need to look at me. It is not your eyes I need.”

  He did not answer. It did not stop her. He found himself staring into the wall past her head, his hands cm her breasts, his member between her legs.

  “Hold my hips,” she said.

  “No.” So she would fall over when she attempted to do it.

  But she merely lifted herself to her toes without bending, and reached back to guide him in, upward. She squeezed her buttocks against him, teasingly.

  Suddenly he could stand it no more. He pulled her against him, his hands still on her breasts, and plunged deeply into her. She had made him do it, again, and it was just as intense and guilty as before. Even though his eyes were still fixed on the stone surface.

  Then she was gone again, as before, leaving him gloriously spent—and ashamed. Because he knew he had wanted her to do what she had done, wrong as it was.

  How was he going to stop this? It couldn’t go on, yet he was vulnerable to her approaches as long as he was alone by the stone.

  He tried to focus on the spirit animals, but couldn’t. He turned away from the stone and walked to the river. He splashed the chill water on his face. He was supposed to be an intelligent man; why couldn’t he figure out a way to stop this?

  Because he didn’t really want to stop it. Wona had sought to have her will with him, and she had succeeded. He might have fended her off the first time, but once he had sampled her delights, he could not deny her again, however wrong he knew it was.

  What, then, was he to do? He didn’t know. So he put it as far out of his mind as he could, where it hovered like a hyena, and focused on his painting. He did not eat or drink any more, he simply searched the rock, determined to discover what was within it.

  The heat of the day intensified. His vision blurred, and he felt oddly light on his feet, but he kept on staring into the stone.

  Finally it came: the image of a lion. “What is your business here?” he asked it.

  “I am keeping game animals away from this region,” the lion replied. It did not seem odd that it spoke in a human voice; it had always been suspected that animals could talk, if they wanted to.

  “But we need those animals to hunt,” Ned said.

  “I don’t care. I will keep them away until you starve. Then this territory will be mine.”

  “Then I will stop you.”

  The lion laughed. “Stop me? You? How can you do that, you puny thing?”

  “By shooting my arrows into you, and throwing my spears, and cutting your bowels out with my knives.”

  “What makes you think I will stay still for that?”

  “I will pin your spirit to this rock, so that you can’t escape us. You may run, but you will not be able to run far enough. You may fight, but there will be one of you and several of us. We will destroy you. Then the game will return here.”

  “How can you pin my spirit?” the lion asked contemptuously.

  “With my paints. I will paint you here.”

  Then the lion grew nervous. “Spare me, and I will tell you how to get rid of the woman.”

  That was tempting. But that would be benefiting himself by hurting the band, and he wouldn’t do that. “No.” It was easier to say no to the lion than to the woman.

  “You really should re
consider,” the lion said. “I have had experience dealing with females. It is necessary to keep them always in their place. You are failing to do that, and the consequence may be dire. Women are worse than lionesses.”

  “Not all of them,” Ned said, thinking of his sisters. Without removing his gaze from the stone, he made his way to his paints. He had to paint the lion without ever looking away, or it would escape him. If it got away, its spirit would go to warn the physical lion, and it would be twice as cunning as before, and ruin their hunting entirely.

  “Are you sure of that?” the lion asked. “One is coming now.”

  Oh, no! Was Wona returning? She would ruin everything.

  But it turned out to be Jes. “Oh, you are painting,” she said, pleased.

  “A lion,” he replied. “I must not look away from him, or I will lose him.”

  “Of course. I’ll help you. Here is your brush. What paint do you need?”

  “First I need the charcoal, to sketch him in.”

  “Oh. Here it is.” She brought him the chunk of charcoal.

  He began drawing the lion, who had frozen in place when Jes arrived. That was not surprising; normally visions could be seen by only one person at a time.

  “Did Wona come again?” Jes asked.

  “Yes. I tried to deny her, but couldn’t.”

  “I was afraid of that. She is good only for one thing, but she’s very good at that.”

  “Yes.”

  “Ned, you must tell the band. That’s the only way to make her stop.”

  “But Sam—”

  “He won’t like it, but with all of us telling him, he will have to accept it. Maybe he will get rid of her, then.”

  Maybe it would work. But it would be an ugly scene. Ned sketched a while, each stroke better defining the lion. Then he thought of an easier alternative. “I will tell her I will tell Sam. Unless she stops now. She will stop, because otherwise she will be routed from the band.”

  “Won’t work,” the lion muttered.

  “But she’ll still be here, then,” Jes said.

  “But there won’t be any trouble,” he argued. “She will behave herself, and Sam won’t be angry or hurt.”

  “All right,” Jes said. “If that ends it. I’d rather see her gone, but you’re right, it would hurt Sam awfully, and we don’t want that.”

  “Fool,” the lion said.

  “The lion says I’m a fool,” Ned said. “He says it won’t work.”

  “The lion talks to you?”

  “Yes. He offered to tell me how to get rid of her, if I let him go, but I refused.”

  “Oh—in your vision in the stone,” she said. “I can’t hear that.”

  “Maybe when you have your own vision, the animals will talk to you.”

  “Maybe. Do you need me any more? I had better return to the camp.”

  “Go. Once I have the sketch done, I’ll have him pinned. I’ll do the painting right away, so that nothing can happen to the sketch and free him.”

  “Good. I’ll tell the others you are painting a lion.” She departed.

  “You will regret this,” the lion said. “You don’t know a thing about dealing with scheming females. You will just make it worse.”

  Ned ignored him and continued sketching. Soon he had the whole animal outlined. Now at last he could look away. This was just as well, because his eyes were hurting from the strain.

  And there was Wona. “I would have come to you sooner,” she said, “but Jes was here. So I waited until she was gone.”

  “Then you can hear this now. If you don’t stop coming to me right now, I will tell Sam what you are doing. Then he will drive you from the band.”

  She met his gaze. “If you tell Sam, I will tell him that you raped me when I brought you food, and threatened to kill me if I told. So I had to keep coming to you, much against my will.”

  “But that’s not true!”

  “He will believe it.”

  “Why should he believe a lie?”

  “Because he will want to,” she said simply. “The same way you want to possess me again, though it is the second time today.”

  Ned thought about his brother, and realized it was true. Sam loved Wona, and accepted anything she told him. And he, Ned, did want her again, much as he hated himself for it.

  “I told you,” the lion said smugly.

  He faced the wall. “Tell me what to do, and I will free you.”

  “Too late,” the lion said. “I would have made that deal before you sketched me, but now you have injured my pride, and I will let you suffer.”

  “But you will suffer too! We’ll kill you!”

  “It will be worth it, to see the mischief that woman does to your stupid band. I shall not speak again.” And the lion shut its mouth firmly.

  “If you are quite through talking to the wall,” Wona said, “let’s proceed with our little tryst.”

  Ned was defeated. “As you wish,” he said dully. Yet part of him—the masculine part—was relieved that it had turned out this way.

  “Come undress me,” she said.

  “But you have been doing that yourself.”

  “That was before we came to our new understanding. Now you will undress us, and you will face me. In fact, we shall lie together, instead of doing it awkwardly on our feet. I think that’s more comfortable. Don’t you?”

  He didn’t answer. She had indeed bested him in threats, and now she was in charge. He approached her and started pulling off her clothing.

  “Kiss me,” she commanded.

  He kissed her. The taste of her was forbiddingly sweet. Her real power over him was the same as over Sam: he did desire her.

  “Put your hands on my buttocks and squeeze.”

  He did so, enjoying it, and hating himself for that.

  “And after this rock painting is done, and you return to the camp,” she said, “I will come to you on occasion, and you will stroke me and plunge me as I indicate, and make no sound. For I mean to have great satisfaction of you, little brother, until I get your child, and perhaps thereafter.” She took his hand and led him to a suitable place for them to lie down together.

  The lion had been right. He had only made it worse. And the worst of it was that any time she tired of him, she could simply tell her husband of Ned’s “rape” of her, and the worst would happen.

  Ned knew himself to be an intelligent and talented man. But he was no match for this merciless woman.

  The notion of running streams in the middle of the Sahara, and of lions, giraffes, elephants, and all the rest, may seem strange indeed, but it was so. There are many rock paintings to document it. North Africa was a nice place to live, 10,000 years ago, though still somewhat dry; the running streams would have been intermittent following rain.

  As the region slowly dried, the human and animal population became more pressed. Some creatures moved south, and some east, driven by the encroaching desert. People compensated by making several significant changes in life-style. Instead of merely hunting animals, they began to care for them: first short-horned cattle, then sheep and goats. That guaranteed a supply of meat and hides. Instead of merely foraging for wild grains, they began to grow certain types. Thus hunting and foraging gave way, to a degree, to herding and farming, as early in the Sahara region as in Asia. The same is true for pottery; we can not say for sure where it started, or whether it was independently devised. Its ultimate effect was potent; the language of the eastern Sahara folk of that time is now known by its Semitic derivative tongues, notably Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic. The folk of the Sahara had to leave the desert; but they didn’t leave the world, and the systems they devised were to transform the rest of the world.

  Chapter 9

  SNOW

  The stone age gave way to the ages of metals relatively rapidly in Europe: one millennium there was stone, the next there was copper, and the next there was bronze, to be followed ever more swiftly by iron and other novelties. Social changes were as si
gnificant; collective communities that granted little individual freedom gave way to a society where individual rights were valued. Multiple religions merged into a single religion, unifying the culture to a degree. Still, this was really the cultural and technological backwoods, primitive compared to what was emerging in Egypt and Mesopotamia. Yet here, perhaps, were the seeds of things that would in time bring the region to prominence.

  This was also the era of the domestication of some animals, the cultivation of some plants, the making of pottery, and the weaving of cloth. These are all skills and technologies that had considerable impact on mankind, and that deserve separate explorations, but for now they must wait on a more personal event.

  The setting is the Alps north of Italy, about 5,300 years B.C.E.—before the current era—at the fringe of what is known archaeologically as the Remedello culture. Later the Bell Beaker culture seems to have originated in Iberia—Spain—and spread north and east, in due course overlapping the corded pottery culture shown in the prior volume: the Indo-Europeans coming west. In the end, the corded ware folk were to prevail, with their battle axes and horses, but at this stage they had not yet arrived in this region. Instead a series of lesser known cultures existed in central Europe. A traveler from the fringe of the Mondsee culture might have crossed the Alps to reach the Remedello culture, where the copper-working tradition was superior, and there he could have interacted in a historically insignificant but personally significant manner with the natives.

  SAM TRUDGED THROUGH THE CUTTING wind of the high pass. The mountain range was always a challenge, but he enjoyed it, because the exertion made him fit. His heavy load of good cloth merely added to it, making his muscles strain and his heart pound pleasantly.

  Each community had its own rules, and strangers were not necessarily treated kindly. That made trading potentially dangerous. That was why it was Sam who took the cloth out and brought back the goods, instead of one or two of the women. Actually Jes had wanted to come with him, and she could carry her load and defend herself, but the family had decided that she was needed at home to help protect them from marauders during Sam’s absence. There was only so much Dirk could do, if several raiders attacked.