Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  Karana’s heart went hard just looking at the boy. For a moment he had actually believed that the boy was Navahk’s child. Ah, what a mockery that would be! Unbeknownst to them all, Navahk, living among them, insidiously working his evil will upon the band that had destroyed him.

  But no! If Umak’s dreams were Vision, it was a gift inherited through Torka’s line and its generations of spirit masters, not Navahk’s. Nevertheless, if the power was Umak’s, would he know that Karana had lied to him? Would he know the truth about Manaravak? Karana felt sick. His head ached, and his belly felt queasy. He could not stand to look at Umak or at Torka and Lonit, to whom his lies had brought so much grief.

  He escaped into the little hut of green branches. Away from the fires, it was surprisingly cool and pleasantly fragrant within the woven structure; but it was also dark, and he could not stand upright inside it. He sat down glumly, pleased to discover instant comfort upon the matting of soft new furs with which the women of the band had carpeted the floor. The freshly gathered leaves, lichens, and blossoms that had been placed as extra cushioning beneath the furs gave off a soothing summer scent. Karana drew in their fragrance; the healing quality made him feel better.

  Clearheaded again, he looked around in the darkness. There was nothing in the hut of rebirth except the furs on the floor and, next to a small, fur-free area, a single white feather, an antelope-skull container of oil, two bladder flasks full of liquid—one of water, the other of fermented brew—and the neatly assembled makings of a fire. The bow drill had the look of Lonit’s workmanship, and the long, double up curving lines that had been cut onto the main portion of the drilling stick looked like mammoth tusks and were clearly the same as the identification marks that Torka incised into his bludgeon, spears, daggers, and spear hurlers.

  Karana smiled. He sensed their love and their unspoken hope for what must soon take place within this hut.

  “Magic.” He spoke the word and touched the objects that had been left for him .. . and for her.

  Thoughtfully, he undressed and laid his clothes aside, then slowly, methodically anointed his body and his face with oil. He made a small fire and dipped the index finger of his right hand into the first of the ashes. With these he patterned himself across the brow and cheek, under his eyes and along both sides of his mouth, down along his arms and chest, belly, and limbs. Despite himself, he was aroused by the preparation for the ritual to come.

  “No, it will not come to that for me—only for her,” he decided.

  It seemed to Karana that he sat alone for a long time. He grew warm and hungry and thirsty. He drank from the water flask. It cooled him but did nothing to alleviate either his hunger or his earlier intoxication. He grew warm again and dozed and dreamed of Mahnie ... of their first time together, and of their last.

  “Karana?”

  He looked up.

  Summer Moon caught her breath with wonder. Behind her, she could hear the women—all but Mahnie—tittering and whispering as they closed the door of woven limbs and leaves and walked away.

  She was warm and sweated from dancing. Her head was swimming from too much drink, and the tips of her fingers and tongue and the surface of her skin felt hot and oddly tingling. The hut’s ceiling was so low that she knelt, her arms folded shyly across her bare breasts as she looked across the fragrant, fire lit vaguely smoky shadows.

  “Karana? Is it you?”

  He sat straight and unmoving before the little fire; except for the dark tracings of ceremonial paint and a single white feather that lay upon his right thigh, he was as naked as she. His body shone with oil. He was so handsome and wantonly virile that he took her breath away.

  “Karana is not here,” he replied. “Only Summer Moon, the new woman, is here. The rest—what will now be between us—is magic.” His left hand rose, gestured with in curling fingers. “Come....”

  Moving on her knees, she obeyed and paused before the fire. His eyes never left her body as he knelt across the flames before her. She gasped at the sight of him. If he was magic, he was also a man. She dropped her eyes and felt the heat of his presence in the dark.

  “Come....”

  Again the invitation. She moved eagerly around the fire to face him. He reached out and drew her arms from her breasts. His eyes burned her. She felt a deep, subtle change within herself. She felt her face flame and was glad for the dark. He bent slightly, dipped his hands into an antelope-skull container, then anointed her shoulders, arms, and hands with oil.

  “It feels good,” she told him, wishing that the words would come more easily.

  “Yes. It is good. For in this moment a woman is born, to be opened by man. You must not be afraid.”

  He spoke softly, with caring tenderness. Yet fear beat like a frightened bird at the back of her throat. She opened her mouth and released it with a sigh.

  “I am not afraid,” she told him, and knew that she was not as she closed her eyes and allowed her body to yield to the movement of his hands. “I have dreamed of this .. . with you, Karana—only with you. I have always loved you.”

  “No. Karana is not here .. . only the new woman .. . only the magic.”

  The anointing went on, slowly, purposefully. His arms circled her. She leaned close and felt the quick, hot, startled intake of his breath at her temple as her breasts touched his chest. Against her belly, that which she had always feared about men moved and hardened into a throbbing column of heat. Strangely, she had no fear of it now. She arched her hips, pressed its warmth hard against her belly, and once again gasped when she heard him suck in his breath.

  For a moment he drew away from her and looked at her with stern measuring eyes.

  “It is good,” she whispered, lowering her eyes to look at him as she touched him tentatively .. . wonderingly.

  Suddenly, with a sharp exhalation, he pulled her down upon the furs and allowed his hands to slide slowly downward over her breasts as he straddled her and knelt back.

  She looked up at him. His eyes were as black and hot as the fire he had kindled in her loins—and within his own. She strained her limbs against his. He moved, allowed her the room that she instinctively sought as she opened herself to him .. . wide .. . wanting .. . moving to touch him again. She watched his face as, instead of lowering himself onto her, he reached back and took up the white feather from where he had set it aside. Slowly, as she handled him, he drew the feather around her breasts and downward between her ribs and over her belly and along her thighs and then back, slowly back, tracing lines of fire that caused her to cry out with pleasure. Suddenly his mouth closed over hers.

  “No,” he sighed. “Do not cry out. Mahnie must not hear.”

  “Mahnie!”

  “Yes, Mahnie!”

  His voice had changed. His hands gripped her wrists as he came down onto her, kissing her as no one had ever kissed her, as she had never even dreamed of being kissed. And when at last he entered her, pierced her deep and slow, bringing the pain that he had promised he would not bring, she yielded to it, and although his kiss smothered her cries of passion, cry out she did as she thrashed beneath him until the last thrum of pleasure was gone.

  He shivered and held her tightly, continuing to move and thrust and tremble as he whispered, “It has been too long .. . too long.. .. Ahh, Mahnie, how can I bear not to have you ever again?”

  She felt him tense just before, with a savage exhalation of frustration, he threw himself off her and spilled his seed beside her.

  He lay still a moment, then sat up and shook his head. “I’m sorry, Summer Moon. Simu will be better for you.”

  “This has not been magic!” she told him petulantly, sitting beside him. In the center of the hut the fire was still burning low, as it was within her loins. She touched his brow. “I do not want Simu. I want you.... As it is with Lonit and Torka, so it will be with us, always and forever.”

  “No, Little One. It cannot be.”

  “Of course it can. You are a magic man. And I am not a �
��little one’ anymore. I am a woman! Here, in this place, you have made it so!”

  He pulled on his clothing and left the hut of rebirth. All was subdued in the cave. Dak and Umak were playing quietly. Umak looked up at him, paled, then looked away. Everyone else seemed to have retired. Even the dogs were asleep. It was Grek who called him back.

  “Wait, you!”

  Karana turned and glared at the old man, resenting his openly abusive tone. “What is it?”

  Grek strode toward him, head down, brows merged into one mass of annoyance over the bridge of his nose. “You’re going now? Just like that? Without waiting for the new woman to come out and accept her new man? And with never a word to Mahnie?” He looked around, wanting to see her, and then felt relieved when he did not. “It looks to me as if everyone is sleeping off the effects of the new-woman ceremonies. I was not aware that Simu needed my presence in order to accept his second woman. And is there something special that you would have me say to Mahnie?” After the question was asked, he knew that it must have sounded as callous to Grek as it did to him.

  “No,” growled the old hunter. “What should have been said between you and Mahnie should have been spoken long ago, before you misled her—and me—into thinking that you were fit to take a woman!”

  “He is fit!”

  Karana wheeled around as Summer Moon came out of the hut of rebirth, wrapped in furs and smiling lovingly at him. He was stunned. She was not supposed to come out of the hut until Simu called for her. And after what had just happened between them, how could she look at him as though he had just given her the greatest gift in all the world?

  “Bah!” Grek snarled in response to Summer Moon. “Any male with meat between his legs is fit for that! But a man needs more, here .. . and here!” He slapped his chest, over his heart, and the side of his head. “You have a daughter, Karana! And a woman who loves you! Although why she does is a mystery to me! You have responsibilities!”

  Karana shifted his weight restlessly. The old man’s voice had disturbed the sleepers. Couples were sitting up. From where she had fallen asleep close to Wallah and lana, Mahnie looked toward him with a troubled frown. How pale she looked, how drawn and sad.

  He could not bear to look at her. In all the time they had been together, she had never been less than fully receptive and completely loving in his arms. But never had she stirred the hard, driving, animal heat that Summer Moon had ignited. When the girl had touched him, he had thought that he would explode with ecstasy. Never had he experienced such absolute passion and release. He was hard again just thinking of it and ashamed because Mahnie’s eyes were on him.

  “I must go!” He turned abruptly and stalked toward the lip of the cave.

  “Karana?”

  Mahnie had called. He stopped. He waited.

  “May you walk in safety and come back to us soon, my magic man.”

  Her gently spoken words of farewell struck him to his heart, but he left without a word. He would not come back soon! He dared not come back soon! He would need time to recover from what he had nearly succumbed to.

  “Never again!” he screamed at the wind and the sky and the watching eye of the midnight sun when he was certain that he was out of earshot of the cave. “Never! Do you hear me, Navahk?”

  The wind turned. Dust stung his eyes. He cursed the wind and the dust and the haunting memory of his father. And he cursed himself because as he walked he thought of his beloved Mahnie—but his soul was black and twisted inward with frustration, for although he thought of her, he hungered for the warm, eager, receptive body of the virgin girl whom he had called Sister all his life .. . and whom he would never think of as a sister again.

  PART VII. WALKERS OF THE WIND

  The wind blew across the Forbidden Land from the west and north, and all too soon it was winter again—a dry, dark, rock-hard winter of unremitting wind and storm.

  Eneela went into labor for her third baby with the rising of the next moon. Even though they raised a large signal fire, Karana did not return across the valley to the cave in the hills. Umak was glad. Eneela’s baby was born in the storm dark and was given the name of Nantu, to honor the memory of a boyhood friend of Simu’s who had been killed many years before in the far land to the west.

  “Karana should be here,” said Simu, obviously irritated. “Why has my woman been deprived of his songs and his smokes?”

  “And maybe some healing magic to stop Eneela’s birth bleeding,” added Wallah with visible annoyance.

  “Karana would not leave us without his magic unless he could not come,” Mahnie said. “Unless he was hurt... or unless he was ...” “We will see,” said Torka, who began to put on his winter traveling clothes.

  With Umak, Dak, Aar, and two of the now fully grown pups, he set out across the wonderful valley.

  The beast ling moved cautiously in the winter dark through the nesting place of the beasts. Clothed in the skin of the white lion, he was not only warm but nearly invisible.

  For several moons now he had been watching the beasts, coming as close as he dared, to learn how they made their throwing sticks, how they commanded fire to leap from piles of grass, how they created clothes from animal skins. Closer and closer he came to their place of stinking shelters as the winter dark closed down upon the world. He came with his man stone and throwing stick, leaving Sister asleep within their nest. He did not want her at his side; she had not the disposition for the sort of hunt that he was on now.

  He moved forward cautiously among the huts. The wind was strong, and snow was falling heavily. His observations had taught him that in stormy weather the beasts stayed inside their shelters, coming out only to relieve themselves or in packs to search for meat. Although the chance of any one of them coming out into the storm and darkness was minimal, that small chance thrilled him, heating his blood.

  He went forward, searching. The largest shelter at the far side of the nesting site had stacked against its shaggy leeward wall the greatest number of that which he desired: throwing sticks.

  Tall and white and beautiful, they stood upright, deep in the snow, with their wondrously worked stone tips secured with lacings of skin to the fire-hardened bone shafts. The beast ling paused, salivating at the sight of them. His hand flexed around his own throwing stick. Silently he unlashed the thongs and drew six throwing sticks from the snow. Hefting them under his arm, he ventured around the front of the nest.

  He stopped dead as he heard the long reach of footsteps across the hard-packed crust of the snow. A beast. A big beast!

  He turned to run, but the wind struck him hard and the spears went clattering. No.” He would not leave them. He bent, scooped them up, and, looking around to make certain that the beast was not coming at him, saw the head of Mother staring sightlessly into the night and storm.

  Cheanah had gone to enjoy a little pleasure on Kivan’s woman. On his return to his own hut, something flew past him. Instinct caused him to move sideways. A spear? Who would throw a spear at him in his own encampment? Then he saw it: a black-haired, white-maned thing crouching before the entrance to his pit hut, snarling with all of the menace of a cornered beast.

  “Wanawut? Lion?” He stared, incredulous, then took a defensive stance, regretting that he had not bothered to take a spear.

  And now a creature that had the look of man and beast and lion—a white lion!--was showing its teeth as it threw another spear at him, clearly trying to kill him. Again he sidestepped it. If it possessed neither strength nor skill, it did have speed and daring as, suddenly, with spears tucked under its arm, it raced past him for open land.

  Fear rooted Cheanah’s feet to the ground. His deep and aching terror began to gnaw at his self-confidence. The creature was a wind spirit! He had been right not to pursue it. Men could not kill phantoms! They would always come back in one form or another to exact vengeance.

  His mouth was dry. The hide of the wanawut was suddenly inordinately heavy upon his back. He was painfully aware of
the dried hands of the beast dangling over his chest. Despite the cold he broke into a hot sweat as it seemed to him that the hands were flexing at the wrists, reaching up, trying to choke him. He swirled the skin off his back.

  “I should have stalked them more intently .. . the lion . the beast’s cubs. I should have killed them. I—“ He swallowed the rest of his words as he turned, suddenly aware that someone was staring at him.

  It was Zhoonali. “I warned you to be wary of what you do, Cheanah. I warned you that the spirits would be watching.” Had she been standing in the entrance to the hut long enough to see her son standing weaponless before the spirits of the night as they threw his own spears at him? Could she smell the rankness of his fear, as he smelled it now? His face flamed with shame. “You have seen nothing!” he accused. “I have seen enough,” she replied, and without another word she turned and left him alone with the night and the wind and his own muddled fears.

  Despite his worry for Karana’s safety, Torka was glad to be out of the cave, walking across the broad valley with Umak and Dak, and the dogs running out ahead.

  They walked until Torka sensed a need in the boys to rest. Now he stopped and hunkered down. The dogs circled back and seated themselves close by, while the boys were silent, recouping their strength. Umak sat facing back toward the way they had come as if waiting for someone to follow or wishing himself home again; it had been his opinion that a magic man should not need to be summoned—his gift of Seeing should tell him when he was needed.

  Torka eyed Umak thoughtfully. Something had happened between the boy and Karana prior to Summer Moon’s becoming a new woman. It had shattered their former closeness, and this realization troubled Torka.

  “I’m glad you brought us along,” said Dak to Torka, chewing on his portion of fat and surveying the winter landscape. “It is too long a way for a man to go alone.”

  Dak’s good-natured audacity caused Torka to grin. He heard a stomach growl. Umak’s? His own? It did not matter. They had been gone from the cave a very long time. He passed out more wedges of fat and tossed a few to the dogs.