Zan-Gah: A Prehistoric Adventure

by Allan Richard Shickman

  When Zan-Gah decided to seek his brother, Chul suggested timidly to his wife that it might help if he went along. Siraka-Finaka would have hit him in the head if she could have reached it! But if she did not strike him with her small fist, she struck him with her tongue, and kept on striking too! Chul, she reminded him, had a family to feed and protect; and Zan-Gah would have to find his twin by himself. Later the subject came up again—with the same unpleasant result, but after a year went by and Zan did not return, both Thal and Chul were much concerned, and Chul once again suggested to his wife that he should seek news of Zan-Gah. The great ape, Chul, and his tiny wren-wife could be heard roaring and chirping for a long time that night. Finally Chul, tongue-tied with rage, picked up his spear and stormed out. Here was this dwarfish woman, a third his size (if that), ruling the roost and telling him what he could or could not do! His younger brother, Thal, would not have stood for it, and neither would he!

  10

  THE

  CAVE

  The first thing Zan sensed was the absence of torturing heat. His skin still burned and his head ached fearfully, as it had under the blistering sun, but now he was shivering with cold, and so weak that he could not rise from the bed of soft furs in which he found himself. In trying to get up Zan groaned aloud, and someone bent over him, a girl with an expression of anxiety furrowing her brow. Zan wanted to ask where he was and how he came there. He also wondered what new danger he was in, but from weakness more than stealth he waited and looked around. The dim light came from torches bracketed on what he realized were the uneven walls of a cave. He squinted, pretending to sleep, and glanced at the girl caring for him. As she bathed his forehead with cool water he opened his eyes wide and looked directly at her. Her hair, cascading to his shoulders, was of a fiery hue he had never seen before; and her eyes were the greenish color of something rare. So striking was her appearance that Zan thought she was a demon, but her soft, low voice and gentle manner showed that she was not.

  “Dael,” she said almost tenderly, “what has happened to you?” and tears trickled from her strange eyes down her freckled cheeks. Her language was almost the same as that of the wasp people, and Zan understood her perfectly.

  Zan tried to speak and could not, but after she assisted him in sipping some warm broth he managed to croak out “I am not Dael.”—to which she gasped out “Oh, Dael!” Zan, sick as he was, immediately recognized the problem. The girl mistook him for his twin. He fell back onto his bed and repeated in the same hoarse voice that he was not Dael, at length managing to add that Dael was his twin brother. The flame-headed girl stared at him with astonishment. He looked exactly like Dael. How could he be anybody else?

  “Why do you tease me, Dael? You frighten me to death.” Then as she scrutinized his half-naked body, she saw his scars and realized that this was indeed Dael’s twin.

  Twins were so unusual among her people that they were the objects of superstitious dread. Terribly affrighted, she leapt away, her back to the side of the cave, her green eyes nearly popping out of her head. Then, as if recalling herself, she straightened up and said, “I am a daughter of Noi, and of a people so ancient that some gods were not even born when we came here as a people. We subdue wild beasts and triumph over giants. No man or devil will dishonor me!” and she seized a torch, ready to fight with the devil she took Zan to be. She said some other words too, in a low singsong voice which could not quite be heard or understood—magic perhaps. Poor Zan was too sick to answer. He fell back on his bed, shivering and coughing, and when he sneezed she looked at him again with a new kind of wonder. This—boy—Dael’s brother, was ill and needed help!

  From then on, the girl redoubled her efforts to heal the invalid, rarely leaving his bedside. At night Zan had delirious dreams. The lion would come from nowhere to spring at him while Dael stood by, laughing cynically. It was not the cheerful laugh that Zan remembered, and it horrified him more than the lion’s long fangs. As Zan slowly recovered his strength, and the evil nightmares left him, he questioned his caretaker. Her name was Lissa-Na, a priestess of a secret society dedicated to healing the sick and assisting women in childbirth. Na meant Healer. She told him that the cave in which he lay was holy, and forbidden to men. Blushing to his waist, Zan demanded of her why she had brought him to a place of women. She replied that it was permitted to bring the dying there for the final care that would usher them easily into the world of spirits. But that came out on the fourth day of Zan’s recovery. He had hardly been able to speak when he asked the question most important to him: “Who knows that I am here?”

  Some of the women and her servant knew. They had been gathering salt for the preservation of meat (which was one of their duties) when they had found him. Because he looked like Dael, they had assumed that Dael had fled his captivity and had gotten lost in the desert. At first they had thought he was dead (Lissa-Na sobbed a little when she said it), but looking closely, she had detected a little life stirring. Fearing he would be punished or even tortured for attempting escape (and here she suppressed another sob), she had brought him to this place of safety. No one would enter here but the Na women, who kept apart from the place where Dael was imprisoned. So it was unlikely that they would realize there were “two” Daels.

  Zan was overjoyed, as Lissa-Na could readily see, to learn that his twin brother was still alive. “How is Dael?” he asked, and here again Lissa-Na was shaken with emotion. “He has been in that cage for over a year,” she said. “He was given to the women of Na for a time, but he refused to do the work of women and was beaten.” Zan winced painfully on his gentle brother’s account. Lissa-Na lowered her eyes. “Now, I do not know what they make him do. They use him as they please, and throw scraps to him like a dog.” She wiped away some tears with her fist.

  “Can I see him?” Zan asked.

  She told him that it would be difficult. The men of Noi would want to kill them both if they saw the brothers together, as they did their own twins at birth. “How can two people share one spirit?” she asked. Her eyes expressed a lingering doubt and fear.

  Zan saw that Lissa-Na cared for Dael. For a moment the discovery caused him a sharp pang which he was unable to explain to himself. But he longed to see his brother, and was ready to rise from his sickbed to rescue him. “Lissa-Na, can you bring me a spear or at least a knife? I will need a weapon to get Dael away from his captors,” and he checked to see that the sling was still tied around his waist.

  Lissa knew better than to assist Zan in a reckless enterprise. She reminded him that there was nowhere to flee but into the desert where they would die if they were not well equipped for the journey. Zan was in no condition to travel, and neither was Dael. However, she promised to help them—at much risk to herself, as Zan knew—and her eyes lighted up at the prospect of delivering Dael from his suffering. She would find a way to bring him to the sacred cave.

  “You care for my brother. Why? He is not one of yours.”

  “I do not deny it. When he first came here, sold to us by the wasp people, he was beautiful and gentle. You are quite different from him, although you look exactly alike. He was used so roughly that it made me weep, and later, when he was often in my presence, or where I could see his wretchedness, I came to love and pity him. I have never told anyone, but I gave him food—and kind words when I could. They keep him in a cage so small that he cannot fully stand up or lie down. I have longed to bring him here, but I dared not. The Na women would not have allowed it before, but now they think it proper.”

  Zan mused on what she had said. “If you can secretly bring him here, you can put him in my place. Then I could hide somewhere until we make our escape together.”

  Lissa-Na, who was by disposition soft-spoken and reserved, brightened with enthusiasm and swore she would attempt it. The prospect of seeing Dael filled each of them with a private happiness. But there was something in Lissa’s words that stung Zan. “She ‘loves and pities’ Dael. She will ‘put him in my place!’” he thought
ruefully. Still his gratitude overwhelmed his jealousy and he eagerly awaited the night (for night it had to be) when the liberation could be brought to pass.

  It was nine nights before it happened. Zan pretended extreme illness when members of her healing order were present, and Lissa-Na made ready a place of hiding. When she could, she brought food, articles for storing water, and tools, hiding them for the time of escape. She also obtained two spears, one at a time. All of these efforts were exceedingly dangerous, for violations of the laws of her people and the Na women were punishable by death. However, Lissa-Na enjoyed a certain respect among the Noi, and was not closely watched.

  Finally one midnight as Zan lay alone in his supposed sickbed he saw by the faint light of the small fire a pair of legs coming through a hole in the roof of the cave—and then a second pair, descending down a long rope. (Zan had never seen twisted rope before, and examined it well when he had a chance.) The opening served the purpose of admitting light during the day, and was an exit for smoke. The legs belonged to Dael and Lissa-Na, who climbed down toward the fire, avoiding it when they got to the floor of the cave. Lissa was breathless and gaily laughing. Dael was silent. “Dael! Dael!” Zan cried, leaping from his bed.

  When Dael heard his name he seemed not to know it, giving Zan a puzzled look, as if he did not know him either. Zan flew to Dael, embracing him with all of his strength. He was so glad to see Dael that he could have died of joy. But Dael, strangely quiet and surly, hardly returned his embrace. He just stood there like the imbecile column of stone that Zan had lately mistaken for his brother. Zan looked at him fully in the face. Dael was taller, with some hairs on his chin. Zan felt his own chin and it was the same. There was something else—a jagged furrow ascending Dael’s brow that looked like the scar of a recent wound. Zan hugged him again and kissed his neck, unwilling to let him go. “Dael, I have come to rescue you.” Dael did not respond. Zan looked at his scarred face with wonder and saw a blank. The happiness and play that had always been there before were gone. This laughing child looked as if he would never laugh again. For a moment Zan actually doubted that the youth in front of him was Dael. He scrutinized him as one would stare at a lost dog that might or might not be his. It was Dael, but how changed! The twinkle of his eyes was replaced by a leaden dullness, and his ever-present smile seemed to have died forever on his lips. Dael said nothing, and hardly even looked at Zan, but there was something in his lusterless eyes and expressionless face that was dangerous, startling, and deadly.

  Lissa-Na put him in Zan’s bed and prepared to hide Zan in a dark, unused alcove of the cave. Because it was night, and no one else was there, Zan could keep out of hiding for a while to talk with his brother. It had been a long time and he had much to tell. But Dael showed no interest in his brother’s conversation, although he seemed to be listening. Zan wasn’t even sure of that, but continued to speak excitedly of their family and of his confrontation with the lion, acquainting him with his name of honor, Zan-Gah. He showed Dael his scars, stealing a glance at Lissa-Na to see her reaction. Then he told him of his meeting with Aniah and of his adventures along the way. Dael said almost nothing, as if he were absorbed by some painful or perplexing memory. Zan could only guess what had happened to his gentle twin to work such a transformation in him, and he began to speak more softly, as one afraid to disturb a sick person.

  Dael was soon missed. Warriors of Noi spent the next day searching for him, and eventually one was dispatched to inquire of him at the cave. Ab-Lunt presumed to enter, although he knew better than to go very far into its forbidden depths. He was an arrogant man, muscular and very hairy. He had a heavy club over his shoulder, made from the thighbone of a large animal. Presenting himself to Lissa-Na, who was the only female there, he told his errand, demanding to know who was lying within. Lissa tried to block the advance of this large, aggressive man, but she was no match for him. Dael rose from his bed, ready to submit himself to his captors, and perhaps hoping to spare Lissa any trouble. That was when Zan came out of his place of hiding and stood beside Dael, holding a spear.

  Poor, stupid Ab-Lunt was frozen with fear. He gazed on the twins with horror as if confronted by twin devils. Dael walked up to Ab-Lunt, who did not move a muscle but stared straight across at Zan with wide-eyed paralysis, his face twisted into a grotesque, hairy mask. With no resistance whatever from the rigid, staring warrior, Dael took the coarse thighbone club from his grip. Then it happened! With the unnatural shriek of a wild animal Dael struck Ab-Lunt on the head with his own club. The blow was so violent that the man fell to the ground with a groan, his head split open and his brains bursting from his skull. He was dead. Yet that was not all. Dael kept beating him with mindless fury as if he did not know what he was doing. “Enough, Dael, enough!” Zan said, grabbing his wrist to prevent yet another blow. Dael looked up at his twin with a dazed, vacant stare, as though he had been awakened from a frightful dream, and listlessly dropped the weapon. What had once been Ab-Lunt lay on the ground, his shaggy head crushed to jelly and his blood forming a sticky pool.

  Zan was sick at heart, and Lissa-Na was weeping and tearing her red hair. It was true that Dael had slain the man who would have imprisoned him, but the deed was so sudden and the manner of it so unspeakably brutal that Zan and Lissa-Na were shocked to the bottom of their souls. Lissa-Na could see that her life with the Noi people was over. Out of love for Dael she had betrayed all trust, and now his furious hand had brought down a man of Noi. The Na women might enter at any time, and raise an alarm, so there was nothing to do but hurry away. The body of Ab-Lunt had to be hidden in order to delay pursuit if only for a little while. They took the all-important store of food, water and other hidden supplies and made ready, dragging the horrible corpse to the same place of concealment. Dael did not help, but stood in the same spot, breathless and almost as stupefied as Ab-Lunt had been, so that Zan and Lissa had to drag him off too. It was plain to see that the landscape of Dael’s soul was charred; the wind had blown a fire through and everything living had been burnt to blackness. The knowledge that the Noi would take vengeance upon him for the murder of Ab-Lunt seemed not to concern him. He had shut off the part of himself that feels pleasure, pain, or fear. But coming to himself, he followed Lissa, more than Zan. His face was firmly set, with his teeth tightened and one eyebrow of his deeply scarred forehead frowning. They whispered as they went. He said nothing.

  The cave had appeared to be fairly limited in size, but as they turned around the curved wall a narrow opening was revealed. Lissa-Na led the way. By the light of their torches Zan beheld a place of wonder. “This is the womb of the earth—our most sacred place. We should not be here,” Lissa said. “And I wish I had not been the one to defile it,” she added to herself. The sanctuary was long and narrow, like a human intestine. On the walls and roof of the passage game animals had been vividly painted by the priestesses in black, red, and ochre. All of the beasts were depicted in actual size, and all faced in the same direction. “We must follow the way of the animals,” said Lissa-Na, “and exit where they do.”

  After they had advanced into the depths of the cave for some time, Lissa-Na caused them to stop and to listen carefully for any noise of pursuit. They heard nothing but the dripping of water. With any luck the body of Ab-Lunt and their absence would not be discovered for some time. Whether for fun or out of desperate anxiety, Dael suddenly let out a shrill and startling cry, shattering the silence and causing his companions to gasp with amazement as the echo screamed back again. Dael seemed not to be in mental contact with their situation. He laughed nervously, almost giggled, as if he had become a child again. Lissa hushed him and gently stroked his cheek and brow, and they went on.

  The cave was very wet, which surprised Zan, for above ground all had been parched desert. Evidently there was fresh water in abundance, but he had not been lucky enough to have found it. They even came to an underground river fed by a concealed spring as they went deeper and lower into the cavern. The water seemed
perfectly still, but when Zan stuck his spear in to determine its depth, the invisible current nearly took the weapon out of his hand. Where it was shallow he could see a few pale fish and eyeless salamanders. The further they went, the more the water dripped, sculpting the interior into fantastic shapes that glowed eerily in the light of their torches. Pointed shafts of stone descended from the ceiling or rose from the floor. Some, thin as reeds, barred off large sections of the cave and cast mysterious shadows. As they progressed, the stone took on ever more fabulous configurations. Rocky substance hung in folds like the living flesh of great fungi, or seemed to spout into geysers. The hardened stone tumbled and flowed as if it once had been soft and spongy stuff bubbling from the ground. Who would have known that the hollows of the earth held such mysteries! Then the color of these cursive forms changed abruptly from yellow to red, as if flowing with blood, and soon changed back again when the three went on.

  The passage gradually narrowed so that advancing became difficult, but all at once the space opened dramatically to a great overhanging dome eaten hollow by the ages. Painted animals reappeared on the walls, seeming to stampede forward toward another narrow place. From the incessant dripping Zan guessed that they were under a river—the water supply of the Noi. The air was heavy with moisture and they could see each other’s breath. Their torches sputtered, throwing forth a sulfurous light and immense, surging shadows.

  At last they began going upward again, walking, climbing, and struggling. They spoke but little, but when they did their voices made ghostly, whispering echoes. In the silent darkness Dael screamed forth a reasonless yelp as sudden and startling as before, and hundreds of shrill-voiced bats were roused. “We are nearing the mouth of the cave. That is where the bats live,” Lissa said, and with remarkable tenderness she again soothed Dael’s agitation.