Gurni, the insulter, was enjoying himself. He was also getting revenge for what Deyv had once cried at him when he had gone out to find a mate.
Deyv looked down at the soul egg hanging from a leather cord around his neck. His face felt warm, and he could see his body, except where the breechclout covered it, turning red. It was true. The translucent stone, a pale scarlet when he was in a good mood, had become streaked with green. The green pulsed swiftly as if it were connected with his hammering heart. Which, in a sense, it was.
How humiliating! How embarrassing!
‘Don’t pay any attention to that big-mouthed blabbermouth!’ his mother shouted almost in his ear. ‘No man or woman has ever gone out on a mate-hunt without showing some green. Except the hero Keelrow, and that was five generations ago, and maybe it’s all a lie about him, anyway!’
The shaman, Agorw, danced up alongside Deyv. He wore a bonnet of tall feathers; the cheeks of his face and buttocks were marked with three vertical stripes, red, white and blue; his breechclout was painted with the crooked cross; his knees were bound in leather, from which dangled seven coils of human hair; one hand was inserted inside the skull of a giant turtle and the other shook a staff from which hung three empty turtle shells. His own soul egg was a deep blue shot with pulsating aquamarine streaks.
‘Shame on you, woman!’ he cried. ‘The ghost of Keelrow will come to you in your dreams and put horns on your husband’s head. And the child will drink you dry!’
‘See these!’ Deyv’s mother yelled. ‘Do you think any baby, even if he were as big and fat as you, could empty these?’
The tribe howled with merriment, and the shaman, his face red, stomped off out of Deyv’s sight.
For a moment, Deyv forgot his fear and embarrassment. He chuckled. His mother was afraid of nothing. He wished he were. But she was like him in that she had a quick temper and sometimes had to pay for it. The shaman would get back at her somehow. However, she would not regret her words. She was willing to take the consequences. Especially in this situation, where her pride in her baby overrode anything else.
Deyv, her baby, was six feet two inches high, the tallest of the tribe. His shoulders were broad, but he had the long legs and wiry build of a long-distance runner. His skin was a dark copper; his hair black as a fly and as wavy as a wind-rippled brook. The forehead was high and wide; the brows beetling; the nose a hawk’s; the lips thick; the chin round and clefted. By his features alone, any of the other people for sixty miles around would have known he was a Turtle.
He wore a shell of the chequered turtle on his head, a scarlet breechclout and calf-high leather boots. A leather belt held a leather scabbard containing a slim sword with two cutting edges. Also held by the belt was a stone tomahawk. Over one shoulder was a case holding a blowgun, a compression cylinder and, in its pocket, twelve darts, the tips of which were coated with poison. A coiled rope was slung over the other shoulder. This was what every well-dressed man or woman wore when seeking a mate.
After entering the jungle, Deyv stepped behind a delta-shaped feathery bush and parted its fronds. The tribe had turned away except for his mother and father and his dog, Jum. About twenty yards behind them, lying down sphinx-like, was his cat, Aejip.
Deyv waited until his parents had at last walked back towards the House. Then he whistled, and Jum, who’d been waiting for this signal, bounded up to him. He was a large wolf-like beast with big pointed upstanding ears, a crimson coat, a tail edged in black and slanting green eyes. He licked Deyv’s calf until he was told to stop, and then he sat down, his tongue hanging out. His forehead was as high as a chimpanzee’s and so was his intelligence.
Aejip was taking her time with all the nonchalance of any cat that ever lived. When she stood, she was two and a half feet high at the shoulder. Her glossy coat was tawny and rosetted in black. Above the great yellow eyes were two vertical black markings. Her forehead was as developed as Jum’s.
Deyv thought of whistling for her, but the cat had made it evident that she was not going to accompany her partner – no cat acknowledged a master – on his journey. Though she could not talk, she had put across the idea that she considered Deyv out of his mind. Besides, she was jealous because Deyv had been paying so much attention to Jum for the past two weeks.
So Deyv shrugged and turned, with Jum a few feet ahead of him, and proceeded down the jungle path. Every step that took him away from the tribe was a pace deeper into loneliness and insecurity. If he had been accompanied by anyone on a hunt for food, one which he knew would see him back with the tribe after a sleep or even seven sleeps, he would have been happy. But to go forth by himself for only The Great Mother knew how long was to be shivering with fear, sick with aloneness.
Nevertheless, he was not numb. His eyes, ears and nose were alert. Behind every bush or tree could be a poisonous snake, a corps of the great ruddy cockroaches, the thing-with-a-nose-like-a-snake, a ghost-with-venomous-urine, the toe fancier or an enemy tribesman eager to remove his head and his soul egg. There might even be an enemy woman out to catch a mate, though these were very few.
The wind was coming from ahead of him. Though it waved the upper leaves and caps of the tall trees, it pushed gently along the path. Still, it should carry the scent of anything ahead to Jum’s nose. Anything except a ghost, and dogs were supposed to be psychically sensitive to those horrible things.
To expect to hear anything soft but sinister near by was to be stupid. The jungle rang, shrilled, cawed, cackled, hooted, tooted, chortled, drummed, whistled and screeched. Most of the noise-makers were hidden, but occasionally Deyv saw a bird, a gliding mammal, a fingered bear, a creature like a four-legged blowgun, a troop of scowl-monkeys or a live-alone cockroach; and once he halted while a diamond-backed tortoise heaved its monstrous shelled bulk across the path. Though it was not his totem, it was a cousin to it, and so he addressed it politely and wished it well.
After it came a regiment of yellow mouse-sized cockroaches, hoping to eat its dung or find a crevice between flesh and shell into which to burrow. Deyv picked up a stick and beat a dozen or so into paste. The survivors scampered off into the green while Deyv called after the diamond-back, ‘You owe me one, O mighty sister.’
Jum ate the corpses and sniffed around for more. He’d had his single between-sleeps meal but, dog-like, he would eat until he burst if he got a chance. Though it was not distasteful to Deyv, he didn’t share Jum’s food. Instead, some easily plucked large round yellow fruit, only half-eaten by the birds, tempted Deyv. Holding two in one hand and eating a third in the other hand, he walked along. To find food was no problem in his world. To avoid being food was.
Only thirty sleeps before, Deyv had been with the tribe at the Place of the Trading Season. Every forty-nine circuits of The Dark Beast, the nine tribes in the area put aside war and gathered peacefully at the Place. This was by a House occupied only by animals, birds and insects, and possibly a non-malignant ghost, and centrally located. At this time, by custom immemorial and unstained by truce breaking, the tribes went down the paths and gathered at the Place. It was near a broad river in an overgrown area that was cleared every Trading Season. Here the artifacts that one tribe had and the others lacked were traded. It was a long leisurely business, with much pleasant haggling interspersed by feasts, drinking, smoking, eating drugs, telling erotic and stercoral jokes, athletic matches among the young men and women, exchanging hunting information, warnings of ghosts and boasting contests.
Deyv’s tribe traded turtle and tortoise shells, the harps made from them, a large gourd which grew only in their area, a drug made from a plant and other ingredients which could evoke ancestors for brief conversations but was, unfortunately, accompanied by devastating winds from the bowels, and an insect whose bite assured the female bitee of a very pleasurable sensation. For some reason the bite caused only an itching in the male bitee. The effects in both sexes lasted about one fourth of the time between sleeps.
In exchange the Turtle people
obtained smoked meat of the chequered turtle, which they were forbidden to kill and which could be eaten only at certain required times; a liquor which the Coyote Tribe made from water seeping through a limestone cliff and a plant, the identity of which the Coyotes had kept secret for ten generations; bone noseflutes made by the Holecat Tribe, the minute carved decorations of which were beyond the artistic ability of any other tribe; a jungle pepper from the Whistling Squirrel Tribe; a perfume jelly from the Crawling Tree Tribe; smoked bladders guaranteed to bring good luck from the Nameless God Tribe; gourds filled with an exceedingly tasty paste from the Ruddy Cockroach Tribe; from the Tree-Lion Tribe birds and monkeys which could mimic speech; and soul eggs from the Red Skunk Tribe. These latter had found a burial ground of the ancients and had dared to dig up the soul eggs and barter them. They were rare and expensive items, only for the hardy shaman who was willing to take on additional ancestors and haggle for their power in his dreams.
Each Trading Season a tribe was appointed to be the police. The men and the childless adult females walked around with clubs and kept the peace. The unmated men and women of the tribes walked around looking one another over. Only about five per cent were serious, since most matings took place within the tribe. But there were always those whose soul eggs did not match any eligible person of the other sex within the tribe. These, like it or not, had to find their mates in one of the other tribes.
When a man or a woman did find a match in another tribe, a marriage was arranged. There was then the problem of which partner would have to leave his or her tribe and go with the new mate. To give up one’s own people and live with foreigners was hard. But it had to be done if there was no other way out.
The decision of which person must go to the strange tribe was quickly made. A shaman from a third tribe spun a stick with a spear point on each end into the air. If the prospective groom’s point stuck in the earth when the stick landed, then he took the bride to his own tribe. If the other point plunged in, that meant that he had to go to her House.
Deyv had wandered through the Place of the Trading Season. And, as was the age-old custom, when he saw an unmated woman, he introduced himself and then sat down to talk to her. It did not matter whether or not he found her attractive or vice versa. He must talk to her in the trading language until their soul eggs began to flash matching colours in synchronization. Or until it was evident that there would be no phasing-in.
Deyv had been relieved when he had not matched up with any of the eligible women. There were some pretty ones among the candidates, but he hadn’t been attracted to them. Among the girls who would be old enough next season he’d spotted two rather likeable good-lookers. All he had to do was to wait another forty-nine circuits of The Dark Beast. Then, if his egg matched one of theirs, he could marry. There would still be the agony of not knowing whether or not he’d have to go to a strange tribe. But that would be over quickly.
Meanwhile, he would not be sexually frustrated. The Turtles, like the other tribes, had plenty of volunteers from older women, widows usually, who liked to satisfy the unmarried youths. One of these was chosen by the shaman’s wife or husband and given a ritual name. Thereafter, the woman lived in a hut in which she entertained the young men. Her prestige was high, and she was always given a place of honour on the feast days.
Those young women who had not yet found a match were similarly entertained by an older man chosen in the same manner. If any pregnancy resulted, the child was the woman’s, and when she married her husband formally and gladly adopted the child.
Deyv had grown fond of the woman who was taking care of him and was looking forward to spending more time with her. But a few days after he had returned to the House, his father had called him aside. He had not looked happy.
‘The men’s councils of the nine tribes met during the Trading Season. They decided that it was time for new blood to be brought into our land. So, each tribe must send out those young men or women who found no soul-egg mates during the Season. You are the only one of the Turtles who failed. That means, my son, that you must go, and very soon, to the lands beyond our land. You may not come back unless you bring with you a woman whose egg matches yours.’
Deyv had been so shocked he had not been able to say anything.
‘The same thing happened in your grandfather’s time,’ his father had said. ‘It was decided that the tribe needed new blood. So his friend Atoori was sent outside the area to get a woman. He never returned; no one knows what happened to him. Another young man, Shamoom, was then sent out, and he returned with a woman from a tribe far in that direction.’
His father had gestured with his left hand. ‘She was much lighter skinned than we, and she had yellow kinky hair and blue eyes. She gave birth to two babies, Tsagi, who died before you were born, slain by a warrior of the Coyotes, and Korri, the shaman’s wife.’
Deyv had gulped and said, ‘I’ve heard the story, Father, but I didn’t think much about it.’
‘You’d better think about it now.’ Tears had rolled down his father’s cheeks.
‘It is hard to see your son go into the unknown dangers of the land beyond the nine tribes. The known dangers are bad enough.’
‘Is that why Mother has looked so sad the last few days?’
‘Yes.’
His father had begun weeping and sobbing, and Deyv had had to hold him for a few minutes until he had recovered. Then Deyv had stumbled off weeping to be consoled by his mother, only to end up consoling her. That evening he’d gone to Pabashum, the young unmarried-men’s woman, only to have to console her.
His dog, Jum, could not talk, though he did whimper a lot, but Deyv had wet him with his tears and, when Jum licked his face, Deyv felt that he was finally being consoled. It had not been entirely satisfying, however. His egg had been filled with roiling black clouds and dark-green streaks for days afterwards.
2
So here he was in the jungle, with no idea of where he would go or just how he would do what he had to do when he got there. First, though, he had to get out of the land of the nine tribes. It was now a bad time to be alone in the jungle. After fourteen sleeps of the honeymoon, the bridegrooms had to sally forth to kill a dangerous beast or an enemy tribesman and bring the head back and lay it at the feet of their women. This period would start just as he set out on his quest. The tribe might at least have considered this and allowed him to wait until the headhunters had gone home.
Thinking this, but not so deeply that he wasn’t alert, Deyv walked on. After a while, he emerged into a wide open area on the hillside. Here the path led downward through plants that were only waist-high. These had slender stalks topped by flowers with a black centre, a blue iris and twelve tawny sword-shaped petals. Those near him turned their flower tops towards him as he passed.
Deyv urged Jum to run. The plants, detecting a possible victim, released a perfume that signalled to swarms of a large stinging insect. If they stung him to death, they would burrow into his corpse and lay eggs in it. The plants would put forth roots which would eat his flesh.
Suddenly a heavy, heady odour rose about him. But he and the dog had reached the jungle before he heard the clicking sound. He kept on running for a while, since the insects were known to occasionally chase their prey a little way into the trees. As soon as he was beyond pursuit, he slowed down. It was dangerous to run in the jungle. The noise warned predators or enemies that someone was coming.
Presently he emerged into another open space on a hillside which had once been overgrown by the vevshmikl plant. A score of gigantic beasts were moving slowly down the hill, devouring the plants. Their legs were black columns. Their bodies were massive yellow pods. Their necks were thick but long, and at the ends were heads with long drooping lips and a pair of twin horns above each eye. Their big blue fan-shaped ears flapped slowly and their blue tails flipped back and forth.
Deyv and Jum moved down the hill, giving the beasts a wide berth. If you didn’t bother them, they didn’t bothe
r you.
Almost three-quarters of the plants were gone. In the stands still left, their heads were turned towards their oncoming doom, though it was doubtful that they could ‘see’. From the bases of the stalks came a loud clicking, the insects striking their horny antennae in unison. They, too, were doomed. They would rush out when their floral partners disappeared into the gaping mouths of the atadeym, and they would try to sting through the thick hides. But the great feet of the beasts would crush them, and after a while there would be neither plant nor insect symbiont.
Grass would move in and flourish for many sleeps. Then, slowly, the seeds of the vevshmikl would sprout, and in time the open area would be filled with them. The fookooki insect eggs would burst, and the space would again be dangerous. Then the atadeym would saunter out from a jungle trail and begin eating once again.
The sky was still white, so bright that Deyv could go blind if he stared directly into it for several minutes. The wind swooped down over the trees and across the hillside, cooling his sweating body somewhat. Behind him, black clouds were beginning to build up. Before the next sleep, heavy rains would come.
In the opposite direction the first of the strange forms drifted. It was high in the sky and approaching against the wind. Ever since he was a baby, Deyv had seen such colossal black things over the tribal area. They came every twelve sleeps without fail, though they couldn’t be seen if there was an overcast sky, of course.
Soon the first figure was close enough for Deyv to make it out. It floated parallel to the earth, a form that must be longer and wider than the clearing in which he stood. Much larger. It was composed of two parallel lines crossed by two more: #.
Then the second figure came into view, and when it was close enough it was revealed as: S.
The third was: O.
The fourth: X.
The Lovers * Dark Is the Sun * Riders of the Purple Wage Page 19