“Did you know Esetta‹?” Kerrick asked.
“Brother-in-here,” Imehei quickly said, but with more interest he added, “Meat-to-come, interrogative?”
Kerrick signed negative, later time, then asked, “There was another male here, Alipol, did you know him as well? He was my… friend.”
“Imehei has but recently arrived from Entoban*” Nadaske said. “Not I. I was here when Alipol was first in the hanalè, before he went to the beach.”
“Alipol worked with his thumbs to make things of great beauty. Do you know of them?”
“We all know of them,” Imehei broke in. “After all — we are not rough/crude/strong and female. We know of beauty.” He turned as soon as he had finished speaking and pulled some of the ornate drapes aside to disclose an opening in the wall. Standing on claw-tip he reached up and took out the wire sculpture, turned and held it out to Kerrick.
A nenitesk — perhaps the very one that Alipol had showed to him on that distant, warm day. The carapace curled high, the three horns sharp and pointed, the eyes gleaming jewels. Imehei held it out proudly and Kerrick took it, turned it so that it caught the light. He felt the same joy that he had felt when Alipol had first revealed his sculpture. There was unhappiness along with the joy — for Alipol was long dead. Sent to certain death on the beach by Stallan. Well, she was dead as well; there was some satisfaction in that.
“I will take this,” Kerrick said — then saw their horrified gestures. Imehei was even bold enough to add a suggestion of femaleness to the movements. Kerrick understood. They had accepted him as a male, all the city knew of his maleness and had marveled, but he was now acting brutally female. He tried to make amends.
“Misinterpretation of intent. I want to take this thing of beauty but it must remain here in the hanalè where Alipol meant it to be. The esekasak who cared for the hanalè is gone so now the responsibility is yours. Guard it and keep it from harm.”
They could not conceal their thoughts, made no attempt to. Hidden away, deprived of responsibility, treated like fargi speechless and fresh from the ocean — how could they be anything but what they were? Now they took in the new thought, recoiled from it, then accepted it, then showed pride. When Kerrick saw this he began to have some understanding why they had to be kept alive. Not only for their own sakes — but for his. For his own selfish reasons. He was Tanu — but was Yilanè as well. With these males he could face that fact, not flee from it nor feel ashamed of it. When he talked with them his thoughts came to life, those parts of his thinking that were Yilanè. Not only thinking, being.
He was what he was: Kerrick of the Tanu; Kerrick of the Yilanè.
“You have water — I will bring more food. Do not leave this chamber.”
They signed agreement and acceptance of instructions. With the private expressions of male-to-male. He smiled at their subtle strength. A single suggestion that he had been acting like a female had put him quickly in his place. He was beginning to like them as he understood some of what lay beneath their complaisant exteriors.
The discarded bones were cracking in the cooking fire; the Sasku, bellies full, were dozing in the sun. Sanone looked up when Kerrick reappeared, went over and sat by him.
“There are things I wish to talk about, mandukto of the Sasku,” Kerrick said formally.
“I listen.”
Kerrick ordered his thoughts before he spoke again. “We have done what we came here to do. The murgu are dead, their threat is no more. Now you will take your hunters and return to your valley and your people. But I must stay here — though the reasons for this are just now becoming clear. I am Tanu — but I am also of the Yilanè, who are the murgu that grew this place. There are things here of great value, of value to the Tanu. I cannot leave without looking at them, thinking about them, considering them. I think of the death-sticks without which the murgu could never have been defeated.” He stopped as Sanone raised his hand for silence.
“I hear what you say, Kerrick, and begin to understand a little of the many thoughts that have been troubling me. My way has not been clear, but it is becoming more so. What I can understand now is that when Kadair took the form of the mastodon and shaped the world he stamped hard upon the rock and marked his track deep into the solid rock. What we need is the wisdom to follow that track. That track led you to us and you brought the mastodon to show us where we came from — and where we are destined to go. Karognis sent the murgu to destroy us, but Kadair sent the mastodon to guide us over the ice mountains to this place to wreak his vengeance upon them. And they are destroyed while this place has been burnt but not burnt. You seek wisdom here, which means you are following the mastodon’s tracks just as we are. Now I can see that our valley was just a stop along the track while we waited for Kadair to stamp out his path for us. We will remain in this place and the rest of the Sasku will join us here.”
While Kerrick had difficulty in following Sanone’s reasoning, the depths of the mandukto’s knowledge was great and well beyond him, he welcomed the decision enthusiastically.
“Of course — you have said what I was trying to say. There is more here in Alpèasak than one person could understand in a hundred lifetimes. Your people who make cloth from green plants, hard rock from soft mud, you will know about these things. Alpèasak will still live.”
“There is a meaning to the sounds and movements you make? Has this place been named?”
“It is called the place of the warm, the shining — I don’t exactly know how to say it in Sesek, the sands that lie along the ocean’s edge.”
“Deifoben, the golden beaches. It is well named. Although it is sometimes difficult, even for myself who has been trained in mysteries and in the unraveling of mysteries, to understand that murgu can speak — and that those sounds you make are in reality a language.”
“It was not easy to learn.”
Kerrick, his thoughts filled with the Yilanè, could not keep all of the pain from his mouth. Sanone nodded with understanding. “That was also a footprint on Kadair’s path — and not the easiest part. Now speak to me of the captive murgu. Why do we not kill them?”
“Because we do not war on them — nor do they wish us any harm. They are males, and have rarely left that building, are in reality prisoners of the females. I can talk with them and they give me a… companionship that is different from the ways of the hunters. But that is how I feel inside myself. What is more important is that they can aid us in knowing this city for they are more a part of it than I am.”
“Kadair’s path; all creatures are upon it, even murgu. I will speak to the Sasku. No harm will come to your murgu.”
“Sanone is the wisest of the wise and he has the thanks of Kerrick.”
Sanone nodded and accepted the praise as was his due. “I will now speak so that the murgu will be safe. Then you will show me more of Deifoben.”
They walked until it was too dark to see the path ahead, then returned to the welcoming fire by the hanalè. That day the Sasku who had accompanied them had marveled at the fields of animals — were pleased to discover that only a small portion of them had been destroyed. They ate the fruit until they were sticky with juice, gazed in awe at the nenitesk and the armor-plated onetsensast, swam in the warm waters off the golden sands. While they admired the living model of the city — unharmed, although some of the protecting, transparent ceiling had been burned — Kerrick looked in wonder at how it had grown in the few years that he had been away. His head so filled with memories and visions that, for the first time since they had left the sammads, he did not think once about Armun and the encampment in the snow, so far away in the distant north.
The encampment was the familiar one in the bend in the river. Once again the too-early snows blanketed the ground, covered the ice upon the river as well. There were more tents here than there had ever been before, while all the mastodons of the different sammads made a small herd. They trumpeted in the cold air and dug for the grass that was not there. But they were
full-bodied and well fed despite the lack of grazing for they had had their fill of the young branches gathered in the autumn. The Tanu were well fed as well. There was smoked meat and dried squid, even the preserved murgu meat if it were needed. The children played in the snow and carried bark buckets of it into the tents to be melted for water. All went well, although the women, children too, felt the absence of the hunters. The sammads were not complete. Yes, there were the old men and the handful of younger hunters who had been left behind to guard the sammads. But the others were gone, far to the south where anything could have happened to them. Old Fraken tied knots in his strings and he knew how many days had passed since they had parted company, but this meant nothing. Had they done what they had set out to do?
Or were they all dead?
That thought, which had been just a tiny one soon after they had left, grew day by day until it was like a thunderhead that spread blackness over them all. The women would gather around when Fraken dug into the owl pellets, pushing at the mouse bones until he could see into the future. All was well he reassured them, there had been victory, all was well.
They wanted to hear him say this, so they saw to it that he had the softest pieces of roast meat that his old teeth could chew. But in the night in the darkness of the tents the old fears returned. The hunters — where were the hunters?
Armun had such fear that Kerrick was dead that she would wake up in the night, gasping for air, clutching the baby to her. Awakened and frightened, Arnwheet would wail lustily until solaced by a milky breast. But nothing could bring solace to Armun who would lie awake, tense with fear, until light crept in around the skins. The loneliness of her lifetime was already seeping back. A boy had pointed at her mouth and laughed. Although the laugh had turned to a wail of pain when her quick hand had lashed out, it had still brought back memories long banished. Though she was not aware of it, she once again walked through the camp with a fold of her deerskin over her mouth to hide the split in her lip. The future without Kerrick, cold and empty, did not bear thinking about.
Then it snowed without stopping for many days, for days to the count of two hands, snow that drifted silently into giant drifts that clogged the landscape. When the sun finally returned the river could not be told from the land in this new white world. The mastodons bellowed angrily, their breath forming white clouds against the pale blue sky as they trampled the snow underfoot. Armun wrapped Arnwheet in many layers of deerskin before slinging him on her back. The snow was heaped high over the tent and she had to dig her way up to the outside world. Other women were emerging, calling out to one another. None called to Armun. Anger replaced her old despair and she put the baby in its carrier and walked away from the tents to find peace from the warm cries that were only taunts to her. The snow was waistdeep, but she was strong and it was good to be out of the tent. Arnwheet gurgled on her back, seemingly enjoying the release as much as she did.
Armun walked until trees hid the tents and only then did she stop and catch her breath. Ahead of her the white plain stretched out, not really a plain but the frozen, snow-covered river. Black dots moved upon it in the distance and she was suddenly sorry that she had come this far alone. She had no weapon, not even a knife. Even if she had she would never have been able to stand against the starving predators. They were closer and she turned to run — and stopped.
There were more now, strung out in a single line, more and more of them. Hunters! Could it be?
Unmoving she watched as they came closer, until it was clear that they were hunters — skinclad, snowshoed hunters. And the one in front, that massive form could be no other, it must be Herilak. Breaking trail, leading the way. She shielded her eyes to see which one was Kerrick, her heart pounding as though it would burst. She laughed aloud and waved. They must have seen her for their ululating cry of victory cut the air. She could not move, only wait as they came closer and closer, until Herilak’s frosted beard was clear, until he could hear her cry.
“Kerrick — where are you?”
Herilak did not answer, nor was there any answering shout and she swayed and almost fell.
“He is dead! I am dead!” she screamed when Herilak came close.
“No. Kerrick lives, he is sound. The battle has been won.”
“Then why doesn’t he answer me? Kerrick!”
She floundered through the snow to get past the big hunter, but he stayed her with one hand.
“He is not here. He did not return with us. He is in the burnt murgu city. He told me to care for you in my sammad and that I will do.”
“Kerrick!” she wailed and struggled against his grip.
To no avail.
CHAPTER FOUR
In a single instant Herilak’s words had wiped away all of Armun’s nameless fears. He did not return with us. He is in the burnt murgu city. He told me to care for you in my sammad and that I will do. The world was harsh enough without imagining it worse. In silence she had turned from the hunters and trudged through the snow back to her tent. They had gone swiftly by her, calling out to the encampment as they went, listening for the answering cries from the sammads and hurrying even faster.
Armun heard all this — but was not aware of hearing it for she listened to the far louder inner voice of her thoughts. Alive. He was alive. He had not returned with the others, but Kerrick would have a good reason for that. She would ask Herilak, but later, after the first excitement of the homecoming was over. It was enough to know that Kerrick had led them in battle — and that the battle had been won. The murgu destroyed at last. Now the endless fighting would be over. He would come to her and they would live as all the other hunters lived. Unknowing, she hummed aloud with pleasure and Arnwheet chuckled happily on her back.
Later, when the baby slept, she went out and listened to the excited talk of the women. How the hunters had burnt the city of the murgu, killed the murgu, every last one, and had now returned in victory. She moved along the trampled paths in the snow until she came to Herilak’s tent. He was standing outside of it but started to go in when he saw her.
She called out to him and he turned back with some reluctance.
“I would talk to you, Herilak. I wish to ask about Kerrick.”
“He remained behind in the murgu place, I told you that.”
“You did not tell me why he did this thing and did not return with the others.”
“He did not wish to. Perhaps he likes it there with the murgu. Perhaps he is more murgu than Tanu. There were murgu still alive and he would not kill them — or let us kill them. When this happened we left and came here because we were through at that place.”
She sensed the ill feeling, and with it came the quick return of all her fears. “Did he say when he would return—”
“Leave me, I am through talking,” Herilak said, turning and entering the tent and tying it shut behind him. Armun’s temper washed away her fear.
“Well I am not through!” she shouted so loudly that people turned to listen. “Come out, Herilak, and tell me everything that happened. There is more that I want to know.”
The hunter’s silence drove her to fury and she pulled at the skins. But he had sealed them together tightly from the inside. She wanted to shout to him just what she thought of his actions — but desisted. It would only provide amusement for the onlookers. There were other ways of finding out the truth about what had happened. She spun about and the nearest hunters turned away to avoid her anger. After this she stamped away between the tents, toward those of Sorli’s sammad, to find Sorli himself where he sat by his fire with some of his hunters, sharing the smoke from a stone pipe. Armun waited until all had smoked and the pipe was laid aside before she stepped forward. Her anger was still there, but well under control now.
“I have heard of how long and hard the path was, Sorli. You and your hunters must surely be tired and in need of rest.”
Sorli waved a negligent hand. “The hunter who cannot walk the trail is no hunter.”
“It pleas
es me to hear that. Then the great hunter Sorli is not too tired to talk with Armun.”
Sorli narrowed his eyes as he looked at her, feeling that he was somehow being trapped. “I am not tired.”
“That is good, because my tent is far distant in the snow and there is something there that I must show you.”
Sorli looked around for aid, but there was none. The pine was being lit again and none of the other hunters were looking his way. “All right, to your tent, but the day is late and there are things to be done.”
“You are very kind to a woman alone.” She did not speak again until they had reached their destination and had entered the tent. She secured the flaps behind him, then she turned about and pointed to the sleeping infant. “That is what I wanted you to see.”
“The baby… ?”
“Kerrick’s son. Why did he not return with the rest of you to his son, his tent, return to me? Herilak will not speak of it and turns away. Now you will speak of it.”
Sorli looked about, but there was no escape. He sighed. “Give me water to drink, woman, and I will tell you. There is bad feeling now between Kerrick and Herilak.”
“Here, drink this. I know that — but you must tell me why.”
Sorli wiped his lips on the back of his sleeve. “The reasons why are hidden from me. I will tell you what happened. We burned the place of the murgu, and the murgu who did not die in the fire died also, I do not know why. They are murgu and therefore incomprehensible. Some escaped on a thing-that-swam. Kerrick talked with a murgu, would not let Herilak kill it. He let it escape. Then other murgu were found alive and these too Kerrick would not allow to be killed. Herilak was great in his anger at this and would not remain in that place and wished to leave at once. The road back was long, we knew that, so the decision was made to leave.”
“But Kerrick remained behind. Why? What did he say?”
“He talked with Herilak, I did not listen, it is hard to remember.” Sorli shifted uneasily on the furs and gulped down more water. Armun’s eyes sparkled in the firelight, her temper barely under control.
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