At the edge of the dead grove was a stream. Here the band turned, following the water downhill; as they went, the little boy, Wahela’s son, stooped and groped through the pebbles of the streambed, chasing crawfish. Ahead, the stream curled around a high bank, topped by a huge old sycamore. The stream had undercut the bank and the roots of the sycamore hung down like a veil over the path. Ducking, Shateel crawled in through the dirt-smelling mass of tendrils.
She came out onto a wide, flat, sunny stretch. The water ran along the low side of a broad gravelly bed; above the stream, the old bed sloped gradually up toward an ancient bank, twice as tall as a man. Between this bank and the stream the old gravel beds of the stream stood high in grass and weeds, yellow in the sun. The People walked out onto this meadow, Moloquin ahead of them.
He called out. Then he broke into a run toward the high bank, and reached it, and suddenly he disappeared into it.
Beside Shateel, the foreign woman let out a cry. All the People froze where they were, staring at the bank, at the great pile of wind-drift at its foot where he had vanished, and Shateel was swept again with fear; he was a woods demon, he had seduced them here to abandon them, they would die far from their own homes, from their ancestors, from the way to Heaven. Then he stuck his head out of the heap of brush at the foot of the bank.
“Come in here. There is room.”
Hesitant, wary as the red deer, they picked a way through the fallen branches and the brambles, and he pushed back part of the brush and let them inside.
Shateel crept in on hands and knees, butting through the brush. Suddenly she was inside a room, or a cave. She could see nothing; she put out her hands and groped the empty air, smelling the raw earth around her; squatting, she scrambled forward, her hands out, until her fingers brushed the solid clay wall. She turned.
Now some light was coming in from the front, and she could see dimly around her. This was a low, round room, half dug into the clay bank, half built out with sticks and logs and branches; mounds of dirt and leaf mold and other trash choked the side of the room to her left. Taella scrambled in through the doorway.
“I can’t see! Where are we?”
Shateel stretched her hand out toward her. Wahela pushed her way in, kicking trash away as she entered.
Taella’s hand closed on Shateel’s, a firm, warm grip. She crawled into the center of the room, peering around.
“It will do,” she said. “Until we can make something better.”
Wahela was calling her children into the hut. Shateel gathered the breath into her lungs. “I will find something to sweep with,” she said, and went out to the sunlight again.
The rain fell harder. The women spread branches over the top of the shelter and wove other branches through them, but the rain still dripped through. They had plenty of firewood, and the fire burned brightly enough. They ate two turtles and a handful of crayfish, nettles boiled in the shell of the turtle, grubs toasted until they burst. There was not enough. When they had eaten it all, they crowded shoulder to shoulder into the warmth of the fire and a stillness fell on them, each one lost in his own separate sorrows.
Then Moloquin began to speak.
He told them the story of how the People had come to the place where they lived now. “Long ago,” he said, using the same words in which Karelia had told it to him, “long ago, the People lived in a fair, sunny land to the south, where the sun never failed, and it was always summer. There was food everywhere, fruit to be plucked from every tree, honey dripping from the rocks, water sweet and cold bubbling forth from the earth.
“But the People were discontent. There was enough for everyone, but some collected more than they needed and hid it away in caves, and the others broke into the caves and took the storage, and when that happened, the People began to fight among themselves, and some even killed others.
“Then out of the blood and the bones of the murdered people there grew a monster, and it grew up all in one night, between the darkness and the dawn, and it flew out over the soft and sunny land, and it slew men and women.
“Now among the People there was a man named Hradon, who thought himself too stupid to be cunning, and so did no evil, and there was a woman, named Rael, who was too wise to be shrewd, and so did no evil. They took their children and their brothers and sisters, and they set off away from the monster.
“All but Hradon wanted to go to the south, where the sun shone, but Hradon said, ‘If we go there, the monster will see us by the light of the sun and pursue us, and we shall have no peace.’ Because he was too stupid to be cunning, he did not believe he could outthink the beast. And therefore he led them away to the north, into the mists and the rain, until they came to the shore of the sea, and there they lived.
“They stayed there for twice two turnings of the sun. There was food to be had, for hard work, but enough for everyone, especially for those who were too stupid to think they could trick others into doing their work for them, and too wise to want to. And for two sun-years the People seemed to be well. But then again, there were some who were neither stupid nor wise. And they stole, and they did murders, and the monster grew up from the blood and bones of the dead, and set upon them again, until there was none left but Hradon and Rael, and their two children, a boy and a girl.
“Then Rael said, ‘I shall make a basket, and put myself and my child into it, and we shall float away on the sea. Wherever the wind and the wave take us, there shall we live, even if it be at the bottom of the sea.’ And she made a basket, and she climbed into it with her child, and the sea took them away.
“Now Hradon waited and waited, but they never came back again. And he said to himself, ‘I am stupid, but Rael wise, and I shall do as she did.’ But he had no basket. So he took a deer’s belly, and he blew it full of air and tied it closed, and setting his child on it, he floated away on the waves.
“The wind blew him up and down and the sea turned him around and around, but at last he was cast up on a rocky shore. There on the shore was Rael’s basket, but she and her child were nowhere in sight.
“Then Hradon put his child on his shoulders, and said, ‘What do you see?’ and the child said, ‘I see mist, and rain, but I do not see Rael.’ They went on, leaving the shore behind, and came to a forest.
“Then Hradon put the child on his shoulders again and said, ‘What do you see?’
“And the child said, ‘I see pine trees and oak trees, but I do not see Rael.’ So they went on and on.
“Then they came to a rolling plain, and Hradon put his son on his shoulders, and said, ‘What do you see?’ and the child said, ‘I see grass and sun and sky, and I see a garden and a little house, and I see Rael and her child.’
“Then they joined Rael and her child, and Hradon put up a stone on the place where he had stood when the child first saw Rael, and there have the People lived since then.”
When Moloquin’s voice ended, the People all sighed, and shifted, rubbing against one another. They put their arms around one another for warmth, and they smiled on one another, and although the rain fell on them and they were hungry, they were content, at least for a while.
In the morning the rain had stopped. Hems went out along the stream, looking for something to eat, and the other men trailed after him, staying close together. Moloquin had gone off somewhere; they were alone, and now the forest around them seemed like an enemy.
The women busied themselves with the shelter, making a racket of their work. Hems sat down on a gravel bar of the stream and dipped his cupped hand into the water and drank a little, to ease the gnawing of his stomach. The two young strangers, Bohodon and Kayon, dropped down beside him, and Brant wandered along a little way away.
Bohodon said loudly, “I am hungry,” and looked balefully around him, as if he expected someone to walk out of the woods with his breakfast.
Kayon drew closer to Hems. Softly, he said, “Whe
re did he go?”
“Moloquin? I don’t know.” Hems shrugged. “He is always busy, Moloquin.”
“Have you been to this place before?”
“I? Never. Moloquin has, he lived here once, with his mother, or so he told me.”
He bent toward the stream again, and with his cupped hand raised water to his lips, and Kayon watched him intently, absorbing the minutest details of what he did, and then did the same thing. Hems turned his head away, smiling.
Bohodon said, “I didn’t leave my People just to come here and starve. What are we supposed to eat? There is nothing here but trees.”
As he spoke, he raised his head to look around them at the forest, and at the same time he shrank down a little; he was afraid of the trees, Hems saw, which relieved his own fear somewhat. Brant was walking through the water downstream, peering down at his feet, probably hunting for crayfish and turtles. The sun was pouring in through the gap in the forest canopy; already it was hot.
Then Moloquin was striding toward them; it was as if he had dropped from the sky; no one had seen him come into the clearing. He came straight toward the men and squatted down beside Hems.
“There are a few things we must do at once,” he said, speaking to Hems, his voice loud enough to include the others. “We must find a good supply of food, we must gather some firewood, and we must make tools. I want you to go down the stream. Look for deer sign, watch for birds, if there are deep pools see if there are fish in them. Remember how I showed you how to catch fish?”
“Yes,” Hems said. “But I—”
“Don’t tell me but, Hems, go do it. Go down the stream as far as you can, until noon, and then turn and come back.”
“But if I—”
“Do as I say! When you come back, even if you are empty-handed, I promise you that you will eat.” Moloquin put one hand on his friend’s shoulder and gave him a little shake. “Do as I say, and I will take care of you. Have faith in me.”
His hand still on Hems’ shoulder, he turned to Bohodon. “I want you to show me your stonecraft.”
Bohodon scowled at him, not moving. “I am going nowhere without food.”
“Then you will sit here a long while, there is no food, not yet. Come: I know something of stones, you must show me what sorts of stones are good for making tools.”
Bohodon grunted, and turned his face away.
Moloquin’s hand slipped away from Hems’ shoulder; he squared himself around toward Bohodon, and his voice sharpened.
“Do as I say, Bohodon.”
The young man glowered at him and mumbled something. Moloquin said, “What?”
“I said I don’t know any stonecraft!” Bohodon shouted. His head sank down into his shoulders. “I never learned it well. I told you, I did not belong in the Red Salmon Society. I learned nothing.”
Across Moloquin’s face there washed a look of such contempt that Hems slid backward a little way, out of his friend’s reach. But Moloquin directed himself still at Bohodon, and he contained his rage.
“You know nothing at all? Not even how to find the stone?”
Bohodon muttered under his breath. He picked at the earth by his feet.
“Bah.” Moloquin dashed his hand against his thigh. “Well, then, go and pick up firewood.”
Again Bohodon glowered at him. “I did not come away here to work like a woman.”
Moloquin set his teeth together, and his eyes glittered. There was a stillness, during which the rattling of the women in the hut, their voices, the swish of their brooms was louder than the burble of the stream.
Finally, Moloquin said, “Then go back, Bohodon.”
“Very well then, I will.” Bohodon got stiffly up onto his feet. He glared at all the men, turned, and swept his gaze around him, over the clearing and the great murmurous forest beyond. He took a hesitant step away. Stopping, he turned.
“You must show me the way.”
Moloquin still squatted on the gravel bar, picking at the stones before him. He did not raise his head. “Go. You are nothing of mine.”
Bohodon looked around him again, his eyes wide and bright with fear. Hems saw that he was afraid of the forest, and certainly he did not know his way home; if he went off without a guide, he would get lost. He turned back to Moloquin.
“I can’t! You brought me here, now you must show me the way home.”
Moloquin stood up. “This is the only home I know, Bohodon.”
The other man faced him, put his hands on his hips and threw his chest out. “You are no better than I am—you can’t give me orders!”
Moloquin lunged at him. Bohodon dodged, expecting a blow, but Moloquin only caught him by the front of his shirt and held him fast.
“Listen to me,” Moloquin said. “I am the chief here. You are mine, now, you must serve me or you are nothing. If you would eat, Bohodon, then you must work. You will do as I say! If you don’t, then I will give you to the forest, Bohodon. Do you understand?”
Pale under his dirt, Bohodon gaped into Moloquin’s face, and his lips moved.
Moloquin shook him.
“Louder!”
“I said I do!”
Moloquin pushed him down. “Louder still, Bohodon—who is master here?”
Bohodon staggered, trying to keep his feet. “I—”
With a sweep of his foot, Moloquin knocked the other man’s legs out from under him, toppling him into the gravel and pushing him down on his face. “Who is master here, Bohodon?”
“You are!” Bohodon screamed. “You are!”
“Get up.” Moloquin kicked him.
Bohodon sat up, dirt clinging to his shirt and his eyebrows. Moloquin turned toward the other men, looking from one to the next. Hems licked his lips. He had never seen Moloquin so fierce, and he did not like it: his friend reminded him of Harus Kum.
“You,” Moloquin said, nodding to Kayon. “You go with Hems, look for something to eat. Hems—nut trees, lily bulbs, anything. Especially hazel trees, which the deer eat. Go.” He faced Bohodon again. The square-set young man was picking the dirt out of his teeth. “Gather firewood. As you do it, look for stone. Now get out.” He kicked at Bohodon, and the other man scurried away on all fours. Hems got hastily up and went off down the stream, Kayon at his heels; the rest of the day, as they followed the stream back and forth, Kayon did exactly what Hems did, down to the least detail.
When the women had the little hut as well set up as they could, which was not well at all, they went out to the meadow and began to look around them.
The men were all gone. They had heard Moloquin shouting earlier in the morning, and Shateel was relieved that he was nowhere to be seen. She followed Taella out across the knee-deep grass of the meadow, past flattened places where the deer had lain down for the night, to the edge of the forest.
Some mushrooms were growing there, in the damp loam beneath the first trees, but Taella shook her head at them.
“They will make you sick to eat them.”
Wahela’s children ran out across the sunlit grass toward the trees and their mother called them back. “Don’t go near the trees! You have no notion what may lurk in the forest—stay close to me.”
The little girl pressed herself against her mother’s leg. The boy cast a fearful look around him. Shateel went forward, looking into the dimness of the forest; the trees did not seem so terrible to her, and she had noticed how Moloquin passed among these great beings as if among beloved friends. She paused at the foot of an oak whose heavy riven bark was covered over with green mosses. The enormous height drew her eyes upward, upward, until she was staring straight up into the sky, through masses of green leaves.
The wind rose. As she stood looking up, the tree’s weighty head began to move, swaying back and forth and tossing its leafy crown. The voice of the wind came from all sides, an enormous sou
nd like a great breath, and raised the hackles on her neck. The trees seemed to be bending closer, watching her.
Yet she did not feel afraid; they were not evil, nor even unfriendly. She went on a little way, seeing tiny white flowers in the mold and rot of the forest floor, and off to one side, suddenly, something scuttled away with a crash and a rustle into the brush.
That drove her back to the others in a hurry, her head twisted over her shoulder, her skin prickling. She never saw what it was that ran away from her.
The other women were walking through the meadow, looking doubtfully around them. The stranger who had come with Moloquin to the Gathering trailed after; Shateel had heard Hems and Moloquin call her Amin, or Abim, but she spoke almost no words that Shateel knew. Thus far Shateel had avoided her scrupulously.
She reached the other women, staying together in a pack in the sunlight and the open grass; the children had wandered off again, and now Wahela turned and called to them. The little boy jumped down from the top of the hut, where he had climbed. The little girl answered from somewhere unseen and Wahela called her impatiently to come.
Taella was shaking her head. “I see no sign that this land has ever been worked. Nothing grows here that I recognize. I know nothing here, I am as helpless and ignorant as a baby.”
“Moloquin knows,” said Shateel.
Taella frowned at her, shaking her head. “He knows how to feed himself. He cannot go gathering nuts for so many, every day.”
Shateel began to be frightened; she looked around her at the high soft grass with its maturing flowers. This grass looked somewhat like the rye and barley that grew in the gardens of the People; she put out her hand to touch the flowers. Their beards were sharp like thorns.
Wahela turned again, her hands to her mouth, and bellowed her little girl’s name. There was no answer at all. “Where is she?” Wahela asked, angrily, and went off with sweeping strides toward the hut.
“We shall have to move,” Taella said, low-voiced. “There is no room here for us. The trees are everywhere.” She put her hands over her eyes. “I wish—I wish—”
Pillar of the Sky Page 27