Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

She was glad she had come. When Shateel announced, back in the Forest Village, that she was coming back here, the other women had cried out, dismayed; but Wahela had known at once that if Shateel went, she would go also. She had no notion of what was going on, but she knew it was exciting and she wanted to see Moloquin.

  Now she followed the two men away down through the trees, down toward the river. They ignored her; she made no effort to catch up with them. When Moloquin saw she was here, he might be angry with her—this was men’s business, after all—but everything she had seen thus far of what was going on here stirred her blood and made her keen and eager as a she-wolf.

  The men went down along the bank of the river where it curled through the forest and reached a broad meadow, and there she saw a crowd of men. Some sat on the ground around a fire, working at something in their laps; some were casting sticks at a tree near the edge of the meadow; some merely strutted around, waving sticks over their heads.

  Bahedyr and Hems went down among them, and from among them, Moloquin rose.

  At the sight of him, Wahela could no longer hold back. She broke into a run and went down into the meadow, and called his name.

  He turned. He saw her, and he looked to either side. She paused, a little way from him, uncertain; would he drive her away? But he came toward her with his arms out to her, and she rushed into his embrace, laughing.

  “What are you doing here?” he said, into her ear. He hugged her tight, rubbing his body against hers.

  “I came to help you,” she said.

  He burst into a smile; turning, he looked all around him at the other men, and facing her again, he said, “Such spirit as yours ought to dwell in the body of a man, Wahela. You see all these others, who seem to be men—all this while, they have wondered and doubted, and even now I am not sure they will do as I ask—surely they are the women, and you are the man.”

  He said this in a loud voice, so that all would hear, and he gathered her again into his embrace, and they kissed. Wahela held him tight, wanting all to see how he loved her. When he let her go again, she stood with her hands on his arms, unwilling to part from him.

  “What are you doing?”

  He said, “I am making teeth and claws to rend my enemies.”

  “Where are your enemies?”

  “In Rulon’s Village. Come, we are all but finished, soon we shall start on our journey to find justice.”

  Then he took her by the arm, and they walked around the meadow, and he looked at the weapons the other men had made—clubs, and spears of wood, the tips cooked hard in the fire. Moloquin carried his axe in his belt, and his hand rested often on it; she saw the eagerness in his face, and it heated up her blood. She took him by the hand.

  “Come with me,” she said. “We have not been together for a long time.”

  He smiled down at her. “I am ready for you.”

  “I see you are ready for anything,” she said. “Come.”

  He followed her away into the forest, and out of sight of the other men they lay down on the ground together and got their fill of one another.

  When they were done, though, he said, “What of Shateel?”

  Wahela darkened like a storm cloud. She sat up straight and pulled her clothes around her. “Shateel! Why do you speak of Shateel?”

  He watched her with sharp eyes. “What—are you jealous? How does she fare? I left her in my place in the village, after all.”

  “I wish you would not do that. She thinks she is above us all as it is.”

  He caught her chin in his hand. “Are you afraid I will take her instead of you? What a fool, Wahela. She is cold as ice, and you—” he caught her to him again, pressing her against him. “And you are warm as my own soul, Wahela.”

  Mollified, she stroked him, and they shared tender caresses for a while, until again he said, “Tell me about Shateel.”

  “Why are you so eager to know of her? She bore her baby.”

  “She did!”

  “A girl. When Ladon’s son came, he talked to her, but she refused him again. You are right, she is nothing but a snow-woman.”

  Moloquin laughed; he turned his face away. “And the others?”

  “They are well.”

  From the meadow now came a sudden roar. Moloquin sprang to his feet, and catching Wahela’s hand he pulled her up beside him. They went back through the trees.

  There in the meadow, Bahedyr stood in the midst of the other men; he raised his spear in his hand, and cast it with all his strength. The men yelled, amazed. The spear flew in a long flat arc through the air and struck a tree at the far end of the meadow and stuck there, quivering, and all the men shouted. Swiftly they fought for place, to be the next one to throw his spear.

  Moloquin said, under his breath, “Let them be so eager when it is men they cast at.”

  “What are you going to do?” Wahela asked.

  “I am going to make a new chief for Rulon’s People,” he said.

  “How can you do that?”

  He smiled at her. “Wait and you will see, my Wahela.” From behind him came another roar from the men with their spears.

  Near sundown, a boy ran into the dying village, shouting, “Moloquin is coming! Moloquin! Moloquin!”

  The women raised their heads. Among them Shateel hastily wrapped up her baby in her coat and got to her feet, and with all the others she walked out to see Moloquin and the men come back from the forest.

  The sun was going down; low flat clouds covered the sky, and the rays of the sun slipped beneath them and stretched across the world like spears of light. Beneath this enormous sky the little band of men walking up through the waving grass seemed tiny and insignificant. Yet all the women could see that they carried spears and clubs.

  The baby squirmed in Shateel’s arms. She covered it carefully with her shawl against the night wind that swooped over the plain. The spears in the hands of the men jabbed at the belly of the sky. A shudder passed through her. She thought, He will assault Heaven itself.

  She saw Wahela, walking beside him, and knew how the other woman’s passions would fit in with Moloquin’s. She stood straight, leaning a little forward, as if to keep her balance against a blasting wind.

  Now Moloquin had seen her, and he put out one hand to stop Wahela and came on by himself, coming toward her ahead of the others. She stepped away from the villagers, and he walked up face to face with her.

  “Did I not leave my People in your care?” he asked. “What are you doing here?”

  “Are you displeased to see me, Moloquin? Perhaps you are right—I came because I heard that which tears my heart.”

  “Rulon is your brother,” he said.

  “Rulon is nothing to me,” she said. “It is not Rulon I have come here to protect, but all the People.”

  “I am here to lead my People,” he said.

  “You are here to have your way by force,” she said.

  “And you think that is a mistake?”

  “You will tear the People into pieces,” she said.

  “Then go to Rulon,” he said, “and tell him. Because it is Rulon’s doing. All that befalls us now began with Rulon, who would not help his People.”

  “Better to die,” she said, “than to kill one another.”

  As she said this, the baby Dehra inside her coat squirmed and let out a mewling hungry cry.

  Moloquin’s eyes widened. “Let me see,” he said, and put out his hands.

  The baby was hungry. Shateel opened her clothes, showing him the child, meaning to put her to the breast, but before she could, Moloquin snatched the baby from her.

  “Now,” he cried, “we shall test your words, Shateel!”

  She cried out. “Give her to me!” Lunging toward him, she stretched out her hands for the baby.

  He dodged. He held the baby at arm’s lengt
h and danced back away from Shateel as she struggled to reach her child. With his free hand he pulled the great bronze axe from his belt and flung it down on the ground between them.

  “Now, Shateel! Tell me she should die!”

  Shateel gasped. The baby was howling, and each cry pierced her mother like a spear thrown. She flung out her arms toward her child. “Give her to me!”

  Moloquin bounded away. The baby thrashed and wriggled and he nearly dropped her. Shateel let out a wail of rage. Stooping, she caught up the bronze axe in both hands and ran at Moloquin with it, meaning to hew him down.

  “Give me my baby!”

  She swung the axe up over her shoulder; it was much heavier than she expected, top-heavy, and it gave off a radiance of power. The baby shrieked. She rushed forward, swinging the axe in a great whistling arc at Moloquin’s body. “Ho! Ho!”

  He caught the haft of the axe with his free hand. Turning, he slipped the baby neatly from his grasp into the arms of her mother, and stepped back.

  Shateel sobbed. She clutched the baby tight, lifted it, pressed her face to it, and finally laid her to her swollen leaking breast and sat down to nurse.

  The People gathered around her and Moloquin; they were laughing. His little show had pleased them. Ashamed, Shateel bent over the baby. She had let him make a game out of her, and she had not done well with her indignation. Now he was ordering them all to the village, to make a feast out of the last of the food that they had. They would be even more his creatures now. And he had changed, somehow—to threaten the baby, even in a game. She rocked the baby, half in tears again at the mere memory of the danger. The baby sucked happily, her hand on her mother’s breast.

  The People went off, singing, some dancing, the men proud under their upraised spears. Night was coming. Shateel drew her shawl around her, cold.

  Something heavier, warmer, swept around her: Moloquin’s coat. He squatted down beside her, sheltering her in his outstretched arm.

  “You are angry with me,” he said. “That pleases me, Shateel.”

  “Pleases you.” She looked at him, surprised.

  “I am tired of all these people who fawn on me,” he said. “I want someone who will stand against me now and then.”

  “Moloquin,” she said, “you are assuming much.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Will you go to your brother?”

  “Do you wish it?”

  “Yes. I want no more trouble than necessary. But I will get what I want. Tell him that. Tell him he can yield, or he can endure the consequences. Tell him I have many men, and a power such as he has never laid his hands to in his whole life, and I shall cut him down as I cut down the chiefs at the Gathering if he defies me again.”

  She remembered that they had stoned him, and her face heated; now her rage turned on her brother who was stupid and cruel, and she said, “You have saved your People. That is your power, Moloquin, not your axe and the spears of your men.”

  “We shall see about that,” he said.

  He got up. The People had gone on back toward the village, all but one, who waited a little way off: Wahela, the wind blowing her hair. Moloquin went to her and took her hand, and they walked back toward the village together. Shateel bowed her head over her baby.

  Rulon carried the club of the chief; he wore the painted feathers of the chief, and the chief’s shoes, that made him greater than other men. He sat in the middle of his roundhouse, and his people brought him whatever he wished, and soon, he told himself, at the next Gathering, he would walk first into the Turnings-of-the-Year, and all would know who was the greatest chief of all the People.

  Now he sat on his bearskin and ate the cakes he had been brought for his breakfast, and he heard an uproar outside the roundhouse but he paid it no heed. Then one of his men came to him.

  “Opa-Rulon-on,” he said, and bowed down before his chief. “Greatest of all, there is one outside who would ask a favor of you.”

  “Let him approach me,” said Rulon, who never gave anyone favors.

  “Opa-Rulon-on, mighty is he, it is your sister, Ana-Shateel-el, who stands before the roundhouse.”

  “Shateel,” Rulon said, amazed. “Where has she come from?”

  The man kneeling before him said nothing. Rulon put down his bowl and got up.

  He put on his bearskin cloak, and he put on his necklace of painted feathers, and he put on his wooden shoes that made him tower over everyone, and he took his club in his hand, and he went forth to the door of the roundhouse. And there he stopped.

  It was Shateel. Ordinary as any woman, her clothes brown with dust, she stood before the door of his roundhouse, and a whole crowd of his People was pushing through the gate to watch. Rulon drew himself up as tall as he could.

  “What do you wish of me, woman?”

  She said, “I have come to ask you to do your duty, Rulon.”

  “My duty!” He looked her over; surely she was of no consequence—she wore no beautiful clothes or beads, she carried no emblems of power. “Did Moloquin send you here? Did Ladon’s son send you?”

  “Moloquin sent me,” she said.

  “And you would ask me for a favor?” Rulon smiled. “Kneel down, woman.”

  She knelt down before him in the dust, her head bowed. She had come a long way and her long fine hair in its bindings was dusty and her face was dirty as a little child’s. He remembered all the times she had slighted him when they were children—how he had always had to step aside for her: Rulon, who would be chief. But she was Shateel, mother of chiefs, and now she knelt before him.

  She said, “I beg you, my brother, to give up all you can to feed the starvelings.”

  From the crowd encircling them, voices rose, clamoring, conflicting.

  “Drive her away! We gave enough!”

  “Feed them, Rulon—feed them—”

  “Let them eat the grass—”

  Rulon smiled, looking down on his sister’s head, and thought what sort of man this Moloquin was, who begged for food, who let himself be stoned and humiliated, and now was so cowardly that he sent a woman to do his work. Rulon wanted to be great, and he wanted a great thing to do now, and so he rose up, took his sister by the hand, and lifted her.

  “Shateel,” he said, in a voice of false tenderness. “Come back to your true People, and we shall all be happy. Leave these others who are accursed and doomed.”

  She tipped her face up to him. She looked older now, and worn, not the beautiful child she had always been, beautiful and willful. Behind her stood her mother, Joba, with a new baby in her arms. Shateel clung to her brother’s hand, but she did not rise; she pulled on him as if to draw him down with her.

  “Rulon, Rulon,” she said. “I beg you. If you do not do what is right, something terrible will happen. Do what is right, Rulon. Save your brothers.”

  “They are not my brothers. Ladon spurned me before all the People. No one then stood up for me and spoke to him of right and wrong and grave consequences. No!” He jerked his hand out of her grasp. “I have spoken. I am the chief of my People, and we shall keep what is ours!”

  Shateel groaned; she turned toward her mother, and said, “Can you not persuade him?” Her voice was lost in the shouting of the People; most of them supported Rulon and would not feed Ladon’s People, who had incurred the wrath of Heaven. Rulon stood straight and tall and folded his arms over his chest, as if to say the matter was done. He knew himself a giant among these others. By his side his great club leaned up against the wall of the roundhouse, and around him his People shouted his name: what could a fatherless beggar do to him?

  He said, “Stay with us, Shateel. These others are doomed.” Turning, he started back-into the roundhouse.

  “Stop!”

  That voice raised the hackles on the back of his neck; against his will, he paused, and slowly he turned to face him who shout
ed. The People stilled. They were turning to look behind them, even his mother; only Shateel still faced him, with such an expression of sorrow that his heart clenched. Then, through the crowd, Moloquin came.

  No feathers, no paint, no great bearskin made Moloquin wonderful. In spite of the cold, he was almost naked, dressed only in a loincloth, his long black hair shaggy over his shoulders and chest. He walked with a springy stride like an animal. In his hand he carried his axe.

  Rulon reached for his club, which so many chiefs had carried, and which was also full of magic. He said, “So, beggar, you have come to beg once more?”

  Moloquin stopped before him. “I have come,” he said, “to call this People to their destiny.”

  At that such a shout went up from the gathered throng that Rulon’s ears rang, and for a long moment, while the thunderous crowd gave tongue, he and Moloquin could only face one another. Rulon’s back tingled. These were his People, and no one could call them to any duty, any grace or any power save him, their chief. His fingers tightened around the club.

  “What a fool,” he cried, but the deafening uproar of the crowd had not slackened enough for his voice to be heard, and he had to say it again, in a high piping voice, “What a fool!”

  “Not I,” Moloquin said. “Look around you, Rulon. Look well, Rulon’s People!”

  He wheeled around, swinging his axe out in a broad sweep through the air; the sun glanced on the great head. All the People twisted to see behind them. Rulon stood tall to see over them. For an instant there was nothing at all, only the wall of the roundhouse, and the blank blue sky, and then abruptly above the wall a man climbed, brandishing a long stick, and another man appeared beside him, and another, and another. The People cried out. Packed into the yard of the roundhouse, surrounded by men with spears, they wheeled around toward Rulon and cried out to him. “Rulon—Rulon—”

  “I am here,” Moloquin roared, in a voice that carried over the whole village, “I am here to punish evil, and to do justice, and let him who dares stand against me!”

  Rulon said, “You mean to steal our stores.”

  “No,” Moloquin said. “I mean to see that those who are hungry are fed, and that those who have more than they need give to those who have nothing. You ought to have done so, but you have failed. You are the chief here no more. I shall be chief over all the People.”