Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

  He had his axe. Bahedyr, as usual, had brought his spear. As the men travelled through the hilly overgrown slopes west of the Pillar of the Sky, Moloquin bade the others find weapons for themselves, but he would not tell them where they were going.

  Hems knew. Moloquin could see it in his face, as they went west; Hems recognized the trail they followed, and now and again he turned his eyes toward Moloquin, questioning, but he said nothing. Only at night, when they made a fire and roasted the small animals that they caught as they travelled, Hems would ask Moloquin to tell them stories.

  “Tell us about Abadon,” he would say. “Tell us about heroes.”

  Moloquin told them how Abadon went down to the Country-Where-There-Are-No-Men. The women in this place were as strong and fierce as men; they wore their hair bound up in knots at the base of their skulls, to keep it out of their way, and carried knives in their belts, and when they spoke their voices boomed like the wind blowing up from the deep caves. They did battle with bears and wolves, and wore skins like men, and when their babies were born, they nicked the skin of their breasts, above the nipple, and gave the child to suck there, so that the first food the baby would taste was blood, not milk. But they only allowed their girl children to live. They left their boy children in the forest, for the wolves and the bears.

  Now Abadon came in among these women, and he stole their goats. The women called for their headwoman, whose name was Essa, and she challenged Abadon to a combat.

  They came together for their combat on a great plain, and all the women gathered around in a close circle, and Abadon could see that even if he overcame their leader, they meant to slay him. Now, he was bigger than any one of the women, but not bigger than two of them. He was stronger than any one of the women, but he was not stronger than two of them. Therefore he knew he would be slain unless he was clever.

  He took up his spear, which was of ashwood, the male tree, and hardened in the fire, which is also male, and he flung it at Essa. But she had a shield made of elm, which is female, and she held it up, and the spear passed through it, but in doing so it fell into the magic of the shield, and from the shield sprang three new spears, and Essa took them up and cast them back at Abadon, and wounded him in the foot and in the hand and in the face.

  Abadon took up his sling, which was made of the hide of the leg of a male bear, and he put into it a sharp stone, and he flung it at Essa. But Essa had a basket made of the rushes of the stream, and when the stone fell into the basket, three round stones appeared, and she took them up and threw them at Abadon, and she wounded him in the hip and the thigh and the breast.

  Now Abadon began to see that he would not survive unless he did things differently. And he had his flute, which was magic, given him by Rael the Birdwoman when they lay together beside the spring where all the water in the world wells up. Now Abadon sat down, and very softly he began to play his flute.

  The women drew closer to hear him, but as they came nearer, Abadon played still more softly. And Essa could not hear him at all, and she came nearer yet, and lay down with her head in his lap, and heard the music.

  Then Abadon lay with her, and she brought forth three children by him, who were all male. These children she did not give to the wolves and bears, but raised as her own, and thereafter there were men also among these People, and they were as other People, except that before they lay together to bear children, the men always played upon the flute.

  Hems heard this story and shook his head. “This is not a good story for where we are going.”

  “Where are we going?” asked Bahedyr, but Hems would not answer him; Moloquin would not answer him.

  They went away into the west, and every night as they sat by the fire Moloquin told stories. He told them all the stories he knew in which men fought and struggled with other beings and overcame them. As they walked along the old trail, which was dimly imprinted on the grass and wild brush of the country they were crossing, the men found clubs, and made slings and threw stones with them, and cast their new spears at the trees, and so they knew they were making ready for some great battle. But Moloquin would not tell them who they were to fight.

  In the dawn of a cold, rainy day, they came down from the tree-covered hills into the bed of the stream, and walked along it, past where Harus Kum’s men had dug out the banks, past the raw piles of broken rock, the husks of the ore, that Harus Kum’s men had left behind. In the rain and the cold wind they went up into the narrow valley at the mouth of the stream, where Harus Kum’s stockade huddled on the sand among the black rocks, with the wind blasting off the sea.

  There was smoke coming from the chimney of the big house; even outside the stockade, Hems could hear the sounds of the people inside, waking, getting ready for the day’s work, and it made him colder than the wind to hear Harus Kum’s voice again. He trembled to be in this place again. With both hands he held his club, and he trembled all over.

  Moloquin laid his hand on Hems’ shoulder. “Are you afraid?” he said.

  Hems had only to look at him to give him his answer. Moloquin grasped his shoulder and gave him a gentle shake.

  “Think of your wife. Think of the evil that was done to her here. Now we shall repay all that was done to us here. Now, keep heart. I want you to climb up over the stockade wall and unlatch the gate, and let us all in.”

  Hems nodded. He thought of Ap Min, his dear wife, and knew what Moloquin had said was true: now he could avenge that which had befallen him here, and he laid down his club and scaled up over the wall of logs, dropped down on the far side, and went to the gate.

  As he opened the gate, he could hear Harus Kum shouting, inside the big house. He pulled the latch up, and the gate opened and his friends and Moloquin came in, one at a time. Kayon gave him his club, and with his weapon in his hands, Hems walked toward the big house.

  Around the corner, a woman came, carrying a basket; she had come out of the storehouse. Her head was down, to keep her face out of the rain, and the newcomers were stealthy, so that she saw and heard nothing of them until she reached the corner of the big house, and was almost in their midst.

  She saw them; at once Kayon sprang on her and struck her down with his club. Moloquin swept his arm forward, and the little band rushed at the door and crashed it inward and swarmed into the warm, smoky, shadowy room beyond.

  The slaves were gathered by the fire, eating, and when the door burst open and the cold wind blasted through it and Moloquin and his men poured in like creatures of the cold wind, the slaves cried out and huddled against the hearth, their hands raised. By the far doorway, Harus Kum wheeled around.

  Hems faced him, his club raised. In his memory Harus Kum was immensely tall, with a beard like a pine forest and a voice like the surf, and Hems strode toward him with his club held up over his shoulder.

  “Wait,” Harus Kum cried, and thrust his hand out.

  Hems paused. His heart was hammering in his chest. He had expected Harus Kum to attack him, to fight with him, and now here before him stood a man no bigger than he was himself, with a little, matted, greying beard, and a voice that shook as he said, “Wait!”

  Moloquin came forward. “Harus Kum,” he said, “I have come back again.”

  Harus Kum lowered his hands. His gaze swept the room, taking in everything: his slaves cowering by the hearth, and Moloquin’s men spread out around them, their weapons raised. Hems could see the trader sorting things out in his mind, and now Harus Kum raised his hands again, his palms up, friendly.

  “Moloquin,” he said. “The child of my heart has returned.”

  Moloquin said nothing.

  “Moloquin,” said Harus Kum. “Come by the fire, let me warm you at my hearth. Are you hungry? We shall feed you. Lead your companions to the fire, and we shall give you a feast of welcome.”

  Hems licked his lips, puzzled; he had not expected this. His eyes turned toward Moloquin, st
anding there nearby him, his axe in his hands. Face to face, Moloquin and Harus Kum measured each other, and neither of them spoke for a while.

  Then like a mask Harus Kum put on a smile, and spread out his arms, and said, “Come, sit in the warmth of the fire. We shall give you beer, and meat. Come.”

  “We shall,” said Moloquin gravely, but his eyes glittered. He gestured to his men, and they went to the fire to warm themselves; they stretched out their hands to the fire, and laid down their weapons, and Harus Kum shouted to his women to bring them food to eat and beer to drink, and he sent someone off to close the door.

  After the long walk, after the first excitement of breaking into the house, Moloquin and his men sank into the warmth and comfort of Harus Kum’s society and relaxed. The slaves brought them blankets to dry themselves, and heaped wood on the fire; the women—the girl they had struck down outside came in, looking dazed, and was at once hustled off to wait on them—the women brought them bowls of meat and grain, and cups of the new beer.

  The men drank much, not used to the beer, and soon they were half- asleep. Then Harus Kum collected his slaves together, and said in a loud voice, “We shall go off to the mines. When we are home again we shall feast once more, make yourselves comfortable here, do as you wish, I shall be gone all the rest of the day,” and with much noise and purpose he and his slaves went out.

  Moloquin sat by the hearth, his men around him. They were nodding; Hems already slept, his head in his arm, a cup of the beer half-finished in his slack fingers. Kayon rose and went across the room to the door, and as he went out the door he was yawning. He pissed, and came inside again. He lay down on the floor and went to sleep, and Moloquin saw all this and said nothing and did nothing.

  One by one, his men went to sleep in the warmth, with the beer in their bellies, and Moloquin also lay down among them, his axe beside him, and shut his eyes; but Moloquin did not sleep.

  And now, after only a little while, with his ear pressed to the ground, he heard the faint thud of footsteps.

  He shut his eyes and lay still, but his hand curled around the haft of his axe. He heard the door glide open. In his ear, pressed against the ground, the slow padding footsteps were like heartbeats.

  Still he waited, listening, his hand around the haft of his axe, until he heard the light cautious footsteps creep in among his sleeping men, until he heard, directly over him, the soft hiss of a breath sucked in, as a man gathered himself for a great effort.

  At that sound Moloquin leapt up. He shouted, and his axe swung, level with his waist, a great sweep of the blade through the air. Before that blade, Harus Kum flinched back, and the great club in his hands missed Moloquin’s head and slammed into the floor.

  Moloquin shouted again, and all his men leapt up. They were surrounded by Harus Kum’s slaves, but when they sprang to their feet, the slaves gave way, and Bahedyr with a roar plunged forward and threw his spear.

  A slave screamed. Staggering backward, the spear lodged in his chest, he collapsed onto the floor. At that, the other slaves flung themselves down on their faces and screamed for mercy.

  Harus Kum did not. Harus Kum still held the club, which was a mallet for crushing ore, and while everyone was gawking at Bahedyr and the slave with the spear in his chest, Harus Kum stepped forward and swung his weapon full at Moloquin.

  Moloquin shrank back, and the mallet swung past his belly. Harus Kum roared. He wheeled the mallet up for another blow, and then from behind him, from either side, Moloquin’s men came on him. They used no weapons but their bodies, and they seized him with their bare hands. Their weight bore him down on the ground before Moloquin.

  “Preserve me,” Harus Kum said, and panted for breath. “Preserve me, and I shall do whatever you wish.”

  “Until I turn my back again,” Moloquin said. “I gave you my trust once, Harus Kum, and you betrayed it. Now you shall suffer for it.” Lifting his axe, he struck Harus Kum on the head, so that his skull cracked, and he died.

  He sagged in the arms of Moloquin’s men, and they let him go. They backed away, leaving him there on the floor, and now slowly the slaves stole forward, peering at their master. When they saw that he was dead, they rejoiced, and they fell down on their knees before Moloquin and his men, and thanked them.

  Moloquin drew one of them aside and asked him if the boat had come yet. The slave shook his head.

  “Good,” Moloquin said. “Now, go and eat all you wish, and rest all you wish.”

  “Will you take us away from here?”

  “I don’t know,” Moloquin said. “We shall see about that,” and he went away to the side of the house, where Harus Kum lay.

  The master was dead. His head had cracked, and blood oozed out, and grey brain matter, caking his hair. Moloquin knelt down beside him. Already Harus Kum was stiffening and cold. He touched the man’s hands, that had so much craft now gone with him, and he wondered if he ought to have let Harus Kum live.

  He remembered the treachery with which Harus Kum had greeted them, and the stealth with which Harus Kum had come back to murder them, and he was glad the man was dead. He called for some of the others to help him, and they took the body out to the yard.

  The slave Bahedyr had struck with his spear was also dead. Moloquin had both the bodies taken outside the gate, near the stream, and there stretched them on the ground and covered them with stones. Moloquin had no wish for Harus Kum’s spirit to linger around him, as the spirit of Ladon did, and he did everything he could to make certain that Harus Kum’s soul would find its way to Heaven: he turned his face to the west, and in the dirt around his grave Moloquin traced a circle, opening toward the west, and made a little lane in the dirt leading west so that the spirit would know which way to go. He put a bit of grain in with the body, to nourish the spirit, and he put a bowl of beer with it. But just to be safe, he also pried open the mouth of the corpse and stuffed it full of mud, so that if Harus Kum’s soul chose to stay behind and force itself on Moloquin, the soul would have no voice.

  The dead slave they buried in the same way. When this was done, Moloquin and his men rested, but he set one of them to watch by the shore for the boat. And so they sat down in Harus Kum’s stockade, waiting, and did nothing for a time.

  Buras Ram had been at sea for more days than he could count on his fingers; when he first saw the pointed hilltop that marked the site of his brother’s mine, he nearly wept from relief. With the rest of his crew, he bent to the oars, hauling the little skin boat through the water, his head twisted constantly around to look over his shoulder, to guide them toward the land.

  The boat slid sideways with each gust of wind, each contrary wave. Its round hull skidded over the water even when weighed down, and sometimes it lay over suddenly and dug its gunwale into the wave, slopping the sea into the boat. Numberless times only the presence of the goddess kept them from sinking, and while Buras Ram pulled on his oar and turned to look to the shore, the other men, pulling their oars, prayed without pausing to Hortha, coursing the seas of the cosmos in her boat of shell.

  The sea resisted; the sea craved them, wanted to keep them, wanted to eat them, and so the boat labored in the calmest water. The sea held them back from land, even with the land so close as this, and Buras Ram cursed the sea under his breath—softly, because the sea too was a god, and could hear, and resent. After all, for every ill the sea gave a thousand favors. Buras Ram ended his curse with a fervent prayer to Hortha, to bring them safe to land.

  He looked back over his shoulder. The rough, black puzzle of the coastline looked no closer than it had before.

  All the rest of the day, he and his crew strained at their oars, striving against a crosswise wind and a fierce current to drag their craft in to shore. They had been rowing for many days; their hands were tough, their backs strong. This time the sea did not keep them prisoner; this time, reluctantly, the sea loosened its grasp, and let them cr
eep up on the flank of the land, in the little sandy cove where Harus Kum had his stockade and his mine.

  Usually Harus Kum was there to greet the boat. This time there was no one on the sand waiting.

  Buras Ram thought little of that. He leapt into the foaming surf and pulled the boat in between the toothed rocks to the safety of the sand, and there with the help of the other crewmen they pulled the boat entirely out of the water. Still no one came to welcome them.

  The sun was sinking. Buras Ram looked around him, stamping his feet and stretching his legs, grateful for the space to move after the long cramping confines of the boat, and saw no sign of any human being. The other boatmen were walking up and down, exclaiming over their safe voyage. One went reverently to Hortha in the bow of the boat and began to free her from the thongs that held her fast there. Buras Ram walked up the shore.

  The stockade stood inland a little, not quite within sight of the beach, but as he climbed, as the bare sand gave way to sawgrass and twining vines and scrub, he saw the stockade as he expected to. Nothing seemed wrong. He went toward the gate, thinking at any moment to hear his brother shout, or at least to see a slave he could send to tell his brother they had come, but there was no one. A few cattle grazed at the top of the slope behind the stockade, but there were no people anywhere at all.

  The place was deserted. No smoke drifted up from the roof of the house. A shiver of foreboding passed down Buras Ram’s spine, a message from a god: something was wrong. Cautiously he pushed at the stockade gate, and it swung open, unlatched, untended.

  Had they all died of some sickness? Buras Ram put his head through, looked all around, saw no one. Yet something was wrong here. He turned, his mouth open to call to his crew, but before he could give voice, something large and heavy leapt down on him from the top of the stockade and wrapped an arm around his face.

  He shouted, but the arm around him muffled his cry; he struggled, but the man behind him held him fast. Now suddenly the great curved blade of an axe appeared before him, held in a brown hand, aimed at his throat.