Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

  That was the circle. That was the curve that Moloquin had represented in the Pillar of the Sky.

  His hands were trembling. He followed the horizon with his eyes, sweeping the circle of the building. Here Moloquin had raised up his own world in stones.

  That was why the stones aligned to show the motion of the stars; any circle would have worked as well.

  Yet there was another thing to do. A man could strive for mastery over the world, as Moloquin did. Or a man could strive for understanding. They were opposite things: to master the world, a man had to be within it, part of it; but to understand, a man could take himself out of it, see with a quiet mind, as if from afar, and thus survive.

  With a piece of rope and a wooden stake, a man could measure out the whole world. Measure the sun, too, which was a circle. Measure all things. Perhaps, in the end, come to measure himself.

  Bahedyr no longer carried his own spear; he had a boy, one of his sons, to carry it for him, the haft sheathed in bronze and worked in cunning designs. He himself wore cuffs and a collar of bronze. When he came into Moloquin’s Village, there by the Pillar of the Sky, he had his men go on ahead of him with horns and flutes and drums to draw the People together and turn their heads toward him, and when he walked through their midst, they cheered him until the skies rang with it.

  This made him smile, and he puffed himself up, taking great pride in the acclaim, taking some comfort too, because he had that to tell Moloquin which Moloquin would not like to hear.

  With his son before him holding aloft his spear, he walked slowly in through the uproar and activity of Moloquin’s Village. The people here no longer lived in longhouses, and only Moloquin himself lived in the roundhouse; all the others lived in huts, men and women together in couples, with their children. So the place was disorderly. Instead of one great yard there were many, and instead of one place where the people worked, there were many. They all did Moloquin’s bidding, and at the center of it Moloquin sat and watched and gave orders and did nothing himself.

  Knowing this, knowing also that Moloquin would be angry when he heard what Bahedyr had come to tell him, Bahedyr walked slowly and let the shouted praises of the people fall on him like the nourishing rain. He went on a winding path among the little round huts, and the children came running after him, laughing and cheering him. The women looked up from their spinning and weaving and called his name. The men, just back from the day’s work at the Pillar of the Sky, resting in their doorways, raised their hands to him.

  Bahedyr spoke to those he knew, who were many, and so, although the sun had been high in the sky when he came into the village, the light had set when he reached the roundhouse.

  There he found Moloquin sitting on the ground outside his door, while his women made the evening meal ready; the smell of roasting meat perfumed the air, and there was also the tang of beer brewing. Wahela’s voice rose strident with orders above the bustle of the other women— Wahela herself did nothing, but walked up and down, clapping her hands together, giving reproof to the lazy and stupid.

  Bahedyr came before the chieftain and at a nod from Moloquin he sat down cross-legged opposite him. His boy with the spear stood behind him, and the others of Bahedyr’s men formed a crescent shape around him.

  Bahedyr was glad of their presence; he felt stronger for their presence; he quaked to think what Moloquin would say to him, when he had to tell him his news.

  First there were other things.

  “The harvest is going well,” he said. “The women have gotten in the beans and dried them, and soon they will cut and thresh the grain. There will be enough to feed us all and also add several baskets to the stores.”

  Moloquin nodded. He was leaning against a backrest, his shoulders propped up, which made him look fat and slack. Wahela brought him a cup of beer and he drank some and put it down, and nodded to her to serve Bahedyr also.

  They talked about the gardens around Bahedyr’s Village; Moloquin believed the time was coming when the village would have to be moved, but Bahedyr insisted the ground was still fruitful. They talked about fishing for salmon; Moloquin wanted Bahedyr to take some of his men away to the streams to the north and catch fish out of the autumn run, but Bahedyr was loathe to do so, since the weather was always bad.

  Moloquin chuckled at him. “The fish are clever, Bahedyr. The People are lazy and soft. They go out to fish when the sun is warm and the air is light, and when the rain comes they go home and fish no more, but the fish run when the rain comes and the water runs cold.”

  “We do not need to fish,” Bahedyr said.

  He knew many of the men who surrounded him did so because he got them out of working. If he told them to work, he feared many would go elsewhere.

  “The fish are there,” Moloquin said. “You and your People must be like fish, loving the cold and the wet, to catch them. Get men of the Salmon Leap Society. I have many stones now, there is no need to haul any more for a while, and therefore I need fewer men here to build.”

  That brought them face to face with Bahedyr’s unpleasant news. Bahedyr gulped, and in his face Moloquin read the evil; his eyes sharpened, and he leaned forward.

  “What is it?”

  Loudly, Bahedyr said, “I shall talk to the Salmon Leap masters, they—”

  “Bahedyr,” Moloquin said. “Tell me the truth.”

  The spearman met his chieftain’s gaze, and for a long moment there was a kind of struggle between them; Bahedyr wanted to forget what it was he knew but Moloquin would not let him turn aside from it, and so, in the end, reluctantly, Bahedyr gave up his knowledge.

  “You said you had many stones now. Are there enough?”

  “Enough?” Moloquin said. “What do you mean? Enough to finish the Pillar of the Sky? Not at all.”

  Bahedyr cleared his throat. Moloquin’s hard stare dragged the words from him. “There have to be. There are no more stones at the High Hill large enough for your purposes.”

  Moloquin stared at him; there seemed no change in his expression. At last he said, “They need not be so large. Not all of them. The beams are much smaller than the uprights.”

  “There are no more stones long enough for uprights,” said Bahedyr.

  “I only need a few more uprights.” Moloquin stood up; he turned to look toward his holy place, standing tall as if he could see it over the swarm and babble of his village. “Only a handful more, I think.”

  “The only stones left at the High Hill are shorter even than I am,” said Bahedyr.

  Moloquin swung toward him. The slack, fat man who had greeted Bahedyr was gone now, and in his place stood the old Moloquin, harsh and hard, moving ever, restlessly moving around the fire, back and forth, his gaze like a flight of arrows.

  “I must have stones. There are stones elsewhere.”

  “On the northern downs,” said Bahedyr slowly. “There are some stones there, still lying in the earth.”

  “Then bring those.”

  Bahedyr licked his lips. He glanced back over his shoulder at the men clustered tight behind him, and saw in their faces the dread he himself felt. He confronted Moloquin again.

  “I went there. The People have been pulling up those stones for generations, and they are nearly all gone also. There are a few cracked, weak stones, that no one has wanted.”

  Moloquin wheeled away from him. He strode off across his yard, the women scurrying out of his way, his children dodging out of his way, and spun around and walked back toward Bahedyr, and his face was black with rage, and his arms swung like clubs, his hands fists. He strode up to Bahedyr.

  “Find me stones!”

  “Opa-Moloquin-on, there are no more stones anywhere. We cannot make stones where none exist—”

  “Bah!” Moloquin put his hand on Bahedyr’s chest and thrust him backward, wobbling, two long steps, and he himself took two steps after, so that he
crowded Bahedyr even further, pushing him back into the pack of his men. “Find me those stones, Bahedyr—”

  “But there are none!”

  “Don’t lie to me!”

  Again he drove the flat of his hand into Bahedyr’s chest and again Bahedyr staggered backward, scattering his men away behind him, while his chief leaned hard at his front. Moloquin shouted, “I know where there are more stones, Bahedyr! You do also! Bring me the stones, Bahedyr!”

  Bahedyr goggled at him. “Where?”

  “At the Turnings-of-the-Year!”

  Now all the men gasped, and Bahedyr straightened, resisting Moloquin’s push. “What are you talking about?”

  “There are great enough stones at the Turnings-of-the-Year,” Moloquin said. “Bring them to me.”

  “You cannot do that,” Bahedyr said. “Those stones are sacred. They belong only where they are.”

  Moloquin let him finish, let the other men murmur in agreement, lifted his eyes to scan them, brought his gaze back to Bahedyr, and said, “Bring me those stones, Bahedyr. I have made you what you are, and I will unmake you if you do not serve me. Go.”

  He turned his back. Amazed, Bahedyr saw that he would listen no more to arguments against his orders. The spearman stood gawking into space; he gave a sudden shiver from his head to his feet, as if a magic spell settled over him. Behind him his men were whispering to one another. None dared speak to Moloquin, who was sitting down again where he had been when Bahedyr first came to him—sitting down on his mat, his back to his backrest, sitting down into a fat, aging, ordinary man. Bahedyr turned and went away.

  In the morning, Wahela sat in the yard of the roundhouse, ordering the lesser women around; they were spreading out the blankets in the sun, to air them and make them smell fresh. Wahela sat on a pile of rush mats, a cup of beer beside her and her youngest daughter in her lap, and watched for the women to catch them if they made mistakes.

  As she sat there, feeding the child bits of honey and seeds, Bahedyr came into the yard.

  He looked all around him, and he came to her. Wahela frowned to see this; she knew that Moloquin had argued with Bahedyr about something, and now Moloquin was sunk into a foul temper that nothing seemed to pierce. Bahedyr came and sat beside her, laying his spear down on his far side from her, and for a moment he sat there without saying anything.

  Wahela would not say anything; she knew he was here to get something from her.

  At last he turned to her. “Wahela,” he said, “we have come a long way from the hut by the stream.”

  Wahela gave him a deep look. Lifting up her daughter, she kissed her and sent her away to the roundhouse. Then she faced Bahedyr.

  “A long way? It’s not such a long way, we could walk there in two days.”

  “Wahela, you know what I mean.”

  She tossed her head, looking elsewhere—really, she was keeping watch out for Moloquin. “I know nothing. I am a mere woman.”

  “Wahela—” he crept a little closer to her. “I need your help.”

  “Ah?”

  “He has asked me to do that which may destroy us all, Wahela.”

  She grunted at him. Turning to face him, she said, “Ask you. I have not seen him ask anything of anyone for many years now, Bahedyr. He gave you orders.”

  Bahedyr frowned at her. Her gaze lingered on him; she saw now how drawn his face was, how weary and tormented, and she thought, He is indeed much distressed.

  “What is it, Bahedyr?”

  “Wahela, he wants us to take stones from Turnings-of-the-Year to build the Pillar of the Sky.”

  “What?”

  “That’s what he wants.”

  Her mouth formed a round, soundless sigh. Her gaze moved around the yard again, toward the roundhouse, seeking for Moloquin. “That is mad,” she said. She thought of the Turnings-of-the-Year, the stones that had stood there since the beginning, and a sudden burst of rage warmed her: how did he dare uproot those holy old stones?

  At the same moment, she knew she would do nothing to prevent it.

  She faced Bahedyr again. “Now, what do you want of me, hah? You want me to stand up to him which you dare not do, is that it?”

  “You are his wife, Wahela.”

  “No! I am not his wife. His wife is—was—Shateel. She told him he did evil, at the Bloody Gathering. Where is she now, Bahedyr? No. I will do nothing.”

  “Wahela.” He leaned toward her, he even put his hand on her arm, and his eyes shone with desperation. “I cannot force my people to do this thing.”

  “Leave here, Bahedyr.”

  “If he persists in this—”

  At these words, she saw a motion in the roundhouse, just inside the door, and swiftly she moved away from Bahedyr, dragging her mats after her, putting room between her and him. “No!” she said, furious, and threw a fierce look at him.

  He had not seen Moloquin standing there. His desperate panic still gripped him; he came on hands and knees after her, saying, “Wahela, you must help me!”

  She thrust out her hand to ward him off. She lifted her gaze and there saw Moloquin, standing in the roundhouse door.

  He was staring at them. He had seen them. All her nerves tingling, she put her hand in her lap and looked away. At her look, Bahedyr twisted, and he too saw the chieftain, and with a sigh he rose and went to greet him.

  “Welcome, Opa-Moloquin-on!”

  In his fear he used the words of one greeting a visitor; his voice boomed with false confidence. Moloquin nodded to him.

  “Very welcome, Bahedyr. I have a task for you today.”

  “I live to serve my chief.”

  Moloquin’s mouth stretched into a smile. “Very good, Bahedyr. Now, I charge you with this: take your men with their spears and their ornaments, and go out to the west a little way, not far, and go to the high point, there by the old sycamore, and watch for people coming.”

  Wahela got up and went to him; she wanted to show Bahedyr that she was not really afraid of Moloquin after all, and she leaned against him and stroked his beard.

  “Who is coming, Moloquin?”

  “Buras Ram,” Moloquin said. “The trader from the west, from the mines. Bahedyr, you have your task, now go.”

  The spearman bowed down. Round, empty words spilled from his lips. He took his spear and went away.

  Wahela still leaned on her lover’s chest. She said, “The trader will have metal for us.”

  Moloquin said, “What did you say to Bahedyr?”

  “Nothing. We spoke of the old days, in the Forest Village.”

  “Oh? Is that all?”

  “Certainly.” She tossed her head, giving him a long look through the corners of her eyes. “What else would I have to talk about with Bahedyr?”

  “Who knows?” said Moloquin. “Now come with me, I have work for you also, before Buras Ram comes.”

  Buras Ram had begun to think he would never find Moloquin’s country. With six slaves and two freemen of his people, he had left the mines by the coast several days before and travelled steadily to the east, through shrub forest, through swamps and over stony ridges, and with each day the land seemed wilder and the path they followed was harder to trace. He could hardly believe that his brother Harus Kum had brought heavily laden sledges down these brush-choked slopes and packed stands of trees.

  With each sundown, his band complained the more. They wanted to go home again. In this strange place there seemed to be demons everywhere, waiting to fall on the unwary. The water tasted strange in the streams and ponds where they drank; they had no luck in hunting the game.

  “There is a god here who hates us,” said his people. “Some god here means us evil. We want to go home.”

  Buras Ram said, “One more day. If we do not find them in one more day, we shall turn around and go back.”

  W
hen the next sundown came, there was still no sign of Moloquin and his People.

  “Are we going home now? Shall we go home now?” they asked him.

  “One more day,” he said, and they howled and wept and threatened to go back by themselves.

  “Go back, then,” he said. “I am going that way,” and he pointed to the east. “One more day.”

  They grumbled; they cursed him under their tongues, but without him to lead them they were afraid to go anywhere, even back home. The next dawn found them all trudging away to the east.

  They had left behind the tangled brushy forest and the rough hills. Now they travelled over a desolate rolling country, where the few trees stood up like guardsmen, and the wind keened like a harp in the grass. Grey clouds crowded the sky. In the evenings, a sinister vapor rose from every hollow, every low ground, and the wind drifted it off across the wide expanses of the grass, as if to hide away this land from the strangers travelling into it.

  Near sundown, as he walked along at the head of his train, he realized with a start that someone was watching him.

  He spun around, stopping in his tracks, and scanned the low featureless slopes around him. There seemed no one but he himself and his servants, nothing at all showing above the wind-blown grass but an old half-killed tree on the ridge to his left, but as he stood there with his tongue thick with fear, a man with a spear stood up beside the tree.

  Buras Ram’s people all screamed. They ran together into a little pack, terrified. By the tree, the man with the spear waved his weapon over his head, and from all around him, standing up out of the grass as if they had grown there like grass, other men appeared.

  Buras Ram said, “Steady—steady—they are friends.”

  He held out one hand, palm forward, in the gesture of friendship, but his knees were banging together and his heart thumped. He hoped they were friends. If they were not, there was no chance for him and his men. He stood watching the line of spearmen walk down toward him.

  “They are Moloquin’s,” he said, with a burst of relief; he saw the copper ornaments on their wrists and around their necks, and abruptly his throat loosened. He began to laugh, turned to his men to reassure them with a look, and raised his hand in a merry wave to the spearmen. Now he could even recognize one of them, the leader, magnificent in a breastplate of beads and little copper links. Smiling, he waited to be taken to Moloquin.