CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES)

by LAMBERT, JOAN DAHR

  She had been born only a few moons ago. Lotan remembered the night well. His mother had struggled all through the day, all through the dark hours, to bring the infant forth. When it still had not come at daybreak, Toro, the other adult female, and her almost grown daughter, Metep, had looked at each other with despair in their eyes and quietly muttered a word. Lotan's heart had gone rigid with fear. He was certain they had said the word for death.

  But Ralak was strong, and refused to give up. She was the tribe's wise one, and she knew the others needed her. Digging her fingers into the earth, she called upon the force that lived deep in its bowels, the force from which all life emerged, and asked for strength to bear the pain, but even more, she called on her own reserves of stamina. Steeling herself to endure still more of the brutal contractions, she gave up her body to the labor. Each time her muscles tensed, she pushed with all her might, ignoring the terrible ripping of skin within her. Finally, when the sun had almost reached the top of the sky, she felt the baby's head between her legs. She called to Toro.

  "Pull!" she commanded. Toro placed her hands on each side of the slippery skull and pulled as hard as she could. Her hands slid off. She rubbed them against the earth and tried again. This time the infant came out. It wailed immediately.

  Good, Ralak thought. It wails, so it will live. Then she closed her eyes and lapsed into a time of semi-consciousness. The place where she lingered hung somewhere between sleeping and waking, between living and dying. The present had no meaning for her; she was aware of nothing except a tingling pull at her breasts when Toro placed the baby there to suckle. But her inner world was filled with sounds and sensations, and memories.

  Long ago, Ralak had lived in a damp, forested area. She went to this place again in her mind. Tall trees closed in around her, filtering out the sun, so that her world grew dim and shadowy. She smelled ferns, and mosses, the moist earthiness of decaying litter on the forest floor. She saw the tribe into which she had been born, watched it disintegrate until only she and her brother were left. One at a time, the others had died of a sickness that robbed them of strength until they could no longer eat or even stand.

  Her mother had been the last to go. Ralak saw her face again, heard her speak of the earthforce that gave life and took it away again in endless, random cycles - only her mother was not speaking, for there were few words to describe such things. Ralak listened in another way, hearing her mother as if their minds were one. In that manner, she came to understand that just as the earthforce caused new grasses to grow, bushes and trees to bear fruit, gave life to animals of every kind, so, too, it caused death and destruction, when mountains exploded and the ground cracked into pieces. At other times, the earthforce grew restless and escaped to the skies. It flew upward like a great bird into the tumultuous clouds, then charged toward the ground again in brilliant spears of lightning that burned everything in their path as it sought re-entry to its home.

  Ralak's eyes rolled and twitched behind her closed lids as the memories coursed through her brain. No other part of her moved at all. Her stillness, and the blood that came from her, terrified Lotan. The faces of the others frightened him too. They seemed astonished that Ralak still breathed, that milk still flowed from her breasts, even when she lay there as if dead. But she was alive, and Lotan decided he must keep her that way. Over and over, he tipped cool water into her mouth, using a small gourd so he could dribble it in slowly. The first time, Ralak choked, but after that, she seemed to sense his presence and was able to swallow.

  On the fourth day, her eyes opened. She looked as if she were far away, in some other place. But when Lotan put some berries he was holding into her mouth, she chewed them slowly. The next day, she raised herself on her elbow and called to Toro.

  "Infant," she said weakly. "See infant." Toro brought the little one to her. Ralak's cracked lips, still caked with the blood that had accumulated when she bit herself in pain, widened into a smile. She reached out and took the baby for a moment, then sank back in exhaustion. Lotan bent over her, afraid she would not move again. She pressed his hand briefly, in reassurance. Heartened by the gesture, he soaked soft grasses in the stream and gently wiped the blood from her face.

  When the light came again, Ralak crawled toward the stream and immersed herself in a shallow pool to cleanse her body. The action seemed to revive her. She directed the others to remove all signs of the birth, so predators would not be attracted. Then she lay still again for many days, but now, Lotan saw, her stillness had energy in it. She was herself again even if she barely moved. She told all of them what to do, called for the infant, ate and drank with enthusiasm. Fear drained from his body for the first time since the birth.

  Now, three moons had passed, and Ralak seemed to have recovered completely. Until tonight, when the two men had failed to return, her features had been free of strain.

  The baby stirred and began to root against Lotan's thin chest, seeking food. He rose and went to his mother.

  "She is hungry," he told Ralak, handing her the infant. "I find sticks now. I watch."

  Ralak nodded and went to sit by the fire while she nursed the baby. She peered nervously into the woods. Though Lotan did not know it, another problem worried her almost as much as the missing men. For many days now, a strange male had been lurking in the area. Ralak did not like the look of him. Instead of approaching, to see if he might join the group, he had peered at them from the trees with hard, angry eyes. Whenever one of the men had gone closer to challenge him, he had disappeared.

  She hugged the infant protectively. Once, long ago, a male had attacked her tribe while the men were half a day's journey away. He had killed her tiny brother and another infant before the men had returned to help her mother and the other women drive him away. Males like that had too much of the harsh earthforce in them, her mother had told her, and could not control their violence. Ralak did not fully understand how this could be, or why they should kill infants, but she was terribly afraid the stranger was one of them. She must find the men quickly, lest he attack while they were gone.

  At daybreak, they set out to look for them. Lotan trudged beside his mother, scanning the area with his eyes, listening, raising his head to sniff the air, as she had taught him. For a long time, no signals came to him. Then he spotted the vultures, heard their noisy fighting. His heart thudded in his chest, lest it be one of the men they were stabbing with their fearful beaks, but it was only the zebra. The lion that had killed it had finished, the hyenas had gone, and only the vultures were left. There was no sign of the men.

  Lotan went on, following a vague track through the brush. Something had passed this way recently, something that was tall enough to part the tops of the grasses as well as pressing them against the ground. Perhaps the men had been here.

  A strange scent came to his nostrils. It was like the smell of some badly rotted eggs he had once found, when an ostrich had deserted its clutch, but much deeper and stronger. The smell became more and more pungent as he approached a small pond. The water in it had a sulfurous yellow cast.

  The grass beneath his feet felt suddenly hot and dry, and it crunched strangely. Startled, Lotan backed away, almost bumping into his mother who had come quietly up behind him. Together, they stared toward the pond. Dozens of carcasses, stripped of all flesh, littered the area. They were covered with pale yellow dust. A thick substance, orange in the sunlight, oozed up at the edges of the water.

  Lotan frowned, aware of another strangeness about this place. There was no sound, no movement at all. No insects buzzed around the dead bodies, no vultures fought over them. The whole area seemed dead.

  He jumped violently as a harsh croak broke the silence. A large bird he had not noticed before was lying half submerged in the shallows. It opened its beak and shrieked again, a cry of pure desperation. For a moment, it thrashed weakly, as if trying to escape some invisible force that held it down. The sound faded into a gurgle, and the bird lay still.

  Lotan took a st
ep toward it, to see better, but his mother pulled him back. "It burns," she said. "This water burns." There was a terrible sadness in her voice, as well as a warning, and he turned quickly to look at her. She was staring at an object not far from the dying bird. Lotan gasped in horror. It was one of the men, his arms stretched out in front of him. He was almost invisible, for his body was camouflaged by the sickly yellow powder. Beyond his outstretched arms, Lotan could just discern the outline of another familiar shape.

  Sickened, he turned away. He did not understand how water could burn, but he knew he would never forget this ghastly place, the silence, the reek of death with no purpose. Death to satisfy hunger he understood. Death without benefit baffled him.

  Ralak stood still, unable to move under the weight of her grief. She had recognized the scent, though she had smelled it only once before. There were places, sometimes, where the yellowish stuff in the water grew so strong that it burned, as if the earthforce had lingered there too long. As soon as she had smelled it, she had known her brother was dead. Even before that, she had known. All during the long night, she had been haunted by a feeling that something terrible had happened to him. Her brother had been her companion since birth, and each of them had always been able to feel the other's pain. Now he was gone.

  She reached out a hand, as if to touch him once again. Only he had understood her, knew the words she knew; only he had grasped her meaning when she spoke of the earthforce. The others, the ones she and her brother had joined when all in their tribe had died, were different. They had no knowledge of the earthforce, did not seem capable of understanding.

  Except for Lotan. He understood a little, though he was still young. At least she still had Lotan.

  Ralak turned toward him, her face crumpled with grief. He put his arms around her, to comfort her. His gesture released the tears she was trying not to shed, and for a moment she sobbed without restraint. Then, determinedly, she pushed her sadness away. She could not afford to grieve. With only women and children in the group, they were terribly vulnerable. Predators were one problem. The deep voices and large frames of men were often enough to frighten a lion or tiger away. But it was the strange male who frightened her most. Now that the men were gone, he would not hesitate to attack. She must be constantly on her guard, never stop listening, never miss a scent or a movement.

  Ralak straightened her shoulders and gathered the others around her. They would have to keep moving all the time, so the big male could not find them.

  She led them east, away from the gathering place. Lotan looked at her questioningly. He could not understand why they were going away from the place where they had slept so often.

  "Why?" he asked her.

  "Danger," she replied. "There is danger now, with no men. A bad male might come and hurt the infants."

  Her answer puzzled Lotan. The men he had known had always been kind. But he trusted his mother's judgment, and he could tell that she was frightened. She scanned the landscape constantly, and tested the air for scents. She kept a stout stick in one hand, putting it down only when she gathered food. Lotan found a stick for himself, and practiced swinging it as he trotted beside her protectively. He was the only male left now, and although he was small for his eleven years, he would do his best against any danger that threatened her.

  A week passed without incident. Ralak kept them moving; they gathered food as they traveled, and slept in a different place each night. Lotan began to relax his guard. Then, late one afternoon, he spotted a lone male staring at them from a ridge. He shouted a warning and ran to stand beside his mother. Toro followed, dragging Metep with her. She clutched her new infant tightly against her chest, instinctively aware that it could be in danger.

  The male ambled toward them. He was huge, almost twice as big as Ralak, for she was a diminutive female. She watched him carefully. It was the same male she had seen before, and already she was certain she was right. He was one of the violent ones. Though he moved slowly, there was no hesitation in his step, and he stared straight at her with challenging eyes. A normal male would lower his eyes, approach with caution. She saw no hint of kindness in his face.

  She handed the infant to Lotan and moved in front of both of them. Growling low in her throat, she faced the intruder. He paid no attention. Still staring at Ralak, as if he recognized her leadership, he lunged unexpectedly toward Toro's infant. Toro screamed and ran. The big male followed. Turning her back, Toro bent protectively over the baby. Metep pummeled the big male with her fists as he approached her mother.

  Lotan gave the infant back to his mother and swung his stick hard at the male's massive back. Startled, the intruder turned to face him. Lotan held the stick high, ready to swing it again. But the male only shook his head in confusion and pushed the stick away, then turned back toward Toro. Lotan hit him again. This time, the male whirled and struck him a vicious blow to the chest. Lotan staggered backward, fighting for breath.

  Toro took advantage of the momentary distraction and ran for the trees. The male stared after her, then turned suddenly and charged toward Ralak. Crouching low, she presented her genitals, to distract him from the infant. He sniffed her, puzzled by her action, and tried to force her to the ground. Ralak hit him with her stick, but she had only one free arm, and the blows had little force. Lotan struggled to his feet and went to help. Toro and Metep came back and grabbed sticks as well. Together, they pummeled the male, screaming and shouting as they rained blows against his back and shoulders.

  Howling, he retreated to the hillside. But he did not go away. He stayed nearby all night, and he followed them as they traveled the next day. Though he did not come close, Lotan knew he was still in the area. He had a distinctive smell, stronger than that of other males he had known, that could not be missed.

  Suddenly, just as the sun was lowering, the male charged toward them again. This time he moved with sure purpose. Before Toro could take a step, he was upon her. He snatched her infant and ran into the woods. The whole group followed, screaming wildly. Toro grabbed his arm, but she could not make him stop. He swung the infant by an arm and smashed its head against a tree, killing it instantly. Sobbing, Toro retrieved it and cradled it against her chest.

  Anger suffused Lotan. He hit the male so hard that his stick broke, then began to pummel him with his fists. The male roared in anger and raised his arm high to strike.

  Ralak pulled frantically at Lotan. The male would kill him, too, if he did not stop. She could not lose Lotan.

  The male's fist came down, and Lotan crumpled at her feet.

  Ralak bent over him. Terror filled her, but it was instantly replaced by rage, a rage so fierce and consuming there was no room for fear. Slowly, she raised her eyes to confront the huge creature above her. He backed away, unaccustomed to such fury.

  "Bad! Bad male!" she screamed at him. "I, Ralak, have no caring for one like you!"

  Ralak repeated the words over and over, alternately shouting and hissing them through her teeth. But they did not satisfy her. She hated this cruel male; she wanted to curse him, to tell him all of them cursed him. Never before had she needed to express the opposite of caring, and she had no word for the hatred that surged inside her.

  She wanted to tell him something else too. Again, there were no words, but the meaning was clear in her mind: if he had killed Lotan, she would make him pay. She did not know how she would manage it, but she knew she would find a way.

  *************************

  When Lotan opened his eyes, the light had begun to fade. He tried to sit, but the pain in his head forced him to lie down again. Ralak's heart leaped with joy to see him moving, but she hurried over and whispered that he should be quiet, lest the big male attack. Lotan was glad to comply. He felt dizzy and sick, incapable of standing. But in the morning, he felt well enough to get up and try to walk. He was still weak, but the pain in his head had diminished.

  The male stared angrily at Lotan as he hobbled around the clearing, but he made no atte
mpt to harm him further. He was wary of the tiny female who showed no fear and shouted words that seemed to penetrate his flesh as sharply as the blows of sticks. Ralak had not been satisfied with her words, but their effect had still been strong.

  Ralak was relieved that there were no more attacks, but she was still furious. She would not look at the intruder or acknowledge his presence in any way. Ignoring him completely, she signaled the others to follow her to a small field with fruiting bushes. When they had finished eating, she went on again as if he were not there, and she continued to treat him this way for many days.

  The big male plodded behind her, nursing his anger. He did not understand why the others had attacked him so ferociously. He had only tried to kill the infants so their mothers would mate with him, and then he could join the group. They needed a male to protect them. That did not seem wrong to him, but still the females had struck him over and over again. Bruises from the pounding they had inflicted showed purple against his dark skin, and a large welt throbbed where Lotan had hit him. But even more painful than his bruises was Ralak's refusal to pay any attention to him. She reminded him of his mother, whom he had loved, but she acted like the female who had driven him from his tribe when his mother had died. He hated that female. She had been jealous of his mother and had tried to drive her away, too, and as soon as his mother had died, she had turned on him instead. Day after day, she had tormented him relentlessly until he had left, long before he was full-grown. He had been alone ever since.

  His frustration grew as the weeks passed and Ralak continued to ignore him. He could not vent his feelings on her; he wanted her to like him, not scream at him or ignore him. Nor did he want to harm the other females, for they were potential mates, so all his wrath was directed at Lotan. It was because of Lotan that Ralak had screamed scathing words at him, and then refused to acknowledge his presence at all. It was Lotan's fault that she still glared at him with loathing instead of accepting him. He wanted to grab the younger male and shake him until he could never move again, but he did not dare. Instead, he tried to intimidate Lotan by watching him constantly and following him everywhere. Lotan felt the hard, vengeful eyes on his back as he dug for tubers, and smelled the strong, rank odor close beside him as he slept. Not for a moment could he relax his guard, and his constant state of watchfulness was exhausting.