CIRCLES OF STONE (THE MOTHER PEOPLE SERIES)

by LAMBERT, JOAN DAHR

  Now, it had disappeared again. He was limp, without energy, and so withdrawn Zena wondered if he would ever speak again. She watched him carefully, lest he banish himself as she had so many years ago. But she did not think he had the strength. It was almost as if he had done the thing he had been born to do, and now all the vitality had drained from his body.

  Was that, perhaps, the Mother's way? Perhaps those who forced Akat on a woman were doomed to die at the hands of the children whose lives resulted from their violence.

  It was not over, she thought sadly. There was more violence to come. Even without Menta's vision, she knew it in her bones, her belly, in the feeling of wrongness that had not left her when Tron had died, but only dimmed a little.

  The feeling diminished still more as the seasons passed with no sign of the violence she feared, though it never left her completely. Then, almost five years after Tron's death, it began to escalate again. One day, a white-haired woman stumbled into the clearing, a baby on each hip. A group of hungry children trailed behind her. Their tribe had been raided by a band of men, she told Zena. They had killed the men and the old ones, stolen the women. She and the children had been in the forest and had managed to escape. For many days, they had been walking, looking for another tribe with whom they could live.

  Zena took them in gladly, but her heart was heavy with the news. It was only the beginning, she knew. More of the bands of men would come, then more, as Menta's vision had foreseen.

  Gunor knew who they were. "These are the fierce hunters from the north who killed so many in my tribe," he warned Zena. "I know it is so, because that is how they act. They kill without thought, all but the women they want for their hunters."

  "They come because of the cold," Katli added. "The animals they hunt are leaving and they follow. Gunor and I saw this when we tried to go north to hunt."

  She was right. Slowly, inexorably, the cold had extended its grip. Blankets of ice that never melted covered what had once been tundra, vast stretches of forest had become barren snow fields where the wind howled and only stunted bushes could grow. As the air grew ever more frigid, the ice thicker, the huge herds of reindeer and bison traveled slowly south, seeking forage. With them came the tribes that preyed on them, the fierce hunters Gunor had known so long ago. They sought fertile valleys where game was plentiful, warm caves for the long winters, women for their hunters. The home beneath the craggy cliffs Zena and Conar had discovered so long ago had everything they needed.

  Anger boiled in Zena's chest at the thought that these savage men, who knew nothing of the Goddess, might desecrate Her home, the sacred circle She Herself had built. She would keep it from them, she vowed, for as long as she possibly could.

  The anger dissipated as quickly as it had come. They could not defend the caves against men like this. As Menta's vision had shown, they were brutal beyond belief. They were young, some hardly more than boys, for the hunters sent the young men ahead to scout for new homes for their tribes. Alone and leaderless, they were more savage even than the men who spawned them. Killing was no more than a game to them, Akat only a way to hurt.

  They might not be able to fight them, Zena decided, but they could hide from them. The Mother had given them the caves, and they would make good use of Her gift. One day, perhaps, they would have to leave, but she was not ready to give up yet.

  "We must be ready, in case the men should ever come here," she told the others. "To fight them is impossible, but the Mother has given us the caves in which to hide. There, we will be safe, but we must learn to enter without being seen, learn to go through the passages without light, so the men cannot follow."

  They covered the cleft that led to the caves with brush and rock, so that no one who did not know it was there could find it. Each day for many weeks, they practiced darting unseen through the trees to the tunnels, gliding silently through the dark, winding passages until they came to the Mother's chamber, where finally they could see. Soon, every child, even the smallest, knew the way. After that, they collected food as well as extra furs and tools to keep in the chamber in case they were needed.

  Conar became their scout. Sometimes he was gone for many weeks as he tracked the roving bands of men - the men with knives, they called them, for their flints were long and sharp. Each time he left, Zena suffered agonies of fear lest he be killed. But Conar could move like an animal, without ever being seen, and he always returned.

  "The men with knives are heading north to join their tribes for the winter," he reported with satisfaction when he came to join them in the Mother's chamber after his latest foray. "There will be no more raids now."

  "They will come back when the snow melts," Zena replied grimly. "Then the killing will begin again."

  The young Zena came to stand before her mother. "Why must the men kill?" she asked, her eyes filled with bewilderment. "Surely the Mother provides enough food and caves for all. The men do not need to kill to get them."

  Anguish showed in Zena's face as she tried to find words to answer her daughter's question. To speak of violence to one so innocent seemed a desecration. Only six years had passed since the young Zena's birth, and until the men with knives had come south, she had known nothing but peace and kindness.

  The child looked up, waiting for an answer. Her face was grave, her eyes wise beyond her years. Zena's courage returned. As Menta had seen, this daughter was of the Mother. Almost as soon as she had words, visions had begun to come to her. And if she was to survive in the years to come, she must understand.

  "It may be that they kill because they have come to love violence in the same way we love the Mother," she began slowly. "That sounds impossible, I know, but it can be true when people have forgotten the Goddess. You see, my child, there lurks in some of us a terrible capacity for violence, which only the Mother and the wise ones can control. Young men especially can fall prey to it. There is a fluid inside them that makes it so. When people like this worship one who encourages violence, they come to believe it is right. Then all is lost, for children who have never known kindness are capable of great brutality when they are grown. We have seen that in the men with knives."

  Zena knelt and looked deeply into her daughter's eyes. "Remember what I have told you, my child, for one day you will take my place. It is the sacred task of all those who bear the name of Zena to serve the Goddess and teach Her ways."

  The young Zena nodded. "I will not forget," she promised.

  "I am certain you will not," Zena responded, hugging her warmly. "One day, when you are older, I will bring you with me to the Kyrie, so that the Goddess Herself may teach you. But now I must go by myself, to learn if there is more we can do to keep the violence from coming."

  Slowly, she rose and approached the ledge where they kept the big figure of the Goddess. Conar and Lilan had carved it of stone, so that neither time nor weather could destroy it.

  Zena spoke directly to Her. "Great Goddess, the men with knives have brought such pain to so many people. Unless they can be stopped, they will cause untold suffering. It is to me, Great Mother, that You entrusted the task of preventing the violence that threatens to overwhelm us. Show me now how this can be done."

  Zena bowed her head, waiting. The Mother's presence was all around her, warm and encompassing. The others felt Her, too, and they sat quietly. For a long time, the cave was utterly silent, save for a baby's cry. Its mother put it to her breast and silence came again.

  Light tickled Zena's eyes. She raised them and saw that the sun shone straight on the face of the Goddess, making Her seem to come alive. That was the signal. She knew it absolutely. Once again, the Goddess waited for her in the open space.

  The others watched, mesmerized, as she approached the pool and stepped into the dark water. It seemed to pull around her as she floated slowly to the other side, then it released her onto the rocks. She climbed higher and higher, until she disappeared. They sighed, a long, collective sigh of hope.

  **************************


  The space opened out before Zena, vast and beautiful. She clung for a moment to the opening that led to the circle of stones, seeking its reassurance. Then she stepped forward and let her eyes rove over the vastness of the Mother's earth. She saw the cave where they lived, no bigger than a dark hole from her precipitous perch, and the valley where the bison had carried her to Conar. They were back again now, their shaggy bodies transformed into tiny moving dots that showed black against the lush green of the valley. Beyond were the mountains, their snow-covered peaks gleaming in the sunlight. Zena thought sometimes she could see all the way to the end of the Mother's earth from her Kyrie, for in the far distance there was only space, as if the land had given way to nothingness.

  She was utterly protected here. One side of the crescent-shaped ledge on which she stood was enclosed in the curve of the hill, but the other sides dropped away in sheer, overhanging cliffs, impossible to climb. Above her, too, were impassable peaks that rose straight up as far as she could see. The goats could come, though. Their hoofs seemed to stick even to the most precipitous rocks. Zena reached out a hand to the one that clattered toward her. It was white as snow, and had elegant curving horns. The goat tossed them gently, then nuzzled her hand. Many times before, it had come to greet her when she stood upon the ledge. She welcomed its presence, for it seemed to her that the goat held the Mother's wisdom in its deep black eyes. They were like the pool, opaque and fathomless. When she stared into them, the visions unfolded before her.

  Even before she was ready, before she had steadied her mind and body, the visions came hurtling toward her. There was no slow unfolding this time, but instead a barrage of images, full of turbulence and confusion. She saw an ant scurrying along the forest floor. She seemed to shrink, enter its body, so that she was the ant. A bird swooped down from the sky and grabbed the ant in its sharp beak. The movement was so fast she felt no fear. There was an instant of searing pain, gone almost before she registered its presence, then a strange sense of peace. She was part of the bird now, and as she perched on a limb, a shadow passed above her. Talons enclosed her flesh; again there was the instant of pain and then the peace.

  Faster and faster the images came; she felt herself growing, stretching, galloping across the plains, kicking up her heels at the joy of being there. The lion came, and she ran and ran, but soon she felt the claws, the tearing teeth and then again the peace, and understanding flooded her body. They were all one, the ant and the birds, prey and predator. They were the cycle, the Mother's cycle of life.

  The animals became themselves again, each distinct and separate. Zena saw them on a web now, a huge, circular web with many strands. It was colored like a rainbow, so beautiful to gaze upon that tears came to her eyes. Animals grazed and ran within it, birds flew and insects crawled; there were trees and plants and fish as well, and people wandering slowly through the meadows and forests. Sunlight shone down upon the web, then moonlight, so that the brilliant strands turned pale. But then clouds began to form; they grew huge and black and forbidding. A storm battered the web, and Zena thought it must break in the fierce winds, the blinding rains, for the strands seemed thin as gossamer. But like spider's silk, the web was stronger than it looked. It stretched and swayed and stretched again, but it did not break.

  A hand reached out, the hand of a man. The hand formed a fist. Zena gasped in horror, for the fist was moving toward the center of the web.

  The fist hit, and a dull sound reverberated through the air. The web pulled back in a great arc, farther and farther, and then, slowly, it returned to its former shape. One strand had broken, Zena saw, but the others were intact, and she breathed a sigh of relief. But then she gasped again in horror, for the fist was not satisfied, and it hit again and again and again, and soon there were broken strands hanging from all sides of the brilliant web. They were covered with blood and fur and feathers and mutilated bodies. Zena shrank from the sight.

  "That is the difference," she heard the Goddess tell her, and Her voice came from everywhere. It was in the air, in the rocks, the trees below, in Zena's body. The voice rose and fell, rose and fell again. Sometimes it came to Zena's ears as harshly as winter winds shrieking around the protesting cliffs; sometimes it was as soft as the whispering cadence of misty rain on grasses and leaves.

  "There is no violence in taking food as it is needed," the Goddess began, "for that is the Mother's way. But to kill for no reason cannot be forgiven. Only that can pull the web to pieces, the beautiful, vital web of My creation. Over and over again, the earth, the waters and the skies can cleanse themselves, renew themselves, but in the end, the web of their intertwined lives will die, as everything dies, if its wounds are too great. Then, even I, Goddess and Mother, cannot make it well.

  "That is what I have come to tell you. You, and all those who live by the Mother's ways, must become the guardians of My world. Long ago, all people knew the Mother, but many now have forgotten. Their numbers are growing; soon, they will spread across the earth, and with them will come violence, untold violence. Strength cannot stop them, nor even sharp knives, for their violence will be directed not just at others but at the web of life itself. Just as they believe that they, not the Mother, create life within the women, and own that life, so they will come to believe that they own the land and all that lives upon it, that they may do as they like with the Mother's creatures, with the earth itself."

  The voice faded. Zena huddled against the earth, afraid and vulnerable. She did not want to hear more. But the words came again, low and intense, and Zena felt her body tremble against the impact of the thoughts they expressed.

  "There will come a time of imbalance, when the dark will blot out the light, when the strong will brutalize the weak, when men will rule over women, force Akat upon them and make them bear young they cannot feed. In all that I have created, there has been a balance between strength and weakness, between predator and prey, between that which is female and male, between the coming of new life and the resources to nurture that life, between the joy of birth and the release of death. But when the Mother's ways are lost, the balance will die with them. So terrible will be the imbalance that the earth will no longer be able to renew itself but will strangle in its own decay. All of you to whom I have given life will be trapped in a chaos of your own making."

  Zena was weeping now, and the voice seemed to soften. It soothed her like the murmur of a stream, or the whir of a dragonfly's wings. As she listened, some of the agony left her body, for she saw that despite the violence, there was hope.

  "All that I have shown you will come to pass," the Goddess told her, "but there is much you can do to prepare. You cannot keep the violence from coming, but you can still help to save the Mother's world. Listen now as I tell you how this can be done."

  "Once before, I asked you to try to teach the Mother's ways, the ways of love and compassion, to one with violence in his heart. Now your task is far greater: to keep the Mother's ways alive as violence spreads across the earth. The time will come when you can no longer speak freely of the Mother, for the name of the Goddess will be forbidden. Then, the wisdom of the circles will be no more than a distant memory, and no one will remember that I, the Goddess, gave Akat to the women, that once My people lived in peace. But you will remember; even in death you will remember. That is your sacred task, the sacred task of all those who come after you who bear the name of Zena: to hold My secrets, all that I have taught you, so close in your heart that even death cannot dislodge them.

  "The task will be long and harsh, and none will blame you and those who follow if you falter. Year after year, even when you are shunned and persecuted and killed, you must pass the knowledge from mother to daughter, over and over again. Sometimes you will not even know that the one you worship is called Mother. You will know only that a deep and fervent love for something you cannot name lies deep within you, that it is wrong to despoil the land, the waters, to take from those who are weak and watch some starve while others feast
. For your beliefs, your courageous acts, you will be persecuted anew, but no matter how painful the torture, how great your agony to be alone, cast out of human groups or condemned never to see the light of day again, you will know you cannot be other than you are."

  Zena bent low to the ground, her body heavy with anguish. But the Goddess gave her no relief, and the words continued inexorably.

  "There is more. To keep the Mother's ways alive has little meaning if Her earth should be destroyed. That is why I have made you healer as well as wise one, for just as you heal a wound, so you can heal the land. Each of the ones called Zena will be a healer, for you will teach your daughter, she will teach the one who comes after her, she will teach the next, and so the healing will continue even as the earth is ravaged. To draw the poisons from the terrible wounds that lie open and sore, filled with putrid wastes, deep within the earth and the waters, to pull the hurt from the aching gashes that scar the valleys, the forests and hillsides, will take all the strength, the courage and vitality you possess. And after that, the poisons, the pain, must be absorbed into your own bodies and sent reeling into the vastness of the skies.

  "But even then you will not be finished. For just as a healer gives her strength to the one she heals, so you must give the Mother's wisdom, the wisdom of the circles, back to the earth. You must fill the gaping wounds, the livid scars that remain, with the caring in your hearts, with the ways of love, the Mother's ways. Though only a few will notice, the wisdom, the caring, will grow and spread until one day they are strong enough to emerge. There will be people then who will remember that once we lived in harmony with the earth and all its creatures, and they will speak. Some will argue, refuse to listen. But others will hear the message, will know in their hearts that those who seek to protect the earth speak truth. Their numbers will swell and slowly, very slowly, the web of life will be restored."