by Clare Bell
With a welcoming smile, Chamol handed Kesbe a crispy piece of hot sapiki waferbread. She laid the rest in a basket and bore it into the house, followed by a hungry-looking Jolo and his small aronan. The sight of the creature made Kesbe think of Imiya and Haewi Namij.
“Where’s your nephew this morning?” she asked Nabamida through a mouthful of tangy waferbread.
“He is in his quarters at Aronan House, preparing for the Cloud Dance. You will see him in the celebration.”
“I thought he lived here, with Chamol.”
“No,” Nabamida answered. “One cannot keep a grown flier in the pueblo. Aronan House was built as a special place for the child-warriors and their mounts.”
“Is that the reason this village is called Tuwayhoima, The-Place-Where-Aronans-Emerge?”
The question seemed to take Nabamida by surprise, though he lost none of his genial manner as he replied, “No, that is not the reason.” He paused and changed the subject. “You are interested in the fliers.”
“We don’t have aronans where I come from. To me, they are very unusual and beautiful. I can’t help but be curious.”
“Of course, of course,” puffed the bowmaker. His lips still smiled beneath his goatee, though a spark of wariness seemed to have crept into his eyes. “And you are not of the Pai Yinaye.”
Kesbe felt her hackles rise at this, though she was sure Nabamida had not meant it as an intentional slight. He seemed to think it strange that she, as a grown woman, should be so taken by the flying creatures. He could only explain it by saying she was from the outside, where tribal rules and customs did not apply.
“Nabamida, I would like to visit Aronan House,” she said, trying not to sound too stiff. “Is it permitted?”
He smoothed his beard with a middle finger, a gesture she had learned was habitual. “Adults do not usually go there, but because it is your wish, and the council looks upon you with favor, I will take you.”
He evidently assumed she meant now, for without further conversation he set off down the path to the lower part of the village. She followed, taking long crutch-steps to keep up.
Aronan House, unlike the other dwellings in Tuwayhoima, was not set back into the great cavern that sheltered the village, but placed right out on the cliff edge. It appeared to have two levels. The ground entrance was of the same block tee-shaped construction as the doors in Chamois house. The second level had large openings that Kesbe took to be windows until she saw a flier glide in through one. Nabamida spoke quickly to a boy at the entrance, then held the door hangings aside for Kesbe.
She was shown briefly about the ground floor, which contained quarters for the young child-riders. Each small cell held a lash-pole ladder leading to a corresponding stall above it where, Nabamida explained, the child’s mount lived. The aronans entered and left by flying through the large openings on the second floor. The only way up or down for the children was by means of ladders. She saw no ramps or stairways. She stopped and looked up a ladder. “May I?”
Nabamida and the boy exchanged quizzical glances. “I will go first,” said the bowmaker. The ladder bowed under the weight of Nabamida’s stocky frame. Kesbe passed her crutches to him, then hitched her way backwards up the ladder.
She found herself in a long clay-floored chamber divided into low partitions along one side. The room held the strong sage-odor of aronans along with the smell of stone and clay masonry. In each open stall stood a water jar. Hanging from the ceiling was a wooden framework, specially fashioned to allow a flier to hang upside-down while at rest, as one was doing in the end stall. Most of the other partitions were empty. Kesbe felt disappointed.
“They are probably in the courtyard,” said Nabamida, puffing a bit after his ascent. “There was no use in coming up here.”
A rising drone and the sound of scuffling drew her attention from him. At the end of the chamber was another doorway with woven hangings across it shouts and scraping noises came from beyond. Grabbing her crutches, Kesbe hoisted herself up. One of the voices sounded like Imiya’s though the angry buzz was not from Haewi Namij. She smelled something sharp and spicy that intrigued her. Before Nabamida could react, she made her way across the floor and threw back the hangings.
Four teenaged boys surrounded a struggling aronan, trying to leash it with ropes. The creature was losing, but it had put up a good fight, two of the youths were on the floor and one was nursing a bitten hand. But they were gradually forcing the flier into a latticework cage built in one corner of the room. A haze of scale-dust surrounded the combatants.
Kesbe’s appearance startled everyone except the aronan into immobility. The creature took advantage of the distraction to back into a corner, where it crouched, ragged wings lifted menacingly. She saw Imiya pick himself off the floor, his brows bent, his mouth a thin line. “You should not be here.” His gaze went beyond her to Nabamida. “Uncle, take her away.”
Kesbe ignored both of them. “Imiya, you surprise me. After riding and caring for Haewi Namij, how can you mistreat this creature? This has to have some explanation.” Some of the other young men looked startled. She gave them sharp glances.
“This is not something a guest should concern herself with,” said Nabamida mildly.
“When I see what I think is cruelty, I concern myself with it,” Kesbe snapped, feeling her face flush
“You should be sure it is indeed cruelty before you act.” Nabamida paused, faced the youths. “This appears unworthy of you as child-warriors of the Pai Yinaye. To make such a scene in the presence of one who is a guest and looked upon with favor by the council…”
Imiya fidgeted until Nabamida finished. “Uncle, do you not remember? This is the creature that Mahana’s brother rode until he was killed by the wuwucbpi last spring.”
To Kesbe, that made no difference at all, but it seemed to influence Nabamida. He stroked his beard with his middle finger, his head to one side. “Ah, the troublesome one. Of course you must cage it before the Cloud Dance begins, but dragging it with ropes is not the best way.’
“Nabamida,” Kesbe said, baffled to the point of losing her temper, “could someone explain to me why this flier should be mistreated just because its rider was killed? Do the Pai Yinaye hold the aronan responsible for the young man’s death?”
“No, you do not understand,” interrupted Imiya almost frantically. “If this aronan is left free during the Cloud Dance, it will attack the others and disrupt the ceremony. That would disgrace us in the eyes of Hotopa Wuwuchpi and the rain-spirits. Such a thing nearly happened during the last ceremonial. We had to catch this creature and tether it.”
Kesbe glanced at the aronan crouched defensively in the corner. It had its mandibles fully extended, something she had never seen in the peaceable Haewi Namij. From the look of the wound it had given one of the boys, those mouthparts could be effective weapons. “Why would it attack its fellows during the Cloud Dance?” she asked, still disbelieving.
“Because the boy who flew it in the Dance is now dead,” said Nabamida softly.
“Then it grieves.”
“Yes. It also has lost its role in the ceremonial and mourns for that as well. Yet, were it left loose, the ceremonial would suffer.”
Kesbe was a bit skeptical about attributing such sophisticated understanding to a flier. Nabamida was being too anthropomorphic for her taste. She turned to Imiya. “Do aronans really have those feelings? Does Haewi Namij?”
She regretted her phrasing of the question as soon as she saw the flicker of pain across his face.
“Why should aronans not have such feelings? My Haewi Namij has flown the Cloud Dance for many seasons. The ceremonials are as important to the aronans as they are to us, even though you may think it strange,” the boy retorted.
“Imiya,” said his uncle, in a firm voice. “Though this is the last time you fly Haewi in the Cloud Dance, it is no excuse to be impolite to our guest.” Imiya flushed until he was as red-brown as the adobe of Aronan House. Kesbe wis
hed she wasn’t there. She glanced around. The renegade flier still crouched in the corner.
Nabamida noticed it too. “Imiya, run to the Kiva of Brooding and get Nyentiwakay. Tell Sahacat I sent you. If we must do this thing, at least let us do it properly.”
Eagerly the boy scrambled down the ladder and disappeared. His absence left an awkward silence. “I apologize for my nephew,” Nabamida began. “I do not know why he is so upset. All Pai youths must pass from one life to another, yet it seems so difficult for him.”
Kesbe’s eyes were still on the feral aronan. Something was stirring in her mind that she knew would mean trouble, yet she couldn’t help herself. “It still doesn’t seem right that this poor creature should be caged. Can’t someone else ride it?”
Nabamida sighed while the remaining boys exchanged sideways glances. “Such a thing is not done among the Pai.”
“Then what will be done?”
“That is a painful question. We may be faced with having to drive the rogue away. That has happened before. If it will not go, it will be killed mercifully by poison. The council will decide.”
Kesbe was scarcely able to believe the bowmaker’s words but the solemn look in his round bearded face told her they were true. “Nobody wants this aronan?”
Nabamida was opening his mouth to reply when the ladder creaked and Imiya’s head appeared through the hole. “The lomucfualt follows,” he said to Nabamida. Kesbe peered over Nabamida’s shoulder, eager for a glimpse of Nyentiwakay and curious how the presence of this individual would solve the problem of caging the rebellious aronan.
When Nyentiwakay arrived, Kesbe wondered if Imiya had somehow summoned the wrong person. Nyentiwakay looked young, female, and apparently a few months pregnant. The lomutfualt, as Imiya had called her, was robed in dark purple, her head covered in a hood so deep that her face was shadowed. The beginning swell of her body was not hidden by the cassock, she walked erect with her head thrown back and her belly thrust forward, proud of her bearing.
Everyone drew aside, making a path for Nyentiwakay to the aronan. It was huddling close to the floor, its head extended in a way that spoke of pain and despair. Its antennae were curled it wanted no contact. It shivered.
To Kesbe, the situation made no sense. Sending a young woman with child to tame such a creature was an act akin to madness. Yet even as Kesbe thought of interfering, Nyentiwakay passed close to her and paused, as if she could sense a stranger’s thoughts.
In that brief instant, Kesbe knew that this girl was more than she seemed. The power of her walk, the length of her stride, the broad-shouldered body that seemed spare despite the beginning swell of pregnancy, gave forth an impression that demanded respect.
The aronan clacked its mouth parts and gave an eerie scraping hiss. Again Kesbe wanted to pull Nyentiwakay back, but the girl was too far away from her. She approached the flier from the side. It curved its head around to face her, lifting its wings. Nyentiwakay began to chant, in a voice that dipped unexpectedly into a tenor. She knelt beside the aronan and still it did not attack.
Kesbe noticed a scent growing throughout the room. At first it was the human smell of sweat and skin, but it quickly became more sexual, reminding Kesbe of the woman-odor that swirled about the healer Sahacat. She was sure that the source was Nyentiwakay. She felt acutely embarrassed and glanced sideways at Nabamida and the young men, wondering what they thought of this.
Though the smell was strong, it was neither unpleasant nor dirty and it did not seem to offend anyone’s nose except for her own, accustomed as she was to deodorized people and environments. It occurred to her that Nyentiwakay’s smell might be an essential part of the young woman’s power.
Nyentiwakay began to stroke the aronan, first gently, then rhythmically. Its antennae began to uncurl and its shuddering ceased. The sharp scintillations that had been crossing its compound eyes like lightning flashes against a thunderhead faded out. The odor emanating from the young woman changed, becoming richer and spicier, then developing a strong overlay that Kesbe could not identify. She found all sorts of thoughts coming unbidden to her mind as the scent flooded her olfactory nerves. Many were random, disconnected, yet loaded with such intensity that she feared she would break into laughter or tears.
Some of the strongest impressions were of aronans. She remembered how she had seen the Imiya’s mount from Gooney Berg. She imagined how it would be to fly aboard Haewi Namij, how the wind would sing in her ears and past the aronan’s wings as together they soared the vast spaces between canyon walls. Now, the regret that she would never take flight in that way brought sorrow up from a place inside her she hadn’t known was there. Her desire rushed to the fore, beating hard and hot inside her chest as she looked at Nyentiwakay stroking the aronan.
Without realizing it, she had moved toward the pair and was standing, gazing down on them. Politeness and respect demanded that she back away, but somehow she was caught up in a wave of possessiveness that thrust courtesy aside along with common sense. Leaning on one crutch, she stooped beside Nyentiwakay, putting her hand out to touch the creature.
The robed figure’s hand grew still on the aronan, but otherwise Nyentiwakay made no sign she had been disturbed. The smell around Kesbe, however, seemed to change character abruptly, dispersing into a series of sub-odors, as if it had been strangely “shattered.” Another smell took its place, coming from the creature itself. The girl had gentled it into near immobility,-now it stirred, turning its narrow muzzle to stare at Kesbe.
The aronan’s antennae unfurled, sweeping the back of her hand. The odor coming from it was bleak, making Kesbe think of things empty, abandoned. The feeling evoked by the creature’s scent deepened into an aching black hole that frightened and saddened Kesbe by the depths of its pain. She tried to give, to soothe, to comfort…
The aronan’s antennae paused as if the creature were startled, then suddenly began to twine about her wrists. The smell in her nostrils became sharp, metallic, demanding. Want. I want. I want you, the thought banged in her brain, but this time the emotion was not hers. It came from those entwined antennae and the increasing strength of an odor becoming hypnotic in its effect.
A distant part of her mind was frightened and repulsed by the clinging antennae and the strong message that was coming to her from the aronan. Something else pushed that part back and sought to reply with an intensity she could hardly bear. Yes, I want you, I won’t let them poison you, yes, I want you…
She found herself being dragged back. The antennae were forcibly loosened from her wrists. She felt them groping for her hands, then slipping away…Nyentiwakay’s chant began again, with a certain tone of urgency. Above her head, she heard Nabamida arguing with someone else.
“I do not know why she reacted that way,” he was saying in a flustered voice. “She is grown, she should not be susceptible to the smell-trance…”
Kesbe gasped, blinked, wondered why her thoughts were in such a whirl and why she was on her back on the gritty clay floor with a cloth stinking of some sort of drug being pressed into her face. It seemed to be affecting her nose, deadening her olfaction. Abruptly, her mind righted itself, as if it had been abruptly overturned. A hand helped her sit up, let her hold the cloth. Nabamida.
“—has not been lomugualt?” said a voice over her head as she caught a scrap of conversation, “Is that possible?”
“What happened?” she said aloud in English, then switched to Pai when all she got were puzzled looks. Across the room, the aronan was lying still with Nyentiwakay standing over it. Had they killed it?
“Keep the cloth to your nose,” said Nabamida sharply. She breathed deeply. It had a burning tingle like camphor in her sinuses and it helped to clear her head. Again her eyes went to the aronan. Several boys and Nabamida were lifting it up, bearing it to a lashed-pole cage. She saw a leg twitch, a wing flutter. What had it been trying to say to her?
No. Whatever communication had taken place was not in the language of words. She s
till remembered the echo of an alien grief. Groping for her crutches, she lurched to her feet, still keeping the cloth to her face. “Nabamida,” she said, her voice muffled. “Don’t cage the aronan. Please.”
Imiya’s uncle made a gesture to the boys. They paused, letting the creature down. Nabamida came to her, his eyes wide with concern. “The aronan smell—it has affected you. We did not expect this to happen. It was an accident. You must put it from your mind.”
“How can I?” Kesbe burst out, taking the cloth from her face. Nabamida gently pushed it back against her nose. “I know. The immediacy of the experience makes it powerful. But it does not let the other parts of your mind function.”
“Nabamida,” she swallowed. “If you cage that creature and leave it, I think it will die. Grief isn’t a strong enough word for what it is feeling. Neither is despair. I know. I felt it too.”
The man bit his lip beneath his beard. He turned to Nyentiwakay. “Is that true?”
The woman clasped her hands together, hands that Kesbe noticed were large, blunt-fingered and veined on the back. “It is,” she answered in her soft tenor.
“Hai, what are we to do? We cannot let it free during the Cloud Dance. Neither can we leave someone behind with it, for the rain-spirits would be angered if all the Pai did not attend the ceremonial.” Nabamida rubbed the hairs of his beard with his forefinger in an agitated manner.
“Is there any way that this aronan could somehow be included in the ceremonial?” Kesbe asked. “Not in the Cloud Dance itself, but perhaps it could watch. Nyentiwakay, would that help?” She turned to the purple-robed figure of the pregnant woman.