Visions

by James C. Glass

  “If you seek treasure, then take what little there is to find, and go your way. If you were a worthy leader, you would know it is not necessary to kill those too old or weak to oppose. You would know mercy, but it is not within you. It is one reason I was pleased by your leaving. Why have you returned to share your evil with us in such a way, when we have done nothing to you?”

  Hidaig put a hand on one hip, posing. “I have been invited to come here—by your son.” He looked at Maki, and smiled.

  “So, it’s your ambition that has brought this to us!” shouted Tel. “I was a fool to think you had changed, even after all the talk with your father.” She gave Maki a baleful stare, gratified when he could not look at her.

  “I did not invite Hidaig here to do this thing,” said Maki, touching his father on the shoulder. “Father, please believe me. I did not want this to happen.”

  Anka shrugged his shoulder, so that Maki’s hand fell away from him. He looked at Tel with wet eyes, lips pressed tightly together. “You were right all along, but I refused to listen. Forgive me.”

  Tel sobbed, and bent herself over the bodies of the old ones.

  Anka only glanced at his son. “Stand away from me. At this moment, I wish that you had died with your brothers.”

  Maki winced, as if struck, then turned on Hidaig, who still regarded him with amusement. “I told you to notify me when you arrived. If I’d been with you, this stupidity would never have occurred.”

  Hidaig made a bowing motion. “Oh, Great Keeper, I do not follow your orders, or those of anyone else.”

  “And where is Han? I sent him to guide you here.”

  “Ah, Han. He had an unfortunate accident, a fall—on someone’s spear. I must report he is dead.”

  There was death in Maki’s eyes, but he was holding a single weapon and surrounded by Hidaig’s warriors, in particular the giant Kretan, who watched his every move. Better to bend with the wind, for if he could reach his sleeping quarters his chances to kill Hidaig would surely improve. Still, he could not suppress a complaint. “I should have known you could not be trusted, should have known you would betray anyone for your own gain,” he grumbled.

  “Gain?” Hidaig threw back his head, and laughed. “And what do I have to gain here? Riches? Power?” He waved an arm around the cavern. “A few rotten rags, piles of cold ashes, and dead old ones who didn’t matter alive. This is my gain? Tell me, Maki, where are the others? Where are the females, and the treasure you said were here? Where are the Hinchai to kill, and the little Hanken brats you protect?”

  “They left last night,” said Tel, calmer now, “when Pegre came to get them. They are in the valley, with Hinchai protection and powerful weapons. If you go down there you wish a quick death; I hope you will do it, and my son with you.”

  “Mother!”

  “I hear the voice of a stranger. You are not my son. Do what you must, and get out!” Tel lowered her head and Anka came to her, folding his arms around her shoulders as she pressed her face against his chest to muffle her sobs.

  Maki looked from face to stony face in the eerie silence surrounding them. Even some of the warriors shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot, avoiding his eyes, minds jumbled with dark, passionate and fleeting visions that came from outside of themselves. Hidaig mocked him with a pouting face as Kretan returned the spear to a warrior, picked up his axe and came to stand at the shoulder of his leader.

  Hidaig spat on the ground near Maki’s feet. “Just look at your face, you, who would be Keeper and warrior king. When you first came to me, I almost believed you could do it, but the more I thought the more I realized you would be raised soft by old ones such as these, vision-heads full of spirits, but no stomach for fighting. How could I or my followers serve such a king? Where are your battle scars, Maki? Hmmm?”

  Maki’s eyes were wide, and streaked with red, breath coming in short gasps as the humiliation was heaped over him like dung. His body tensed, hands opening and closing as Hidaig watched him carefully, but it was Anka who attacked, ancient Anka, Keeper of The Memories, the gentle, spiritual leader who suddenly pushed away his mate with a war cry that thundered from the walls, rushing towards Hidaig with heavy arms outstretched, groping for a throat.

  Tel screamed, “Anka, no!”

  Hidaig dropped into a crouch, twisting to grab the war axe from Kretan and jabbing it hard into Anka’s stomach with one sharp thrust. Anka let out an agonized groan, and collapsed in a heap at Hidaig’s feet, grabbing at his own stomach with soft hands never used in anger. He rolled around on the floor, grasping at legs and groin, panting as Tel rushed to him, dropping to her knees at Hidaig’s feet.

  “He could be dead,” said Hidaig, “and remains alive by my choice. I give mercy, Tel, but only because Anka shows courage for one so old, and I have no good reason to kill him. See, his breath returns already; had I used the blade of my axe, his guts would now be spilling out on the floor. Now, get him to his feet.”

  As Anka rose to one knee, he clutched his stomach and gave out a groan. Something was badly broken inside of him, but he kept this to himself, arising in dignified fashion, making a gesture of dismissal to Maki as the son stepped forward to help him. Maki stepped back, looking stricken.

  “I mean you no harm, Anka,” said Hidaig, no longer amused. “There is nothing here for me, and what I want is in the valley below us. I will tend to that in a day, and rest here until then. You must not try to leave the cavern, but can wander wherever you wish within it. I need females for my band, and I intend to have them. Gold is decorative, but useless to me.”

  “There never was any gold,” said Tel, but Anka’s eyes betrayed the truth.

  “I don’t believe you, but it’s still not important. It’s the females I must have, if my band is to survive. There are many males to provide for them, and they will be safer than where they are now, close to the Hinchai devils you insist are our relatives. It is foolish notions like this that have brought pain to you.”

  Anka hung on to Tel as breath returned; a sharp ache was in the center of his stomach, and he felt nauseous. Hidaig’s band was indeed in trouble if these were all his warriors. For the most part they were an emaciated-looking bunch, without spirit, slouching on the butt-ends of stone-tipped spears. He counted twenty of them, but only one, Kretan, stood out as a classic Tenanken warrior, reminding him of Pegre in appearance. Pegre had never been tested in battle. What use for war these past fifty years? There were no tribes or nearby bands left to make war against.

  Except the Hinchai.

  His son had betrayed the band, the very thing he had been raised to nurture and protect. How had he become so infected with ambition, and why could he stand there watching while his father was beaten to the ground? Anka felt Maki’s sorrow and dangerous anger, but still the young man did nothing. Anka wanted to tell him all was forgiven, but a part of him wouldn’t allow it, the part of him that felt betrayed, and despised the betrayer.

  Hidaig was still babbling his reasons for attacking the settlement in the valley with a confidence Anka found childlike. His courage came from talk, rather than thought, and Anka ignored him, focusing instead on the steady pain deep inside him. Something was seriously wrong there, but at least the nausea was subsiding. Hidaig was in the middle of a sentence when Anka broke in on him.

  “I’m tired. Please, no more talk.” He closed his eyes, and leaned against Tel.

  “Please let us go—over there—his sleeping chamber,” said Tel, holding him and feeling the thump, thump of his heart against her shoulder.

  Hidaig was annoyed at the interruption, dismissing them with a wave of his hand. “Take him there, but do not try to leave the caves. Kretan! Send two out to find fresh food. I don’t care what it is, or how they get it. I’m hungry enough to eat Hanken.”

  The warriors laughed without humor, for they were all hungry, and now it appeared the booty they had been promised was a lie. To hunt was a chance to get out and see what lay in the valley below. What
was there would have to be worth dying for, or Hidaig would find himself fighting a battle alone. Two warriors, carrying spears and slings, stepped forward as volunteers, and Kretan sent them out with orders to return before darkness.

  They were never seen again.

  Tel remained at Anka’s side the entire night, except for two hours near dawn that nearly took her life.

  * * * * * * *

  Their private grotto ended a twenty-meter fumarole leading from the rear of the great cavern. Extending from the grotto, with its tiny pool and piles of sleeping furs were several smaller fumaroles, all of which dead-ended after only a few meters. But one curved sharply in a helical way to a passageway, more a subterranean crack than a tunnel, leading to the upward slanting corridor to their favorite ledge from which they often watched the outside night. It was the place at which three of their now dead children had been conceived.

  Over the years the passageway had become their special secret, giving them a way to escape the cavern for a private moment. Tel thought of this as she watched the labored breathing of her mate-of-two lifetimes, hearing the faint wheeze at the end of each exhalation. In the great cavern nearby, warriors slept, sprawled out on ledges, spears at hand while Hidaig talked, pacing back and forth, anxiously waiting for his hunters to return. Tel could think of only one way to send a distress signal. Fire. Any light coming from the cave area would be a sure sign of danger, if seen by Pegre, giving him time to prepare for fight, or to flee.

  Finally, her inner clock told her it was night, but barely so. Perhaps he would be outside, at least for a moment. At this distance the mind touch was a whisper in the wind, not to be relied on. It must be now, though she knew the risk was considerable. If Hidaig caught her, even his superstition would not prevent her death.

  She searched the grotto for what she needed, feeling with her hands because of the dim light of her tiny lamp of tar-saturated fur. Anka’s meditation crystal, a thumb-sized piece of clear quartz, twinkled at her from a shallow niche in one wall. She fumbled in and around the sleeping furs, pulling out small, hide bags, checking their contents, putting them back again: herbs and seeds, crushed and dried flowers, a dark crystal with which it was said she cast spells, but was really just a pretty thing she couldn’t throw away, and finally her flints. One thing worked in her favor; this time of year the ledges were covered with dried leaves, twigs and small branches blown there by the wind. She would have a plentiful supply of burning material.

  Anka moaned as Tel crawled out of the grotto. Dear one, she thought, I fear your pain, but I must leave you for a little while. She crawled on, the little bag with her supplies dangling from a long thong draped around her neck. It was an effort to move upwards; the walls were smooth, and her knees protested the pressure as she pressed feet hard against rock to gain friction for pushing ahead. Dim light from the grotto disappeared, and she was advancing by feel and memory in total, inky darkness. In the crack the climb was easier, the channel an inverted triangle with solid bottom and rough walls where hands could be placed flat for balance. She moved quickly along the channel without a stumble, until she saw the glimmer of light coming up from the floor. A hole was there, dropping into a snarl of short fumaroles, one leading to the torch-lit tunnel thrusting upwards to outside ledges.

  Tel crouched at the edge of the hole for several minutes, listening, probing for a thought or vision. Nothing. She slipped through the opening, and with a short slide was in the tunnel. She could hear faint voices coming from the main cavern. Watching her feet to avoid loose stones, she hurried upwards, a sense of mission coming to her along with a sharp pain in her chest. She slowed to the point that the pain was a dull ache, and the exit to night appeared ahead, wind hitting her face as she crawled out onto the narrow ledge. She crawled along it on hands and knees, picking up twigs and dried leaves caught in cracks and crevices in the rock, disappointed at how little she found to burn. One larger limb was lodged in a crack above head. When she stretched high to reach it, something gave beneath her foot, and for one horrible instant she felt herself toppling backwards over the edge and into the trees below. She jackknifed her body back onto the ledge, heart thumping so wildly she saw flashes of light before her eyes. She stretched again, grabbing the limb and angrily jerking it free before breaking it into pieces with her hands. It would be a small fire, visible for only a short time. She arranged the sticks in crisscross pattern over the tinder she took from her bag, added some leaves and twigs, then went to work with her flints.

  She hunched over her work, batting the pieces of hard stone together until the first wisp of smoke arose from the tinder. Cupping her hands about the glowing fluff, she blew on it gently, adding twigs until a tiny flame burst forth. She added more twigs as the flame grew, a small breeze encouraging it. Only when she added the few large pieces of wood could she feel heat, a transient thing of only a moment. There was no more wood on the ledge. She watched the little fire burning brightly within sight of the valley for only a few heart beats, then crawled back along the ledge and into the tunnel.

  Her hand brushed a hairy ankle, and strong hands seized her, pulling her roughly to her feet and shaking her furiously.

  Hidaig.

  “So I’m not imagining strange sounds in the tunnel. Perhaps you will tell me how you got here without being seen, eh? And what have you been up to? Let’s see.”

  He released her, got down on his hands and knees, and crawled out onto the ledge, dragging a spear with him and looking to his right.

  “This is a bad thing you’ve done, Tel.”

  Her mind whirled. If she pushed hard, he might go off the ledge—or grab her—or run her through with the spear.

  Tel fled. Hair streaming behind her, she stumbled down the tunnel as fast as old legs would take her.

  Hidaig hesitated, then crawled outside, reached out with his spear and swept the now weakly flaming signal fire off the ledge and down into the canyon below. When he crawled back inside, he could still hear her feet pounding the floor of the tunnel. He leveled his spear and charged after her, having made the decision that even though she was a Keeper, he, Hidaig, was now chasing only a doomed, old woman.

  But Tel had a good head start, heard him now, and knew he could quickly catch her if she remained in the tunnel. On her left were countless fumaroles leading to nowhere, except in one tangled cluster. It was already in sight, and she darted into it, twisting painfully around two corners, legs burning from the short run. She took a deep breath, palms pressing down on smooth rock, and pulled her self up into the ceiling with a grunt, the sounds of Hidaig’s feet right behind her. Her feet were last up in the darkness, and she rolled away from the opening as her pursuer thundered past in the tunnel, never breaking stride. A few seconds later she heard him screaming at someone in the main cavern.

  She’d been seen. Hidaig would realize she had somehow reached the tunnel from the grotto. Any minute they would search for her, but their time was running short. Hidaig planned to attack the valley settlement in the morning; she’s overheard him talking about it. Only hours to dawn, and he’d have to be in position by then, so if she could find a good place to hide....

  Pitch darkness, and she moved back towards the grotto by feel, despairing that her signal fire had not been seen. It was so tiny, and surely Hidaig had quickly destroyed it. Her efforts had only endangered her life, and what about Anka? But he knew nothing; he hadn’t even seen her leave. Surely they wouldn’t....

  Suddenly she was filled with a terrible fear.

  She scrambled forward in the crack, calling up visions of what she had seen under torchlight, checking against what she felt with feet and hands until she found what she wanted, and stopped abruptly to feel the rock on her left. A wide crack above a quartzite nubbin, a jagged cut up the shallow wall to the ceiling, or so it seemed at first sight. In fact, the wall ended in a shelf just below the ceiling, invisible until she was right there. Now where was the crack?

  She clawed frantically with her
hands, and found it.

  The climb upwards was harder than she remembered. How long had it been? And she’d had a torch then. Now, in blackness, she moved by feel as the floor dropped further and further behind her. Not a vertical climb, but steep enough so that a slide back to the floor could break her old bones. Her hands hurt from gripping rock, growing weaker by the second, but then as she reached forward for a new hold there was nothing but air. She explored over her head, and found the ceiling. Inch by inch, feeling ahead, she pulled herself onto the shelf, a rocky womb at the top of the wall.

  Exhausted, and feeling secure in her hiding place, she slept—

  And was instantly awake.

  To light—and voices.

  Yellow light flickered on the ceiling near her face, though her hiding place was in darkness. Below her a scraping sound came from the direction of the grotto, followed by a mumbled curse.

  “Here it is. Above their sleeping chamber.”

  There was a short pause of silence.

  “Can you hear me?” There was a scraping sound, perhaps a spear against rock. “Can’t even turn around in here. I’m in a kind of tunnel.”

  There was no answer. The light was moving below her, now, and she heard the crunch of footsteps. “Where are you?”

  Suddenly she heard a reply, quite faint. The footsteps quickened, the nearby ceiling again fading to darkness. “I see a light! Can you hear me?”

  Another muffled reply. Whoever it was must now be near the exit. There was another scrape of spear against rock. “Here! Over here. I see your shadow.”

  She heard Hidaig’s voice. “A tunnel. So she came through here.”

  “Empty, now,” said the other Tenanken.

  “She must have come out again when I passed here the first time. There’s too many of these things to hide in, and she can’t help them now. Check the tunnel again, then join us in the big cavern. We have to leave soon. Tel can rot here by herself, and bury her dead. Hurry!”