by Jack Lasenby
Nip yelping, we ran down. Waves jobbled and flared tiny suns. Knee-deep, Kalik danced impatient. “Dreaming again, Ish!” He leapt into the front of the canoe.
“What about food?”
“We’ll catch something if we’re hungry enough,” he cried, already paddling. Nip jumped in and shook herself.
“Ugh!”
I laughed, slid in behind Kalik. Our paddles dashed. We skimmed across the water. I would never begin a journey without food. Nor would Taur. Arku’s people used to say hunger makes the best hunter, but they starved in the Great Hunger.
Kalik said over his shoulder, “Why carry more than we have to?”
His muscles tensed as he levered against the water, relaxing, taking the strain again. I thought of my dream of the Carny. I must have imagined Kalik into it, put his face on the Showman, and confused them. It was just a dream: the mind out of control, making random pictures, absurd stories that disappeared in the logic of daylight.
“Don’t dismiss all dreams,” the Shaman had told me. “The art is in learning which one is telling you something. Offering an answer to a problem. Learn to recognise the true dream.”
“Wake up, Ish!”
“I was thinking.”
“Dreaming, more likely.” Kalik paddled faster, and I kept up to him. Bays, beaches slipped by, grassy hillsides. Some trees. Scrub. Nothing worth felling and dragging down for timber.
“Why aren’t there bigger trees here?”
Kalik didn’t look round. “We’ve cut all the easy stuff this end of the lake. And fired a lot.”
“But –”
“We burned off the hills close to the Headland, so the sentries can see anyone coming. It was dry. The fires spread further than we expected.” His paddle chopped the water. “Sometimes you fell several trees before you find one good enough for a canoe.”
“Still –”
“People have been living here a long time, Ish.”
“Then why haven’t the trees regrown?”
“Goats. Deer browsing.”
I thought of the deserts of the Western Coast, the North Land. “Why not plant trees handy to the Headland? Protect them from the animals.”
Kalik struck the water with the flat of his blade. “Don’t make me laugh, Ish!”
We paddled, and he said, “I like to keep an eye on the timber camp anyway. But this time they’ve found a tote. If it’s big enough and sound, it might make a canoe.”
Kalik was good company. He sang the songs of his people, told their stories. I listened and laughed. Still I kept his cruelty in mind, and the dream of the Showman.
The second afternoon, a stag swam from an island. Hunger drove our paddles as Kalik promised. Head laid back along the top of the water, the stag spotted us. The eye rolled in terror. A single spear thrust through the back of the neck. Whooping, we dragged it ashore. The mountains blacker than the sky, night edging down the lake, shadows dulled the bays, and we were still gorging. Nip cracking bones. A bit of wood snapped sparks.
“Who put tote on the fire?”
“Must have been you.”
“I know tote sparks. It was you!”
“You threw it on with that armload.” I pulled out the piece of tote and flung it still burning to hiss in the lake. For a moment its own light showed steam then darkness folded over the water.
Kalik stared into the fire. “Long ago there was a goddess who guarded the secret of fire. She tried many hiding-places. At last she hid it inside her own body.
“A hero called Promise had just made the first humans from clay. He breathed life into them, and they stirred and spoke. Promise loved his children. Their first summer they played, then came winter. His children began dying of cold. Promise came through the Western Mountains to the Land of the Lake, looking for the goddess who guarded the secret of fire.
“He was so beautiful, the goddess desired him. But first she set him three dangerous tasks. Promise performed them bravely. She set three problems. He solved them with kindness. She set him three questions. He answered wisely. The goddess took him into her bed. And Promise found the fire inside the goddess. He waited until she slept, stole it, and ran to give it to his children.
“The goddess woke cold. She flew across the lake, tracked Promise up the river into the mountains. But he heard the wind of her coming and threw the sparks of fire into the branches of the insignificant little tote tree and whispered the secret to his children.
“Thinking he had eaten it, the goddess caught Promise and ate him. Still she was cold. Raging, she returned along the way Promise had come, asking the rocks and hills and streams if they had the secret. She asked the trees. She asked the clouds and the lake. But since the tote tree was small and insignificant she did not bother asking it.
“And the tote tree grew its bark over the secret of fire. Its trunk grew thicker and thicker around the secret. The tips of its leaves grew sharp at the bite of fire. Its wood grew red as the flame. And the tote grew to be one of the greatest trees, living longer than people.
“Many years passed. Most of Promise’s children had died of the cold, but a few remembered the secret he whispered before his death. They let loose the fire from inside the red wood, warmed themselves, cooked their food. Some learned to melt iron with fire, to drive away fear. Fire became their greatest tool.
“Since that time, people have lit their fires with a few shavings of tote. And the tote always spits sparks if people waste it. Promise allowed himself to be eaten – so he might give the secret of fire to his children – but the tote is too valuable just for burning.
“The spirit of fire gives the wood its virtue, makes it float. The Floating Village was built on a platform of tote logs. Its timber is light and strong. It will stand in the ground a man’s lifetime without rotting. It splits easily, yet it is tough across the grain. So men made canoes from the tote. They split it into planks for their walls, shingles for their roofs, posts to hold them up. And because it lasts forever, they carve the stories of their ancestors into the tote.
“My people carved a great trunk of tote. It showed Promise making his children from clay, sleeping with the goddess, stealing the fire, and hiding it in the tote. The goddess eating Promise, searching for the secret. The last carvings show humans lighting their fires, building their houses, their canoes, carving their stories out of the timber of the tote tree.
“When our people joined with Lutha’s on the Headland, Ish, we rafted our great carved tree down the lake. We dragged it up on rollers, on top of the Headland. It stands at the centre, holding up the roof of the Roundhouse.”
“And yet you never see it now?” I said.
“It is enough that we know it is there. And Lutha and her Maidens worship our tree beside Hekkat.”
I watched Kalik flick twigs into the fire with an easy jerk of his wrist. As always, his movements were elegant. “What happened to the goddess?”
“She burrowed under Grave Mountain to escape the cold. She is still there, with Promise inside her body. In icy torment. And the mountain smokes from its summit while it lies upon her in never-ending punishment.
“But that’s just a story.” Kalik laughed at my serious face. “One the old people tell.”
“Do you know any more?”
His voice changed again. “Long, long ago, many more people lived in villages around the lake. You can still see the terraces where they built their houses. Some of our tracks follow their old Ways, those long flat stretches that wind through the hills. Those vanished people were the subjects of the King of Grave Mountain.
“Once he led his army south, to fight the people beside a great lake there. But the further he went from Grave Mountain, the weaker he became. His people thought he was dying and carried him home. As they got near Grave Mountain, his strength returned. The king swore never to leave the mountain again.
“He travelled under the mountain and learned wisdom: all about Healing, how to grow crops, when to fish, when to hunt. Best of a
ll he knew how to rule his people, to keep them safe and happy. All his power came from inside the mountain.
“The king grew old and chose a boy to succeed him. When he had taught the boy everything he knew, he took him inside the mountain to learn the secret of wisdom. They returned. The old king died, and the boy took his place. And life went on for the people of the lake, king replacing king.”
How like the story of the Shaman it was. “And always a king?” I asked.
“Never a queen.”
“Why not?”
“Because of an even older story.” I could just see Kalik’s smile.
Chapter 13
Dreams of Dreams
“Never a queen.” Kalik said again. I felt Lutha’s silver bow on its cord. Its shape was like his mouth.
“Tell me.”
“You’ve had enough stories.”
I shook my head. Kalik’s words excited memories – like catching glimpses of a country I once knew. Clouds parting to reveal clouds, dreams of dreams.
I threw dry scrub on the embers. Smoke. Puff! The flame lit up Kalik’s face, and the canoe behind him. The lake black.
“All that talking,” Kalik said, “it’s made me hungry again.”
“I’ll cook more meat if you’ll tell me that story.” I raked coals, grilled steaks. We ate it with our fingers, bloody juice down our chins. Nip watched and chewed on her bone. I groaned, slumped against a log.
Kalik grunted. “I’m too full to talk.”
“You promised.”
Kalik drank water from a gourd. “Far to the west of the Western Mountains,” he said, “there was once a kingdom with soil so fertile it grew a heavy crop of wheat each year. Animals grew fat. Forests covered the hills. The people boasted their rivers flowed with milk and honey. Only one thing was wrong: their beautiful queen, Queen Amtris, feared getting old.
“She poisoned the king, her husband, and took younger and younger lovers. She dressed lavishly, rich gowns, rare jewellery. Her entertainments were costly.
“Queen Amtris taxed the people cruelly. They took so many crops off the land, the soil began to die. They planted more crops. Bred more animals. Felled the forests. The soil decayed further. Still the queen demanded more: she insulted the soil.
“The gods are not mocked. The sun went mad. It dried the rivers, burnt the grass and trees, made a desert of the once-rich soil.
“Beside the last spring, Queen Amtris built pleasure gardens and walled them with an armoured hedge of steel thorns. Through a gap she led her seven sons and seven daughters, her court, lovers, servants, guards. Behind them, the steel thorns clanged shut.
“Inside the pleasure gardens, scarlet flowers tumbled and hid the armoured hedge. All was feasting, music, dancing. Great cages held wild bears, beasts, and birds for their entertainment. Fish leapt in the stream.
“Outside, people died under the malignant sun. The last sound they heard was the queen’s laughter rippling like water.
“The last man left outside flung himself, arms wide-open, upon the steel thorns of the armoured hedge. Red flowers garlanded his head. The guards thrust with their spears too late. His curse rang across the pleasure gardens. ‘Queen Amtris, may you grow old, wither hideous, and die!’
“Queen Amtris looked in her mirrored walls, in her lovers’ eyes for any sign of ageing. She felt her face for lines. She spoke soft and low. She smiled instead of laughing. If she did not open her mouth wide, if she did not screw up her eyes and laugh, no wrinkles would form, she hoped.
“But wrinkles creviced the corners of her eyes, her upper lip. Weeping, Queen Amtris buried her first son alive, hoping the god of the underworld would mistake him for her. So she would live forever.
“At the beginning of each year she buried another of her sons alive.”
“And did she?”
“Did she what?”
“Live for ever?”
Kalik smiled. “The year after she buried her seventh son, she counted her wrinkles and found seven more. She swept through her palace, half-strangled her oldest daughter – in her own long black hair. Skinned her while she was still half-alive. And drew that living skin, its long black hair, over her own head, over her own body. Hoping to live again through the death of youth. But inside her daughter’s skin, Queen Amtris grew still older.”
Something splashed. Too big for a fish. I listened, but there was only Nip cracking a bone beside me, and Kalik telling the story I already knew: Old Hagar’s story of the crone who strangled and skinned her own daughter.
“Disguising herself from Death, each year Queen Amtris killed another daughter until only her youngest remained. The queen counted her wrinkles and found seven more. Screaming, she half-strangled her last daughter. Skinned her alive. Inside that youthful skin, bald head hidden under her youngest daughter’s long black hair, Queen Amtris quickened and gave birth to all the birds and beasts and fishes of the world. The last creatures she bore were the children of our race.
“Then Death came like a lover. In his arms Queen Amtris lay. He held a lamp and watched the youthful skin crease in dusty cracks and folds. The long black hair fell out, left her ancient skull bare. And Death ate Queen Amtris.
“The trees around her pleasure gardens burned. The bears bent apart the iron bars of their cages, tore a gap in the armoured hedge. The other animals and birds followed. They found a river that died on the edge of the desert, followed it into the mountains where it grew bigger towards its source. They climbed and flew through the mountains to the land of the lake. Bear. Deer. Goat. Sheep. Dog. Boar. Donkey. Bull.”
“Bull?” I asked.
“Where do you think we got the horns from, for the sentries? Somewhere to the south in the hills.” Kalik nodded and went on.
“Last of all, the children escaped. The desert invaded the pleasure gardens. Trees, flowers, and spring choked in sand.
“Into the mountains the children followed the bears’ tracks, up the river that died. Where snow hid the track, bears waited to show the way. After the last children passed, they froze into pillars of rock and ice.
“The children chose the first King of the Mountain, became the first People of the Lake. They hunted and caught the animals, the fish, and birds. Lutha’s people and mine are descended from those children.”
Kalik looked down the invisible lake to Grave Mountain hidden in darkness.
“What about the king?”
“I told you in the other story: when he knew he was dying, the old king chose a boy to learn his wisdom, showed him the secret way under the mountain. When the boy had learned all there was to know, he came out of the mountain, a young man, and paid for his wisdom. The old king blinded the young man.”
“Yes!”
Kalik smiled. “The young man then killed the old king and ruled until he became old and trained another boy in wisdom. Blind king succeeded blind king.
“Then a goddess came out of the Western Mountains,” said Kalik, “and overthrew the last of the blind kings. When she grew old, she waded into the lake and turned to stone. So she stands on the earth, in the water, and in the air. And ever since that time, women have ruled.”
The fire burned down. The splash again. Somewhere upon the dark shrug of the lake I saw a mound of black water vanish like a half-formed thought. As if some savage spirit had listened to Kalik’s story, and sneered at what it heard.
Kalik drew up his deerskin blanket. “That’s the story my old people tell. But it ends with a prediction. Before the goddess turned to stone, as she stood in the lake, she prophesied that a Stranger would come some day. A Stranger who would overthrow the rule of women, her own worship.”
I drew up my deerkskin. I had told nothing of the Library to Lutha and Kalik. Nothing of the blinding of the Shaman, the getting of wisdom. Nothing of Sodomah and the Garden of Dene. As I thought that, Kalik chuckled again.
“You came over the Western Mountains, Ish. You saw the frozen bears in the pass. You came to the lake and disappe
ared under the mountain. You brought back Lutha’s father. And he was called the Shaman, our word for a wise man.
“You returned with the blind king. You were there when the Salt Men shot him and he died. But you have both your eyes. Did the blind king fail to blind you before he died himself?” Kalik laughed. The air was suddenly cold.
“What was the Goddess’s name?” I asked even though I knew what it must be.
Kalik laughed again. “The daughter of the Goddess of Fire,” he said. “Goddess of the Moon, and Childbirth. Goddess of the Hunt. The Virgin Goddess. She has many names. One of them is Hekkat.
“Perhaps the gods have sent you to end her rule, Ish. Like quenching a bit of burning tote. Have you thought you could be King of Grave Mountain?”
I listened to his chuckle, knowing that all I ever wanted was a family. And a place of my own.
A little wave ran a hollow splash from end to end of the beach. A reek of something dead dragged across the air.
“It’s a good story, but I’m not the Stranger! I don’t want to be king.” I turned on my side, pretended to sleep. Kalik, I knew, was watching me through the dark. I could feel his mind trying to work its way inside my head.
I woke during the night. Had I been asleep, or had I lain awake listening to Kalik telling another story? Uncertain, I rolled over. He was sitting by the dead fire.
“I thought you were asleep.”
“I thought I was. But I woke and thought you were telling another story. Did you tell another story, Kalik? While I was asleep.”
“You woke me. Talking in your sleep. Calling out somebody’s name. Who’s the Showman, Ish?”
“The Showman? I don’t know any Showman.”
“Maybe you said the Shaman. Maybe that’s who you meant.”
“It must be all that meat we ate. I don’t remember any dream.”
Kalik lay himself down. “Did I say anything else?” I asked.
“Something about a donkey and a carnival or something. That’s what it sounded like.” Kalik’s voice was drowsy.