by Jack Lasenby
I told them of the Carny’s wispy oily beard, his pursed and horrid lips, his white-lashed eyes that looked painful, raw.
“He had a child chained to his belt. A hood over its head.” I told how he unhooked the chain and made the child dance half-naked. A dance no child should know. How he dressed the Child after the dance, how its weary eyes disappeared under the hood. The snick of the chain.
“His slobbering, dribbling mouth disgusted me, his sore eyes, but his hands were the most repulsive part. They were never still, crawling, leaping and joining, fingers fluttering apart again. He tried to touch me with those hands, so I struck them away. He hated me.”
I told them of how the Clock stopped, how Cheena could not marry, how the gloating Carny vanished with the Child. And how Cheena gave herself to the Droll to save her people.
I told Tepulka and Maka of how Arku and I set the great bear traps in the Metal People’s village. “We caught one and killed it. In another trap we found the torn-off part of the hind left foot of a white bear. Next day, we saw the Carny, limping on his left foot.”
I could hear my own voice, its babble, but had to tell the story. Tepulka and Maka listened as I told them of my dream when I thought the Carny was Kalik. How I dreamt of him as the Showman.
I got control of myself. I mustn’t alarm the others, make them feel helpless, but I had to explain the shadow on the rock-face. “Kalik knows how to play upon our fears. He uses superstition, just as the Carny did. He understands how to set going the most appalling memories in the minds of his victims.”
“How is it both Maka and I saw that thing on the cliff?” asked Tepulka. “The same figure you were seeing?”
“There is a thing the Shaman told me about,” I said. “A thing he called hypnotism. Mass hypnotism can make us all think we’re seeing and hearing the same thing.”
Tepulka nodded, only half-convinced. And Maka just stared at the wall of rock above where we had seen that evil shadow prance behind the fluttering curtains of its hands.
“I read a book,” I said, “about people who grew up in a cave. The only things they ever saw were shadows thrown on the wall by other people passing before a huge fire. So the people in the cave grew up believing the shadows were the only real things in the world. Kalik’s using that idea to try and convince us what we’re seeing is real. He’s using the pictures in my head. Using them to convince you as well. But he’s only a man like us.”
Back by the campfire, Tepulka and Puli now on watch at the parapet, I told the rest of the Children about the Carny. How Kalik was putting his evil pictures into our minds, using the moon to cast his shadow on the bulge of the cliff.
“We’re safe here, as long as we don’t let him frighten us. We’ll beat Kalik if we wait long enough.”
“Tell us that story about patience,” said Maka. “You know – about the wooden doll.”
I had read it to the Children long ago but remembered it well enough. And I told it now.
“There was once a hunter and his wife far from their people. His wife died, and the man thought he must die of grief. He made a doll out of wood and dressed it in his dead wife’s clothes. He painted the face like hers. He carved the hands like hers. He sat the doll the other side of the fire and talked to it as if he was talking to his real wife. A year went by, and he still missed his real wife, but talking to the wooden doll eased his heart.
“One night he came back from hunting and found the fire going. The next night, there was a pot of water over the flames. The next night, meat was cooking in the pot.
“The man started finding the hut swept. His tunic mended where a bear had torn it. Firewood heaped beside the door. Water carried up from the stream. One day he came home early and saw a woman going into his hut. The man rushed inside and found the doll had gone. Instead, his wife sat by the fire, cooking his meal.
“‘You missed me so much,’ said the woman, ‘the gods felt sorry and sent me back to look after you. But you must not make love to me until we have rejoined our people. Then it will be safe. Until then, if you even touch me, I will disappear and never come back. You must be patient.’
“As soon as the river froze, they filled their packs with dried meat and set out to find their people. Across the river of ice, they climbed through the mountains. As they came down their other side, it began to snow. On the plain far below, the man and his wife could see smoke from the tents of their tribe. But the snow was too deep to go any further.
“‘We must be patient,’ said the woman. They made a tent from the skins they carried, lit a fire, and slept either side of it. The hunter killed a bear, and they cooked and ate some meat.
“‘We have enough for many days,’ said the woman as she hung the rest to freeze.
“‘I hope the snow melts soon,’ said the man.
“‘Be patient,’ said the woman. ‘Remember the gods’ warning.’
“They ate their meal and made their beds either side of the fire. More snow fell and rose around the tent. Each day the man looked down the mountainside at the smoke rising from the tents far below on the plain.
“‘I wish we could get down there,’ he would say. ‘Amongst our own people. And then we can touch each other and make love.’
“‘We must be patient,’ said his wife.
“When the bear meat was eaten, the man snared a deer. His wife cooked some meat and hung the rest. Outside, the snow began to melt.
“In the morning, they could almost get through the snow. ‘We must be patient,’ said the woman. ‘The snow is still too deep. If we try to get down the mountain now, we will die.’
“Her husband nodded. When the deer was eaten, the man caught a white hare, and they ate that. Early next morning, the man looked outside. Most of the snow had melted. They could get down the mountain! He cried with delight, rushed back inside, and kissed his sleeping wife awake with the good news.
“And he found himself kissing wooden lips. Holding a wooden doll in his arms. A doll dressed in his wife’s clothes.
“The man ran down the mountainside. His people heard the agony in his screams as he fell, picked himself up, and ran again. They tried to quieten him, but he shrieked his story, went mad, and died. Through the snow, they followed his tracks back up the mountainside to his camp. There they found a wooden doll dressed in his wife’s clothes. The lips burned away where it had fallen in the fire. And behind the tent, they found a woman’s footprints disappearing under fresh snow drifting down.”
In the last light of the fire, the Children looked grave. Maka and I went down to the parapet. Puli and Tepulka were glad to be relieved. They rolled themselves in their blankets, and lay down behind us.
High above our heads, the Carny’s shadow danced across the wall again that night. But this time it carried a bundle wrapped in soft deerskin. As the shadow pranced and crouched, it unwrapped the bundle and held out the shadow of a wooden doll. But the doll moved its arms and its feet kicked. A tiny mewling came down the air. Maka screamed and fell. Tepulka was there at once, lifting her, carrying her away. Paku came running to keep watch with me. And the shadows disappeared.
Chapter 34
The Satisfied Mind
There was the time Kalik flung all his men in attack. Tepulka and I fired over the parapet, dropped, and Paku and Tulu stood and fired. Tepulka and I stood and fired again. Bobbing up and down, we confused and picked them off.
We had dressed our bowstrings with oil boiled out of goat and sheep feet. The strings stayed tight when it rained that day, and our attackers’ arrows began to fall short. Even so, Tulu was grazed by a half-spent arrow.
The gorge already stank. Now we counted eight more dead. Puli and Kimi spotted three attackers trying to climb down the walls, and Tama and I ran up. It was like target-shooting. We sank those three in The Ooze as well.
Wordless, Paku showed me the arrow that had wounded Tulu. Its tip dipped in some filth, a dark blur – not her blood – dried on the point. Even though she cried an
d fainted, I scrubbed out the cut in Tulu’s shoulder, forcing it to bleed freely. I sucked and sucked the wound, spitting out the blood, and put on my strongest ointment. Paku collected all the attackers’ arrows with their poisoned tips and kept them separate.
We had eaten the fresh meat. The dried meat. The smoked fish. The green leaves and roots. Now we killed the last wild goats.
Our Animals had eaten all the grass. We chopped down leafy branches to feed them. “Be patient,” I said. “We will outlast Kalik.”
His men had always rolled down rocks. Now, when they pitched down rotten carcasses of goats and deer, we flung them in The Ooze. It was a dreadful yellow, bubbling with evil-smelling gas.
Then Tama complained the donkeys wouldn’t drink from the creek. “They sniffed and struck it, splash! splash! with their hoofs.”
“Kalik’s poisoned it,” I said. “Lucky we’ve got the spring. But we’ll have to carry water for the Animals.” It became a daily task, filling and carrying our biggest cooking pots.
The Animals got thinner. Our tame goats lost their milk. The Children looked gaunt. At least Tulu’s graze healed. Still we saw smoke from down the gorge. Still the Carny’s shadow capered across the great rock bulge each night. Dancing with a child. Wearing us down. Despite Tama’s tears, I killed one of our goats. Then a ram. When I killed Gobble and Hurry, he would not eat their meat.
One night Tulu hissed and pointed high above. In the dark, on long ropes, five men lowered themselves while Kalik thought we were distracted by the Carny’s shadow. “Save your arrows!” I ordered. One by one the warriors came to the end of their ropes, fell with a sullen plop, screams swallowed in The Ooze.
Tupu’s cheeks burned red. She began to cough. I mixed tonics but knew she needed better food and air. Tama was silent. Puli sat inactive, the spindle lifeless in her hands. Kimi and Hurk were still noisy, playing a game they called Prisoners in the Gully.
Maka spoke to no one, not even Tepulka. I knew there was something she had not told me. She disappeared while on watch at the parapet with Tulu one night. We searched the gully, called her name. Tepulka saw me look at The Ooze.
“Maka has joined Kalik,” he said. “She thought if she gave herself to him, he would let the rest of us go.”
I stared at Tepulka. He said, “She thought Kalik followed us because of her.”
“What do you mean?”
“Before you came to the Headland, Kalik raped Maka. He came back and raped her, again and again. She had a child.”
“The baby at the Roundhouse?”
Tepulka nodded. “She had to carry it there so Lutha could display it. Lutha did that with any baby who was going to become one of the Maidens. She took away Maka’s baby.”
“Is there anything else I should know?”
“Only that Maka’s mother was a witch. She taught Maka some of her powers.”
“What sort of powers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t you go after her,” I told Tepulka. “Kalik would kill you, and that wouldn’t do Maka any good. How many of them have we killed?”
There were the first three we killed in the gorge. The one who fell at the top of the gully. The ones who fell in The Ooze. Those we killed in the last battle. If there had been twenty-three, as well as Kalik, there must be about five left alive. And some of them might have been wounded with their own poisoned arrows, the ones Paku had shot back. So Kalik might only have one or two men left. But how were we to be sure? Smoke still rose from their camp-fire. Arrows clinked on the parapet. Rocks fell.
If we could only be patient, we must win, I kept telling the Children. But now Kalik had Maka, I felt desperate myself.
The night after Maka disappeared, there was enough moonlight to see the Carny’s shadow dance and grovel across the rock bulge. But a second shadow followed his, carrying something. I saw it, knew whose shadow it was, and took Tepulka down to the parapet . I left him on guard with Paku to keep an eye on him. From there, he could not see the evil shadows.
The Carny’s obscene hands began by fluttering and fingering Maka’s shadow. It was like the time in the snow-house in Arku’s village, when the Carny undid the chain, stripped off the Child’s heavy tunic, and made it dance half-naked.
As I watched, I heard the snick of a hook being undone. Maka’s shadow jerked like a puppet controlled by the fluttering hands of the Carny. When the obscene performance finished, the Carny chained Maka to his waist again. It was too far but again I thought I heard the hook’s iron snick. The Carny’s shadow limped back across the rock-face one last time. And Maka’s shadow crawled after, the chain’s shadow swaying between them. Her shadow mimicking his. Every step, every gesture of his revolting hands, Maka’s copying his.
Night after night it happened again. And, ever so slowly, it changed. The Carny still led but his gestures sometimes seemed to be following Maka’s. As if little by little she was taking control of him. I said so to Tepulka.
He was haggard. I had tried to protect him but could not hide the awful shadow dance. “So that’s what she is doing,” he said. Tulu came over and took his hand.
“Maka is using her mother’s witchcraft, getting control of Kalik,” she said.
Again the Carny’s eerie shadow moved across the rock-face. Again Maka’s followed. Although we could see each detail of their shadows, we could see nothing of Maka and Kalik themselves on top of the high bluff opposite. And that night, every step the Carny took, every repulsive movement of his hands and fingers began from Maka. His gestures now copying hers. Even though she walked behind, out of his sight.
He undid the hook, released the chain so she danced, and he danced; she swung backwards, he swung backwards; her hands wove in a curtain of movement, restless, and his wove an identical curtain. And lastly, as their shadows turned and retraced their journey across the rock-face, Maka’s stooped, picked up the chain, and took several steps which the Carny’s shadow copied. Maka’s shadow dropped the chain, we saw it fall. Her shadow tripped, fell forward, hands flung out. And like a mirror the Carny’s shadow tripped. Forward it fell. Over the lip of the high precipice. There was a high, distant scream. And Kalik came falling, a torch burning in his hand like a shooting star.
So long it took for him to fall, I hear his scream descending still. The gulp of The Ooze. He disappeared and came up, a rounded heave on the gaseous toil of muck. And it was Kalik’s face, not the Carny’s, I saw beneath the slime. The roll of his eyes, their whites’ flash against the coating of filth. On the bank above him, Kitimah, Tulu, and Puli danced, lifting their tunics, exposing themselves to his dying gaze, leaping, exulting.
He fought, brought his body up to lie full length upon that rancid surface. Shivering he sank until only his head was clear. The glare faded from Kalik’s eyes. Imperceptibly, it became that other loathsome face. A last scream, a painful swallow. The mouth submerged, the eyes hooded, the head snaked out of sight. The Children clustered around me shrieking as a hand rose from the filth, grasped at air. I tore Lutha’s silver bow from around my neck. Flung, its silver chain shone like a trickle of water across the clutching fingers, and The Ooze dragged both hand and chain out of sight like an evil thought.
Tepulka climbed the parapet, slipped down from one boulder to another, Paku and I calling him back, trying to catch up. But only two wounded warriors lay dying of their own arrow poison at the foot of the rockfall. As we ended their agony, Tepulka was already climbing the bluff.
We broke down the parapet, levered rocks aside, got everyone down, our gear, the Animals. And all the time, the stench of The Ooze filled our nostrils.
In the river’s clear water we bathed, scrubbed down the Animals and everything we owned. The Animals grazed and recovered as we ate fresh fish.
Each day I took Hika and Bok, and waited for some sign of Tepulka and Maka. The third morning, I heard pebbles falling. I helped them down the last difficult part. Tepulka and I passed Maka between us. She weighed as little as a child
. Wordless, Tepulka turned and climbed the bluff again.
I flung away the indecent rags Maka wore, examined her all over, smelled and listened to the workings of her body as the Shaman had taught me, but could find no physical illness, just the terrible effects of what she had done to rid us of Kalik’s unclean spirit. She hunched like an old crone. Face lined and withered. Eyes colourless, skin livid. I washed and dressed her in clean clothes.
When Tepulka climbed down with the child slung upon his back, we lifted Maka on to Hika. I helped Tepulka on to Bok. They rode side by side, Tepulka supporting Maka. I carried the child as Hika and Bok picked their way down.
Crooning, comforting, Tulu and Kitimah took Maka. That night, the Children slept in a great sprawl with her in their middle. When she began to recover, we travelled on. Maka still said nothing, bent like a little old woman. But she seemed content so long as someone – especially Tepulka – was near, touching her.
One day, as I walked beside Hika, Maka leaned down and croaked, “This morning I saw Kimi and Hurk playing a game of shadows.”
I looked up.
“Yes,” she said. “They called their game The Kalik and The Carny.” And she cried and slipped off Hika’s back.
We camped there. When we moved on again, Maka walked beside Tepulka. It took a long time, but she was getting better. Her skin began to clear, her eyes to brighten. Her lank hair came back to life. Slowly.
Tupu still coughed, but something of the hectic red went from her cheeks. I made up the herbal drink that lowered her fever, and put her on Hika. Tama led the Animals with Tag and Bar. He was talking to me again. Arak and Perrah smiled and babbled from their basket on top of Bok. Tulu and Paku walked together.