by Gene Wolfe
We skinned the animals and gave the skins to the women, then roasted the meat over the fire. I have never tasted anything so good, and I ate parts of the animal which I would not have thought edible—just about everything, in fact, except the feet and hands and the entrails. Because of the darkness and the meal, I had the feeling that it was night—though it must have been about noon, and the dark was only the effect of the falling snow.
“Now we would learn wisdom from you,” Eggseeker said.
I told him I feared I had little to give.
He nodded. “Yes, that is the first fruit of wisdom—humihty.”
“I would rather learn of you. Have you seen the Great Sleigh?”
They all nodded, and a little stir of excitement passed among them.
“How long has it been since it has gone?”
“It was here, and then for a day it was gone, and then you came. We knew you were from the Great Sleigh by your dress and your face—like all of them, you look much like the Wiggikki, but we see you are not cruel, as they are.”
“Who are they?”
“The running, singing hunters. Much of this meat is theirs.” A wide smile crossed Eggseeker’s face. “We are not afraid of them. They hunt for us, and when they hunt us, they learn the weight of our gouges.”
“I do not understand. How do they hunt for you?”
“It is the custom of the Wiggikki to kill game and bury it in the snow, thinking to return for it when the hunt is over. We find it, and much of what you see is that—still, the best, which you had, we killed ourselves, digging little Pummanga from his warm house in the ground.”
“I believe I know the Wiggikki; they killed Nashhwonk, the day before yesterday.”
“That is news indeed. We—”
There was a scream from the open end of the lodge. The woman pariah, who had been sitting there, came diving through the others in panic. Her feet sent the fire flying, and everyone jumped up; there was a babble of voices, and over it all a new voice, sometimes as deep as a kettledrum, sometimes whining like a great cello: “Day’s greetings, sons of filth. What fruit had you of the hillside?”
A man almost as big as Nashhwonk was kneeling to peer into the entrance of the lodge. He had a short chin, a short upper lip, high cheekbones, and huge green eyes that seemed too beautiful for a masculine face, so that for all his size and obvious male qualities he gave an impression of femininity, and almost of effeminacy. In one big, soft-looking hand he held a polearm ending in cruel hooks, like fishhooks, made from the ribs of some large animal.
Eggseeker and the three younger men pressed forward toward him, with some of the olders boys behind them; while the women clustered around Bloody-face-in-the-morning, who had a long gash down her back where one of the hooks had grazed her. I went with the men, though with no weapon but my pocketknife I did not know what I could hope to do.
Eggseeker held his crooked-handled gouge over his head ready to strike. “Take me,” he said. “Draw me to you, Mimmunka. I will plant this in your forehead with my last breath.”
Mimmunka chuckled like a waterfall, and his lips drew back to show pointed teeth. “I do not want you,” he said. “Your flesh has grown as tough as the roots you eat. But give me someone small and tender and unimportant to you, and I will go away.”
“And be back tomorrow,” Eggseeker said.
“No, I swear it. I am shifting my hunting ground tomorrow I am going to the lowlands near the river. The swamps are frozen now, and I will kill twice a day. Do you remember when I took that little squeaker from you, when the moons joined hands? How many days was it then before you saw me again? Twenty or more, I think.”
“Because we pursued you through the wood.”
“Not at all. You did me no harm—but look at all those behind you. Surely you do not want them all.”
“It is our law to preserve our own kind.”
“Ah. Is this another high principle the Great Sleigh brought you?”
“It has been our law from the beginning.”
“Then what did you learn from them? Was it all wind?”
“You might have talked to them as we did.”
“Yes,” Mimmunka said, “I could have taught them much.” He seemed to have put aside all thought of seizing a victim, but I noticed that as he spoke he was edging closer to Eggseeker.
“You could have taught them nothing. What is your life but killing today, and again tomorrow?”
“Little do you know. Give me the one I tore with my claw.”
The women were murmuring, and I turned to look. Slowly, Bloody-face-in-the-morning was being forced forward as the women closed ranks behind her.
“Who is that you have with you?” Mimmunka asked suddenly. He was looking at me.
Eggseeker did not answer. As Mimmunka’s eyes left him he rushed forward, swinging his gouge at the big man’s forearm. Mimmunka jerked his hand back, but Eggseeker never paused, recovering from the first stroke to swing his weapon again, this time at Mimmmunka’s head.
There was a flurry of action so quick that I could not see in the dim light just what was happening. Then Eggseeker was lying sprawled and bloody in the snow at one side of the entrance to the lodge, and Mimmunka was gone. Three younger men ran out after him, shouting threats in guttural voices.
Two of the women had raised Eggseeker to his feet before I reached him and were helping him to the fire. Inanely, I asked him if he was hurt.
“Scratched a little. I have been harmed more than this many times.”
The women pulled off his ragged leather shirt to clean his wounds, and I saw that his broad chest was checkered with scars.
“The young men have gone after Mimmunka. Won’t he kill them out there?”
Eggseeker shook his head. “Not he. He will run now, unless they corner him. If it were Ketin or the Wiggikki, it would be different, and I would call them back.”
A boy who looked almost grown said sadly, “I did not go with them.”
Eggseeker chuckled. “And a good thing, too. Even Mimmunka might have turn back for your juicy meat, Whiteapple.”
“Still, I should have gone.”
“Next year you will go.”
One by one the three younger men came back, looking angry and proud. When they had all returned and the blood of his wound was staunched, I asked Eggseeker what it was that he and his people had taught the men who rode the Great Sleigh.
“Everything we know.” He was lying on his back in front of the fire now, but he turned his ugly, savage-looking old head to look at me. “The song of our law. How we fight, and where to find food. How to build lodges, and all we have learned of the other peoples. You are one of them—did they not tell you?”
I felt that it might be dangerous to admit that I remembered nothing. I said, “I would rather hear it from you; go back to the original source.”
“The cleanest water is nearest the spring. That is wisdom. As we taught them, so they taught us.”
“Can you recount it?”
“I will let another tell. I remember, but when my blood runs I find I am already old. Let a young one speak.”
For a long time no one said anything. At last Whiteapple stammered: “The world will change. The snow will melt and never return, and the new children will never have seen it and will wonder when we speak.”
“When will this happen?”
Whiteapple’s shoulders moved helplessly. “Soon, it is said. But what is soon to the people of the Great Sleigh? Who can tell?”
“Perhaps not in your lifetime,” Eggseeker said. “Perhaps before I die.”
“Even so. For us, they parted the curtain of days.”
I asked him to tell me about that.
“From the lodge on the Great Sleigh a stone was brought. This was touched, and it lived, as though there were a fire in it. Then the curtain of days was torn, and we saw before us the world that is to be when the snow is gone. The sun was bright, and there were many plants. Men of our race wal
ked among them, with Lenizee and his wife and child.”
“And what must we do?” Eggseeker prompted.
“Certain foods are forbidden.” Whiteapple looked downcast, then smiled. “That is what I do not understand. All foods that are commonly found may be eaten. But those that are not found cannot be eaten. But how could we eat what we cannot find?”
“What is seldom seen may not be eaten when it is seen. That is the new law. Certain birds, it is said …” Eggseeker grew silent, and I, looking toward the dark doorway, saw that the falling snow had already erased the marks of his scuffle with Mimmunka. Even his blood, which had gleamed so brightly against the snow, was no longer visible.
“There are some birds that hide their nests under branches that bow to the ground,” Whiteapple explained. “When the warmth comes they will not know what to do, for a time, and few eggs will hatch. They are forbidden.” Eggseeker’s eyes were closed, and when he said nothing, Whiteapple leaned toward me and continued softly, “Many of their nests he has found in his time, and now he feels badly about it. But it was not unlawful then. Can the law reach behind itself?”
I shook my head.
Unexpectedly Eggseeker said: “I had thought to die defending the women and their little ones. Not beside the fire.”
This is the sixth day. I have just played over what I said yesterday—Cim is asleep—and realized that I should not have ended my report so abruptly. It was not intentional. Nothing further happened, really, after the man they call Mimmunka left. It continued to snow. Eggseeker lay by the fire with his breath rattling in his chest. I spent the afternoon talking to the other members of his tribe and listening to them talk among themselves; and then we all went to sleep.
When we woke this morning, Eggseeker was dead. I think I was the only one who was surprised—the others told me that he had felt his death on him when he spoke of dying by the fire. Also that it was for this reason everyone had gone to sleep so cheerfully the night before—they had been anticipating his funeral feast and had thought I had been looking forward to it as well. I asked if they had food stored for the feast: they explained that Eggseeker’s body would itself constitute the meal. I said nothing more after that, but I think the boy, Whiteapple, saw my face, because he drew me aside and assured me that Eggseeker himself had participated in many such feasts, and that his spirit would be at peace when his body was reabsorbed into the tribe, where it belonged. He mentioned as an unfortunate detail the fact that Eggseeker’s mother had long since died, and told me that were she alive she would be entitled to his tongue and eyes now, as mother-offering.
While we had been talking, the women had begun to cut up the body. I did not want to stay longer; as soon as I could, I edged out of the lodge and made my way back to the thicket where I had left my sledge.
There was still some snow in the air, and just enough wind that I could feel it on my face. I discovered the wisdom of taking off the sail and putting it inside the captain’s coat when I tried to shake it out—it had frozen overnight, and in the end I had to build a fire to warm it enough to let me spread it to catch the breeze.
Even so, I had to pull the sledge to the track of the Great Sleigh. But once there, where the surface was so much smoother and what wind there was was favorable, that little breath of moving air was enough to propel us, though only slowly.
I found that this slow movement had a pleasure of its own. I could trim the sail to make use of the fullest effect of the wind; and I could stand or sit in the sledge without fearing that my motions would overturn it. Each gentle hill we surmounted was a triumph which I celebrated by sliding ecstatically down the farther side, the empty sail flapping useless for a moment, only to fill again and pull us on when we slowed—renewed, as it seemed, by its brief rest.
The sun was about halfway up the sky when I saw Cim Glowing. She was running, or more accurately, jogging, along the track ahead of me, then so far off that she seemed no more than a moving speck of brownish-black against the snow. In the light wind it was a long time before I caught up with her; and I remember that for half an hour or more I supposed her to be a man—not only because it seemed more likely that a lone figure would be masculine, but also because she appeared to be too tall for a woman, and because of the pace she kept, which she seemed able to maintain indefinitely.
I felt a certain apprehension. She was keeping well to the south side of the flattened area, so by keeping to the north side I could put nearly a hundred meters between us as I passed her. She might be dangerous; but if I passed her without stopping, I would be neglecting an important source of information. Yet if I stopped, I would lose the advantage that the speed of the sledge gave me.
As the distance between us diminished and I was better able to observe her motions, I became convinced that she was a woman—though she ran with the long strides of an athlete. I could also see that she carried no weapon but what I took to be an ordinary stick, a thing not much larger than the bow-thrown clubs of the Wiggikki, but not bent to fly well, as they are.
I steered the sledge away from the north side of the track. She must have heard the scraping of the rudder pole on the icy crust; without pausing in her steady marathon, she turned her head to look at me. Perhaps she was surprised, but it is not an expressive face, and even now, after ten hours or more of close association, I have not learned to read it well. At that time I only saw that she had dark eyes and high cheekbones.
We were still too far apart to talk except in shouts. By gestures (while loosing the thong that held the lowest point of the triangular sail so that it spilled the wind) I asked her if she would like to ride on the sledge. She raised one hand and touched her chin to indicate assent and, without waiting for me to stop, sprinted over to the sledge and jumped on board, sitting on what remained of the cross braces that had carried Nashhwonk’s flesh.
“You’re a fine runner,” I said.
“This is better. I would have had to stop soon. Can you make it go faster?”
“Not without more wind. But it will pick up speed again, now that the sail is full.” (Actually, I was already worried about the effect her weight would have.)
“Where are you going?”
I told her I was trying to overtake the Great Sleigh.
“Won’t they wait for you? I thought you were one of its people.”
“If they’re waiting for me, I don’t know about it. What about you? Where are you going?”
She smiled suddenly, showing beautiful teeth. “I am trying to overtake the Great Sleigh also.”
I was flattered, thinking at the time that this only meant that she was going with me wherever I went. She must have seen this in my expression, because she said, “You don’t believe me, but it is the truth. Fishcatcher is dead now, and that is the only place left where I wish to be.”
I asked her who Fishcatcher had been.
“A man of our people. Someone struck him across the face with an endieva wand, and he was in great pain. When the Great Sleigh came I carried him there. I was sony for him, then.”
She fell silent, and I did not know whether it would be wise to question her further or not. We were climbing a long slope, and I made that an excuse to hop off and push the slow-moving sledge.
“You are strong for so young a man,” she said, when we were over the top and I had jumped back into the stern and taken the tiller again.
I said that the wind had done most of the work.
“But you are very strong. I could feel us go faster as soon as you began to push, and in the end, just as we reached the top, the sail lay against the mast.”
“I think I was heavier once.”
She held two fingers over an eye to show that she did not understand me.
I could not think of a way to explain it to her, and in the end I said lamely, “I think that on another world I was a bigger—heavier—person than I am here.”
“Yes, there are other worlds—I know it, even though I’ve never been to any of them. No one would
believe me until the Great Sleigh came—I am sure that it is from another world; and there is the world of dreams, and still more that are below or above that. What world are you from?”
“I don’t know.”
“I know that feeling,” she said.
“Is that why you want to catch up to the Great Sleigh—because it is from some other world?”
“I told you.” She had turned to face me, sitting with her back to the bow. Her tunic had a high, loose collar which she turned up so that the fur wrapped her short brown hair like a hood. “It is the only place I want to be. Do you think they will let me on it?”
“I don’t know.”
“I don’t think so—but perhaps if I follow them long enough I can persuade them.”
“You said you took Fishcatcher to them. How did he die?”
“They did not kill him, if that’s what you are thinking. Do you know, I don’t think you are one of them at all.”
I felt as though I had been struck. I still do, although it has been ten hours or more now. “You are dressed a great deal like them,” she said, “but you don’t have quite the same face. You might be one of our people wearing their clothing.”
“How is my face different?”
“Your expression is different. And then your mouth is too wide, and your teeth seem too big. But it may be that I am wrong—perhaps it is all in the expression. Where did you get those clothes?”
“I don’t know.”
“From one of them?”
“I don’t know. Some peopie—the Wiggikki—found me, and I was wearing these. I don’t know where they came from, or where I did.”
“Suppose that when we catch up to the Great Sleigh, they believe you have murdered one of their people. What will you do?”