Mother of Eden

by Chris Beckett

  He did love me, I thought. He truly did. And I loved him. So how could he really be dead?

  “We only managed to get you out of there because no one was expecting it,” Snowleopard said. “But about now people will be realizing we tricked them. Only chance of saving ourselves is if we make a move now. This little cave will take us quickly out top. It’ll be cold cold up there, but we can be back down in warm forest in less than an hour, and then it’ll just be half a waking’s ride to poolside and we’ll be away from this ground for good. We’ve got a boat hidden there, ready for us.”

  “A boat? So you had this all planned? How did you know what was going to happen?”

  “We aren’t any old guards, remember, Starlight. We worked for David Strongheart at Davidstand, and we know what it’s like around big men, or high men, as we called them back on Mainground. We know how high men push and shove one another, and we spotted old Dixon’s game early early.”

  “We could see right away that your Greenstone was going to have a job standing up to him,” Blink said suddenly. “Not much of a fighter.”

  “Don’t talk about Greenstone like that,” I told him.

  Blink grinned at me, his toothless mouth open, interestedly watching my face. Beside him, Spear rubbed his dead cheek.

  “He meant no disrepect,” Snowleopard said soothingly. “We know the Headman was a lovely bloke. All the ringmen said so.” For a moment he glanced down at the ring, then he looked straight back into my eyes. “But he’s gone, I’m afraid, and if we don’t get going right now, it’ll be the same for the five of us as well. We three might be good fighters, but we can’t beat all the ringmen in New Earth.”

  “I’m still the Ringwearer. I’ll show them the ring. I’ll tell them they must fight for me, and not Dixon.”

  “It won’t work anymore, Mother,” Quietstream said. “You saw that for yourself in the Red Cave.”

  I looked at her. I felt that awful stone inside me. Even in its skin wrap it was horribly hard and cold, but I’d been in this place before, when that spearfish did for my mum, and I knew that it was hardly even the beginning.

  “I feel sure that . . .” I began, then made myself stop. There was no point saying the same thing over and over.

  Straight away Snowleopard nodded to the others, and they began leading the bucks up the cave.

  It was way too steep and narrow for us to ride. Blink and his buck went first, then Spear, then me and Quietstream, then Snowleopard behind us. Most of the time we were ankle-deep in freezing water, and sometimes we had to climb through small waterfalls as the icy stream came tumbling down from pool to pool. All five humans were soon drenched, and all of us slipped many times on the soft, smooth rocklanterns. Even the bucks slipped, in spite of their six flat feet, bellowing and screaming each time they lost their footing. In between whiles, they snuffled and snorted, their mouth-feelers twitching and squirming, agitated ripples moving constantly back and forth across their eyes.

  “I hope you don’t mind me showing those men your butt, Starlight,” Snowleopard said after a while. “I had to distract them so we could do for them. I just couldn’t think of a better way.”

  I didn’t even bother to answer him. What did my butt matter now? But there was something about all of this that was too smooth, too practiced, too planned.

  “Who were the other three men?” Quietstream asked.

  “Rog, Luke, Stone. Three of Dixon’s blokes. Not bad fellers. But they’d have done the same to us if they’d known what we were up to. Come on now, keep moving, girls. They’ll be after us by now.”

  “Here we are now,” called out Blink above us. “Harry’s sister-slipping dick, it is cold cold cold.”

  One after another we clambered out into almost complete darkness and icy cold. We were in a narrow valley—the stream must once have flowed right along it, until it found its way down to the cave below—and it was almost bare of life, lit only by two three small, twisted whitelanterns some way off, and a single bent blue spiketree. Huge, dark masses rose high above us on either side, and, between them, a narrow strip of Starry Swirl’s cold wheel blazing down like frozen fire.

  “Get those wet wraps off, you two,” Snowleopard commanded.

  The three men stood watching us interestedly as we made ourselves naked in front of them, calmly observing our breasts, our bellies, the fluffy hair between our legs. We were shivering all over with cold, our teeth chattering, as Snowleopard passed us each a plain ringman’s wrap and some footwraps.

  “Right. We need to go. We need to go quick quick quick. We need to get poolside ahead of the news from the cave.”

  Snowleopard helped me up onto his buck. Quietstream climbed up with Blink. Then all three men dug their spear butts into their animals until they shrieked.

  “Get on with it, you fat lumps!”

  I pressed myself back as tightly as I could against Snowleopard’s big, strong body to keep myself from freezing.

  Quietstream Batwing

  We reached the warmth and treelight of the forest after an hour, and without ever stopping to think about which way to go, the men made their way through shining trees and drifts of starflowers, across streams and over hills, like they’d known this ground all their lives. We didn’t pass any houseplaces. We didn’t see a single shelter or a single human being. The only thing that told us human beings had ever been here was that from time to time we reached one of those paths the old Headman laid out through the forest, and cautiously cautiously crossed over it. Above us Starry Swirl blazed down from the awful emptiness of the sky.

  The one-eyed guy kept trying to talk to me—“Lot of wing-monkeys in this forest, aren’t there? . . . We never get trees like that one where I come from! . . . Gives you a sore bum, all this riding, doesn’t it?”—and I couldn’t tell if he was trying to be kind or what, but it was impossible to pay attention to him when all the time I was worrying worrying worrying about my girls and my mum, and sometimes about poor Greenstone, too, all by himself, falling falling into the fire.

  Up and down the hills we rode, shrieking starbirds clattering away from us through trees, treefoxes wriggling their noses at us as they watched us from branches with their flat black eyes. And at last, after half a waking or more—it was hard to tell without the

  “But you could be wandering about by yourself for—”

  Snowleopard made an impatient noise. “Come on now, girls. No time for chatting. We’ve got to go.”

  They turned their bucks round and started off down the slope through the trees and starflowers. The mother turned one last time and waved, and then they were gone.

  Hmmmmph hmmmmph hmmmmph went the trees. Hmmmmmmmmmm went the forest, stretching away around me for miles and miles.

  I didn’t know which way to go. I didn’t know how to hunt. I didn’t even know which fruit to eat and which to leave alone.

  Starlight Brooking

  Filling up whole sky, the huge wheel of stars shone coldly down as our bucks descended to the edge of Pool. The air was warm warm and my toes and fingers weren’t freezing anymore, but I was shivering all the same. That horrible iciness was growing inside me, that stony lump of grief and shame. I pressed myself back against Snowleopard, not for warmth anymore, but simply in the hope that his body at least could give me some comfort, some sort of semblance of love.

  I kept thinking about Greenstone: Greenstone all alone, Greenstone falling, Greenstone still alive and awake as his blood boiled and his skin burst into flames. It still wasn’t real—it was far far from being real—but I could feel it unwrapping inside me.

  “Right then, girl, jump down,” Snowleopard said.

  We’d dropped into a narrow, rocky crack that had cut its way into the slope, and it was easier to walk than to keep on riding in that tight, tree-packed space, where we had to keep ducking down under shining branches. At the end of it, by the edge of the water, two big black rocks stuck up from a sandy beach like the rocks did on the edge of the Sand. The men
had made a little camp beside them. There was a place for a fire, and a little cave in the rock where they’d stored things.

  Now they moved immediately into a routine. First, without saying a word, they did for the bucks they’d been riding with a single hard spear thrust into the belly of each: crunch, crunch, crunch. The creatures sank shuddering to the ground, their mouth-feelers blowing out green foam. While it was still lying there quivering, Snowleopard hacked three legs from his buck with a long metal knife, then started to cut off chunks of meat. Spear unwrapped a box of hot embers and set about making a fire. Blink began carrying things out of the cave. There were four heavy bags with lumps of rock clunking inside them—when he put them down, I saw it was greenstone—and some bags of dried food, and a whole bunch of greased water carriers, which Blink told me were full of badjuice for the journey.

  I stood watching them, trembling, while the trees pulsed around us and the great Pool slapped against those two big rocks. There was a tongue of bright water reaching in between them, narrow but deep, and there was a boat hanging there above the green and pink light, gently rocking from side to side.

  “I think I should go with Quietstream,” I said.

  She’d been right not to leave her kids behind, it seemed to me, and I shouldn’t have left Greenstone until I was certain that he really was dead. I wouldn’t be so alone if I was with her, either. She would have let me cry, and I would have let her cry, too. We could have comforted each other. It didn’t even seem to occur to these men that I might be sad or troubled in any way.

  Snowleopard looked up. “Well, you can’t,” he said firmly, like I was a silly child.

  “But—”

  “It would take you three hours at least just to walk up to the top of the ridge,” he pointed out, “and how would you find her then? She’d be out in forest somewhere, perhaps eight ten miles away.” He shoved another chunk of meat onto a stick.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said. “Okay. It’s just . . .”

  I needed to think. I needed to figure out what these men were playing at. They’d let down Greenstone. They’d even let down Chief Dixon. So why should I trust them to look after me?

  “I have to take a crap,” I said.

  Snowleopard looked up at me from the meat, his hands green and slimy with buck blood. Then he glanced back at the trees behind me, in that crack between the cliffs. He nodded and turned back to his meat. “Okay, but don’t go far. As soon as the meat’s cooked, we need to go.”

  Blink had come over to squat down with him and Spear, and now the three men together began to push sticks through the bits of meat Snowleopard had been cutting up and hold them out over the fire.

  Squeezed between walls of rock, the forest pulsed and hummed. Flutterbyes swarmed in the warm, damp air around the shining trees. A small slinker stuck out its bony head from an airhole and watched the flying creatures all around it, its head swaying slowly from side to side.

  I wasn’t part of this place, the thought suddenly came to me, not part of New Earth, not part of Eden, not part of this forest with its black sky, its shining flowers, its sweet, damp, sickly smell. I didn’t belong here. No one did. It was a dark, horrible place where people should never have come in first place and would never never feel at home.

  I looked back. The men were sitting side by side with their backs to me, chatting and laughing as they busied themselves with cooking their meat. I pressed my back against the rock and crept back toward them like we used to creep toward fatbucks out at the edge of our water forest. There was a boulder that had fallen against one of the cliffs, and I crawled behind it so I could peep through the crack between it and the wall of rock and watch the men without them seeing me, like I was looking into another world where Starlight Brooking didn’t exist.

  “Gela’s tits, Spear,” I heard Snowleopard say. “You and your bloody moaning. We got here, didn’t we? And last time I checked, none of us had a spear sticking out of his back!”

  Blink laughed loudly, but Spear wasn’t happy.

  “We took a risk we didn’t need to, though,” he said. “We should have done for both of them straight off and then just taken the ring. I mean, all we were ever asked to do was figure out where the metal came from. Strongheart will be amazed we got the ring as well. Why do we need this extra hassle?”

  He looked round at Snowleopard and, as he did so, he showed me the dead side of his face, as cold and expressionless as a corpse. I saw Snowleopard glance in my direction before he answered, checking to see if I was near, but I knew he couldn’t see me in my hiding place.

  “Come on now, Spear,” he said. “Strongheart will be pleased pleased to have the Ringwearer as well as the ring. Imagine the things she could tell him with the right persuasion, the things she could be traded for. Or maybe he’ll want to keep her, eh? Maybe the Head Guard of Mainground will think it’s fun to shove his dick where the Headman of New Earth used to go.” Again he glanced back in my direction for a moment, then leaned forward to put the meat he was holding in a better position. “I mean, let’s face it, Spear, she’s been pretty useful to us so far, right back to the time we got that guy Mike to threaten her with his dick in Veeklehouse. Who knows if old Greenstone would have agreed to take us across the Pool with him if it wasn’t for that?”

  Blink laughed. “Poor old Greenstone, eh? He was useless useless, wasn’t he? He had it coming to him all along.”

  But Snowleopard was still working on Spear.

  “Yeah, and anyway, Spear,” he said, “this isn’t like you, my old mate. You must be getting old! Never mind Strongheart; aren’t you interested in seeing a bit more of that pretty little butt yourself? I know I am.”

  Blink gave another loud laugh, and even Spear, reluctantly, gave a short little snort of amusement.

  Lucy Johnson

  Dixon sent for me to come to the Headmanhouse, and I rode down in our car with helpers and ringmen all around me. I was so proud, so happy. We’d beaten Firehand! It had been a long long fight, but my dad, Harry, had won in the end.

  We passed quickly through Edenheart. The small people didn’t yet know what had happened, and to them I was just another chiefswoman going up to the House for a meeting or a feast. But it would be a different story when I next came there with Dixon. I’d be wearing the ring on my finger, and they’d have a proper Ringwearer again, not some desperate little fishing girl who tried to win the small folk’s love by trying to be like them.

  What a lie that had been, anyway! When she got back to the Headmanhouse after her little trip to the digs, she’d put on her fancy wraps again quickly enough, from what I’d heard. She’d had her helpers bathe her and bring her food. She’d slept in a wallcave in a wooden bed. If she really wanted to be like the small people, how come she didn’t sleep on the ground in a bark shelter, and gnaw her meat from a bone?

  We crossed the river, stopped outside the House. The doors opened and, as a ringman was helping me to the ground, I heard Dixon come up behind me.

  “Lucy . . .” he said.

  I turned and threw my arms straight around his neck. “Dixon, my dearest, you clever clever man. You always said you’d—”

  I stopped. He was stiff stiff in my arms.

  “Yeah, we got Greenstone all right,” he said. “He’s down in the holding cave at the Teachinghouse. But the bloody fishing girl got away, and she’s still got the ring on her finger.”

  My blood turned as cold as the Dark Mountains. In one single moment, my new happiness was smashed.

  “How could she have got away?”

  “Snowleopard and some others were supposed to be taking her and her helper to the Teachinghouse, but they haven’t arrived, and the ringmen who were with them have been found dead in the river. Looks like those Old Ground men have gone off with her.”

  I stared at him. “What? You let those Davidfolk take charge of her? That was your big plan?”

  Dixon didn’t often cringe in front of me, but he did now. He cringed li
ke a beaten child. “The job I gave Snowleopard was to come up to our cave and tell our ringmen that Earthseeker had told them to come down to Edenheart. And then he was to go back down there with them and watch out for a chance to get the fishing girl: I knew she trusted him, and I knew she’d go with him without a fuss. I told three of my blokes to stay with him all the time. It was just—”

  “Three of your blokes against those three big men who won the Edenheart polefight? Tom’s dick, Dixon, how could you? And why didn’t you take the ring off her finger before they took her away? I thought you were supposed to be smart.”

  He started to get angry now, as I knew he would. “Watch your tongue, Lucy,” he hissed, glancing round at the ringmen and helpers. “We had a lot to deal with. We had a whole bunch of ringmen and small people who still weren’t sure whose side they were on. We didn’t want to unsettle them by making a scene.”

  “So you handed the ring to three Davidfolk instead? You were sure whose side they were on?”

  “I didn’t hand it to them. They tricked us and took it, and now we’ve got everyone out looking for them.”

  “Mother of Eden, Dixon, to think I was feeling proud of you as I came down here. To think I was imagining the stories people would tell in the future about Headman Dixon, who brought back the Headman’s hat to the true sons of John! I’ll tell you what the stories will say now. I’ll tell you the only thing anyone will remember Headman Dixon for. He was the dumb one who gave away the ring.”

  Of course he slapped me then, hard hard, with a second slap to follow. But it was worth it. It was worth it just to see the shame on his face when I told what he’d done and he knew I was right.

  Starlight Brooking

  I crept back up between the cliffs a little way, then turned and walked back down to the men, kicking stones so they’d notice me coming.

  “You ready now, Starlight?” Snowleopard called out when he saw me. “This meat is done enough. We’ll stick it in a bag and load up the boat, and then we’re set to go.”