Fantastical Ramblings
Page 18
They will be joined in a great ceremony; a ritual clouded by sadness at all those who will not attend.
But before the sacred rites can be arranged and their union sanctified, more people take ill. They no longer have the strength to hunt and gather enough food for their immediate needs, let alone to preserve the barest minimum of supplies for the coming winter. The fruit and flowers, roots and berries, shrivel in the sere season, never fleshing out to give food to people and animals alike. The cold times are still far in the future, yet they will come as they always come, and when it comes to those who are not prepared it will bring more death.
I grieve that I can do nothing to help them. Without rain to fill the creeks and runnels and replenish the underground springs I shrivel to a mere trickle. I have little left to drop over the cliff and barely reach the pool before evaporating into the thirsty air.
I wait with my people, hoping that the pledge of union between the hunter and my special girl with the twisted foot and their promise of fertility will appease whatever angry god holds the rains hostage.
Alas, before the two young people can be united, the miasma strikes. The young hunter is one of those who do not make it. His fever blinds him within hours, he has not enough moisture in his skin to sweat and break the fever.
I have nothing left to give.
The miasma laughs in triumph.
My favorite young woman cannot let it win. So great is her grief, her love, for her hunter that she climbs the winding trail to the top of the cliff, ignoring the great pain in her twisted foot. Her strength wanes. She has barely enough moisture left in her for tears, but those that come, when they fall, moisten the grass and shriveled shrubs as she climbs. Higher, ever higher. I watch and wait, helpless, knowing what she is about to do. Her love she gives to all her people. Her life she gives for his life.
At the cliff top she falls to her knees and prays to the creator of all. I echo her prayers. A little rain, a little cold, anything to save her people. Then she stands atop the cliff and watches her people, my people, drag themselves through their day. They work just before dawn when the air is at its coolest, resting during the grinding heat. I hold my breath, pooling at the lip. Waiting, praying that something will break and not her, not this wonderful child, this irreplaceable girl.
Nothing happens. There is no reprieve. The sun climbs wearily toward the horizon, a harsh blaze at the edge of the world. The birds pause in their weary song. No sound. Nothing. But in this breathless moment of waiting, even the great river pauses. Madame is not as proud and unfeeling as she pretends.
The miasma waits. It will not retreat until it has claimed the lives of all my people.
And so my special girl child spreads her arms and closes her eyes and leans forward until the pull of the land below is too great and she and I plunge down together.
Someone down below sees, points. A great cry goes up from my people. Her people. I scream and roar my grief along with them.
I plead and whisper, rant and pray.
And then a darkness gathers from the west, streaking toward the sunrise.
The skies crack open with fire and thunder. The miasma cringes in fear. A bolt of pure, elemental fire streaks down, stabbing the miasma at the heart. It escapes and races across the dry meadows and into the withering forest. The fire follows close on its cowardly back, cleansing as it goes.
My people rush into what is left of the plunge pool, where the body of their sacrifice drifts, her long hair streaking out in tendrils trying to merge with the weakened current. We all hunker down, as afraid of the fire as they are the illness it removes.
Thunder ripples and grinds across the land, echoing back and forth, forth and back from one side of the great river to the other. I catch the sound in the half bowl of cliffs I have carved over the millennia, adding it to the storm of my grief.
And then, blessedly, our prayers are answered. Sweet rain descends. A few fat drops here and there. The land sucks it up greedily. More drops come, faster and faster, until they become sheets, and then a wall of water.
It comes too furiously for the land to absorb it all. It runs down into the creeks, reviving me, pushing me.
The sacrifice has been accepted. The miasma is banished. My people will live. The young hunter who loved the girl who gave her life heals, and with his own tears waters the place where they have buried her.
I cannot weep—but there are other things I can do in remembrance of her. I let the new wind push aside the veil of water once more plunging down the cliff face, where I mark the path of my beloved child, my sacrifice. The etching and sculpting of centuries hastens, solidifies, becomes a true likeness of her face and glorious long hair etched forever into the basalt. She will live forever in heart and memory, a constant reminder of the high price for the miracle of life.
For the miasma will return . Not this year or the next, but some day.
<<>>
Until then: Joy! I slide around rocks and under low hanging branches. I tumble and somersault. Then I pause, gathering my nerve, and dive over the cliff, spraying outward. My droplets catch the tail of an unwary blue jay. He squawks and flits upward, scolding me. I laugh with him and continue my free fall. As I pass the cliff face I pick at a crack, etching my signature a little deeper, sculpting timeless designs into basalt hardened by fire and time.
A breathless drop into the plunge pool. A ceaseless tumult follows me, pushing and shoving, until I lap at the mossy banks. But I am restless and relentless. I bully my path away, back to the center, catch on a submerged boulder and log jam, force a whirlpool to spin into the current, and then off down the twisted creek that all too soon joins the big river.
And the spirit of the child who gave her life that we all might live, and of all our people, join with me.
~THE END~
Copyright & Credits
Fantastical Ramblings
A Collection of Short Fantasy Fiction
Irene Radford
Book View Café Edition
June 4, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-61138-251-8
Copyright © 2013 Phyllis Irene Radford
Cover illustration by Timothy L. Karr
Cover design by Maya Kaathryn Bohnhoff
v20130413vnm
www.bookviewcafe.com
Acknowledgements
The Sword of Herakles. Copyright © 1998 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in Olympus, DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Bruce D. Arthurs.
The Final Choice. Copyright © 2007 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in Fate Fantastic, DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Daniel M. Hoyt.
Of Rats and Cats and Teenagers. Copyright © 2009 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published by Book View Café.
Lady’s Choice. Copyright © 2011 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published www.storyportals.com edited by Larry Segriff.
Image of the Beast. Copyright © 2010 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published by Book View Café.
Dragon Treasure. Copyright © 2010 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published by Book View Café.
Draconis ex Machina. Copyright © 2002 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in DAW 30th Anniversary Anthology, DAW Books, edited by Elizabeth R. Wollheim and Sheila E. Gilbert.
Friends in Strange Places. Copyright © 2013 Phyllis Irene Radford
The Curse of the Pendragon. Copyright © 2006 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in Slipstream, DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and John Helfers.
More to Truth than Proof. Copyright © 2008 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in Something Magic This Way Comes, DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Sarah A. Hoyt.
Not my Knot. Copyright © 2008 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in The Dimension Next Door, DAW Books, edited by Martin H. Greenberg and Kerrie Hughes.
The Fall. Copyright © 2011 Phyllis Irene Radford, first published in River An Anthology, Dark Quest Books, edited by Alma Alexander.
About the Author
Irene Radford has been writing stories ever since she figured out what a pencil was for. A member of an endangered species, a native Oregonian who lives in Oregon, she and her husband make their home in Welches, Oregon, where deer, bears, coyotes, hawks, owls, and woodpeckers feed regularly on their back deck.
A museum trained historian, Irene has spent many hours prowling pioneer cemeteries deepening her connections to the past. Raised in a military family she grew up all over the US and learned early on that books are friends that don’t get left behind with a move. Her interests and reading range from ancient history, to spiritual meditations, to space stations, and a whole lot in between.
About Book View Café
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