“If the creatures cannot learn Yilanè — have you taught yourself their language?”
Enge signaled despair and doubt with a convulsive movement of her body. “That is another question I cannot answer. At first I thought of them as ambenin, speechless things that could not communicate. But now I see them as ugunin…”
“Impossible!” Vaintè rejected the idea completely. “How can a creature of any kind communicate but not give or receive information? You are giving me puzzles — not answers.”
“I know, and I am sorry, but I see no other name for them. Their sounds and movements reveal no pattern at all, and I say this knowing I must have memorized thousands of their movements and sounds. All are meaningless. It was difficult, they are so waxy and move so little. In the end, I came to believe — as a theory only — that they must have another level of communication that will remain forever closed to us. I have no idea of what it might be. I have heard of the theory of mental radiation, one brain talking directly to another. Or radio waves perhaps. If we had a physicist in the city that might be answered.”
She fell silent as Vaintè expressed despair, doubt, and disbelief.
“You never cease to amaze me, Enge. A first-class mind was lost to this city when you devoted your existence to your repellent philosophy. But now I think that your experiments and expectations are at an end. I will see your ustuzou and decide what will be done.” Vaintè saw Stallan near by and signaled her to come as well.
She led the way with Enge and Stallan following after. When they approached the prison chamber Stallan hurried ahead to open the barred entrance. Vaintè pushed past her and stared down at the young ustuzou while Stallan stood ready in case they should attack. The female was squatting, but her lips were drawn back to reveal her teeth and Vaintè grew angry at what was obviously a threat. The small male stood in waxy, motionless silence against the rear wall.
Vaintè called out to Enge. “Make them do their tricks,” she ordered.
When Kerrick heard the scraping of the bolt that secured the door he jumped about to place his back against the wall, sure as always that this would be the day of death. Ysel was beginning to laugh at him for it.
“Stupid boy,” she said, rubbing at the scratches on her bare skull. “Still baby-afraid. The marag brings us food and plays games…”
“Murgu bring death and they will kill us one day.”
“Stupid.” She threw a fruit rind at him and turned with a smile to face the one who visited them.
It was a strange marag who entered first, stamping heavily, and her smile faded. But the other familiar one was right behind, along with the brutal one, and the smile returned. It was another day just like any other.
She was a lazy and not-too-bright little girl.
“Speak to me,” Vaintè ordered, standing before the ustuzou. Then with emphasis, slowly and clearly as though addressing a young fargi, “Speak… to… me!”
“I beg, let me try first,” Enge requested with supplication. “I can get a response.”
“Not any more you can’t. If the creature cannot talk, that is the end of it. Too much time has been wasted.” Turning back to the female ustuzou Vaintè made herself clear, absolutely and directly clear.
“This is my personal demand — and it is most urgent. You will speak now and you will speak as well as any Yileibe. If you do, you will keep on living and growing. Speech means growth-speech means life — understand?”
Ysel understood — at least she was aware of the emotion of the threat — and fear, kept at bay so very long, returned.
“I find it hard to talk, please.” But the Tanu words elicited no response from the great ugly creature towering over her. She must remember what she had been taught. She tried, tried as hard as she could, making some of the movements as she spoke the words.
“has leibe ene uu…”
Vaintè was baffled. “Is that talking? What is it saying? It can’t mean ‘The old female grows adroit’.”
Enge was baffled as well. “There is possibly the meaning that growing supple puts years on females.”
Even as Vaintè was attempting to understand this possible interpretation her anger welled up within her. Perhaps, on another day, she would have taken this attempt, pitiful as it was, as an indication that the ustuzou was learning to speak. But not today. Not after the insults of yesterday and the infuriating presence of Alakensi. It was too much — and after she had even attempted to be polite to the disgusting fur beast. Reaching down she seized it by both forelimbs and raised it into the air before her, shaking it and bellowing with rage at the stupid creature, ordering it to speak.
The thing didn’t even make the attempt. Instead it just closed its eyes and produced water from them, threw its head back, opened its mouth wide and emitted an animal screech that hurt Vaintè’s skull.
Vaintè was beyond thought, her mind filled instead with blind hatred.
She leaned forward and sank her long rows of sharp conical teeth into the ustuzou’s throat, bit down hard, tearing out its life.
Hot blood spurted into her mouth and she gagged at the taste, throwing the corpse from her and harshly spitting out its blood. Stallan moved slightly, radiating silent approval.
There was a gourd of water before her face and she seized it from Enge and rinsed out her mouth, spitting and gagging, pouring the remainder over her face.
The blinding anger was gone, she could think now, and could feel as well the satisfaction in what she had done. But she was not finished. The other ustuzou remained alive — and with its death they would all be extinct. Turning swiftly she moved in front of Kerrick and glared down at him.
“Now you, the last,” she said, and reached out towards him. He could not retreat. His body moved and he spoke.
“…esekakurud-esekvilshan…elel leibeleibe…”
It made little sense at first and she stepped forward. Then stopped and looked more closely at the creature. There was a cower there, at least a clumsy attempt at a cower. But why was it moving from side to side like that? It made no sense. Then came realization — the thing of course had no tail so it could not do the lift correctly. But if that was really a tail lift, then it might be trying to communicate top-disgust-sensation as well as top-speech-volition. The bits and pieces were beginning to come together and in the end Vaintè cried aloud.
“Do you understand, Enge? See — it is doing it again.”
Clumsily, but clearly now, clear enough to understand, the ustuzou was speaking.
“I very much don’t want to die. I want very much to talk. Very long, very hard.”
“You did not kill it,” Enge said as they left the chamber and Stallan bolted the door behind them. “Yet you had no mercy at all for the other…”
“The other was worthless. You will now train this last one for it may be of use to us some day. Other packs of the creatures could be marauding out there. But you told me it never spoke?”
“Never. It must have been more intelligent than the other. It watched me all of the time, yet it never spoke.”
“You are a better teacher than you know, Enge.” Now sated, Vaintè was magnanimous. “Your only mistake was in teaching the wrong ustuzou.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Although the sky above was clear blue, fine snow was blowing fiercely up through the mountain pass. The biting north wind that tore across the mountains was picking it up from the slopes below, then sending it hurtling through the pass in great frigid waves.
Herilak struggled with its fury, almost leaning against it as he pushed the last stumbling steps through the heavy drifts. Part of his left snowshoe had broken and it slowed him down. Yet if he stopped to mend it he would be dead before he finished. So he pressed stumbling on, a large man made even bulkier by the layers of furs wrapped about him. He could feel the change in the slope now as he entered the pass, went through it, tripping and falling again and again, but rising each time to shake the snow from him, then staggering on. As he pas
sed the rocky scarp, the gray bones of stone rising from the drifts and kept free by the wind, he felt that wind lessen. He was through. Just a few paces further on and he was out of the wind completely, shielded by the rock. He dropped down with a sigh, his back against the rough stone, for the climb had taxed even his great strength.
His outer mittens were glazed with ice and snow and he had to beat them together before they were supple enough to remove. With his warm inner glove he wiped the caked snow from his eyebrows and eyelashes and blinked down at the valley below.
It was a sheltered place where some greatdeer still wintered; he could see the dark specks of their herds further up the valley. Below him was a stand of tall trees that gave shelter to the meadow beside the stream. A stream that never froze at its source where it welled up from beneath the ground. It was a fine spot to camp and to winter, and was known as levrelag Amahast, the camping place of the sammad of Amahast. Amahast married to Aleth sister of Herilak.
But the valley below was empty.
Herilak had heard this from a hunter of his own sammad, who had met a hunter of sammad Ulfadan who swore that he had been here, and that he was speaking only the truth. Herilak knew that he had to see for himself. He had taken his spear and his bow and his arrows, rubbed his body thickly with goose grease, then put on the soft furs of the beaver with the fur against his body, then the suit of coarse fur of the greatdeer over that. With the snowshoes lashed to the heavy fur boots he was ready for the winter. He traveled light for he must travel fast, and the bag over his shoulder held little more than a supply of dried meat and some of the mashed nuts and berries of ekkotaz.
Now he had found that which he sought and he was very displeased. He sucked a mouthful of snow as he bent to repair the snowshoe. Every once in awhile he would look up from the work to the empty valley below, as though to remind himself of the unpleasant truth. It remained empty.
It was midday before he was finished. He chewed on some dried meat while he pondered on what to do next. He had no choice. When he had finished eating he climbed to his feet, a big man who stood a head taller than even the tallest in his sammad, rubbing grease from his flowing beard and looking down the valley in the direction he must go. South. He started that way, along the slope, and once he began walking he never looked back once at the empty camping place.
All that day he walked and only stopped when the first stars began to sparkle in the darkness. He rolled himself in his furs and stared up at the night sky before closing his eyes to sleep. But he had a thought then and opened them again and searched among the familiar patterns. The Mastodon charging at the Hunter who held his spear ready. The bent row of stars in the Hunter’s belt. Was there a new one there, next to the center star? Not as bright as the others, but just as clear in the cold transparency of the winter sky. He could not be sure. It would have to be the tharm of a strong warrior to be in that honored place, adding strength to the Hunter. He was not certain if it had been there before. While he thought about it he closed his eyes again and slept.
On the afternoon of the third day, three days of marching from first light to early darkness, Herilak came through the trees beside a fast-flowing river, the current so swift that it still had an open channel in its center. He went quietly as a hunter always does, once surprising a small herd of deer, sending them jumping away between the trees, bounding high with sprays of snow flying about them. One at least would have been easy prey — but he was not hunting now. Not for deer. Pushing through a thicket he stopped suddenly, then bent to look at the ground. At the gut rabbit snare strung between two boughs.
After that he chanted as he went and let his spear rattle against the low branches that he passed. This was a new thing that had started with the frozen winters. In none of the stories that the old ones told was there any mention of the need. There was the need now. Tanu had killed Tanu. The world was not the free place it once had been, where hunters did not fear hunters.
In a short time he could feel beneath his feet a path that had been trampled into the snow. When he came to the next clearing in the forest he stopped, plunged his spear into a drift like a standard and squatted on his haunches beside it. He did not have long to wait.
Silent as wreath of smoke a hunter appeared on the other side of the clearing. His spear was ready, but he lowered it when he saw Herilak’s sitting figure. Herilak climbed slowly to his feet as the other hunter also stabbed his spear into the snow and started forward. They met in the center of the clearing.
“I am here on your hunting grounds but I do not hunt,” Herilak said. “This is where the sammad of Ulfadan hunt. You are the sammadar.”
Ulfadan nodded agreement. Like his name, his blond beard was long, reaching almost to his waist. “You are Herilak,” he said. “My niece is married to Alkos of your sammad.” He chewed over the relationship, then pointed back over his shoulder with his hand. “We will take our spears and we will go to my tent. It is warmer than the snow.”
They walked side by side in silence for it is not a hunter’s way to chatter like a bird when on the trail. The river moved swiftly at their side as they followed the path along its frozen bank. They came to the place where the river swung out and back in a slow curve and in the curve was the winter camp of the sammad, twelve large and sturdy tents. In the meadow beyond the tents the mastodons dug into the snow with their tusks, their breaths rising up in drifts of vapor, to reach the dry grass hidden below. From each tent a thin plume of smoke also rose into the cloudless sky. There were shouts as children ran between the tents playing some game. It was a peaceful scene well familiar to Herilak; it could have been his own sammad. Ulfadan pulled the hide flap aside and led the way into the darkness of his tent.
They sat in silence while the old woman poured melted snow, from the bark pail beside the fire, into wooden mugs, adding dried herbs to make a savory drink. The two hunters warmed their hands on the mugs and sipped at the brew while the women chattered to each other as they wrapped themselves in skins and slipped out of the tent one by one.
“You will eat,” Ulfadan said when they were alone.
“The hospitality of Ulfadan is talked about in the tents of the Tanu from the sea to the mountains.”
The formal words did not quite match the generosity of the portion, a few flakes of dried fish smelling very strongly of age. The winter was long and spring far distant yet. There would be hunger in the tents before it came.
Herilak drained the last drops of liquid with noisy appreciation, and eyen managed to summon up a belch to show how rich the meal had been. He knew that he should now talk about hunting, the weather, the migrating herds, and only much later reach the point of his visit. But this slow and time-consuming custom was changing as well.
“The mother of the wife of my first son is the wife of Amahast,” Herilak said. Ulfadan nodded in agreement, for this fact was known to him. All of the sammads in these mountain valleys were linked by marriage in one way or another. “I have been to the camping place of Amahast’s sammad and the place is empty.” Ulfadan nodded at this as well.
“They went south last spring, their path always taking them down this valley. It was seen that half of their mastodons had died. It was a bad winter.”
“It is known that now it is always a bad winter.”
Ulfadan grunted in unhappy agreement. “They did not return after that.”
Herilak turned the thought over in his head, tracing in his mind the trail down through the valleys to the flatlands, then eastward to the sea. “They went then to the sea?”
“Each year now they go the encampment by the river at the sea.”
“But this year they did not return.” There was no answer to that other than silent agreement. Something had happened that they did not know about. Perhaps the sammad had found a different winter camp; more than one sammad had been destroyed by cold and their encampments were empty. There was that possibility. There was the greater possibility that something far worse had happened about
which they knew nothing.
“The days are short,” Herilak said, climbing to his feet. “And the way is long.”
Ulfadan rose as well and seized the big hunter’s arms in his hands in a gesture of appreciation. “It is a long and lonely way to the sea in winter. May Ermanpadar guide your path all of the way.”
There was nothing more to be said. Herilak pulled his furs tight about him again and once more pointed his spear to the south. It was only after he had reached the plains that he went faster, for the snow here was frozen and hard. Winter was his only enemy now for the ice-bound land was empty of life. Only once in his many days of walking did he see a greatdeer, and this was a thin and wretched creature pursued by a small pack of starving longtooths. He saw them moving across the plain in his direction. There was a low rise here with a stand of leafless trees upon it and Herilak stopped beside them to watch.
The wretched greatdeer was weakening, its flanks torn and dripping with blood. It stumbled to a halt when it reached the slope, too winded to run any further, and turned at bay. The starving longtooths came in from all sides, heedless of danger with the smell of warm blood in their nostrils. One of them was caught by the dagger-pointed horns and tossed aside. But this was the opportunity the leader needed to spring in and hamstring the greatdeer, tearing at its hindlegs. Bellowing, the creature fell and the end was upon it. The leader, a great black creature with a thick ruff of hair about its throat and chest, drew back as though to let the others eat first. There would be enough for all.
When it moved aside it became aware for the first time of watching eyes. With wild instinct it knew it was being observed. It rose growling and looked straight up the hill at Herilak, its gaze meeting his. Then it crouched and moved in his direction, halfway up the hill, coming so close that Herilak could look into the unblinking yellow of its eyes.
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