Shards of History

by Rebecca Roland

  A lone Jegudun, dark tan in color, approached from the camp. Maybe the Jeguduns were allies of the Outsiders. But why would the injured Jegudun show her this? Her mind reeled.

  She turned on a course that brought her deeper into the valley and that would also intersect with the approaching Jegudun. From this distance, the creature reminded her of the one that fought the injured Jegudun. She came up alongside it. Gentle down-covered curves let her know this one was female. The Jegudun chattered rapidly, punctuating her speech with growls.

  They flew deeper into the valley. A small village, built in the same round structure as Selu, came up on their right. A tributary of the Big River ran beside it. The female led them towards the village, dipping low until she skimmed the tree tops, making them sway in the wake of her passage.

  A half dozen boys played outside the village. One would shoot an arrow and, as soon as it hit the ground, all the boys would run for it, jostling one another to be first, their excited shouts echoing. They were so engrossed in the game that none noticed the Jeguduns.

  The female flew straight for the boys. Malia’s stomach twisted. The female’s actions spoke of desperation, and Malia had no doubt that nothing good would come of what she was about to do. Malia struggled but, locked in the injured Jegudun’s mind, she could do nothing but watch and go along with whatever he did.

  The Jeguduns skimmed near the ground, their shadows gliding silently below them. The boys noticed the creatures at the last moment. Their playful cries turned to fearful shouts as they bolted for the village. The smallest boy, perhaps five years-old, trailed the group. He cast a glance over his shoulder, white rimming his eyes. As the female dove for him, he swung his arms as if he could fend her off. The Jegudun ignored his feeble attempt to defend himself, grabbed him by the shoulders, and lifted him from the ground.

  Malia screamed for her to let him go, but no sound came out. Unburdened by extra weight, Malia caught up with the female and crashed into her.

  The Jegudun dropped the boy. He rolled as he hit the ground, sprang to his feet, and ran for the village where men and women were pouring out. The boy ran into the arms of the nearest woman. The others clustered around him and hustled him back to the village. Several of the men had axes or daggers out and ran towards the Jeguduns. The rest came to a stop and readied arrows.

  Malia rose in the air. The female Jegudun faltered, then followed. Malia darted from the village with the female close behind her. She could not understand the sounds the Jegudun made, but the rage in her tone was apparent.

  Unfamiliar muscles strained as Malia tried to get away. The valley swept beneath her, the forest nothing but a green blur interrupted occasionally by a meadow or plains. The female, driven by anger or disappointment or perhaps both, drew closer with each beat of her wings. She wore a snarl, and her arms reached out, the talons protracted. Her shadow passed over Malia moments before those talons dug into her back. Lines of burning pain erupted. She realized this was the fight she had seen from the top of the boulder.

  The pull on her mind let go. The aerial fight faded, and Malia sat in the meadow again, her heart racing. The burning pain along her back disappeared. Slipping his hand free, the injured Jegudun sat back, exhaustion apparent on his face.

  So, this Jegudun had saved that boy. The female had wanted to take him, but why? And what did she have to do with the Outsiders? Questions swarmed Malia’s mind.

  “What was that?”

  He pointed to his head.

  “A … memory?”

  He nodded.

  “So Outsiders are really camped out beside the river?”

  Another nod.

  “They’re the ones who blocked it?”

  He let out a sad trill.

  “But that female came from their camp. Do some Jeguduns collaborate with them?”

  He chirped and whistled, moving his uninjured arm as he did so. Malia took it to mean there was no easy answer to that.

  “Do most Jeguduns collaborate with them?”

  He shook his head.

  So, some Jeguduns were allied with the Outsiders, but most weren’t. Why did those Jeguduns prevent the Taakwa men from leaving the valley? Perhaps they actually did it to protect those men, knowing such a large group of Outsiders waited just outside the valley. She shuddered to think what would have happened to them had they crested the cliffs and come upon that scene. Malia’s head throbbed with trying to make sense of it all.

  “Well, I can’t just go on thinking of you as ‘the Jegudun.’ Would you mind if I called you Tuvin, like the falls?”

  His lips pulled up in what Malia initially thought a silent growl. Then she realized it was a grin. It seemed he approved her choice of names.

  A new thought came to her. “The men of my village pass through here sometimes on their way to hunt.” With the crops doing poorly, more would be hunting. And she certainly didn’t want any of them stumbling across Tuvin when he couldn’t get away. “I don’t think this is a very safe place for you.”

  In response, Tuvin flexed his right wing a little. He let out a whine.

  “You could walk home, but there are quite a few villages between here and the cliffs, no matter which direction you go. You need a safe place for … how long do you think? A few days?”

  Tuvin shrugged.

  “You need a place where nobody will bother you. Oh. Oh!” Malia clapped her hands once. “The hot springs. They’re not too far from here, and none of my people go near them. It’s a Jegudun place.”

  Tuvin let out a noise that Malia interpreted as ‘harrumph.’

  Her cheeks warmed and she ducked her head. “My apologies. That never sounded insulting before.” She cleared her throat. “You could stay at the springs as long as you need to. What do you think?”

  Tuvin rose to his feet in reply.

  Malia returned the blanket and empty stew bowl to the basket. She stood, tucked it against one hip, and led the way northwest, towards the springs. She walked slowly, allowing for Tuvin’s shorter stride and limp. She wondered if his rolling gait and wide stance was normal, or a result of his injuries.

  She cast sidelong glances as they traveled. Tuvin’s teeth and talons were as she’d always imagined—sharp and deadly—but nothing else fit the image she’d held all her life. Lately she had found herself wrong about a couple of things: the Jeguduns, Dalibor. Her judgment should be better. She would be Selu’s clan mother one day.

  The sun rode high overhead. In a few hours she would have to return home to Dalibor. She had been prepared to accept him back into her home for the good of her people. But now that she had seen the truth behind the river’s drop for herself, she might not have to. How would she share what she had discovered? Who could she trust enough to tell about Tuvin?

  Every so often a Jegudun-sympathizing Taakwa would try to convince them all that the creatures were not their enemies. Malia had always thought those people insane, both for their belief and for admitting it. Those Taakwa were always exiled, heads shaved and left naked in the woods without weapons to fend for themselves. That had happened to Warcello several years before. He had been found dead a few days after his exile, the victim of freezing cold nights. Most were never found, and it was assumed they had made their way to the cliffs, seeking the company of Jeguduns, only to be torn to bits and eaten. But Malia knew better now. Poor Warcello. Her hand went to the worn Jegudun feather hanging around her neck, and her fingers began twirling it.

  If she shared news about Tuvin with the wrong person, Warcello’s fate would be her own. She could make her way to the cliffs, but she’d be leaving behind her family, her village, and her people. The thought left behind a bitter taste.

  Even if she convinced someone to hear her out, there was still the matter of what to do about the Outsiders. It should be a matter for the men’s council to discuss, but if the situation overwhelmed her, how must it be for them?

  Tuvin chirruped, drawing her out of her thoughts. He cocked his head to one sid
e as if to ask, are you all right?

  “You’ve given me a lot to think about.” Her shoulders stooped as if she carried the information on them. She switched the basket to her other hip and rolled her shoulders.

  Aspen gave way to mature pines, marking the edge of the forest that had been burned years ago in the fire. They walked down a slight slope, crossed a dry arroyo lined with scrub pinyon, and then climbed a sharper slope. Rocks lined the steepest parts, some squatting over Malia’s head at precarious angles. When she’d passed through here as a child, the rocks always appeared poised to roll down the hill and crush everything in their paths. Now they reminded her of the Outsiders’ flying lizards. The shadows fell across one to create a scale pattern. Stories of the great war told how her ancestors burned the fallen lizards, but what if some turned to stone? What if they merely slumbered, waiting for some signal from the Outsiders?

  She brushed against a rosemary bush, releasing its scent into the air. The aroma drew her back to herself. The boulders were just that—stone. Still, her pace quickened a bit.

  They came upon a stream, one that did not flow directly from the Big River, but bubbled up from the ground, its source being near the hot spring they were headed towards. It gurgled over rocks, a few small trout darting in the clear water. At its widest, Malia would need only three strides to cross it.

  She led them onto a deer trail that followed the slope. To her left, the ground rose abruptly. To her right flowed the stream.

  The pleasant warmth of the day and the lazy buzz of cicadas lulled her. Steps became automatic, one foot in front of the other on the packed dirt. Intermittent odors of sage, juniper, and pine passed through the air. A warbler sang in the distance, so faint Malia wondered if she really heard it at all.

  They came upon an old pine beside the trail. At eye level, a Jegudun face peered out, carved into the tree trunk. Age had softened the outlines and dulled the paints the artist had used. The visage could have belonged to a wolf, but the artist had carved suggestions of wings on either side.

  “We’re close,” she whispered. And then she caught the first hint of the mineral odor that marked the spring. She wrinkled her nose.

  All she remembered from her one childhood visit to the springs was barely-restrained fear. She’d been the only one of seven kids who had dared dip her toes in the water. It had been close to dusk, and dark shadows had fallen over the spring. She thought she’d seen something huge move in the water, coming up to get her. Her scream had sent them all running pell-mell through the woods and back to Selu. None of them spoke of the experience. Their parents would have been furious that they had gone to the springs when they been forbidden to do so.

  Her heart grew and filled her entire chest. It pounded as she rounded the last corner. Ahead was the hot spring, a small pool tucked amid wild sunflowers, daises, and tall grasses, and around all that, pine trees towered over the space like guardians. The mineral odor was strong.

  Jeguduns had been carved into all the large trees around the space. Some were like the one on the trail, a view of the face only, but others had been carved in profile and in flight. The nearest one held such a carving. Malia walked around the tree. The picture enwrapped the entire trunk. She tentatively laid a hand on the carving, tracing the lines.

  “I wonder who made these.” The work was familiar, something she hadn’t noticed when she was a child.

  Tuvin trilled low. He studied the same carving, a sad expression on his face.

  “Did Jeguduns make these?”

  He shook his head.

  The idea Malia had seen work like this before grew, haunting her like the edge of a memory she couldn’t grasp or a moment that seemed to repeat itself.

  Malia moved through the waist-high grass towards the spring. It had no source and no outlet, just a pool sitting in the middle of a clearing. Beneath her leather-clad feet, the soft dirt changed to something harder at the pool’s edge. She squatted, brushing away a thin layer of dirt to reveal stone.

  Following the spot out in all directions, she unearthed a square block. Years had cracked it, and grass and daisies had taken advantage of the space, but somebody had built a short wall around the pool.

  The water itself was still, a perfect reflection of the cloudless sky above it. Malia set her basket down and, on hands and knees, leaned forward to look in its depths.

  Something in the water moved. Malia jerked back. The something in the water jerked back at the same time. Realization washed over her, followed by heat flushing her neck and cheeks. She glanced over her shoulders to see if Tuvin had witnessed it. He was intently studying more of the carvings. Malia grinned, shook her head, then leaned forward again.

  She rarely had such a good look at herself. The Big River flowed too quickly to show more than a wavy image. She looked so young, like a girl who had barely passed into womanhood. Until now she hadn’t realized how much older she felt than her twenty summers.

  Tuvin joined her. Malia sat back on her heels.

  “I was expecting something different.”

  Tuvin sat beside her with a long groan. He eased his short legs over the edge and dipped them in the water with a sigh.

  Malia took off her shoes and, hiking her skirt over her knees, followed suit. She gasped at the water’s heat.

  “I feel a little bit like I’m waking up after a long sleep. Everything is slowly getting clearer.” She chuckled. “Silly, isn’t it?”

  She leaned back on her hands, closed her eyes, and gently swirled her legs in the water. She’d grown accustomed to the mineral smell. Beside her, Tuvin’s breathing grew relaxed, slow. Every now and then, he adjusted his wings, maybe searching for a more comfortable position.

  Malia had no urge to fill this silence. She was willing to let the entire day pass like this, both of them sitting with their legs in the pool, basking in the day’s warmth.

  Her problems shrank. She imagined her mother and Dalibor as no bigger than crickets, with tiny voices to match. She collected them beneath an overturned bowl, shutting out their voices completely. She smiled.

  But there was still the problem of the river and the Outsiders. Her smile faded. She opened her eyes and sat forward, folding her hands together in her lap.

  “Tuvin, what can we do about the river?”

  He let out a low whistle.

  She sighed. “I wish I could understand you as well as you understand me.” She stood and brushed off her skirt. “I have to get back home.” And face her mother and Dalibor. She tried not to grimace. “I’ll come back tomorrow with much more food, just in case I can’t get away for a few days.” With Dalibor around, it would be hard for her to leave. “You’ll probably be safe going to the stream to drink, but stay here otherwise. When I come back, I’ll call out before you see me, so if you hear someone walking around and they’re not saying anything, hide.”

  Tuvin bared his teeth in what was becoming a familiar grin.

  Malia returned it. She hurried from the clearing, glancing back once before she rounded the corner. Tuvin stood where she’d left him. He raised his hand in farewell. Malia waved back.

  Down the trail she took a few moments to collect clay from near the stream. She stored it carefully in the basket, then hurried to Selu. She had saved the shattered deer bowl she’d made for Enuwal and planned on using some of it in a new bowl. But she’d hide the new one from Dalibor.

  It was mid afternoon by the time she reached Selu. A group of boys braved the heat, playing a game similar to the one the boys had been playing in Tuvin’s memory. Their laughter and the thunder of their running feet carried over the plain. Malia couldn’t help the quick glance she gave the sky. Had that female Jegudun succeeded in taking a boy? And why did she want one?

  On the other side of Selu, several men worked in the fields, pulling weeds or checking the irrigation system. The sky remained without any promise of rain.

  Malia ducked through an alley into the village’s center. Her home was only a few houses d
own on the right. And waiting beside her ladder was Dalibor. Malia came to an abrupt stop.

  He leaned against the wall, arms crossed, the expression on his face sour. Malia was about to slide back into the alley when he spotted her. He straightened, his arms unfurling, and walked towards her.

  “Where have you been?” he said.

  Chapter 6

  Malia had been hoping for a few moments to herself before having to face Dalibor. So much for that. She sighed as she hefted the basket. “Where does it look like I’ve been?” She hoped Dalibor would notice only the sarcasm in her tone and not the hint of fear. She didn’t want him to think she’d been doing anything but searching for clay.

  He peered inside the basket. Malia had tucked the stew bowl in one corner and hid it with the blanket, leaving only the clay exposed. Dalibor then let his gaze travel to her feet and slowly back up. “You’re flushed.”

  “Yes, well, it is hot.”

  “It took you all morning to find a little bit of dirt?”

  Malia bit back the first words that rose to her lips. Instead, she said, “You’re keeping track of me now?”

  “I ran into your mother earlier.”

  Malia brushed past him. She tucked the basket against one hip and put her free hand on the ladder. “Then you know she refuses to grant us the end of our marriage. And for the good of the village, I decided to take you back into my home.” She wanted no doubt in his mind about why she was taking him back.

  She climbed to the narrow ledge and stepped into the cool shade of her home. A moment later, Dalibor’s head appeared above the ledge. He climbed up and stood just outside the door.