Gods of Green Mountain (5 page)

On the cultivated fields, only the huge overhanging rock boulders, hauled into place and position by hundreds of men, kept every speck of growing life from being washed away.

In the deep underground burrows and caverns that were constantly being expanded by the men and boys of El Sod-a-Por, the humans and domestic farm animals waited for the fury of the Gods' wrath to cease.

Beneath Baka's farm, a female puhlet began a woeful rilling. It was a familiar sound to every person there, announcing to all that the birthing time had begun.

"Wouldn't you just know it would have to happen now?" Baka complained in sour irritation. "When this storm is over, we'll have to repair the damage done to our fields, and take care of the pukas too!" He didn't have to order his sons to build fires and stack the piles of wood and balgar nearby; they were already busy doing this. All of their extra supplies were kept underground, although it was cold and damp, and fires had to be kept burning at all times; at least all that they possessed wouldn't be swept away by the wind and rain.

The boys raced about bringing more wood. Far-Awn was sent to carry the message to his mother and sister that the pukas were coming. Everyone's help would be needed, and his mother was especially good at this.

Easily Far-Awn found his mother and sister in the underground room beneath their home. In the weak yellow light of an oil lamp, both were busily knitting, one of the occupations saved for times like this. "Oh, my son," his mother cried on seeing him, "you
are
alive!"

"Yes, of course," replied Far-Awn, "did you think I was dead?" He laughed and hugged his mother close, and kissed her cheek. "Don't you know I expect to live to be a thousand, at least?"

Fearfully Lee-La whispered, "Son, don't talk like that. That's defiance. You die when the Gods say you die."

Far-Awn smiled and gave her the news of the birthing. Immediately the knitting was put aside as unimportant, and all three gathered up as many blankets as they could carry from the piles just brought down from the house. Far-Awn led his mother and sister back to the large cavern where the puhlets were. Long before they reached there, the painful rilling cries of the females in labor could be heard.

How very much Far-Awn wanted to stay and help. How very much he wanted to cuddle the new little babies against him, but because he was fleeter of foot, he was sent away again, this time to find his older brothers still working somewhere else.

Through the long dark tunnels he ran, his light throwing weak beams into the darkness. As he raced, he called. His voice echoed and rebounded throughout the many chambers. Finally an answering call responded. Now he had to stop and decide from just which direction the true voice came. Fortunately, he guessed correctly.

When Far-Awn came upon his five older brothers, they were industriously hacking at the rock in the earthen tunnel walls. Each strong young body was covered with black grime, dust from the soft black stone they called balgar, black stone that burned hot and long in their fires, giving off much more heat than wood alone, though wood was used to start the fires.

"The birthing time is here!" Far-Awn sang out loudly. "Father says you are to come at once and bring all the balgar you can carry!" When the five boys heard this news, they threw down their picks and raced toward the underground pool of inky dark water. In minutes they were stripped bare; then all five plunged in, splashing and shouting with the shock of the cold water. They had to wash off the black soot, for the young pukas had to be handled only by clean hands. "And put on clean clothes too," Far-Awn yelled, before he turned and ran, leaving his brothers still bathing.

When he reached the cavern where his mother and father and Bret-Lee were assisting the females in the process of delivering, all was brightly lit and very warm from the fires attended by the six brothers already there. Already six new pukas were nestled near their resting mothers, too small and too weak yet to stand. Still other pukas were coming. Baka and his wife and daughter were very, very busy. The female puhlets were half the size of the males, and very delicate. Not one gave birth easily, despite the inordinately small size of their young. The expectant mothers not yet ready stood restless and anxious, two young ones particularly nervous. For these two it was their first time. Their fears communicated to the other, older females, and only the oldest and most experienced at birthing could remain sedate and calm.

Far-Awn crouched between the two young females, stroking each, murmuring softly into their ears. At his familiar touch, and the sound of his voice, both became calmer, ceasing their pitiful nervous cries. After awhile he ran out of soothing words to say, and he began to sing softly. Every puhlet, even giant Musha, stood still and quiet with ears uplifted to catch each note and inflection of his voice.

Not one of his brothers, or even Baka, complained this time because he sang. It was plain enough for all to see that his lilting notes gave comfort when Baka's harsh commands to "Stop making that awful racket" did nothing but add more distress. Baka gave this momentary thought. Could it be there was some practical use to such a frivolous thing as singing?

Then Baka cried out, disturbing the new calmness. "What's this? I have seen many a new puka, but never one such as this!" He extended his hand for all to see, and cupped in his rough, burly, calloused palm, was a tiny new puka, violet instead of pale pink--and glowing all over with a bluish luminous light!

All of those in the firelit chamber stared at the uniquely bright little fellow, who raised his head alertly, while he struggled to gather minute and delicate legs under enough to stand.

"He seems quite strong," said Lee-La, "but what is wrong with his color?"

"The Gods only know!" was Baka's irritated reply, annoyed by anything he didn't understand. And he was a hundred times more annoyed when something unprecedented happened to an expected normalcy.

The five remaining brothers came running, balgar grime still clinging to the fringes of their clean faces. They too had to stand in awe before the glowing small puka.

Gingerly Baka placed the bright little creature beside its mother. He brushed his hands raspily against his coarse shirt, as if to rid them of some contamination. The mother puhlet didn't seem to notice any abnormal difference in her offspring. She nudged him with her soft purple nose, until he was snug in her fur that covered him almost completely.

In the long hours that followed, five more times did Baka call out, "Why here's another of those shining pukas!" Baka wondered, just what new devilment had been sent to needle him.

The pelting rains, the devastating winds, were long gone by the time the last puka was born.

Wearily, Baka and his family emerged from the caverns into the daylight. In the silence bred with long experience with storms, they stood without speaking to survey what was left of their home, their fields, their fences, their barns, and their storage bins. Not much was still standing.

Already the deluge of water had completely disappeared. The cracked crusty surface gave no evidence at all that it had so recently tasted water. In the cultivated meadows where the top crust had been removed, the soft, boggy inner-earth was watered every day by a series of connected irrigation ditches. Now all the little plants that had stood so firm and straight a few hours ago were flattened down into the mud, or washed away.

No good to stand and sigh or cry, he thought. Baka left his sons to save what they could, while he and his wife and daughter hurried on to see what repairs would be needed on their home.

Left alone in the underground caverns, Far-Awn fed the fires to keep warm the baby puhlets until they were strong enough to walk. Already the little ones who were born first were satisfying their hunger, while the newer ones lay weakly pink without moving, just looking bewilderedly around. That is, all but the six little violet ones who still glowed luminously. They were nursing greedily, able to stand and run about from the very first.

To Far-Awn, there was something familiar about the halo of bluish light that radiated from them. From the pocket of his fur jacket, he pulled out the small white blossom he had plucked from the ice of Bay Gar. It lay in his palm, pure and opalescent white, as fresh as the snow that frosted the peaks of the Scarlet Mountains, although many long hours had passed since he took the flower from the ice. However, the glowing radiance had faded. This disappointed him. He had intended to show his father the significance between the flower and the shining pukas. Nevertheless, he put the flower back in his pocket for future consideration.

The Beginning of the End

I
t seemed to all the bedeviled, beleaguered people of El Sod-a-Por that every year the weather grew worse, not better. The horrendous storms blew in with increasing frequency and ferocity. Worse, when they came, they stayed longer. The families waiting for them to abate in the safety of the underground passageways dreaded to go out again into the sunlight and see what had been taken from them, and all that they would have to begin again.

Although everyone knew the underground offered only temporary refuge, some gave up life on the surface land and tried to stay under. They dug shafts into the cavern rooms to let in some light, for they knew that without some sunlight, they couldn't live for long. This seemed a solution of a kind, so more and more of the beleaguered people moved down into the dark tunnels. Their fields on the surface were left unattended while they concentrated on growing underground a variety of tortars, a fleshy sort of root vegetable that was able to flourish without sunlight. Unfortunately, tortars were the only edible plant that would.

Only the hardiest, the most tenacious of them refused to yield to this easy but unhappy way of living. Those most determined stayed on the crusty dry surface to nurse along their crops and animal herds against all the hazards. Some called them foolhardy--admittedly resilient but fools just the same--to put life in the sun ahead of possessions and safety.

Among those who persisted were Baka and his family, refusing absolutely to consider moving permanently into the dark, cold underground caverns.

"It is better to be alive and cold and miserable in the underground dimness," expounded the new inner-earth dwellers, "than warm and dead in the sunlight." More than a molecule of truth lay in this statement, for so many died in the wind funnels, so many froze, so many fell stricken from the heat and dust that clogged their lungs. Those who didn't die from the heat or the cold died in the deluging waters or were crushed by falling trees or boulders or were worn down from sheer fatigue, until they sickened into death.

There were so many ways to die on the surface, but there was only one way to die underground.

Some whispered that the Gods would have their revenge on Baka, who resisted them at every opportunity. "I will not!" raged Baka when a delegation of his neighbors requested that he sacrifice his most potent male, the one Far-Awn called Musha. "I will give a lesser male to the Gods, but not Musha!" His friends and neighbors scowled: to give a lesser male was not a sacrifice. Only the best would appease the Gods. They had given
their
most fertile males, so why should Baka be allowed to give less?

Not more than one bag of grain would Baka burn at the altar! He cheated in so many ways, his neighbors whispered among themselves.

Only by wearing his woebegone expression did Baka hope to disguise his antagonism to a religion that demanded the best of everything in sacrifice. Baka grumbled to his wife. "Next they'll be asking for my best son to sacrifice...and then my daughter. Give the priests Musha and there will be no ending to their demands. And how do we know if the Gods even notice?"

"Ssssh!" cautioned Lee-La in a hushed voice of fear, cautiously looking around to see who might have overheard. Then she asked, with strong curiosity on her round pleasant face, "Our ancestors used to give their first son, but if you were forced to sacrifice your
best
son, which would it be?"

"None!" shouted Baka angrily. "Those days are gone! Of human life we have too little--I won't give one, the best or the worst!"

"But just for
my
benefit, tell me which is the best?"

Baka glared at his wife in hot temper, then threw himself down on the bed. The second sun was near the horizon. Soon all would fall into oblivion, but he had the time to wonder briefly which son would he willingly sacrifice--if someday he must: Not one, not one...not even the worst, who was in some ways the best. I too am a fool, he thought, and then slept untroubled, even by dreams.

It came about in the days that followed that once-friendly neighbors stayed as far from Baka and his family as they could, lest they share in Baka's special punishment from the Gods when it came. And come it would, sooner or later. Twelve sons alive and healthy--though Far-Awn was doubtful mentally--was sure to be noticed. That woebegone expression of Baka's could be just the result of overwork and too much mental strain, and not his natural humble expression, as it should be.