Great Sky Woman (35 page)

Chapter Forty-seven

White was the color of death, and all about them was white. The people of the inner and outer bomas held one another and shivered as smoke and ash spewed into the sky above them. White, all of them. Corpses, all. Before their eyes, the land itself had died.

The land, the animals, the trees, the rocks and the dirt.

All about them, the balance between life and death had sickened.

A hand of days later another eruption darkened the sky. This time they watched fire dance around the mountain’s peak, smelled smoke from burning trees, covered their ears to protect themselves from the peals of thunder. Only after another hand of days did the sky begin to clear.

On Great Earth, the three hunt chiefs who had protected the women surveyed their home and trembled. They dared not go to see what had happened to Cloud Stalker and the others.

They knew in their marrow already. Their
num
told them what their eyes could not yet see, and their hearts feared to confess.

So instead of going up to Great Sky, they danced in the ash, praying and singing all of the songs they knew or could devise, hoping that one of them might heal the mountain or please their gods.

Or perhaps simply spare their lives.

When T’Cori first clawed her way back to consciousness, Stillshadow knelt beside her. The old woman was drawn and thin, but her eyes burned bright. She dipped leaves in water from a gourd and wiped them slowly and smoothly across T’Cori’s brow.

Raven sat cross-legged in her hut’s doorway. T’Cori’s eyes refused to focus, but she would have recognized that disapproving form and posture in the midst of the wildest hallucination.

“It was wrong for her to help you,” Raven said. “This is why the gods are angry. Why They abandon us.”

“We do not know this,” the old woman said, her forehead slick with sweat. Only then did T’Cori’s fevered mind comprehend that the woman tending her was still sick and weak.

“No,” the nameless one said, slipping her feverish hand into Stillshadow’s. “Save your strength.”

She heard herself say that.
Try
to say that. But from Stillshadow’s puzzled expression, T’Cori realized that she had only mumbled.

“Rest,” Stillshadow said.

“Mother,” Raven said, “you need to save your strength, to heal.” What was that in Raven’s face? It was too dark. T’Cori could not see, but she could hear her sister dancer’s voice. Was that anger? Shame that she had not had the courage to do what T’Cori had done?

“I will care for her until she is well,” Stillshadow said, and dipped the leaves again.

With the passage of days T’Cori did grow strong enough to crawl away from her straw to empty her bladder. She ate nothing and thus produced no solid waste, for which she was grateful.

In between these brief bouts of strength she collapsed back on her straw, dampening it with sweat and vomit. Amid the agony and filth, the plant children gifted her with visions.

It seemed to T’Cori that she walked a path of light, a path like a log fallen across a yawning crevasse. It grew thinner as she walked. The nameless one fought to stay balanced, to not fall off to either side. It felt as if she was taking forever. Then she reached a wall and began to climb.

Along the way up the rock face she came to a place where a woman sat cross-legged. And now it was strange because for a moment T’Cori was
not
in the dream place. Rather, she was in her hut, and it was Stillshadow who came to her, hushed her, gave her grasses and herbs to eat. Was it real? Had Stillshadow come to her hut, helped her? She could not say. All she knew was that those few moments of grace saved her mind, if not her soul.

In time, T’Cori’s eyes began to focus on things of this world, and she returned to her senses. No one could say why this happened or what it meant. Perhaps because she was righteous in the eyes of Great Mother. Perhaps because she was young and strong.

And perhaps because Stillshadow and the mighty One she served loved her.

T’Cori lived.

And miracle of miracles, the eruptions had ceased.

Weak and wobbly, T’Cori emerged from the hut. Some of the other women seemed a bit afraid of her, as they had not been after her previous adventures.

Was it possible that her sight had returned? She looked at her sisters, hoping. Nothing. Slanting her eyes sideways, she could detect a bit of glow around them, but less than the average dream dancer saw. She was alive, but the thing that had once made her special was still gone.

Still, some whispered that T’Cori was Raven’s only competition for leader. None of the older women was strong enough to lead after Stillshadow went to the mountain, none would live long enough to raise a new generation of dream dancers. They could sing the sun to life and tend the eternal fire, but not lead.

Only Raven could lead. Raven, or the nameless one.

But the very idea caused other talk, for what was death itself now that heaven was gone? Now that, as some whispered, Great Mother and Father Mountain had died?

And so it was that T’Cori went seeking Stillshadow and found her resting in her hut. “Teacher,” she said, “did I do wrong?”

“Very wrong,” she said. “But if Father Mountain had wanted you to come to Him for judgment, He would have summoned you.”

“Why?” the girl asked. “Why am I alive?”

“Use your
num,
” the old woman said. Then T’Cori brushed her lips against Stillshadow’s brow, and left her to rest.

Chapter Forty-eight

A warm rain had washed the white death from the ground. Pygmy geese, kites and fish-eagles winged the sky again as life began to return. Still, the Ibandi spoke in hushed terms, as if speaking loudly might awaken whatever demon had smote their god. But people must eat, and hunt, and the Ibandi had returned to the process of living.

Every day Break Spear performed ceremony and sacrifice, begging the ruined mountaintop to give signs. Every day someone suggested that they send a delegation up Great Sky to see what might be seen.

The proud hunters of the Ibandi met one another’s eyes only with difficulty. Instead of climbing they sacrificed antelope, burned the flesh of their catches, begged Father Mountain to send the hunt chiefs back.

But they did not return. And no one climbed the mountain to see.

“Frog!” Gazelle called. In the last moon she seemed to have grown thinner, and it seemed to Frog that his mother gazed up at Great Sky almost wistfully, as if longing for the day when her time came to receive new bones. “Your mate is gone. You must find a new one. It is not good for your son to have no mother. Find a woman and take her to your hut.”

Frog paused in the maintenance of his spears and sighed. “I do think about such things.”

“This is good.” She nodded. Her hair was thin and almost completely white now. Her cheeks, once plump, were sunken. “I have spoken to the women,” she whispered to him. “This world ends soon, and we will be taken to the world beyond. There, we will be asked what we did, asked if we lost faith.” Panic dwelled behind her eyes, an emotion that had crept into all their lives, into every motion, every word. It was almost as if the Ibandi he had known were dead. “Your child needs a mother. You need a helper.”

How could she think of such common things at such a time? Then he realized that it was by thinking of the continuance, the unbroken thread of their seed, that his mother managed to hold on to her sanity.

“There is one in my heart.”

“Good,” Gazelle said. “A widow, perhaps, with children. You will need one to nurse your boy. Or you will need to bring food to a woman who has milk, and ask her to feed him.” She spoke in a singsong, a tone he had heard from her only once before, when she was sick with fever.

“This woman has no children,” Frog said, hoping that Gazelle would not ask more.

“Has she been married?”

After a pause, he said, “No.”

Gazelle smiled. “Then go to her parents. You are a good hunter and will be a welcome son.”

Frog avoided her eyes. There was no way around it now. “This is not needed. She has no parents.”

“An orphan?” Gazelle brightened. “Better still. You can bring her home at once. Where do her people camp?”

“On Great Earth.”

A pause.

Now Gazelle seemed to emerge more fully from her partial slumber. “She is a dream dancer?” Sudden comprehension blossomed. “She is this nameless one you saved?”

“Yes,” he said.

Gazelle’s face hardened. “It cannot be. Wash it from your heart.”

“Mother—” he began, his thoughts interrupted by a sudden screaming and shouting from the far side of the boma.

Before they could continue, it seemed that half the boma was running toward the gate, hunters and women alike. Frog sprinted over to see a young boy from Water boma, his feet swollen and bloody. He was exhausted and ranting. Dried blood and sweat masked his face.

“They kill us,” he panted.

“What happened?” asked Hot Tree.

“We were hunting to the east,” the boy said, “and had speared a fat zebra. We were making a sled to pull it home when they set upon us.”

“Who?” Break Spear asked. “Who did this?”

The boy’s torn face tightened with fear. “The Mk*tk,” he said. That word had spread through the bomas in the past year.

“They killed you all?”

He nodded, his eyes utterly haunted. “They hurled stones at us. Shot arrows. Killed all but me.” The boy whimpered, finally abandoning all pretense of courage. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “They let me go. I do not know why.”

“So we would know, and fear,” Break Spear said.

Break Spear was old for a boma father. That he had kept his position so long was testament to the fact that his men, indeed the entire boma, loved and trusted him.

Now he called to his young, strong hunters. He was not a hunt chief, not one of the almost superhuman beings who had lived on the mountain, but he was still their champion, still the one to whom all turned in time of need.

“What do we do?” Deep Dry Hole asked.

Break Spear threw his shoulders back and stretched to his full height. The other hunters responded to the silent challenge by straightening their spines as well. This was a day for courage! “It is time to call the bomas together. Run to find the clans. At full moon, the hunters meet at the gathering place.”

Frog watched the folk as they clutched their spears or mates or children, grumbling nervously. The mountain had vomited. The land was poisoned. And now the Mk*tk had attacked the men of a boma openly. Who could need more sign that the end of the world had come?

“What of the hunt chiefs?” Scorpion said. “Should we go to the mountain?” His voice broke on the last word.

Deep Dry Hole spat. “Do you wish to lead the way?”

Scorpion hung his head. They turned and looked at Great Sky. Once again, clouds swirled up around its peak. Although the ground had not trembled in many days, they could see where the white cap had been torn away, so the mountain barely resembled the peak that every one of them had prayed and dreamed and spit to, for lives without counting.

In teams of two and three, Frog and the other hunters ran to the inner and outer bomas, hyena-running
huh-huh-huh
to gather the hunters together for a war council, something that had never happened in the memory of any living Ibandi.

By next moon almost half the Circle’s hunters appeared at the Gathering site, hands of hands of hands of men. To their surprise, five hunt chiefs had survived the disaster. All had been walking the Circle, visiting boma women or teaching wrestling and trapping. All were young men. None carried themselves with the confidence Frog had always attributed to the chiefs. They looked frightened, uncertain.

There was discussion of war, and dreaming, chanting and dancing. But from the time Break Spear coaxed the first ceremonial fire to wakefulness, everyone knew something dreadful was happening.

Morning Spring, the bamboo-thin, white-haired father of Wind boma, was the oldest man who still ran with the hunters, and therefore was given a place of respect at the council, even mighty Break Spear bowing to him. The five hunt chiefs sat around him, but by their refusal to seek the fate of their elders on Great Sky, they had lost all authority. Their fear hung about them like a mantle of shame.

“We have legends of war,” Morning Spring said. “When I was a boy, the hunt chiefs”—and here he spared a disdainful glance at the young men at his feet, who cringed at his displeasure—“said that there were legends, tales of a time when the Ibandi were forced to stand together. We did it then, and defended our land. We will do it again.”

“How?” Scorpion asked. “How did we do this thing?”

“Did the gods help?” Lion Tooth asked.

“They are not dead!” Spring said. “This is a test of our faith. Those who believe otherwise are fools.” The last word brimmed with both venom and hope.

The old man seemed to blaze with fire. Even Frog felt uplifted by his words, and the others stirred. Could the old man be right? Could there be hope?

“You will see,” he said. “We must prove ourselves worthy, must stand tall. Perhaps we redeem ourselves by facing this threat. But you will see. The hunt chiefs will return to us, strong and transformed!”

He raised his voice when he said this. Now he seemed to be inspired. “Yes!” he said. “We saw not the death of heaven but the birth of a new, greater world. And when the hunt chiefs come back to us, clad in feathers such as we have never seen, those of us who are worthy will dance, and sing, and celebrate. Our gods were here before the first of our ancestors were born, and they watch us now to see who will falter!”

The Ibandi beat their heels upon the ground, stamped and cheered.

“Now is no time for weaklings,” Break Spear declared to the group. “This is the day you have prepared for.”

“I am ready,” said Hawk Shadow. “All my life, I have prepared.”

“And I am ready,” Fire Ant joined in.

“We will wash our spears with blood,” said Uncle Snake. But it seemed to Frog that he was not so confident as he wished them to think, as if he possessed some secret knowledge.

Morning Spring, perhaps, knew what Snake was
not
saying. “Their spears will drip red as well! None of us has known war! War is not trees standing still so that you may cast your spears into them. You have slain lions and leopards. Lions and leopards cannot kill at a distance. They do not think as men, or attack in waves, or call the fire people. War is not antelope who seek only to run, to survive. I am old and remember my father’s stories, stories that his father told him, about a time when a tribe came and tried to take our land, a time when we were forced to fight. War is death, and pain, and fear.”

Their young men began to murmur.

Fire Ant seemed angry. “Are we not strong?”

“Morning Spring is right,” Uncle Snake said, throwing aside his uncertainty. “Strength is not enough. Brave hearts are not enough.”

Fire Ant stepped in. “Tell us what we must be,” he growled. “What we must have, and that is what we will give to you.”

Lion Tooth seemed to quail before Fire Ant’s courageous speech. Was the Lion afraid? With such a mighty totem, who could fail to stand proud?

Wind boma’s father stood again. “It is good for you to speak so,” he said. “You must go to fight as if already dead. We do not ask for your muscles, your skin. Give us your bones.”

This triggered an even more disturbed murmur.

“What do you mean by this?” Scorpion asked.

“Many will die, even if we win,” Snake said. “If you try to save your life, you will turn and run, and you and your brothers will be slain. I want no one at my side who seeks to live.” His eyes flamed. “Seek to die for your tribe. All others stay with the women!”

To Frog’s pride, not a single Ibandi hunter turned away from the bloody task ahead. All joined the line to climb up Great Earth to seek blessing from Stillshadow and the dream dancers. All day they ran, and long into the darkness. They reached the dream dancers near noon of the third day, but it seemed that the women had been awaiting them.

Frog was shocked by how weak Stillshadow appeared. Always she had seemed aged to him, but now she seemed beyond ancient, as if the last moon’s terrible events had drained her flesh. She seemed animated now by nothing save spirit.

Her eyes were clear enough, in fact they burned, but she did not speak. Her every inhalation seemed, to Frog, a small miracle.

His Butterfly Spring stood to the crone’s left, while Small Raven stood to her right. Both dancers bowed their heads slightly. So: as he had anticipated, the girl he had rescued on the plains had risen high among the dancers. This, he thought, was a good thing for the Circle in its time of need.

Stillshadow seemed almost half asleep. Twice, as he watched, she reached into a pouch at her waist and extracted a small pellet, pushing it between teeth and gum. Soon afterward, she seemed more alert and aware. She heard their plea: that in the absence of the hunt chiefs, Stillshadow herself would ready them to fight for the Circle.

She had not spoken a word in all of this, but after they finished she simply said, “Yes,” in a harsh, weak whisper. “Come to us at dusk. Prepare to die.”

Then she hobbled away, a dancer at each arm.