Kalik (10 page)

The river had blocked up the entrance to the tunnel, turned, and run down its old bed, but it was in flood now, and some of it was coming over the barrier. If it rose much more, we would be swept away. Probably carried to join the river under Grave Mountain. Like the Shaman, swept back to the Land of the White Bear that Ate the Sun.

I could hear exhaustion in the Children's voices. Tired, hungry, disappointed. And scared. As if it was my fault.

“I thought Nip would be waiting for us,” said Chak. And he sobbed.

“Look!” said Kimi. “A bear!”

“Where?”

“Shh!”

“There!”

“Bears don't have horns,” Chak told Kimi.

“It looks like a bear to me.”

Through the heavy bars, a glimpse of a shallow valley. A stag looked up, dropped its head to eat, and threw it up again.

“Not the deer. The white bear!” Kimi was near crying. I looked up the bars, at the roof of the tunnel.

“There!” said Kimi.

“I see!” Paku sounded interested. I looked where Kimi was pointing. Up to the right, something round and dingy white disappeared.

“It was a bear, wasn't it, Ish? A white one!”

“Maybe a baby one. Come back and find somewhere to sit down. We'll have something to eat and drink.”

“I don't want to go back,” said Kimi. “I want to get out.” Tupu, Chak, and Hurk began to grizzle with her.

“I don't like this tunnel.” Hurk's voice quavered.

“We've found the mouth. All we have to do now is find a way out.” I picked him up. He turned his head into my shoulder and cried. Chak took my other hand. Maka and Tulu carried Kimi and Tupu. In the half-light, we sat on a bank of sand.

I tried to sound cheerful. “Paku and Tepulka will give me a hand. Maka will tell the rest of you a story.”

We scrambled back to the gate. Two hinds grazed across the valley. Several fawns careered across a sandy patch. Springing,
feet hardly touching the ground, white-spotted red coats.

“They can't be hunted,” I said. “So the tunnel must have brought us well away from the lake.”

Paku sighed. “That white thing wasn't a bear, Ish.”

“No.”

“It wasn't a goat either.”

“It might have been a sheep.” I was tugging at a rock set hard in silt.

“I've never seen a sheep,” said Paku.

“They're good to eat, somebody said, and –” Tepulka hesitated. “And they've got long hair.”

“Wool!”

“We're in trouble if the river comes any higher,” said Paku trying the bars. Each so thick through, they were too big to grasp in one hand.

“At least it's not raining now,” said Tepulka.

“Shift this rock, and the others will come out easier,” I grunted. “Maybe we can get under the gate.”

“Why would they have a gate, Ish?”

“To stop boulders and logs blocking the tunnel.”

“Then this wasn't one of their Ways at all?”

“It's one of the tunnels they built to carry water. Probably joins the big one under Grave Mountain. Where the water shot out the other end, they'd use its force to make a thing they called electricity.”

“What's that?” asked Tepulka.

“It travelled along metal wires. Invisible. Warmed their houses. Cooked their food. Gave light. Did all kinds of work for them. Ah!” The rock came free. Tepulka rolled it to Paku.

“But the tunnel would have filled up with small rocks and sand. And look at the logs outside.”

“They'd clear it regularly. There'd be traps in the bottom for this small stuff to fall through. They'd have cleared them, too. Once the Old People died, the traps would fill. The sand and rocks build up. Then floods must have dumped all that stuff
against the gate and turned the river back down its old course.”

Tepulka grinned. “Pity we couldn't find one of those traps and get out that way.” It wasn't much of a joke, but I felt grateful. “At least we're escaping,” Tepulka said. “Better than being slaves to Kalik.”

Again I noticed it was Kalik he spoke of. They didn't see as much of Lutha. As I pulled at another rock, Paku managed to reach with the spear and work a branch between the bars. I levered with it. Another rock. Another. Soon I was standing in a hole, having to pass them up. But even when it became too dark to work, the bars still continued down into the sand.

First thing in the morning, I crawled to the gate. Rain was falling. The river was coming over the barrier. It had filled our hole with fresh sand.

As fast as we dug it out, more carried in. The rest of the Children stood watching us. Even the little ones knew what was happening.

“How did the gate open?” Paku asked.

“It lifted. See that slot.”

“So there's another tunnel above this?”

“Just enough for the gate to lift into.”

Already Paku was scrambling up the grating, but there was only the narrow slot. A rock loosened in the water now running between the bars. I worked it to where Tepulka could take it, and there was a cry from Maka.

“Tulu's found a crack in the wall!”

It was a line, a join down the curve of the tunnel wall. Paku and Tepulka tried it with their knives.

“See, Ish, the top of it turns and goes along here, and then turns down again.” Tulu traced the line around a section of wall the size of a door.

“Ish, the river's rising!”

“Stand back!” I smashed a rock against the door.

“It sounds hollow!”

“It moved!”

“Hit it again, Ish!”

The sand I stood on went soft. Wet. My feet sank in. I got my balance and smashed again.

The tunnel echoing – the increasing rush of water. The line of the crack clearer. Paku and Tepulka took a turn, swinging up a rock between them. Then I had another go. The boys again. And Maka and Tulu. The little ones pressed behind us. I looked around to tell them to stand back and saw the sandbank had grown smaller. We could not even climb back to the gate. Water gushed between its bars.

“Give us another go!” I picked up a heavier rock. But Tulu put her foot against the wall, and shoved. A black space opened. She disappeared.

“Tulu!” Paku screamed.

We felt her in darkness, pinned down by the slab of stone and metal that had fallen back. Maka, Paku, Tepulka and I lifted together. When Tulu scrambled free, I heard myself laughing. And heard her join in.

“Tulu's all right,” I heard Maka telling the little ones. Water was now spilling into the passage.

I counted everyone into it. Twelve! Prodding the walls, the roof, the floor. Something shifted under my feet. I picked it up, felt the eyeholes, the teeth. Passed it to Paku behind me. “An animal's skull. It must have crawled in here to die. So there's a way out.”

But it was Tulu's voice which giggled, “Of course there is. And I found it!”

“I thought you were Paku.”

“I found the door. So I want to be first out.”

At a wall of rocks and sand, I shoved and tugged. One rock came away easily. Several others fell. Light spilled! Tulu wriggled past.

“You're too fat, Ish.”

“You'll never get through. Your behind's too big!”

Tulu giggled again. “I can't shift this one. Oh!” A rock tumbled
outwards. A log rolled away. More light!

“Pass a bow,” I called behind. Tulu's feet disappeared. As she tore down the rocks from outside, water gushed in. A few frantic seconds passing out the little ones, shoving the last through, and we were outside.

“Twelve! Shhh!” I strung the bow. Crept around the blade of a grey wall.

Left, the bank of boulders and logs now under water. The main body of the river plunging down what must have been its old bed, before it was turned into the tunnel. Directly above, unable to hear us for the river, Kimi's white bear cropped grass. I fired. It ran straight uphill, paused as if thinking, sank back. The arrow snapped as it rolled, fell, and knocked me to the ground. The others lifted it off, laughing.

“Don't make a noise,” I beseeched. I crept under the stone wall, on to a grassy terrace. A clear hillside above. Over the tunnel entrance behind us, a face of smooth grey stone. No sign of danger. I yelped, deluged with cries of joy as the Children leapt, danced across the grass.

“But what is the white bear?”

“A sheep! Somebody get the other end of the arrow.”

“What's a sheep, Ish?” “Can you eat it?” “Let's have a touch!”

They felt it. Smelled it. Got the oil off the wool on their hands, sniffed, rubbed it on each other's faces. Nobody noticed the water creeping further up the iron gates.

Paku and Tepulka were skinning and butchering the sheep. “Bring that other bow,” I said to Maka. We climbed the hillside. Above the tunnel mouth, the smooth grey stone finished and rose in a bluff. On its far side several more sheep.

The river came from what seemed to be the east. We climbed and looked out over the country that way. Still raining there. No sign of people.

“What are you looking for, Ish?”

“We got down the hole into the tunnel. Turned right. Followed it this way. South. If it ran straight, the lake should be somewhere
over there.”

Maka smiled. Shrugged.

“We don't want to head back. And we don't want anyone spotting our smoke.” I faced where I thought the sun should be. Working things out.

The trees opened on to a long clearing that seemed to run north. Through a scrub-filled gap at its far end we followed an animal track rutted by the slots of deer tracks, sheep, goats. Droppings. Then some heavier tracks and dung thicker than a big dog's.

“See these?”

“Deer tracks,” said Maka.

“Rounder at the front.” I pointed. “Some other animal. And look at the size of its shit!”

We crept on to another clearing. Movement. Sheep or goats. And something black.

“What's that?” Maka pointed. Shining to the north-west, Lake Ka's long finger disappeared between the Western Mountains. And behind it, Lake Weah. I felt dizzy.

“What's wrong?”

“Nothing. I just wanted to be sure.” I stood up and looked again, reassured.

“Can we really make clothes out of that wool?” Maka turned her back on the view.

“Yes, warm clothes for winter. That's the lake, all right. With any luck we've shaken off Lutha and Kalik.”

The life went out of Maka's eyes. “Perhaps.”

“We're going to beat him! We were lucky with the tunnel. We're all alive. And we've found sheep. Let's get back. What's the matter, Maka?”

Her eyes closed, tears slipped from under the lids. I thought of the first time I had seen Maka, when Lutha struck her, how she stood holding the baby, defenceless.

I put my arms around her. She mumbled, “Nothing,” but she wept. Poor Maka! She had seemed so self-possessed, cheering
the little ones, telling them stories. And all the time afraid herself.

We sat. I still held her. The distant lakes turned silver as the ridges about them darkened. I did not understand fully what had been done to the Children. Should I encourage them to talk? Or leave it to find its own way out? The Shaman once said it was sometimes better that old hurts were left to lie buried deep.

“If people don't want to talk, the Healer musn't make them. It might even be our job to stop them from talking. Revealing what they may later regret.”

Maka was pretty, desirable. Of course I wanted her. Her distress made my hunger all the stronger. But something held me back. I looked away from the curve of her smooth face, wet with tears. Saw her rounded, brown knees. Again I felt desire then remembered Lutha's knees in the canoe, when she saved us. All the time in the Land of the White Bear, I had remembered the sight of her knees, the feel of her breasts against my face as she hung the knife around my neck. And I also remembered Lutha's indifference to the Children's misery.

Maka was one of the Children. My family. Her sobs quietened. At last, she shuddered and laughed. “I hate him!” she said. And we returned. Maka walking beside me, her hand in mine, trusting.

Under a leaning wall, Tepulka and Paku had scraped the sheepskin of fat and hung it on a pole. Chak and Hurk unrolled the edges. Tepulka looked at Maka.

“Where are we?”

“South-east of the lake. Further than I thought.” I pointed. “At least two days.” I could see Paku thinking it out, arranging the landscape like a map in his head. He would need that sense of the country, the lay of the land.

“So that’s how long we were in the tunnel?”

“Maybe three. We climbed quite a bit.”

“We’ve been lucky, eh, Ish?”

“I’d like to get further still, as far as possible from Kalik.” Again, the silence that followed mention of his name. “We can light a fire. They won’t see the smoke.”

While the rest gathered firewood and fern, Tepulka scored a groove in a length of dry wood. Maka stood on the end. Tepulka shoved a sharpened stick backwards and forward in the groove. Some time I would show them how to make a fire-drill.

Old Hagar had taught by starting something off and letting me finish. Hinting at something I might try, so I thought I discovered it myself. Taur was the kindest teacher. The Shaman taught me to question, to work things out for myself. Even his inconsistencies were deliberate: I learned to be critical of him – and of myself.

By the time we dragged down some logs, Tepulka was blowing on a little flame, Maka, laughing, feeding it twigs, dried leaves. Under the wall, the light caught the curve of her chin, her forehead. I realised just how pretty she was and dropped my end of a log. Paku grimaced as it jarred his hands.

The fire leapt against the gloom. Rain became heavy as we ran with the last wood, bundles of fern. The river roared in the dark. A shower of drips over the brow of the wall made it like standing behind a waterfall. Snug, we grinned at each other.

From end to end of the sheep’s carcass, Tepulka and Maka had thrust a sharpened pole. This spit now rested in forked stakes either side of the fire. They rubbed little grey leaves between their hands, scatterered them inside and over the carcass, and turned the spit. The sharp sweetness of the leaves, the fragrance of roasting meat! My mouth watered.

Chak sniffed loudly. “It smells lovely!”

“Don’t sniff too hard.” Chak looked hard at Tepulka. “There’ll be none left for anyone else.” Straight-faced, Tepulka turned back to help Maka sharpen slivers of wood, and Chak told Hurk he mustn’t sniff too hard.

“When will it be cooked?” asked Kimi. “Can’t we start now?”

“You just reminded me of a story,” I said to Chak. “About a poor man called Nostril.”

“Nostril!”

“His nose was so big. Nostril had been starving for three days when he came to a market-place.”

“Like the one in our story?”

“The same one. A fat man was roasting a whole sheep on a spit. Another was selling donkeys. Several stalls had racks of warm clothes.

“Nostril wore some old rags. And he was weak with hunger. A servant threw the scraps from his master’s meal into the street, and Nostril grabbed up a crust.

“He looked around, afraid somebody might say he had stolen it, but nobody bothered watching a poor man. Nobody but the servant who watched Nostril hide the bread under his rags.

“Nostril’s big nose twitched. It led him through the stalls and lanes of the market-place, following a tantalising smell.

“‘Sweet roast mutton!’ cried the fat man. He turned the spit. ‘One penny a slice!’ Drops of fat smoked on the coals,
spat, and flared.

“Nostril stared, his huge nose sniffed, his belly ached for food. ‘At least,’ he thought, ‘I have a piece of bread.’

“‘Sweet roast mutton! Only one penny a thick, hot slice!’

“A woman gave the fat man three pennies. He sharpened his knife and cut three thick slices of hot meat.

“At the crackle of the knife cutting the crisp skin, at the sight of the juice dripping, at the delicious smell, Nostril felt faint.

“Several people bought slices of meat. ‘Sweet roast mutton!’ cried the fat man. He sharpened his knife and turned the spit.

“Nostril shuffled and held his crust in the delicious smell rising from the cooked meat. He stared at the crust, as if it did not belong to him. His hand brought it towards his mouth. He closed his eyes and took a bite. Again and again he dipped it in the smell from the cooking meat. And as people paid their pennies, and the fat man carved their slices, poor Nostril nibbled at his crust. He closed his eyes, sniffed, and chewed. Great dripping hot juicy slices – thick!

“‘Thief!’ His hand gripped tight. The stub of his crust fell in the fire. The fat man ran Nostril to the far side of the marketplace, to a door where he knocked and shouted, ‘Judge! Judge!’

“‘My master is asleep,’ said the same servant who had thrown out the crust of bread. ‘He will beat you for making such a noise.’

“‘I caught this thief!’

“‘Are you sure he is a thief? The judge does not like being woken.’

“‘He is a thief, I tell you!’

“‘Bring him inside,’ said the servant. ‘I will wake the judge.’

“Not only had the servant recognised Nostril. He remembered how sorry he felt for him. He had gone back into the house, filled a basket with fragments of bread and meat and run outside. But the poor man had disappeared.

When his master was asleep, the servant liked to dress in his clothes and imagine he was the judge himself. Now he made
sure his master was still asleep. He slipped on the judge’s robe. He put on his great hat. He strode into the room where the fat man waited with Nostril.

“‘Well?’

“‘Your Honour,’ gabbled the fat man. ‘This man is a thief.’ And he told the judge how he had caught the poor man stealing the smell of his roasting meat. ‘Not only did he sniff it up his big nose, but he dipped his bread in the smell of my sweet mutton and ate it.’

“The servant nodded. He had often been cold and hungry himself. ‘What is your story?’ he asked Nostril.

“‘I have had nothing to eat for three days. I picked up a crust in the street and held it in the air above the man’s mutton as it cooked. I chewed the crust, closed my eyes, and imagined I was eating meat.’

“‘When did you last eat meat?’

“‘I cannot remember.’

“‘Hmmm,’ said the servant. ‘You say he stole the smell of your meat?’

“‘Yes, Your Honour! The wretched thief!’ And the fat man kicked Nostril.

“‘The poor man has not yet been found guilty,’ said the servant. ‘So he is still innocent. You have broken the law by kicking him.’

“‘No, I mean yes, Your Honour.’

“‘Give me your purse.’

“The fat man untied a leather bag from his waist. The servant took out a coin.

“‘What is this?’ he asked.

“‘A gold coin, Your Honour.’

“The servant rang the coin on the table. ‘And what is that?’

“‘The sound of the gold coin ringing,’ said the fat man.

“‘I fine you one gold coin for kicking the poor man,’ said the servant. ‘I award it to him for his pain.’ And he handed the coin to Nostril. The fat man wept.

“‘Ring it on the table,’ the servant said. ‘Nostril had never seen a gold coin before, but he spun it till it rang.

“‘You heard the sound of the poor man’s coin?’

“‘Yes, Your Honour,’ said the fat man.

“‘Then the poor man has paid for the smell of your meat with the sound of his gold coin,’ said the servant. ‘Now get out before I have you thrown into prison for fraud!’

“‘What are you going to buy with your gold coin?’ he asked Nostril.

“‘Warm clothes,’ said Nostril. ‘Something to eat. And, with what is left over, I will buy a donkey. We can earn money carrying firewood.’

“‘Be kind to the donkey,’ said the servant. ‘If you beat him, you will be beaten yourself. And you will not just be shown the stick, nor just hear the sound of the beating….’

“‘I will not beat my donkey,’ promised Nostril. ‘He will be my friend.’

“The servant returned the heavy robe and the great hat. The judge pretended to be asleep, but he had woken and watched the servant dress himself in his clothes. He had listened through a crack in the door. And he said to himself, ‘This servant of mine is as good a judge as me!’

“And always after, the judge asked the servant his opinion before he passed sentence. And he sometimes accepted the servant’s advice. But he never left his robes and his judge’s hat where the servant could put them on again.”

“That’s a good story!” said Chak. “I told Hurk he mustn’t sniff all the smell of meat, or there’d be none for anyone else.”

“What happened to Nostril?” asked Puli. I had noticed her listening closely.

“He bought something to eat, some warm clothes, and had enough left over to buy the donkey. He never put too much on the donkey’s back. He never beat him. They worked hard, saved their money, and bought a little house. And they lived happily ever after.”

“What about the fat man?”

“He was so scared of the judge, each day he gave away several slices of meat to the poor. People liked him for that and bought his meat. Soon he had two fires going and two sheep cooking. He bought a shop and sold people whole meals instead of just slices of meat. He became very rich.”

“What about the servant?”

“He confessed what he had done. The judge laughed and said, ‘You were kind to the poor man. And you taught the fat man a good lesson. So I forgive you. But don’t let me catch you doing it again!’”

We were a long time talking about the judge. The Children wanted to know about his power over people.

“I think that meat’s just about done,” I said. We stood in a circle and sniffed.