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Authors: Anthony Eaton

Nightpeople

BOOK: Nightpeople
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ANTHONY EATON's
first novel,
The Darkness
, was published in 2000 by the University of Queensland Press, and was shortlisted in the Adult Fantasy division of the 2001
Aurealis
awards for Australian speculative fiction. Since then, he has written five further novels, has twice been awarded the Western Australian Premier's Prize for Young Adult writing, and has been shortlisted for a number of other national and international children's book prizes including the Older Reader's category of the 2005 CBCA Book of the Year Awards for
Fireshadow.

He lives in Perth with his wife Imogen, and a slightly deranged kelpie puppy named Chelsea.

Also by Anthony Eaton

Young Adult Fiction

The Darkness A New Kind of Dreaming
Fireshadow

Younger Readers

The Girl in the Cave
Nathan Nuttboard Hits the Beach

For Joe.
Solid.

The mother was young, no more than sixteen or seventeen, and the birth difficult. As the sun slunk into the horizon and desert night fell across the dusty shacks of Woormra, her cries echoed through the tin-lined streets. It had been so many years since the last birthing that there were few who could remember the rituals: the boiling of water, the tearing of rags. Dreamer Wanji, summoned by the poor girl's screams, hurried towards the hut.

The hut was like all the others, iron and tin scrounged from times before, propped and held together with whatever was available. Ducking his head through the low mantle of the empty doorway, he paused. In the centre of the room a fire flickered in a stone ring, throwing ghostly spirit-shadows on iron walls. The girl huddled, distended and sweaty, on an old blanket spread on the dirt floor, two women attending her in her agony.

‘How is she?'

One woman shrugged. ‘We don't know. We've never had to do this.'

‘Will she survive?'

‘Perhaps.'

‘And the baby?'

The woman's expression told him all he needed to know. Dreamer Wanji left the smoky confines and stepped again into the twilight. Beyond the town the sands of the desert glowed primal red, as they did every night, lit from afar by the reflected light of sunset.

‘Dariand!'

A young man, not much older than the girl, stepped from between two huts across the way.

‘Yes, Dreamer?'

‘Build the fire.'

Without another word, Dariand disappeared back into the shadows.

The girl's screams were coming closer together now and her breathing grew fast and shallow. Dreamer Wanji re-entered the hut and crouched beside her, even that simple movement difficult with his stiffening limbs.

‘Jani.'

Through tear-stained eyes, the girl turned her gaze to him.

‘Be strong now. You know what this means.'

‘Yes, Dreamer.'

Another contraction wracked her body and she grabbed his hand. The strength of her grip shocked the old man, but he said nothing until the spasm eased.

‘Dreamer?'

‘Yes, Jani?'

‘Will they come?'

‘They always do.'

‘Will there be a fire?'

‘Yes.'

The girl flopped back onto the filthy blanket and turned her head away.

‘Go now, Dreamer.' One of the women took his shoulder and eased the old man gently to his feet. ‘This is no place for men. Go and summon the council.'

‘You must call me when it is done. We will not have time to waste.'

‘I will come immediately.'

Satisfied, Dreamer Wanji nodded and left. Already Dariand had built a large pile of precious wood, twigs and logs in the dirt clearing.

‘It seems such a waste.'

‘It is necessary.'

‘But wood?'

‘It is the only thing that will burn with enough heat. Dung burns too cold.'

‘I know, Dreamer.'

The two men stood, silent and watchful, as the countless lights of the vault started to appear in the skies. There was the Gatherer, the Listener, the Watercourse.

‘Is this a good night, Dreamer?'

The old man didn't answer immediately, but pointed to a cluster on the daywards horizon.

‘Do you see that group?'

‘Where?'

‘Above and nightwards of the treeline, below and daywards of the Traveller.'

Dariand followed the old man's directions, squinting to distinguish the clusters from one another. Finally he saw them: three bright vaultlights arranged in a long triangle.

‘What are they, Dreamer?'

‘They are new.'

‘New?'

‘Or perhaps old. Very old. Though I have never noticed them before. So for us, and for tonight, they are new.'

The two stood studying the three gleaming pinpricks of light. In the hut behind them the girl moaned through another set of contractions.

‘They will be called “The Child”.'

Dariand nodded his agreement.

‘Let us hope they will be good lights for this one.' The girl's cries climbed a slow crescendo to a new level. ‘You should go and get the stones.'

‘I have them already.' The younger man produced two flat grey rocks from within the folds of his top.

‘And the bundle?'

‘Already in the hut.'

‘Then light the fire. I do not think we will have long to wait.'

Sparks flew when Dariand hit the stones against one another. These he directed into a small clump of dried desert weed. As the tiny flickers took hold and the larger twigs began to burn, he crouched low and blew, fanning the growing flames with gentle breaths.

‘There.'

The fire grew with alarming rapidity. From the surrounding huts, the other inhabitants of Woormra emerged into the night, drawn by the warmth and power of the pyre. None spoke, but all stood in a silent ring and listened as the hiss and crackle of the flames blended with the birth agonies of the girl.

Suddenly, one of the sounds ceased abruptly and Dreamer Wanji nodded to Dariand, who threw more logs into the inferno, driving the flames higher until they cast spitting, sparking tongues of light into the air, the red flickers scorching the night vault.

One of the women emerged from the hut and angled across the dirt street towards Dreamer Wanji and Dariand.

‘Yes,' was all she said.

Without another word, the two men followed her back into the hut. A new sound had started to emanate from the dark doorway: not the agonised throes of a birthing but the high-pitched wail of a newborn. At the sound, several of those standing by the fire dropped their gazes to the sandy ground. Someone began to weep quietly. No one smiled.

The air inside was heavy with the smell of sweat, smoke and blood. On the blanket lay an exhausted Jani, a ragged bundle clutched to her breast. The dancing light from the small fire lent a warm glow to the scene. Gently the old Dreamer knelt beside the new mother.

‘What is it?'

Jani smiled. ‘A girl.'

‘Is she …' There was no need for the old man to complete the question.

‘Yes. Perfect.'

And for the first time that night, Dreamer Wanji allowed the faintest hint of a smile to creep to the corners of his eyes.

‘I am proud of you, Jani.'

‘Thank you, Dreamer.'

‘You know what has to happen now?'

The girl nodded. The old man placed a tired hand on her shoulder.

‘Then look your last, because we do not have much time.'

The girl looked deep into the eyes of the baby in her arms, then lifted her gaze briefly to stare out through the door to where the flames of the bonfire could be seen roaring in the street outside, and then dropped her gaze again to the child. One finger traced gently around the small, blotchy face, brushing over tiny features half her own, then she bent and whispered the baby's name into its ear before surrendering it to the waiting arms of Dreamer Wanji.

Outside, the night was torn apart by the leaping pyre. When the old man emerged with a tiny bundle clutched to his chest, all eyes turned to him. He shook his head sadly.

‘A girl, stillborn.'

A wail started and was quickly taken up until the keening of the townspeople blended with the hollow snarl of the fire to form a new sound which echoed around the tin shacks until it seemed to shake the very foundations of the earth. The old man stepped forward, moving as near as he dared to the flames, and when the searing barrier of heat prevented him coming any closer, he raised the bundle high above his head, paused, then hurled it into the inferno.

Slowly, the keening died, Dreamer Wanji stepped back, and the people of Woormra stood and kept vigil over the slow death of the fire. It was not halfway to extinction when the entire clearing was bathed in harsh white light, accompanied by a pervasive high-pitched hum. Suddenly the air was filled with movement, gleaming shadows darting behind dazzling nightsuns.

The townspeople, afraid, backed away from the embers and huddled as if the shared mass of their bodies would shield them from the shapes that slid slowly to the ground. Dreamer Wanji stepped alone to the front of the group and stood beside the doorway of the birthhouse.

In the light from the nightsuns the glow of the flames was washed into pale nothingness, and as the last of the hummers settled onto the dirt their noise dropped until it was little more than a background murmur, deep and soft, which the people felt through the soles of their bare feet rather than heard.

From out of the glare, a figure stepped forward and only Dreamer Wanji did not cower away from it.

‘Where is it?'

The voice was tinny, the language stilted. Nightpeople always sounded like that.

‘There.' Dreamer Wanji pointed to the embers.

‘It was dead?'

As the figure moved, the light reflected shimmering colours off its silver skin.

‘Stillborn.'

‘And you burnt it?'

The Nightperson stepped closer to Dreamer Wanji, so close that the dark, opalescent smoothness of its face reflected clearly the fear written in the old man's expression.

‘It was … impure.'

It was hard to be certain, but the creature seemed to sigh.

‘And so it was destroyed?'

Fear coursed through the old man's limbs, running like water into his bowels and bladder, but he forced himself to stand as straight as he could and return the stare.

‘It is our way.'

‘We know.' The Nightperson shook its head slowly. ‘We know. Where is the mother?'

‘In there.'

Dreamer Wanji nodded at the hut and the figure waved a gloved hand. Two more Nightpeople slid from behind the glare of the nightsuns and entered the hut, emerging a minute or two later with the prone figure of Jani suspended between them, her feet dragging lifelessly and leaving two shallow ruts in the red dirt.

‘Dreamer Wanji?'

It might have been his imagination, but Dreamer Wanji thought he heard something odd, vaguely feminine, in the tinny voice.

‘Yeah?'

‘We will be watching.'

The Nightperson slid back into its corona of light and the hummers lifted into the air. They hung suspended above Woormra, illuminating the squalid township in cold, unforgiving luminosity, and then as one they slid away nightwards.

‘Dreamer?' someone asked hesitantly.

The old man turned to face his neighbours.

‘It is done.'

Some way outside the town, crouched low beneath a large clump of desert weed, Dariand watched the nightsuns fade into the horizon. He waited for several minutes before standing and lifting the tiny baby, swathed now in warm skins, gently from the ground beside him. The child gurgled as if to cry, but she was tired from the ordeal of her birth and quickly fell back into newborn sleep. Around him, Dariand was aware of the familiar sounds of the night desert, the click of insects.

He settled the baby girl into a soft sling made from roo-hide, slung it around his neck, and, humming to himself, he set off daywards, using the new vault cluster of the Child as his guide and leaving the dull glow of Woormra directly behind.

BOOK: Nightpeople
6.1Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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