People of the Sky (27 page)

Did I dream of you then, Baqui Iba?

As the aronan’s antennae caressed her, gathering in her scent, she laid her face against its neck and drank deep breaths of its essence. No time passed there in the darkness and nothing else
existed. Then the plumes withdrew, as if the creature had taken in as much as it could through that sensory channel. Kesbe too felt that it was right to end the contact.

She called softly to the shaman. She heard footsteps and saw the lime glow of the moss-light.

“Has the joining begun?” Sahacat asked.

“The joining has begun,” Kesbe answered, leaving one hand on Baqui Iba’s neck as she turned.

She did nothing but rest and eat each day when she was released from the kiva. The training wearied her and only sleep brought the necessary renewal of her senses. She was given the
kekelt
drink, receiving a little more each day. She noticed that the ball of warmth it created in the lower part of her belly took longer to fade and there came a time when it remained as a slight and pleasant addition to the rest of the feelings in her body.

Her gift of
tewalutewi
grew more acute. It was accompanied by an itching and burning sensation high in her nasal passages and she wondered if the
kekelt
drink was causing the cells of her olfactory sense to expand and proliferate. She tried to formulate the question to Sahacat, but her command of the Pai language was inadequate.

In the days and then the
sukops
that followed, she spent her time in Aronan House Kiva. Often she was left alone to explore her growing closeness with Baqui Iba. At other times, she was asked to sit apart and perceive the creature at a distance.

At first her perception through
tewalutewi
was crude. Baqui Iba was only a collection of vague odor-blotches hovering in the dark of her mind. But as she learned the subtle shadings of scent on the aronan’s form, the image grew more refined. A day came when she could detect the contour of each leg and how it was placed. Now, through her nose, she could “see” the wings and know whether they were folded or spread. Her perception began to take on a three-dimensional quality with a resolution finer than that of sight.

She found it hard to describe to Sahacat what she was sensing in the Pai words she knew. They were inadequate to describe the delicate gradations and nuances of aroma. The shaman taught her new words, ones that had no equivalent meaning in English. She felt as though she were moving on a road toward a great gate that stood far off in the distance. When she arrived at last, the gate would open. She knew that the opening of the gate would be the beginning of true communication between herself and Baqui Iba. It was something she wanted with an intensity that astonished and frightened her.

The blackness around me lightens, thought I do not wish it. I feel my body once again, my arms lying at my sides, my fists clenching. When I move my fingers, feel crusted scabs beneath my fingertips where my nails drove into my palm. Someone opens my hand, gently cleans the wounds and wads cloth into my hand to keep it from curling into a fist.

“Do nothing more for me’” I try to scream. “I am dead inside. I am dead inside and rotting like a corpse.” I jerk my hand away, but I have only twitched it and my call is only a whimper. The one who tends me takes no notice and does my other hand.

I am dead inside, yet my body takes no notice. It breathes, it makes water, it hungers. Without my consent my throat swallows the broth put to my lips. My body is a disobedient thing-, it will not die. It is a distant thing, tied to me only by a slender cord. It is an ignorant thing, for it does not know how it has been used or what has been placed within the flesh. It does not know what I know and so it lives…

Against my will, my eyes flutter open and see once again before I shut them. Odors come to my nose, make themselves felt upon my tongue. My muscles cry out to be used, torturing me with a restlessness that banishes sleep. And, at last, because I do not know how to fight my willful body, I sit up and swing my legs off the pallet where I have lain for so long.

My movement summons someone. I hear footsteps. The shaman Sahacat comes. There is enough light to read her face as she enters. When she sees me sitting up, triumph lights her eyes. Her victory, I think, with a dull and hopeless rage.

She brings me a bowl of yucca-wash to cleanse the sweat and dirt of the sickbed from my hair. Though she offers to do it for me, I refuse. Even though my arms tremble from weakness, I scrub my hair and my scalp, handing the bowl back to her in silence. The hairwash makes no difference, I feel I am still soiled.

She brings me the robe I have seen Nyentiwakay wearing. I gaze at it dumbly.

“The kekelt has died,” says the shaman. “The
lomuqualt
rises.” She places on my shoulders the garment that marks me now for what I am
. Lomuqualt.
It is a word that would once have brought great joy to me. Now it is evil and empty. It means only that I am the dung-pile in which the carrion fly has laid its egg.

“Your feet are set once again on your Road of Life,” Sahacat intones. “May this journey return you to the hearts of your people.”

Shaking, I stand. Do I already feel the weight of the thing in my belly? The shaman’s expression changes. She knows all is not good within me.

“Lift your head, lomuqualt. The evil is past,” she says.

I close my eyes. She knows that she does not speak truth to herself or to me either. Two things burn and smolder in my belly. One is the aronan’s egg. The other is a heavy anger that threatens to burst forth, sweeping away everything in a cascade of molten hate. It forms into words upon my lips.

“The evil is not past, shaman.” I look at her directly, something only rage would make me do. “The evil is in what you have done.”

Her face closes. Her eyes narrow. “I give you back the path to adulthood—one you had cast away.”

“By lies, by treachery and by force you opened me to the egg of an aronan. That is the path to adulthood I walk now.” My voice breaks. “I would have taken Haewi’s egg willingly.”

“It was not I who killed Haewi,” the shaman says very softly.

Again the arrow of her tongue comes back and pierces me. Once it would have wounded me but now it only releases the burning flood. Quivering, I lunge at the shaman, who retreats in astonishment. My body is yet too drained to attack, the venom flows out through my words.

“Yes you did kill Haewi. By refusing to give me the knowledge I hungered for, you and the priests have killed Haewi. By letting my fear grow without offering words to ease it, you have killed Haewi. By making the hateful ritual that strips aronans of their wings, you have killed Haewi.”

“You saw what you had no right to witness…” Sahacat begins.

“Why? Why was I denied the truth? Why was I forbidden to know what must come in my life?” Something inside is shrieking that I must not speak in that way to one who is a shaman, but I no longer care.

“The truth would not be denied to one who obeyed and respected the traditions of his people,” says Sahacat coldly. “Knowledge must come at the right time and in the right way—through faith, discipline and patience. You have none of those, so you seek to steal it like a thief.” She steps closer, her eyes glittering with sparks of pain. “Would you hate me for making you
lomuqualt?
Very well. I can undo what I have done. I can make your body expel the egg if that is your wish.”

She is bluffing. Both I and she know that she could never do such a thing. To her, the aronans egg is too precious to discard in such a way. She must be bluffing, yet I cringe away from her, knowing she has the power to strip from me the hope of ever becoming an adult within my tribe. Why I keep this hope when part of me aches to die, I do not know. But it lives as my body lives. The hope disarms me, dams back my anger. Once again Sahacat controls me.

That realization makes the sparks fade from her eyes. She smiles once again and speaks with the hard edge gone from her voice. She says I speak this way because my spirit is in pain and out of balance. She offers to perform a healing ceremony with pahos and sand-painting.

She is right. I hurt inside. I am almost dead inside. But to let her touch my spirit sends a shudder through my body. “No,” I say and my stomach heaves as if I am retching.

But that is not all. I feel something moving, almost pulling, low down inside my belly. Sahacat catches the expression on my face and her own becomes keen and knowing. “Is the egg hatching?” she asks.

I only stare back at her with my hands on my abdomen. She does not need my answer. “May the gods stay beside you
, lomuqualt,”
she says, turning away from me. As she is about to leave the room, she throws back over her shoulder like an afterthought, the words “You are free to leave the kiva.”

I vow that I will depart as soon as I have gathered what remains of my strength.

Kesbe sat cross-legged on the blanket in her quarters. She stared at her own shadow, thrown across the floor by the oil lamp burning behind her. She knew she was exhausted, knew she must sleep, but her mind would not quiet itself and let her eyes close.

Her hand rested on her thigh, one finger touching the rigid line of the healing scar. She had never thought that removing the implant would cause so many changes, especially the development of the vomeronasal organ.

Now she had grown used to the presence and extraordinary sensitivity of the new tissue at the
roof of her mouth. She had even become resigned to her face slipping into the lines of an animal grimace whenever she smelled anything intriguing. But what she could not accustom herself to was the sense of vulnerability that came after the loss of her contraceptive implant.

Not only was she bathed in the richness of odors flooding in on a newly awakened part of her mind, but her skin had become acutely sensitive to the lightest touch. Even the light kilt and sash seemed to chafe and she took both off and put them aside.

She ran her fingers up the inside of her thigh. Her skin tingled and quivered in response. She stroked her other thigh as lightly, becoming aware of the pressure against her vulva from sitting cross-legged on the floor. She smoothed the upper curve of her breast with her fingertips, marvelling at how acute her sensitivity had grown and how quickly her nipple hardened.

She stopped even as she felt the warmth and engorgement begin in her labia, telling herself that she did not want arousal. It seemed cruel that her body should desire sex when there was no chance of having a lover.

She sighed. Perhaps her body was only telling her that it had been a long time since her last encounter. She needed release. All right, fantasy and fingers would have to do. She closed her eyes and leaned forward, rocking slightly. Often she could make up images of partners who were more real and exciting than the ones she had actually known, but this time her fantasy wouldn’t gel. Her dream-partner remained faceless, diffuse and clumsy.

She straightened her spine. Even her own fingers felt rough against the near-painful sensitivity of her flesh. She longed for a touch as light and delicate as the stroke of Baqui Iba’s plumed antennae. She drew in her breath. The flier’s perfume was still on her, mixed with the earthy scent of the kiva. In her mind, the aronan spread its wings and they were a soft velvet black, swirling with molten gold. In her dreams, it caressed her with those wings while surrounding her with a cloud of ever-changing scents that spoke more eloquently than any human word or touch.

With plumes, wings and a touch so incredibly, inhumanly controlled and delicate, it cradled her in beauty and drew her to climax. Then, like all fantasies, it waned as the throbbing faded from between her legs. She lay back on her elbows, thinking of nothing.

Through the lethargy of release came a strange feeling of disquiet. It was not that she had made love to herself that she had done many times. It was the fantasy that for an instant had seized her in a way that others never had. Never had she desired or even imagined sexual intimacy with any but her own species.

She laid her blanket over the pine-branch pallet and stretched out on it. The fantasy still disturbed her. Yes, she felt strong affection for Baqui Iba, but it was the love one gives a beautiful and rare creature, enhanced by the closeness of dawning communication.

And yet the flier’s lingering image still danced through her mind. She inhaled through her mouth, smelling and tasting the scents in the room. No longer was the primary taste receptor her tongue. The enigmatic node of tissue in the arch of her palate had far surpassed her tongue in acuteness and discrimination. It was there she picked up the odor of the burning oil in the lamp, knowing from the tang beneath its smoky tone that it had gone slightly rancid. It was there that the clay of the pueblo room, the fiber of the blanket, the pine boughs of her bed, were sensed in their deepest reality.

She drew in the odors of her own body and realized now how strong they were. A rush of embarrassment flooded her face. God, she stank. She felt as though she hadn’t bathed since the ritual of hair-washing, which seemed like years ago. She felt sticky with sweat and clay-dust from the kiva. The vaginal odors of orgasm mixed with the scent of unwashed pubic hair.

She brought her fingers up to her face and felt how the corners of her mouth drew back in an unconscious grimace. She let the hand fall back.

What am I becoming
? she asked herself miserably. There was no answer except the escape of sleep.

I stay one or two days in the kiva, eating and resting to get back, my strength. When I do leave, it is still too soon, for my limbs still tremble as I climb the ladderway from the kiva. Even so, I can not bear to stay there. The kiva is tainted with evil, the shaman’s and my own.

I carry the
lomuqualt’s
robe rolled up and tucked beneath my arm and wear only a sash and kilt. I have left with no real idea where I will go or what I will do. It is true that those who are
lomuqualt
have special religious duties, but would the priests allow me to perform them? If they did, would I have any heart for the rituals’? The answer is no.

I decide to go and rest in Chamol’s house while I think. I am on the path when I hear a great shout behind me.

“Imiya!”

I turn. My heart both rises and sinks. It is my friend Nyentiwakay. I want to see my friend, for I need understanding words. I do not want to see Nyentiwakay, for the
lomuqualt’s
belly is larger now than when I saw it before. The aronan-child within is growing. The two feelings fight within me, keeping me at a standstill on the path. My friend strides up to me.

Was Nyentiwakay that much taller than I or does my friend stand fully upright while I slump and cringe? I feel sweat breaking from my forehead even though the sun is not warm. My legs wobble. Nyentiwakay takes my arm and helps me to a courtyard with a stone bench where we sit.

I lean my hand back, letting the
lomuqualt’s
robe slide from my fingers. I catch the surprise on Nyentiwakay’s face as my friend realizes what the wadded bundle is.

“So you are gifted even though Haewi…” He does not say the final words.

“Even though in my fear I rode Haewi to death,” I spit harshly, then father my breath. “Mahana’s aronan had two eggs. The girl bears one, I the other.”

“Why, then, you are blessed by the spirits,” Nyentiwakay smiles, but the smile falters when the
lomuqualt
sees that I do not look like one who is so blessed. “Perhaps it is not easy to join with an aronan who is not your flight-partner?”

I close my eyes and nod, not wanting the trembling in my lips to betray me.

“But still, Imiya, you must be proud. Wear the robe that speaks of your achievement.”

“The sun is too hot,” I lie, trying not to shiver. “Later I will wear it.”

My friend leans toward me, brows bent. This one is
lomuqualt
like me yet does not understand. We are the same, yet terribly different. What was the joining like for him? I suspect that it was far from what I felt. Had Haewi lived to place its egg within me, would I have known the same joy that lights Nyentiwakay’s face? How can I tell my friend there is no triumph in being used?

I sigh deep within myself. It is of no use to talk about this now.