Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country (17 page)

Zan and his parents lamented together. Wumna especially wailed Dael's death. This was the second time that she had lost her son. For almost three years she had thought him dead, only to have him brought back to her alive, but with his soul tortured and flayed. Nothing worse could happen to him now. Dael was dead indeed.

Pax stood by to comfort Wumna, Zan, and the others. Chul was there with wet eyes, and Rydl hobbled out as well, supported by Sparrow under one arm. Even in his grief Zan could not but notice that those whom Dael had most disliked among his people were there to lead the mourning. “My poor brother can be hurt no more,” he said as much to himself as anyone else. “I never thought
him a bad person, only disfigured by his suffering and unhappiness. Before he was taken prisoner, who ever expected anything but kindness and good humor from him? And look what a bitter dish the spirits served him, what poisoned waters they gave him to drink! Hatred destroys, and hate killed my brother along with many others. Now let us burn him with fire and hope that his spirit finds peace.”

Dael's men, broken also by the loss of their leader and prophet, solemnly gathered a pile of dry wood, made available in great quantity by the volcanic explosion. Zan lifted Dael on his shoulder, and with the help of Oin and Orah laid him gently atop the funeral pyre. With a prayer to the sky spirit and a hymn for the dead, Zan himself lit it. It was one of fourteen fires, and there was a general lament.

As the flames began to rise from Dael's crackling heap, Zan broke down, sobbing bitter tears for his twin and falling onto his knees beside his mother Wumna, who was already on hers. The wails of grief were so pronounced that no one heard or noticed someone coughing from the smoke and groaning aloud. Only after a moment or two did Zan look up … and there was Dael, removed from his burning pyre and standing next to it as erect as a statue, silent as a ghost.

Dael lived! Dael had come back again! Everyone stared at him in amazement. He had that strange aura of the other world shining from his still-pale face, and looked exactly like what he was—a corpse that had returned to life.

 

 

 

 

In the camp of the Ba-Coro, there was more sadness than joy. Siraka-Finaka rejoiced at Dael's revival for his mother's sake, but she sorrowed too—sorrowed at her failure to have prevented a useless and indecisive battle. Many on both sides had been killed, so that the air smelled of funeral pyres and their burning burden. Many more had been wounded, some never to recover.

Two fights had now taken place, and the number of widows had significantly increased; yet there was no end in sight. The third battle—and the fourth, and fifth—were yet to ensue. Siraka-Finaka's husband, Chul, had nearly lost his life, yet now he was preparing to venture out again before his wound was healed! Something needed to be done to end this madness, she decided, but it was useless to talk to the elders who, ever beating the drums of war, actually seemed eager for more incursions.

Siraka was a dwarfish woman, but she had a strong and assertive character, and was used to getting her way. Three days after the battle she made up her mind to take matters into her own hands. She would visit the Noi and
talk things over. It cost nothing to talk. Why not try? These people already knew her, she reasoned, and had no fear of her because she was a woman, not a combatant. Perhaps women could accomplish what the men of the tribe could not—or would not.

Siraka went to Agrud, Morda's bereaved wife, and suggested the project. Agrud had enjoyed little enough happiness with her tyrannical mate, but she was still devastated by his death and that of her sons. Softened by grief, she was easily persuaded to go, and asked her sister to go too. At length a delegation of five women secretly left to visit the Noi.

They did not know what to expect. People at war are not likely to be reasonable, but possibly they too were made more pliable by their grief. Perhaps their losses were great enough to give them pause and persuade them to seize an opportunity for peace. It might be also that contact could be made with the Noi women. If they were at all like Lissa-Na, they could be reasoned with. Surely they cared more about their men and their families than about
victory
. Women of every people share the same griefs and sufferings, Siraka thought to herself. They are not interested in dealing wounds, only in preventing or curing them.

Siraka-Finaka and her friends decided that they would not walk directly into the Noi camp, but quietly watch for an opportunity to speak to the Noi women first. Like the Ba-Coro, the Noi women spent a lot of time separated from the men. An initial contact with them might be feasible. If not, they would directly approach the elders. The fact that they spoke a different language did not
greatly worry them. People will understand if they really wish to, they decided; and if they are not so inclined, a common language will not help much.

It was early morning when the five left. Ashes of the volcano were still everywhere, although a gentle autumn wind was beginning to disperse them. Siraka-Finaka and her companions trudged along, leaving a trail of footprints in the dust. By noon they had almost arrived. They wished to be cautious without appearing sneaky or stealthy, and they stood proudly, realizing that they might already have been seen. Forward they went toward a complex of huts quite similar to their own.

Maybe sorrow had restrained the sounds of children playing or females plying their chores. All they heard were the birds. There was no chatter as might be expected of a village, but so many had died that….

The visitants looked around, noting at first a number of ash piles that had once been great burning pyres. The bones of the dead had been carefully taken from them. But no living person was there. Could they be hiding or lying in wait? The women advanced to the center of the village and saw for certain that the settlement had been completely abandoned. Only Morda's huge tusks, coated with volcanic dust, were still there, occupying an erstwhile place of honor. A trail was observable in the layer of ash, making it plain that the entire Noi people had taken flight.

When, after a thorough search, the five women went back to their own village, they triumphantly told
what they had discovered. The Noi were gone! What a hubbub followed this announcement! Zan-Gah, who knew the Noi better than most, correctly guessed what had happened. Their tribe, thoroughly unnerved by the great volcanic explosion and terrified as usual by the unfamiliar, had decided that they could not stand against the Ba-Coro. Clearly the magic of their enemies was too powerful! The Ba-Coro lived with wolves and giants. They could double themselves at will. They had unnatural weapons. And now came this tremendous power (who knew from which god?) to back them in battle!

The Noi elders had resigned themselves that they would have to leave this fair country and return to their old desert home. In this perfumed land the gods themselves were allied against them, and it would be useless to continue fighting. In a single day they had gathered their goods and the relics of their dead and quietly left, singing a sorrowful dirge as they trailed through the ashes. The Ba-Coro alone could possess the Beautiful Country.

“I think we might have grown to like each other,” Siraka reflected with some sadness.

When Dael awakened from his profound and deathlike sleep his family and friends could only gaze. His mother was in shock, almost fainting herself, when she saw his haggard figure standing before her. She held her hand over her mouth in baffled wonderment, unable to move or speak. His overjoyed father hugged his neck and laughed
as he caressed the staring, emotionless face. Dael seemed dazed or still residing in the land of death from which he had come. He had fainted many times before, but never for so long. Dael grew dizzy and began to fall again. Thal caught him and Wumna, coming to herself, made haste to put her son on his bed where he fell asleep immediately.

Dael slept peacefully for three days. When he awoke at last, Zan and other friends were there, anxiously tending him. Dael was soon on his feet, but he still seemed absorbed, and even transformed, by the visions he had lately experienced. It could be seen that he was a different person than the truculent warrior he long had been, and was intensely preoccupied with invisible, spiritual matters. Whatever happened to him in his deathlike trance, and as a result of his healing slumber, he now bore himself as one who had discovered on his mystical voyage some basic, elusive, and yet inexorable truth. He clearly understood things that had completely escaped him before; and he knew above all that he had done grievous wrong—to his people, to his friends, even to his enemies, and to his brother.

Everybody expected Dael to resume command of his faction and direct them to hostilities; but he neither showed nor felt the least authority or desire to rule anyone but himself. Everyone looked for the aftermath of rage and violence that often followed his fits. But it did not come, and he surprised his followers by giving no commands of war. He only mysteriously pronounced that the Noi would no longer be their enemies. Did the spirits inform him that the Noi had left the country, or did he only mean to say that he would not fight them again?

A number of people gathered around the recovered warrior. Dael turned to Pax and Rydl, who happened to be standing close together. “I do not remember why I hated you,” he said, looking mainly at Pax with dreamy eyes, “only that I did, and that now my heart is free of it; that now I can love you as the dear, dear friends that you have always been.”

These words were spoken in soft, unearthly tones, astonishing his hearers as much as his reawakening had. He went on to say that he was sorry for the trouble he had begun and for the blood he had caused to be spilt. As if he had never had a hand in it, Dael pronounced against war and division. Perhaps he had indeed spoken to ancient Aniah in his nether-journey, or even to his lost wife, Lissa-Na, so pacific had he become. One might have thought that a troop of hellish demons had flown away from him, leaving the sick man sane—as though he had long been dreaming sickly things, and being awake was now in his right mind.

What could have wrought this great alteration for the better? In the depths of Dael's knotted and afflicted spirit there had always been much good. Zan knew that! A strand of Dael's innocence, enmeshed in the unruly tangle that was himself, must have remained undisturbed. The worst of us is not entirely bad. Dael's transformation was like his volcano, from which, under intense heat, the snow has melted. It slides away from the mountain, uncovering its true and perfect form. Whatever Dael had undergone either before or after the most recent battle, whatever had occurred within the secret caverns
of his soul, he was now chastened and almost physically changed. Purged of all anger and ambition, he was endowed with a new lucidity of mind. And in that clarity he saw that he must leave his people.

“I will no longer live among the Ba-Coro,” he said. “I am not fit. Maybe I will return someday to see Zan's coming child, but now I must leave. Oin and Orah, take my pet wolves. I give them to you.” He grabbed a leather bag and prepared to depart. Everyone simply stood and watched.

“What do you seek, Dael,” Zan asked sorrowfully, “that you would abandon your people for some unfamiliar place?”

“I want to find out where the river goes, Zan-Gah,” Dael said with a trace of a smile. Two things were notable about this speech: Dael had always been more interested in the river's source than its destination; and he addressed his twin respectfully by his name of honor, Zan-Gah. The river, Nobla, was far away, but Zan did not dispute, for he knew that his brother spoke of a river different from Nobla or any that foamed. And he knew that his brother would go.

After only a few minutes Dael was ready to depart, a new spear in his hand. His mother Wumna was crying again. To weep was a mother's lot. She had wept when she gave him birth, and often since had joyed or cried over him.

“Must you really go away?” Zan asked. “How can you hope to survive alone in the wilderness?”

“I do have to go, Zan-Gah,” he said. “Every night, and even in my last departure to the spirit world, I have seen Hurnoa's face. I have heard her grating, accusing voice, and always she has said the same thing: ‘Go, Dael, and leave your people in peace.
Purify yourself!'
Aniah, and Morda, and other spirits said the same thing. There is no choice but to obey. But don't worry, Zan. I will find friends. I intend to visit the crimson people and learn their ways. And perhaps I will not travel alone.” Then he amazed everybody again: “Sparrow, will you go along with me?” It had been many days since he had even spoken to her, and now he extended a hand toward her.

That gentle bird was not really surprised by his request. She stood up, for she had been seated, and turned to Rydl, looking into his face for a long moment. Whatever she saw there—or failed to see—she said to Dael as best she could: “Y-y-yes, I will,” and took his hand.