Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country (5 page)

But Hurnoa would present no threat. Weakened by sickness, starvation, and an evident weariness of life, she sat down on the dusty ground. A bonfire once had burned in the very spot she chose, and scattered relics of the long-extinct blaze remained. Hurnoa sat among the ashes. The others sat too, forming a ring around her.

 

 

 

 

“Yes, young man, I remember you well,” she continued in her fractured voice. The gleam in her eyes belied her withered face and body. “I knew you were not the dumb ape you pretended to be, but I held my tongue lest you be chopped to pieces. And you did well to hold yours. Your mind seemed as barren as our western desert, and no one among us feared you.”

Zan repeated his question: “What happened?”

Hurnoa paused to assemble her thoughts. Zan's simple question was almost more than she could bear. She looked at the ground and seemed to visibly shrink as she meditated her answer. At last, speaking as if to herself while still looking at the earth, she sighed, “I do not know why the gods decided to destroy us. They began by making us furious, then crazy, then sickened and sick to death. Do you see our hives in the trees above? Every one contains dead bodies. No person has survived. Not one—saving myself.”

“What, not one?” Rydl exclaimed, and his mouth went dry. He tried to absorb what her words meant. “Not one?
What has done this?” He thought of his father whom he both feared and missed. He would never see him after all, nor make peace with him.

Zan was translating to the group. Dael listened, but was too baffled to speak. Things were not falling out as he had planned!

Hurnoa continued, more conscious of her audience: “The land we inhabit is rich. Look around you! Game, fish, and fruits are everywhere. We had no needs. No people were as prosperous as we, and we were so strong that no one dared to attack us. But men are makers of mischief.” Hurnoa's exhausted and haggard look became still wearier, and her face more deeply entrenched as she proceeded, until she looked as if she might wither away entirely. “Our clans despised one another and fought on any pretext, while the women cowered—always fearful of murder or abduction. Our children were not safe either. They might disappear at any time, never to be seen again. And so the sweetness of our land was ever turned sour by its inhabitants.

“Jaga, our chief, had three brothers (tall, handsome men!) whom he sought to make chieftains over the other clans. To this end he was always plotting, and when the youngest declared that he did not wish to rule over unwilling subjects, Jaga struck him dead with his club. No one should dare, he said, to challenge his decisions instead of obeying. I can still see the comely young body roasting on the fire! The day afterwards, Jaga was weeping and roaring over his deed. He had power over all—except himself. And so he wept, but the dead cannot be brought back to life.

“Later, Jaga engendered a plan to unite our clans under his rule by making war elsewhere (it mattered not where) with himself as leader. The idea of battle makes men crazy, and they who were at each other's throats at that very time diverted their thoughts to a great invasion. Almost at once the warriors were beating their shields with their spears and shouting the name of Jaga! Jaga! as if he were their greatest friend—he who never felt a moment's sympathy for them. Did they think, once victorious in war, that Jaga would prove a kind ruler—the monster who had murdered his own brother?” Hurnoa, sickly and weak, paused to catch her breath. Zan was translating her words as well as he could.

“Jaga's target was the people of the east, beyond the great cleft in the earth—your people. We told ourselves that you were inferior and only fit to be slaves, and that victory with our poisoned weapons was a certainty. How eagerly the men readied themselves for battle!” Hurnoa closed her eyes for a moment, too pained to continue, and slowly shook her head. “What devil is it that makes men prefer war to peace?” she inquired, more of herself than her audience. “Maybe life was too easy! Men who do not have to struggle in order to eat, men with idle time and over-abundant energy, turn their minds to war and conquest. I don't know why. And yet we, the attackers, needed nothing that your people had. And you were far away! Why should we seek you? Our minds were sick before our bodies were.”

Zan urged the old woman to eat something from his supplies and resume her tale after she felt stronger.
But she could hardly chew the coarse food Zan gave her, and soon put it aside. After a while she continued unbidden: “Jaga led an army of our warriors, eager for battle and thinking themselves invulnerable; and a single man overthrew the entire attack! We were told he was a giant. Perhaps it was that huge fellow you have with you.” She pointed a bony finger at Chul. “He hurled down the bridge spanning the abyss, cutting off our forces and sending them home unsatisfied.”

“Yes,” Chul responded, wiping his nose with his hairy fist. “I sent them home, and I wish they had stayed there. I have other things to do besides fighting and killing wild men.” Hurnoa did not understand his words, only the gruffness of his tone.

“What vexation and rage they brought back with them! Eager for war, they could only war on each other. The alliance fell apart more quickly than it was formed, and Jaga, who was blamed for everything, had to surround himself with armed guards to prevent his assassination.

“Jaga was beaten for a time, but Crawf, the oldest of his brothers, began to buzz about. His plan was to bring the warriors together under his leadership by promising a new, successful campaign. Jaga was not happy with his brother's ambition, but decided to allow him to build the alliance with the intention (I am sure) of getting rid of him after he had done the work of war. But the gods had other plans.

“You know yourself, young man, that at the time you served us we encountered a new, invisible enemy—an
evil spirit against whom we were helpless. We sent you away because it was thought that you were the demon, but we discovered otherwise. This spirit rode on every breeze, and if it touched you in the morning, you would be dead by the next evening! Your face, arms, and legs felt as if they were on fire, and before long blood issued from your nose and eyes, and every part of your body. With convulsions and hoarse cries, each victim would grapple with the demon. The swelling was terribly painful, and so disfiguring that members of your own family could hardly recognize you. But before long your agonies would be over, and your family's too! We soon learned—although not soon enough—that the spirit visited anyone who touched the dying. We could hardly dispose of the corpses, and this dreadful smell came to keep the injurious spirit company.

“One of the elders said that the evil came upon us because we were cowards, slow to resume the battle; and the men, both frightened and furious, and anxious to get away from the curse, were more eager to fight than ever. Not many returned, and those who did found death in every hive. But even so desolated, there were those who wanted to seize power from Jaga—who himself was powerless to overcome what had befallen us.

“The bad spirit went away for a time, and the warriors broke into a number of shifting friendships and plotting alliances. The war had not done enough damage! The plague had not left enough stinking bodies! They decided to make more! Elders were killed in their beds and families fought against their own clans, so that corpses
were everywhere. The young men were emboldened, and held secret councils. Jaga's enemies could not get at him because he was guarded night and day; so they killed his brothers. Madness! Jaga never hungered for revenge nor plotted its fulfillment with such driving energy! But it came to nothing. Within three days of his brothers' murders the death-tokens appeared, and by the time five days had passed, Jaga and most of his guard were breathed down by the spirit. You saw their corpses just now.

“The ill spirit has finished its work. I do not know why it left me alive to look on nothing but the dead. My family and my people all have perished. I wish I could die too.” Tears were making their way down Hurnoa's shrunken cheeks.

“Filthy hag, you will get your wish!” Dael exclaimed, and he might have killed her with his spear if Zan had not intervened.

“Dael! No! This unlucky woman was once kind to me, and may have saved my life.”

“She is a wasp and she dies! Terrible old woman! Why should we keep her alive?”

Zan could see that it was useless to reason with his brother. Rydl came to Zan's side to second him, and Chul interposed his bulk. It was the first of many coming confrontations. Meanwhile, the old woman looked directly at Dael and smiled, stretching her palms forward in supplication, as one who welcomes a friend or begs a favor.

Dael, prevented from his purpose, was coldly furious. “I gave you that one”—he pointed at Rydl—“because he is dear to you, although I don't know why.” He smiled an ugly, insinuating smile. “But this one is mine.”

“What is wrong with you, Dael?” Zan asked. “Do you enjoy killing?” Zan was immediately sorry to have asked that question—because he knew the answer.

Pax, in a tone more gentle than she usually addressed to Dael asked: “Have you lost your mind, Dael?” And she too was sorry to have inquired.

Dael lowered his spear and turned on his heel. “We will see,” he muttered, and he walked away.

The confrontation was over. Dael had backed down. Chul, relieved, built a bonfire, and Zan gave some thought to what he wanted to do. He had known many of the dead, and even had pleasant memories of some. Hurnoa and other women had been kind to him, and some few had looked on him with pity as well as mockery when they considered him a speechless fool. Now all were corpses.

Thal, Zan's great father, had taught him to respect the dead. “Their angry spirits will haunt your life and turn it sour, but that is not why you should do them justice. Do it because you would wish it done to you.” Justice required that the many bodies should be respectfully disposed of.

Zan had an idea. What would be reverence for Zan would be annihilation for Dael, he thought. Dael longed to destroy, and this could be an opportunity to satisfy his thirst and finally quiet him down. “Dael,” he called.
“Here is our fire. Let us purge the demon and destroy the wasp men's nests.”

Dael leapt eagerly to the task, beginning with Jaga's putrid house and the other ground structures. The furious blaze drove them back, and as they watched the conflagration from a safe distance, Dael almost danced with glee. Dael loved fire, and delighted in seeing the wasp dwellings burn. The smell of rottenness was now replaced by the acrid stench of burning corpses as crackling fire and rolling smoke erupted from the dens.

The nests suspended in the trees above presented a problem, being deliberately built to be inaccessible; but Dael was not to be deterred. Placing a burning rod between his teeth, he climbed one of the supporting trees and inched out along a heavy limb. Rydl went up after him, but Rydl, having been born in one of these nests, was as used to climbing and swinging as walking on the ground. While Dael struggled to keep his balance, Rydl made a scoffing show of his skill by hopping back and forth on Dael's limb—forty feet above the ground! Dael lay down, clinging to the branch and fearing any shift of balance. Rydl extended a foot, not a hand, to him.

There was no friendship between them. Dael glowered and rose on his own, at last managing to cast his torch into one of the nests. In his captivity, Zan had learned some of the wasp man's skill in climbing, and together the three set every hive ablaze. Those below watched the spectacle. For Hurnoa it was like the end of all, and she stood transfixed. Her whole world had died and was now disappearing in clouds of black smoke.

There were seven separate camps, and it was a labor to bring fire to them. After the first, they knew to destroy the topmost nests before those below, thus avoiding the rising heat and fumes. The dwellings had been fashioned largely of bark and leaves. Because they had been sealed with tar, they burned and smoked furiously in great, roaring spheres of fire. By the time night fell, the spectacular blaze illuminated the lake and surrounding area with an unnatural glow that tinted every object, even the distant granite cliff and its long-descending waterfall. In time the fires waned, but the trees continued to drop bright showers of sparks for a while. All the travelers were tired, and prepared for a night's rest.

As Dael was about to sleep, Zan approached him. “Do not be angry, Dael. You see that our enemies are ashes, and that there is nothing in this land that is not ours. What a victory this is for us!”

Dael refused to be pacified. “Do not cross me again, Brother,” Dael replied, not looking at Zan but at the flickering glow on the distant granite cliff. “And do not suppose that you are as strong as I.” That was all he said, and Zan departed to join his wife.

By morning, nothing was left of the wasp dens but gray ashes and a few glowing embers. An early breeze took the last of the fetid odor away, and the land was purged of the evil. Except for the scarred trees, all was beautiful and peaceful, and few signs of the holocaust remained.

Zan made a speech: “Friends and kinsmen, we have come here at great risk, ready for a fight that might well
have led to our destruction. But spirits—good or evil—have fought for us and undone our enemies. And not a blow was struck by our arms! The land, the Beautiful Country is purified—and it is empty. It is ours! Dael, what do you think? Can we not….
What happened to Dael?
”

All were present but he. No, Hurnoa had disappeared somewhere too! No one knew where they were, and Zan, with fearful misgivings, instructed his group to seek them out without delay.

It took only a few moments for Zan himself to find Dael behind some bushes, conversing peaceably with Hurnoa. But how could that be when Dael hated the old woman and spoke but little, even to his friends? Zan drew closer. A slight smile on his face, Dael was reclining, leaning comfortably on his elbow, and talking softly to her. Then Zan saw. Dael's hands were covered with blood. And it was the seated corpse of Hurnoa that he was quietly addressing.