by B. Muze
The crowd cheered. Jovai did not. The women argued about what to do next. Some wanted to leave him hanging there until what was left of his flesh was gone. Others worried about the stench that would cause and voted rather to drag him through the town and leave him to rot, unburied, somewhere in the mountains.
“Master,” begged Jovai respectfully of the shaman. “Will we not be cursed by his angry spirit if we trap it here?”
Her master did not acknowledge her.
He let the women argue until it was finally decided to drag him to the mountains, not by horse but by dog, and leave him for the scavengers to pick his bones.
Jovai walked with the crowd to the high point where they had chosen to leave the body. One by one, her people filed by, spitting, urinating, even defecating on the corpse. They kicked it, pierced its cold flesh with blades and pins and called it names. Then, their hatred relieved, they returned to their daily lives. Jovai’s master took his turn along with the rest and left without a second glance at his apprentice.
Jovai hung back until the others had gone. She stared at the brave one and grieved for all the men of her village who had left on adventures to possibly meet the same fate. She grieved for the brave Gicok’s mother, for all the mothers of the dead, and for his friends and family who would never see him again on this side of life.
When she felt certain the others had left, she took the reed container from under her clothes and pressed it into the corpse’s stiffening hands. He seemed to grab it away from her, and he clutched it desperately, as though life were in his body still to treasure these powers and loves. She jumped back in wonder at this last convulsion of the dead, but there was no other hint of movement.
Softly, she sang for him the Soul’s Ease. She called to those on the other side of life to welcome and honor him, singing high praise of his bravery and strength. She welcomed any of his ancestors who would come in peace to usher him away. The woods stirred around her, but she saw no one. It was not their way, she realized with sudden insight. These warrior people walked their first trials of death alone. She prayed for the gods to welcome this spirit and honor him and that was all she could do.
Her song finished, she rose and turned to walk away. The Gicok youth was standing there, strong and whole. His spirit’s body was scarred with the tortures her people had inflicted, and these scars he carried proudly.
“You wear it?” he asked in the spirits tongue.
She pulled the bone from beneath her tunic and held it out. The pendant the Gicok leader had given her also fell forth. The Gicok youth nodded approvingly.
“I was led to it in a dream. A giant beast I did not know, met me as I walked the desert beneath the night. He told me he was of the first world that came from the stars, and so his bone is shaped like a star and shines sometimes when it will give me dreams or power. Those dreams must be heeded and the power respected. The guiding beast existed before our first creation of our first world and will continue beyond our last destruction of our last world. He is very wise. At the time he came to me, I was searching for myself and did not understand how little that was to seek. The dream guide gave me a world beyond myself. When I woke, I knew my place, not only among my people, not only in this world but in all the worlds, everywhere. I looked into the sky and saw my guide, beyond body’s reach but not beyond touch. I looked into my hand and saw my guide, and knew my place and myself. I am He Who Walks This Star Among Many Stars. I was instructed to carry that sacred bone to my glory. It has given me courage and strength and wisdom beyond my years. Now I pass it to you because you are finding your place not only among your people but beyond, as I did. You are one whose spirit walks this star among many stars and who lives in a world where many worlds are born and die. Now this spirit will guide you as he guided me.”
Jovai looked in wonder at the star-shaped bone she held in her hand. It seemed to glow and was warm to her touch. She looked up again at the spirit Gicok but saw only his back as he walked to the north.
“Thank you,” she whispered, deeply in awe. The Gicok spirit nodded his head in acknowledgment but did not turn or pause. He had a long journey before him.
Chapter 13
Secrets
It was difficult for Jovai to return to her village. She had to accept the wisdom of her master first, and that was hard. What good had come from making a person suffer so? She knew her master must be right somehow, but she could not understand.
Night came and still she sat where they had left the Gicok warrior. She was tired and lonely and frustrated and afraid of the wild animals, which might be drawn by the scent of his blood, but still, she could not go back.
At last, the shaman came to her. He said nothing, did not even look at her, but calmly gathered wood and lit a small fire in a circle of stones. When the fire was going, he placed the hot-box from his house beside it and sat to wait for the food within to heat.
Jovai watched quietly, holding herself away from the seductive fire. She felt cold, but she did not feel worthy to sit beside her master.
“There is a story,” said Yaku Shaman gently, breaking the silence between them, “of a boy who grieved for his dead brother. He would not eat since his brother did not eat and he would not sleep except where his brother slept. When the ancestors came for his brother, they made the natural mistake and took him instead.”
“What happened to his brother?” asked Jovai, shocked.
“He had to find his way alone.”
“Then his brother’s grief did not serve him.”
“Grief does not serve any but he who grieves. Foolish grief serves no one at all.”
There was silence between them as Jovai struggled to find a way to apply this story to herself.
“I know I am foolish, Master,” Jovai admitted at last, “I just don’t know how.”
“You are thinking of yourself before your people. You are not considering their needs.”
“Why did they need to hurt him so badly?”
“His people have been hurting ours for a long time. They kill our men. They steal our livestock, our things that we worked hard for. They destroy what we build. They are our enemies.”
“This one was young. If he had been one of us, he would not have fought at all. I don’t think he killed any of our people.”
“His people did. No man is inseparable from his people. For what his people do, he takes responsibility. For what he does, his people will be judged.”
“What if he does things the rest of his people would not?” asked Jovai, thinking of her own recent deeds.
“Your family, your people, they are you. If you work against your people, you work against yourself.”
Jovai flushed with sudden guilt. She had healed the enemy of her people. It had seemed right at the time, but she knew she would be punished if any of her own people ever found out. They would call her “traitor.” They might even kill her. She trembled with fright and with anger as this realization hit her. The people she loved would kill her for doing what she still felt was right.
“But, Master, if I am not just myself, but my family, and not just my family but my people, can I also be not just my people, but all people?”
“This man was your enemy!” exclaimed Yaku Shaman, losing patience. “He fought to kill your people.”
Jovai wanted to understand. She wanted to feel as her master felt so that the pain of what had been done to the Gicok boy would disappear, but she could not. She knew she should feel ashamed of her folly since her master called her foolish, but for the first time in her memory, she considered the possibility that she might be right and her master wrong.
“These people have hurt us deeply,” Yaku persisted. “Even so young, you have seen the pain they have caused. You have lost friends. Your sisters have lost husbands. Would you forgive them all of that?”
“Until now, the Gicoks have been my enemies, and I have always hated them. I thought that we were good people and always right and they were evil people to atta
ck us and hurt us. It seemed very clear and simple. But I had only seen my people kill for food or for defense. Now I have seen them kill for pleasure, and the pleasure they took in it was worse than any I’ve seen in my enemy.”
“Our people have carried the pain from the Gicoks a long time. It has grown deep and turned into hatred that burns brighter because it is frustrated and has no vent. Such a common hatred can meld a people together stronger, but it can also grow dangerous and turn on itself. The spirits gave us this enemy. They put him into our hands so that we could vent our anger and relieve it. We needed it. The balance is now better for it.”
“But he suffered so much!”
“He did his people honor. Someday his death might be part of a foundation for friendship between our peoples. Then, maybe, we will honor him — but not now. We are not ready yet. It is not time.”
“I honor him,” Jovai confided.
The shaman looked at her coldly.
“Do not put yourself against your people,” he warned. “You need us. We need you. If you turn on us, you will destroy yourself.”
“I love my people, Master,” she assured him quickly.
It was true, and she knew it from the core of her being. But she also knew that there were many among them now whom she would never be able to look at in the same way again. They were not always right. They were not always good, and the trust she had placed in her people from the time of her earliest awareness was now, no longer absolutely theirs. Even her faith in her master was shaken.
Yaku clenched his jaw in fear for his apprentice. The people of the valley still distrusted her. He had seen the signs of protection some habitually made as she passed. To them she was unnatural, and therefore evil, in spite of all the good she had done, all the people and animals she had healed, and all the happy years that her Trintoa singing had welcomed. She still had to prove herself. She had to be better than the other children, wiser, gentler, and more loyal.
He pulled two covered bowls from the hot-box and handed one to Jovai. She took it with a nod of thanks but set it beside her, unopened. As she did so, the two pendants she wore fell forward and caught the moonlight. Jovai was unaware, but her master saw. He caught the strings that held them and, careful not to touch the objects themselves, pulled them deeper into the light. Jovai watched him, startled and afraid.
The bone was nothing the shaman had seen before, and it glowed with a strange light that was not a reflection of the moon. The way it glowed, it seemed to grow and shrink in light, like a twinkling star in the sky. He looked up at them wonderingly, then back down at the bone and pendant.
The pendant he recognized, not in a particular way, but as a piece of Gicok jewelry. Yaku felt a deep rage at the sight of this pendant. He longed to ask the girl where she had gotten it, but a nameless fear held his tongue. He looked away, toward the captive’s body. It had been stripped of everything by his people. There had not been even a lock of hair to steal. Of the things they had taken from him, nothing like this pendant had been found. As he looked, however, he saw the reed tube clutched in the Gicok’s hands.
Jovai trembled before him. She would not raise her eyes to meet his. Yaku Shaman tucked the pendant and the bone under her tunic top.
“Show no one,” he warned her, turning away toward the fire. That was all.
Jovai kept the pieces hidden in a private bag that she wore strapped beneath her clothes. Her master never asked for an explanation. She never offered one. She served him obediently and lovingly and made herself more useful than ever to her people, sharing with them generously, not only of her talents, but of her bright smile, her sweet voice, and her rich heart. For her master, she outdid herself in her lessons, and her devotion and respect for him were well appreciated by many. Quickly, Yaku dismissed his anger for her and did not think on the pendants again.
Chapter 14
First Love
In the spring of her thirteenth year, while she was still a child, Jovai fell in love. It was with a boy on the brink of manhood. He was handsome, with fair skin and brown hair, worn long down his back. They were training together, even though he was much larger. It was the game for the day to try to unseat the others. She had already been unseated by two boys her size and one of the larger boys. Litazu also toppled her. He jumped off his horse and pinned her to the ground with the wood he used in place of a short blade. Had he been her enemy, she would have been dead. Then he bent over and kissed her, hard and full and firm on the lips.
She gaped up at him astonished, speechless. Deep in her stomach, she felt the excitement, but in her head she only felt confused.
He raised his fist in triumph to the boys who were watching from the side. They all cheered. His blade still pinned her, as long as she accepted it as a knife and not the piece of blunt wood it really was.
“Why did you do that?” she asked, trying to sound angry but only sounding dazed.
Litazu smiled at her. His sharp eyes had noted her response.
“Because you’re pretty,” he said.
She did not know how to believe him. No one had ever told her that.
“Have you ever been kissed before?” he asked.
She mutely shook her head.
He raised his fist again. His fingers held up the count of two. Again, his fellows cheered.
“Then you’ve just won me two bets,” he announced, laughing at her as he stepped back. She scrambled up and ran away as fast as her legs could carry her. All the boys were laughing loudly. She could hear them as she ran.
She felt angry, humiliated, and something else, unfamiliar, that she couldn’t name.
From then on, she could not stop thinking of Litazu. In her listening, she listened not for what was to be heard, but for him, what he was doing, what he was saying, what he might be thinking and feeling. It seemed that he didn’t think of her. When he practiced with her again, he smiled with insufferable pride that infuriated her and made her forget everything she’d learned. But when he passed her outside the practice field he didn’t seem to notice her at all.
She could not stand it. She sent some spirits to trouble him — just little ones. They would trip him, pull his hair, blow up his tunic, and stare back at him with strange and ugly faces when he looked for his reflection. That got his attention. When things like this happened, he would look around to find her.
At first, his glares were angry, but they softened to an expression of amusement which she found intolerable, and the pranks grew worse. Each time he caught her eyes, she blushed with shame and felt like running away, but pride, or something stronger, held her firmly in place.
Finally, he stopped staring from the distance and approached her. It was what she most wanted, and what she most feared. Could she have run away she would have, but she was trembling so badly she could hardly stand.
He was smiling at her — that same look of triumph as when he had kissed her. She looked around, desperately hoping for someone to whom she could call, in a friendly, casual way, to give herself an escape. No one was around.
Litazu stood next to her, closely — too closely. She could smell the light odor of his body and feel its heat. All she wanted to do was run, but her knees were trembling so badly she couldn’t.
“Come with me,” he ordered, taking her arm. The touch of his hand was like fire on her burning skin. She pulled back, afraid.
“I could tell your master about your witch’s pranks,” he threatened. “The shaman would not be pleased.”
With horrible guilt, she realized he was right. Her master would be very angry with her. Spirits were not to be played with, he kept saying, and they should never be allowed to hurt someone because they didn’t always know when to stop.
Litazu pulled her after him. She didn’t resist. He led her south, into the woods.
“Where are we going?” she demanded, afraid.
“Just for a walk,” he answered her. “I want to talk to you.”
There was a smile on his lips and a light i
n his eye that made her stop in her tracks. He pulled her harder and forced her to follow him, deeper into the woods.
When they were out of sight of the village, he finally stopped.
“Now tell me why you do such things,” he ordered.
She stared at him dumbly. Her mind was blank. She could think of nothing to say.
“Do you hate me?”
She shook her head and blushed.
He smiled.
“Do you like me?”
She dropped her eyes and blushed deeper. She could not deny it.
He raised her chin gently and looked into her eyes.
“You’re just a little girl, but you’re a pretty little girl.” He gave her an appraising look. “It might not be so bad to have a witch on my side.”
He leaned forward to kiss her. She did not resist. This time she tasted it and decided that she liked the taste. His hand lightly touched her arm, her back, her neck. He brought it down to stroke her chest, but she pulled away, struggling for breath. He pulled her closer, claiming her body with his strong, sure touch. That was too much. She wasn’t ready for that.
“You really are a little girl, aren’t you?” he taunted. He tried to pull her to him again, but she pushed him away and ran back toward the village. He was right. She was too young. It was too much for her. Litazu didn’t chase her, probably knowing that she’d seek him out again, soon enough.
Yaku Shaman suddenly loomed, tall and angry, in Jovai’s path. He startled her. She had not heard him. Of course, she had not been listening…
He caught her in his arms before she could stop her flight. She cringed, terrified at the look he gave her. Long ago she had learned that her master was not as fierce as he seemed. In many ways, he was the gentlest man she knew. At this moment, however, he was more frightening than ever, even as a baby, she could remember imagining him.
He picked her up with a strength much younger than his years and carried her back to where Litazu still lingered.
