by neetha Napew
“Wah na wah .. . wah nah wut ...” the monster purred as it caressed his face with a bloodstained claw.
Karana lay still, willing the dream away, but it deepened, intensified, and the pain in his head grew worse. He continued to lie still, so still that it was an effort to do so. His muscles began to twitch, yet he forced them to remain motionless, somehow knowing that to do otherwise would bring about his death. His head hurt, and he could feel blood, warm and wet, seeping from the top of his scalp. He wondered if it was real or a part of the dream.
The monster continued to purr and stroke him, gently probing the gash in his scalp. Suddenly Karana knew that he was not dreaming. He cried out, and the beast, startled, winced and uttered high little hoots. It tightened its grip and rocked him faster. Karana’s eyes opened. The morning light outlined the beast’s monstrous, powerfully muscled form in a silvery nimbus. The magic man needed no gift of Seeing to tell him that he was in a cave—the den of the wind-spirit wanawut.
Panic filled him. He could just make out the face of the wanawut. Its eyes stared down at him as if it were wondering if it had seen him before. Its long, bearlike muzzle worked as it drew in his scent. The long, wet glint of its teeth shone dully in the dark. The size and closeness of those teeth set the panic loose within Karana. “Torka!” he screamed, and even as the scream left his lips, he knew that his adopted father could not hear him, let alone help him.
Karana tried to tear himself free from the grip of the beast, but it was no use; the monster held him fast in the curl of one arm, hooted, and grunted, then knuckled him hard in the belly with its other hand as if to say: Lie still, puny one!
It was all Karana could do to keep from screaming again as the beast began its strokings once more and continued to mew at him. It was better to be stroked than torn to pieces. But perhaps the creature was contemplating that. It may have fed on the dead leaping cat, then, as an afterthought, it had brought him here to be cached for future feedings. The magic man’s heart lurched at the thought.
The wanawut showed its teeth. Was it smiling or grimacing? Karana could not tell. He felt sick. He wondered if the beast would be upset if he vomited; if he did, might it let him go in disgust? No. That was too much to hope for. This wanawut dwelled within a cave so foul, vomit would probably pass unnoticed.
Karana swallowed hard, resolving not to be sick, not to do anything that might anger the beast, for despite the strength of its hold on him, its mood was surprisingly passive. It was crooning in low, guttural sounds as it fingered him in the way a girl-child played with a favorite doll .. . lovingly.
Karana’s heart pounded. Lovingly? He nearly gagged on the supposition. It was impossible! The beast was playing with him, as he had seen many a carnivore toy with its prey before settling in to its meal. Yes, he was a magic man who would soon be meat. There was nothing he could do to save himself. Terror numbed him. He did not even know how he had come to be here. He could only remember the wanawut backhanding the dog, then pounding toward him with its great arms raised and its canines showing. He knew now that he must have fainted. Being attacked by two man-eaters in one day had proved too much for him. So much for the powers of the magic man! So much for dressing himself in the skin of the leaping cat and swaggering into the encampment of his people! So much for helping Lonit! For all his bluster and bragging, he could not even help himself. Somewhere beyond the thick, stinking blackness of the cave, the spirits of both worlds must be laughing—and Navahk the Spirit Killer, who had slain a wanawut and danced in its skin, must be laughing with them.
A thought more terrible than death struck him. Had Navahk sent the beast to slay him? No! Karana would not believe it! Not even Navahk could come back from the dead to work such a deed upon the living.
The wanawut, with no instigation from the ghost of Navahk, had followed the wounded leaping cat to make a meal of it and had found a man, had brought him up out of the hills and into a cave high within the clouded crags that its kind was known to inhabit.
Karana closed his eyes. How far was he from the encampment of his people .. . from Torka and Lonit and his beloved Mahnie? He could hear her voice: “Do not go! There will be trouble if you do.” Trouble! If only she knew the trouble he was in!
“Too often are you away from your people when they have need of you, Karana,” she had said. “Too often are you away from me.”
I will never see you again, my Mahnie, We will never make a child together. I will not hunt with Aar at Torka’s side, hear the laughter of Lonit and sweet Demmi, or look upon the dimpled face of solemn little Summer Moon. Zhoonali will see to it that the twins die. Torka and Lonit will curse my name for not having tried to save them. I will die in this stinking, cave. The wanawut will eat my bones, and no one will ever know what has befallen me. And when my spirit walks the wind, Navahk will greet me, laughing; because in the end, the son whose magic he feared above all else will be dead!
The beast’s fingers were tracing his lids. There were tears in his eyes. In terror he squinted hard, visualizing his eye sockets pierced and his eyes ruined at the whim of a creature that could use its claws to flick out his eyeballs. More times than he could remember he had used his own thumbs to gouge the eyeballs of animals he had killed. Eyes were the best part of a kill. But he was not dead yet! And he would not lie here waiting to be mauled and eaten. Beyond the cave, there was light and clean, cold air, and the sound of wind and the low, constant growling of a dog.
Aar! Was Brother Dog alive? And was that a baby that he heard crying somewhere in—or beyond—the darkness of the cave? Perhaps he was not as far from the encampment as he had thought!
There was only one way to find out—only one way to return to the world of the living—and that was to take the risks of the living. Mahnie was waiting for him. Lonit needed him. Her twins needed him. He had come out across the land in search of magic and omens that would allow him to stand against tradition without provoking the wrath of the spirits. Had he succeeded and had not realized it until this moment? Yes.
The magic and the omens that he sought weere not in the land or the sky but within him—within his love for those he had left behind. What did it matter if he did not know the proper rituals? He was a shaman, and he had been trained by the best—by old Umak and the lovely and wise
Sondahr and, yes, in his way, by Navahk, too. If all his instincts cried out that it was wrong to refuse life to children simply because they were twins, then it must be so! He had only to make up the words, conjure the omens, dance, chant, and make the magic smokes in whatever way he chose. The people would believe him. He would make them believe him. The twins would live!
With a shout of defiance, he wrenched his body hard to the right. His movement was so quick and so violent that the startled wanawut loosed its hold with a frightened shriek as he went rolling into the darkness over jagged fragments of broken bones, grabbed at what had to be the femur of a large grazing animal, and sprang to his feet, holding the long, saliva-slick bone as a stave, ready to fight for his life.
The baby came forth quietly, in a rush of blood and fluid, without any pain at all to its mother. Lonit awoke, aware that something had changed, and was amazed to see Zhoonali was kneeling before her, holding a newborn infant that was still red and glistening. Her child! Her tiny child!
Was she dreaming? No, she knew that she was not. Her heartbeat quickened with excitement as she raised herself onto her elbows. Suddenly dizzy, she fell back onto the bed of grasses. Her eyes strayed around the hut. It did not seem that much time had passed since she had fallen asleep. Xhan and Kimm had not yet returned. Nor had lana. She knew that Karana had not come back to the encampment:
Were he here, she would hear his magic chants on her behalf. Everything seemed the same, except that someone, most likely Zhoonali, had been burning dried sprigs of spruce and artemisias in the tallow lamp. Lonit’s nostrils tightened against the sharply medicinal scent. In the hut’s shadows, Wallah still snored. Lonit smiled tenderly
as she closed her eyes and focused her thoughts upon the older woman.
“Another son,” informed Zhoonali.
Lonit opened her eyes. All thoughts of the midwives vanished. She forced herself onto her elbows again, nearly swooning with weakness until pride and delight in the sight of the little one brought her strength back. What a tiny, skinny thing he was—yet perfect in all his parts and squirming like a cold little fish in Zhoonali’s palms. Soon he would be warm. She would hold him close, and he would draw the warmth of life from her breasts. She exhaled a little sob of delight. There was no fear in her heart for this child—not since Torka had made it clear to Zhoonali that with or without the consent of the magic man, it was her obligation as head midwife to deliver the baby and not her right to kill it.
The old woman held the child up and glared at it with hard, critical eyes. “It is so small. Half the size of the other .. . almost as though it had not had the same father as the other, but a sire of smaller stature.”
Lonit stared as something ominous stirred deep within her heart. Her breath caught in her throat. In the misted recesses of her still groggy mind, memories that she had not allowed to surface for many moons threatened her: memories of rape. Of mauling at the hands of a man dressed all in the white belly skins of winter-killed caribou. Of a man as strong and beautiful as a lion. And as deadly. Navahk.
Her eyes widened and fixed upon the infant. Navahk is dead! And even if he were not, I could bear nothing with him! My body bled between the time of his rape and my reunion with Torka. Not much, but surely enough. I could not have carried his child!
But even as she thought these thoughts, the memories mocked her. Her heart began to beat again, hard and sure, the blood to pound in her veins. She snarled at Zhoonali, “This woman would look upon her child!” Zhoonali frowned, sensing the change in her, and displayed the infant before its mother.
Relief surged through Lonit. The little one had her eyes—unusually round and deeply lidded—but the baby had Torka’s face! His mouth .. . his nostrils .. . the high, wide span of his brow .. . even his finely shaped, tight-to the-skull ears. The resemblance was unmistakable. No one would ever question the paternity of this little one! No one—especially his mother.
She laughed aloud and reached out to hold her son. “Please put him into my arms. I would hold him.” Zhoonali shook her head. “Not until the father accepts it.”
Lonit lowered her head and threatened: “Do not call my child ‘it,” Zhoonali. He lives! Soon he will have a name! He is a member of this band!”
The old woman’s face was devoid of expression. “You must rest now, Woman of the West. When the infant is accepted by the headman, then that to which you have given birth will be put to your breast.”
Lonit lay back, exhausted but contented. Even though Karana had not yet returned to the encampment to override the cruel customs of the others, Torka would accept his son as he had accepted his twin. “With his brother,” she said.
The old woman’s face remained impassive, but the expression in her eyes became dark and sad. “Rest,” she repeated, and rose. Holding the infant in the bend of her left arm, she took up her cloak, swung it on, and reached for the caribou skin that would be placed over the infant as it was carried out to its father.
Lonit sighed. In the shadows, Wallah was stirring, perplexed by the sight of the baby.
“What .. . how? ...” she sputtered, backhanding sleep from her eyes.
Lonit beckoned her friend to come to sit beside her. “This one was born as easily as the dawn. Do not be angry that no one chose to wake you. This child was born without even waking me The spirits smile upon him and show this woman that they are no longer displeased with Torka and Lonit for wanting to keep their twins.”
Wallah frowned. “It is not good for a mere woman to say what pleases or displeases the spirits,” she whispered.
Zhoonali’s chin went high. She began to respond, then paused, changing her mind. When she did speak, her words were mono tonal but oddly tense. “Stay with Woman of the West. Tend to her needs. She has suffered long, has lost much blood, and is very weak. She must drink from the healing horn and sleep for at least another day and night. Now Zhoonali will go out to offer that which Lonit has born to its father.
If he accepts its life—“
“Torka will accept his son!” Lonit said hotly. She would have rebuked Zhoonali further had she not been so infinitely exhausted. Zhoonali was right; she did need to sleep. She was actually grateful when the old woman nodded her head in deference to the sharp reprimand and continued calmly: “Zhoonali will do what must be done. Stay here, Wallah, woman of Grek, and see to it that Woman of the West is not disturbed.”
She paused for a moment, her old eyes squinting in the pale, tenuous light of the morning. Her small body was wrapped in her great white bearskin cloak, and the infant was held firmly hidden beneath it in the fold of her arm, close against her side. Morning was all that there would be of day. There would be no noon, no afternoon, no dusk. Soon the sun would set without ever having fully risen. The long dark would come down again, and it would be night. By then she would be alone and far away.
Zhoonali’s chin came up. Her fear and indecision were buried deep; no one would have guessed that she was capable of either. Anyone looking at her would have seen her resolve. But no one saw her as she closed the door skin and stood immobile against the shaggy, conical hide walls of the hut of blood.
The encampment was full of life and wind-combed smoke. Torka had the band’s attention, and hers. He had taken up the stance of birth vigil again. She felt her body respond to the sight of him, for although she was old, she was still a woman, and the sight of Torka in the full regalia of his rank aroused a sexual awareness that would have stunned and most likely appalled him had he known of it.
He was magnificent, this Torka, this Man of the West whose totem was Life Giver—the great mammoth that her people knew as Thunder Speaker—this Torka who was called Man Who Walks With Dogs because of the magic powers that allowed him and the members of his family to command the spirits of the wild dogs of the tundra. He was a tall man. Winter-lean and storm-strong, he stood outside his pit hut, facing the rising sun, with his head back, arms lifted, and limbs splayed wide. His hands were curled tightly around the bone haft of his stone-headed spear. Around his head was a circlet of feathers plucked from the wings of eagles, hawks, and the great black-and white flight feathers of a condor like tera torn Around his neck was a massive collar of intricately woven sinew strands adorned with stone beads and tiny fossilized shells. From this hung ornamental loops of braided musk-ox hair, which held the paws and fangs of wolves, as well as the claws and stabbing teeth of the great short-faced bear he had killed long ago in face-to-face combat.
Awash in the cool, lustrous opalescence of the morning, in his exquisitely sewn garments cut from the skins of dire wolves, caribou, and Arctic lions, with his thick, un plaited black hair loose and blowing in the wind, his was a posture of defiance, not of supplication.
Zhoonali’s eyes widened. Was it any wonder that the hunters and the women and children of this camp observed him with awe and trepidation? What a man he was, standing against them all! Standing against the very forces of Creation for this woman! For his newborn son! And in hope of the life of this spiritless suckling, which, unknown to him, she held captive within the warm, sheltering fall of her cloak.
You cannot have them both! Her inner turmoil was great, the unspoken words fire in her throat. Her eyelids half closed, sharpening her focus as she scanned the band’s people. Her eyes were barely visible between the thin, white screening of her lashes. Is there not one man here bold enough to confront him? Is there not one man who will stand up to him, as this old woman tried to do, and tell him to his face that this birth vigil violates tradition? Twins are an affront to the forces of Creation! The acceptance of one might be tolerated, but the effrontery of Torka to ask for the lives of both is too much! Someone must tell him!<
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They were all such strong, sinewy men. All of them, including the boys and old Grek and ancient, crooked nosed Teean, were bold when hunting prey. But Torka was not prey; he was their headman—a man who had led them safely away from their enemies, around mountains that rained fire, through canyons of falling ice, into a new but traditionally forbidden land, which had proved a better hunting ground than any they had ever known before. And in this new land, Torka had hunted beside them and taught them the mystical power that lay in the use of spear hurlers. He had followed his totem, Life Giver, to this camp full of meat, where those who had so willingly walked with him now sat in their prime winter furs, with their bellies full, and their lips greased with fat, and their dark eyes fearful as they observed him from the semicircle that they had made around Cheanah’s fire.
Zhoonali’s mouth pressed back against her timeworn teeth. How small they seemed to her now as they hunkered close to the lee of Cheanah’s large pit hut. Of dark, shaggy bison hides that were lashed tightly across a framework of mastodon bones, camel ribs, and caribou antlers, it suited the big man who had naturally commanded the loyalty of his fellow hunters .. . before Torka had overshadowed him.
Cheanah was talking with the hunters in low, insistent tones. Zhoonali saw the worry on their faces. Cheanah’s alone seemed impassive, but she knew that her son was on edge. His mother had been challenged, her ways repudiated before the entire band. And no doubt Kimm had been whining about her bruised face, wheedling and reminding him of the twin sons that he had forced her to sacrifice for the good of all.
