Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  Cheanah’s brow came down. Could Kimm not see that her emotions were being led by Zhoonali? Of course she could. She was simply choosing to follow. He knew that Kimm was jealous of Lonit; she was jealous of every female who had ever caught his eye—and that had been quite a

  number over the years. He shared her resentment over Torka’s insistence that Lonit be allowed to keep her twins. That demand had upset the entire band and nearly cost his beloved mother her life. But thanks to Zhoonali’s brave unselfishness, one of those twins was dead. Nothing could be done about the other twin. It was a child with a name and a life now that it had been officially accepted by its father.

  He said as much, and beyond the pit hut, the wall of the wind rose as Zhoonali shook her head. In the dull, oily, yellow light, her face was as worn and rutted as an outwash plain, but her eyes were sharp as they fixed him—penetrating, deeply contemplative, and demanding eyes that put an edge to his already well-honed irritability. “Think, Cheanah, think! The firstborn twin has been accepted by its father but not by the band. Kimm is right. The newborn must not be allowed to take its life among this people, or soon there will be no people.”

  Outside, the blizzard was still howling. Cheanah could not remember a worse storm or a more vicious wind. It was as though the forces of Creation were running mad across the world, trying to rip the pit huts from their stakes and blow them and the people away into the bkter dawn and off the edge of the world. Perhaps before the storm was over, the forces of Creation would have their way? If they did, Zhoonali would be proved right. But by then what would it matter? Because of Torka’s stubbornness, for the sake of an arrogant woman and a child that should never have been born, they would all be dead.

  “It is strange,” said Zhoonali, narrowing her eyes at him meditatively.

  “You look like my son.”

  Cheanah felt the critical gazes of his boys upon him. He sat up very straight, threw out his chest, and squinted back at his mother, frowning in the way of a son who fears that a beloved parent is succumbing to the infirmities of her years. “Of course I look like your son! I am your son! The only one you have left!”

  The old woman nodded and smiled with obvious relief. “Your response is what I had hoped for. You, Cheanah, were born to be headman of your people. You should never have chosen to follow Torka or allow yourself to be overshadowed by him. He is not of our people. He is an outsider. He is not my son!”

  “Mother, I am your son, and you need fear nothing in all this world as long as you have Cheanah to protect you.”

  “But for how long shall I have you? For how long shall I have any of you? My beautiful children. My beloved children! Torka and his woman have defied tradition! If you are Cheanah ... if you are my son, then you must challenge Torka! You must demand that he put aside both his twins! You have sacrificed your sons for the good of your people. So must Torka be willing to do the same. Now, before it is too late for us all!”

  “No.”

  Torka’s word was clearly and calmly spoken, yet it broke upon the assembled members of the band with more fury than the weakening storm.

  In their heavy winter furs, with their hoods raised and their ruffs pulled forward against the wind while their children held fast to the fringes of their leggings, there was not a man or woman among the gathering who had truly expected him to say anything else.

  “This will be settled now,” said Cheanah.

  Torka eyed the sky. “For a day and a night has this storm raged. Now it is dawn, the weather is clearing—all the more reason for Torka to stand firm. My child lives. The people live. The storm has not blown us away!”

  Resolute in her bearskin, Zhoonali stood beside Cheanah. When he hesitated, she did not. “Do not mock the powers of Father Above and Mother Below, Torka. When you named your firstborn son, all bore witness to the burning sky and the trembling earth. For a day and a night this old woman has lain awake listening to the spirit voices of her ancestors. It was they who returned Zhoonali from the spirit world. It was they who put the wanawut in my path. It was they who brought Cheanah into the far hills to find me so that I might stand before you now. The storm is ending because of this old woman. The forces of Creation have sent the wanawut to feed upon the life spirit of your second son. Now the wanawut waits, hungering. Not until it has fed upon the flesh of Torka’s other twin will it turn away, and if it does not feed, then the trembling earth will open to swallow the people, and the burning sky will fall upon us to bury our bones!”

  Standing apart from the others, the magic man stiffened. The old woman was in good form, with her fiery eyed finger-pointing boldness. He could see Lonit peering wanly from the hut of blood, with Wallah at her side. Bundled in her bed furs, she caught her breath and hugged tiny Umak closer. Karana knew that she was not afraid for herself but for her child. Zhoonali’s threat could not have been more strongly stated, and there was not a man, woman, or child who heard it who was not visibly impressed.

  Except Torka. “Then the wanawut has spoken to you, Zhoonali? And Father Above and Mother Below, they have told you this?”

  Now it was Zhoonali who hesitated—but only for a moment. “It has spoken. They have told me.”

  She is afraid, thought Karana, but what does she fear? The beast? The forces of Creation? He was not certain. He knew only that she was afraid. They were all afraid. Only Torka seemed untouched by the woman’s words, while the tremulous whispers of the weak-kneed people ran in the wind like small, seed-eating animals scurrying through autumn grass ahead of a fire. The magic man recognized them for the potentially deadly things they could become if they joined forces against Torka. His stubbornness was feeding the flames of his people’s terror. As Karana looked at their faces, he knew that if Torka could not ease their fears, they could destroy him and anyone who chose to stand at his side.

  The magic man shifted his weight and folded his arms across his chest. All eyes were on him now. They waited for their magic man to speak. But there was no magic in him. No power. No Seeing. He wanted to speak, but what could he say? How could he prove to them that the old woman was lying? For all he knew, she was speaking the truth. And so he said nothing—as he had said nothing, not even to Mahnie, since returning to the encampment.

  When she had lain beside him in their pit hut, stroking him as she whispered words of love and gladness at his return, he had turned his back, because he knew that he was not worthy of her love and was sorry that he had returned. He had wished he were dead. He was Karana.

  Son of Navahk. Brother of beasts. Killer of infants. Betrayer of friends.

  And now, beneath the wind-tattered, rapidly clearing sky, he could see his precious Mahnie standing with the other women, staring at him as they all stared at him, waiting for him to speak, wanting him to speak, hoping for his confirmation of Zhoonali’s condemnation of Torka’s child or for his refutation of it. There was no way for any of them to know that he had already condemned one twin. Now they were demanding that he condemn the other or stand with Torka against Zhoonali and all the forces of Creation.

  Deep within the magic man’s gut, revulsion, shame, and guilt squirmed until together they bit deeply, hurting him with the knowledge that Torka’s infant might still be alive had it not been for his own deception. Might be. He would never know. He only knew that his sister lived, drawing life from the milk made of the bones and flesh of Torka’s son.

  Karana felt sick. He also was Torka’s son—in name only, but a son nonetheless. And as a son, he would not betray his father twice! But neither could he make a decision that might result in the destruction of the band that trusted him. He would prefer to walk off alone into the storm whitened hills and feed his own life to the forces of Creation.

  But no such sacrifice was required of him. The headman silenced them all with a wave of his arm.

  “The storm is over,” Torka declared. “Zhoonali is a fearful old woman plagued by bad dreams in the night. Go back to your hut, mother of Cheanah. Relax. Sleep.
And as for the rest of you, what has been done has been done. Think no more of this.”

  In the growing light of day Zhoonali stared unflinchingly. She drew herself up lest her dignity wilt like a tender-leafed plant before the killing frost of Torka’s dismissal. “To think no more of this is to die of this!” she shouted at him.

  The people gasped in amazement. Females did not argue with males—at least not before witnesses. Only Zhoonali, the bravest and most reckless of women, would dare to believe that her years and impressive lineage would grant her the authority to shout at her headman before the entire band.

  Torka leveled a measuring gaze at her. Between the rising of this dawn and the last, Zhoonali had dared a great deal with him. Because of Zhoonali, one of his sons was dead, his other son’s life was threatened, and his control of the band was in jeopardy. Any other headman would have struck her down. Any other headman would have ignored the hulking, glowering presence of her son and proclaimed that given her age, gender, and behavior, she had forfeited her place within the band.

  But Torka was not any other man. He saw Zhoonali as an old, inflexible woman so steeped in tradition that she was blind to the wisdom of other people. What she said and did was not motivated by avarice or cruelty but by her sincere belief that she was acting for the good of all. With these thoughts gentling what easily could have been hatred for her, Torka failed to recognize the one facet of Zhoonali’s nature that was the most dangerous and selfish of all—her ambition for her son.

  And so he spoke no harsh words of rebuke. To honor her with a response would be to acknowledge the status that she had conferred upon herself. Instead he looked at Chianah and directed the reply to him.

  “Zhoonali is an old woman whose years have allowed her to forget her place. You have called this gathering for her sake. Now, for her sake, call it off, and in the light of the newly risen sun, let us forget that hostile words have been spoken between us.” He reached back, drew up the black-maned hood of his lion-skin parka, and would have turned away, but Cheanah’s strong hand stayed him. In that moment, whatever Cheanah might have said in the way of conciliation or further argument was lost as wolves began to howl in the distant hills, and from somewhere in the misted highlands, the voice of the wanawut was heard in the land.

  Zhoonali tensed. Vindicated, she turned around and around, gesturing broadly to the people. “Listen! The wanawut hungers! It is as Zhoonali has told you. The wanawut has come to feed upon the flesh of the band as punishment for the arrogance of Torka and Lonit!”

  Torka could feel the sudden change in his people, a gale of apprehension, distrust, and fear of the unknown. They had lost their faith in him. The wanawut lived, and Manaravak was dead. But he had another son—another feeding to be given to the beast of the cold, gray mountain mists for the good of the band.

  “No .. .” he said, shaking his head, aware of Karana’s standing apart from the others, his face set, his eyes hollow. Why did the magic man not speak?

  Cheanah spoke for him. “Zhoonali is old, but she is wise. And she is right! Too long has this man bent himself to the will of Torka! Now Torka must bend to Cheanah to the will of the band.”

  “I will not consent to the killing of my son!”

  “It is not for you to consent. That which affects us all must be decided by us all! So it has always been, since the time beyond beginning.”

  Torka knew the truth when he heard it. The people knew it, too. There was not a man or woman who did not murmur in affirmation of Cheanah’s words.

  But this was a truth to which Torka would not yield. He stood firm, feeling the eyes of everyone in the encampment on him. Eyes of friends—of men and women who had chosen to walk with him, who had prospered under his leadership. But now they were afraid, and because of their fear, they were his enemies. They would kill him if he did not yield. And then they would kill his child.

  Anger flared within him, then bled away into a terrible sense of betrayal. How quickly they had forgotten all the good days, the fine hunting, the dangers shared and overcome in this new land. The tension in the air was palpable as Cheanah moved to stand between Torka and the hut of blood. His sons were at his sides—his bright-eyed, adoring, avaricious sons. They fairly exploded with pride as, with a nod of his head, Cheanah commanded evenly, “Go with your grandmother. Take the suckling meat that Torka names Son from its mother and bring it here.”

  They would have scampered off, but Torka feinted quickly to one side and then to the other, tripping all three of them. “I have warned you before, Cheanah, that I will make meat out of any man who would harm my son.”

  Cheanah nodded. “But how long will it live, Torka, after I have made meat of you?”

  As the band watched in stunned silence, Cheanah lunged at Torka. They went at one another as if they were stag elk in rut, butting hard, pressing harder, grappling until they were huffing and groaning and wrestling on the ground, locked in a combat from which neither intended to allow the other to retreat alive.

  But even as Cheanah took the first step of aggression against Torka, Zhoonali knew that his timing was wrong. She saw the black, bottomless sheen of resolve shining out of Torka’s eyes and feared for the life of her son.

  Cheanah was headman again at last. She knew it. She sensed it. There had been no need for him to come to blows with Torka. All he had had to do was stand back and watch the authority of Man of the West continue to wither away to nothing while the omens, and one old woman, continued to conspire against him.

  She had succeeded in riling the bear in Cheanah’s spirit, but she had failed to foresee the full consequences of her manipulations. He was thinking like a bear, not like a man. He was reacting, not reasoning. Could he not see that the outcome of this wrestling match with Torka would accomplish nothing except to grease his male pride? And what if Torka proved the better combatant? She and Cheanah could lose everything.

  And so, when Torka’s totem appeared on the ridge and suddenly trumpeted and turned eastward into the far hills, Zhoonali knew what she must do.

  She assumed the posture of a seeress and shouted for all to hear:

  “No! Stop this battling! There is another way! Look! The mammoth turns eastward, out of this valley and away from the hunting grounds of the people! The forces of Creation have spoken! They have shown us another way!”

  Her words struck Karana, stunning him. As magic man, he knew that he should have been the one to stop the confrontation between Torka and Cheanah before it had come to blows. As Torka’s son, he should have stepped into the fray, as Cheanah’s sons had been eager to do. But there was no voice in him. The forces of Creation had taken it from him and given it to Zhoonali. He stared eastward and saw the mammoth turn its back as the world seemed to give way beneath his feet.

  The old woman pointed off and shouted in the voice of a seeress:

  “Behold, Thunder Speaker! Behold, Life Giver! It is a sign unto the people!”

  Her pronouncement was a wedge that deepened the crack in the earth beneath Karana’s feet. The mouth of Mother Below opened to swallow him. He heard the mammoth trumpet once again as, arms up, he fell straight through the earth—not into it but through it, into absolute blackness. All around him the spirit wind wailed, and the cold, stony flesh of Mother Below writhed and groaned, then grew hot and molten, burning him, threatening to close in on him, to melt him and grind him into a part of herself.

  As suddenly as he had fallen, Karana emerged through the scorching heat into cold darkness once again. He kept on falling .. . falling .. . until he hurtled through the bottom of the world. There was a great roaring and an explosion of light, then the sudden sensation of weightlessness as the spirit wind bore him up.

  As a fish is caught in the flow of a river, Karana felt himself swept up and away, around the world. He went higher and higher, into the domain of Father Above, a vast, star-filled vault of space that was filled with the invisible presence of the dead.

  Terror struck him. He could fe
el them touching him, reaching for him, trying to hold him captive in their world. He wrenched free of their grasping hands. He heard their voices whispering, calling, entangled one within another as he had often seen clouds mesh and skein together when driven by a strong wind. But then one unmistakable voice rose above the others—the voice of Navahk, his father.

  Beware, Karana. I have seen your death and Torka’s in the face of the rising sun, beyond an endless corridor of ice and storm.. ..

  “We will all die someday!” It was his own voice, defiant and angry, but he had not spoken. The words belonged to the ghost of his youth. It was swept away, along with Navahk and all the other ghosts until, at last, Karana was alone with the wind and the sky, weightless in the black, star-freckled arms of Father Above. The moon shone to his left and the sun to his right.

  Look down, Magic Man! demanded Father Above. Behold! commanded the spirit wind.

  Karana looked down. In amazement, he beheld the world. He saw all of it—not a forever ness of land and sky as he had always perceived it, but a blue-and-white orb magically floating within the substance of space, half in night’s darkness, half in day’s light, spinning .. . spinning its landmasses buried-under mile-high skins of ice.

  He zoomed breathlessly closer, to view a valley between great, glaciated mountain ranges. He saw the encampment of his people—a tiny cluster of shaggy blisters made of hides, with meat and skins drying in the wind, and people gathered around while two men, Torka and Cheanah, grappled on the ground, and Zhoonali, from this height a mere ant of a woman in a robe of dirty white, pointed at a man who stood with a dog at his side, apart from the others ... at a man who looked disconcertingly like himself.

  Disoriented, Karana looked down, wondering how he could be in the sky and in the world at the same time.

  Magic, he decided. It was the Seeing gift! The spirit wind had caught him up in its supernatural tide, and he was not being swept away; he was being given the gift of Seeing as he had never experienced it before! A sense of wonder filled him. Soon the vision would fade, and his spirit would be captive inside his skin again. And so he looked down upon the world and drew into himself all that he could see of it. It was breathtakingly, awe-inspiringly beautiful.