Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  “Wind spirit .. . wanawut ...” Cheanah trembled against frustration.

  The white lion took one look over its shoulder and saw what was coming toward it, and instead of being driven away, it turned and faced its adversary. It lowered its great, pale, battle-scarred head and roared a warning, but the wanawut kept on coming. Cheanah and Mano saw the lion reach out and rake a broad, ripping swipe across the wanawut’s face before leaping high and disappearing into the fog—but not before the wanawut’s claws found its flank.

  Cheanah cursed. The lion was gone. The wind spirit had driven it off, and perhaps mortally wounded it.

  Mano raised a spear.

  “Hold!” commanded Cheanah sharply, but it was too late.

  Mano’s spear struck the wanawut’s shoulder, then fell, to disappear into the fog. The wanawut turned her gaze from the spear to the hunter who had thrown it. A broad set of bleeding tracks was laid by the lion across her hideous snout, and her left hand gripped her right shoulder. Blood oozed between her huge, furred fingers. She stared at the blood, her long, wide mouth working with anger and her lips lifting to bare teeth. She warned them back with a high, menacing screech, then she bent over the caribou carcass.

  Mano spoke softly to his father, his eyes never wavering from the beast. “We could kill it. If we both ran forward now, if we both hurled our spears now before it could run away .. . Think of it! What would our people say to such a kill, eh? Better than a white lion, yes?”

  “No! Men may not raise their spears against spirits.”

  Mano barked a harsh laugh. “Did you not see it bleed? It is no spirit.”

  Before Cheanah could stop him, Mano levered a spear, ran a few steps, and hurled the lance as hard as he could. He shouted in triumph as, to Cheanah’s amazement, his spearhead buried itself in the upper back of the wanawut. The creature screamed and arched sharply backward. To their shock, she straightened again, reached behind her, and when she failed to pull the spear from her back, snapped the haft in two. With a hand’s span of shaft still protruding from her shoulder, she turned and threw the remainder of the spear back at Mano.

  With no projectile point to hold it on course, it went wide. The two hunters were poised to run, but the wanawut did not move. She stood stiffly, obviously in agony. Then, slowly, she bent and reached down into the ground fog, where the antlers of the caribou showed above the mist. As Cheanah and Mano watched in disbelief, the wanawut lifted die carcass of the caribou, held it high above her head; then advanced on the men. Howling her rage, she hurled the limp, bleeding, lion-mauled body at them as though the thing weighed no more than an empty bladder bag.

  It came at them so fast and so hard that Cheanah and Mano had no time to duck before it knocked them flat. One of the points of the antlers hooked under the left corner of Mano’s mouth as he fell; when his head snapped to the right, he felt it tear his lip. He tasted blood through dizziness, anger, and fear. Beside him, Cheanah worked desperately to scramble free of the carcass. As he scuttled away on all fours, then began to run, he called back for Mano to follow before the waiiawut fell upon him.

  The young man’s face twisted with resentment as he realized that his father had left him to fend for himself. He was on his feet and running now, touching his torn mouth with tentative fingers. His cheek lay open halfway to his ear; he would be scarred for life. And even though it would be a scar to boast about because he had won it in a contest with the wanawut, it would also be a reminder that when his life was in danger, his father had run off and left him.

  But Cheanah had circled back through the rising fog, spears in hand, and stopped beside his son. “Look! We will be all right now. The wanawut runs into the hills. And it is not alone.”

  Holding his torn cheek, Mano glowered across the distance, where another, smaller, wind spirit ran at the side of the older one, arm in arm, leaning close, as though supporting the weight of the larger, wounded beast. Behind them ran a still smaller creature.

  As the threesome disappeared into the distance, Cheanah frowned. “Did you see the black-haired one? I have never seen anything like it! When I looked back, I saw the wanawut draw the black-haired one out of the mists, then check it for injuries. The littler cub must have been under the fallen caribou, and when the wanawut came out of the fog to attack the white lion, it was risking itself to save the life of its cub.”

  “Impossible.” Mano measured his father with open contempt. “They are beasts. You are a man. And that is more than you were willing to do for me.”

  Mother was dying.

  The beast ling knelt at her side. Behind him, Sister whined pathetically as she circled within the cave. The beast ling wished that she would stop; the scuffing sound of her feet annoyed him. Her whines, rapidly repeated high pitched sounds, recalled the fear-choked peeps that cornered birds made just before he killed them. He did not want to think of death; just thinking of it seemed to bring it near.

  Mother sighed. There was much pain in the sound. He signaled for Sister to be quiet and come to Mother’s side, but although she clamped her mouth shut, Sister kept on circling and would not come. She deliberately kept her eyes on her feet. Anger rose in him; almost immediately it was cooled by pity. He had long since accepted the fact that Sister did not think as he thought. She was so easily confused and frightened. Mother was lying on her side in a lake of blood. The long, gaping slashes in her face and arm were oozing. Blood bubbled from the corner of her mouth, as well as from the hole in her upper back where the broken bone protruded. He stroked her gently, so his touch roused no pain. Her skin rippled beneath his palm. Her eyes were on him—her beautiful mist-gray eyes, which were usually like the cool, clouded heights of the mountain that he loved so much. He cocked his head. There was nothing cool about them now. They were hot, glazed over, and pink with fever. As he watched, the gray suddenly became a narrowing ring around an expanding center. His own eyes went wide. The black center frightened him. It seemed to be opening inward into .. . what? He caught his breath. What had he seen within Mother’s eyes? Emptiness. A terrible, black, and appalling emptiness, as though Mother was not within her body anymore—as though her skin and bones and fur were nothing more than a lifeless hide surrounding nothing .. . nothing at all.

  She blinked. The black center of her eyes collapsed, and she stared directly at the beast ling from out of the misted gray that he knew and loved. He sighed with relief. Mother was back inside her skin again. Her mouth opened. No sound came from it except the low, constant bubbling of blood that was welling from somewhere deep within her chest. Slowly, with great effort, she raised her hand. She still held her man stone. Her fingers opened, and the long, lanceolate dagger fell into the beast ling lap.

  “Mah .. . nah .. . rah .. . vak ...” Mother sighed, and there was so much pain in the sound of her voice that even though her hand dropped so heavily onto his shoulder that she came close to breaking it, he felt no pain except that which he shared with her.

  “Mah .. . nah .. . rah .. . vak,” he echoed, not really knowing why. He watched the grayness bleed out of Mother’s eyes as her life ran out of her body along with her blood and breath. He touched her, but she did not move. Her jaw hung lax, her tongue lolled, her eyes were open and empty and devoid of color. He shoved her. Yet even as he shoved, he knew that it was useless. Mother was dead, never to care for her cubs again.

  Stunned, he sat staring, listening to Sister’s whining and shuffling. The sounds were soothing to him now. Mother was gone, but Sister was still with him. He was not alone. As he looked at the man stone, he thought of the white lion and of the beasts and their throwing sticks. They had killed Mother. Now he would kill them.

  His heart filled with hate—and with something even more bitter, self-recrimination and regret. It was his impetuosity that had led her to her death! If only he had not yielded to the impulse that had driven him to chase down his own kill, Mother would not have been forced to come to his rescue! She would still be alive. He looked down at her
and touched her beloved face. The pain that welled within him was so pure and intense that he felt as though he would die of it.

  Sister came to stand beside him. He knew from her blank expression that she did not understand that Mother was dead. He wondered if she would ever understand. He sighed as she seated herself beside him. She pressed close, seeking comfort in his warmth and nearness as she smiled at him. For the first time in his life, the twisted, upside-down smile of the wanawut came easily to his lips.

  He wondered why his eyes were filling with a strange, burning liquid. It welled beneath his lids and ran down his cheeks, and suddenly he was sobbing as Sister frowned in worried puzzlement and drew her fingers across his face, then lifted them to her mouth to taste something that was unknown to the wanawut—or to any other beast. His tears .. . his fully human tears.

  They tracked the white lion until the day was done.

  “I tell you, it is a ghost lion,” fumed Cheanah, for although the animal was wounded, it went on and on. Now, with night descending and the fog growing thicker, they lost it completely. They stopped in high hills at the base of a cloud-shrouded mountain. A fine, icy mist was beginning to rain.

  Mano knelt, examined the stony ground, then rose and looked up, tense and eager. “Do you smell it?”

  Cheanah scowled. “I smell no lion.”

  “No! It is the stink of the wanawut! It has gone there, up onto the mountain. We could follow.”

  “Follow a wind spirit into the clouds?”

  “Why not? It has left us a trail of blood. Look, on the rocks at your feet. It is not from the surface wound of the lion. It is dark and thick. The thing has gone up onto the mountain to die. We could kill it and its young.”

  Cheanah scanned the heights with jaundiced eyes. Despite his swollen, sinew-sutured cheek, Mano’s voice had been strong with the boundless enthusiasm of youth. It made Cheanah feel old and resentful. He had looked down upon the beast with his own eyes. He had no desire to confront such a monstrous thing again.

  “It is time to go back. Soon the wind will rise and bring snow,” he portended with the ease of one who speaks from a lifetime of experience.

  Mano stared up at the misted heights. “Imagine what our people would say if you came back to them walking in its skin, and I wore its teeth and claws around my neck and the pelts of its young across my back! That would be better than that elusive white lion of yours.”

  “It is not my lion.”

  “Apparently not.”

  Cheanah felt the sting of Mano’s rebuke. His head went up as his eyes narrowed. “I will kill it.”

  “The wanawut may already have done that for you.”

  Cheanah frowned, wondering if other men disliked their sons as much as he disliked Mano. A sudden gust of wind swayed him on his feet, and the night was split by a heartrending wailing.

  “It is one of the cubs that howls!” said Mano. “The adult must be dead! I did kill it!”

  “Zhoonali would be proud to see her son Cheanah come back to camp in the skin of the wanawut....”

  Mano’s eyes glittered. “It would even be better than a white lion. But if the wanawut is dead, I am the one who has killed it.” Cheanah did not appreciate the reminder, “And I am headman of our band! The skin is mine! You can take the pelts of the cubs!”

  Mano agreed, then added quickly: “But only if I have your word that I can lie on any woman—including Bili-whenever I want, in return for my word to Zhoonali and the band that it was Cheanah’s spear and not my own that killed the beast.”

  Cheanah’s mouth turned down. His eldest son was as quick and as avaricious as a wolverine. “I should put my spear through your belly and leave you here for carrion,” he growled. “Bili is nothing to me. When this night is over and the day that follows is done, if we return to the encampment with the skin of the wanawut, you may use her and any female of the band as you like.”

  Far away across the Forbidden Land, Umak awoke with a start. He sat upright and stared wide-eyed straight ahead into the darkness of the cave. His mouth was dry, his gut was tight, and his heart was pounding.

  “What is it?” asked Dak, sitting up sleepily beside him on the bed skins that the two youths shared.

  Umak shook his head. “A dream.”

  “Go back to sleep, then. Torka and Simu said that they would have us up before dawn so that—“ He stopped. Umak was up and moving through the darkness toward the hide weather baffles that hung across the entrance to the cave.

  As Dak squinted through the dark, he saw Umak sweep the weather baffle aside and stand naked against the starlight; he was panting, as if he had just run a race. Concerned, Dak rose, bundled his sleeping robe around himself, and went to stand beside his friend.

  “What’s wrong?” he pressed again, his voice very low.

  “The dream ... it was so real,” Umak whispered.

  He turned and looked at Dak. There were tears in his eyes as he confided softly: “If someone you loved died-your father .. . your mother—only then would you be as sad as I feel now.” “The dream’s over. Now come back to sleep.”

  Umak took hold of Dak’s sleeping robe. “Do you ever dream that you are someone else?”

  Dak thought, then nodded. “Sometimes I dream that I am a hunter like

  my father, strong and bold and—“

  “No. Someone else. And yourself at the same time. As though there were two Daks inside your body.”

  Dak felt a cold tide rush through him; the thought was unnerving. “No.

  Never.”

  “I do sometimes.” Umak sighed. “And tonight I know that there is danger for him. I felt it, along with the sadness.” “Him?”

  “My .. . my brother.”

  “Your brother is dead.”

  “Yes, but in my dreams I see him walking in mist, somewhere high. He is a boy like me, but he is dirty, wearing torn furs, with wild hair and—“

  “If I had a brother who died the way yours did, I would dream of him now and again, too. Tell Karana. Magic men know about such things. Now let’s get back to sleep before it’s time to get up!”

  Umak tried to do as his friend had advised. He did not sleep until the first glow of dawn began to shine blue and then pink around the edges of the hide weather baffles. He dozed heavily, to dream of terrible sadness and of imminent danger. In the dream he ran from it behind Dak, trying his best to close the gap between them but failing. Dak, seeming much wilder than in reality, turned back, shook his head, and laughed mockingly: “You will never catch me!”

  But Dak was not Dak. He was another boy, a strange boy in tattered furs with unkempt hair and so much of Torka in his face that Umak raged at him: “I am the son of Torka!”

  “No you are not!” cried the strange boy. “I am!”

  “No!” Umak wept as the boy raced ahead of him into the mists of the dream.

  Torka’s touch roused him into instant wakefulness. He bolted upright, gasping, backhanding tears from his eyes.

  “What is it?” asked Torka, kneeling close.

  “Nothing ...” Umak cried. “It was only a dream.”

  The beasts with their throwing sticks were coming, and there was nothing the beast ling could do to prevent it. He watched them from the corniced lip of the cave. As he watched, his hatred of them grew in proportion to his fascination. They moved as he moved, erect on long limbs, with their backs nearly straight and their short arms swinging at their sides. Now and again they stopped and looked up. He doubted that they had seen him; he was too far above them, and the projecting lip of the cave entrance concealed him.

  Sister came and knelt beside him. Leaning forward, she stared down the wall. When she saw the beasts she exhaled in worried confusion. Her brow furrowed so tightly that her little gray eyes almost disappeared. She looked at him as if expecting him to drive the beasts away. When he did not, she pounded her chest and screeched, then went back into the cave, bent and hooted over Mother’s body, and poked her shoulder. Mother did n
ot move.

  He watched, wishing that he could make her understand that her circling, hooting, and poking were wasted on Mother. If the beasts were going to be turned back, Sister and he would have to be the ones to do it.

  He went to gather fistfuls of pebbles and bits of refuse and began to throw these down at the ascending intruders. He thought that he had won the day. They paused and clung to the mountain, but in a moment they were climbing again. He hastily gathered bits of soiled nest grass, fecal matter, and discarded bones, but by the time he threw the refuse over the edge, the beasts were under the cornice, and the refuse fell harmlessly over them. Soon they would achieve their goal.

  Panic grew within him. He looked back at Sister. She was so much bigger than he was, and her claws and fangs were weapons to envy. But Sister was no fighter. They would kill her and eat what they wanted of her, and he would be unable to stop them because they would kill him and eat him, too.

  He growled deep in his throat. There was only one course of action open to him. He took it—but not without regret.

  Cheanah and Mano reached the cave and stood with their spears ready, their bodies tensed. But the great gray corpse that lay on its side within the foul, stinking shadows of the interior of the cave presented no threat.

  “Where are the cubs?” Cheanah’s query was no louder than a whisper, as if he spoke within a sacred place.

  “Gone into the mists above. But we need go no farther.”

  In silence, father and son set aside their spears, drew their skinning knives of stone, and knelt to make the first of many cuts.

  All day the beast ling and Sister hid within the shadows of the great, sheltering, lichen-clad boulders that lay in tumbled disarray upon the summit of the mountain. Far below something fell along the mountain wall. They heard it thud and roll several times. Stones broke loose wherever it hit, and soon they heard the cascading sound of a rock slide A beast cried out, then there was silence. The cubs of the wanawut huddled together in the long, bitterly cold night, and although Sister held him close in her thickly furred arms, there was no warmth for the beast ling In his hand he held the man stone that Mother had given him, and in his heart he held the memories of uncounted days and nights of her love—a love that he would never know again.