Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  “Do you think my mother will be all right until Karana can bring his magic to her?”

  Torka thought, nodded, and spoke his heart. “I do. Eneela is strong, and Wallah knows the way of healing in these’ matters almost as well as Karana. She cannot make magic, but she knows the way to stanch a flow of blood.”

  Looking back, Torka indicated the glimmering glow that was the signal fire that Simu and Grek were keeping on the lip of the cave. “Now that the storm has cleared, Karana will see the fire. Chances are he will meet us halfway across the valley.” He hoped that his voice did not reveal his concern.

  “He does not want to come,” Umak declared.

  It always annoyed Torka when Umak fell into the careless habit of making statements rather than suppositions. “You can’t know that.”

  “Umak always knows things,” informed Dak offhandedly.

  “Is that true, Umak?”

  “Not always.” The boy stood and stared across the way they had come. “For example, I was not sure that she would really have the nerve to follow.” “Who?” Torka was on his feet.

  Dak shrugged, revealing his ignorance, but Aar was off and barking happily as a small figure plodding toward them raised an arm and called out.

  “It’s Demmi,” answered Umak. “She’s been trailing us for a long time now.”

  “And you said nothing?” Anger toward his son flared within Torka. “She is alone! She might have been attacked by-“

  “Demmi’s very good with a spear, and with a dagger and a bola, too,” said Umak. It was a while before the girl caught up with them. She was breathless, and her words were strained when she spoke. “You must come back to the cave, Father! Mother’s labor has begun, but Wallah says that something is very wrong. Grek is coming along after me. He will go on with Dak to find Karana. You and Umak and I, we must go back to the cave now!”

  For three long days Lonit labored to bring forth her baby.

  “Too long .. . too long ...” moaned Wallah, despairing of what to do.

  “Karana has special magic to relax a mother and bring a baby quick:

  oils, powdered bones,

  drinks made of gland meats and green leaves and pounded bark. From Sondahr and the shamans and healers at the Great Gathering he has learned this magic. My knowledge is small indeed when compared to his.” She hesitated. “Torka, I must speak truth to you. The infant is lodged backward in the birth passage. I cannot feel a heartbeat.”

  From where she sat close at Lonit’s side, lana lifted her sad eyes to Torka. “Perhaps it is time to think about using the claw of taking.”

  Lonit roused herself. “No, lana! Torka, tell her no!”

  Bereft, he nodded, assenting to her will. Slowly, he released his hope that he was soon to have another son, one who, unlike Umak, would not have Navahk’s smile.

  “When Karana returns, the baby will come,” Summer Moon assured him, standing close at his side with little Swan in her arms.

  “Yes,” agreed Mahnie. “When my magic man returns, all will be well!”

  Demmi glowered from where she sat soberly with Umak at the other side of the cave. “If the baby’s heart has stopped, then it is already dead, and Karana’s magic will not bring it back to life. He should have been here days ago. And if he truly has any power at all, he should have known that there would be danger in this birth!”

  Umak looked at her strangely.

  Summer Moon glared at Demmi. “You know nothing of men or of anything important!”

  “Shhh now!” Eneela, propped against her backrest on her bed furs with Simu, Nantu, and Larani, hushed the siblings as if they were babies. “Enough! This is not a time for arguing.”

  “It is time for something!” cried Demmi, rising and curling her fists at her sides. “How long are we going to wait for Karana while my mother grows weaker and her baby refuses to be born? Whatever is to be done for her must be done now, by those of us who are with her now.” Suddenly sobbing, she swept across the cave and fell in a heap at Lonit’s side. “This girl will help you! Is there not something I can do?”

  Beside her, Torka frowned, ashamed. Demmi was right! Perhaps if the

  baby could be turned in Lonit’s womb, not

  torn to pieces with the claw of taking but turned by small, questing, and determined hands, Lonit could expel it, and both mother and child could be saved! Why had he not thought of it before? Because he had been waiting for Karana.

  He lay one hand upon Demmi’s back and the other upon Lonit’s cheek. “I need Demmi’s small, strong, and gentle arm, and I need the trust of the first woman of my heart. Do I have these things?”

  “Always .. . and forever,” whispered Lonit.

  Demmi blinked and nodded.

  “Good,” said Torka and drew in a deep breath to give him courage. “I will hold my Lonit hard against the pain of what must come ... as Demmi turns the child and draws it out.”

  It was done, but done too late. The baby, a boy, was dead. A son that might have been. Lonit wept, and Torka trembled against grief as Wallah took the infant from a sniffling, shaking, pale-faced Demmi and placed it in its father’s hands.

  “I’m sorry,” Demmi whispered. “It was a good try, girl!” Wallah told her. “But look at the cord. You see how it was wrapped around its neck? It was this that kept it from turning. There was danger to this one baby from the start.”

  “I knew,” Umak said simply.

  “Don’t be silly, boy,” the old woman rebuked him.

  “I knew. In my dreams. My brother, lost and alone and in danger. I told Karana. I asked him what the dream meant. But he said that my brother was dead. He was so angry. He told me never to speak of it again, to anyone. He said he’d kill me if I did. But how can I keep silent now? My brother is dead, and Karana knew all along that it would happen. Unless he wanted this baby dead, Karana should have been here.”

  “I am here now,” said Karana, picking up Umak’s last few words as he came into the cave with Grek and Dak and the dogs. “What is it? Why do you all stare?”

  Torka turned.

  Karana had just loosed his hood. His face went white as he saw the corpse of the infant.

  Slowly, as though in a trance, with his dead infant son held protectively in the fold of his left arm, Torka crossed the cave.

  Karana never saw the blow that felled him. But suddenly his face was red with blood as one blow from Torka’s fist knocked him flat.

  “Why?”

  The word struck Karana like a hard kick in his belly. Nauseated, he sat up, hand to his face, fighting against dizziness and pain. He knew that his nose was broken. Blood from his split upper lip was hot in his mouth. His upper teeth felt loose. His tongue moved to probe the extent of his injury, but it, too, was split and flapping wide in his mouth.

  “Why?” Torka raged again. “In the name of all of the forces of Creation, why would you, whom I have named Son, threaten Umak and wish to keep such knowledge from me? Why would you deliberately stay away when you had the healing aids that might have quickened Lonit’s labor and saved the life of my child?”

  Something deep inside Karana’s head seemed to snap. He heard it and felt it. The pain was excruciating. And then, out of a blackness that seemed to be boiling inside his brain, numbness came, and with it a low, deep rushing roar.

  “I demand an answer! Why, Karana?” Karana looked up at Torka and wondered if he had ever heard a more malevolent word. Torka’s stillborn son, choked by its own cord. Yes, Umak had foretold his brother’s death. A boy ... all blue .. . with a thong wrapped about its neck. But he had not listened. Frightened, he had mistakenly thought that the boy was referring to the other vision, the one he and Umak shared: of the other twin, the wild boy dressed in fur, coming across the miles, walking with a beast on one side and the terrible specter of the truth on the other.

  “Fool ...” He whispered the recrimination. Pain flared within him. It was so intense that he nearly fainted. Blood was flowing fast now, welli
ng in his nostrils and flowing back into his swollen sinuses; he could not breathe unless he sucked air through his mouth, but blood was pooling there, too, thick and hot. Instead of sobbing in anguish at what he had done, he laughed. He did not know why, and he could not stop laughing any more than he could stop bleeding. Somewhere inside the black, roaring cloud boiling in his head, he could have sworn that he heard Navahk laughing—not with him, but at him. Squinting up, he saw the look of fury on Torka’s face, and despite himself, he laughed again. “Fool .. . not to see, not to know. But couldn’t speak .. . cannot speak .. . will not speak. This baby, it does not matter.. .. It—“

  Karana glanced at those who stared at him, aghast and uncomprehending. Even Mahnie looked at him as though he were a stranger. Beside her, Umak, blank faced, stood staring back at him. Suddenly he fixed the boy with pure, unbridled rage. “Look!” How it hurt to speak; but

  speak he did and felt his tongue lying open in his mouth and the blood gushing from his face. “Look at what you have done to me! I will come for you in the night! I warned you not

  “No!” With his dead infant limp in the curl of one arm, Torka reached down with the other and jerked Karana by his hair to his feet. “Not another word! Not another threat! Get out! Go! This is the second time a son of mine has died because you have seen fit to wander the hills like a solitary wolf with your back turned to me and mine when we have needed you and depended upon you most. Had you been at my side on the night of the red sky and the black moon, your words of ‘magic’ could have changed the minds of ignorant, fearful people, and my son would not have become meat for the jaws of the wanawut, nor would I have been forced to leave the Place of Endless Meat to wander the Forbidden Land! Long ago, when you followed me out of the camp of Cheanah, you swore that it would not happen again. But it has happened! This stillborn son that I hold in my arms would be alive were it not for you! You have betrayed the trust and the love that have bonded us, Karana. No longer will I call you Son. Go, I say! Your ‘magic’ is not needed here. I am Torka!

  The blood of many generations of spirit masters flows within me. It is time that I remembered this and drew strength from it. This band needs no magic man when Torka is headman, for at last I know that as long as Life Giver is my totem, my instincts will speak the wisdom of the spirits to me, and from this day until the ending of my days, when I have need of ‘magic,” I will look into my own heart and know that the forces of Creation live there—as they live within any thinking, prudent man, under the guise of wisdom and common sense! So go from me now, Karana! Go! Be the wild, solitary thing you were when I first set eyes upon you. You are not my son. You are the son of Navahk, after all. I cast you out! Your people turn their backs upon you! No more shall we look upon your face!”

  Karana stared. His laughter bubbled back into his throat along with his blood. The blackness in his head seemed to expand. For a moment, he saw through the pain and blood and anguish and knew that he did not want to go—not from Torka’s side, not from the cave, not from the warm, loving embrace of his Mahnie, and not from the laughter of children and the fellowship of friends. He did not want to be a magic man. He only wanted to stay, to be a man among other men, no more, no less. To be forgiven. But how could Torka forgive him? How could he forgive himself? Torka was right: He was the son of Navahk, and from this there could be no reprieve.

  Winter deepened. If there had ever been a colder, stormier time of the long dark, the people of Cheanah could not remember it.

  Zhoonali did not speak of the wind spirit’s incursion into the encampment or of Cheanah’s failure to pursue it into the storm. She kept his secret; as long as he was headman she would have a place within the band, no matter how long the winter lasted. As for the loss of some of his favorite spears, he soon crafted others.

  Nevertheless, the winter went on and on, and if the sun rose briefly beyond the eastern ranges to mark the return of spring, they could not tell in the constant storms. And now, in the Place of Endless Meat, the people of Cheanah were down to the last of their moldering stores.

  “Perhaps the spirits are angry with us,” suggested Ank. “Perhaps Honee should have been given away to Teean according to the custom of the ancients. At least then we would not have to listen to her whining. And maybe it was not such a good thing to take the skin of a wanawut and—“

  “Enough! I will hear no criticism from you, whelp!” Cheanah silenced the boy with a shout that allowed no argument.

  “I am hungry,” whined Honee.

  Xhan observed the girl with open contempt. “You and everyone else!”

  Old Teean had entered the headman’s pit hut, hoping that at least one of the women might have snared some small vole or squirrel she would share. He overheard the complaints of Honee and came closer. “You are still welcome to come to my bed furs, daughter of Cheanah, and warm this hungry old man in the night. I will share my meat with you.”

  The girl eyed him with revulsion. “Will you never give up? I would rather starve than spread myself for you!”

  The old man shook his head sadly as he shivered against the cold, constant wind. “And well you may, before this winter ends. Well may we all!”

  An air of solemnity settled throughout the encampment. Tempers grew short as men, women, and children began to grow weak and sick.

  “We should have stored more and eaten less,” Ekoh said tersely.

  “Cheanah should have insisted upon it!”

  “We still have some stores left!” reminded the headman.

  “Moldering fish and putrid fowl and fat so rotten that it looks and smells like pus!” snapped Bili.

  “Shut your mouth, woman of Ekoh, or you and yours will eat nothing in the days to come, I promise you!” warned Zhoonali.

  Bili lowered her head and glared. “By my own initiative I have seen fit to store more supplies than any woman in this camp! And I have also seen fit to share them with you and all the others! Do not threaten me, you old hag! If there is meat on your bones, it is because of me!”

  Zhoonali’s head swung on her thin, tendinous neck as she looked to Cheanah for support. “Speak for your mother, my son! Will you allow this female to talk to me this way?”

  Cheanah paused and stared at Zhoonali long and hard. She had just unwittingly given him the opportunity to shake the weight of some responsibility for the unending winter off his back and onto hers. He smiled and shrugged.

  “Bili should of course speak with respect to the wise woman at all times, but in this she is right, my mother. You are wise woman of this band. The talking bones speak through you. But I do not remember your cautioning this band about the severity of the winter to come ... or advising the women to set aside extra provisions for it.”

  The old woman drew herself up inside her bearskin. Cheanah saw her features tighten, then expand.

  “The talking bones speak through me. I do not speak. They speak. If anyone questions this woman’s wisdom, then let them speak to the talking bones! Perhaps, in their mouths, they will speak great wisdom ... or perhaps they will not speak at all!”

  Alone, Karana made his way across the night. The wounds that Torka had left upon his face had healed; but his face was scarred, as was his heart. Like a solitary wolf he walked, outcast from the band, pacing his lonely territory-around the lake until the walls of the north-canyon glacier blocked his way, then back and around again. He found himself hoping that someday his pacing would end and he would be welcomed home once more.

  The hope was troubling, causing him to remember that after Torka had banished him, he had almost blurted out the truth, as he spoke it aloud now: “Perhaps I am not responsible for the death of two sons, after all. The one who was abandoned long ago lives. He walks my dreams, even as he walks the dreams of Umak. The boy has foretold more than the death of this stillborn son! What he has also seen in his dreams is his living twin. Yes! It is so! I lied, so you would not follow the wanawut and discover what I truly am—not only the son of Navahk but the bro
ther of beasts, unfit to walk in the company of men!”

  From where he stood he could see tiny lights flickering in the flanks of the hills. The women were up in Torka’s cave, rousing the cooking fire, igniting the tallow lamps. Soon it would be morning. Karana’s mouth went dry with wanting.

  He felt the madness growing in him, dark, disturbingly focused, and obsessive. He knew that Navahk had come to live within him upon the mountain, sharing his spirit and fighting for control.

  Hardness toward beautiful Summer Moon congealed within his heart; it was to avoid her that he had deliberately ignored the signal fire that called him to Lonit’s side. He saw it as a trick of Navahk’s to get him to go back to the cave, to lie again with Summer Moon or Mahnie, so the evil Navahk would pour out of Karana and into the women to take life again and destroy Torka. Thus, although he had the magic to quicken Lonit’s labor, he had withheld it from her.

  Guilt struck him deep. He turned and began to run aimlessly, blindly, until he stumbled. He collapsed onto his knees in the darkness and was glad for the pain. It was no more than he deserved. He cursed and climbed to his feet. With a low growl of rage and anguish, Karana began to walk toward the place upon the high, black ridge where he had made his lonely, desolate home. He hoped that somewhere along the way he would die.

  Far to the west, the great thaw finally came to the Place of Endless Meat. The steppe became a vast quagmire as meltwater poured out of the surrounding ranges. Avalanches and mudslides shook the mountains. Rivers roared and ran brown and thick with mud, suffocating the fish.

  Streams swelled and overran their banks.

  The carcasses of animals that had frozen to death during the long, brutal winter were washed out of the canyons to litter the plains; birds and blackflies filled the gray, leaden skies as insects and starving carnivores came to compete with man for meat.

  The starving people of Cheanah wailed as the wanawut howled with wolves in the night. Infants sucked at breasts that were nearly dry of milk. Although there was food to be had, the children sat hollow-eyed beside malnourished women who had stopped menstruating because their men were too weak to hunt effectively—even for carrion.