Forbidden Land

by neetha Napew

  The boy stared with wide-eyed, openmouthed incredulity as slowly, with great ceremony, Torka drew his bludgeon of fossilized whalebone from the spruce-bark sheath that hung at his side. He held the weapon outward to Umak across his palms, then paused, aware of Lonit, standing tall, so full of pride in him. His eyes sought hers.

  She smiled. Yes, said her eyes. What you do is right! What you do is what must be done! You will come back. You will!

  He nodded, his heart full of love. But if I do not come back, no man could have wished for more in a lifetime than to have walked at your side, Lonit! Always and forever.

  He moved his gaze back to Umak. He saw Lonit’s face in the boy’s and her love in his eyes. “Look to the bludgeon, my son. Across the long miles I have incised in the stone the story of our people’s wanderings. If I do not return, it will be for you to continue that responsibility. You must tell our tales to our children, and to our children’s children, until you, in turn, will pass the bludgeon to your eldest son, and the tales will live on through him. I will live on through him, and those who come after us will know how it was when Torka led his people in the shadow of the great mammoth Life Giver.”

  There were tears in the eyes of the boy as Torka pressed the bludgeon into his hands.

  “Be strong, Umak, first son of Torka, grandson of Manaravak, and great-grandson of Umak. Our lives are in your care. You must live and be a man of the wild steppe, the open tundra, and the misted heights of the great ranges. When I die, it is through you that my life spirit will be reborn. And so now I say to you, before all who are assembled here, what I should have said long ago: As Lonit and I are one, so too are we—you and I—my son, my flesh and spirit, one .. . always and forever!”

  Cheanah had brought his people to pause along the western shore of a strange, ice-is landed lake. Above the soaring, ice-capped ranges, a meteor shower flamed across a golden sky to reflect tracings of fire into the surface of the great highland reservoir. Sitting alone upon a snowy embankment, Zhoonali looked up. The old woman did not like the falling stars, the lake, or the high, cold mountains that held the huge, restless body of water captive. The mountains made her feel small, insignificant.

  Once again, a bright finger of light streaked across the sky to mirror its image briefly in the surface of the lake. The increasing frequency of falling stars defied Zhoonali’s understanding. She had always found them beautiful—but these stars fell by day and in groups. That was unusual, and so to be feared.

  There was also something ominous about the lake, as though some monstrous spirit lived deep beneath its surface, causing the waters to churn and the islands of ice to shift and groan.

  Bili cried out. Scowling, Zhoonali looked toward the sound and shook her head. Mano and two others were on that woman again. The men lay together under a single blanket of several joined bison hides to keep the cold wind off their backs as they worked the woman. Close by, the

  captive beast boy sat naked, wrists bound behind him, glaring at them, refusing to eat, allowing himself no sleep, waiting for his chance to leap at those who had captured him. Twice now he had attempted to defend Bili; twice now he had been badly beaten. He seemed oblivious to pain or was defiant of it in the face of his captors. Truly he was Torka’s son.

  She looked away, wishing they had never found him, wishing that he had died long ago. But even as she thought this, she knew that her wish was a foolish one. The beast boy was a gift of the spirits. His presence would allow them to insinuate themselves into Torka’s band under the guise of friendship.

  Briefly, she thought of Honee and wondered if her granddaughter had found death or the man of her dreams beyond the mountains.

  Karana. The old woman’s eyes scanned the sky. Perhaps it was his magic that was calling down the fires of the sky. It could well be. He had been only a youth when he had walked out of Cheanah’s band, but the powers of Seeing and Calling had been his. Now that he was a man, his magic would be great indeed. She had made a silent invocation against the magic man and his people as she hunkered within her bearskin robe and longed for warmth.

  Soon you will have a warm camp, fanehva has seen it. Cheanah has promised it! She sighed, drew up her badger skin bag, and shook the bones of telling into her lap. The bones would confirm her thoughts and warm her in this cold mountain wind. She scooped them into her palms and cast them onto a small circle of hide. The bones clacked hollowly as they fell.

  Zhoonali gasped. Her hands flew to her face. For the first time in her life, she saw in the fall of bones not what she wanted to see, not what she had contrived, but a true reading that nearly overwhelmed her. She leaped to her feet.

  “What is it, my mother?” Cheanah had come to stand beside her.

  “The bones speak to me of death.”

  He smiled. “Yes,” he confirmed, drawing her close in a loving embrace. “The death of all who would dare to stand against the son of Zhoonali as he goes forth to claim what is rightfully his!”

  In the days that followed, Cheanah led his people out across the wonderful valley, with Zhoonali carried like a queen on furs laid over the interlocked arms of Mano and Yanehva, while the beast boy walked at Cheanah’s side, tethered by a thong noosed around his neck.

  For days Karana had observed their approach, and for days he had watched Torka’s band’s departure. Karana would follow his people, but first there was something that he must do: He had stolen Manaravak from Torka. Now he must return him.

  Cheanah’s people made their final camp and raised smokes to alert Torka of their presence. The cave lay ahead, but there was no sign of life in it.

  “They should have seen us by now,” said Yanehva. “Why is no one coming out to us?”

  Mano grinned. “They’re probably waiting in the cave, to see why we come and what we bring to them, eh?”

  Bili sat by herself in quiet misery as the others ate and prepared for what they hoped would be a day of wondrous pleasures partaken in death and rape. Cheanah was donning his headman neck let of feathers and readying his favorite spears.

  Not far from Bili, the beast ling sat hunched up. Bruised, swollen, and shaking, he was tethered to a stake by a single thong, his hands behind his back.

  Bili watched him. She could see that he was dying, his spirit bleeding out of him. But then, so was hers. They would kill her when they reached the cave and found others to sate themselves upon. Mano had promised it. She sighed. Without Ekoh and little Seteena, with Torka’s people murdered and his women enslaved, she had no wish to live. None.

  And so, while the others ate and boasted of what was to happen this day, she moved slowly ... so slowly that no one noticed that the distance was closing between her and the wild boy. They never witnessed the moment in which she freed him; it happened too quietly. He stared at her.

  “Go!” she whispered, gesturing across the valley. He took her hand to pull her along with him, but she shook her head. “Run now, before it is too late.”

  Mano’s spear struck her through the back and pierced her heart. And even as she died, she knew that it did not matter. Her heart was broken anyway. And the boy, Torka’s son, was free.

  Mano loosed another spear.

  “Stop!” Yanehva screamed, but it was too late.

  Mano did not intend a killing blow; he had merely wished to intimidate the wild thing by striking close and thus prevent him from fleeing. To his shock, the son of Torka not only kept on running, he managed to snatch his spear in mid flight Turning as deftly as a steppe antelope, the boy wheeled, hurled the spear back, and kept running.

  The weapon struck true. Mano went down, his eyes bulging with shock and disbelief, knowing that the boy had killed him. Now, as he fell facedown and watched the world grow dark within his own head, he knew that with Bili’s death, he had killed once too often. With that final murder he had succeeded in killing himself.

  Manaravak ran. The others were after him, so he lengthened his stride. He was fast—as fast as a white lion running for h
is life. He ran and ran, as Mother had taught him to run from predators. He ran until he could run no more, and then he collapsed, gasping, knowing that they were coming, coming across the distances. Although he had put a huge gap between himself and them, it was only a matter of time before they caught him and killed him.

  Panting, he splayed his hands upon the ground and willed himself to rise against the burning protest in his chest. But, impossibly, he was jerked to his feet from behind. For an instant, before the beast hefted him over his shoulders and broke into a pounding race for the far hills, he looked into its face. Its eyes were shining and full of moisture; its mouth was split wide in the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.

  “Manaravak!”

  The sound of the beast was his sound. “Man-aravak!” he responded in kind.

  And the father threw back his head and howled with triumph as he turned and, with his son in his arms, raced toward the eastern edge of the valley without looking back.

  Had he done so, he would have seen the solitary figure in the white belly skins of winter-killed caribou, dancing and whirling on high ground between him and his pursuers.

  “Go!” cried Karana to Torka. “Now, in this moment, I give you back your son! Now, in this moment, I loose my spirit to walk the wind! And now, in this moment, I kill Navahk forever!”

  With his spears in his hand and his black hair whipping in the wind, Karana was a figure of pure power as he ran toward the west, to intercept the men of Cheanah and cause them to stop dead in their tracks.

  As a meteor shower burned across the sky above him, five spears brought him down. Even then he lived to see the great star fall, its tail burning across the sky as it plunged to earth, striking the western mountain and burying itself in the great, gray highland lake.

  The waters rose. They boiled and steamed. And the upper arm of the north-canyon glacier tore away to loose the watery nightmare vision.

  With the north-canyon glacier demolished, there was nothing to hold back the tumultuous waters of the highland lake. Cheanah stood in shock, Zhoonali clinging to his side, as a roaring explosion of water and boulders erupted from the gorge in a boiling, misting rage. It shook the world and leveled the forests of the foothills as it raced out of the mountains and across the wonderful valley toward them.

  “The bones! The death they foretold was ours!” cried Zhoonali, her voice barely audible above the thunderous deluge. “Help me, Cheanah! Carry me to Torka’s cave and safety!”

  He turned on her, his teeth bared. “You lied! The magic man is dead, but my luck is still gone.” He turned and bolted, leaving the old woman to face her death alone.

  Suddenly Yanehva appeared at her side as Cheanah raced off to the east, squealing like a madman.

  “He will never make it,” Yanehva told the old woman as he lifted her in his strong arms and ran for high ground.

  “You?” Amazement half choked her. “You came back for me? I have held nothing but contempt for you. You might have reached the cave, Yanehva.”

  “Yes, you always said there was too much softness in me, but until this day, I never knew how right you were!”

  She was light in his arms, so light that he did not feel her die as he raced full out and even faster, scrambling after the others for the high ground of the cave and reaching it.

  Only his own band were here. Torka was not here .. . luck was not here. It had flown with Torka and his son to the east. As the need for breath clutched at his throat, Yanehva looked down at Zhoonali. Her jaw hung slack in death. He looked around. Here there was death. His death. The death of his people. Yanehva held his grandmother firmly in his arms as he turned to face it.

  “Come, then!” he cried defiantly at the wall of roiling water. It moved across the land at a speed that intensified the power of its mass. And in that last moment of his life, he wished that the old Woman could have seen that he alone among all his people was unafraid of death. It came with an ear-splitting roar that smashed into the cave and shattered the people within.

  Their bodies washed up as debris, limp and broken, as the great wave poured on to override the hills and to fill the wonderful valley until it was no more.

  “Karana!” Torka cried out the name even as the edge of the great wave caught him and took him down, carrying him away into black, suffocating darkness. “No!” he cried out to the forces of Creation. “For the sake of this boy, if not for me, let death not find us now!”

  But death was a merciless, implacable force with no eyes or ears or compassion. Water filled his mouth and seared his lungs and the hollows of his head as, in desperation, he clutched the boy to him. The power of the water fought to wrench Manaravak from his arms. Torka’s eyes were open, bulging and burning, as he was assaulted by a cold, debris-laden wave. Something big and white went shooting past him—a lion or a man? Somehow both. The churning, rushing waters brought the thing back toward him. He saw it now; it was Cheanah, eyes popping, mouth gaping wide in death, arms and legs flailing lifelessly in the maelstrom. As the corpse struck him, he tried in desperation to hold on to his long-lost son. But the force of the impact of the dead man yanked the boy from his arms. Drowning, Torka screamed in anguished rage as he saw his son swept away in a wave of blackness.

  “Manaravak! Man-ara-va ...”

  He awoke but knew not how much time had passed. Aar, faithful friend, was licking life and circulation back into his face.

  Grek was bending over him, and Lonit and Umak and Demmi. All of the band were looking down at him. Only Honee hung back. Of Manaravak there was no sign. The falling star and the angry sky had taken back their son. Torka could not speak; he had no heart to form the words.

  Lonit gave him fresh water, and when he was able to walk, they went on. He stopped often to look back. He knew he would always look back, for a portion of his heart would always remain with Karana and Manaravak in the drowned valley, beneath the new lake that had been born of the red star that had plunged from the angry sky.

  A warm, welcoming wind was blowing out of the land to the east, beckoning the tiny group of survivors. Torka and his people trudged on and on, weighed down by their pack frames and grief. There were no words to lessen the pain from a son twice lost. At last they left the pass and the mountains towering behind them.

  Well ahead, Life Giver trumpeted as he plodded on with his kindred.

  “Where does the great mammoth walk to, Father Mine?” asked Summer Moon. “Do you think he knows, or does he simply walk onward, deeper into the Forbidden Land?”

  Torka looked at the girl sadly. But she was not a girl anymore. She was a woman—a sad woman. And yet, as he put a gentle and loving arm around her shoulders, it seemed as if she were the same little girl who had stood beside him so long ago, voicing the same question, trying not to give in to the same fears. “No man may say. No man may know. But we are the people of the dawn, and we will follow as we have always followed.”

  “Look!” Demmi’s exclamation was so full of joy and wonder that it took the sadness from the moment.

  Torka turned, and as he did, Summer Moon turned with him. When she saw what had alighted upon Demmi’s out held hand, tears of happiness filled her eyes.

  “Longspur!” Demmi exclaimed. She was crying, too. “Look, everybody! As Karana promised, it is Longspur! He said I would find him in the wonderful land! Oh, he has not broken his promise, after all!”

  While Aar cocked his head and whined softly, Umak stared wide-eyed at the little bird. It ruffled its feathers, then rose into flight, eastward. “He is with us. Karana is with us. His spirit leads us into—“ “—the face of the rising sun!” Lonit’s voice was a song.

  And so they went on, one people, one band, with the wind singing of the past behind them, and the little bird winging ahead to alight on the towering shoulders of Life Giver, who led them deeper into the Forbidden Land. At last they crested the great pass. When they looked back, it seemed that they saw themselves, the spirits of the past, waving them onward, wishi
ng them a good journey across the Forbidden Land.

  As Simu led the others on, Umak stood staring back across the distances. Torka turned back and joined him with his little family, and together they gazed across the magnificent, ice-ridden ranges and the flooded valley they had once called home. So much joy. So much sadness.

  “Come,” Torka urged. “It is time to go. We must put the past behind us. It will walk with us as it will, my son.”

  “Yes,” replied Umak in a somber tone. “It will.” Then, impulsively, in a voice that sang out across the miles, he called out his brother’s name. “Manaravak! Walk at my side as my brother! It will be better than living in my dreams!”

  Torka and Lonit exchanged concerned glances as the wind took Umak’s words into the mountain vastnesses, across the drowned valley, and through the black and desolate range that lay beyond.

  “Come,” urged Torka again, and then, just as he was about to turn away, a figure emerged to stand silhouetted against the western sky.

  “Look!” cried Demmi and Summer Moon.

  In Lonit’s arms, Swan squirmed and pointed off. “Boy!” exclaimed the little girl. “Look! Boy!”

  Torka and Lonit did look, then embraced and laughed and wept aloud with joy as the girls jumped up and down and danced and called their long-lost brother’s name across the miles.

  “Manaravak!” they shouted as the figure in the west began to move toward them.

  “Man-ara-vak!” he answered from afar.

  Demmi and Summer Moon, waving their arms over their heads and calling out their brother’s name, began to run toward him. Torka scooped Swan into his arms and, with Lonit, followed after them.

  “He is coming,” said Umak to Aar, and smiled because for the first time in his life the words made him glad. “My brother is coming! I’ve known it all along.”