Zan-Gah and the Beautiful Country

by Allan Richard Shickman

  THE BRAID

  OF HAIR

  Zan could not understand what was happening. The roiling volcano, which was only an interesting sight to him, became the center of Dael’s world, his all in all, and his holy of holies. It was impossible to get Dael away from the mesmerizing sight. He clung to the point of observation he had chosen for himself as if it were a temple and the whole explanation of his existence lay in the immense blazing peak and its shattering explosions. He would sit transfixed before the altar of the fire-mountain as though all he looked for in the world were there on the burning summit. His lips would move in a murmuring prayer barely audible to his companions, but deeply felt: “Great and terrible fire, you are my parent and my god! You spit in the face of the sky, and so do I! You are defiant and so am I! Your power is my power! I give myself to you and worship you!”

  Zan caught enough of his brother’s passionate words to be filled with dread for him. It was soon afterwards that Dael fainted the second time, and in the morning he awoke in an unnaturally calm state as before. Once again the activity of the volcano had subsided, putting forth only its calmer stream of white vapor, which was its usual condition.

  Dael’s fit had passed and he began to think of other things. Zan got his brother to eat something for the first time since well before they had discovered the mountain, and suggested that they go home. He wondered aloud if their presence might be needed now that the Noi had settled across the lake. Dael fairly leapt at his words as if Zan had touched him with something hot. It was becoming clear that Dael was torn between two separate obsessions. When the volcano was active Dael could think of nothing else, but as soon as Zan reminded him of the Noi, all of his emotions were transferred to his old enemies and his desire for their destruction. One passion drove out the other; there was no room for both. Zan decided that if he were to get his brother home he would have to encourage the second of these fixations for a time. “We must help guard our people,” he insinuated to Dael, who suddenly was all eagerness to go.

  When the group got back to their camp the elders were talking together with anxious faces. Across the lake were an alien people, but were they to be feared or possibly welcomed? It was hard to tell, and a mistake could have disastrous consequences. The older among them recalled how they had sometimes held commerce with different tribes. On some occasions they had not even spoken the same language but they had managed to get along. Friendly people could make trades without talking at all. Perhaps the Noi settlers could be dealt with as well. They did not seem hostile. Unfortunately, two of the Noi men already had been killed by “that wild fellow” (meaning Dael). They probably would want vengeance. Yes, blood had been spilt and war must surely be the result. That was the conclusion taking form in the discussion.

  Here Zan interjected: “Maybe they can be pacified with apologies or gifts or both.” Everybody turned toward him. “The wasp people were like that. They cared more for booty than for vengeance.”

  “Pacified?” Dael cried in fury. “Let us pacify them forever with our spears and those rock-throwing slings you like so much. Pacified? Do you want to wake up in the night to see our dwellings burning, and while you scramble to find rich gifts to ‘pacify’ them they carry off your women and children or kill them outright. Our enemies lie in our sight across the lake. They must be destroyed!” Several of Dael’s followers applauded this speech, clacking their weapons together and urging each other to battle. But most of the men were silent and refused to be roused.

  Old Kragg spoke. His joints were stiff with age and he stood with some difficulty. “Wars once started are not easily ended,” he said. “And even if we gain the victory we will have paid for it with our blood. Some who sit here now will sit with us no more. And we might lose! They have their sentinels just as we have ours, and it will be difficult to surprise them.”

  “They probably sit in council at this moment as we do, planning their attack while we talk of peace like women,” Dael growled.

  Chul the giant rose: “Let us try to talk with these strangers before we start an unnecessary war. I will go to meet them and see what I can learn. It may be that they do not know who attacked them. It was night when Dael found their camp.”

  “No, Uncle,” Zan said. “Your great form will frighten them and seem like an attack. No, I will go. I speak their language, you don’t.”

  “I speak their language better than you do, Zan,” Dael declared. “I lived with them and was at their mercy for two long years!” His face visibly twitched at the memory. “I will go with you.”

  Dael’s offer was not well-received. Everybody knew that Dael’s purpose was hardly to seek peace. His presence would only make matters worse. It was decided that Zan-Gah would be the emissary of the Ba-Coro. Zan prepared to depart.

  Returning to his hut for some necessities, he suddenly noticed two alarming things: one was the braid of Lissa-Na’s red hair lying in plain sight on his bed. The other was that Pax was nowhere to be seen. He immediately understood what had happened. Asking several women if they knew where his wife went, two of them told him that she went north with her spear. North was Zan’s direction. Pax was heading where he was now going—toward the Noi camp. She was in real danger, and he was busy with his diplomatic mission. He would have to deal with both concerns at once.

  As Zan departed for the Noi settlement he tried to guess exactly which way Pax would have gone. It seemed likely that she would stay close to the lake. Trees hung over its lovely surface, but there was a narrow beach where it was easy to walk. Zan resolved to travel in the general direction of the Noi, while keeping an eye out for his wife as he went. Yet he knew very well that he would not find her unless she wanted to be found. Her amazing skill in stalking consisted of her ability to remain unperceived even to the keen senses of ever-watchful animals. She could be anywhere in the woods, observing him at that very moment. Zan looked around at the many-colored broadleaf trees that made this country such a paradise. Every species had its own color, so that each stood out against the others in a splendid array. If Pax were there she was not yet ready to be found; but Zan allowed that she might show herself in time. He wanted to call out her name over and over again, but it was too dangerous. Still he whispered it fairly loudly on several occasions, hoping for a response. There was none.

  Had Zan hurried on his errand he might have gotten to the Noi dwellings before darkness fell, but he was lingering along the way in hope of finding Pax. Thus it was that he had to enter their camp at night, guided in the dark by their campfires. Their guards spotted him and took him prisoner before he could say a word or tell his purpose in being there. At night he seemed like an enemy and a spy, and to make matters worse he was soon recognized as the “demon boy” who had a double. His captors were thinking he was Dael whom they had so long held captive.

  For all their fierce courage, the Noi were terrified of twins and still remembered the day they had seen Zan and Dael side by side for the first time. It had looked to them like a magical double vision. Their fear had enabled Zan, his brother, and Lissa-Na to escape when their capture or slaughter appeared certain. At that time it seemed to the Noi warriors pursuing them that the youth who had long been their captive had the power to reproduce himself, perhaps into an army of spearmen. They did not now realize that this was his twin and not Dael, nor did it matter to them.

  Zan, who spoke their language imperfectly, tried to tell them that he had come as a messenger with peaceful intent, but their fear, the lateness of the hour, and the fact that everybody seemed to be speaking and shouting at the same time, completely overwhelmed any attempt to communicate. A chieftain gave direction and Zan was seized and bound to a tree face-first. Both his arms and legs were wrapped around the tree trunk and tied together, so that his feet were not allowed to touch the ground. Zan was left for the night in great discomfort, which soon grew into real pain.

  While he was in this helpless tied-up position, some of the Noi men began to torment him with sharp spears
, and one fierce-faced warrior took delight in touching him with a burning stick, his cruel face glowing as he approached. Not so long ago they had tortured Dael, and now they were torturing Zan for their amusement. Zan tried to talk yet again to tell them his errand, but none would listen. At last the old chief who had had Zan bound drove the tormentors away, and after a time the camp was slumbering except for two guards and Zan himself, who was too miserable to sleep.

  The fires were slowly going out and all was quiet until, at a very late hour, a vague crashing sound was heard in the bushes nearby. At once the two guards, who were on the verge of snoring, were alert, grabbing torches and spears and heading in the direction of the noise. Then there was another crunching sound somewhat farther off in the brush, and the men were in its depths, visible from a distance in the enveloping darkness by their flaring torches. That was when Zan, unable to support himself, was startled by a soft but urgent whisper close to his ear: “Come, Zan!”

  “I can’t come anywhere,” Zan groaned, half deprived of breath. He was aware of delicate fingers untying him and he knew to whom they and the soft voice belonged. With perhaps more joy than he had ever uttered it, he pronounced his wife’s name, “Pax!” and fell to the ground. For the moment he was too weak to support himself.

  A handful of pebbles cast in the brush had been enough to divert the attention of the guards. Pax, like a spirit, had slipped into the middle of the camp, released her bound and exhausted husband, and sustained him as they retreated into the woods. They were far away before Zan was even missed, and the guards did not know how he had gotten away. They suspected that his “double” had invisibly come to release him, fearfully conjecturing what a powerful magician he must be. Which way had they gone? They guessed the easiest path, but were too frightened to pursue. Pax had been clever enough not to take the obvious route anyway. Instead, by the light of the moon, she brought Zan to a hidden grove of dappled trees where, as dawn broke, they stopped to rest.

  “I am so glad to see you, Pax, but why did you leave?” He knew very well why. She did not have to say that she did not wish to live with a man who loved somebody else, but she did. Zan admitted that he had once loved Lissa-Na. “But that was before I had even met you.”

  “Then why did you so reverently keep a lock of her hair? Because you adore her memory! You wish I had gorgeous red hair so you could love me.”

  Zan was not a demonstrative person. He truly loved his wife, but he felt awkward speaking about it. Besides, he had spent an agonizing, sleepless night, and felt half dead. He hurt all over. He desperately needed to sleep, and the green turf of that secluded spot was so inviting that he almost collapsed onto it. Far too exhausted to talk, he immediately dozed off next to where Pax sat. When he awoke it was full day, and Pax was gone.

  Zan looked around with sleepy eyes. He was absolutely alone in the middle of the thicket. It was an exceptionally lovely place owing to the trees’ unusual character. Their bark was silvery as was the underside of the leaves while the top surface of each leaf was a dark green, almost black. The stem of every leaf was flat rather than round, which caused them to tremble, so that every time the wind changed the leaves turned from dark green to silver and back again. With one gust the whole forest would change color, and with another change back again. Zan rose and peered into the sparkling copse, trying in vain to see which way his wife had gone. The breezes moved this way and that and the leaves showed their under-side. Dark green, silver. Dark, silver.

  Ignoring the danger of being heard by his foes, he called her name loudly with some desperation in his voice: “Pax! Pax!” and as he searched through the ever-changing trees, he realized how much he loved her and how empty and bereft his life would be if she didn’t come back. Then he saw a white feather on the ground, which was surely the one she had found on the bridge when she had been so frightened of the height. He remembered how she had put away her fear and picked the feather up, and how she had tucked it in her garment while the wind blew wildly over the abyss.

  Pax was there somewhere in the thicket. Looking into the dense wood, Zan could not see very far, but maybe he could hear her movements. He listened. He heard nothing. He called again and yet again. Only dark, silver. Dark, silver. Dark, silver. Many minutes went by. Zan was in despair, certain that she would not come back to him. He could see no point in staying any longer, and turned toward the south where his people were.

  As he started to walk sadly home, the wind began blowing again and then suddenly, silently, she was there, standing like a statue directly in front of him among the vertical trunks. Where had she come from? She was looking straight at him, her gentle face absolutely placid though her cheeks were wet. Dark, silver. Dark, silver.

  Her appearance seemed magical. Only four paces separated them and Zan ran to embrace his wife. “Oh Pax,” he cried with more passion than was usual to him. “Never leave me. I love you more than my poor words can say. You know I am not a talker.” He held her close and she did not resist. Dark, silver.

  “I am not a talker either, Zan,” she said, running her fragile fingers through his hair as his mother had once done. “I could not tell you how painfully I felt your attraction to Lissa—not only lately but for a long while. I wondered how you could possibly love me. I am such a skinny, brown little thing—like a small nut that is not worth opening. And Lissa was so beautiful. How could you even notice me beside her loveliness?” Dark, silver.

  “Oh, no, Pax,” he said, his arm around her now so he could speak softly in her ear. “You are beautiful—as lovely as she—but different, slender, and more delicate. Were she living I would not prefer her. I will throw the braid of hair into the fire!”

  For a moment Pax said nothing, thinking about his words, and even wondering if she should go away after all. Wouldn’t Lissa’s memory always stand between them? Could she really believe Zan’s reassurances? She did not know whether they were sincere or merely uttered in the heat of the moment. But Pax had one great advantage over Lissa-Na; she was alive and poor Lissa was dead. At last Pax replied, softly touching his hand: “Don’t destroy it, Zan. It is all we have left of Lissa and she was a friend. Keep it. We should look at it once in a while…but not too often.” Dark, silver.

  “I feared that I had lost you forever. I well knew that you would not live with a man who loved another. And suddenly there you were! Why did you return, Pax, if you thought…?”

  “Where could I go, Zan? Besides, I had to come back.”

  “Why?”

  “Because…because I am carrying your child.”

  Dark, silver. Dark, silver. Dark, silver.

  15

  THE

  TUSKS

  Morda was a large and powerful man, respected if not feared by his people. His grand figure was made larger by the bulky and hairy animal skin he wore winter and summer. It was the pelt of a young musk ox that had been run from its herd and felled by wolves. Morda and his numerous relations had disposed of the grey predators with fire and taken the still-warm conquest for themselves. Morda kept the pelt and loved it. Its dark color was hardly distinguishable from his own long hair and beard, so that it almost seemed an extension of his shaggy mane. The man’s habitually frowning eyebrows were shaggy too.

  Morda’s hut was set up on a rise overlooking the others of his tribe. It was the largest of any dwelling of the Ba-Coro, commanding a fine view of the lake. The house was built from seven saplings lashed together at the top, with walls and roof made of interwoven branches smeared over with mud. One side was mostly open to view the shelters of his fellows, and just as Morda was a large and dominating elder, so did his sizable abode seem to rule over the other huts.

  He was a man who liked authority. Morda would bear no insolence from his large family or anyone else. Toward the other elders he could be icy, arrogant, or fierce according to his mood. He was always on a competitive footing with them, frequently enough imagining himself slighted or insulted by people who probably would not have dared
to offend.

  Morda’s proudest possession was the pair of mammoth tusks he had laboriously taken from the slaughtered animal the winter before. He and his wife had dragged them many miles; and he had twice risked his life to carry them on his shoulders across the great gulch when the freezing wind and stupefying height would have deterred a less powerful and determined man.

  What were they good for? They were too large to be wielded as weapons, and too hard to be easily cut into any useful item. And they were heavy! But Morda valued them greatly for a less practical reason: they were objects of prestige. Their value was in display, bringing honor to him that displayed them.

  Morda dug a small round pit on each side of his doorway, the simple opening of his hut, and planted one tusk in each hole. How splendid they looked! The great pointed forms made a white decorative arch on either side that seemed to say: “Dignity and authority live here!” But after a day or two they fell over, either bumped by children or merely of their own weight. There was no dignity in that! Morda put them up again, and again they fell over. Then he propped them with forked branches and they stayed in position as long as no one came too near.

  The tusks were in place when two strangers walked into the presence of the Ba-Coro dwellings one sunshine morning. The sentinels were asleep and the visitors sauntered right past them into the center of the camp. They were tall, goodly men with great bushes of hair, each carrying a spear much longer than his height—elegant as well as dangerous weapons. Rydl was awake at the time, working studiously on a new kind of animal trap, and the newcomers greeted him. Rydl looked up and there they stood looming over him, spears in hand. Rydl was surprised at their sudden appearance, as well as the language they used, which he recognized as the tongue of the Noi. Only he and the twins spoke it, so maybe it was lucky that he of all people had been addressed.