by neetha Napew
Lonit flushed. “lana cares for them while I am away and I have not been hiding. Torka agreed that this woman should come and stay with Pomm until Pomm felt better.”
“Pomm will never feel better,” stated the fat woman, pouting like a spoiled child. “Not as long as Karana stays on the Hill of Dreams with Sondahr.”
“He is hurt. She is a healer.”
“Bah! This woman knows what kind of healing she does! And I can imagine how Karana rises to the treatment! Pomm is shamed before all! Zinkh gives me to Karana. A fine and valuable gift! Why will Karana not see this?”
“I have said it before, Pomm,” Lonit replied with elaborate patience, “he is very young. Sometimes, as with the very old, the young do not see things clearly. And in the light of Sondahr, I wonder if all men are not blind.”
“Bah! Together Karana and Pomm could make best ever magic in all the world! Not like with Sondahr. What kind of magic woman be she if she cannot even make one small baby come out to be born?”
Lonit sighed. “She is beautiful....”
“Bah! On the night of the plaku, Pomm was beautiful. In all her feathers she danced before many, but Karana was not there to see. That is bad, very bad—an insult to the spirits, an insult to Pomm. That was why the old man grabbed me—the little one with skinny knees. What could Pomm do, yes? It was a plaku, yes? He did not seem so old in the dark. Pomm could imagine that he was a boy, young like Karana. We were very drunk, both Lonit and Pomm, yes?”
“Yes, very drunk,” Lonit assented quietly, regretfully. Nearly three days had passed since she had come to nurse Pomm through an after-pia/tw illness that seemed to be plaguing all the participants in the form of lingering headaches and stomach distress. She herself had not been an exception. Nor had Torka. She believed that the sickness must have had something to do with the magic of the night—a reaction to such close contact with the spirits of Creation or to overindulgence in the celebratory brew. Regardless of the cause, when word had reached her that Pomm was feeling so ill that she refused to leave her hut, Lonit found the excuse she needed to avoid facing Torka. She was afraid she might shame herself by weeping or losing her temper. Either would be unforgivable; she was Torka’s woman, the mother of his children, and she owed him her loyalty, her dignity, and her best efforts in all things. He had always been good and caring toward her.
“Is bad woman, this Sondahr,” Pomm hissed, “to take Karana from Pomm. And it is bad for Karana to take her to be his woman, when Zinkh gave me to be his first!”
The words drew Lonit from her reverie. Karana was like a younger brother to her. It always set her on edge to hear him criticized. When word had reached Torka’s pit hut that he was on the Hill of Dreams recuperating from a minor injury, in the care of the magic woman, she had been relieved to know where he was and that he was not seriously hurt. Torka had been so distraught that he stalked onto the Hill of Dreams to see for himself the extent of the youth’s injuries.
When Torka had come down from the hut of the magic woman, he had smiled, nodding to himself as he explained that Karana was sleeping and, with Sondahr’s special care, would soon be “a new man.” Seeing secrets dancing in his eyes, Lonit’s emotions had eddied like whirlwinds. Her face had flamed with jealous anger, and she had nearly wept with grief, certain that he knew all too well of the special sort of care that such women as Sondahr could give. It was then, unable to face him, that she asked to sit with the ailing Pomm.
Now, in the warm, day lit shadows of the little hut, a cool wind slapped at the door skin, which was held open by a loop of thong. Pomm’s hut was cleaner than most, but since she lived in it alone and carried its bone framework and skin walls from camp to camp upon her own back, it was also by necessity smaller than most. It smelled of oil and rancid fat, of leather and old furs and stored meat that might have been cured more carefully. But the air from outside was tangy with autumn, and Lonit found it soothing. It helped to clear her head of memories and longings that she knew could never be assuaged unless Torka came to her and told her with his own lips that her fears were in vain.
She sighed disconsolately. She felt no anger, no grief—only sadness—and was strangely composed and strengthened by her thoughts. She could face Torka and whatever came now. Torka had been her first man, and no matter what the future brought, she would have memories that few women could share and all women would envy. That would be enough, always and forever. They would be everything.
“Lonit! Have you heard a word that Pomm has said?”
“Yes, I have heard.”
“The spirits should make Sondahr pay for her kind of magic. Together we could call the spirits. This woman knows the words. Lonit and Pomm could make Sondahr sorry that she had shamed us by taking our men!” Her small eyes glinted. “Lonit doubts Pomm’s magic! Yes! It is so because of Sondahr! Because of Karana’ He shamed Pomm from the first. He makes this woman feel old! Fat! Ugly! Lonit must warn Karana. He listens to you. Tell him to remember that Pomm is his woman and that if she tells Lorak that he was not at the plaku, it could be bad for him! Bad for all of Torka’s people!” Pomm glowered at her across the soapstone lamp.
Lonit was startled, not only because of Pomm’s unexpected threat but because the fat woman seemed to have no memory of assisting Lonit to disguise herself as Sondahr. Lonit frowned. Where was the sad, endearing woman who had touchingly lamented the passing of her youth and
beauty? Watching Pomm now, Lonit saw her petulance, her anger toward Karana, and her blind jealousy of Sondahr. She hoped that she had not revealed too much of herself to the woman
while intoxicated. Pomm would make a nasty and vindictive enemy.
The sounds of the encampment intruded into the little hut. The shouting, chattering, and laughter increased as Zinkh stuck his head inside.
“Come, Pomm. Strangers come! Very great, proud band!” Excitement shone on his face. “You, Lonit! You come too! Everybody come! Tomorrow we hunt the mammoth! Great spirit master, Navahk, he will lead us to the kill!”
He stood boldly to Navahk as he came forward at the head of Supnah’s band. Torka knew immediately that Supnah was dead, because along with the skin-beribboned staff of bone that proclaimed the magic man’s rank, Navahk wore his brother’s taloned collar and headman’s circlet of feathers. But the circlet did not crown his brow; it adorned the skull of the thing in whose skin he walked.
Torka was not the only man to stand in repulsed amazement at the sight of the pelt. He stood near Simu, in line with Zinkh and an assembly of hunters from several bands. Ahead, Lorak and the magic men were posturing so the newcomers would not mistake their importance. Nevertheless, Navahk shone among them, more handsome than Torka remembered as, in his fringed. garments of white, he smiled within the shadows created by the massive head of the beast balanced atop his own.
Torka stared at it as those around him whispered and frowned, asking one another what sort of animal it was—or if it was an animal at all.
In life it would have been the size of a small bear, yet it was more narrow across the back and midrib than a bear. Its pelt was gray, wolflike—a summer pelt, thin, with sparse underfur and long, darker guard hairs. If it had a tail, it had been removed, as had its rear paws. Its forelimbs were draped forward and attached to the arms of the magic man, its paws overlying his own hands.
Torka took a second look and recoiled. They were not paws; they were hands—broad, hairy, and huge despite the withering effects of desiccation. Four furred fingers and an elongated, opposing thumb hung stiffly down—long, wide fingers that must have been graceful in life, inordinately powerful and dangerous because, instead of flattened nails, they had claws.
But it was not the hands of the thing that held Torka’s glance and hardened his gut with revulsion. It was its skull, balanced atop Navahk’s own head. Still attached to the hide, its lower jaw had been cut away. Its cranium was covered not so much with fur as with thick, stringy, humanlike hair that fell around pointed furred ears, whi
ch were lobed like a man’s. Its hairless snout was bearlike, yet impossibly, it had the nostrils of a man, soft fleshed and very wide, turned back in a hideous face. Heavy brow ridges encircled eye sockets in which the eyeballs had shriveled and sunken beneath lids that had dried and darkened to the texture of leather. At either side of the temples the bone structure of the upper jaw was massive, leonine, clearly designed for breaking and crushing bone, but nonetheless the face of the thing was disturbingly like that of a human being.
Its desiccated skin twisted as though in agony, its lips turned up against fleshless gums to reveal teeth that also looked human, except that they were oversized. Any man who had ever been pursued by wolves would have envied the stabbing teeth, for with such canines, he could have turned and faced his predators on equal terms. And beneath the hideous, half-human face of the beast, Navahk was smiling at Torka, his small, white, unusually serrated teeth glinting like those of a predacious animal.
“We meet again.” There was no welcome in the words, only challenge: low, resonant, like a deep growl emanating from the throat of a lion poised to pounce. Lorak looked back, his expression showing resentment of the newcomer’s recognition of Torka. “Spirit Killer knows Man Who Walks With Dogs?”
“Spirit Killer?”
Navahk’s smile broadened with smug satisfaction at Torka’s query. “Navahk walks in the skin of the wanawut. It is a great pride and power for my people. Torka must remember the wanawut—the wind spirit that my brother did not fear because he had never seen it? Look upon it now—as Supnah looked upon it in the moments before it killed him and fed upon his flesh. Now the life spirits of my brother and of the wanawut are one with Navahk, for I have eaten the flesh of the thing that ate of Supnah. I have partaken of the heart of the wanawut, and because of this power, I drive the mammoth before me as a gift to the hunters of this band!”
Zinkh nodded with ecstatic affirmation. “Two days to the west he says, for a band walking. Less than a day for running hunters!”
Torka was aware of the tension of the men who stood with him and of the whispering that moved through the people of the Great Gathering like a tremulous wind. Never had any of them looked upon the actual body of a wind spirit, of the wanawut. They must be thinking that a man who could kill a spirit must be more than a man, more than a shaman. Torka frowned. He knew Navahk well enough to think that there was not a word to describe what he was, unless it was manipulator.
He looked past Lorak, past Navahk, to the familiar faces of the people of Supnah’s band. They looked well fed but drawn with tension. He saw Grek. There was a good man. He should have been headman in Supnah’s place. He would have led his people well, with wisdom, not guile and deceit. Their eyes met and held. Grek’s head went up. He looked older than his years until, holding Torka’s glance with what could only be described as ferocious relief, he smiled and suddenly looked almost young again.
Mahnie stood between Grek and Wallah and peered through the gaps between elbows and sides in the wall of hunters. Her eyes widened at the sight, of so many magic men in one place, and at ferocious-looking old Lorak in his feathers, and beyond him at Torka. It was good to see Torka! When he had first walked into Supnah’s band—had it been more than three long years ago?--in his black-maned lion skins, with his bludgeon and spears and tall, beautiful, antelope-eyed woman, Mahnie had thought that he was the most wonderful-looking man she had ever seen. Much better than Navahk, who had cruel eyes and the perpetual smile of a bird of prey; it bent his mouth but never touched his eyes. Even before he had killed Pet, Mahnie had seen no beauty in him. But she had seen at once that Torka was kind, and although he had not smiled easily, his eyes were clear and unguarded, and he had always had a caring or amusing word for children. He had been a man to put all men of her band to shame. Except Grek, of course.
She looked up along her father’s back, frowning a little at the half-dozen crooked strands of gray in his hair. Grek was growing old! The other day, when Navahk had forced them to travel instead of allowing them to rest at the head of the canyon where the men had driven the family of mammoths into the bog, she had overheard her mother say sharply to Naiapi that Navahk should heed the advice of Grek, who made no secret of the fact that he did not care whether they wintered alone or at the Great Gathering, as long as they settled into a good camp. There, after winter supplies were prepared, women could rest after their arduous and seemingly endless trek, and their children could play the games that little ones needed to play if they were to grow strong and straight. Mahnie had pretended to be asleep in her bedroll, worrying that Grek had challenged the magic man again by asking why they must go on to the Great Gathering to summon other men to hunt meat that could easily be taken by their own hunters.
Naiapi had looked down her nose at Wallah and replied that Navahk knew what he was doing and that no man had a right to question him—especially Grek, who was obviously complaining because he was growing old and tired and incapable of keeping up with younger men.
Wallah had grown purple in the face but had managed to reply calmly that Grek was the most experienced hunter in the band and that any hunter who was still strong and agile after over thirty risings of the starving moon was a man to whom others should listen.
Over thirty years! Mahnie could not imagine anyone being so old until she saw the ruin that time and weather had worked upon Lorak’s craggy face. Would Grek look like that someday? Would Torka? And—her heart beat a little faster-would Karana? Would he be here, with Torka in this great camp?
When he had run away from Supnah’s band, everyone said that such a young boy had virtually no chance of catching up with the Man Who Walked With Dogs. But Mahnie knew that with the great dog Aar at his side, he would do it. He was the most arrogant, willful, and accomplished boy she had ever known, as well as the handsomest. Yes. Easily that. So handsome that sometimes it hurt just to look at him. When he had walked near her, she stared and stammered and could not even bring herself to speak his name, except on the night that he had run off alone into the darkness; fearing that he would become food for stalkers of the night, she had cried out to him. He had not listened. She had run to Torka to tell him in what direction Karana had gone, but Torka had already taken off after him with Supnah. She had wept, wishing that she were old enough and brave enough to go after him herself.
The band was beginning to move forward again. Wallah took Mahnie’s hand to be sure that she would stay near, but the girl waved the gesture away. She was nearly twelve, too old for holding hands with her mother, although she had yet to shed a woman’s blood. She was in no hurry for that. Just thinking about the ritual of first blood made her palms cold and her mouth dry, and although Wallah was full of assurances, her mother’s eyes grew haunted when she spoke of her little girl growing up, and Mahnie knew that they both were seeing the same ghosts.
She looked up at her father now and could see just enough of the side of his face to know that he was smiling. Oh, it had been such a long time since Grek had done that!
She walked through scattered groups and individuals with Wallah and Grek, past the many pit huts and shelters of the various bands, toward the Hill of Dreams—and stopped dead in her tracks. Someone bumped into her, impatiently spoke her name, and told her to move on.
She did not turn to see who it was, nor did she move. She stared ahead to where the hill rose smoothly out of the pall of smoke that lay across the encampment. She saw the enormity of the council house of bones and the odd little shelters of the magic men, but these things were only background to a somehow large and infinitely more entrancing image:
Karana.
He stood motionless upon the hill, intently watching the approach of the newcomers, of the magic men, and of Navahk. As in the past, the great, black-masked, blue-eyed dog Aar stood at his side. The dog was exactly as Mahnie remembered him, but Karana was not: He was a young man now, tall and strong and so handsome that she caught her breath not only at the perfection of his face and form, but a
t the startling resemblance that he bore to Navahk, who was staring back at him while standing stock still beside Lorak at the head of the congregation of magic men. His face was so contorted with loathing that, although his smile was fixed beneath the hideous skull that shadowed it, there was no mistaking the expression of murderous hatred.
Mahnie shivered with apprehension as she looked from Navahk to Karana and back to Navahk. Dark inferences of things best kept unknown and unspoken disturbed her. What could lie between two people that could cause such enmity? And how could Karana look so much like a man who was not his father?
Wallah tugged at her sleeve. “Come, my girl. Stop gaping. We must move on to our campsite.”
She looked up at her mother, her face aglow. “Do you see him? There! Upon the hill, it is Karana! I told you he would be all right! I told you he was alive!”
“I see him,” Wallah replied, so eager to be free of her pack frame that she was barely seeing anything at all. She told Mahnie to follow before they lost sight of Grek, who was walking on ahead with the other hunters of their band.
Mahnie sighed. Her own weariness suddenly struck her, but not so intensely that she could not turn back for one last look to make certain that Karana was still there and that her eyes had not been tricking her.
They had not. He was still there. But he was no longer alone. Mahnie’s heart sank. A beautiful woman in a robe of feathers, with a crown of white down upon her head, had come to stand just behind him. Karana gave no visible acknowledgment of her presence, but from the way the dog moved to nuzzle her hand, Mahnie knew more than she wanted to know. Turning on her heels, she followed her mother, wishing miserably that she had not turned back for that last, painful look.
“Torka will hunt!” Lorak’s command was as sharp as a well placed spear. Torka turned. He had intended to leave the other men to their hunting plans and return to his own fire, where he hoped to find that Lonit had returned from tending Pomm. The supreme elder’s shout caused him to stop and look back. Navahk stood beside Lorak, in front of the other magic men and hunters. “As this man recalls, Torka does not hunt the mammoth,” he said with false affability.
