by neetha Napew
The child stumbled on. She whimpered, confused and frightened, as she forced herself across the broken, trembling land. Her nasal passages burned; it hurt to breathe. For the last few days nausea had prowled in her belly, causing a lingering illness that had brought her to rest in a little cave she had discovered beneath the crest of a low, tundral hummock. Here she had lain in a hastily made but warm nest of grasses and lichens, sleeping, dreaming troubled dreams of man and Mother, holding the man stone close as though it were a talisman of life, a thing made by those like Mother Killer, to take and give breath, to cut meat, and to gentle her spirit as she longed for summer to come again, for the hole in the sky to bathe the world in yellow sweetness.
When the shivering earth and rumbling sky had drawn her from her shelter, she had howled in terror; not in all the days since the breath had refused to return to her mother had she felt such loneliness.
Now the cave lay far behind. Ambling forward, scenting the troubled earth for signs of Mother Killer, she followed him .. . and the female that walked with him, across the land.
The air grew cleaner and colder the farther they walked from the western lands. Although he kept his thoughts to himself, Torka was deeply worried as he led his people eastward into the Corridor of Storms. The sea of grass had changed radically. The wide grasslands still rolled on endlessly toward the eastern horizon between the soaring Mountains That Walk, but the mountains appeared so much closer than he remembered them.
In some places the changes were subtle, barely noticeable—a now dry stream bed, its course diverted and the stream running elsewhere; a familiar peninsular arm of a mountainous glacier extruding farther onto the plain than before; a grove of scrub spruce that had once offered shelter from the icy winds now half buried under glacial debris.
“Have the trees walked to the mountain snow, my father?” asked Summer Moon.
“No, the mountain snow has walked to the trees, little one.”
She thought about this. “I do not like this land of walking mountains and fiery skies and black winds that stink. I want to go home to the valley.”
“We have been there, little one. The spirits no longer smile for us there. We must find another valley, another home.”
He led his people on, and although the land grew increasingly strange and potentially hostile, he knew that it was the only path for them now. Lava flows blocked the way to the west, and death lay in the poisoned clouds from the Mountain That Smokes. They could not go to the north or south, for the Mountains That Walk walled off whatever worlds lay there. There was only one world for them, and that lay ahead, into the face of the rising sun.
In the days that followed, they found no suitable place to set up a winter camp. Day was little more than a pale blush of morning now. Hunting was poor, and the wind constant, growing increasingly colder. The deeper they went into the unknown reaches of the Corridor of Storms, the closer they walked to the mountains. In some places the sea of grass was less than a mile wide between the towering massifs of restless ice. At night the world was alive with the sound of their movement, and by day, everywhere they walked, there was evidence of ice falls and avalanches, as though the frontal flanks of the mountains were collapsing in slow and inexorable tumult, advancing toward one another, rising up and over the hills, burying them, extending long, peninsular fingers out across the land. Torka and those who followed walked on in silence. He wondered if the world of trembling earth and fire-breathing mountains behind them was worse than the country into which he led his people.
“We could not have gone back into the world of men,” said Lonit, wishing to ease his worry. “Surely the corridor must widen ahead of us! We will find a good place to camp soon. Game sign is everywhere! Soon we will find much meat!”
Torka appreciated her attempt to cheer him, but he was not cheered. The game sign—the tracks and burnable dung-was not fresh. No doubt the trembling earth had driven the animals on in the direction of the rising sun. But what lay there? Perhaps it was as the old men said, the end of the world, a great cold cliff of ice dropping into an endless dark, where he and his people would fall forever. But no! For years the great herds moved east at the ending of the time of light. And for years, although the sun disappeared at the beginning of the time of the long dark, it always returned, and with it came the first of the herds. Where had they wintered? Wherever it was, they had survived! As he and his people would survive!
“It is as though the mountains would join, as lovers join, to become one.” Lonit’s voice was tremulous as she walked beside him. She looked back, making certain that Summer Moon was with lana and Mahnie, and not within hearing distance. “If the mountains join, will they not bury the land . and us with it?”
It was not like Lonit to ask such questions. During the past many days she had encouraged the hopefulness of the others. But time and distance were wearing on her. He reached for her hand and held it tight. “Soon we will be beyond the narrow land. Remember how it was for us, long ago, alone in the winter dark, a wounded hunter, a young girl, an old man, and a wild dog? The spirits were with us then; they are with us now. We are together, always and forever, and as long as we can say that, there is nothing for us to fear!”
The land widened, and they all breathed more easily as they put the worst of the narrow country behind them and made camp in a little hollow between low hills bordered by higher, ice-free promontories of mixed rock and broken talus. On the highest of these Karana, wrapped in his robe, sat upon his sleeping skins and looked back. For days he had known what he must do. And for as many days he had pretended not to know because he was afraid.
It was early evening, but it had been night since noon. A red aurora colored the sky, granting light by which Torka had led his people until their weariness had dictated when they should stop and rest. They were eating now, rations carried from yesterday’s take of ptarmigan and squirrel. They would hunt soon, and the women would set their snares. Like owls, they sought the little movers in the night. And soon Karana must move, too, to hunt prey of his own. He could not have said just when he realized that the fate of his people rested in his hands. Perhaps from the moment that he had drunk the blood of mammoth—his totem—within the hut of Sondahr, he had known that some act of penance would be required of him by the forces of Creation.
Karana stared westward, back across the long, tortured miles, his face awash in its glow, his heart burning with its cold fire.
Navahk was out there somewhere, following, driving the game ahead of Torka’s people, sapping the powers of his son. Navahk was a man. He was a youth. As long as Navahk lived, he would be a shadow of death upon the people of Torka. Now, at last, Karana knew what he must do if
the spirits of Creation were to forgive his transgression against them and his totem.
“Karana, it has been too long since you have eaten. Torka told me to bring you this.”
As though in a trance, he turned to see Mahnie clambering up the rocks toward him, a horn of some sort of brew dangling by a thong from her teeth. Aar stood below her, barking. I will soon go from this place, thought Karana. I will walk into danger, and I may not return. You may not come with me, Brother Dog, else you would die at my side. This time, old friend, I must face my enemy alone.
“Here,” said Mahnie, nearly breathless. “It isn’t much. A horn of marrow broth and a few ptarmigan wings, but it will give you strength. I hope I haven’t spilled it all!”
She seated herself beside him, expecting him to refuse the horn, smiling with gladness when he did not. She watched him drink and eat and told him that she knew that he was trying his best to make good magic for them and that it was not his fault that the forces of Creation were not listening.
“Do not be sad, Karana. Things will be better soon. You will see!”
She looked beautiful in the red glow of the sky. Young and eager to please him, her eyes shining, her mouth curled into a smile. He did not intend to kiss her, but he did. And when she threw her arms ar
ound him and kissed him back, he was amazed to find that he had no wish to end the kiss. He held her close and knew, in that moment, a strength and ferocity of resolve that he had not known he possessed until now.
I will come back! he promised. And when I do, the dark magic of Navahk will be a thing of the past, and I, Karana, will be a spirit master at last!
But the night was young and so was he, and the warm form in his arms was a woman. She trembled against him, and as he drew his robe around her, Mahnie yielded all of her love to him, while below the promontory, gathered with the others around the fire, Torka smiled, and Wallah and Grek put their arms about each other and were glad.
Long before dawn, in the shimmering, bloodred glow of the aurora, Karana climbed down from the promontory and, carrying his spears, headed west, leaving Mahnie and Torka’s camp behind.
He went so quietly that not even Aar, asleep at the base of the talus slope, sensed his departure, nor was he missed for several hours, for when the girl awoke, she gave no alarm. Karana was always off somewhere alone. It was not until the camp was broken and the travelers were assembled and ready to move on that anyone even thought to call his name.
By then he was miles away. With no traveling provisions save for his spears and his wits, he was walking along a high narrow ridge of ice that granted him a broad overview to the west.
Now he stood dead still, a spear in his hurler, Zinkh’s bison-skin helmet firmly atop his head, watching out of cold, steady eyes as Navahk and Naiapi made their way through the gorge below.
Navahk seemed barely aware of her presence these last many days. Naiapi had lied for him and killed for him, but he had found no need either to lie with her or hunt for her, since his own body had no appetite for mating and only occasional need of food. The driving force of his life was to move on, chanting to the spirits as he walked, until his voice was gone and exhaustion dropped him to his knees. Then he slept in brief, restless snatches while she lived on voles when she could catch them or scraped lichens and mosses from the rocks, boiled in a skin bag when Navahk unintentionally allowed her the time to build a fire.
Only once could he have been credited with having provided food for her, or for himself. A young, sickly sheep had skittered out of a stony, ice-clad canyon directly into their path, and Navahk had downed it with a single spear throw. He had eaten it raw, not taking the time to skin or kill it before he set to devouring it. She had watched him, waiting for her share, excited by his bestial manner, fascinated by the way he was able to keep the little animal twitching and making sounds of distress long after most of its flesh was gone, its body cavity emptied. At last it died. Navahk ate the heart and left her whatever she could pick from the bones.
He had slept soundly then, as sated by food and death as most men were by mating. She had gone to him and lain beside him, pressing her body to his, moving, wanting—only to be backhanded so hard that her nose had broken and bled. Uncaring, he had arisen, taken up his things, and stalked on without a word, even though it was the depth of night.
Terrified of being left behind, she had followed with barely enough time to grab a handful of rib bones, which he later took away from her. On these he had lived these past many days, breaking them, scraping them free of marrow, discarding them when all the nourishment had been sucked from them, deliberately leaving her nothing .. . except resentment that had easily fermented into hatred.
Somewhere along the way into nowhere, in the cold, wind driven days and colder, wind-driven nights, Naiapi realized that the man with whom she walked was not the man she had loved and longed for all these many years. Somehow, perhaps with the loss of his eye and his beauty, the spirit of the magic man had fled away into the wind, leaving her alone in the Corridor of Storms with a madman who did not care if she lived or died.
Exhausted, her body aching and her heart pounding, Naiapi looked up into the red sky, at a flame-red man. Not since she had been a bride brought by Supnah into his encampment to look for the first time at the glory that was Navahk had she been so stunned by physical perfection.
It was Navahk. Half a lifetime of years dissolved as Naiapi, disoriented by hunger, hardship, and fatigue, looked up out of the shadowed depths of the gorge to see Yesterday standing above her as imperious and intent as the summer sun. And as beautiful. She was suddenly young again, no longer a middle-aged matron trudging behind the one-eyed magic man.
In Naiapi’s fatigued mind the Navahk she used to know stood above her on the ridge .. . young, resplendent in the day lit glow of the red aurora, his spear poised and ready, aimed at the man who stood ahead of her.
On the ridge the young Navahk stared, his eyes locked to the eye of the magic man below as he hesitated as though unable to throw his weapon at ... himself? Naiapi was confused. Why did he wait? Could he not see that the magic man had taken the backward step and was poised to spring forward, to hurl his own weapon in an arc of death?
Karana saw. Karana stood ready. Yet he paused, aware that the man who stood below him was more than his hated enemy; Navahk was his natural father. Perhaps this was why the magic man held himself in check?
“Navahk!” he yelled down. “Return into the country from which you have come, or I swear by the powers of Creation, I will spear you where you stand.” His command allowed no arguments. It was spoken in the voice of a man; the sound did not surprise him. He had left youth and indecisiveness behind him. Now the moment of confrontation was at hand.
Yet as Navahk looked up at him, Karana’s eyes were caught in the raptorial stare of the magic man, and he was suddenly stunned and unmanned. His spirit was drowning, growing small and young and vulnerable as the magic man smiled, exulting in his power.
It was the smile of a thousand dreams and bloody nightmares. It was the white stallion with bloodstained fangs. It was deadly. And it was a mistake. It reawakened the hunting instinct within Karana.
Memories of the past strengthened his resolve: a youth, driven out of the encampment of the Great Gathering by torchlight and left to die; a child, cautioned by his mother to be wary of the smiles and winning ways of one who would kill him if he could; a boy, abandoned to death by Navahk’s command. He saw the faces of those younger and less strong than he—frightened and confused. One by one he had watched them die. Karana understood why. The reason was below him now.
Navahk stood tall, smiling contemptuously, as the wind whipped down from the heights ‘on which Karana stood. Karana hated him, seeing him for what he was. And with the Seeing, the fears of a lifetime fell away. Now it was Navahk who looked small and vulnerable. “Do not waste your smile on me, Navahk. I am not afraid of you anymore. I am your son. I share your powers. And I can see into your spirit more clearly than you see into mine. Be grateful that for the sake of our common ancestors I do not kill you now. So go! Go now! Karana gives to Navahk, his father, the gift of life. Remember that, and do not look back, or it will be into the eyes of your own death, I swear it!”
But Navahk did not go back, nor did his eye leave the face of his son as his smile reversed itself into a snarl of rage that set panic loose within Naiapi.
“Navahk!” She screamed to warn youth and beauty just as both men loosed their weapons, but the magic man’s spear was released first, and the youth on the ridge was struck. He cried out, whirled around, grabbed for his arm, and then fell back, back, and was gone. “No!” she shrieked. The youth’s spear had been released a second before he had been hit. It came hurtling down and would have killed the magic man had he not moved in time. But he was struck nonetheless, propelled back and down by the force. He lay stunned and staring for a moment, then struggled to sit, his right hand grasping the shaft of the youth’s spear, which protruded from the flesh just above his left armpit. His eye was wide with shock and incredulity. The brow band that hid his disfigurement had slipped down around his neck. Naiapi stared at the scarred and empty socket. It was not the first time she had seen it. Sometimes, when he slept, it lay bare, as ugly as the spirit of t
he man beneath the otherwise unmarred mask of perfect beauty.
Now that mask cracked into a snarl as Navahk glared at her out of his one remaining eye. “You spoke my name, but it was Karana you called!”
She stepped back from him as she tried to gather her befuddled thoughts. Who had fallen from the ridge? Who lay wounded upon the ground? Why did he speak of Karana? Karana was a boy who had run away to be with Torka.
He saw the madness in her face and could not have imagined that as she looked at him, she saw the same in his. “You two-faced, mindless, sag-tea ted sow. I should have known better than to let you walk in my shadow.” He was grappling with the spear, grimacing, paling as he forced the head of the weapon from his wound. Staggering against momentary weakness, he climbed to his feet and, levering the spear with his left arm, advanced toward Naiapi with murderous intent.
Clarity returned to her in that moment as her instinct for survival flared. She ran from him, but it was too late. He was weak but well within striking distance. It took no special effort to hurl a killing blow through her back.
Karana fell. The spear had pierced his clothing but not his flesh. Its force had been enough to take him off balance, causing him to stagger back. The ridge dropped away behind him. He fell, struck snow, and tumbled head over heels in the thin, cold air. He curled into a tuck, then slid on ice, gaining momentum, instinctively cushioning his head with his tightly folded arms, rolling down, down, into the mountain, it seemed, through the ice, inside of it somehow, sliding, whirling, so dizzy that he would have been sick except that, even with his hands gripping his head, something struck him—or perhaps he struck it, and he fell again, suddenly realizing that he had lost the lucky hat of Zinkh, feeling lost and vulnerable without it, and then he felt nothing as his fall took him into darkness.
Brother Dog was on his scent before they picked up his tracks. Cheanah and the majority of the bandsmen and youths had stayed behind with the women and children while Torka, Zinkh, and Grek went west in search of Karana. Well-armed but unencumbered by packs or sledges, they moved quickly and quietly, with Aar sniffing the trail and snowing them the way.
