The Storyteller Trilogy

by Sue Harrison

  “Then we will do both.”

  “You hate her so much?”

  Her eyes overflowed, and she turned away from him. “She has always treated me well,” she said in a small voice. “But when so many people tell me what she has done, how can I trust her not to hurt my husband or the children we might have?”

  “Uutuk, we have no spirit powers, and the shaman of this village is old and weak. Even with our prayers and chants and the cutting of the body, how can we be sure we do not bring her anger again to us and to our families? Ghaden has told you how much she hates my wife, Aqamdax.”

  “I will take the chance, Brother,” Uutuk said. “And now is the time to do it, when your wife is not here in the village, so if K’os’s spirit has a moment between death and my cutting, at least she will not be able to reach Aqamdax or your children.”

  Chakliux crouched on his haunches, his back to the lodge. “We have to wait until her forty days of mourning have ended,” he said. “Even if she does not truly grieve over Seal, I would not want to bring the curse of a widow’s taboos on either of us.”

  “We are stronger than you think, my brother,” Uutuk said. She sat on the ground, crossed her legs like the River People do, and unlaced her caribou hide boots. “I have heard the stories of your otter foot, and the power in it.” She smiled. “Has no one told you the stories about my feet?”

  “You have otter feet, too?” he asked, the doubt clear on his face.

  “Not otter,” she said. “Look.”

  She pulled off her boots and flickered the grass that lined them from her feet, then pointed to the place where her small toes should be.

  “What happened?”

  “This toe I cut off in mourning for my grandfather,” she said, lifting her right foot. “The other toe my grandfather cut off when I was very small. They say a child does not remember when they have only three summers, but I remember.”

  “It is good that the man is dead,” Chakliux said.

  “Oh no, Chakliux. Let me tell you what happened. I told you how my grandfather and I took a boat from our island to the islands of the First Men.”

  “Yes.”

  “It was not an easy journey, and we did not do it willingly, but a storm had taken our paddle, so we could not return to our own people. We were caught in a current that carried us north. During that time we ate all our food. My grandfather cut off his own toes to use as bait for fish, but he caught nothing. We were starving, so I asked him to use my toe, and finally he did.” She smiled at Chakliux, showing her white and even teeth. “Then he caught many fish, and so we had food enough to live until K’os found us.”

  “So that toe saved your life and your grandfather’s life.”

  “Yes.”

  “A strange family we have, you and I, that both of us have our power in our feet!”

  They laughed together, then Chakliux said, “It is not much, that kind of power.”

  “So far, it’s been enough, nae’?” she said to him in the River tongue, then switched again to the First Men language. She pulled on her boots, straightened, and said, “I told you my story so you would understand that as a little child, I was willing to give much to protect my grandfather. I am willing to do even more for my husband and any children we might have.”

  She lay a hand over her belly, and Chakliux, having seen his own wife do the same, asked, “Already?”

  Her answer was shy. “I think so,” she said, “though my husband does not yet know. Please do not tell him until we decide what to do with K’os.”

  “We will give her nothing beyond her mourning,” Chakliux said. “We cannot allow her to take more lives.”

  The Wilderness Northwest of the Fish Camp

  CRIES-LOUD’S STORY

  Cries-loud spent the day hunting, and brought two fat hares and a brace of ptarmigan back to his campfire. He cleaned them and cooked them on spits, ate as much as he wanted, and wrapped the remainder in grass to save for the next day.

  As the night darkened, he heard the noise of someone walking. He jumped to his feet, had knife and lance in hand before he even thought, but then his mother called out, and he ran to her. She was smiling.

  Before he could ask questions, she said, “I couldn’t let you leave without seeing you one more time.”

  Though she still smiled, he could see that tears brightened her eyes. “They didn’t have a place for you?” he asked.

  “They do. They know Cen and somehow had heard that he’s dead. I didn’t tell them any differently. There’s an old man who will take me as wife.”

  “If he’s old, how will he feed you?”

  “He’s not too old to hunt, and he has three sons who live in the village. We won’t starve, and when we finally hear the truth about Cen, I’ll tell him that even though Cen is alive, I want to stay with him, that I’m weary of being a trader’s wife. By that time, my parkas and my trapping will have made him happy, and maybe I can even give him a son or daughter.”

  Cries-loud beckoned her toward the fire, invited her to eat.

  “Just a little,” she told him. “I must return, and I don’t want to get lost in the dark. I just wanted you to know …”

  “I’m glad you’ve found a place, Mother.”

  “Perhaps you can visit me someday,” she said, “you and your wives and those children you will get.”

  She was eating quickly, as though she had had nothing all day, but he told himself that she was not that hungry, just that she wanted to leave and return to the old man.

  She ate a ptarmigan and then wiped her fingers on her pants and stood. For a moment, Cries-loud once more became a little boy, and tucked himself into her arms. She was the first to break away, and she turned quickly and said in a voice heavy with tears, “Watch over my daughters.”

  Then she was gone, and Cries-loud heaped branches on his camp-fire until the flames leaped, making light to fill some of the emptiness.

  The Four Rivers Village

  K’OS’S STORY

  K’os leaned close to the side of the lodge, tried to hear what her children were saying, but the double caribou hide cover and the rocks and sod of the walls swallowed their words. Somehow Chakliux had managed to turn Uutuk against her, and all this had happened because of the woman Red Leaf. If Cen and Ghaden had not gone after Red Leaf, then Chakliux would not have had so much time alone to talk Uutuk into hating her.

  Still, the girl should know better! Had K’os been anything but a good mother to her? Aaa! What made children so selfish? Chakliux kept her in this lodge, did not allow her to see the sun. How could she store up heat in her bones against the coming winter?

  “Don’t allow your anger to eat your own flesh,” she told herself. “How will you fight if you are weak?”

  She settled her mind on the people of the Four Rivers village. How many had died? Three tens, she thought. Six handfuls! Yes, but many of the hunters had already left for the caribou hunts, so those she had killed were mostly children and old ones, a few of the wives who had stayed behind. Then, too, the young, strong ones had grown sick from her poison, but it hadn’t killed them. She had not only used the purple-flowered plant from the First Men, but also baneberry. The First Men’s poison was better. When she used it on the first few who died—all elders—it had caused no great alarm. They seemed to have died in their sleep, though one had stumbled from her daughter’s lodge, clutching her throat and gasping for each breath.

  Then K’os had decided to kill great numbers all at once by poisoning the hearth boiling bags. But Seal, greedy for more than her own cooking, had eaten from those bags. Stupid man! She had fed him more than enough here in Cen’s lodge.

  No one had suspected her of using poison. Why would she want to kill her own husband? But then Chakliux came, and Cen with him. Who could believe that Cen was alive? Who could believe that Chakliux would come to this village and accuse her of killing the people? And now he had turned Uutuk against her. K’os would have to make her plans much more
carefully now that she did not have Uutuk or Seal to help her.

  She heard voices in the entrance tunnel, Uutuk, yes, and perhaps Chakliux. She pulled a thumbnail against the whites of her eyes and turned to face them with tears on her cheeks.

  The hardness on Uutuk’s face melted away, and she held a hand out toward K’os, but then quickly drew it back. K’os said nothing, but she saw the furtive glance Uutuk gave Chakliux. His mouth was set, his eyes cold. He leaned over and whispered to Uutuk. Uutuk frowned, and, though she also whispered, it seemed that she was arguing with him. Finally he shrugged and spoke to K’os.

  “My sister thinks that you should be allowed to attend the mourning ceremonies.”

  Each day the people made more ceremonies, trying to appease the dead. For more nights than K’os could count, the death drums had broken into her sleep.

  She wiped her nose against the sleeve of her parka and said, “What, and have the villagers kill me? Surely by now you two have told them that I caused these deaths. Surely by now you’ve laid the blame for this curse on me, even though my own husband is among the dead.”

  Uutuk began shaking her head in denial, and K’os had to close her lips tightly over a smile. Chakliux had not taken Uutuk as far from her as K’os had feared.

  “You think we’re fools?” Chakliux asked. “If they believe you did this, then what chance do we have for safety, your daughter and her husband and I?”

  K’os kept herself from blinking, and so was able to bring more tears from her eyes. “What will I do without a husband, now that I’m old?” she asked.

  Uutuk went to K’os, pulled her into an embrace. K’os looked through her eyelashes at Chakliux, allowed herself a tiny smile.

  “Uutuk …” Chakliux began, then shook his head and turned on his heel. Just before he left the lodge he said, “Sister, don’t let her fool you with those tears. I’ll come for you both when it’s time for the ceremonies.” He pointed at K’os. “Don’t let her leave.”

  He slipped into the entrance tunnel, and K’os clung hard to Uutuk. “Oh, my daughter, what a fool I was to allow your husband to bring us to this village. I had many friends here, but now most of them have died with this sickness, and my memories are tainted by Chakliux’s hatred.”

  K’os took a long breath and let it out in a shudder. “What will happen to my poor husband when his bones are left here among a people he did not know? How much better that he be buried on our own island, with your grandfather’s wise spirit to watch over him.”

  She continued to speak about Uutuk’s grandfather until she could feel Uutuk trembling and knew that the girl, too, wept. Then she said, “You are a good daughter, Uutuk, better than I deserve. You are all I ever wanted in a child. Though I was cursed with Chakliux, surely I have been blessed with you.”

  She waited, hoping to hear some words of kindness from Uutuk, but Uutuk said nothing, and finally she loosed her hold on K’os, and went for a bladder of water, dumped some out on a rag of caribou hide and washed her face, then offered the rag to K’os.

  “I am a widow,” K’os said. “Let them see my grief.”

  Chapter Forty-eight

  GHELI’S STORY

  AFTER LEAVING CRIES-LOUD’S camp, Gheli waited until it was truly dark. Then she set out toward the Four Rivers village, walking under the moonlight. She walked quickly so that Cries-loud would not catch up with her during the next day.

  The following night and all the long nights after, she allowed herself only a little sleep. When she finally came to the Four Rivers village, she came from the direction that few people would follow, near the death scaffolds. She held her breath at the stink, but could not hold in her tears at the number of new bodies, small and large, stacked there.

  Her heart pulsed in fear as she thought of her daughters. Had they, too, died? Surely at least Daes would know to be wary of anything K’os gave her. When she saw that the village hearthfires were dead, she breathed out her relief. The women must have realized that anyone who ate from those boiling bags had become sick. Or there were so few women left in the village, there was no one to tend the fires.

  Most likely that, Gheli thought when she crouched to study the coals. They had not even been banked. No woman healthy and strong would leave a fire to burn itself out. That was too foolish. She stirred the coals with her walking stick to be sure there was no hidden fire that the wind might pick up and dash against lodge covers. But there was not even an edge of heat.

  So now she must see whether K’os was still alive or if Cen or Chakliux had killed her. If K’os was dead, then Gheli would leave as quietly as she had come. Why not go back to that village beyond her fish camp? There was always the chance that one of the men would take her as wife. Besides, someday Cries-loud might bring Daes and Duckling to see her.

  Of course, there was good reason to believe that K’os was still alive. Her mourning for her First Men husband would not yet be finished. Why add unnecessary curses by killing K’os before her husband’s spirit was completely settled in the land of the dead?

  If K’os was alive, where would she stay? Surely Ghaden and his wife would be living in Cen’s lodge. Which might mean that Uutuk’s mother, K’os, would also be there. But would Cen allow K’os to live within the same walls as his daughters? Gheli heard a voice coming from Cen’s lodge. She ducked down so quickly that she set the nearest pack of dogs barking.

  Someone came outside. It was Chakliux. How could she miss his limp? She thought she heard the soft sounds of a chant, a spirit song, but she could not be sure. He lifted his head, looked up at the sky. He was praying.

  She felt a moment of hope. Perhaps by now he had already killed K’os, then she could sneak away in the night. No one would ever know she had been there.

  After a long time, Chakliux went back inside, and Gheli crept forward on feet and hands to the rear of Cen’s lodge. She stood as close as she could to the caribou hide cover, but heard nothing. No voices. That was good. No mourning. No healing chants. Perhaps K’os was still alive, and Chakliux merely prayed for wisdom to know what to do.

  Ah, Chakliux, sleep. Tomorrow you will have no worries. What is one more death? Just another mourning.

  Gheli squeezed the pouch that hung from her left wrist, loosened the drawstring, and stroked the long-bladed knife she had borrowed from Cen’s weapon cache before she left for fish camp. It was obsidian, and Cen claimed it had once belonged to a man who lived so long ago that even the storytellers had forgotten about him.

  The moon was just past full, one edge of it rubbed away, raw and ragged, bleeding out its light. She waited through the night, the pouch clasped in her fist, until the moon set and there was only darkness. Even the dogs stayed in tight circles beside the lodges, kept their faces covered with their tails. She moved to the entrance tunnel, place a hand on the caribou hide doorflap. It was rough and hard against her fingers. Her stomach twisted and she gagged, then fought down the fear that choked her. She gripped the haft of the knife to give herself courage, moved her fingers over the pouch so she could feel the finely ground powder hidden within.

  She waited in the tunnel until the air settled and warmed a little. An edge of the doorflap was pulled away from the opening, and Gheli leaned in close. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, so the few remaining hearth coals gave enough light for her to see. She scanned the lodge. There were three, no, four, on the men’s side. She recognized Chakliux and Ghaden. The one so close to Ghaden was too small for a man. She had to be K’os’s daughter, Ghaden’s wife.

  The other was Cen. Her eyes softened. She knew well the way he slept—on his side, his legs drawn up, an arm flung out over the fox fur cover. He snorted, mumbled in his sleep, and she froze until he was quiet again. On the women’s side there was Daes. And K’os. Again Gheli felt the need to retch. She cupped a hand over her mouth until the nausea passed.

  Daes slept as far from the woman as she could, her back pressed into the matting that covered the stone and sod of the lower
wall.

  The years had most likely changed K’os’s face into something much different from what Gheli remembered, but the hand that lay over the sleeping robe marked her. She studied K’os, grimaced. This would not be as easy as she had hoped. The woman was wrapped tightly in her furred sleeping robe. Would the obsidian blade cut through it? She could go for K’os’s neck, but what if she missed, connected with jaw or shoulder bone?

  Gheli lifted a prayer to whatever spirits might be willing to help her, then crept to the pile of sleeping robes stacked on the women’s side. She pulled one over herself and lay down between Daes and K’os. Daes moaned and pressed even closer to the wall, but K’os did not stir, so when the voice came, it startled Gheli into jumping to her feet.

  “You have returned.” The words were whispered, and they came from K’os. “Cen told us wolves killed you. You seem to be good at cheating death. Perhaps I need to know your secret.”

  K’os sat up and pushed the robe down around her waist. She had changed much, was finally an old woman.

  “You’ve come to kill me,” she said.

  “Yes, so Cen or Chakliux will not have to.”

  “My mourning has not ended. You will risk that curse?”

  “Yes, to protect my daughters.”

  From the corners of her eyes, Gheli saw Daes scoot toward the hearth. The girl began to hiss, and called out to her father. Finally Cen awoke, Ghaden and Uutuk also, then Chakliux. Ghaden thrust his wife behind him while he groped for the weapons that he had laid near his bedding mats.

  He lifted a short lance, and Gheli called to him, “Let me kill her. What is one more curse for someone like me who has earned so many?”

  Ghaden looked at Cen and said, “Wait.”

  “They let me keep nothing except this small crooked knife,” said K’os, and raised herself to her knees, swept away the sleeping robe. She lifted the knife. The blade was no longer than the last joint of a finger, and it had been set into the side of a caribou rib, the curve of the rib good for a woman who needed to use that knife for her sewing.