Shadows in the Cave

by Caleb Fox

  Aku was stumped.

  “Come, Aku, you can get another river cane anywhere.”

  “How do you know my name?”

  “Your great-grandmother, who gave you the key to getting here, told us to watch for you. She is a mortal we respect greatly. You know, we don’t bring everyone here who cries out for help. We’d be overpopulated.” The musician smiled. “So, will you accept my gift or not?”

  “Please,” said Aku.

  “Splendid. We Little People hate death. That’s why we don’t indulge in it ourselves.”

  Rono set Aku’s cane on the big stone, measured it with a string, marked a spot near the middle, and with an obsidian-bladed knife cut it into two cylinders. Rono checked one for length.

  “Notice first that the tone is much higher than before.” The musician blew on the shorter cylinder and got a high, sweet sound. When Rono piped on the other, it sang a lower pitch.

  “First this.” Rono cut a big notch near the end where you blew.

  “Now I must drill some holes,” said the musician. “Pretend you’re my apprentice and hold this piece of cane.”

  With a press drill the Little Person quickly made a small hole several fingers below the notch of the short piece, and several other holes, which were almost too close together for Aku’s fingers.

  With a big grin Rono picked up the cane and played. It made sweet music in those hands.

  “You human beings whisper sometimes that the Little People can do miracles. Here’s murder turned to magic—what could be more wondrous?”

  Aku picked it up and blew. The sounds he got weren’t musical.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll teach you,” said the musician. “And now I’ll make the other piece into an instrument that will toot nicely along with it.”

  When Aku went back to check his father, Shonan was sitting up.

  “About time you brought that dog back,” said Shonan. “I’m starving.” He untied Tagu’s lashes.

  “We apologize,” said Kayna, “but we are unable to offer our guests food. You may drink water aplenty”—he pointed to where the waterfall trickled into a small pool—“but if you ate our food, you would never be able to go back to your world.”

  “This world is enchanting,” said Aku. “I could stay.”

  “Sorry,” said Kayna, “but no.”

  Aku barely noticed the words. “Look what I got,” he said to his father, holding out the canes.

  Shonan talked with his mouth packed full of dried meat. “What on earth!?”

  Kayna took one of the canes, played a little melody, and handed the instrument back to Aku. “Rono has taught many of us to make music. Anything beautiful is welcome here.”

  Shonan said deliberately, “You destroyed your blow gun to get some tootling stick!?”

  “Father,” said Aku, “I can get another cane along any river. I still have the dart.” He held it out.

  Shonan eyed his son skeptically while he finished his slab of meat. Then he stood up. He walked around them in a circle. He jumped. He ran. “Just as you said,” he told Kayna with a grin. “A miracle.”

  “Miracles are our way of life,” said Kayna. “Now may I suggest you take a little nap? You need the rest.”

  “Actually,” said Shonan, “we need to get going.”

  Kayna made a downward motion with one hand. Shonan lay on the ground, scooched until he was comfortable, and slept.

  From behind, Rono’s voice said, “Now, Aku, we have work to do.”

  When they were back in Rono’s workshop, the piper said, “Give me the flutes. I’m going to paint them.”

  “While Rono does that,” said Kayna, “I will tell you the story, and then Rono will teach you the songs.”

  Aku nodded. To hell with trying to run my own life.

  “When everything began,” said Kayna, “Grandmother Sun was made first, and then her brother Grandfather Moon and the other stars, and Earth and all the plants and animals on it, including human beings. Everyone understood that all creatures would live forever. When Sun passed through the sky and looked down on the animals and plants, though, she saw that plants made more plants and animals made more animals, and one day there wouldn’t be enough room. So she ruled that all living creatures on Earth must grow and die, and come back and grow and die again. And so they did.

  “At that time Sun’s daughter, Morning, lived among the human beings. One day as Grandmother Sun made her circuit, she looked and didn’t see her daughter. When she asked, the people had to tell Sun that Morning had been bitten by a rattlesnake and died.

  “Sun was angry. She scorched the Earth with burning rays. All the plants and animals, including people, suffered in the fierce heat, and many died.

  “Desperate, the people asked Grandmother Sun what they could do to make things right.

  “Grandmother Sun said, ‘Bring my daughter back to life. I make you this promise. If you do that, human beings will live forever.’

  “Live forever! What a boon!

  “But the human beings were stumped. No one had ever gone to the Darkening Land and come back. They had no idea how to begin. Finally, they decided to ask for help from the only Immortals on Earth, the Little People. The wisest of the Little People put their heads together and came up with an answer. ‘Make a box out of buffalo hide,’ they said, ‘and to go the Darkening Land. There you must find Morning’s spirit. Put it in the box and bring it back. When we put her spirit back in her body, Morning will come alive again, and Grandmother Sun will shine in a good way, and you will be immortal, just as we are.’

  “But the wise ones added one warning. ‘Do not, under any circumstances, open the box on the way back.’

  “Seven brave men volunteered for the journey to the west, to the Darkening Land,” Kayna went on.

  Aku wondered if that was near the place where the ocean wrapped all the way around Earth and met Turtle Island again.

  “When they got to the Darkening Land, the men saw that the spirits were having a dance, just as the Little People had said, and the young woman was dancing in the outside circle, again just as we Little People said. So the men followed our instructions exactly. Each time the young woman circled past them, one of the men threw a corncob and hit her skirt. On the seventh circuit, the spirit fell down. They popped her into the box and slammed the lid quick. None of the other spirits even noticed.

  “The seven men traveled fast to the east, toward their homes. Before long the girl began to cry out, ‘Let me out of here. I can’t stand it. It’s awful being in here.’

  “The men made no answer at all, but just walked on.

  “Later the girl said in a pleading tone, ‘Please, I’m hungry. Give me something to eat.’

  “But the men said nothing and walked on.

  “After a long silence the girl begged, ‘I’m thirsty, really thirsty. Can’t I have a drink?’

  “The men felt sorry for the girl, but they remembered the warning of the Little People and trod on without a word.

  “When they got close to home, the girl cried out in a panic. ‘Help! Help! I can’t breathe! I’m smothering in here!’

  “Now the seven men got scared—maybe the girl was about to die—so they cracked the lid open just a little. When they did, they heard a whoosh of air and saw something like a shadow dart out of the box.

  “When they got home and opened the box, it was empty.

  “Now Morning’s body could never be brought back to life. Grandmother Sun wept copiously, and the Earth was flooded, and many plants and animals drowned. People danced to the Sun and sang songs of praise, and she quit crying. Even then, her gloomy mood cast shadows everywhere, and it was hard for either plant or animal to grow.

  “Morning’s spirit, set free, took herself as far from mortal life as she could get—she turned herself into Morning Star, farther from Earth than even the Sun. She is remote and beautiful, and that satisfies her.

  “At last Grandmother Sun shone again. But human beings had lost th
eir chance for immortality forever.”

  Aku felt dazed. He had heard splinters of this story, but to hear it all, and from the lips of the immortals …

  “Yes, you’re charmed,” said Rono, “but Kayna told you this story for a reason. Your great-grandmother sent you here to get two gifts.” The musician held out the flutes, the short one painted green and the other red. “You scared me when you hesitated to let me cut up your killing instrument—you would never have known what you lost.

  “Yes, green and red. If you look more closely, you’ll see that the holes on them are spaced differently. That’s because each one is made to play a different song, and each song has a different purpose. The green one plays a song that heals spirits. It does nothing for wounds or illnesses. The red one resurrects the dead. If you’re with someone who dies, before the spirit sets off for the Darkening Land, the red flute’s song can bring them back to life.” Rono looked at Aku’s blanched face and chuckled. “I didn’t mean you have to go to the Darkening Land and rescue them yourself.”

  The piper gave Kayna a certain look. “Why don’t you check on your guest and tend to other things? Teaching a student to play a song is tedious.”

  In fact, for Aku the learning seemed quick and delightful. He said, “I’d like to stay here and make music forever.”

  Rono said, “Human beings can’t. You will stay until you learn these songs, regardless of the passage of Earth time, and leave at the next sunrise.”

  “My sister may be killed.”

  “Then be glad,” said Rono, “that you will gain power over death.”

  11

  The Brown Leaf village looked like any Galayi village. Wattle-and-daub huts surrounded a village green. People began to crisscross the green on the business of life, heeled by their dogs. Mothers let children romp out of the huts, now that day was coming on strong, chasing away the cold and perhaps dangerous spirits. Or enemies, thought Aku.

  The bay was guarded by a crooking arm of land, and farther out by two finger-shaped islands. The eastern side of the village circle opened to the ocean. On the western side rose the council lodge, an arbor with a roof circling an open space the way a fringe of hair curled around a balding man’s head. From his angle on the crest of a hill, Aku couldn’t see the fire at the center of the lodge, but a faint line of smoke rose from it and was blown to rags by the sea winds. The fire priest must have just renewed the sacred flame, as he probably did every morning and evening.

  They may not look that different from us, Aku thought, but they are. He chased away a mental picture of Salya spread-eagled in front of the fire, the knife gouging her heart out.

  He put a hand on Tagu’s head and rubbed his ears.

  Again he cast an eye around. They’d slipped past guards on the trail to get to this knob, and they were sitting in the bushes. Which didn’t mean they couldn’t be spotted.

  “See any sign of her?” said Aku.

  “No,” said Shonan. “I doubt we will.”

  “The huts on both sides of the eastern entrance are painted,” Shonan said.

  Aku looked carefully and saw that his father was sharp-eyed. He could see just an edge of painting on the side of the huts toward the entrance. It probably ornamented the doors. At least that’s the way his own tribe did things.

  “Those have got to be the huts of the peace chief and the war chief,” Shonan said.

  “The colors are yellow and blue,” said Aku. Among the Galayi, the peace chief’s ornamentation would have been white, the Red Chief’s red.

  Shonan’s voice had an edge. “They’re different from us.” He waited. “She’ll be in one of those huts, probably the war chief’s, whichever one that is. They’ll have her tied up and probably guarded.”

  Father and son had a tacit agreement to speak as if they were sure she was alive. Privately, each doubted it. They had no idea how many Earth days they’d been with the Little People.

  “What do you want to do?”

  “Find out which hut she’s in, tear her out, and go like hell.”

  Aku snatched his breath in.

  Shonan heard it and smiled. “In war, daring is everything.”

  Aku voiced the calm version of his thoughts. “Incredibly dangerous.”

  Shonan took his time answering. “If I watched my daughter die, I could not go on breathing the air of this world.”

  Aku nodded. He understood. “I have an idea. I’ll take my owl shape, fly down there, look and listen from the smoke holes, and find out what hut she’s in.”

  His father humphed. After a long while, he said, “Maybe.”

  Aku said nothing. He intended to do it, regardless.

  “Whatever, for today we just watch. Always learn everything you can about your enemy.” Shonan thought. “Tonight we move. Unless they bring her out.”

  Both of them pictured her being dragged to the sacred fire for the sacrifice.

  “And then?”

  Shonan smiled. “Then we will taste their blood, and they will taste ours.”

  All day they saw nothing that helped.

  In the twilight they sneaked carefully uphill to a cave they’d spotted. The Galayi liked to make camp in caves—the name of their tribe meant People of the Caves. They needed to make sure of a place where they could hide with their freed captive, and tie Tagu. They would have enough problems creeping into the village without him getting the dogs stirred up.

  Then they slipped down the hill toward the place the guards stationed themselves to watch the trail. Shonan wanted to kill the sentries. Why, Aku wasn’t sure. To ease his anger, probably.

  Aku told himself, It’s my job to help, and I have to share the risk. Nevertheless, as soon as the guards were taken care of, he would enter the village as an owl. He didn’t care whether his father liked it or not. Salya was his twin, and owls flew at night.

  Mere shadows in the twilight, sliding down from bush to bush, tree to tree, they saw an opportunity. Fifty steps above where the guards stood loomed a boulder with a split on the uphill side. Shonan nodded toward it, and Aku understood. Using the boulder for cover, they got to its back side, crawled into the split, climbed to the top, and looked down on the guards.

  The appearance of a luminous god could not have shocked them more. Even in the last of the light Aku could see her clearly. Lounging, chatting with the guards, laughing, sat Salya.

  For a long moment Aku felt like he’d turned, through and through, muscles, blood, and brain, into river ice.

  Shonan rose to let Salya and her companions see him. Then he climbed down the boulder and stepped toward them. He held his spear and club uncertainly, neither ready nor at rest.

  Aku slid down the boulder and followed his father. His legs were wobbly.

  Salya jumped up, ran, and flung herself into Shonan’s arms. “Ada, Ada, I’m so glad to see you. I was so scared.”

  “Ada” was a fond equivalent of “father.”

  Shonan looked over his daughter’s head at the two guards. “Why are you dallying with these enemies?” he asked. His speech got stilted when he was ill at ease.

  “Ada, these are the furthest thing from enemies. These are my friends.” She mentioned names Shonan didn’t make out.

  Shonan looked at the two young men with hard eyes and barely inclined his head. Aku nodded to them and said, “I am Aku.”

  “Oh, Ada, I’ve been coming out here with them each night, hoping you would show up. They said you wouldn’t. They were worried that you might come later with an army—they wouldn’t have grabbed me if they’d known I’m Galayi. But if you followed right away …” She hugged him hard again. “Oh, Ada, I was so scared.”

  “I think there’s a lot to be explained.”

  “In the village. You’ll be treated as special guests—they’ll give a feast for you. I’ve told them about my father and my brother.”

  She let Shonan go and hugged Aku. In the last of the light he couldn’t quite meet her eyes. Then she took both their hands and dance
d, pulling them gaily toward the village. Shonan kept glancing back toward the guards. He didn’t like having them behind him.

  “Ada, these are wonderful people. Whatever you’ve heard, it’s not true at all. I’ve met a wonderful man. He’s a shaman.” She turned to Shonan, took both of his hands, and held his eyes with hers. “I’m going to give you grandchildren by him.”

  Shonan kept rotating his head in every direction. “But they stole you. They’ve stolen lots of women. And none of them were ever seen again.”

  “That’s because they’re living in the Brown Leaf village, married to good Brown Leaf men, bearing children and living happily.”

  Shonan knifed her with his eyes.

  “Ada, your doubt hurts me. I know what I’m doing. And you’ll see. It all has to do with a revelation …”

  Warriors rushed out from every tree in the forest. From behind, the guards tackled Shonan and Aku. In an instant they were on their faces in the dirt, their hands being tied behind their backs. Feet bore down between their shoulder blades. Their weapons disappeared into the crowd.

  Shonan twisted his head to the side and looked up at Salya. From the edge of his mouth, he squeezed out, “What’s going on?”

  “It’s classic, Father. You’ve been betrayed by a woman.”

  12

  Make them face each other,” said Salya, “so they can see each other’s pain.”

  Aku fought his fear—he had to understand. He looked into the evil in Salya’s face, a fire that consumed everything good. Her eyes were his, and they made him teeter on the abyss of his own darkness.

  A man of authority nodded to his warriors, and they sat Aku and Shonan, firmly bound, face to face. In the dark they could hardly see the hundreds of people gathered around, a pack of hungry dogs at a slaughter.

  “It is worse than terror,” Salya said. “You are father and son. Each of you will feel the other’s agony more than his own.” She made a sound that mixed cackling and chuckling. “Until pain floods the mind to oblivion.”