Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

Her hands were full of pins. For a moment, fussing with the girl’s hair, she could not remember exactly what she had been doing. Her mind seethed, full of unfocussed alarms.

  “Here comes the bride-leader,” said one of the other women.

  Joba looked up, surprised: he was early, the ceremony could not take place until afternoon. Yet he had indeed come. Fergolin stood near the entrance to Joba’s hearth, smiling.

  “Wait here,” she said to Shateel, and got up, brushing off her clothes. Circling the other women at their work, she went to Fergolin.

  “What is the matter? We are still very busy, Fergolin-on.”

  “I came with this gift from the young husband.”

  He held out a piece of deerskin, folded over. She opened it up, curious, and let out a low gasp. Inside, neatly rolled up, was a strand of blue beads.

  “Oh.” Joba drew back. She had just seen Harus Kum and his men taken by force out of the Gathering; now she was face to face with him again, coiled like a serpent, insinuating himself into this marriage of her daughter. She put out her hand to push the beads away. Before she could touch them, her daughter reached her side.

  “I shall take them.” Shateel’s hand closed over the beads; she gave her mother a long level stare.

  Fergolin said, “Ana-Joba-el, most excellent mother of such a bride, you must know now that because of the difficulty this morning, there is some trouble with the wedding ceremony.”

  Joba’s head rose. “What?” she said, harsh.

  “Because of the matter of Harus Kum, great Opa-Ladon-on must make an unusual request of you.”

  “I am listening to it.”

  “Harus Kum was not easily dealt with, as you may imagine. Ladon, mighty is he, took the greatest care in dealing with him. To make certain that Harus Kum did indeed leave the Gathering, he put in escort of him his most trusted man, his own son, the bridegroom.”

  Shateel said, “Then where is he now?” Her voice was sharp.

  Fergolin never looked at her; his gaze remained steadily on Joba’s, as he said, “It is Ladon’s wish that the wedding be done in his village, after the Gathering, when his son returns from his task.”

  “Is he in danger?” Shateel cried.

  Joba was staring fixedly at Fergolin, her mind troubled. Her uneasiness was mounting. The marriage of her daughter had become a contest, somehow, a contest with Ladon, a struggle for control of her daughter. Suddenly she saw the wedding like a pit before her, a trap toward which they were dragging her. She turned and seized the blue beads from Shateel and flung them to the ground.

  “No. I shall not agree. Once she goes there, will he let her come back here again? He will insist on staying there, and she will stay with him. No.”

  “Ana,” Shateel cried. “I shall go wherever he wishes.” She faced Fergolin; it was to Fergolin she offered her words, as if her mother no longer mattered.

  Fergolin said, mildly, “It was your desire, among the others, that Harus Kum be removed, Ana-Joba-el. By your own deed, you have made the wedding impossible here, since the bridegroom is gone on a task of your devising.”

  Shateel wheeled toward her. “You made this happen!”

  Joba seized her by the wrists. “You are a fool. Do not take Ladon’s side against me. You are not married yet. Until he takes your hand, you are my child, and I shall bid you as I see fit.”

  Shateel hardly let her finish. The color high in her cheeks, her hair slipping out of its plaits, she faced Joba and struck at her mother with her words.

  “I am no child any more, Ana. I have been with him who is my husband. We need no words of the elders. I shall go with him wherever he wishes, I am his wife now, and he is my husband.”

  With a wrench of her arms, she freed her wrists from her mother’s grasp and turning her back on Joba, she stooped and took the string of blue beads from the ground and put them around her neck.

  Joba stood there staring at her; there was nothing more to be said. Her mind flew back over the years, back to the baby Shateel had been, nuzzling at her breast, and she saw the little girl, learning to walk and to talk, secure under her mother’s watchful gaze; she saw the older child, struggling for mastery of her crafts, her mother ever guiding, ever protecting, ever loving. Now her daughter stood with her back to her and said that she had broken away and was glad to be going. Joba lowered her head. All the others in the longhouse had witnessed her humiliation. Slowly she went back to her fire and sat down and pulled her shawl up over her head. And there she sat, for all the rest of the day.

  Most of the People avoided Harus Kum’s camp now that it was abandoned, but Karelia insisted on going there, and so Moloquin took her. He watched her grope and poke around the little brush hut and the fence, pick a few threads of cloth from a bramble and straighten the fibers in her hand, sniff at a wet patch on the ground.

  “What are you doing?” he said. “Why can I not go? I have wood to carry, and Grub and I found a place where we can swim.”

  She stood, crooked with her years, her face sharp. “I am wondering if Ladon did as he said he did with Harus Kum.”

  “How can you discover that by searching here?” Moloquin stirred, restless; the day was turning warm and sultry, and he looked away to the west, where the stream curled around. Out there, they had found a deep pool, delicious in the summer’s heat. “Why can you not leave Ladon alone?”

  “Bah.” She whirled toward him, suddenly furious. “Listen to me, boy. You are the son of Ladon’s sister, and therefore I dare not trust Ladon, ever.”

  “Karelia—” he gave her a strange sideways look, and drew closer to her. “Can I not be only your son? Why must I always be set against Ladon?”

  She glared at him, the heat of her temper rising like a blast against him. “Curse you! No!”

  His eyes flashed. “You care nothing for me. You hate Ladon, and so you harbor me, for the sake of Ladon.”

  “Hah.” She swung her arm around and smacked him on the face.

  He took the blow without flinching, but his eyes were hot and dark with fury. He said nothing more to her but his gaze remained long on her, full of rage and warnings. She trembled; she wanted to throw her arms around him, to destroy the sudden breach between them, but her pride held her fast, and he would not yield to her without some sign. Abruptly he turned and ran out of Harus Kum’s abandoned camp, down onto the flat ground, and she saw him turn to the west, toward the stream and the open ground, where Grub was waiting for him.

  Karelia let out her breath in a rush of wind. She felt old and stupid and empty. She sank down on her hams on the ground, her eyes full of tears.

  She was a fool. He was right—she wanted to thwart Ladon, and so she placed this boy against him; yet now it was the boy who mattered to her. She lifted up her face toward the sky.

  When he came back she would beg his forgiveness. When he came back, she would tell him that she loved him. She would call him her son.

  She would never again use him against Ladon, when he came back. She huddled down in the place of the outlanders, the smell and feel of the outlanders all around her, and longed for him to come back.

  Ladon’s son knew where Moloquin was. He had seen the other youth the day before, gathering wood along the stream; as Moloquin collected the wood, he left it in heaps to be taken back later, and so it was easy to follow him, going along the stream from one pile of wood to the next.

  He wished it had been harder to find Moloquin. He wished his father had not set this task on him.

  Harus Kum walked along just behind him, his arms swinging. The other three men followed close behind him. They had left their goods a little way to the south, on the way to Ladon’s village, when they walked off from the Gathering; Ladon had told his son to take the men straight away, so that all who saw them leave would think they were going away at once, and forever. So Ladon’s son had led them away,
burdened down with their packs, the men groaning under the weight, going straight into the west, and only when he came into the rougher, hilly ground well west of the Gathering did Ladon’s son swing around and move south, and turning eastward again cut the well-worn track that led south to Ladon’s Village.

  There they left the packs. Harus Kum gave orders to his men in their unpleasant language, and with coils of rope and clubs of wood they started north again.

  Once or twice the trader tried to speak to Ladon’s son, but he pretended not to understand. The trader smelled strange, and the evil business in the camp the night before had cast a sinister shadow over him in the eyes of Ladon’s son, but even more than that, the young man was loathe to speak much about what they were doing. He tried not to think about it.

  Instead he thought about Shateel, his new wife.

  Since the night of the dancing, when he had lain between her legs, she had filled his mind. Every moment he was away from her he felt her slipping away from him, gone to some other man, doing that with some other man. Now they weren’t even to be married until Ladon’s People returned to their own village, and if her mother refused to let Shateel go there, would she ever be his wife? Yet she had given herself to him, that night; surely she had been his wife then.

  He should be with her now, and not here, helping to destroy one of his own People.

  He told himself he hated Moloquin. His father hated Moloquin. Everybody hated Moloquin.

  They walked along the bank of the stream until the brush and low trees that sprouted there grew so thick together they could not pass, and then cut around to the outside, wading through thick grass. When they cleared the extremity of the copse of brush, he saw, away ahead of them, two figures, one running happily along before, the other bowed under a weight of wood, and his heart sank.

  They were his own People, and he was giving them to Harus Kum.

  His steps dragged. But now Harus Kum had seen them, and in a crisp voice was giving orders to his slaves. Ladon’s son trudged along behind them now, as the three outlanders advanced in a rush, spreading apart to cut off the two boys’ line of escape. Up there, ahead of them, Moloquin dropped the wood to the ground.

  Ladon’s son opened his mouth to shout a warning, but no words came. He thought of his father, who had ordered him to do this, and could think of no power high enough to countermand him. Instead he broke into a trot, to keep up with Harus Kum.

  Up there, now, Moloquin was pushing Grub away, waving him off, shouting to him to run. He wore nothing but a loin cloth; he had used his shirt as a sling to carry wood. Harus Kum and his men closed swiftly on them, their arms out. Grub hesitated, unwilling to leave his friend, and Moloquin stooped and picked up a long branch. Harus Kum roared. Snatching out his whip from his belt, he snaked it loose, stopped before the boy with his feet planted, and brandished the whip.

  “Drop it,” he shouted. “Drop it, now!”

  Grub clung to Moloquin’s back. “What do they want?”

  Ladon’s son reached the others, panting a little; the three slaves sidled around to hold Moloquin between them. The boy backed off, one hand on Grub behind him, the other raising up his club toward Harus Kum.

  “What is this? What do you want?”

  Hams Kum gave a flick of his wrist, and the whip undulated through the grass like a snake, and the tip licked up into the air once, only a step from Moloquin’s foot.

  “Your chief has sold you to me! Come now, or I will punish you.”

  Grub whined. He pressed ever closer to Moloquin who now circled his arm around him, protecting him like a mother. The club he still held, raised up between him and Harus Kum.

  “I am not Ladon’s thing, to give away,” he said. “Nor is this boy—let him go, at least.”

  Harus Kum raised his arm, and the whip laughed out, coiling in the air. Moloquin flinched back, but he could not avoid the whip; it wrapped itself around and around him and Grub together, and the little boy cried out, and Moloquin dropped his club. Bound tight in the whip, he bit his lips together, his face dead white, and his eyes brimming with pain.

  Harus Kum walked up to them, still bound tight in his whip, and ran his hands over them as if they were beasts.

  “These two look no stronger than a few reeds lashed together. What promises Ladon makes!” He spat. “Well, they will have to do.”

  “Let Grub go,” Moloquin said.

  Harus Kum unwrapped the whip from around them, and the two slaves closed in on them with the rope, and bound them, hand to hand, and ankle to ankle. Moloquin stood still. Around his chest the whip-marks stood up from his skin in long red welts.

  He said, “Let me say good-by to my mother.”

  Harus Kum struck him full in the face. “Keep silent, unless I speak to you! You have no mother, boy, you have no People, all you have is my whip and my hand over you.”

  At that Moloquin howled; he lunged forward, all wrapped in his bonds, flinging himself bodily forward, not at Harus Kum but at Ladon’s son, behind him. The three slaves seized him. Ladon’s son flung up his clenched fists, all his nerves prickling up.

  “Let him go,” he cried. “I shall fight him—”

  “Coward,” Moloquin cried. “Coward—”

  Harus Kum stepped in between the two of them, raised the butt of his whip, and calmly struck Moloquin over the head, so that he fell down senseless. Ladon’s son lowered his hands, his heart pounding.

  “I am not a coward. I would have fought against him—”

  Harus Kum grunted at him. “Come, let us bind him up, and then hurry. Ladon your father said that you would take us to his village, and there help us get the stores he promised us.”

  “Yes,” said Ladon’s son. “I know where everything is.”

  He could not take his eyes from Moloquin, lying half-dead on the ground; he thought, He need not have struck him down, I would have beaten him if we fought. He remembered all the other times he and Moloquin had fought, the stones thrown, the angry words; and had he not always come out the winner then? He made his feet move, circling the body on the ground. South lay Ladon’s Village. South he led Harus Kum.

  When the sun went down Moloquin still had not come back, and Karelia got up and went off to find him. At first she looked among the hearths of the People, thinking in his anger he might have gone to another fire when the evening approached, but she found only the other women, giving their children the evening meal. Most of the People were making ready to leave the Gathering, and the great sprawl of the camp was a jumble of packed belongings and garbage. Everyone was distracted and tired and when she asked after her son she got curt, uninterested replies—no one had seen him or Grub.

  She worked her way back through the disorder toward Rulon’s Village. The sky was full of a rushing wind and the stars were appearing in the dusk. As she walked aimlessly along, she came on Fergolin, the Bear Skull master, sitting with a circle of young men before him—the new members of the society, whom he would be teaching the rudiments of star-lore. Around his neck Fergolin wore several strands of the beads that the foreigner Harus Kum had brought, and around his head was a band of painted leather.

  “Have you seen my son Moloquin?” she asked.

  “Moloquin,” one of the boys murmured, and there was laughter. “She wants Moloquin.”

  Fergolin said, “I have not, Ana-Karelia.”

  The boys were still giggling together, and with a glance he silenced them. Karelia loitered, hearing something sinister in their laughter. She wondered if it were merely the joke, the play on Moloquin’s name, that made them laugh, or if they knew some evil had fallen on him. Finally she went away.

  She went to the edge of the camp, by the stream, and looked out across the plain. From here it rose toward the horizon, not evenly, but in rises and hollows, rumpled like the surface of a lake under the wind, and the wind curried the grass, blowing
in waves away from her. The darkness crept over it, crowded with spirits and demons. Her fear of the dark, of being out there alone, held her still a moment, but her back was already to the camp, and she could see a heap of wood, out there, waiting to be gathered in. She knew he was out there.

  Slowly she went forth onto the empty plain. The wind wrapped itself around her and howled joyously into her ears. Her feet padded over the grass. Out there a night bird was singing, its brilliant ringing song raising the hackles on her neck. She went forward along the stream’s edge, following the stacks of wood he had made.

  Once she paused and looked back, and there behind her she saw the yellow glow of the fires of the People, driving the darkness away, and the black arch of the sky overhead. Her skin was cold and tingling with alarm. Something plopped into the stream beside her and she jumped.

  Moloquin, she thought, Moloquin, if I find you I shall never speak of Ladon again, I shall call you my son forever, Moloquin, let me find you.

  From one stack of wood to the next she trudged on, and then, in the middle of the grass, a little way from the stream, she came on his shirt, half-covered with wood.

  He had not stacked this pile. The shirt lay crumpled under it as if he had cast everything down at once. She drew the cloth free of the sticks. The grass here was all trampled. She knelt down, feeling the ground with her hands, and lowered her head down and sniffed the earth.

  She could smell him. He had lain here. And now her fingers wiped something slimy from the grass, and a dampness that she lifted to her nose, and tasted on her tongue, and knew for Moloquin’s blood.

  She howled. She knew now something dreadful had happened to him. With the shirt clutched in her arms, she ran here and there in short dashes, looking for him, and gathering up her courage she stopped once or twice and called his name into the dark.

  He was gone. Her ears knew it, in the silences that answered her, and her belly knew it, hollow with an emptiness that would never be filled up again. He was gone. She had lost him.

  She sank down to the ground and put her face against his shirt and cried for him and for herself. The shirt smelled of him. She sniffed it all over, wiped her tears on it, and inspected it all over for signs of blood. There was no blood on the shirt, but when she went back to where she had found it, the moon rising behind her, she found the blood on the grass again.