Pillar of the Sky

by Cecelia Holland

  She said, “No one in all the Gathering has a dress such as mine. Ap Min is very clever with dyes.”

  He reached for a cup, and she handed it to him. “We should teach the other villages to make beer,” she said.

  The wind came up suddenly, and the whole lean-to roared with it; the roof bellied up off its poles and frame and the wind boomed in the hollow above their heads. Moloquin licked his fingers clean. He slid back, away from the food.

  “Put some wood on the fire,” he said.

  She turned, and called someone from outside the lean-to to bring wood and feed the fire, and from the dusk someone came.

  Wahela said, “Tonight the girls will dance in the Turnings-of-the-Year. I can remember, when I was a girl, the dances made my blood race.”

  He said nothing.

  “Do you think that ugly child of Shateel’s is old enough to marry yet? I am sure Shateel will keep her in tonight.”

  He said nothing.

  “I would, if I had a daughter of that age. I would let no daughter of mine go to the Turnings-of-the-Year tonight, I promise you.”

  He said nothing.

  “When our daughters are old enough, they shall already have many marriage offers, we shall have to choose carefully. And keep them away from all dances.”

  He said nothing. Far off, through the clatter and hiss of the rain, a shout of many voices sounded, and he lifted his head.

  “What are you listening for?” she asked.

  He sighed. Putting down his cup, he turned to her and put out his arms to her. “Wahela,” he said, “I have need of you.”

  She went to him, and they lay down together on the furs and mats at the back of the lean-to. Usually he let her kiss him, baby-like, and would caress her with his hands and lips, but tonight he wanted only to possess her, and he handled her so roughly that she cried out, more in surprise than in pain. His head burrowed down beside hers; he held her hard against him, pinning her down with his weight.

  Then at the moment of his climax, there was another distant shout, and he jerked his head up, looked around, and listened, and under her hands the tension passed through all his muscles like the wind rippling a field of high grass.

  “What is it?” she said. “What are you listening for?”

  He did not answer her. Instead he bent down over her again, and thrust so hard at her she bit her lip, and for a moment, helpless in his arms, she was afraid.

  That night, no one danced. The girls did not appear in the circles, and the men kept their masks covered by the hearths. The women huddled by the hearths in the rain with their children, and the men walked the windy darkness, prowling in packs from fire to fire, stopping a few moments, slouching off again. The night was full of spirits that whistled and gibbered in the dark, and no one wanted to be alone.

  Toward the dead of the night the rain slackened and the air grew sharply cold. Bahedyr and his friends crowded together for warmth; they stopped at a hearth where several other men were already piling wood on the coals and stood around the leaping flames warming their hands. Bahedyr lifted his face toward the sky.

  “No moon. It will be dark tonight, dark as the first night, before the sun was made.”

  Beside him, a toothy little man, one of Shateel’s People, grinned up at him. “You would like finding Eilik by himself on such a night, wouldn’t you?”

  “If I did—” Bahedyr held up his spear. “There would be holes in him to fit his own horns into, I tell you that.”

  The wind was rising, cold at their backs. From somewhere away to the southeast, toward the Turnings-of-the-Year, there was a sharp, short yell. Bahedyr wheeled.

  “What was that?”

  “Everybody in the Gathering is moving around tonight, it feels very strange.”

  “Eilik’s out there somewhere,” said the toothy man beside Bahedyr. “Looking for us.”

  “For us,” Bahedyr said, surprised. “You are not one of us.”

  “I am Moloquin’s man,” said the toothy man. “As much as you are.”

  Bahedyr put one hand on the other man’s chest and pushed him. “You’re just from Shateel’s Village.”

  “Stop,” Ladon’s son said suddenly, and walked in between Bahedyr and the toothy man. “Stop, and keep counsel. Bahedyr, don’t be a fool. He is one of us, he worked at the Pillar of the Sky, and he will stand at your back when Eilik is cutting at your front, you can be sure of that.”

  “Until I die!” said the toothy man, and around him many others nodded: Shateel’s men, wanting to be Moloquin’s. Bahedyr grunted.

  “Well, then—”

  From off in the darkness came another yell, this time many voices, and the quick pattering of feet. Everyone by the fire wheeled toward the sounds. There was nothing to be seen; the night swallowed the fading noises, and they were left with silence again, silence and darkness.

  Bahedyr caught his spear by the haft. “Come,” he said.

  “Where are we going?” asked Kayon.

  “To find Eilik before he finds us,” Bahedyr said, and led them away from the fire.

  Ladon’s son followed after the others, trailing his spear behind him. He had never gotten the use of the spear perfectly, and it felt awkward and alien in his hand. Tonight everything he did felt awkward and alien. He had never been so miserable, not even when his People were starving and his wife had deserted him.

  In the darkness around him the other men moved like shadows. Like spirits they drifted along from place to place and their voices were shrill and their words made no sense. He thought, Why are we trying to kill each other? Has no one asked? But he himself did not dare ask.

  Around his neck hung chains of blue beads. On his wrists he wore bronze rings, and his wife wore clothes decorated with little circles of the metal, so that she chimed when she walked. Yet here where he was supposed to join other men in great dances, no one danced; here where all the People were supposed to come together, all the People were hunting one another.

  He did not dare ask himself what place Moloquin had in this.

  Moloquin had done nothing. So they all said—that Moloquin all the while had been sitting quietly by his fire, while Eilik and the lesser men made the trouble: Moloquin was not to blame. To suggest that Moloquin was at the root of this was impossible. Even to think of it was impossible. It was Eilik who had started it all. Eilik, with his jealousy and his silly pride.

  Ladon’s son told himself never to doubt Moloquin. Moloquin had never failed; Moloquin had the favor of Heaven—he knew that, from dreams and signs. If he doubted Moloquin, he would open such a hole in his understanding that the whole world would fall through it.

  So he walked along after Bahedyr, dragging his spear after him, following the sounds of his own party through the night. He had faith in Moloquin. Whatever happened, Moloquin would guide them through it. Moloquin would make it right. He lowered his head and plunged blind through the demon-ridden night.

  The night seemed endless, a warning from Heaven. No moon rose to show the passage of the time, nor did any stars appear in the sky. In packs the men went from fire to fire, peering over their shoulders, throwing stones into the dark. When Bahedyr and his band saw another band they stopped and shouted, until they knew who it was they faced; then, if the others were Moloquin’s men also, they joined Bahedyr’s pack, gladly fitting themselves into the warmth and numbers, and again the prowling and stalking began.

  If the men they encountered were not Moloquin’s, the other men fled away.

  In the bowels of the night, when the day seemed forever lost, Bahedyr at the head of an uncountable number reached the Turnings-of- the-Year. He was tired, his head throbbing, his thoughts slow and morose; only the men at his back drove him on, he had forgotten what he was looking for. When he stumbled down the inside of the bank at Turnings-of-the-Year and walked across the ditch to the f
irst of the stones, he wanted only to sleep.

  Then, as he passed between two stones, something set on him.

  He screamed like a woman. The shape flew at him from the air, it seemed to him, a piece ripped out of the night sky, a smothering black mass. His spear arm was free, and he stabbed and stabbed at the body struggling with him, banging at it with the haft of the spear because it was too close to use the point, and went down hard with the fighting form on top of him. All around him he heard the thud and rumble of feet, and men were shouting. Something pressed itself down over his face and he bit, and the being on him shrieked.

  That gave him courage; he lost the spear, but he fought with both hands, scratching and striking; and he bit again, and the vile thing that clutched him let go. He heaved it away and stood up.

  At once another body struck him and knocked him down again. The whole of the Turnings-of-the-Year seemed full of whirling, shouting men. Bahedyr crawled to the nearest stone and in its shelter he stood up.

  He could see no one he knew; he could make out nothing in the dark but the surge and struggle of the fighting. He shouted, “Moloquin! Moloquin!” From the violent crowd before him the cry came back, breathless, furious. He went out away from his sheltering stone, looking for his spear, and found it, and lying beside it, unconscious, a man in a long coat. Bahedyr picked up the spear; the feel of the weapon in his hands gave him a sudden burst of courage which made the memory of his fear intolerable. He lifted the spear and drove it down into the body before him.

  When he pulled it out, the blood followed in a leaping burst. He staggered backwards, frightened again. The blood had gotten on his shirt. He was marked, tainted. He swiped at it with his hand. Around him no one fought anymore; nearby, two men sat on the ground breathing hard, and a few others stood dazed and slumped by the stone ring. Down at the far end of the ring there was still shouting and the bang and thud of blows, but then suddenly, as Bahedyr stood trying to wipe away the blood, there was a shriek like a woman’s.

  “Eilik! Eilik, where are you?”

  Bahedyr whirled. He caught the arm of the man nearest him, one of Moloquin’s, and hurried him away between the stones. The others followed. “Come—come—” they called it over their shoulders as they ran, and all around the great space men turned and followed, running through the place where men and girls had danced, between the standing stones, across the ditch, up over the bank, and were gone.

  In the morning there were three men lying dead in the Turnings-of-the-Year.

  Shateel heard it, and did not believe it. She went out from her village where she had gone when the rain began, needing also to think, and she walked over the hill and down to the sacred place. All the People were there, gathered in tight masses according to their village, talking in low voices, and many of them wept. On the ground between the stones lay the dead.

  Seeing this, Shateel did not stop to talk to anyone but went off at once across the Gathering, away into the wilderness, where Moloquin had made his shelter.

  His lean-to stood in a hollow of the land, with a line of old sycamore trees rising to the west. When she came into the camp, she found all her husband’s spearmen sitting around a fire, dazed and exhausted, and she went slowly through their midst, looking keenly into their faces, seeing the marks of fighting. Just before she came to the lean-to, she found Ladon’s son, slumped on the ground, his spear beside him.

  She said, “Well then, did you dance last night, my friend?”

  He raised his head and looked at her as if she were mad. She sat down beside him, curious, knowing him well enough to guess he had no belly for fighting, and seeing on him no marks of battle, no bruises, no blood. He lowered his head again; his eyes looked bruised, but that was fatigue only.

  He said, “Heaven keep me from such a night as that again, Shateel.”

  She said, “Why did you do it, then?”

  “What else could I have done?”

  “It was wicked. Evil, horrible. Could you not have refused?”

  “Refused what? They hunted us—was I to let them kill me?”

  “But—”

  He turned his face away from her, and she grew silent. His words were like a thicket of brambles, fencing her out, while his soul crouched like a little rabbit at the center. Her heart sank. There was no place left to go save to Moloquin, and she got to her feet and went to the lean-to.

  He was there. He was preparing to go to the Turnings-of-the-Year. On his chest and shoulders he wore a great bronze collar of links and little circles, joined with blue beads; on his wrists he wore broad cuffs of bronze, and in his belt he carried his axe, the emblem of his power. He stood just inside his shelter, in the center of a host of men, and all those men wore ornaments of bronze, and they carried spears and spoke in booming voices. But when Shateel came into their midst they quieted.

  She came in among them, small among them, and went straight to Moloquin.

  “Ho, wife,” he said; she saw that he was not surprised to see her. She wondered if anything surprised him anymore. He seemed huge, as if the aura of his power had taken solid flesh around him, his hair and beard flowing together into a curly black mane.

  She lost her tongue before him, and her resolution shrank. She cast down her gaze, wondering what pride had brought her here, what demon influence.

  He said, “Are you still my enemy, Shateel?”

  That woke her to her purpose. She raised her face toward him, all her insides quailing, and she said, “I am your enemy, husband. Three men lie dead today because of you.”

  “Because of me! I have done nothing.”

  “You have done great evil to your People,” she said. “You must turn aside now from this path you have chosen.”

  He looked down at her as if from a great height; now, suddenly, for the first time, she saw in the luxuriant mass of his beard a streak of grey. He said, “I mourn for my wife, who is my enemy now,” and his head rose, his gaze went beyond her, and he said, “Take this woman and make her prisoner.”

  She stiffened, too amazed even to protest; before she could summon words, the men had closed around her. Their hands grasped her arms. They were drawing her away, moving her as if she had no will of her own. Behind Moloquin, Wahela appeared, smiling.

  Shateel cried, “Moloquin, are you leading your People, or are you having your revenge on us? I beg you, have mercy on us, this will destroy us all, and you also.” The men lifted her up like a bundle and took her off.

  Wahela stood on the embankment with the other women and watched Moloquin enter the Turnings-of-the-Year.

  No one cheered now. The turmoil of the night before lay too heavily on their minds. They came together to watch the chieftains and the women held their children close, and the lesser men swarmed to join the ranks of men who followed after Moloquin. None wanted to seem slow to follow Moloquin.

  When he appeared, it was as if the sun itself came down to roll along the earth, so magnificent was he. The People sighed to see him. Wahela held out her arms toward him, shining in his reflection. Beside her, Grela sighed.

  “He is the child of Heaven,” Grela said, and around her all the other women murmured, agreeing.

  Now Moloquin entered into the Turnings-of-the-Year, and his men around him made a lane of their bodies for him to pass along to his shelter of cloth, but before he began his walk, Eilik came.

  Eilik came with his horns and his plumed arrows, and his brother Muon slower behind him, and as many of their men as they could muster. They came up through the gap in the embankment and through the Turnings-of-the-Year, and there they came face to face with Moloquin.

  “Go no farther,” Eilik cried, and raised his sacred arrows. “I have come to demand you punish the men who slew my men last night.”

  Moloquin frowned at him. “You make demands of me!”

  Eilik held out the bunch of arrows between them.
“Take the spears of your men and break them. Make no more weapons! Slay no more of us, Moloquin!”

  All around them the People murmured, and Moloquin looked around him, his look calm, his great head cocked from one side to the other to see them, before he brought his gaze again to Eilik.

  “It amazes me,” he said, and his voice carried over the whole Gathering, “that you dare come here at all, Eilik. Yesterday you set upon my man Bahedyr and stoned him, so that he barely escaped with his life. Last night while my People trembled in the darkness, your men went in search of more blood, and when my People tried to defend themselves, you struck and killed. Of the dead, Eilik, one was yours, but two were men of mine, and now they are dead, lost to me and to the People forever, their spirits driven away in the dark. Now you want me to break the spears of my men! Why, so they will be helpless before you?”

  Eilik heard these words and he went red with rage. His brother held out his hands, trying to restrain him, but Eilik plunged forward, shaking his feathered arrows in Moloquin’s face.

  “I say, Get gone from here, Unwanted One! You came from nowhere, go to nowhere again and leave us as we were! Go!”

  Moloquin reared his head, the points of the arrows in his face, and took a step backward. Eilik pressed on, shouting. On the bank, Wahela forgot to smile. She had never seen Moloquin give way before, and now again he was yielding to Eilik. The People whispered, their voices like the low buzz of the bees in a linden tree, and she heard their bewilderment that Moloquin should give ground.

  Behind Eilik, his brother reached out to stop him. But Eilik saw only that the man he hated was backing away before him, and he flung himself forward, more furious as he grew more confident, the sacred arrows jabbing at Moloquin’s nose, and then suddenly, in a surge of passion, he lifted the arrows and struck Moloquin full in the face with them.

  The People screamed. From all around Moloquin the spearmen surged forward, packing tight around their chief, and before Eilik could draw back they had pierced him through and through with their spears.