Sand and Stars

by Diane Duane

  They cut her body open to bring out the child, and Kesh took breath and cried out lustily as the stove-heat of the day struck her. This the Oldest thought was good. She lifted the babe and took her straightway out of the shelter of the stones, and held her up to the high sun and shook her until she opened her eyes. The babe screamed, as all newborns did in that ferocious light. But when the Oldest turned her back to the sun and looked narrowly in the babe’s eyes, she saw the flicker of reflected sunlight inside the constricted pupil, the shining like a wild beast’s eye in the firelight. Then she knew that the child had the Eye.

  They raised the cry, then, and gave the babe to another mother who had been nursing and still had a little milk. Some of the young warriors walked away muttering that it was unfair for the mother to have died, when she brought forth children with the Eye: she should have been given to one of them. But the only ones Tekav was fit to be given to now were thesehlats, and that was done. The snarling went on well through the day, until the bones were clean and had been cracked for marrow. Then someone came from the camp and buried them, to keep the scavengers from being attracted to the place. The clan had enough problems withoutcheveh and such like raiding the place. They had taken newborn babes before, and there was no use losing this last one when it had just caused so much trouble.

  The clan knew itself as the clan of the Eye, but this name was secret, especially from the other clans of the great sand: false names were invented to tell any clan their paths crossed. This happened rarely. Too little water there was in the sandy world, too little shelter: it took a great deal of land to support a few people, and once you had found such a place, you did not stray from it by choice. Wanderers were usually suspect—they were usually spies, come from another tribe to find out whether your source of water was better than theirs. The clan of the Eye knew well enough about spies, for many of them had died spying on the accursed Phelsh’t, who had the high ground. It was, of course, no particular distinction to die spying on the Phelsh’t. Many people of other tribes had done the same.

  There was, at least, no need to do it at the moment. The pool had not failed for a long time. It was courtesy to call it a pool; it was actually a small brackish puddle, from which the water had to be sieved to get the worst of the mud out, or the beast fur—for there was no use trying to keep thesehlats out of it. They had to drink, and they did enjoy their roll in the mud—no matter that everyone else had to spend the rest of the day pullingsehlat hairs out of their drink. No one complained too much. Thesehlats were protection of a sort, and besides, at least therewas drink for them to get their hairs in. There were enough other things worth complaining about.

  Hunting was one of them. There was never enough food, and no one in the clan of the Eye had a spare bit of flesh on them. Children grew expert from their very young days at grabbing a passing lizard, grubbing up a bit of sweet root (if one managed to escape the sharp eyes of their elders); and nothing went to waste, not the stringiest tuber, not a drop of blood. As they grew older, even the smallest and weakest children sharpened sticks for themselves, wove nets from the dried strings of thechakh’ plant, and went hunting among the rocks for the unwarier small beasts that crept close to men’s dwellings for a bite to eat or a drop to drink. It was only wisdom, for a child that was considered too weak to prosper would not be given anything to eat—the adult members of the clan considered this throwing good food after bad. A child who hunted effectively was given more food, by way of encouragement.

  Kesh was one of the good ones. From the time she could toddle, she seemed able to hear movements that the others never did. She began putting things in her mouth to see whether they were good to eat long before she was weaned, and at this the Oldest Mother and some of the other mothers nodded sagely. She made her first twig-spear young, and the lizards shortly learned that their lives had become more difficult than before—or, at least, potentially much shorter. Her ears grew sharper still as time went on and better feeding improved her health. They were sharper than the others’ anyway; mutation had set in on two counts—because of the increased solar radiation that Vulcan’s atmosphere no longer properly filtered, and the thinner air, less able to carry sound. Kesh’s ears were like those of several others of the clan’s children, with the larger, slightly pointed, more delicate pinnae that caught soundwaves better than their parents’ ears did. The ears were the cause of occasional trouble; Kesh had more than once taken vicious buffets from one or another of the adults, when she caught a lizard or one of theyie, the little burrowers, that the adult had been hunting but had heard too late. However, the Oldest Mother scowled when such things happened, and cursed the adult, more likely than not: she knew that the children with these ears would do better than those without, and the clan needed their blood to sire more of the same.

  It had been so with the Eye. It had been the Oldest Mother’s mother’s mother, some lives or so ago, who had first found one of her children staring at the sun, seemingly untroubled by it. At first they had thought that the child was lackwitted, and had now gone blind. But the blindness passed, and the child could walk for hours out in the sands and come back walking, not feeling his way. For many a year people had had to bind skins about their heads, or over their eyes, when they went hunting in the sand; and thelematyas tended to make short work of them. Now, looking at this child, the Oldest Mother thought there might be a way to bring such poor makeshifts to an end. She coddled the child as if he were the last in the world, and bound him to one of her outdaughters; and three of the children born before his death had the Eye as well, and two of them were girls.

  Then the Oldest Mother became mighty in the clan, and elders and young alike fought for her favor, that she might allow them to be bound with one of the children of the Eye, and take the blood into their own lines. All thought of growing up and having children who could hunt better than all others, who would bring them food when other adults had long lain down to die because there was no more. And the Oldest Mother chose as she willed, and every lightest word of hers was heeded as if the sandstorm would strike if she was displeased.

  Now, though—so Kesh thought—the Eye was becoming common: half the tribe had it. And to what purpose? They would not do anything useful with it. Not the kind of use she had in mind. Not that they paid any attention to her in council. “Hunt,” they said, “since you are so good at it.” And they mocked her—orphaned and unbound as she was, with none but her milkmother to speak for her. If she might be got with child, they said, and pass on the Eye, she might be worth listening to. But Kesh had other things in mind than children.

  When she was not hunting—and often, when she was—her eyes turned northward. The clan’s present camp was nothing more than a great pile of boulders around a little mucky spring, and Kesh hated the place—the sprawl of bodies huddling for cover, the stink of thesehlat -hides stuck on poles that were the only shade, except for cracks in the rock. Shadows crawled, people fought for place under the shades, pushed out people they disliked into the pitiless sun. Even the water stank. Much better, by Kesh’s way of thinking, to go out onto the sand, which at least smelt clean, and feel the fresh hot wind blowing. One could think out there. And one could see for miles: and miles north of them, there was something to see. It rose up all alone, a dark huge shape reared up against the sky: Phelsh’t.

  She had heard the stories that they told about it, around the fires at night, after the last few scraps of meat had been toasted on sticks and eaten, and the sticks hardened in the ash and given to the smallest children for their spears. Phelsh’t, they said, was an image of the Distant One, S’l’heya the Great, chief of mountains. It had been raised up by one of the gods of the sand, and given to a mortal, to whom he bound himself, and then gave a great gift, the gift of a well of water. It was no mere muddy puddle. It was a spring, that rose up from deep in the stone of the mountain, cold clear water, sweet to the taste, without muck or weed; and there was so much of it that it ran down the side of the mountain in
to the sand, and plants grew there, despite the scorching sun, and grew great—grew almost as tall as a man.

  It did not seem fair that one clan should have this great gift, and not another: and all the clans that wandered in that empty waste had at one time or another thought of taking Phelsh’t for their own. Some had tried. But the clan that lived there had grown very strong and numerous—how not, with all the water they desired?—and they easily beat off any clan that tried to take their high ground with its sweet water. Finally the Oldest Mother of the clans—and the clan of the Eye was no exception—had declared that there were to be no more attempts on Phelsh’t. But Kesh sat on the sand for hours, after having made a kill, and looked north at the dark shape against the burning blue horizon, and dreamed: dreamed of limitless water, and shade, and having as much food as ever she wanted….

  “Here,” said a voice in her ear. She did not bother turning: she knew the voice, knew the shadow that fell over her. He sat down beside her, offered her something. It was ayie, one of the black-furred ones, fat and sweet-looking.

  Kesh took the bowl that a hunter always carried, slit theyie open with the flake of stone that she carried in her belt, and drained out the blood: then offered it to him. It was a poor mouthful, but she smiled as she handed Tes the bowl, and he smiled as he took it from her and bowed from the waist until his hair brushed the sand, as he would have done for the Oldest Mother. Then, quickly, he drank. There was no use letting the gift clot up.

  Halfway down his drink, he stopped and offered her the bowl again. “Are you mad?” she said. “Drink it.” But she was warmed, as she always was warmed by Tes; as she had been since they became friends while toddling on the rocks.

  “There’s plenty of juice left in this one, anyway,” she said, and set to work on theyie. Quite soon there was nothing left of it but the bones, and between the two of them they disposed of the marrow in those as well, and buried them.

  “Why did you come away in the heat?” she said. “There’s a hunt tonight: aren’t you going to sleep?”

  “When was the last time I caught anything in a great hunt?” he said, stretching his legs out in front of him. “With all of them scrambling about and making more noise than asehlat in heat, all these little grunts and hoots and prayers? It’s a wonder they catch anything, and as for me, I do better on my own.”

  She laughed a little as she scrubbed her hands in the sand. Tes was right enough about the noise and fuss when the clan went on a great hunt; all the bustle of preparation, tying-up of clothes, making of small sacrifices to the gods that cared for the hunt, prayers to the spirit of thelematya or thetshin; and then the crowd of them slipping out into the dark, trying to be quiet, failing. Somehow the game always managed to find the hunting party, rather than the other way around. It was as if a great group of people had something about them that alematya could sense. On days as hot as today, Kesh rather thought it was the smell. But anyway, either they would kill the prey, or it would kill some of them: sometimes it killed some of them and then got away, which sent the survivors home in a foul mood, for the Oldest Mother had a dim view of such goings-on, and her tongue would strip the hide off you as she demanded to know why she cared for the clan’s blood so, when fools like you threw it away? Kesh had heard those reprimands and had thanked whichever god was hers that she had never had one directed at her in her young life.

  “You’ve done well today,” Tes said, glancing back at the lump in the sand near where Kesh sat. She had killed early, atshin, a fairly big one—almost half her size; the Oldest Mother would be pleased when she came back, fortshin had a lot of blood in them, and the meat kept well when dried. “How did you manage to get close to it without it knowing you were there?”

  “It’s a secret,” she said.

  He made the sign to turn away foolery, and Kesh smiled. “Ah, come on, tell me. I can use the help.”

  She wrinkled her brow for a moment, thinking. “It’s something about the sand,” she said. “If you hunt them in the morning, they always know: but when the sun is high and the day is hot, they get confused—they turn around and around on the sand as if they can’t find you. If you keep still in some rocks, and then wait till they’re confused—” She shrugged. “It seems to work. At least, notshin has killed me yet.”

  “Try not to let them kill you,” Tes said.

  She smiled at him. He was always saying things like that. He turned his face away.

  “How did you know where I was today?” Kesh said.

  He tilted his head a little. “You’re always around here somewhere,” he said. “Away from the clan—and somewhere where you can seethat.” He pointed at the tall dark shape reaching up against the edge of the sky.

  She nodded. “Tes,” she said slowly, “they’re fools.”

  “Yes, but why?”

  “We should take that. It should be ours. Or ours aswell as theirs. Do you know how many people all that water could support?”

  Tes shrugged. “The Oldest Mother forbade it.”

  “And it should just stop there?”

  “What else can be done? It’s forbidden. Go against the clan and you’re cast out…and you die. Anyway,” he said, trying to be reasonable, “there aren’t enough of us to take Phelsh’t from them.”

  “Someday,” Kesh said, “there might be…. ”

  “It’ll still be forbidden.”

  “There might be a new Oldest Mother.”

  He stared at her. “That would take years and years! And you would have to—”

  She was silent.

  “But you couldn’t,” Tes said, sounding sorrowful, and yet relieved. “None of her sons would bind with you.”

  “Not that I would want them,” Kesh said scornfully. “Heavy-footed, empty-bellied, blind-eyed—” She stopped.

  “Iwould bind with you,” he said.

  Kesh stared at him.

  “I know how, now,” he said. “I saw someone do the Touch. I heard what they said. It was easy.”

  Kesh held very still, then began to shake her head. “But there has to be something else—” She scrambled to her feet, looked around her as if looking for a place to flee to, then dropped to her knees beside her kill and began digging it out of the protecting sand. A few moments later she looked up again. Tes had not moved, other than to look over his shoulder at her.

  “I have that,” he said. “Do you?”

  She breathed out, and in, and the pain hit her in the side so that she sat down hard. “Oh yes,” she said. “Yes.” And then she set to digging her kill out again, and wept hard, making sure to lick in the tears as they fell.

  That was all they said about it. Years later, Kesh would remember the sight of Tes turning the bowl around and around in his hands as she dug: and the way he smiled. Years later it would seem that she had always known it was going to happen: that as little as a few hours later, that night around the fire, it would seem that he had been her bonded forever, since first they toddled in the rocks, and fell down, and bled on one another.

  There was some comment when Kesh did not go on the great hunt that night: but the Oldest Mother looked at her and said that she had brought in hertshin that day, the biggest that had been seen for some time, and what other hunter of the clan could say the same? Kesh might have a night’s rest if she pleased, and two bowls of blood from the kill, and first and last drink of the pool. The hunters went off grumbling, too angry to see the look with which the Oldest Mother favored Kesh, or her glance at Tes.

  T’Khut rode high, the brightness shaped like a tilted-down bowl, the darkness glittering with her fires. They went away into the sands, far from where the hunters were, and found a little place of stones, where there was some shelter, and a feeling of privacy. They were both of an age for the Rapture, and though it had not yet fallen on them, their bodies were ready. They fumbled out of their ragged belts and skins, laid them carefully aside, and looked on one another.

  “Are you sure you know how to do this?” Kesh said,
shaking a little. It was not the coolness.

  “Yes,” Tes said. “I think so.” Very slowly, trembling too, he reached out and touched her face, and said the words. They would change many times in the thousands of years to follow, but the meaning always remained the same.My mind to your mind: my thoughts to your thoughts: never touching, and always touched: apart, yet one—

  One they became: filled, both of them, with one another, as the bowl of the moon above was filled with light, always outpouring, always full; touching everywhere, till the cries broke out in delight; pierced, enclosing, the spear, the prey, willingly caught, willingly pierced, willingly sheathed. The last cry that rose up, the cry that slew them both, was one. And then silence.

  Much later they got up, slipped into their clothes and gear again, and went back to the camp. The hunters never noticed their absence: they were much too busy hanging their heads before the Oldest Mother for losing Vach to thelematya. And few noticed in the days that followed that there seemed to be an invisible connection between Kesh and Tes, one rarely out of sight of the other. They were both of little importance, and so they had almost a sun’s round of joy together. And then the Dry came.

  It seemed very sudden to some of the people of the Eye, but Kesh had been watching the pool for some time, and it seemed to her much muddier than usual, as if someone were stealing drink from it—which no one would dare: there was never enough to have all that you wanted, and stealing the water was punishable by beating or death. And thesehlats were not rolling in it any worse than usual. In fact, it was rather strange, but one by one thesehlats went missing, along with some of the smaller lizards. There was a lot less easy food around the camp than there had used to be. Children died, and there were complaints that they were just not as strong as they had been in the old days.