Daywards

by Anthony Eaton

  Something in Ma’s voice left no room for discussion and the uncles nodded. Then, with Xani leading the way, the men walked over and disappeared into the Eye.

  Ma gave Dara’s arm a quick squeeze. ‘Come on, girl, let’s you an’ I get moving. I’m not as spry as I used to be, an’ I reckon a head start wouldn’t go astray.’

  ‘Don’t you want to wait for Da?’

  Ma Saria smiled. ‘He’ll catch us up, don’t you worry. He’s always been good at that.’

  Without another word, Dara led the old woman back into the darkness of the forest.

  In the late afternoon, once the sun had subsided sufficiently for all the uncles and aunts to emerge from the main cave, they carried Da’s body down the home trail and a couple of kilometres out into the forest until they reached the clearing where Da Lari, Ma Kesra, Ma Jem and all the others lay. Most of their trees were growing strongly now. The oldest belonged to Ma Kesra and had been there more than twenty years. Hers was also the largest, of course; her upper branches already fanning out to form the beginnings of the canopy which would, eventually, entangle with those of the other trees and shade the whole clearing.

  Dara didn’t remember Ma Kesra – she’d died long before Dara was born – but she knew about her from the stories. As she and Eyna followed the others into the clearing, Dara suppressed a small shiver. Like most of the clan, except Ma Saria, the clearing was a place she usually avoided.

  In the middle was a huge pile of firewood. She and Jaran and Eyna and all the other viable kids and littlies had spent most of the afternoon gathering and piling it there, following Xani’s instructions.

  In the deepening gloom, the pile seemed sinister, at odds with the natural order of things.

  ‘What’s going to happen?’ Eyna whispered.

  Dara shrugged. ‘Don’t know. I guess they’ll put Da in the ground like the others, and we’ll plant him a tree.’

  ‘Why all the wood, then? There’s too much here for a cookfire.’

  ‘Shhh.’

  Silently, the clan spread out into a wide semicircle around the firewood. Dara studied them – sixty-three people, now that Da had died. Some of them were old, some young. Some, like herself, were descendants and viable, but most weren’t. Most of those standing there were either salvaged or were children of the salvaged.

  Once everyone had settled, a hush fell over them and Ma Saria stepped forward and nodded at Xani and the other uncles who were carrying Da’s body on a rough litter. Slowly they made their way over to the firewood, and, as they lifted their burden and laid it atop the pile, Dara realised, with a sharp intake of breath, what they were about to do.

  ‘No!’ The exclamation escaped her lips involuntarily and her face burned as everyone stared.

  ‘Hush, child.’ Ma’s voice was gentle, not a hint of rebuke in it. Then she addressed the clan as a whole. ‘You all know this isn’t the usual way of things, but you also know that Da Janil wasn’t the usual kind of bloke.’

  For some reason this raised a soft laugh from a few of those present.

  ‘What we’re going to do here tonight,’ Ma Saria said, ‘is what he asked for, a long time ago now, nothin’ more and nothin’ less.’

  Uncle Dariand stepped forward, holding an igniter pack – one of the few remaining working ones – and crouched at the bottom of the pyre.

  Ma Saria continued. ‘Da Janil, like his brother and his parents, was born in the sky, an’ when I first met him he could fly through the sky like a bird. Even Da Lari used to talk about his brother’s flying, and some of you probably remember how well those two got on, so that’s a big thing. And when the sky fell, Da Janil left it behind and came down here onto the Earthmother with the rest of us, and he lived here alongside us all, and he used his knowledge of the Eye to help keep us safe. He fathered some of you, was Uncle to all of you, and he hunted and laughed and cried and eventually, as is the way of these things, he died.’

  Whispered grief trembled through the group, but Ma Saria’s voice didn’t waver.

  ‘… But he sure missed that flyin’. Missed the sky. And nights were he’d tell me about it, during the long, hard times before we found this camp, an’ he made me promise that one day, when the entropy finally caught up with him, I’d make sure he was returned to the sky. An’ so that’s what we’re gonna do.’

  The old woman nodded, Uncle Dariand clicked the igniter, and the fragrant scent of woodsmoke drifted across the clearing. Tongues of flame began to lick their way up the sides of the pyre, slowly at first but with increasing pace as the heat built. Red shadows commenced their dance on the trunks of the surrounding trees and, for a moment Da Janil’s body lay there, floating atop the living flames, before the fire surged and it vanished into the middle of the brightness.

  The heat forced those present to step back to the edge of the clearing, and there they stood, keeping silent vigil, as Da Janil – tough old Da, who’d fought and fought and clung on even when others were dropping around him – was returned to the sky in a pillar of smoke.

  Dimly, Dara was aware of somebody moving up beside her, and she felt a hand slip into her own. Jaran didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to – she knew what he was thinking. This didn’t happen often with them. Most of the time Jaran seemed almost a stranger to her, as different a species as a rockhopper or a coldblood. But occasionally, at moments like this, they found each other and managed to connect in some odd way that didn’t require reaching or earthwarmth. To Dara, the sensation of her brother’s hand held in her own seemed to bring the air itself to life around them, a strange warmth rippling across her skin. These moments were few and far between, though, and becoming more uncommon as the two grew older.

  After enough time had passed for the flames to reach their peak and begin to die again, Ma Saria led the way from the clearing, the clan trailing behind. As they stepped into the forest, Jaran dropped her hand and disappeared into the darkness and Dara walked alone, thinking about Da.

  ‘Hey.’ At the bottom of the home trail, Eyna was there beside her. ‘You all right?’

  ‘Jaman. You?’

  ‘Okay, I guess. What do you think it would feel like to be able to fly?’

  Dara threw her cousin a sharp glance.

  ‘Why? You thinking of jumping off the cliff?’

  The younger girl ignored her sarcasm.

  ‘Like Da used to. Like the birds. It must be pretty amazing, eh?’

  Dara considered the idea.

  ‘I don’t reckon I could take being cut off from the Earthmother like that. Birds always feel so weird when you reach for them. Even if you can get into ’em, it’s like they’re never all there.’

  ‘Da Janil used to be just like that.’ Both girls spun round, startled to find Ma right there behind them. Listening.

  ‘Ma.’ Dara began, but the old woman smiled reassuringly.

  ‘It’s fine, girl. Don’t worry about askin’ these questions. It’s important to know where you’ve come from, so you can work out where you gotta go next.’

  ‘Go?’

  The old woman continued without any sign that she’d heard Dara’s interruption.

  ‘An’ you two, just as much as you got your feet in the earth, there’s a bit of both of you that comes from the sky, too. Just like your Da. So’s only natural you’d wanna know about it.’

  ‘Did you ever fly, Ma?’ Eyna asked.

  The old woman nodded. ‘Once. Only one time. Don’ remember anything about it, though. Nightpeople put me asleep before they took me off, an’ when I woke up I was in another world.’

  ‘The city?’

  ‘That’s right, the city.’

  Both girls fell silent. There were some stories everyone knew – the stories that got told again and again around the firepit in the meeting cave. About the old country, the Darklands and the Dreamers, and of course they knew all the stories about the clan, how it’d started when Ma Saria had led the way from the falling city, just a tiny handful of them, the
n. And how Da Janil had caught up with them and they’d wandered for weeks and weeks, fighting hunger and exposure and fear, until eventually they’d found the Eye – which Da Janil described as a ‘remote relay station and backup data dump’ – and near it the escarpment with its deep, sandy caves. They knew about the salvages, how Da Janil and Da Lari had started going to the ruins of the skycity once or twice a year and bringing back whatever and whoever they found – bits and pieces of working tech, and odd pockets of shifties and clanspeople who’d managed to struggle through the skyfall, eking out an existence among the ruins until they either died or were lucky enough to meet up with Da Janil or Da Lari. That was how the clan grew at first, until the littlies started coming.

  They knew all these stories and a thousand others. But the stories from before the skyfall, stories from the skycity and about the last days, those were rarely told. Those were subjects which, if somebody inadvertently raised them, would cause people to go quiet or get up and leave without a word.

  So to hear Ma Saria mention the old skycity was strange and somehow frightening.

  ‘What was it like?’ She could hear the hesitation in her cousin’s voice, and Dara marvelled at Eyna’s nerve. She’d never have asked.

  ‘Truth is, I don’ recall all that much. Most of the time Da kept me trapped up in this bright, hard room, an’ when I finally got out, it was all a bit of a rush. Long time ago now, too.’

  ‘Da kept you trapped?’ Dara struggled to imagine old Da Janil, who used to hunt alone through the forest most nights and hated being closed up in the caves all day, ever behaving in such a way towards anybody, let alone Ma Saria.

  ‘He was a different man, back then,’ Ma told her. ‘From a very different world. He didn’t have uncles and aunts to look out for him the way you two do. Jus’ a father who had other things on his mind and a mother who’d given herself back to the earth when Da Janil was barely more than a littlie himself.’

  ‘He had Da Lari,’ Dara pointed out. In the early clan stories, Da Lari was one of her favourite characters.

  ‘He did. But those two never really saw things the same way.’

  ‘Like me and Jaran.’

  The old woman laughed at that.

  ‘Girl, you an’ your brother got nothing compared with the way Janil and Lari used to go at each other. Never have I seen two men so different come from outa the same woman.’

  Dara and Eyna exchanged uneasy glances. Hearing Ma speak so freely, so openly, about Da Janil and Da Lari – it wasn’t just unusual, it was unheard of.

  ‘Ma, what happens to Da? He hasn’t even got a tree to take him back to the Earthmother.’

  The old woman laughed, a dry chuckle.

  ‘Dara girl, all these years you been in the clan, how many times’ve you heard your Da Janil talk about the Earthmother?’

  Dara considered this. ‘Never.’

  ‘S’right. Da was never a big believer in the reaching.’

  ‘But we do it all the time. You do it …’

  ‘True. An’ you want to know somethin’ funny? Every time I did, it used to drive poor old Da crazy. That was half the fun of it, in truth.’

  Dara’s brow furrowed. ‘But why wouldn’t he believe it?’

  ‘Da was never a big believer in anythin’ he couldn’t prove or feel for himself. You an’ me, we believe in the reaching and the Earthmother’cause we know about it. Da believed in the Skyfather, an’ in numbers and suchlike. He didn’t see any call in putting his energy behind stuff he couldn’t explain.’

  ‘That’s so silly,’ Eyna commented.

  ‘No, girl. That’s jus’ the way he was. No better or worse than me or you, or any of the others here. Da grew up in a world where everything had a reason, so that’s the way he learnt to think. I grew up in a place where reasons didn’t matter so much as just working out the way things were supposed to be, an’ then being able to accept that. So that’s how I am. There’s no right and there’s no wrong. Two sides of the same thing, him and me.’

  By now the three had reached the flat ledge outside the meeting cave. Inside, others were stoking up the firepit and getting ready to begin the nightly ritual of preparing the clan meal.

  Dara nodded towards the firepit. ‘We should go in and help. Uncle Xani’ll be wondering where we are.’

  To her surprise, Ma Saria shook her head, no, and spoke to Eyna.

  ‘You go in there an’ tell your uncle that Dara an’ I got some business to discuss. We’ll be back in time for tucker. Okay?’

  A brief expression of irritation flickered across Eyna’s face, unhappy at being so obviously excluded, especially now, when Ma Saria was behaving so strangely, but Dara caught her cousin’s eye and flicked her a silent wink: I’ll fill you in later. Without arguing, Eyna marched into the firelit brightness.

  ‘You sure I shouldn’t go, too?’ Dara turned to Ma, not wanting to risk Xani’s wrath without being absolutely certain.

  ‘Not tonight, girl. There’s plenty of hands in there at the moment and it’s good to give ’em something normal to think about. You an’ me are gonna go on a bit further up the hill an’ chat for a bit. Things you need to know.’

  The old woman rested her arm on Dara’s and the two continued up the path to the top of the escarpment. As they walked, Dara pondered Ma’s odd behaviour. Until yesterday, Ma had never shown any more interest in Dara than in any of the other young kids, viable or otherwise. Now, though, it seemed that every time Dara turned around, Ma was there.

  Beside her, Ma Saria’s breathing was heavy as they laboured up the final, steepest part of the climb and stopped between the sentries.

  ‘Over here, girl.’ Ma Saria led her at the base of the nearest boulder to a small flat platform, backed by sun-warmed granite and perched right on the edge of the escarpment, so that the view opened up daywards ahead of them. There, Ma eased herself gingerly to the ground and leaned her back against the rock, her bony legs poking out over the edge of the escarpment. Without needing to be told, Dara lowered herself into a similar position.

  ‘Don’t make you dizzy, does it?’ Ma Saria asked, after a moment.

  ‘The height? Nah.’ Dara shook her head.

  ‘Good. Jus’ like Da Lari. He used to love it here, too. Nights during the dry you’d find him perched up here for hours.’

  Far below them, the forest was sunk into black shadow, from which floated the occasional screech or howl. At her back, the warmth pressed gently into her awareness, slowly filling her with its residual earthwarmth, until she felt her mind slipping down into its soporific effect. Beside her, Ma Saria’s mind was a bright glow which, Dara was startled to realise, had been there, for as long as she could remember.

  ‘You feelin’ it, Dara? That’s good.’

  ‘How do you do that? How can you be everywhere in the Earthmother at once like that?’

  Ma smiled. ‘It’s not a case of doin’ anything, Dara. Just a case of being.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘I wouldn’t expect you to. Not yet, anyhow. You will, though.’

  Sick of being spoken to in riddles, Dara turned her head and looked at the old woman directly, something she’d rarely done before. Even in the dull starlight, Ma Saria’s eyes were bright and her dark skin seemed to glow.

  ‘What are we doing, Ma? Why have you brought me up here, eh?’

  She half expected to be rebuked for not showing proper respect, but instead Ma Saria smiled.

  ‘Good girl. Don’t you ever be afraid to stand up and have yourself counted. That’s gonna be important from now on.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘’cause a few people in the clan – your Uncle Xani, for one – ’ent gonna be too happy when they learn about the next steps in our journey. An’ you’re the one whose shoulders’ll be carrying most of us onwards.’

  ‘Ma, you’re not making sense.’

  The old woman pointed out at the distant horizon.

  ‘It’s time for us to start movin
’ on again. That’s what I’m telling you, Dara.’

  ‘Moving on?’

  Ma Saria nodded.

  ‘For a long time now I been wanting to keep going. Turn our steps daywards and walk into the sunrise for a bit, but your Da Janil was never too keen. He reckoned we had all we need here, so why move on? Why make our lives that much harder? But now he’s gone, and I reckon my own walk on the Earthmother’s getting short, so it seems to me there’s not gonna be a better time to get on with it.’

  ‘And go where?’

  The old woman nodded towards the three-star constellation she’d pointed out the previous evening.

  ‘Back home. Back to those Darklands where I was born.’

  ‘But why, Ma? I thought they were dead. All the people you knew there must be long-gone.’

  ‘Here …’ Gently, Ma Saria rested her fingertips lightly against the skin of Dara’s neck. Immediately, Dara was aware of the warm surge of earthwarmth flowing between them. ‘This’ll feel strange, an’ it’ll hurt if you try an’ fight ’gainst it, so just let yourself go, right?’

  Dara nodded and then gasped sharply as she felt herself being drawn down, deep into the Earthmother. Her perception expanded out, dizzyingly fast, further than she’d imagined possible.

  Steady, child. Ma Saria’s voice wasn’t in her ears now but in her mind. Jus’ be calm and let it fill you.

  Out there was life: more night-cooled, sun-warmed life than she’d believed existed. Deep rivers of cold water, long stretches of living forest, heavy veins of cold stone, and somewhere a deep, burning centre of things.

  What is it? She couldn’t give voice to the question, but Ma understood it anyway.

  It’s life, Dara. It’s the Earthmother. Now, here …

  Then, still further – long, void stretches of sand, empty but still somehow living. A pounding, like a slow heartbeat and then. nothing. Cold, hard, alien nothingness. Dara felt her breath catch in her throat.

  Breathe, girl.

  I can’t feel it. There’s something there but it’s … it’s nothing.