by Meredith
Sunoya saw the low fire that was Tsola’s hearth, and made out the dark shape of her mentor next to it.
“Welcome, Sunoya Ay-Li,” came the voice, Half Sun Living in the Night. Tsola was always formal.
“It is good of you to see me, Grandmother.” Among the Galayi any respected older person was called “grandmother” or “grandfather.” Tsola was said to be over a hundred winters old. In the firelight she looked about fifty, slender, still beautiful. She wore a dress woven of the inner bark of the mulberry tree and dyed in colors Sunoya couldn’t make out in the dark. Mulberry weave was the rarest cloth the Galayi had. Tsola also wore a necklace of discs of gleaming mother-of-pearl, cut from sea shells and very valuable. Sunoya admired this woman who lived deep in a cave and received very few visitors, aside from her family, yet dressed like the wife of the richest man. After all, she was the Medicine Chief. For her own part Sunoya dressed plainly.
Tsola could barely leave the Emerald Cavern. Decades of living in its miles of corridors had sharpened her sight in the darkness and made her blind in the sunlight. Usually her family, who lived in a hut beside the pond just outside the entrance of the Cavern, came to visit her. If she went to see them, it was at darkest midnight.
Tsola poured tea for the two of them and offered Sunoya cakes made of grass seeds and honey. She sipped the tea and declined the food. Klandagi crouched off to one side, curling his tail up and down on the cave floor. Except when he transformed himself into a human being, he ate only meat, and not flesh cooked over any fire.
When courtesy allowed, Sunoya said, “I have come to speak of troubles.”
“Yes.” Tsola knew that. Why else would Sunoya be back so soon? Often she saw her initiates only once in their lives.
“Grandmother, I have seen….”
She waited. Torment shuddered through her body. She leaned on Tsola’s confidence in her.
“I have seen the Cape of Eagle Feathers desecrated. Spotted with blood. Smeared with dirt. Ruffled. Ruined.”
All three of them froze. Even Klandagi’s tail was rigid.
“You saw this after you drank the tea of the u-tsa-le-ta?” It was a hallucinogen known only to shamans.
“Yes, then. Also in my dreams. Also when I am wide awake and alone, looking at the sky or into the river water. I see it over and over. It will not let me alone. I see it every day.”
Tsola considered. In her long career as Seer and Wounded Healer, in entire her life, she never expected to hear such terrible news. The Cape was made of eagle feathers because eagles carried messages from the Galayi to the Immortals, and more important, from the Immortals to the Galayi. Only she could listen to the Cape, or put it on, or even look upon it. Once a year she did this, deep in the Cavern, while the tribe was beginning the Planting Moon Ceremony. She sent whatever guidance she received to the people. This had been the chief responsibility of all the Galayi Seers and Wounded Healers for a thousand winters.
“Granddaughter,” said Tsola, “I will have to ask you to leave the Cavern for a while. Go with Klandagi to visit my family for a few days. I must look at the Cape. I must put it on and listen to it.”
Sunoya stood up and put her hand on the panther’s shoulders. Tsola was doing what had to be done, but Sunoya could hardly bear the thought of several days on tenterhooks.
A small stream flowed out of the Cavern entrance and formed a pond a short distance below. Tsola’s two daughters lived in a hut just above the pond. These waters were known as the Healing Pool, and they were a place of curing for all Galayi. Aches, fevers, stomach and bowel troubles, all could be improved if a pilgrim drank from the waters, or immersed himself in them. Tsola’s daughters helped the pilgrims and taught them songs for healing.
Sunoya drank from the stream just above the hut. She sat in the waters for as long as she could bear the cold. She chatted with the family. Eventually Klandagi came and led her back to Tsola’s home in the Cavern.
Tsola said, “We have to talk.” Her face was grave, stricken.
So what I saw is true, thought Sunoya. Her chest quivered like a plucked string.
Tsola had mounted her teapot, which was a buffalo stomach, on a tripod over her fire. Sunoya saw her crumble in the u-tsa-le-ta, a lichen. That meant Sunoya would make the longest journey any human being could make, except for going to the Darkening Land.
She sat cross-legged, as close to the fire as she could, taking comfort in its warmth.
Tsola said, “I have looked at the Cape. It is fine, at the moment. But I, too, saw the coming desecration.” Her voice was rough, like limbs grating against each other. The fire-light showed the trickle of a single tear down her cheek. “This means great suffering for our people.”
Tsola pursed her lips and hesitated. “Someone has to go see the Immortals and ask what can be done. They have called to you. You are their choice for this journey.”
“I know,” Sunoya said. Every step of the way here, this was the moment she had feared.
“I am surprised. I would have thought…”
Sunoya thought so, too. Why me? I am too young, too inexperienced. I am corrupted.
She tried to console herself. If the Immortals have chosen me, I can do it.
And if she didn’t, the Galayi would be shut off from all guidance from the Immortals, the wisdom their entire culture was founded on.
Tsola grasped both her hands and looked at her directly. “Are you sure you’re willing to do this?”
Sunoya told the truth. “Since I decided to come here and tell you my story, I have dreaded it.” She didn’t know how to go on. “But to do it, maybe this is my destiny.” Maybe it will redeem my life. “Sometimes I am afraid. Sometimes my heart pounds with desire for it.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
“Then prepare yourself.”
Sunoya closed her eyes and shut out Tsola, Klandagi, everything but the world she was going to.
This time the journey to the Land beyond the Sky Arch would be easier than the previous time. Every shaman had to make the first trip by swimming with Tsola a long way underground to the Emerald Dome, performing certain rituals, and then swimming again, alone. The experience was terrifying, but you only had to go through the Cavern once.
After that first journey, most shamans used the u-tsa-le-ta to make the trip. At the least the experience reminded them of which world was real and which a shadow. Sometimes they also got wisdom they could use for the people.
On this trip Sunoya would have Tsola’s help again. She was grateful that her teacher would go with her, not physically but in her mind. When the Seer and Wounded Healer sent you across the boundary to the Immortal world, she traveled inside you.
The Wounded Healer handed Sunoya a buffalo horn cup of the hot tea. In one gulp Sunoya drank it all. Tsola gave her a kiss and sat beside her. To Tsola, Sunoya was a girl called on to bear far too much responsibility. She was afraid for her protégé, and aghast at the possible consequences for her people.
She wrapped one arm around Sunoya—the old could help the young only so much—and waited until her body went limp. Then she laid Sunoya down and covered her with an elk blanket. Last, Tsola focused her mind on that other world, where she would fly inside Sunoya.
4
Sunoya woke up lying on a bed of soft grasses. She smiled at them because they were pink. Turquoise sedges lined the creek. Rhododendrons clumped out in spurts of wild hues, scarlet, cobalt, and canary yellow. The rocks of the hills glittered like gem stones. Above them the sky glowed a gentle salmon and gold that never changed, and the soft air was warm, always warm.
She stepped over to a stream, bent down, and took a drink of cool, orange water. In the Land beyond the Sky Arch no creatures ate—Immortals could not die, and they did not eat other beings—but everyone drank.
She wondered why she had dreaded this trip. She loved this world. She wished her people had never left here. A long time ago, before they came to Earth and the big expanse of land calle
d Turtle Island, the Galayi and all other animals and plants lived in this country beyond the Sky Arch. They were the children of the Immortals, progeny of the models all creatures sprang from, shadows of the great Bear who was primogenitor of all other bears, offspring of the Raven who was the archetype of all ravens, and so on. At that time archetypes and descendants alike were immortal.
But they were crowded, bumping elbows and knees in a country that was too small. Looking down from on high, they saw a planet that seemed to be nothing but water and wondered whether they could find a place there to make lives. Several animals tried to find land, but only little Water Beetle succeeded. He dived to the bottom of that strange world and brought up dirt, and more dirt, and finally all the dirt that made Turtle Island. So the people migrated onto that muddy ground. They didn’t know the troubles they were in for. In Sunoya’s opinion you could sum up all of Earth’s problems in a single word: mortality.
Sunoya spoke to Tsola in her mind. Are you with me?
Yes, said Tsola, but she volunteered nothing more.
If I call them, they’ll come, right?
Sunoya, you know that. Be your full self.
So she walked up the creek lazily. She could simply think of any particular being, or say his name, and he would appear. Or wouldn’t. Immortals were whimsical and not particularly interested in the doings on Earth. Occasionally, they went to Turtle Island, looking after their offspring planet. Sunoya thought of those she’d met before and wanted to see again, and those she hadn’t gotten to meet. Very carefully, she did not think of the very last thing that happened here beyond the Sky Arch—the way Thunderbird had said good-bye to her.
Sunoya, you have nothing to be afraid of.
She knew that meant, ‘As far as I know, you’ll be all right.’
She walked along and said from time to time, “Little Deer, come. Bear, come. Bluebird, come.” She mentioned a lot of creatures, and left out only Thunderbird, deliberately. He did what he wanted to do anyway. “Spider,” she said, “come to me. I have made a long journey to get here. I want to ask for your wisdom.”
As she walked, she looked around at this eternal world. Here the sun appeared to be rising perpetually, no stem of grass ever turned brown, and no leaf ever changed color or fell. Here time did not exist. Mortality itself did not exist, except for visitors from Earth like herself.
It was Little Deer who appeared first. She hadn’t met him the first time, and he was a delight to see. He was a glistening, snowy white, and only the size of an ordinary dog. He ran toward her in bounds, and his grace was a marvel. They introduced themselves.
“Thunderbird is waiting for you over by that huge chestnut tree,” he said.
Thunderbird… Oh, well.
Just be yourself, said Tsola.
But which one of me?
She walked alongside Little Deer. She was tempted to reach down and pet him, but knew better. Little Deer was the king of the Deer People, and the hero of a great story. When the deer got angry at human beings for shooting so many of them, taking more than they needed for food, Little Deer persuaded his people to put aches into the joints of any person who killed a deer. Not that the deer really died anyway. As everyone knew, the lives of the creatures that human beings hunted on Turtle Island were set when they were born, and couldn’t be altered. If a hunter slew a deer, the deer waited until the hunter was gone, gathered himself from his blood scattered on the ground, and went on about his ruminant life.
When the human beings got tired of their joints hurting, Little Deer struck a bargain with them. He taught them a song to sing over the body of any deer they killed. If the hunter sang the song, honoring the deer and apologizing for taking his life, he would go home healthy. If not, within a few weeks he would be crippled.
The chestnut tree was truly enormous. Tales had it that Turtle Island had a similar tree, known as the Tree of Life. It had been difficult for Sunoya to learn that on Earth life was a word of double meaning, because it implied death, which didn’t apply here.
Thunderbird stood at the foot of the tree next to a giant wooden vat. The vat was very beautiful, knee deep and wide as a man’s reach, carved with a skill beyond the capacity of any human being, and oiled and polished to a gleam. It was filled with water that sparkled with small bubbles.
“Taste it, my dear.” Thunderbird was in one of his strange forms. He looked like a shadow, not a real bird. Of course, he could take any shape he wanted. As a shadow, he was still the size of a buffalo, and somewhere in his feathers he still carried thunderbolts.
Sunoya sipped the water. It was fizzy. It tickled her nose and made her smile. She liked it.
Thunderbird laughed, a sound like boulders bouncing down mountains.
Others emerged out of the trees, and every one was an Immortal Sunoya had not met on her first trip here. There was Wolf, a friend to human beings, for Wolf had been the hunter and watchdog for First Man. Owl fluttered down, known for his understanding of death. Rabbit darted across the rosy grass to join them, the master of pranks. Rattlesnake crawled to a place in the circle, and Sunoya wondered why he was called. Last, Buzzard floated down and joined the others, with an air of reluctance.
See how they honor you by coming, Tsola said in Sunoya’s mind.
Every one of the animals was the most magnificent specimen of its kind Sunoya had ever seen, and all except for Little Deer was enormous, as a tree is to a bush. Each sipped ceremonially from Thunderbird’s vat and thanked the king of eagles for his hospitality.
The one that surprised Sunoya was Buzzard. Instead of having mottled red skin, his face was fully feathered. From his crown sprang a handsome topknot of bright feathers of every color, and these plumes curled forward until they nearly touched his beak, making a rainbow.
“Why have you come to see us, Granddaughter?”
Thunderbird was in his come-on-and-spit-it-out mode, and there was nothing Sunoya could do about that. “Grandfather, I have seen the Cape of Eagle Feathers bloodied and fouled.” She could be as direct as he.
“Yes.” Thunderbird was not in the least surprised. “Why do you think that will happen?”
“I don’t know, Grandfather.” It wouldn’t do to try and seem smart in front of Thunderbird. Tsola, are you there?
You’re doing fine.
“Do you remember how death came into the world?” said Thunderbird. “Your world?”
This was going to be an inquisition. “Yes, Grandfather. A very long time ago, near the beginning, a man and a woman had a large family, and they never had any trouble providing food for all their children. One day the children got curious about how they got the food so easily, so they followed their parents. The father went up to the mountain to where a large stone covered the entrance to a cave. He rolled the stone aside and called to a deer who stood behind some other animals. The deer came forward and gave itself to him.
“When his sons saw how easy it was to get meat, they waited until their father was out of sight, went to the stone, pushed with all their might, and rolled it away. But instead of coming to the boys, the animals burst out through the entrance, scattered in all directions, and disappeared into the forest. Every kind of animal escaped—buffalo, elk, deer, panthers, raccoons, squirrels, wolves, foxes, and lots of others. The boys were alarmed at what they’d done.
“At the same time other children followed their mother to a hut they had never seen before. There she stood over a basket and shook herself like a wild woman. Suddenly, ears of corn began falling from under her skirt into the basket. Soon it was full, and she came out and prepared their breakfast as usual.”
The shadowy Thunderbird threw Sunoya an imperious look. Go on!
“After breakfast,” she said, “the father said he knew the boys had let all the animals escape. Now, he said, he had to die, and from then on they would have to hunt to provide for themselves. He told them how to make weapons.
“Then the mother said that, since they knew her secret of planting and
harvesting, she couldn’t do anything more for them, but would die. They must drag her body over the ground, and she told them exactly where. In those places corn would grow. She told them how to grind it and make bread from it, and reminded them always to save some seeds to plant next year.”
Thunderbird nodded curtly and finished the story himself. “Yes. Thus you brought death into your world. And since it was there, nothing to be done about that, we Immortals gave the Galayi people the Cape of Eagle Feathers. In such a world you needed more wisdom. Now Granddaughter, you remember that with the Cape we gave you one central command about how to live, a number one thou-shalt-not?”
Sunoya needed no further prompting. “It was that we should never kill each other.” She didn’t mention the single exception, ending the lives of girl children born with the fourth and fifth fingers of the right hand webbed. Such creatures were not considered Galayis but evil spirits.
“Exactly. I will spare you from wondering. Your people have obeyed that commandment so far.”
“So far.” She didn’t want to go on. “So it seems we will soon…”
“And that is why the Cape will be ruined, and its power destroyed.” Thunderbird’s tone was like a father saying, You deserve this.
“Who will do this, Grandfather?”
Within her mind Sunoya heard Tsola start to speak, but the Wounded Healer stopped.
Thunderbird looked around the circle. “Among us, there is one with a particular gift of prophecy. Will anyone tell our granddaughter who will commit this violation?”
Silence.
“Is there no help you can give this young woman? She possesses the eye of the spirit.”
Sunoya quivered to hear such words from the master of birds.
Silence.
Shrugging, Thunderbird turned back to Sunoya. “Granddaughter, you have done very well. You saw with the eye of the spirit. You paid attention. You came here and asked for help. Partly because of you, I am inclined to make your people a gift.”
